Page 40 of One Bridegroom Required!

The woman smiled and an irrepressible dimple appeared in her right cheek. ‘Is that your real name?’

Holly nodded. ‘It really is!’

‘I’m Ursula O’Neil. Pleased to meet you.’

‘And I’m Luke Goodwin,’ came a silky dark voice from behind them.

Ursula turned round and beamed. ‘Hello,’ she said shyly.

‘What sort of thing are you looking for?’ asked Holly, glowering at Luke.

‘Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain.. ’

Holly asked her stock question for dithering brides. ‘How do you see yourself on your wedding day?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Oh, no! I’m not getting married. It’s a bit of a funny old story...’

Glad to be distracted from Luke’s brooding figure, and intrigued by the woman’s hesitation, Holly gestured towards the velvet sofa. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down,’ she suggested ‘and tell me all about it?’

The woman looked across the shop at Luke. ‘I don’t want to disturb anything—’

‘You aren’t disturbing anything—honestly,’ interjected Holly quickly—much too quickly, really. ‘Luke was just going, weren’t you, Luke?’

He gave her a bland smile as their eyes met. ‘Actually no.’ He smiled. ‘I think I’ll stay.’

Holly threw him a warning look. She wanted him out. Now! For how could she concentrate on anything when he was standing there like some dark, avenging angel, with that arrogant half-smile serving as a constant reminder of what they had been doing just a few moments ago?

‘But the customer might prefer to speak to me in private,’ she said icily.

Luke turned a hundred-watt smile on the woman and Holly knew immediately that she wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of resisting him. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Ursula?’

Obediently the woman shook her head at him, melting under the impact of that mega-watt dazzle. ‘No, I don’t mind at all.’ She settled herself on the velvet sofa, but her attention remained focussed on the window and she laced her fingers together nervously, before taking a deep breath. ‘That dress you have in the window...’

Holly looked at her encouragingly as her words tailed off. ‘Yes?’

‘Is it... is it a very old dress?’

Holly looked at her in surprise. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘How old?’

‘Well, I made it earlier this year.’

‘You made it?’

Holly blinked. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘I see.’ Ursula’s face crumpled with disappointment and she began digging around in her handbag, eventually extracting a scrunched up tissue and loudly blowing her nose.

‘Is something wrong?’ asked Holly gently.

Ursula shook her head. ‘No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I saw a picture of it in the newspaper, and I thought... I thought...’

‘What did you think?’ interposed Holly quietly.

‘It looks exactly the same as a wedding dress my mother bought,’ Ursula gulped, like a woman about to burst into tears. ‘But of course it can’t be!’

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