I was trying hard to be in a good mood as I sat in the kitchen, helping Dinah put the finishing touches on the squares of Cornish fudge, each one topped with candied marzipan blossoms resembling a sprig of purplish-red heath, and one of sugared rosemary.
"When's the groom coming?" Gemma asked. She had volunteered to work extra hours in the kitchen today, all in hopes of catching a glimpse of the football heartthrob, I suspected, who was due to arrive with the best man today.
"Never mind Donald Price-Parker," said Dinah. "We've got six dozen more of these to decorate for the catering trays. Unless he's coming to the kitchen to help out, he's of no interest to the three of us."
"Not until after lunch," I answered her, as I placed another finished square of fudge aside. "Don't worry, you won't miss him. Lord William said he's driving here in a racecar, straight from the track at St Austell."
"Imagine," sighed Gemma. "Soon as I'm done with studies, I'm moving somewhere more exciting than Ceffylgwyn."
"Off to Land's End, are we?" quipped Dinah. "St. Ives, perhaps?"
"Sure," said Gemma. "Truro, if nowhere else'll do."
How about Mousehole? I might have suggested this jokingly, now that I knew enough Cornish village names to understand the difference between a port village and the kind of places Gemma wanted to see. But I wasn't in a joking mood, and the memory of Mousehole's name only brought me back to thoughts of Matthew.
I didn't need to be thinking about him. What did it matter if Matt and Petal clearly knew each other at some time or other? Or clearly had a connection that left them both tongue-tied? So what if Matt had clearly been avoiding me and the grounds immediately around Cliffs House for the past twenty-four hours or so since they'd seen each other?
Get your mind back on work, I scolded myself. Only one day was left between now and the big event I was in charge of pulling together. If my stomach wanted to tie itself in knots of confusion, it should be doing it for that reason, and no other.
The clatter of high-heeled shoes sounded in the hall — for once, they weren't mine — and the chief bridesmaid appeared. With a yawn, Trixie surveyed us, sleepily.
"I'm starving," she announced. "Is there anything to eat around here? Pet's being totally dull and didn't send anybody out for breakfast."
"I can make you some toast, if you like," said Dinah. I thought I detected a slight crack in her civil tones.
Trixie wrinkled her nose. "No, thanks," she said. "Got any more chocolate?" she asked. She lifted one of the pieces of fudge from its airtight container and popped it into her mouth.
"Oops — are these for the wedding?" she asked.
"They are," I answered.
"Sorry." But she didn't sound as if she was. "Guess I'll make do with the raw stuff." She lifted a bar of chocolate from the cook's table, one that Dinah had been coarsely chopping to decorate the whortleberry tarts that would be topped with clotted cream. Taking a generous bite out of it, she sat down at the work table where the three of us were decorating the fudge squares.
"Oooh, aren't they cute?" she said. "You're making little flowers to go on top. Isn't that sweet. It looks kind of like Play-doh covered in glitter, doesn't it?" She laughed. "Let me try one. I'm totally bored, with Petal spending hours chatting online with all our friends back in New York."
We exchanged glances. Gemma looked slightly amused, trying to stifle a laugh as she popped a finished piece of fudge into the storage case. Trixie was putting three marzipan heath sprigs on one piece of fudge, making it into an impossible mouthful.
"Just one is fine," I told her, trying to figure out the nicest way to get rid of her. "Guests are meant to notice that it's a sprig of heath and rosemary — two native Cornish plants."
"Oh, the Cornish thing," she said. "Right. Donald's so into that, and Petal's so not. But she'd do anything for him, so I guess that's why she's agreeing. He's got this 'let's be all English country as a couple' and she's all 'let's go back to civilization.' You can imagine." She popped another heath sprig — crookedly — on top of a square of fudge. I tried discreetly to fix it after she placed it in the box.
"Of course, she didn't want to come to Cornwall in the first place, but after she found out her ex was here, she was really mad," continued Trixie. "He's from Cornwall, see, and that's partly why she doesn't like it here. That, and they broke up because she knew she could do better — and now she's marrying a football player who wants to live in the country. Go figure, right?" She plopped two badly-decorated pieces of fudge into the box, and popped one of our perfect ones into her mouth. "He works here, actually, her ex," she continued. "At this place."
