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She nodded, letting her lips linger against his. “That doesn’t matter. There’s no statute of limitations on grief.”
9
“YOU LOOK RADIANT,” Alice smiled as, a scant few hours later, Bronte let herself into her sister’s far more spacious suite.
“Hey, you stole my line,” Bronte quipped, pushing the door shut behind her.
“We can both be radiant.” Alice strolled across the room, hands out, so Bronte linked hers with her sister’s, glad that last night’s lack of sleep wasn’t apparent on her face. She was going to need a lot of coffee to get through the day. But it didn’t matter, because she felt a weightlessness she’d never known before, a smile coming easily to her.
“Happy wedding day.” She kissed Alice’s cheek.
“Can you believe it’s finally here? I feel as though I’ve been waiting for this forever.”
“Not quite forever,” Bronte teased. “Just a few months.”
“A year, at least.” Alice waved to the table behind her. “I ordered coffee. And breakfast.”
“That’s so kind of you. Aren’t I meant to be taking care of you?”
“I couldn’t help it,” Alice murmured. “I’ve been up since dawn.”
“Why so early?”
“I was too excited to sleep,” she said with a grin. “Come on. Help me eat something. I can’t believe I still have to wait hours before I can put on my dress.” She gestured to the beautiful creation that was hanging, backlit, against a window.
“That will go quickly by the time there’s been all the hoopla.”
“Hoopla?”
“Hair, make up, mum…”
“Ah, yes.” Alice twisted her wrist to check the time. “But for the next hour, it’s just you, me, and this delightful breakfast, and I’ve been looking forward to this all weekend.”
Bronte’s sense of weightlessness increased. She was so lucky to have such a loving sister, a woman who was – and always had been – one of her closest, dearest friends, and biggest supports. Suddenly, knowing that she was lying to Alice, felt like an asteroid from out of left field. It was careening towards earth, and Bronte almost gasped at the force of that potential impact. How could she ever have thought that lying to Alice was a good idea?
And there was nothing she could do about it now. Bronte sure as hell couldn’t tell Alice what a disaster her life was now – not on Alice’s wedding day!
Bronte pushed the thoughts aside, focussing instead on Alice. They talked and laughed, reminiscing over when Alice had first met Edward and reported that he was ‘handsome but far too severe’. She had, in fact, had a crush on his best friend for a few weeks but when they’d been driving to Glastonbury one year, the car had skidded off the road, stranding Alice with Edward, and in the midst of a puddly English field, sparks had flown and love was born.
“Thank goodness for potholes, huh?” Bronte teased.
“Is that how your speech is going to open?”
Bronte flashed her eyes. “Oh, I’m not making a speech and you know it.”
“I’m only teasing.”
Bronte hated public speaking, and always had done. “But let me say, while it’s just you and me, how happy I am for you. Edward’s such a great guy. I think I’d feel weird to see you getting married to anyone unless they were absolutely perfect; and he is.”
“He really is,” Alice swooned, so Bronte had to stifle a giggle. It was how a bride was meant to feel on her wedding day, wasn’t it?
“I’m sorry that Ashton turned out to be such a monumental dick.”
Bronte almost spat her tea at her sister’s uncharacteristic turn of phrase.
Alice lifted her hands by way of apology. “Sorry. It’s what Edward called him shortly after it happened and it stuck.”
“Oh,” Bronte grimaced. “There have been so many shockwaves, haven’t there? His friendship with Edward, his acceptance in our family. Even mum’s friendship with his mum…”
