Magical Weddings (36 page)

As Cait ended the call she felt the stress of the last few weeks start bleeding off.

She bet that if Rosie tried on the dress it would fit as if it had been made for her.

Maybe, somehow, it had been.

Slowly she started unfastening the buttons that ran the length of the back of the dress and as she did she couldn’t help thinking about Matthew.

Cait watched the bride and groom share their first dance as a married couple. Light bounced and sparkled off them and as she raised her gaze to the five incredible crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling of the ballroom, Cait thought about how blessed she was to be involved in Rosie and Guy’s special day.

“Have I told you yet how beautiful you look?”

At the deep male voice, a delicious shiver danced over her skin.

Keeping her eyes trained on the dancing couple, she replied, “Oh, maybe once or twice.”

The first time he had told her they had been standing at the altar as bridesmaid and best man for the bride and groom. His blue-green eyes had moved softly over her before resting on the small posy of white roses she was carrying before moving back up to her face. As their gazes collided he had silently mouthed the words to her, and then grinned when she had blushed.

The second time had been while posing for the photographs. Casually, he had slipped into the space next to her in the group-shot and murmured the compliment into her ear.

She had blushed harder.

“It bears repeating,” he said and she felt warmth spread through her. After a few moments silence, he added, “I guess it’s traditional to reciprocate the compliment, or something.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to hide her smile. She waited as long as she dared and then, slowly, turned to look at him. “What, you want one now?”

Matthew tipped his head back and laughed. “I’m happy to wait until I earn it.”

Cait’s gaze roamed over his freshly clean-shaven jaw, down the column of his tanned throat and over his broad shoulders. He was drop-dead gorgeous in wedding attire or climbing gear but there was a different type of compliment he deserved right now.

“I liked your Best Man’s speech,” she told him. “You might have been away for two years, but it was obvious how much you value Guy’s friendship. The speech was funny, heart-warming, and incredibly moving.”

“Thank you. Rosie and Guy make a good team, don’t they?”

Cait nodded. “You should have seen the way they helped each other when you left.”

Matthew frowned. “I guess I assumed everyone was good with me leaving.”

“You’d be surprised,” Cait murmured. She had thought she was used to coping when people absented themselves from her life, but his going had been tough on her.

“Hey,” she said, thinking about his speech again, “do you really believe that one of the most important things in a relationship is having faith in each other?”

“Sure. I like that kind of hopefulness. No one can say what’s around the corner, but having faith in the person you share your life with…has to make the adventure even better, right?”

“Right,” she agreed in a whisper and wondered if the reason he hadn’t called her cowardly for walking away the other night was because he hoped for more from her—because he had faith in her.

She guessed there was only one way to find out.

“Feel like some fresh air?” she asked.

“If it means being alone with you in the moonlight, definitely,” he said and before she could change her mind, he grabbed her hand and led them out of the crowded, noisy ballroom and into the formal gardens.

As they walked towards the waist-high balustrade that surrounded the pond, Cait breathed in the heady scent of roses drifting on the night breeze and shivered. A warm jacket was instantly draped over her shoulder, and smiling her thanks she tugged it close around her and lifted her head to the opalescent disc in the sky.

“I worked it out you know,” Matthew said, leaning against the stonework as he stared out into the night.

“Worked out what?”

“Why you walked out of the pub the other night. You think I’ve swapped one kind of roaming the world, for another.”

“And haven’t you?”

“No. I’m not saying I won’t work hard to try and get a Matt’s Atlas in every major city in the world, but Bath is where I want to put down some roots.”

Forcing her gaze from the moon, she looked at Matthew and bravely asked, “Why?”

Matthew met her look and after a moment’s hesitation, reached out to cup her face gently with his hands as he admitted, “I think it’s always held a piece of my heart.”

She felt herself rise up on tiptoes to get closer to him and-

“Cait,” Rosie shouted from the doorway, “Are you out here?”

Matthew stepped back, shoved his hands into his pockets, and muttered an “and the hits just keep on coming,” to himself.

“I’m over here, by the pond.”

Rosie walked towards them with a large garment bag in her hands and Cait realised she had been looking for her in order to return the dress.

She had been so overwhelmed when Cait had given it to her, she had forgotten to ask where it had come from and all Cait had said was that she needed it back before the end of the reception. She had the strongest feeling that as long as she got it back onto the dressmaker’s dummy, it would somehow magically transform back into the sample of lace and the computer system, catalogues, and audio-guides, would all magically match again.

As if Rosie now realised she had potentially interrupted something, she mumbled, “Crap. Sorry. Pretend you haven’t seen me,” and turned around to start walking away.

Cait laughed. “Stop, I’ll take the dress off you, first.”

Beaming, Rosie handed the bag to Matthew instead of her. “Cait has to take this dress to the museum. I’m pretty sure she’ll need your help with that,” and with an outrageous wink, she headed off with a, “Going to go find my husband now.”

“Is this her wedding dress?” Matthew asked, looking thoroughly confused as Rosie skipped back to the ballroom.

“Long story,” Cait answered. “It won’t take five minutes to drop the dress back, though.”

“Lead the way. Although, given our previous form, do you think we should be left in charge of a wedding dress?”

“Oh, I think this one is pretty tough,” she replied. It had survived four hundred years to be here tonight. As Cait picked her bag up from the ballroom and left with Matthew for the museum’s staff entrance, she wondered if the dress had appeared for others. It was romantic thinking it might have travelled all over the world.

Keying in the access code and leading him down the corridor to the exhibition room, she offered quietly, “I know you could be forgiven for thinking I have something against travelling, but I think it’s wonderful all the places you’ve filmed in.”

