Page 3 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

‘Speaking of bridesmaids, shouldn’t you be wearing your dress?’ Huw asked.

‘It’ll take me all of two minutes to slip it on,’ Ceri said. ‘I’ve already done my hair and makeup – thanks for noticing.’

‘Are you wearing makeup?’

Ceri pulled a face. ‘When you get to the church, you’d better tell Rowena she looks beautiful,’ she cautioned.

‘I will. And so do you.’

She waved a hand in the air as she headed for the stairs. ‘Too little too late, bro, too little too late.’

She was laughing as she said it though, knowing full well that he had noticed the effort she had taken with her appearance this morning. He should, considering how long she had spent in the bathroom, waxing and buffing, plucking and moisturising. The focus was naturally going to be on Rowena, but Ceri didn’t want to let the side down. Anyway, being maid of honour was the closest she was going to get to being a bride for a while. Having only just moved to Foxmore and with a new job to tackle, she wasn’t planning on adding a boyfriend to her already overflowing plate. Nothing serious anyway, although the odd date with a handsome hunk might do wonders for her self-esteem. The trick was to find a handsome hunk in the first place, and she was looking forward to seeing what Foxmore had to offer.

Ceri slipped the column of champagne satin over her head and wriggled into it, loving the way it clung to her curves and showed them off to the best advantage. She didn’t usually wear dresses, feeling more at home in sweatshirts and jeans, but this one was gorgeous. It had crossed her mind that Rowena might want her to wear something a little fussier, but all Rowena had said was, ‘Wear what you like as long as it’s a dress and the right colour’.

Plain and simple was what Ceri had gone for, and she was pleased with the result. She hoped her soon-to-be sister-in-law would be too, but she guessed Rowena would have far more important things on her mind today than how Ceri looked.

She checked her appearance in the bedroom mirror to make sure she hadn’t messed up her hair or smeared her lipstick as she’d put the dress on, and when she saw that she hadn’t, she took her shoes out of the box. In the same colour as the dress, they matched perfectly, and neither were they ridiculously high, which meant she should be able to wear them all day and into the evening without resorting to kicking them off. Or dashing back to the cottage halfway through the reception to swap them for a pair of daps.

Daps…she smiled to herself. She had only moved into her cottage three weeks ago, and already she could feel herself becoming more Welsh. She actuallywasWelsh, having been born and brought up in Cardiff, but the city was a fairly cosmopolitan one and she hadn’t heard the word ‘dap’ for a long time, not until she had moved to Foxmore.

Ceri decided to take her trainers downstairs with her and leave them in the hall, in case she needed to nip home and change into them. They weren’tdapsas such – the word usually meant the black plimsolls that primary school kids wore for PE – but people in these parts often used it to describe any trainer-type footwear.

She eased her feet into the heels, adding two inches to her height, and wiggled her toes. There, she was as ready as she could be, but as she glanced around the room to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she paused.

It still seemed unreal to think she was living here in Foxmore, in this house. When Huw had moved to the village last year, she had been so envious; not just because Foxmore was such a cute village in a picturesque location, but because he had also managed to purchase this wonderful cottage. The first time she’d set eyes on it, she had offered to buy it off him, never once believing it might happen. But when Huw had asked Rowena to marry him, it made sense for him to move in with his fiancée because her house was larger. Which meant that he needed to sell his.

Ceri had leapt at the chance and had officially taken ownership less than a month ago, on the proviso that Huw could spend his last night as a single man under its roof. She figured that ensuring her irritating older brother got to the church on time was a small price to pay.

She could actually see the ancient stone church, where Huw was about to be married, from her bedroom window. It sat in the middle of an old graveyard, with a vicarage to one side and a large field behind it, which currently sported the marquee where the reception would be held.

Ceri’s house, Rosehip Cottage, was the middle one in a row of three pretty cottages on the opposite side of the road from the church overlooking the field, and she thought how lucky she was to live in such a lovely little village.

Foxmore was small, and people here had a tendency to know everyone else’s business, but that was what she loved about it. That, and the ancient stone Celtic cross in the middle of the village green, plus the lovely assortment of artisan shops and the whitewashed old pub that had once been a staging post and was now adorned with colourful planters and hanging baskets.

Foxmore sat at the bottom of a U-shaped valley, surrounded by lush green farmland with a pretty river running through it, and when she looked out of her window she could see the forested slopes of the hillsides above, and the heather-covered mountain of Aran Fawddwy beyond. The range of high, rocky peaks that bordered the village on the north were, for the most part, wild and untamed, home to red kites and kestrels, skylarks and black grouse, and rare wild Welsh ponies and elusive feral goats. Huw had taken her hiking there once, and she had been moved by its wild beauty.

‘You look stunning,’ her brother said as she descended the steep narrow staircase. ‘I never knew you could scrub up so well.’

Ceri gave him an arch look, her heels clacking on the stone-tiled floor as she went into the kitchen, Huw following. He was tugging at the sleeves of his suit and looking pained.

‘What now?’ she asked, opening the fridge and bringing out the bottle of bubbly she had placed in there to chill.

‘I feel a right prat,’ he said.

‘You look it too, but no more than usual,’ she shot back.

‘Not funny, Ceri.’

Seeing how pale he was, she stopped teasing him. Popping the cork, she poured the fizzy golden liquid into a couple of glasses and handed one to him.

‘What are you so nervous about?’ she asked.

He gulped down a mouthful before answering. ‘That she won’t turn up. That I’ll lose the ring. That I’ll fluff my lines…’

‘The last two don’t matter, and as for the first,of courseshe’ll turn up. I’ve no idea why, but the daft woman thinks the sun shines out of your—’ She stopped and grinned at him. Huw’s smile was rather sickly. ‘Right,’ she announced. ‘I’d better be off if I don’t want to be late fetching Nia. And don’tyoube late, either. You’ve got twenty minutes.’

‘It’s only a two-minute walk.’ Huw was fiddling with his cravat again and checking it in the mirror.

---