Page 44 of The Midnight Secret

He smiled. ‘I’m afraid not.’

She pulled back. ‘Oh.’

‘There’s something we have to attend to first. Paperwork and the like.’

‘...Oh,’ she said again. The bureaucracy of immigration was overwhelming to her.

‘But I promise, champagne and sandwiches back here as soon as we’re done, yes?’

She nodded, suppressing a sigh as he turned to open their trunk. The clothes they had been wearing in heavy rotation for the past five weeks lay folded in crushed layers.

‘Hmm,’ said James. He reached for the telephone on a side table and called reception. Flora wandered over to the window seat, hardly noticing his half of the conversation. ‘Hello, yes...Callaghan...housekeeping services...if you would. Thank you.’

She glanced up as he came to stand beside her. ‘They’re going to send someone up to refresh our clothes. We can’t go down in wrinkles.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she murmured. All she really wanted to do was sit here and look out over the city where their son might, at this very moment, be sleeping. He could be anywhere down there: in a pram they passed on the street, on the other side of an open window...

‘Darling, I’m going to pop downstairs to see if I can’t get ahead with this dratted paperwork. Once they’ve attended to you, come down and find me, yes?’

Flora straightened up as James headed for the door. She’d been in a daydream. ‘But...’

He was almost out of the room.

‘James? How will I find you?’

‘I’ll just be downstairs,’ he smiled, closing the door after him.

Flora blinked, before turning back to the twinkling lightsof the city outside. It was dark now and she wondered whether anyone was looking up at her, silhouetted in the window of the city’s landmark building.

There came a knock at the door several minutes later and she stirred reluctantly.

‘Hello,’ she said, opening up to a bellboy standing there.

‘For you, Madame,’ he said, holding out a large box secured with a blue satin ribbon.

Flora frowned in confusion. ‘No, we asked for housekeeping.’

‘Oui, Madame, for you.’ And he held out the box towards her. ‘From Monsieur Callaghan.’

‘What?’ Flora took it in bewilderment, watching as he turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

She closed the door and stared at the box for a moment. When had James had a chance to go shopping? They’d been together all day.

No, they hadn’t, of course, she remembered.

He must have bought it when he’d gone to find the car, hidden it in the trunk and arranged for it to be brought up here for her as a surprise. The day had been long, intense and, in parts, distressing, but he showed her he loved her in a myriad of ways.

She took it over to the bed, slipping the ribbons off the corners with a smile.

Candles flickered in the oak-panelled room, moody shadows sloping over the floors as James waited for her before the desk that would serve as their altar.

His smile widened, climbing into his eyes as he took in the sight of her in the gown he had picked out for her: buttery ivory silk, cut on the bias, with lace cap sleeves and a shorttulle veil on a mother-of-pearl comb. She had kept her long dark hair free, simply brushing it to a shine and accessorizing with the posy of dark pink roses that had arrived at the room a few minutes after the dress.

He had thought of everything. He always did. She had made only one adjustment of her own, a detail that was true to her.

She walked slowly towards him as somewhere a string quartet played. He looked so handsome in his new suit, and she marvelled at the way he always managed to surprise her. She had long since come to terms with the fact that their wedding would have to happen without her family in attendance; circumstances dictated prioritizing respectability over sentimentality or tradition. She had known they would marry at the first opportunity. She just hadn’t realized he meant thefirstopportunity.

Her gaze, acclimatizing now to the small, formal salon, took in the Justice of the Peace standing on the far side of the desk, two witnesses standing off to one side. She laughed softly, wondering how on earth he had managed to pull this together when all she had done for most of the day was stare out of windows.

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