Magical Weddings (32 page)

“But Caterina, she will never let you go,” she told her with horrified certainty. “She will make you weave magic for her every day.”

“I know,” Caterina said. She had realised on the walk back that there was no way out for her. If she did not return to the palazzo she would be hunted and she did not think her relationship with the dogaressa would save her. No mother chose a lacemaker over her daughter.

This was her punishment for playing with the magic—for trying to alter her path. She had been supposed to quietly marry Guido and be glad of it. She had never been supposed to wish or to wonder, or try to orchestrate a different life.

“No,” her mother said, shaking her head decisively. “You cannot do this. There has to be another way.”

“There is no other way,” she said quietly.

Her mother started weeping. “If you do this you will never marry. Never live. Never have the future that we wanted for you.” Suddenly she wiped at her eyes and turned to face Caterina. “I must go in your place.”

“No, Mama.”

“Yes. I will explain. She will not care. Not as long as I give her the magic she needs every day.”

“No,” Caterina said again, rising from the table too. “I will not allow you to do that for me. I will not see you and papa separated because of my mistake. You belong here with him. Papa,” she said turning to lay a hand on his arm. “Promise me that you will not let her do this. Tell her you need her at your side. That you will not be able to cope without her.”

Caterina’s hot tears fell freely when he looked at her as if he was prepared to sacrifice a life with his wife for his daughter’s freedom.         

“No,” she cried, rounding the table to grab her mother’s hands. “I won’t be able to live with the guilt if you do this. That is no life, either,” she pressed. “Please, Mama, please promise me you will not do this.”

Caterina waited, her breath stopped in her lungs until she saw her mother slowly nod her head. “It is agreed then.” She swallowed hard and added gently, “You will have to give me the magic.”

Her mother shook her head and broke away to begin pacing. “If I give it to you before your wedding ceremony the magic will not work properly.”

“But that is archaic,” Caterina exclaimed.

“It is magic. It is both archaic and timeless,” her mother said and then looking at her husband implored, “Is there no other way?”

“We would have to get her out of Venice,” her father said quietly.

“Yes,” her mother agreed instantly. “I have lace stored. It can be used to barter passage across the ocean. We will ask Guido to take you-”

“I will take her,” said a deep voice from the shadows.

Caterina and her parents turned in unison as Matheo stepped from the doorway into the kitchen.

How had he got in and how much had he overheard? From the serious expression on his face, all of it, Caterina realised, bowing her head in shame.

“We would only have to hide her until morning,” he said. “There is a boat heading for England that I intended to be on. I will make sure they accept one more passenger.”

Rosie and Guy’s apartment, Bath, England 2015

As Matthew drew the zip of the wedding dress down, Cait’s eyelids fluttered closed to better savour the sensation.

Caught up in the moment, with the atmosphere in the room thickening as the energy between them pulsed, she felt like she was under some sort of spell.

Was Matthew feeling it too, or was it him casting the magic?

The look in his eyes when he had first seen her in the wedding dress, unfiltered and blazing hot had been knee-tremblingly exciting. Then, when his eyes had softened as he told her she looked beautiful, some of the hurt she had been carrying around since he had left had started to shake free.

By the time he had apologised, his voice taking on that bone-meltingly gruff quality, she could feel herself actually letting go of some of the anger caused by that hurt.

Now, as his fingertip skated across her naked skin, her eyes flew wide open to find him watching her in the mirror.

Their gazes locked onto each other like ‘target-secured’ laser beams.

One moment he had been helping her out of her dress, the next, she couldn’t breathe past wanting him to slide his hands around her midriff, so that he could turn her slowly around to face him for a kiss.

How was it possible he had reduced her to wanting that so quickly? To wanting whatever came after that as well?

She looked at their reflection in the mirror. They looked so right, standing there together. It was almost as if they had been waiting for each other for an eternity.

“Matt?” She called his name softly. Hardly aware she had shortened it until she saw his eyes change again, this time to a dark navy.

