Lucy Gordon: Daniel and Daughter

'Now tell us about Mark,' Daniel said, adding with foolhardy recklessness, 'Are we invited to the wedding?'

'Oh, Daddy! I don't want to marry Mark. I only ran away because-' She met his eyes.

'Because I hassled you?' he asked gently.

Phoebe nodded. 'I must have been crazy,' she admitted. 'Mark's even worse than you.'

'Thank you, darling,' Daniel said meekly.

'Oh, you know what I mean. The car broke down. so we had to hire another one. Mark tried to pay with his credit card only there wasn't enough credit on it because he hadn't returned the ring, although he'd promised me. So we had an argument about that, and in the end I paid and that made him grumpy. I said there was no need to carry on about it because I had plenty of money now, and he just hated that. He sulked all the rest of the way.'

'Poor Phoebe,' Daniel said, fighting to keep a straight face.

'Honestly, Daddy, he's been the pits. I've decided to give up men altogether.'

'Well, some of them aren't all that bad,' Lee said, refusing to meet Daniel's eye. 'But you won't have time for them just now, with so many other horizons opening to you. Later, perhaps-'

'No, I'm giving them up for good,' Phoebe declared. 'I've got a life plan. I'm going to model for the next few years, maybe until I'm twenty-five. By then I'll be past my best, and I'll have made pots of money, and then I'll go to Oxford.'

'Oxford?' Daniel asked, hardly daring to hope.

'Of course. I always meant to go when I finished my modelling career.' She patted her father's hand kindly. 'I'll be ready for it by then.'

'But-why didn't you say so before?'

'I would have done if you'd given me the chance. But you kept laying down the law and making me cross, and by the time we'd finished bickering I'd forgotten what I wanted to say. But I'll go to Oxford in the end.'

'Only if you want to,' Daniel said quickly. 'It's your life and your choice.'

'Why did you postpone the wedding?' Lee asked.

'We just kept on niggling each other, and it didn't seem right to marry like that. I guess I knew then that we weren't really going through with it. It was like a game, only then it became real, and suddenly I knew I didn't want to.'

Lee nodded silently. It had happened that way with her. But too late.

Daniel looked up. 'Ah! The groom.'

There was a scowl on Mark's face as he approached them. Daniel rose to his feet.

'I suppose you've talked her out of it,' Mark said sulkily.

'Phoebe didn't need any talking,' Lee told him. 'She knows neither of you are ready for marriage, and I think you know it too.'

'What I think,' he said furiously, 'is that none of this need have happened if you hadn't been so clutch-fisted with my money. It's all your fault. Lee, and if you had any sense of decency you'd-'

Mark never finished. Daniel's fist connected with his chin, sending him staggering back, clutching wildly at thin air. Lee and Phoebe got hastily out of the way while he collided with a low table and ended up sprawled on the sofa, looking up at his assailant with astonishment.

'Sorry,' Daniel said, blowing on his knuckles. 'I didn't mean to act like a caveman, but I don't allow anyone to insult my future wife.'

Phoebe beamed. 'That's wonderful! I'm so happy. I thought it would never happen.'

'But-' Lee began.

Daniel held up a hand-like a traffic cop, as his daughter later informed him. 'Lee, darling,' he said firmly, 'I could go grey-haired waiting for you to decide, and I don't intend to-certainly not after last night. I'm going to be very old-fashioned and tell you to stop dithering like some fluffy-headed little thing. I want to marry you and I'm tired of waiting. So you're going to give me an answer and then we're going to get married.'

'And my answer's going to be yes, is it?'

'It's the only answer I'll accept.' Daniel spoke calmly but his pallor betrayed his apprehension. 'I'm not much of a bargain as a husband. I'm overbearing, manipulative-all the things you've called me. But I love you. And you love me. Marriage is the only thing that makes sense. I want us to go into that smithy now and be married over the anvil.'

'But-but, Daniel,' she stammered, 'it won't be legally binding-'

'It doesn't matter. We'll have the official ceremony when we get back to London. But I want a smithy wedding, because I know that you'll never go back on anything you agree to in this place.'

Still she hesitated, longing for the courage to make the final leap. It had never occurred to her that Daniel would ask for her commitment here, of all places, where her ghosts lingered.

But that was why he'd done it, of course. It was there in his eyes: he knew exactly what she needed and how to care for her. With this one man she'd found not only love but also the security that had always eluded her. He'd said, 'There's no safe place in love', and it was true. But it was also true that the knowledge of love was the greatest safety, and it had taken her all this time to see it.

'I'll marry you, she said joyfully, slipping her hand into his.

Phoebe let out a carol of delight, and even Mark grinned his pleasure. 'Sorry, Lee,' he said, and kissed her cheek.

'Here. You must have these.' Phoebe took the flowers from her hair and gently fitted them on Lee's head. Then she handed her the matching posy. 'Now you look like a bride.'

But it wasn't the flowers that made her look like a bride. It was the glow of happiness in her eyes as she gazed at Daniel, the second man she'd married in Gretna Green. And this time the right one.

He took her hand and they returned to the smithy. The tour guide had just finished with a party who were leaving. He smiled as he saw them, perfectly understanding the situation, and waved them forward.

'Are you sure?' Daniel asked anxiously.

'Quite sure,' Lee said fervently. 'Oh, my darling, I took far too long. But now I'm quite, quite sure.'

The anvil was there, the same anvil over which she'd made a terrible mistake a lifetime ago. But now everything was different. With Mark and Phoebe standing beside them they clasped hands, and Daniel spoke.

'I, Daniel, call on these persons here present to witness that I take Leonie to be my wife eternally.'

In a steady voice, Lee replied, 'I, Leonie, call on these persons here present to witness that I take Daniel to be my husband eternally.'

Then the guide raised his hammer to bring it thundering down onto the anvil, and in a loud voice he cried, 'So be it!'