Lucy Gordon - His Diamond Bride

The second book in the Diamonds Are Forever series, 2011

Dear Reader,

Given the way my last heroine, Pippa, was influenced by Dee, her grandmother, there was no way I could write Pippa’s story without also writing Dee’s. She came from another age when men and women saw each other in more traditional roles, and the obstacles to love were different, obstacles like the turmoil caused by war.

Unlike Pippa, Dee was not spectacularly beautiful. Pleasant but unremarkable, she chose a useful life as a nurse. The beauty of the family was her sister Sylvia and, when she brought home the handsome Mark Sellon, Dee was content to admire him from a distance.

Then he became a pilot, flying daring missions and being hailed as a hero. To Dee this glamorous man seemed more out of her reach than ever. How could he ever love her? And how could she ever believe in his love?

Mark, lost in confusion, struggling to recover from terrible experiences, could make his way only slowly toward the love of his life, but when he saw his destiny, lit up and beckoning, he pursued it with determined purpose.

The road to each other was complicated and troublesome, with pain and despair as well as joy. At the end of it lay their sixtieth wedding anniversary, celebrated publicly with diamonds, but privately with a contentment of heart that they would once have thought impossible.

It was the triumphant achievement of that joy that gave Dee a new mission in life, to reach out to her beloved granddaughter, helping Pippa find the way to her own happiness.

Warmest wishes,

L G

5 th August 2003

‘HE MUST have been the most handsome man who ever lived,’ Pippa sighed, her eyes fixed on the framed photograph in her hands. ‘Look at those film star features and the way he’s half smiling, as though at a private joke.’

‘That’s what used to drive the other girls wild,’ Lilian said. ‘Mum said he could charm the birds off the trees, and always keep them wondering.’

She was fifty-eight, with grey hair and a vivid face. She smiled when she spoke of her parents.

The photograph had been taken sixty-three years earlier. It showed a fine-looking young man, splendid in airman’s uniform, his head slightly cocked, his features alive with sardonic humour. It bore only a faint resemblance to the old man that he was now, but the glint in his eyes had survived.

He was crouching on the wing of an aeroplane, one arm resting on a raised knee, his face turned to the camera, yet with a mysterious air of gazing into the future, as though he could see what was coming and was eager to meet it. Everything in the picture was redolent of life and masculine attraction.

‘He may have been a hero back then, but I’ll bet he was a devil, too,’ Pippa said gleefully.

She was just twenty-one and beautiful. Her mother was immensely proud of her but she didn’t let that show too often. ‘Too attractive for her own good,’ was her favourite expression to conceal her pride.

‘Yes, I’ve heard he was a devil, among many other things,’ she agreed, looking back at the picture of Flight Lieutenant Mark Sellon. ‘By the way, the local TV station has been in touch. They want to do a piece-hero and wife celebrate sixty years of marriage. And the local paper. They’re both sending someone to the party this afternoon to get some pictures and a few words about all the fantastic things he did in the war.’

‘Grandpa won’t like that,’ Pippa observed. ‘He hates going back over that time. Have you ever realised how little we actually know about it? He always avoids the subject. “Ask Gran”, he says. But she doesn’t tell much either.’

‘I wish they’d let me throw the party in my house,’ Lilian said. ‘It’s bigger and we could have got more people in.’ She looked around disparagingly at the modest little property that stood at the far end of Crimea Street on the outskirts of London.

‘It’s where it all began,’ Pippa reminded her. ‘They met when he came to stay here with the family the last Christmas before the war, and all over the house there are places that remind her of him as he was then.’

‘I suppose now you know them better than any of us,’ Lilian said.

Pippa was her youngest child, several years younger than her siblings, arriving when the others were all at school and Lilian had resumed her career as a midwife. Lilian’s mother had come to the rescue, announcing that, as they lived only three streets apart, she could take on most of the baby’s care. The result was that Pippa had always been close to her grandparents, regarding them almost as extra parents.

She was spirited, even rebellious and in her teens this had led to difficulties with Lilian, resulting in her taking shelter in Crimea Street. The trouble had been smoothed out. Mother and daughter were friends again, but Pippa now lived with her grandparents, keeping a protective eye on them as they grew old and frail.

On the surface it was a perfect arrangement, yet Pippa was a worry to all who loved her. With her brains and beauty she should have been doing something more demanding than a dead-end job, and her social life should have consisted of more than staying at home almost every evening.

All the fault of Jack Sothern, Lilian thought bitterly. He’d seemed like a decent fellow, and everyone had been happy when he became engaged to Pippa. But he’d broken it off ruthlessly just a few weeks before the planned Christmas wedding, leaving Pippa devastated.

That had been nine months ago. Pippa had seemed to recover, but the life had gone out of her, as though she was emotionally flattened. She still smiled and laughed with a charm that won everyone over, but behind her eyes there was a blankness that never changed.

The doorbell rang and Lilian went to answer it. After that she was kept busy letting in guests until the house was overflowing. Pippa welcomed everyone with a finger over her lips.

‘They’re upstairs lying down,’ she whispered. ‘I want them to rest until the last minute. Tonight’s going to be very tiring for them.’

Lilian’s brother Terry appeared. He was in his fifties, heavily built with greying hair and bullish features that radiated good nature. With him was his wife Celia, two children and three grandchildren. Hard on his heels came Irene, his first wife, now remarried, also with a herd of youngsters.

‘I can’t even keep track of them,’ Pippa confided to her Uncle Terry. ‘Are we related to them all?’

‘We’re definitely related to that one,’ Terry observed, indicating a boy of fourteen who seemed possessed by an imp of mischief. ‘Mum says he’s exactly like Dad was years ago: into everything, driving everyone mad, then winning them over with that smile. But he’s bright; always top of the class, apparently.’

‘He didn’t get that from Grandpa,’ Pippa remarked. ‘He was bottom of the class, according to him. He says there was always something more interesting to do than read dreary books, and there still is.’

Terry laughed appreciatively. ‘That sounds like Dad. His idea of serious reading is a magazine with pretty girls. I hope he doesn’t let Mum see them.’

Pippa chuckled. ‘She’s not bothered. She buys them for him.’

Terry nodded. ‘That sounds just like her.’

‘Have you got all the pictures out?’ Terry asked.

‘Yes, they’re in here.’ She led the way to a room at the back, decorated for the party, hung with paper chains and flowers and full of photographs. Some were family groups, but most were individual shots.