Whatever the pull between them, it was mutual, Cait realised, her heart thumping heavily with delicious anticipation.

In the mirror she watched as his hands slid around her waist to pull her back against him. His skin was so tanned against the white of the wedding dress.

Rosie’s wedding dress.

Cait blinked and the spell she was under shattered.

What on earth was she thinking, standing in front of the mirror with Matthew, fantasising about whether his lips on hers could possibly feel as good as she remembered them feeling?

“This isn’t,” she shook her head, as the tide of guilt lapped at her feet, “we can’t—I’m in Rosie’s wedding dress, for heaven’s sake.”

Matthew leaned back to give her space at the exact moment she took a step forwards to break his hold.

In the small apartment the sound of silk and lace ripping was louder than a lion’s roar.

“What the..?” Cait turned her head to look at the train of Rosie’s wedding dress. “Oh, no. No, no, no,” she whispered, horrified, staring down at the damaged material.

“Wow, okay,” Matthew muttered, stepping off the train of the dress and staring down at the rip in the material with equal shock. “The important thing here is not to panic,” he said.

Cait’s head whipped up. “
Not panic?
” she hissed, fully entering panic mode as she bent down to pick up the train of the dress in her hands and bring it closer to her face for inspection. A whinny of dismay escaped her lips as she stared at Matthew through the large hole they had created in the fabric. “She asked me to do one thing,” she whispered as hot tears sprang into her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” Matthew said urgently, which, perversely had the opposite effect, making the tears come faster, until they spilled over to track miserably down her cheeks. “I know this looks really bad,” he tried, gently, “But it was an accident. Rosie will understand.”

“She won’t,” Cait declared with certainty, her fingers shaking as she ran them over the gap in the silk and lace. “This is her dress. This is
the
dress. The perfect one. The one that made her cry when she tried it on. The one that she said Guy would love best.”

“You can fix it, Cait. You’re good with fabric. You do it every day for your job.”

Cait knew he was trying to make it better but she wasn’t sure he was grasping the enormity of the situation. “I prepare material that is hundreds of years old for display under protective casing. Not for a day’s worth of standing, sitting and dancing,” she told him. “Even my best needlework would leave a mark and even if no one else realised, Rosie would know. What bride wants to walk down the aisle in second-best to perfect? No, the whole train of the dress would need to be replaced for it to be done properly.”

“So tomorrow you and I will visit the shop and organise for another. They can fit it straight to your body and Rosie never need know.”

Cait started pacing, her gaze alighting on Ebb and Flow. Thank goodness the only witnesses to this mess had a two-second attention span. “Buy another dress, he says,” she exclaimed. “Just like that,” she added snapping her fingers. Turning back to him she sniffed and said, “This isn’t like shopping for new goldfish you know. Tomorrow is Sunday, the shop will be closed.” More tears threatened. “God, I don’t even know if they will have another identical dress in stock. How will I tell her? How will I even begin to explain?”

“Tell her it was my fault, tell her that I stepped on the dress and tore it.”

“Are you serious?” Cait interrupted. “You’re not even supposed to have seen the dress, let alone seen me in it, or been touching it—touching me, while I was in it.” This time the wave of guilt threatened to drown her as she thought about how Rosie would feel if she discovered that Cait hadn’t simply been quickly trying the dress on, she had been having a conversation while standing in it…she had been contemplating kissing Matthew while standing in it.

“I knew this felt all wrong, like it was going to be bad luck, or something,” she moaned. “Why didn’t I listen to myself? Why didn’t I insist that it wouldn’t be right for me to try it on?”

“Because you wanted to help,” Matthew interjected matter-of-factly.

“I was too caught up in what you had said to me,” she flung at him. “Too worried that Rosie secretly thought I still had feelings for Guy and that was why she hadn’t asked me to help out more. I wanted to prove to her, to you, that wasn’t the case.”

“Then perhaps you should tell Rosie what really happened here.”

