Gypsy Wedding
Authors: Kate Lace
Vicky has been engaged to the gorgeous Liam for nearly two years, and, now that she’s seventeen – high time for a traveller girl to settle down – everyone is planning for the big day. Everyone, that is, except Vicky. She’s got other things on her mind; like persuading her father and Liam to let her go to college to learn dressmaking.
Her father’s not pleased, but Liam wants to make her happy, so she’s given one year, just enough time for her to make her own bridesmaids’ dresses.
But a lot can happen in a year, and as the final fitting for her spectacular dress approaches, Vicky no longer knows what she wants. If only she’d listened to her father and stayed at home. Maybe then she wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else…
It’s starting to look as if the wedding dress will never be worn…
Kate Lace met her husband while they were both serving in the army. She left after eight years and had three children. She has written 13 books under several different names, but this is her eighth as Kate Lace.
AcknowledgementsI owe thanks to Jenny Haddon and Cat Cobain for suggesting that I ought to write this book and to Gillian Holmes, my editor, for keeping me on the straight and narrow. I also owe a big debt of gratitude to Katie Fforde and Judy Astley for inviting me to join them on a writing retreat in Scotland so I hit my deadline, and finally to Elizabeth Garrett who provided the cottage we retreated to and showered us with the most wonderful hospitality.
To Ian, Penny, Victoria and Tim, with love.
Vicky O’Rourke looked across the short grass at the front of her family’s trailer to where Liam was standing.
Bless him
, she thought as she watched him being almost swamped by her father’s huge hug. Mind you, her father, Johnnie, would swamp anyone. He was a massive bear of a man who still kept himself in shape even though his days as a prizefighter were long past, while Liam was just – well, ordinary. Lovely, fit, gorgeous but when it came to size, he was definitely ordinary. She felt a warm glow of love sweep through her as she looked at the two men in her life: her father who treated her like a princess, and her fiancé who, as he had slipped the big diamond on her finger, had told her that he loved her and would never let her want for anything.
For the millionth time she glanced down at the ring, admiring the sparkling diamond in its white-gold setting. ‘Betrothed,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Really,
really
betrothed.’ And to Liam. She could still hardly believe it. She was so lucky that, out of all the boys on the trailer park, Liam had asked her,
her
, to marry him. Her parents, and his, had always assumed they would end up together, but just because they’d known each other from birth didn’t mean that it was a done deal. Being friends was a long way from being man and wife. Besides Liam was so good-looking he could have had his pick from any of the girls. And it wasn’t as if the other girls of marriageable age hadn’t made it obvious that they wouldn’t have said no to getting grabbed by him.
She looked back across at him where, now released from his future father-in-law’s embrace, he was drinking from a can of lager. She felt her insides go all fluttery again. What wasn’t there to love about him? Not only was he hot, with a smile to die for and a naturally buff body, he was also kind, funny and a brilliant carpenter. Liam and his dad Jimmy had a shed on the trailer park where they turned out all sorts of wonderful stuff. Most of their bread-and-butter work was for the building trade – hanging doors, fitting skirting boards and the like – but when business was slow, especially in the winter months, they would turn their hands to more skilled joinery, making pieces of furniture for their fellow travellers or repairing traditional bow-topped wagons.
Vicky just knew that their babies would be beautiful – both Liam and her had the colouring of the Black Irish: dark hair and skin that tanned with the first rays of sun. She could see his biceps bulging under his white shirt and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him; she knew that from watching him when he was out and about with his shirt off, as he often was in the summer months, loading up his father’s van with timber, sawing wood on the workbench outside their shed or just playing football with the lads.
Vicky shoved her dark curls back behind her ears and flashed a smile at her fiancé, pushing her shoulders back as she did so to give him the full benefit of her curvy figure. His blue eyes sparked back at her and he gave her a slow sexy smile in return. Vicky licked her lips and then ran her tongue over her gleaming teeth as she looked coyly at him from under her thick black lashes, a look she’d practised a number of times in the mirror in her bedroom, often while slathering on the mascara. Not that Liam needed mascara to have lashes to rival hers. She giggled to herself at the thought of Liam using mascara.
