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Our dresses were floor length with a chiffon skirt and had a lace top, similar to Adelaide’s dress, but we had shorter, capped sleeves where hers were long. My dress was a deep emerald green as her Maid of Honour, and the other three bridesmaids had lightening colours, with the exception of Olympia.
As flower girl, her dress was white with a green bow at the waist—a bow that matched the colour of my dress perfectly.
“Beautiful,” Eleanor said approvingly. “Are you having a veil?”
“Yes, and I’m wearing the Winthrop Loop Tiara. Elizabeth will wear the necklace and bracelet—we got that idea from Eva and Matthew’s wedding.”
Eleanor smiled at me and reached over Adelaide to squeeze my hand. “It is always fun to dress up, and I did appreciate being able to wear the necklace one more time.”
“I told you, you can wear it whenever,” I replied quietly. “It’s yours, too.”
She squeezed my hand one more time, lightly, then released it.
We both knew that wasn’t technically true, but it felt wrong to not allow her to wear any of the family jewels reserved for The Countess of Anglesey.
I was a fraud, after all.
Eleanor and Adelaide broke into a conversation where they discussed all the finer details of the wedding. Both Eleanor and Ffion were invited, and the more I heard about Addy and Alex’s wedding, the more I realised it was a who’s-who of the young aristocratic set and their parents.
I wouldn’t be surprised if The Queen herself showed up at this point.
In fact, as the conversation moved to the guest list, the only people who didn’t seem to be coming were, in fact, the Royal Family.
Mind you, ours hadn’t been much different to that.
My phone buzzed three times in quick succession on the table, and I picked it up to see who wanted me now.
GABI: FRED BROKE UP WITH CHARLOTTE
GABI: THIS IS NOT A DRILL
GABI: HE ACTUALLY DID IT THIS TIME
I gasped.
Of course I’d known that he was considering it because Matthew had told me, but I didn’t think he would seriously do it.
“What?” Addy asked, turning back to me.
“Fred broke up with Charlotte.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows shot up. “Coventry Fred?”
It was rather handy when people had titles to attach to their name. You could just use the place and there was no question who you were talking about.
I nodded. “Gabi just text me.”
“About time,” Eleanor continued. “That girl is nothing but trouble. Far too big for her overpriced shoes, if you asked me.”
Charlotte did tend to veer towards the more expensive items.
Addy leaned over and looked at my phone. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. Let me see if she can find out.” I tapped back a quick message asking Gabriella exactly that, then shot a message off to Matthew, too.
“Oh, good idea. I’ll ask Alex.” Adelaide unlocked her phone and brought up her messaging app.
Eleanor laughed, standing up. “And I shall join the party, call Fred’s mother, and express my apologies on the breakdown of her son’s engagement.”
“She’ll be delighted,” I replied, not looking up from my phone.
“I know. That’s why I shan’t bother to be sincere in the slightest.”
Me and Addy laughed, and Eleanor left right as a text came through for us both.
MATTHEW: I know. I spoke to him earlier about sponsoring his dad’s next fundraiser and he called me again twenty minutes ago to tell me what happened.
ME: And you didn’t say anything????
MATTHEW: You know where my office is.
ME: I don’t have a router for your phone calls, gosh. This isn’t the nineties, Matthew. I can’t just pick up a phone and listen in now.
A message popped up from Gabi.
GABI: Trying to find out. Nobody seems to know anything. Don’t Alex or Matt know??? Isn’t his mum close to Fred’s????
ME: Don’t know, think so, yes. We’re trying to find out. Will let you know.
“It’s really not as dramatic as you’d like to think,” Matthew said, leaning against the living room doorframe. He slid one hand into his pocket and smiled over at us. “So you two can stop playing Poirot over there, because I know what happened.”
We both dropped our phones and rested our hands in our laps simultaneously, then looked over at him.
“All right, first? That—” He motioned to us. “—was weird.”
Fair point.
We did tend to do things identically, and I could see how that was weird to experience.
“Stop complimenting us and get on with it,” Adelaide demanded.
He smirked. “It was quite dramatic, by all accounts. He and Charlotte were supposed to go away for a few days, but he cancelled it after the whole dinner debacle. In typical Fred style, he waited until the last minute to do so, and she lost her mind. She stormed over to Hatley Hall and ended up arguing with his mum again.”
“Oh, well, it was over then,” Addy said.
“Basically.” Matthew tried not to laugh as I reached for my glass of water. “Fred was there, came out, and he said they had it out on the driveway with all the staff watching. Fred said he wasn’t happy about his behaviour, but he said he’d had enough of her disrespecting his parents and acting as though she owned the estate. He told her she was self-absorbed and rude.”