Cait swallowed. Not content with ruining Rosie’s wedding dress, now he was expecting her to address what had nearly happened between them? She licked her lips, screwed up her courage and asked, “And what did happen here?” Because in amongst the scary prospect of having to tell Rosie she had ruined her wedding dress, she realised she wanted the answer to something even scarier.

Matthew looked at her as if weighing up how honest he should be.

“What really happened here,” he said finally, his voice sounding like he had swallowed the finest grade sandpaper, “Was that we got a little too wrapped up in each other, a little too quickly and gave each other a little scare.”

She hadn’t even been aware she was holding her breath until it rushed out of her.

“But what’s life without that spark of adventure?” he added, watching her intently as the seconds ticked by without her saying anything. “It’s nothing either of us is going to run from, is it?”

They weren’t? Cait stared at him. For her to put herself out there for him she was going to have to trust that he wasn’t going to run, no matter how scary-real things got between them. She didn’t even know what had really brought him back to Bath. How could she trust that he wasn’t going to up and leave in a few weeks?

He had run last time.

That is what had really made her angry, she could finally admit to herself.

That is what had really hurt.

He had kissed her, changed the whole world on her and the following day, when she’d had time to process, when she had tried to work her way up to telling him he had made her see things differently, he had cut her off before she could get the right words out.

Days later he had told them all he had accepted the job offer that he had only been joking about auditioning for the week before. He was off to do what he had always wanted to do—explore the world. The fact that he got to do it while trying out new extreme sports was even better.

The cameras had loved his alpha-looks and his natural enthusiasm for exploring every new experience and after two series’ on a niche channel, mainstream had picked up the third.   

On a certain level Cait was pleased for his success. But on a personal level she couldn’t overlook the fact that Matthew hadn’t made it back between series. Instead he had trained harder and travelled further.

“I need you to leave,” she said suddenly.

“What? Cait, no. We need to talk this out.”

“We don’t need to do anything. I need to tell Rosie about her dress.” A few minutes ago she had been staring at their reflection convincing herself they had been waiting for each other. But other than a near-kiss, what did they really have to base exploring their attraction on? Matthew had left before. That’s what he did.

“I can’t do this with you now,” she said, walking to the front door and opening it. “I need to focus on working out how to tell Rosie about her dress.”

She couldn’t look at him as he stood motionless for what felt like a year. Then, when she thought she could bear it no longer, he moved, and kept on moving, right past her and out of the apartment.

Cait picked up the tray containing two glasses and the opened bottle of Pinot, smiled her thanks at the barman, and turned to thread her way through the busy pub to where she had left Rosie.

“Here,” she said, pouring her friend a glass before sitting down herself. “Medicine.”

Rosie looked up and smiled, but her smile held a wobble that immediately had Cait needing to apologise again.

“Rosie, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling.”

“It isn’t the only dress in the world,” Rosie said, reaching determinedly for her glass and taking a healthy swallow.

Cait wanted to cry, but how would that possibly help? She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep until she had told Rosie about ripping the dress. Rosie had come back from Oxford a few days later when Guy’s father was looking better and together, they had gone straight to the wedding boutique.

The visit had been awkward. There was no dress like it in stock and it would take too long to arrange for another one to be made. The only solution, other than have a repair done, was to choose a different design that needed hardly any alterations.

Valiantly Rosie had tried on dress after dress but each one had made her quieter until Cait could not bear the sadness in her friend any longer and had called it quits. The shop owner had wanted to close up for the evening anyway, so Cait had dragged Rosie into their favourite pub for a glass or two of wine.

“I would do anything to be able to fix this for you,” she said, watching Rosie reach for her glass again.

“I know you would,” Rosie said attempting another smile. “Let’s get drunk and figure it out later.”

Cait took a small sip of her wine. She couldn’t drink too much if she wanted to get any work done tonight. She had made good progress cataloguing everything that had come in for the exhibition but she still had copy to approve for the programmes.