Trisha Ashley - Wedding Tiers

TRISHA ASHLEY

Wedding Tiers

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge, London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2009

Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007329052

Version: 2018-04-23

Jean Ashley, 1927-2009, who took joy in my success

Copyright

Prologue: Ends and Beginnings, 1983

Chapter One-Cakes and Ale

Chapter Two-Sweet Music

Chapter Three-Blessings

Chapter Four-Love, Actually

Chapter Five-All Apple Pie

Chapter Six-Hippie Chic

Chapter Seven-Gathering In

Chapter Eight-Snap Happy

Chapter Nine-Pisa Cake

Chapter Ten-Slightly Adulterated

Chapter Eleven-Over and Out

Chapter Twelve-Stitched Up

Chapter Thirteen-Altered Image

Chapter Fourteen-White Wedding

Chapter Fifteen-Undone

Chapter Sixteen-Peapodded

Chapter Seventeen-Off-Piste

Chapter Eighteen-Mixed Pickles

Chapter Nineteen-Driven

Chapter Twenty-Faithful Friends

Chapter Twenty-one-Visiting Rights

Chapter Twenty-two-Unwanted Presence

Chapter Twenty-three-The Family Way

Chapter Twenty-four-Handsome Cavaliers

Chapter Twenty-five-Chicken

Chapter Twenty-six-Subtleties

Chapter Twenty-seven-Spring Fever

Chapter Twenty-eight-Three Tiers for the Bride

Chapter Twenty-nine-Good Reception

Chapter Thirty-Tried and Tested

Chapter Thirty-one-May Day

Chapter Thirty-two-Raspberries

Chapter Thirty-three-Family Matters

Chapter Thirty-four-Gestures

Chapter Thirty-five-Wedding Belles

Chapter Thirty-six-Fruits and Leaves

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Exclusive extract of Good Husband Material

Also by Trisha Ashley

About the Publisher

When Josie awoke in hospital, unscathed except for concussion and an impressive array of bruises, she had no recollection of the crash. Granny, red-eyed but stoical, had to break the news to her.

Somehow she managed to blank out most of the weeks immediately following the accident too, so that when she looked back later it seemed to her that one day she was living in St Albans with a full set of parents and several good friends, leavened with the usual teenage-years angst and a heartfelt, if destined to be forever unrequited, passion for Sting, and the next she was being whisked off alone to Granny’s cottage in Lancashire, to start a new life.

‘It’s just thee and me now, flower,’ Granny was all too often to remark, though with the best of intentions. But it wasn’t likely that Josie would forget that fact, even if amnesia and anger were her current first lines of defence. For she was totally and illogically furious, both with her parents for so selfishly getting themselves killed, and with poor, grieving, gentle Granny for being truly ancient, so that Josie was convinced that she would also soon be snatched away, leaving her totally bereft.

It would be better to love no one, to feel nothing at all—much safer.

All that summer, she silently and sullenly followed Granny around the garden while she hoed, dug, planted and harvested, or helped Uncle Harry (who lived next door and was not a real uncle, only having married Granny’s cousin) to tend the poultry. And slowly Josie began to gain some comfort from the cycle of cultivation, the clucking hens and the drowsy, contented humming of bees; while across the Green, the ancient church bells repeatedly rang a joyful wedding peal, a signal that hope and happiness still existed and might one day be hers again.

Only in the evenings, lying in her narrow bed among the transplanted possessions of her former life, the mournful screams of the peacocks next door in the gardens of Blessings would pierce right to her heart with unbearable sadness, and she would put a pillow over her head and weep.

She didn’t take the bus to her new school on the first day. Instead, Uncle Harry drove her there in the yellow Vauxhall Cavalier that was his pride and joy. And then, embarrassingly, he and Granny both stood at the gates like the oldest parents in the world while Josie went on alone. She turned once, and they waved at her, as she had known they would: it was comforting but deeply uncool.

Catching sight of her, a passing youth—tall and broad-shouldered, with floppy, light brown hair—stopped dead and gave her a big, drop-dead-gorgeous smile. Suddenly breathless, she gazed into his warm hazel eyes, and it was as though she already knew she’d found a kindred spirit, a soul mate—recognised that fate, having taken love away with one sweep of the dice, had then, fickle, tossed her a perfect six.

‘Hello!’ he said, his voice deep, friendly and confident. ‘I’m Benjamin Richards—but you can call me Ben…or anything else you like.’

Flustered, she stammered shyly: ‘I’m Josie. Josie Gray.’

‘Nice to meet you, Josie Gray.’ He smiled again before rejoining his waiting friends, who were all nudging each other and laughing.

She was jerked out of her trance by a voice at her elbow saying, ‘You’ve been here five minutes and dishy Ben Richards spoke to you? Wow!’

A small, slender, impishly pretty blonde girl was looking her up and down from under her fringe as if she wasn’t quite sure what the attraction had been. ‘You must be the orphan—only we were told not to mention that.’

‘You just did,’ snapped out Josie, who had become used to people tiptoeing around her as though she were some kind of delicately balanced explosive device.

The girl shrugged. ‘Well, you can’t go pussyfooting around things for ever, can you? I’m Libby Martin, and if it makes you feel any better, my mother’s an alcoholic slut and I have no idea who my father was.’

Strangely, it did make Josie feel better, and she grinned. Then the bell went and everyone started to stream towards the door.

‘Come on—Miss Price told me I had to show you where to go and I’ve got to look after you all week,’ Libby said. ‘God, I’m so glad you don’t look naff—apart from that terrible haircut. If we’re going to be friends, you’ll have to do something about it.’

‘Granny cut it and I think it looks cool,’ Josie said defensively, then added, ‘Are we going to be friends?’

‘Oh, I think so, don’t you? Probably end up BF.’

‘BF?’

‘Best friends.’ Her blue eyes went wide. ‘Where on earth are you from?