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‘I have been meaning to talk to Sophie. She was on my course and specialises in portraits, personal commissions mostly although she’s been beginning to get some magazine work. Her studio rent was just doubled and now I’m not living in mine I thought we might join forces and she could cover weddings for me in lieu of rent, or at least give me a hand. But that doesn’t solve today.’
No. It didn’t.
Daisy took one dragging step towards the door and then another. Her laptop case, camera case and tripod were neatly piled up, waiting. How she was going to carry them he had no idea.
And she really needed to eat something.
‘I’ll come with you and help.’
She half turned, the first flicker of a smile on her face. ‘You? Do you know when to use a fifty-millimetre, an eighty-five-millimetre or switch to a wide-angled lens?’
‘No, I can barely use the camera on my phone,’ Seb admitted. ‘But I can fetch, carry, set up, organise groups, make sure you eat.’
A flicker of hope passed over her face. ‘Don’t you have a million and one things to do here?’
‘Always.’ Seb grimaced as he remembered the unfinished grant applications, the paperwork that seemed to grow bigger the more he did. Not to mention his real work, the research that seemed more and more impossible every day. The looming deadline for a book still in note form. ‘Promise me you’ll chat to Sophie tomorrow and at least sort out a willing apprentice for next week and I’ll come and help.’
She was tempted, he could see. ‘You really don’t mind?’
‘No, not at all. On the condition I drive and you try and eat something in the car.’ The grant applications could wait, the paperwork could wait. He’d be worrying all day if he allowed her to walk out of the door and start a gruelling day on her feet without someone to watch out for her.
The sooner she got an assistant or partner, the better.
* * *
There were times when Seb wondered if all that sassy style and confidence was only skin deep. When he thought he saw a flash of vulnerability in the blue eyes. But not here. Not today.
If Daisy still felt sick she was hiding it well. She was all quiet control and ease as she snapped: candid shots, posed shots, detailed close-ups. Always polite, always professional but in complete control, whether it was putting the nervy mother of the bride at her ease or settling the exuberant best man and ushers down enough to take a series of carefully choreographed shots.
She was everywhere and yet she was totally discreet. Focused on the job at hand. Seb followed her with bags and the box of ginger biscuits, completely out of place in this world of flowers and silks and tears.
Even the groom had had tears in his eyes as the bride had finally—an entire twenty minutes late—walked down the aisle.
As for the mother of the bride, five tissues hadn’t been enough to staunch her sobs. The whole thing was a hysterical nightmare. Leaving the church had been a huge relief and he had gulped in air like a drowning man.
But the ordeal wasn’t over.
‘I don’t understand what else there is for you to do.’ Daisy had directed him towards a woodland nearby and Seb was following her down the chipping-strewn path. ‘You must have taken at least three hundred pictures already. How many group shots outside the church? His family, her family, his friends, her friends, his colleagues, her colleagues. The neighbours, passers-by...’
‘Far more than three hundred.’ She threw him a mischievous smile. ‘Bored?’
‘It just takes so long. No photos at our wedding, Daisy. Not like this.’
‘No.’ The smile was gone. ‘But ours is different. We don’t need to document every moment.’
‘Just the obvious ones.’ Perversely he was annoyed she wasn’t trying to talk him round. ‘It would seem odd otherwise.’
‘If you want.’ She chewed her bottom lip as she looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I think I’m going to change the order a little bit as you are here. If I put you in charge of the photo booth then there is some entertainment for the guests while I do the couple’s portraits in the woods. Is that okay?’
Seb blinked. He was here to carry bags, not perform. ‘The what? Do I have to do anything?’
‘Smile. Tell them to say cheese. Press a button, four times. Can you manage that?’
Possibly. ‘What do you mean by photo booth? Like a passport photo? At a wedding?’
She shot him an amused look. ‘In a way, you know, teenagers sit in a photo booth and take silly pictures—or at least they did before selfies became ubiquitous.’
He shook his head. ‘No, never did it. I’ve never taken a selfie either.’
