The Runaway Bridesmaid. Daisy James

dumped her Burberry bag on the counter in the galley kitchen and removed her prized Louboutins, massaging her ankle where the leather had dug into the skin. She extracted their dust-bag from the drawer in her sideboard and carefully slotted them into their protective cover like precious cargo. She wished she owned a cosy blanket in which she could seek protection from the scuffs and scrapes of the outside world.

      There was just enough time to sling some essential items into her Gucci duffle bag, grab a few hours of sleep and drive out to JFK to catch the transatlantic flight over to London. She’d have to max out her credit card, but what the hell. She would take the train down to Devon, attend the funeral, make the meeting with her aunt’s solicitor for the reading of the will and once she’d sorted out Bernice’s affairs she would come home with a plan of her own. She had no idea what that would be. Could she continue to work at Harlow Fenton with Giles in her face every day, even with Lauren to protect her from his barbed comments? The agony columns were right – nothing good came of a dalliance with the boss.

      The sooner she made a decision about her future, the less risk there was of her succumbing to her ostrich tendencies. Or of beginning her search for a reason that it was in fact her fault, that she was partly, if not fully, to blame for Giles’ indiscretion with her sister.

      She ripped off her bridesmaid dress and crammed it unceremoniously into her hall closet with the other six. But the door wouldn’t shut and the gowns bulged out like stuffing from a rag doll. Rosie made a promise to herself that she would never, ever accept another request, or demand, to be a bridesmaid. For one thing, she just did not have the wardrobe space.

      She scrabbled in her purse for her little white square of connectivity and depressed the ‘on’ button. The wedding ceremony would be over by now and she had to let her father, and Lauren, know she was okay – that she hadn’t dematerialised in a puff of smoke or been abducted by aliens. She glanced at the screen. Thirteen missed calls; three from Lauren, but the rest were from Freya. She sent a brief text informing Lauren and her father that she was on her way to England to attend Bernice’s funeral and would let them know when she had landed safely. Then she gulped in a steadying breath and dialled Freya’s number.

      ‘Hello, Freya.’

      ‘Why was your phone switched off? I’ve been trying to ring you for an explanation of your ridiculous vanishing act. Couldn’t you have waited until after the ceremony to fly off to England?’

      ‘So Dad has told you the sad news? I’m fine, thanks for asking. How are you?’ Rosie was astute enough to realise that her father would have put her shock disappearance and weird behaviour down to her grief over her aunt’s death and had shared the news with Freya to somehow explain her absence.

      ‘Very funny, Rosie. I need to talk to you about earlier.’

      ‘Yes, Freya, it was a huge shock. After all, she was only seventy-two. Relatively young really, nowadays.’

      ‘What are you talking about? I’m talking about you blundering in on me and Giles!’

      ‘Oh, yes, that.’ Rosie collapsed down onto her white leather sofa, the air suddenly whipped from her lungs. She shuddered in a breath and waited, fiddling distractedly with the earring in her left ear. She had no intention of making this easy for Freya.

      ‘Look, I know Giles was your date for the wedding, Rosie. But, well, it wasn’t serious between the two of you, was it? With him being your boss and all that? And he’s so handsome and charismatic, all that power at his fingertips. It was one last fling before the door’s slammed shut. You won’t tell Jacob, will you?’

      This last plea was clearly the only concern on Freya’s mind – to save her own skin, blast the effect her actions might have on other people’s lives. Even the death of her aunt hadn’t registered on her sister’s emotional Richter scale.

      Rosie decided to make her suffer, just a little. She deserved it, didn’t she?

      ‘Dad did tell you, didn’t he?’

      ‘Dad? Did you tell him? Oh, Rosie, no. You didn’t?’

      Calm, calm, breathe, breathe, relax. She raised her eyes to stare out of the French window to the little wrought-iron bistro table she had managed to squeeze onto her tiny but prized balcony, for those early morning cappuccinos that had never materialised.

      ‘Hang on, Freya.’

      ‘What? What? Rosie?’

      Rosie grabbed the brass handle to open the French doors and let the cool evening breeze snake into her living room. She inhaled the air laced with cinnamon and warm caramel from the bakery on the corner. It gave her the strength to continue with the conversation.

      ‘No, Freya,’ she continued, ‘about Aunt Bernice.’

      ‘Oh, yes, of course Dad told me. But I don’t see why you had to leave immediately?’

      Rosie waited for Freya to express her sympathies for her beloved aunt’s demise. Whilst Freya had no relationship with Bernice, she knew Rosie had been close to her, that she’d spent a summer at her cottage the previous year, and their emails and old-fashioned written communications had fanned the flames of friendship ever since.

      Nothing. Just like Giles when she had shared the news with him.

      ‘Well, are you, Rosie? Going to ditch me in it with Jacob? I’ve been so stressed about the wedding and now this uncertainty about your intentions has added to my anxiety. I can hardly concentrate on enjoying the best day of my life because of you!’

      ‘Because of me?’

      ‘Yes, I couldn’t get you on your cell phone. I’ve rang a hundred times. I need to know what you intend to do.’

      Good grief, the gall of the girl! Her fault Freya couldn’t enjoy being the centre of attention? She doubted this assertion as Freya usually partied like a Rio showgirl. Her fault she had blundered in on a moment of forbidden lust before the door had slammed shut minutes before her wedding? Her fault she wasn’t available to reassure Freya of her silence in the matter, before Freya settled down to a glorious life with her handsome groom in his million dollar penthouse in Battery Park overlooking the Hudson Bay, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and the New Jersey shoreline beyond?

      As she had practiced for years, Rosie crushed her rising indignation. She tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear and gnawed on the skin inside her cheek which now threatened an ulcer.

      ‘I know you can’t come to the funeral, Freya. I’ve got a flight booked tomorrow from JFK. Don’t worry. I’ll sort out the paperwork with the English lawyer who contacted me yesterday to break the news. She died peacefully in her sleep, but she was alone.’

      This last sentence had coiled around the labyrinths of Rosie’s mind since Mr Meadows had uttered it and, despite the slicing pain of all her discoveries in the last few hours, it was this fact which hurt her the most. For some inexplicable reason, her grief was mingled with guilt; that her aunt, who had guided her back to emotional health when Carlos had dumped her, had died without anyone to hold her hand.

      ‘Look, Rosie. Aunt Bernice was ancient. For whatever reason, she never married nor had children. She only knew you until you were eight when Mum and Dad left Devon to come to Connecticut. If you choose that way of life something like that is bound to happen. She should have settled for any random guy and she wouldn’t have had to die alone!’

      ‘Is that what you’re doing, Freya?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Settling for some random guy so you’re not alone?’

      ‘No way! I love Jacob.’

      A snort of derision escaped from Rosie’s lips before she could stop it.

      ‘Look, Rosie, Giles was just a panic encounter – the last before I have to hide myself away from all of life’s temptations.’

      For goodness’ sake, thought Rosie, as an