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Tonight was time for a bar on the water’s edge, with music so loud there was no chance to speak.
‘What would you like to drink?’ He had to shout to be heard over the heavy beat of the music.
‘Whisky!’ Beatrice said. It felt like a whisky kind of night.
‘Right...’ He took her onto the dance floor, pulled her in close. ‘One-two-three...five-six-seven. Remember that.’
‘What about four?’
He pulled her tighter in. ‘We move direction.’
‘Oh.’
‘Got it?’
‘No.’
It was brilliant to learn, though, and indecent to be joined at the groin, with his hand on her lower back, while she tried to count in her head.
She was dreadful, and nobody cared; they were too busy keeping count themselves. She could feel the music rippling through her, and his kisses were rough and frequent. The bar was a bit shabby and crowded, and not really a great first date location...unless you knew where the night was headed.
And they did.
But right now it was time to dance.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WEREYOUNERVOUS?’ Beatrice asked her bridesmaid.
‘No,’ Alicia said. ‘But then, I wasn’t marrying a future king.’
‘Were you?’ Beatrice asked her little flower girl’s mother.
‘I was so scared I almost had to be sedated,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘It was the best thing I ever did, though. How are you feeling, Beatrice?’
‘Very sure and very scared.’
It was a serious royal wedding, and her dress was both heavy and heavenly, in rich silk the colour of weak tea. It looked dreadful hanging up, but came alive when she slipped it on.
There was no veil, because she didn’t want one, and the bouquet was all white flowers, picked that morning by the lake, with one violet so dark it was nearly black—for Claude, whom she wished could stand at his brother’s side this day.
Jasmine’s husband wanted to stay in the background, but he was an emergency fill-in—just in case—as Julius had chosen Tobias, his very loyal aide, whose baby was due any second.
As Miss Arabella the flower girl went for one more wee, the two sisters of the heart stood alone together.
‘Alicia!’ Beatrice warned, because her friend was holding a gorgeous clock she had pilfered from the mantelpiece and her open handbag.
‘I want a memento,’ Alicia teased.
‘I have one for you.’
It was a framed copy of a photo—the only one Beatrice had from their childhood—and Alicia had never seen it, nor any others like it.
‘You have a photo...’ Alicia opened up the present and they looked at the two little girls on the grass, surrounded by nuns. ‘Beatrice!’ Alicia gasped. ‘You cut her out.’
‘I did.’
Beatrice had told Alicia who her mother was and they were closer than ever now.