‘What are you laughing at?’ said her sister, suddenly appearing by her elbow.
Vicky turned to look at thirteen-year-old Shania, already a beauty with her copper-coloured hair and milky skin, a younger version of their mother, Mary-Rose. Shania had classic Irish colouring, so different from Vicky herself, who favoured her father’s side of the family with her dramatic mane of luxurious curls and olive skin. In fact, if you didn’t know the family it was hard to believe the pair were sisters, they were so different: Vicky looked not unlike Cheryl Cole while Shania had been compared to Doctor Who’s new assistant, Amy Pond.
‘I’m just happy,’ said Vicky.
‘As you should be, getting engaged to the gorgeous Liam. God, you’re so lucky. Still,’ said Shania, flicking her auburn ponytail over her shoulder, ‘it’ll be me next.’
‘And why not? Have you got anyone in mind?’
‘Maybe,’ said Shania, a blush reddening her cheeks. And although her younger sister didn’t give a name Vicky noticed the way her sister shot a glance to Liam’s cousin Michael. Not that he noticed, he was busy admiring the new Beemer that Liam’s dad had recently bought.
Which was a shame, thought Vicky, as her little sister was looking especially hot in a minuscule outfit of pillar-box red, which made her pale skin almost translucent. Most of the girls at the party, also dressed in brilliant colours which showed off their young bodies to their best advantage, were dancing in the huge tent Johnnie had put up for the occasion. The DJ, hired especially, was playing a Shakira track and her friends were all gyrating madly, swinging their hips and throwing sexy glances at the group of boys standing on the sidelines. The boys were transfixed, tongues virtually hanging to their knees. Vicky reckoned that if the music stopped suddenly, all you would hear would be a desperate panting and slavering coming from the edges of the dance floor.
They’re like a pack of horny dogs
, she thought with a grin. And not one of them would get more than a kiss, and only that if they were lucky. The boys were nudging each other and obviously discussing among themselves who they fancied – when they weren’t being distracted by new cars.
Vicky herself was dressed in a long gown of brilliant turquoise silk, which showed off her colouring to perfection. It had a big net underskirt that puffed the dress out and made her waist look tiny. Vicky had slaved over it for days to get it finished in time although her mother had insisted that she didn’t have to make her own dress.
‘Your daddy’ll buy you one,’ Mary-Rose had said repeatedly in her heavy Irish brogue, as Vicky sat hunched over her whirring sewing machine.
‘But I want it to be special. If I make it myself I can be sure that no one else will ever have one quite like mine.’
‘If that’s what you want we can get it made for you.’
‘I want to do it myself. Truly, Mammy, I’m happy to do it. I want it to be perfect and if I make it myself it will be.’
Her mother had stood and watched her in silence for a while as she pushed the fabric under the darting needle. After a few seconds she said thoughtfully, ‘But you’ll have your wedding dress made by a proper dressmaker, won’t you?’
Vicky took her foot off the treadle of her old machine and looked at her mother, seeing the worry in her eyes. She knew that making her own dress for
that
occasion would be a step too far. ‘Yes, Mammy, but I’m going to make the bridesmaids’ dresses. Is that a deal? I know exactly what I want and I know I can do it. Please, Mammy.’
‘If it’ll make you happy,’ Mary-Rose conceded, but there was still an uncertain note to her voice.
‘I
know
I can do it. And I’ll have time. It isn’t as if we’re setting the date for tomorrow.’
‘If you’re sure then that’s okay with me. I’ll tell your dad. I’ll get him at a good moment. You know what he can be like.’
Vicky nodded. Her dad was a lovely man but he had a temper on him and once he’d made up his mind about something nothing would shift him. They all knew he’d never hit them but they were terrified of his rages all the same. ‘Now leave me be, Mammy. This dress won’t make itself.’
Now Vicky looked down at the finished product with pride. The work and effort and pricked fingers had been worth it: it was beautiful. Everyone had admired it and she knew that Liam had been blown away by it.
‘I can’t believe how clever you are,’ he’d said when she’d emerged from the trailer earlier that evening, looking stunning.