Gemma, who had been drinking it all in with a curious and incredulous smile now looked as if she had swallowed a whole chunk of fudge herself. Her eyes were like saucers when they met mine — I wondered if she, too, knew it was Matt.
"I think Cornwall's a great place to live," I said. I was surprised how firm my tone was. "It's beautiful here. And everyone's so friendly. Who wouldn't love it?"
"Pet doesn't," said Trixie. "But she's hooked on Donald, so what can you do?" She shrugged her shoulders, dramatically.
"Donald's totally cute," said Gemma, speaking up at last, since the subject of the football player's looks was a safe one. Plus, I suspected she was dying for more details, the clues that Trixie had carelessly dropped about Petal's old love life. The same clues that were twisting me into knots, and making my fingers too shaky to apply the false heath sprigs properly.
"I thought her ex was hot," said Trixie. "I met him once or twice when they were still together, and she used to talk about him when we were both modeling in New York."
"So she left him ... for Donald Price-Parker?" Gemma hesitated before saying this aloud. From the troubled look in her eyes, I knew she was probably picturing Petal dumping Matt. It hurt too much to think about, so I was trying not to have the same picture pop into my head.
"No, she met Donald later. She just ... broke up with him. Broke his heart into a million pieces," said Trixie. "It was totally scandalous, I thought. She always said he was a bit of a nerd...but he was so totally into her, he'd do anything to make her happy. He even offered to move to New York for her. But it wasn't enough."
Trixie's conversation was pouring gossip into the room like syrup — we were all trapped in it, her words wrapping around us like a sticky mess of tentacles, making me learn about a side of Matt that had been hidden from me until now. Imagining him in America, madly in love, then brokenhearted and back in Cornwall, bitter and alone. Hadn't he said work was filling the empty space in his life? The one that had been Petal's, it would seem.
She leaned towards Gemma. "I'm totally into him. If he didn't spend so much time hiding from Pet, I would be asking him out for a weekend. Have the full English experience before I go home. A girl like me shouldn't let someone like him go to waste, right?"
She was talking about Matt like he was a tempting piece of candy she was planning to steal. My face burned hot. Her words made me angry, and I broke one of the candied stems without meaning to. Quickly, I hid the pieces under a dish towel.
"Maybe you should see if he's hiding on the grounds where Lord William's working, behind the estate," I suggested, sweetly. "There's a path leading towards the woods. It's a little rocky, and the field is probably extra hot today...and there are a few teensy little insects since it's summertime ... but that shouldn't stop you, right?"
Trixie looked at me, a pair of cold eyes boring straight through my innocent look. "I don't do the outdoors unless it's mowed," she said.
"Oops. My mistake," I said, with a shrug. "I guess you can keep helping us. Would you lift that super-heavy pot from the wall behind the stove? Someone has to start melting the chocolate to make another batch of these. We need a few thousand, at least."
"A few thousand?" Trixie froze, a piece of hard chocolate halfway to her lips. I could see Dinah was hiding a smile as she listened.
"Oh, yes," she chimed in. "It's a good thing you've turned up.
You don't want your friend's wedding to be anything less than perfect, do you? And we've a long ways to go to finish it all."
"It should only take half the day," Gemma assured her. "Making the fudge itself, I mean. The decorating's just 'til late tonight probably."
"Midnight, at least, I should say," chimed in Dinah. Trixie now looked as if she'd eaten the whole tray of fudge before her.
"The man with the cake's here." Geoff popped his head through the open kitchen window. "We're bringing it in directly."
"Oh, mercy — have I cleaned out a spot in the fridge big enough?" Dinah's attention was momentarily transferred from the fudge to the arrival of the culinary masterpiece from Newquay. I noticed Trixie had completely disappeared by the time the cake's layers were carefully transported into cool storage.
