Before I Do(58)

“Well then,” he said. “Thank you for letting me show you my work.” He sauntered toward the gallery door, and Audrey followed him, in a daze. “I can see you have an artist’s eye. I knew you would understand me and my foibles a little better if you saw my pieces.”

Audrey stared at him in bemusement.

“Oh, your bag?” he said. “You left it in the other room.”

It was back by the mirror. She swallowed, not daring to show externally the panic she felt inside. Light on her feet, she ran, lifting her bag hastily from the floor, spilling the tin of peaches she had at the top, the ones she had bought on her way to the gallery as a gift for Fred. She watched the tin roll across the floor into a dark corner. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Benedict had followed her in here. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself bending down to retrieve the peaches, his hands reaching for her hips as she crouched. She abandoned the can, swinging quickly back around with her bag and running past him, back to the safety of daylight and the gallery door.

“In such a hurry. Are you sure you have everything?” Benedict asked, his voice all friendly confusion.

She nodded, mute, her heart pounding against her chest, telling her to go, to get out, to escape. “I have certainly enjoyed our little chat,” he said, reaching out to adjust the bag strap on her shoulder. She wanted to slap him away, but she didn’t. “And remember to walk a little taller, shoulders back, chin up, my little Ferrari.” And then he made a growling sound, like an engine revving.

She thanked him. She thanked him. Then marveled at the fact that her manners were so deeply ingrained. In the street, as soon as she was far enough away, she stopped, leaned against a lamppost, and gasped for air.





32


Forty-Five Minutes Before I Do



Audrey hurried along the corridor to the morning room, avoiding eye contact with everyone she passed. She found Granny Parker sitting in a wing-backed chair, reading a different Jilly Cooper novel from the one she’d been reading last night. She looked slightly like a Bond villain plotting some dastardly plan for world domination.

“Ah, Audrey,” she said.

“I must be quick, Granny, it’s not long until the service. Is everything okay?”

Granny Parker shut her book. “I didn’t get to talk to you last night, after that debacle at dinner. I wanted a word before the wedding.” She patted her book in her lap. “You’ll be the first in six generations of Mrs. Parkers who hasn’t been a Yorkshire lass, you know.”

Audrey nodded, humoring her. “Well, it’s good to shake up the bloodlines now and again, isn’t it?”

“Parkers are as Yorkshire as tea and cake, as Yorkshire as the Dales.”

“Are you saying you disapprove of me because I’m too southern?” Audrey asked in a friendly tone. She was used to Granny Parker’s eccentricities.

“I don’t disapprove, I just see what I see.” Granny Parker paused, drumming her fingers against the spine of her book. Audrey watched the woman’s face, the crease lines around the edges of her lips like they were a well-played concertina. Her face looked as though every emotion had lived there at some stage or another, but beneath the wrinkled folds of skin, the older woman’s eyes were sharp and clear. “Omens are the universe’s way of telling us something isn’t right.”

Audrey blanched at this. She could see Granny Parker truly believed what she was saying.

“Well, I don’t agree,” she said tightly. “People see what they want to see.”

Granny Parker reached out a hand and squeezed Audrey’s arm. “I’ve got a sense for these things, I always have done, I feel it in my knuckles.” She tutted. “Your soul’s too heavy for one so young. You’re carrying something around with you, and you need to put it down. Don’t bring it into your life with Josh, it wouldn’t be fair.” She paused and let out a slow sigh. “But I suppose we are where we are. I make my peace with it today, for Josh’s sake.” She pulled out a small blue purse and handed it to Audrey. “I wanted to give you this before the service. Something borrowed, something blue, something Yorkshire, through and through.”

The woman looked so sincere as she handed her the purse, Audrey tried to swallow the previous insult about her having a heavy soul.

“What is this?”

“Soil, from the farm I grew up on.” She peered at Audrey, her eyes now soft and kind. “Every Parker woman had a piece of Yorkshire in her, and so I’m giving you a piece of it for you and yours. Even though Josh has turned into a right prissy southerner.”

Audrey smiled at this. “Thank you.”

“Do you think he’ll ever get back to farming? You could leave London, the two of you. He used to love helping with the cows when he was younger. I don’t like to see him getting soft behind a desk.”

“He’s not soft, Granny. He goes to the gym, he plants trees most weekends—it’s physically demanding, trust me.”

“Ah, he’s soft. My husband could pick up a cow, he could.”

Audrey smiled. “Well, there’s not much demand for cow lifting in London.”

“I also wanted to give you this,” said Granny Parker, taking a well-thumbed copy of Riders by Jilly Cooper from her bag and handing it to Audrey. “Three things you need in a marriage—trust, humor, and a little bedroom inspiration from Jilly Cooper.”