Gabe Baxter could hardly wait.
St Hilda’s Church, lovely as it was, was tiny, only seating eighty at a pinch. Happily, the garden at Willow Cottage was big enough for an enormous marquee. Well over two hundred friends and well-wishers were there to welcome the bride and groom back from the wedding, and to begin the serious business of celebrating.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Laura Baxter, who’d left Felix with a babysitter for the evening, wandered entranced through the white, candle-lit tables. Stella had gone for a ‘summer’s orchard’ theme, with tall glass vases holding blossom-laden branches, and smaller, simple jam jars stuffed with cottage garden flowers: sweet peas and roses and softly overblown peonies in various shades of dusky pink, white and purple. ‘It’s like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
Willow Cottage’s lawn sloped down to the river, and the end of the marquee was open so that the bottom tables nestled right on the banks, by the water’s edge. The central beam holding the tent aloft had been decorated as a maypole, painted in bright candy stripes and with silk ribbons tied around it. Max’s granddaughters, Celia and Martha, danced around it in their bridesmaid’s dresses, along with some of the village children, like a scene from a Kate Greenaway book, while their parents got stuck in to the Pimm’s and fresh mint cocktails on offer.
‘Half the price of champagne and ten times as delicious!’ proclaimed the bride, helping herself and handing one to Max as she kicked off her church shoes and let down her hair. ‘Are you happy, darling?’
‘Of course.’ Max kissed her, a trifle stiffly. All the bare feet and fairies weren’t really his thing, but he was glad Stella was happy.
He was happy too. Happy and relieved. The run-up to the wedding had been stressful. What had started out as a low-key, intimate affair had somehow ballooned in the planning into a major social event, with pretty much the entire village invited. Quite apart from the expense, the scale of the thing made Max feel faintly embarrassed. They weren’t young, after all. Truth be told, he’d only proposed in the first place because his daughters had confided in him that Stella really wanted to get married. Max had been quite happy muddling along as they were. The last thing he wanted was a big hullaballoo.
‘You should take it as a compliment,’ Stella told him. ‘It shows how much the village has taken you to its heart, the fact that everyone wants to share your happiness.’
Privately Max thought it showed how much Fittlescombe villagers appreciated a free bar. But now that the ceremony was over and the party was under way, he determined to enjoy it.
Brett Cranley was enjoying it too, until he saw the seating plan. In the two weeks since he and Angela had got back from New York, he’d been working flat out. He’d been looking forward to the Bingley wedding as a chance to relax and unwind a little, until he learned that Jason and Tatiana had also been invited and had accepted, damn them both.
Angela had calmed him down, assuring him that it was a huge reception and he’d be able to avoid Tati easily enough if he wanted to. But someone, presumably the meddlesome Max Bingley, had other ideas.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Brett hissed in Angela’s ear. ‘Have you seen this? Some maniac’s put us all on the same bloody table.’
Angela looked at the hand-drawn plan in dismay. All the tables were named after Shakespeare plays. There, on Hamlet, were she and Brett, Logan and Tom and Jason and Tatiana, along with Dylan Pritchard Jones and his wife Maisie. If this were Max’s idea of diplomacy, a well-meant attempt at family bridge-building perhaps, it was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Still, there was a chance that fireworks might yet be averted. Jason and Tatiana had been invited to both the service and the reception, but had been no-shows at the church. Angela had tried Jason’s mobile twice since, but it went straight to message.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Angela chided Brett. ‘They’re probably not coming anyway. Something’s obviously happened or they’d have been at the church.’
‘You were saying?’ Brett scowled.
Angela followed his gaze to the marquee entrance. There was Jason, standing hand in hand with a green-looking Tati. Angela felt her stomach lurch with a combination of love – Jase looked so handsome in his morning coat – and nerves. Today was Max and Stella’s day. It mustn’t be allowed to become about the Cranleys and their internecine warfare.
‘Don’t make a scene, Brett. Please. You promised.’