I could see from the picture of the soon-to-be-completed creation that it was a simple ivory-colored tower that resembled a modern building, studded here and there with expensive-looking silver cake decorations. Clearly Petal's metropolitan tastes had trumped Donald's 'let's be English country' ideas this time.
Trixie might have made herself scarce, but her words were still lingering in my head. I found myself wandering in the garden after I finished decorating the marriage bower with its sprigs of greenery and dried heather, leaving room for the fresh flowers to be added early on the wedding morning.
I took the path to the cliff. Maybe with the idea I would find Matt there, even though it seemed unlikely he'd be around. He was probably off in some remote corner of the estate ... I was really being pathetic, wandering around in hopes he was in the gardens close to the house.
Halfway down the garden path to the cliff, I spotted Matt. He was gazing at the water, sitting on one of the rocks arranged close to the edge. I knew for sure that I had been hoping he would come here; that I had sensed that this was a place where he came to think. From the look on his face as he watched the Channel, he was doing a lot of it.
He waited until I came closer to speak. "I'm sorry I left so abruptly," he said. "After I brought you back. It seemed rude. I didn't realize it until later, I'm afraid."
I tucked my hands in the pockets of my green coat. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "That you knew her? That you had broken up with her?" I sighed. "Did anyone know, or was it a secret from everybody?"
"Not a secret," he answered. "Some people knew. But I generally avoided talking about it with anyone."
"Is that why you haven't been around the last few days?" I asked, quietly. "You could have told me you needed some space. You didn't have to avoid me — the house, I mean." I changed this quickly, feeling awkward. Perhaps Matt hadn't really thought of me as someone worth avoiding — only that he'd been rude to a fellow employee of the estate, for instance.
I wasn't sure he heard me over the distant roar of the water, until he answered. "I wasn't avoiding you," he said. "Or anyone. I ... was giving some thought to things. Ones I haven't thought about for some time."
I didn't say anything in reply. I wanted to say that this was fine, and that I understood. And I did...except for the tiny part of me that was hurt by all this, of course.
"Petal and I met here," he said. Matt had finally broken the silence. "As a girl, she came here with her family on holiday. And I ..." He paused. "We met again when I was working in Boston, where she was trying to become a model and give up her job in retail. We reconnected. I fell...very hard. It lasted for three years until she changed her mind." He swallowed. "I was foolish. I made desperate promises I couldn't possibly keep, about myself and everything in our lives — none of it was enough. It couldn't be."
There was so much left unsaid in those words. His voice was calm, yet it was impossible not to see the brief flicker of pain that crossed Matt's face. I imagined him begging her to stay, even promising to go wherever she wanted, be whatever she wanted. My stomach felt sick in response.
"I didn't like her when I first met her," I said, with a forced laugh. "Now I have a good reason for it. She broke your heart. She's still breaking it, I guess."
"I don't love her."
"Doesn't mean she can't hurt you," I said. "I don't think you can pretend that part away, Matt." I swallowed hard, because a lump was forming in my throat. "It's understandable. You don't have to hide it. Not from me, certainly." Me, the understanding friend and almost-stranger, who didn't have anything to lose by listening to him.
That Matt and I had been growing closer in those hours before he and Petal had appeared face to face — that truth was burning a hole in my own heart right now. I had been a second away from kissing him before; it was crazy that I felt this way, but it was as if she had taken away something I hadn't fully realized I wanted.
I wanted a chance with Matt — to have him look at me the way he did that afternoon, only with more than just a little spark of attraction in his eyes. And, somehow, Petal had taken it away with one glance.
"The other day, Julianne," he said. "What might have passed between us..." He looked at me as he stopped speaking. But not the way I had been fantasizing about. "It isn't a rebound, or an attempt to lead you on. Nothing like that."
I didn't want to hear the rest of whatever he planned to say; I didn't want to see the hurt in Matt's eyes become that of someone guilty of hurting me. An apology in those dark eyes would be unbearable on top of everything else.
"Please," he said. "Don't think of it that way."
I didn't answer. I chose to do the only thing I could, which was turn to leave. After taking a few steps, I stopped for a moment and looked back.
