Page 41 of The Secret Mistletoe Promise
‘She looks like a goddess,’ Fiona said from beside Imogen. ‘And so happy.’
‘She does.’ With her reddish hair loose around her shoulders, the dress elegantly cut, Sophie looked like some kind of ethereal wood nymph. But nothing was as captivating as the look on her face, her gaze trained on Harry. Imogen looked at him, saw how his lips were slightly parted, his cheeks flushed. He seemed overwhelmed, his eyes bright with anticipation and love. She didn’t think Edmund had ever looked at her like that, or … no – she wasn’t being fair. Maybe at the very start of their relationship. Maybe the first time he’d been invited to have dinner with her parents. She pushed the cynical thought away: today was not the day for it.
‘OK?’ Fiona asked, giving Imogen a quick look.
‘Course.’
She focused on the ceremony, on Winnie’s jokey, kindhearted greeting; on her effusive descriptions of Harry and Sophie; as she talked about how Harry had returned to the village after a long spell in London, and it had taken a while for him to warm up to Mistingham, and vice versa. The atmosphere was giddy delight and glowing affection, and Imogen wanted to bottle it. None of the congregationwere dressed to show off or waiting for the reception so they could forge business deals – unless it was about collaborating on the upcoming festive performances. There was warmth and love and laughter in the air, and sooner than she would have liked, when the band had finished playing ‘You Make My Dreams’ by Hall & Oates, it was her turn.
Winnie waited until the last bars had ended – a band of very young people in the corner of the room with a guitar, violin, saxophone and electric drum kit were responsible for the music – then said, ‘And now we have Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, performed by Imogen Rowsell.’
Harry gave Sophie a curious look, and Dexter leaned back and whispered, ‘Good luck,’ as Imogen wiped her hands down her dress.
Smiling, she stood up and walked to the front of the room. Winnie stepped off the small wooden platform and Imogen took her place, looking out over the residents of Mistingham, at least seventy people, she reckoned, who were all waiting expectantly.
She had a copy of the sonnet in the pocket of her dress, just in case, but she felt confident that she could recite it. She took a deep breath.
‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove …’
After the first few words she was lost to them and their meaning, and her voice came out strong and sure, full of emotion. It felt good, like a burst of flat-out running or adip in an ice-cold sea, and she projected her voice, heard the sentences reach up to the room’s high ceiling, everyone captivated by the sonnet’s beauty.
She came to the end, her eyes on the crowd, and the last word, ‘loved’, seemed to echo around the room. There were gentle ‘aaahs’, and a couple of people started clapping. Imogen turned to Sophie, and saw that her eyes were shining. She smiled and nodded, and as she walked back to her seat, pride bloomed inside her at having given something to these people who had been so kind to her. Lucy gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up from her spot next to Jazz, and Imogen risked a look at Dexter. The grin he gave her felt like the shockwave after a blast, threatening to take her feet out from under her.
‘Well done,’ he mouthed, as she slipped back into the row behind him.
‘Thank you, Imogen, for that wonderful reading,’ Winnie said. ‘Now it’s time for the vows. Harry and Sophie, if you could turn to face each other. I think you’ve each written your vows for this moment, haven’t you?’
Dexter reached over the back of his chair and squeezed Imogen’s arm, and she felt as if she’d won a BAFTA. She spent the rest of the ceremony, through Sophie and Harry’s emotional vows, Winnie’s declaration, the kiss under a particularly burgeoning bunch of mistletoe, in a happy, incredulous daze. She silently admitted to herself – though would never say it to anyone else – that this wedding was better than all the imaginings of hers had ever been.
Chapter Sixteen
Sophie and Harry were married. Their kiss was one of the most romantic things Imogen had ever seen, and she was unable to stay dry-eyed, despite having only known the couple for a few weeks. She wiped surreptitiously under her eyes and Fiona handed her a tissue.
‘There you go. It was magical, wasn’t it?’
‘I know they said they were keeping it low key, but it was like a Christmas fairy tale. The venue, Winnie, their vows – oh my God.’ She watched as May and Dexter went up to congratulate their friends, the reverberations of applause and cheers reaching up to the ceiling.
‘And you’re OK, are you?’ Fiona asked.
‘Me? Oh, I’m fine. This is a perfect wedding.’ Her smile was watery, but she didn’t want everyone who knew her circumstances – which was probably the whole village by now – to walk on eggshells around her. ‘Do we need to help clear the chairs away?’
‘Let’s do it, regardless of whether we’re expected to.’
Everyone pitched in, moving the chairs to the edges of the room, while the band set up on the low stage now the ceremony was done. There was an instrument swap, and a couple of electric guitars and an amp were brought out. Several young men and women in white shirts and black waistcoats, all with pale blue corsages in their buttonholes, brought out trestle tables covered in silver tablecloths, then laid out platters of food.
There were sausage rolls and scotch eggs, chicken goujons and mini portions of fish and chips, bowls of colourful salads with roasted peppers and tomatoes, and crab shells filled with crab meat mixed with a mayonnaise that had a fragrant, citrus smell. Corks popped and glasses of fizz were handed out.
Imogen spotted the cake, a beautiful white tower that shimmered gently, like snow when it catches the sunlight, silver-blue sugar roses nestled on each layer. It looked straight out of the pages of a wedding magazine.
She hovered, wanting to speak to Sophie and Harry before she dug into the food, but there was a queue, so she accepted a glass of champagne and waited, watching Jazz and Lucy play with Artichoke, one of them having smuggled in a cuddly parrot that squeaked every time the puppy clamped her jaws on it. Soon Clifton and Poppet were there too, and Darkness and Terror stood, sentry-like, perhaps wondering if they would get a turn. There was a tall blonde woman ahead of Imogen in the queue, and she was trying to work out why she seemed familiar, when Harry wrapped her in a hug and said, ‘Thanks for coming, little sis.’ She had the same straight nose as Harry, the same eyes, and a sternness that Imogenthought would soften when she smiled. Sophie embraced her, calling her Daisy.
Eventually, Imogen made it to the front of the line and Sophie hugged her. ‘You were brilliant. Thank you so much.’
