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‘You need to imagine this is lace,’ she warned Bianca. ‘This is just to give us an idea.’
Sophie stepped back and pursed her lips as she fixed her design in her head. ‘The beading on your skirt is lovely. It would be a real shame to cover it up with lace,’ she decided. ‘Let’s go with a lace bodice. I’ll find buttons to match your beads, tiny ones, and it can button up your back.’ She shot Bianca a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll sew those on at the very last minute to make absolutely sure it fits.’
Bianca stared at herself in the mirror, hope flaring in her expressive dark eyes. ‘Will it really work?’
‘Absolutely.’ In fact the more Sophie thought about it, the surer she was. ‘I think it will be stunning. I can give you capped sleeves, little straps just off the shoulder—or we could go really regal with full-length sleeves, so decide what you’d prefer. The most important thing is making sure the lace matches the exact colour of the dress. Not all ivories are created equal. Do you have a swatch I can use?’
Bianca nodded, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Thank you, Sophie. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate this, how much it means that you haven’t just fixed my problem but made my dress even better.’ She caught a tear with her finger, wiping it away, pulling a watery smile as she did so. ‘If there is anything I can do to repay you...’
‘No repayment necessary, I promise. I’m happy to do it. Let’s get you out of the dress before you spoil the silk with your tears and I’ll take a look at the zip. It only needs a few millimetres, I think, to be comfortable. I might not even need to add an insert. Unpicking the stitches and redoing it might be enough.’
It took a few minutes to manoeuvre Bianca out of the many folds of the dress, but eventually Sophie hung the layers of net and tulle and silk back up, smoothing the silk out with careful hands as she figured out the best way to deal with it. ‘I wonder if I could get my hands on a tailor’s dummy,’ she pondered. ‘If I put a dummy on a dais, I would find it easier. There must be somewhere I could source that from. I’ll draw up a list of all we need: lace, silk, thread, buttons.’
‘Sì, none of that should be a problem. The best place for lace is Burano, one of the islands. I’ll ask Marco to take you. It’s very pretty. I think you’ll like it.’
‘Sounds perfect.’ Sophie turned to look at Bianca. The Italian girl sat on her unmade bed, a robe loosely drawn around her, the magnificent mane of hair spilling around her shoulders, tears still shimmering in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Sophie, I’m not usually such a mess. The thing is...’ she took a deep breath ‘... I didn’t eat too much over Christmas, nor am I that stressed about the wedding, not really. It’s just that... I’m having a baby and I haven’t told anyone yet.’
‘You’re what? But that’s wonderful. No wonder you’ve gone up over two cup sizes and barely gained a centimetre around your waist! How far along are you?’
‘The doctor says ten weeks. I only realised at the end of last week. I’ve always been irregular, so I didn’t notice any changes there, but I was always crying, or suddenly really hungry and then really nauseous. I’ve been so tired, light-headed. And I can’t even cope with the smell of coffee, let alone the taste. Honestly, for someone with so many qualifications I can be very stupid, but I just didn’t realise what was wrong. It wasn’t like we were trying.’
Sophie perched onto the bed next to Bianca and patted her arm a little awkwardly. ‘But this is good news, surely? After all, you’re about to get married.’
‘Sì, it is, at least, it will be, when I get used to it. I just thought we’d have time to be married before starting a family.’
‘So,’ Sophie asked gently, ‘why the secrecy?’
‘Antonio is stressed about the wedding, it’s so big, I just don’t want to give him anything else to worry about. I will tell him,’ she said defensively as Sophie raised her eyebrows. ‘I was planning to tonight—telling you was the first time I’ve said it out loud. It wasn’t as hard as I expected.’
‘And your mother will be over the moon.’
Bianca’s mouth twisted. ‘Oh, sì, Mamma will be delighted. But I won’t be telling her until after the honeymoon. She can be a little overpowering.’ She giggled. ‘Okay, a lot overpowering. She already tried to take over the planning of the wedding, make it into her dream wedding, not mine. I’m not ready for her to take over the baby as well, not until I know how I feel about it all.’