"What made you notice me?" I asked him. "What made you ... be nice to me?"
I was fighting hard for control of myself with this question, because it seemed dangerous. The door between us, one side friendship and one side attraction, was swinging between the two. We hadn't defined it, and I didn't want to with my choice of words.
Matt looked at me. "When the sunlight shines through your hair, there are strands of red that shine like fire," he said, gently.
I hadn't been prepared for that answer, and my heart skipped a beat. "Really," I said. Feigning skepticism. Any other time this would be playful, but now it was only that way on the surface; underneath, I was losing control of myself, like his words were part of the tide below.
"It's true." He turned towards the cliffside view again. "But it's not the real reason. It was because I'd never met anyone so bold and brash and confident at first meeting — who could almost convince me I was in the wrong just by the sheer tone of her opinion."
He had been kidding me until now, at least a little; but the seriousness underneath this last answer was threatening to take my breath. It was only the glimpse of sadness in that tender smile that kept things together for me.
"Nice to know it wasn't just my looks," I answered, jokingly — but I was really past being able to joke at this moment, his words had rattled me so. I only hoped he couldn't see it from my smile before I turned around and walked back up the path.
The house came into view when I crested the top of the path, the sun shining against the face of Cliffs House. Any other time, this would make me happy, and put a little more speed in my step as I approached. After all, I was happy here — my dreams had begun to come true, and even though my work was hectic, it was satisfying.
I took a few steps more. Slow ones.
It didn't really matter what I thought right now. It didn't really matter what I felt. All that mattered was the job I was supposed to be doing, making sure Petal and Donald's fairytale wedding fell into place.
It shouldn't matter at all that Matt's heart was still too broken for me to have a place in it. We were practically strangers, barely friends for more than two weeks. It made perfect sense not to fall in love with him, and to accept that he cared about someone from his past.
He still loved her. Big deal. It only hurt to know he was hurting, right? But that wasn't the only reason I felt crushed, and that was the hardest part for me to ac
cept.
Voices and laughter from the house's front drive. I could see a flashy race car painted in neon orange and black parked out front, Donald Price-Parker leaning against it, striking a casual pose as he talked with the best man — no doubt Gemma was watching from behind the house curtains, enjoying a glimpse of the football player's rippling muscles as he lifted the car's bonnet and pointed out something about the motor to his friend.
For the rest of the day, I worked frantically, keeping my mind elsewhere. I wrapped the stems of the flowers for decorating the rest of the ceremony's arch, the delicate white roses and sprigs of fresh heath blooms and rosemary. I checked on the cases of champagne and re-polished half the serving platters and waiters' trays until they gleamed like mirrors.
"Still working?" Pippa was in the doorway of the silver pantry, pulling off her cleaning apron. "You should be ready for a bit of a rest by now. I'm going home to put my feet up and have a curry."
"There's just a few more things to be done," I said, lightly. I made sure to avoid my reflection in the polished silver surface — there was a tiny chance that it showed my cheeks were colorless and my eyes were bloodshot from holding back a few tears whenever I thought too hard about this afternoon.
Pippa was staring at me. I knew it without looking up. "Look, whatever these incomers are saying about Ross," she began.
"Incomers?" I repeated.
"You know. Outsiders like them. Rich snobs what comes around and thinks they're better than everybody else." It was the first time Pippa had ever said anything less than complimentary about a celebrity, so for that reason I couldn't help but look up. "Anyway, Ross is worth twenty of them. I'll bet he's not still thinking about some petty little tart who spends her days on chat shows talking about chipless nail varnish and all."
I stifled a giggle. "She's definitely beneath him," I said. "But I think it's more complicated than that."
"So? I still say he's doesn't care a fig for her." She smiled at me, crookedly. "Or that Trixie person. Otherwise, half the girls in the village would get their hearts broke. Including the likes of us."
I hid my smile for this idea, and applied more vigor to polishing the silver platter as I tried to hold to Pippa's philosophy. But when she was gone, I turned my focus to the next item in need of attention, a champagne tray.
***