Convenient Engagements. Jessica Hart

him as soon as she came in?

      She shook her head a little as if to clear it. This was the moment she had been dreading for months. She couldn’t believe that his presence hadn’t even registered with her until Lara had pointed him out. Something was wrong somewhere, surely?

      ‘No … no, I’m fine,’ she said again to Lara, but she didn’t feel fine really. She felt disorientated and unnerved, as if the one certain thing in her life had suddenly vanished.

      ‘I’m not surprised,’ Lara whispered back. ‘I’d be fine if I had a man like Gib,’ she added enviously. ‘He’s a bit gorgeous, isn’t he?’

      Involuntarily, Phoebe’s eyes returned to Gib on her other side. He was talking to a couple on his left, and making the girl giggle. His head was turned away so that all she could see of his face was the lean line of his jaw, but her heart dipped and lurched anyway. She swallowed.

      ‘He’s all right,’ she said, knowing that Lara wouldn’t expect her to gush, but her sister only laughed.

      ‘You’re not fooling anyone, Phoebe! It’s obvious you can’t keep your eyes off him.’

      After that, of course, Phoebe tried everything not to look at Gib again, but it was impossible when she was sitting right next to him. She tried to concentrate on the ceremony, but no matter how fiercely she stared ahead, her eyes kept drifting sideways, distracted by ridiculous details, like the length of his thigh, or the whiteness of his collar against his brown skin, or the laughter lines fanning the corner of his eyes, and the memory of how it had felt to kiss him flared along her veins all over again.

      Once, Gib caught her looking at him. His eyebrow lifted in a faint question, obviously wondering why she kept staring at him. Terrified in case he thought that she had already forgotten their first rule of engagement and was reading more into that kiss than the practice it had been, Phoebe jerked her gaze away so abruptly that her dark hair swung beneath her hat.

      At the front of the room, Ben and Lisa were about to exchange rings. Shifting upright in her chair, Phoebe’s brows drew together in an effort of concentration. This was Ben, she reminded herself. Ben, whom she had loved and wanted as long as she could remember. It had felt so right and so comfortable to be with him, that she had never imagined that he would be making those vows to somebody else. She should be thinking about him, not about Gib and the way they had kissed in the car.

      As Ben promised to love and to honour Lisa ‘so long as we both shall live’, Phoebe found herself remembering when he had told her that he would love her for ever. They had been so happy together for so long. Impossible not to think about the times they had shared or to feel a pang as she watched him slide the ring onto Lisa’s finger.

      But it was just a pang. She had dreaded this moment for months, expecting to feel a terrible, tearing pain in her heart, not this wistful sadness for the dreams she had nurtured for so long.

      So this was it. Ben was married and there was no way to turn back the clock. No more pretending that he might, maybe, change his mind, or that somehow Lisa would disappear and everything would be the way it had been before. It was time to stop wishing and hoping and dreaming that things could be different, time to start accepting that she was on her own and making the best of it.

      Phoebe wasn’t aware of her expression changing, but she suddenly found her hand gathered into Gib’s. He held it in a warm, strong clasp that was amazingly comforting, and although she didn’t dare look at him, she didn’t pull her hand away either. Instead, she watched Ben kiss Lisa and felt Gib’s fingers tighten around her own and wondered how it was possible to feel aware of every tiny millimetre of his skin pressed against hers.

      The string quartet in the bow-window struck up a suitably celebratory tune and the bride and groom turned, beaming, to their guests, who stirred in anticipation of the champagne to come.

      It was over, thought Phoebe, and knew that she ought to feel relieved while feeling only a curious sense of deflation when Gib let go of her hand. People were standing up and pressing forward to congratulate the happy couple, but Lara was already nudging them towards the door.

      ‘Might as well get a head start on the champagne,’ she said. ‘We can do the kissy-kissy bit later.’

      They weren’t the only ones to have the same idea, and the walled garden, romantically lined with herbaceous borders and climbing roses, was soon crowded with little groups of guests clutching flutes of champagne and, in the case of the women, trying not to get their heels stuck in the grass.

      This was the big test, thought Phoebe, her stomach clenching with nerves again. Gib was going to be exposed to some pretty expert questioners, beginning with her mother, who was making a beeline for them. She would have to stick beside him until she could manoeuvre him over to Ben’s tedious uncle, who could be relied upon not to talk about anything but sport, or if things got really bad to Penelope and Derek’s neighbour who was about ninety-seven and unlikely to cross-examine him on the detail of banking or be able to hear much about his supposedly passionate affair with Ben’s ex-fiancée.

      Not that you could ever tell with old ladies, of course. In Phoebe’s experience they were much sharper than they let on, and could hear perfectly well when it suited them.

      ‘Careful,’ she said in an undertone as her mother rushed up. ‘You’re about to be exposed to advanced interrogation techniques. The SAS send soldiers to Mum for practice on withholding information if they’re captured by enemy forces, and very few of them pass the test!’

      Gib only sent her a glimmering smile before he turned to greet her mother. For a while they chatted easily, and Phoebe could see her mother’s smile broadening as she ticked her way through a mental check-list, obviously awarding Gib full points.

      Now they had moved on to discuss the wedding. ‘It’s a beautiful setting,’ commented Gib, glancing around him at the battlemented walls with their mullioned windows, spectacular doors and worn old stone.

      ‘Ye-es.’ Her mother clearly wasn’t convinced. ‘Ben and Lisa were very keen on the idea of having the wedding at a castle, but personally I prefer a more traditional setting. I’m hoping Phoebe will choose to have a church wedding.’

      ‘Mu-um!’ Phoebe shot her an agonised look.

      ‘Oh, don’t worry, dear, I’m not hinting,’ said her mother airily.

      Not much! Phoebe thought bitterly.

      ‘It’s just that there’s such a pretty church in the village, it seems a shame not to make the most of it.’

      ‘Well, maybe we’ll bear that in mind,’ said Gib, unable to resist the opportunity of putting an arm around Phoebe. ‘What do you think, darling?’

      ‘I think it’s too early to be talking about weddings,’ she said tightly, acutely aware of his arm around her and of her mother’s eyes bulging with interest at that carelessly dropped ‘darling’ and the even more casual way he had suggested that they were thinking about getting married.

      ‘It’s never too early to start making plans,’ her mother said eagerly. ‘Sometimes you have to book the church months in advance.’

      ‘Yes, well, we’re nowhere near that stage yet,’ said Phoebe firmly. She tried to move out of the circle of Gib’s arm but he held her against him without any apparent effort and, short of an undignified struggle, it looked as if she would have to stay where she was.

      She could see her mother’s mind already flickering to dresses and flowers and coordinating table arrangements, and hastened to nip the very idea of marriage in the bud before her mother got out a megaphone and announced it to the entire county.

      ‘Now, hold on, Mum,’ she said firmly. ‘We haven’t decided anything definite yet. Have we?’ she added to Gib with a look that dared him to contradict her.

      Gib met it blandly before turning back to her mother. ‘I’ve asked Phoebe to marry me every day since we met,’ he confided. ‘She won’t give me an answer