Trisha Ashley - Wedding Tiers

She’d got me worried, but later, when I got Ben on the phone and told him, he said he didn’t think the readership of a little niche magazine like SONW would be the same as that for an expensive glossy like Country at Heart. But he was pleased he was in it, I could tell from his voice.

I didn’t mention the Libby and Tim situation. I thought I’d give it twenty-four hours and see if it wore off.

A friend is suddenly moving back to the village after dividing her time between Italy and London for several years—in fact, she is here!

She always had a fancy to live in a nearby small Elizabethan house and, when it recently came onto the market, she snapped it up—and the owner with it. Reader, she married him!

I’ve had to quickly finish off the Diamonds Are Forever anniversary cake I was making (a special order) so I could start on my friend’s bridal cake…

‘Cakes and Ale’

Libby and Tim certainly didn’t let the grass grow beneath their feet, and by the time Ben returned from London only a few days later, they were engaged, living together and planning their imminent nuptials.

I’d finally broken the news to Ben on the phone, but I wasn’t sure he quite believed me until he got back and I showed him the announcement in the local paper, which had just come out.

‘This has to be the most unlikely pairing ever!’ I said. ‘I mean, “A marriage has been arranged between Mrs Elizabeth Cazzini of London and Pisa, and Mr Timothy Rowland-Knowles of Blessings, Neatslake,” may sound very well, but everyone around here knows that she started life as plain Libby Martin from the council estate. And if her mother wasn’t actually on the game, she sailed perilously close to the edge! Libby doesn’t even have a father to give her away; she says she’s going to do it herself. Mrs Talkalot at the post office says the village is reeling with shock, but she personally doesn’t think Libby is after Tim’s money. I told her Libs is much better off than Tim so, if anything, it would be the other way round, but I’m not sure she believed me.’

Even two rich and elderly husbands later, transformed into a wealthy and sophisticated widow, I was sure there would always be people who would try to put her down. Not that they would manage it. Libby might look like the fairy off the top of the Christmas tree, but her backbone is pure steel.

‘That sort of class snobbishness doesn’t seem to matter so much these days, does it?’ Ben said rather absently, staring at the newspaper.

It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt out that it certainly did matter to his parents, who had never thought me good enough for their blue-eyed boy, but I heroically managed to stop myself in time. It was mostly his mother’s jealousy and spite, anyway.

‘I suppose you’re right and perhaps no one will take much notice, especially since Libby’s mum moved down to Brighton years ago to live with her other daughter,’ I conceded, though if Gloria Martin turned up at the wedding—and there is no way you can’t invite your own mother, regardless of what you think of her lifestyle choices, is there?—then it might rake things up again. ‘Tim doesn’t care who her parents are. Dorrie Spottiswode did think Libby was a gold-digger at first, but she quickly warmed to her once she discovered she was a well-off widow, and she’s started going on about “vigorous plebeian blood enriching the atrophied Rowland-Knowles family tree”, now.’

‘Libby’s certainly a fast worker; I’ve only been away a few days.’ Ben didn’t sound admiring, more thoughtful, but as I’ve said, he’d always been a bit jealous of our close friendship. Perhaps it was because Libby and I shared a bond that deep. We both had sadness in our pasts and a yearning for security, even if our ideas of what that entails, and how to obtain it, were entirely different. I often suspected a bit of Ben’s parents’ snobbish attitude had rubbed off on him too, so no matter how smart and rich she became, in his mind she remained Libby Martin from the dysfunctional family at the wrong end of the village.

‘She didn’t have to work at it, Ben, because she and Tim fell in love the instant they set eyes on each other again. It’s terribly romantic! He showed her over the house and then they went out to dinner—and by next day they were cruising Lord Street in Southport, looking for an engagement ring, and sending out the announcement to the newspapers. They just caught the deadline for this week’s issue.’

‘Does she have enough room on her finger for any more rings?’ he asked sarcastically.

His attitude was really starting to annoy me. ‘Don’t be silly. She took off Joe’s ring when she put on Tim’s, just as she did with her first husband’s when she married Joe. The ring’s terribly pretty—rose diamonds in a platinum setting.’

I tried not to sound too wistful. The only ring I possessed was Granny’s old worn wedding band, upstairs in a box of treasures; but then, when I spent most of my days either up to the elbows in earth or cake mix, it wouldn’t be practical to wear jewellery anyway, would it? But it would have been nice to have the option!

‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure,’ Ben quoted smugly.

‘Oh, honestly, Ben!’ I snapped. ‘What is the matter with you? Libby’s married in haste twice before and been very happy, so I think she knows what she’s doing. And it will be lovely to have her living nearby—she’ll be company when you’re away. They’ve asked us both over for a drink tomorrow evening, so that you and Tim can get to know each other.’

‘We do know each other. We’ve met a couple of times down at the Griffin.’

‘Oh, have you? I know we ran into him there once when we were with Stella and Mark, but we didn’t talk much.’ Ben does sometimes walk down there in the evening with Harry and then stays for a drink, and to most men, exchanging a few words at the bar is enough to constitute a friendship. ‘Well, it’s kind of them to invite us round for a drink, isn’t it?’

He grunted unenthusiastically, but I expect he was just tired. As usual on his return from these trips, he was looking exhausted and glad to be home, but I had a feeling there was also something on his mind…

‘Libby showed me over Blessings yesterday and the Elizabethan part does want a lot doing to it. Tim’s stepmother really let it go. It’s not even clean. That Portuguese couple who worked for her don’t seem to have been very efficient at all, so I’m helping her have a good spring-clean. Just as well it’s not that big a house, more of a town house than a manor.’

‘Haven’t you got enough to do, Josie? I hardly see you as it is. You’re always off looking after Harry, walking the dog, making cakes or doing errands for the Three Graces.’

‘But these days you’re shut away in the studio working most of the time you’re home, Ben, so I don’t see much of you either, unless you come to talk to me while I’m gardening,’ I pointed out.

‘I want to finish that second series of paintings,’ he said, ‘but if you’re out half the time, you aren’t going to know whether I’ve been looking for you or not, are you?’

Actually, I did have a pretty good idea, because once he was down in the studio he was lost to the world until called in for meals or to help with something. He’d even constructed a little lean-to kitchen area at the side, with a cold-water sink and a kettle, and took a Thermos of cold milk down with him for his tea. I kept the biscuit barrel stocked up, and popped down with hot scones and other treats from time to time. Sometimes he used the kitchen area as a darkroom and I lived in fear that one day he’d absent-mindedly make his tea with developing fluid, or something.