“Is it that you don’t think it’s a stable lifestyle?” Matthew asked gently.

“Actually, it’s not that either,” she paused to open the exhibition room and switch on the lights. “My dad is a lighting technician who works all over the world—sometimes for expos, sometimes for bands on tour. But he never used to tell me he was leaving on a job. I would come home and find him gone. I would have loved to go with him sometimes, you know, experience where he was living and working. But even after he stopped coming home altogether and he and mum got divorced, I was never invited,” she paused. “It’s not like I haven’t travelled myself, but-,” she trailed off, embarrassed.

“I get it. There’s a world of difference between being told someone is going away, or being asked to go with them, to just being left behind.”

“Yes.”

Reaching out, she took the bag from him over to the dressmaker’s dummy. Unzipping it, she took out the dress, and holding it in her arms, gathered her courage.

“When you left the way you did, it was a real shock,” she confessed. “It was an even bigger shock when you didn’t come back.”

Matthew’s hand covered hers as she draped the dress over the dummy. “I was an idiot for not getting in touch. For not clearing the air between us.”

His thumb moved to brush over the pulse-point at her wrist and when she didn’t pull away, his gaze whipped up to hers. “What if I promise to tell you about my travel plans,” he said, “because there is something worth exploring here, isn’t there? I’m not wrong, am I?”

She smiled and shook her head.

“I dreamt about you,” he confessed, his voice turning gruff in the way that sent butterflies soaring around inside her.

“You did?”

“Yeah. Twice. The first time we were flirting with each other. You were in this blue and gold fancy dress and you were talking about moonbeams.”

Was it possible they had been having the same dream? Cait’s attention flicked to the dress between them and she felt her mouth go dry. “And the second time?”

“I was searching for you. At first we were by water and I was telling you to run, and then… I went to what I think was a palace and pushed my way in. You weren’t there but some guards took me to a prison and I was held there without trial.”

“This sounds more like a nightmare than a dream,” Cait said, turning her hand so that their fingers entwined.

“I kept telling myself that I had to stay strong so that I could get out and find you. So I ate the slop the guards brought, and I exercised and as the days passed, whenever I thought you might have found someone else, it made me more determined to find you before I was too late. Finally, one day, the guard got careless and I seized my chance and escaped-,” he broke off and gave an embarrassed chuckle.

“What?”

“Guess who found me wandering the streets?”

“Who?”

“Guy! He took me back to his house and told me that he hadn’t seen me for two years. He had thought I was with you.”

“How did you find me,” Cait asked.

“Guy was working at the palace in some big money job and he helped get me in every day so that I could search for you. I didn’t even remember the dream until I walked in to Rosie and Guy’s apartment and saw you standing in a wedding dress. In the dream that’s what you were holding when I found you, and all I could think was how beautiful you looked.”

Cait felt dizzy. Her gaze went to the mirror. With the dressmaker’s dummy in front of her it looked like she was wearing Caterina’s dress. She thought about her research again. Was it possible that when Caterina had written about being held captive by her fears and finding strength to hope for a different life, she was speaking literally? Had she made this dress in her prison? Made it out of love and hope and faith?

“You had the dream after you saw me in the coffee shop?” Cait asked, amazed at the coincidence of her going that day to argue for funding for the Caterina Rosso sample of lace.

“No. I had the dream months ago, right after I hurt my back and was lying in hospital. I thought the dream was telling me that two years was a ridiculous amount of time to live with regrets and that I should come home and find you.”

Cait turned around to face him. It didn’t matter whether it was fate, destiny, or Caterina’s magic that had brought him home. All that mattered was that he was here, and she did not intend to run, walk, or sit back this time.

“I’m glad you’re here, Matt.” Reaching up she snuck her hands to the lapels of his suit jacket, so that she could step in closer to him.

“Me too,” he answered, bringing his own hands up to cradle her head so that he could angle her mouth to meet his.

Cait looked up into eyes the colours of the ocean, and as their lips touched, she could feel the promise of a future filled with hope and adventure.

They were both smiling when they eventually broke apart.

“So, you think we can finally get around to having a first date?” Matthew teased.

“Definitely.”

“Great. I know this fabulous Venetian place.”

Cait laughed. “Is this fabulous place, actually Venice?”

“You have some holiday coming up after the exhibition, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then come to Venice with me. We’ll walk the streets hand in hand, visit the palaces, ride in the gondolas and drink coffee under the moon.”

“It’s a date,” she said, and with one last look at the dress, she grabbed his hand and headed back to enjoy Rosie and Guy’s wedding.

In the mirror, Caterina and Matheo linked hands and smiled at each other. Then, reaching down with her free hand, Caterina picked up the train of her white lace wedding dress, swished it out of the way, and together, she and Matheo walked towards the ship bound for home.
 

Growing up in locations like Botswana and Venezuela gave me quite the taste for adventure and my love for romances began when my mother shoved one into my hands in a desperate attempt to keep me quiet during TV coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals!

When I wasn’t consuming books by the bucket-load, I could be found pretending to be a damsel in distress or running around solving mysteries and writing down my adventures. As a teenager, I wrote countless episodes of TV detective dramas so the hero and heroine would end up together every week. As an adult, I worked in a library to conveniently continue consuming books by the bucket-load, until realising I was destined to write contemporary romance and romantic suspense myself. I live in leafy Surrey in the UK, a book-devouring, slightly melodramatic, romance-writing sassy heroine with my very own sexy hero husband!

Visit the author at her website:
www.EveDevon.com
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