Jennifer Joyce - The Wedding that Changed Everything - a gorgeously uplifting romantic comedy

‘Of course. Thank you for coming, Emily. I hope you’ll enjoy the week I have planned. It’s going to be so much fun, I promise.’

‘I’m sure I’ll love it,’ I say, almost convincing myself with the fib. If Alice has her way, I’ll hate almost every second of it as we hunt out my ‘Prince Charming’. I want to gag at the mere thought.

‘Have you seen her?’ Carolyn asks Alice, lowering her voice.

Alice frowns. ‘Who?’

Carolyn takes a furtive look around us and lowers her voice even further. ‘Francelia.’

Alice pulls a face. ‘Unfortunately. She showed us to our room.’

Carolyn frowns. ‘Room? You’re sharing?’ Alice nods, and Carolyn throws her hands up in the air. ‘Bloody Francelia! Sorry, I had no idea. Francelia put herself in charge of allocating the rooms. I could try to rearrange something…’

Alice shakes her head. ‘It’s fine, honestly. I think it’ll be more fun this way.’

Carolyn gives a slow nod. ‘You’re probably right. Have you got room for one more?’

Alice mock-gasps. ‘Don’t tell me you’re fed up of Piers already.’

‘Never.’ Carolyn sighs, a serene smile on her face. ‘I can’t believe I actually get to marry him.’

Would it be totally rude to make gagging noises right now?

‘But anyway…’ Carolyn’s face is alive as she grasps hold of her sister’s shoulders, giving them an excited squeeze. ‘Have you seen Tom?’

Alice gasps – for real this time – and claps her hands together. ‘Tom’s here? I haven’t seen him in years . The last time was… Well, you know.’ I don’t know, but clearly Carolyn does and senses her sister would rather not elaborate. ‘I didn’t know you were still in touch. I sent him a friend request on Facebook about four years ago, but he never accepted it.’

Carolyn’s hands fall to her sides. ‘He never accepted mine either, and he avoided all my calls and texts after… you know.’

No, I still don’t, actually.

‘But he accepted your invitation, so he must have forgiven us.’ Alice’s gaze locks on to her sister’s. ‘Right?’

Carolyn breaks the eye contact and scuffs the toe of her shoe on the ground. ‘I didn’t actually invite him. We haven’t spoken for so long and everything, so…’ She shrugs. ‘I had no idea he’d be here until I saw him out the front this morning.’

‘But what’s he doing here, if you didn’t invite him?’

‘He works here. Apparently, he took over his dad’s role of head gardener when he retired. It was such a lovely surprise to see him, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had chance to chat to him yet. Shall we see if he’s got a few minutes to catch up?’ Carolyn links her arm through Alice’s, who in turn links me, and we start to head back towards the castle.

‘Who’s Tom?’ I’ve been a bit of a bystander during their conversation so far, but I’m curious.

‘He was one of our best friends growing up,’ Alice says as we head back into the castle. ‘His dad was the head gardener and Tom would help out during the school holidays, so we got to know him. Eventually, he came to the castle to hang out with us more than to help his dad. We had a bit of a foursome going: me, Carolyn, Tom and Archie.’

I’m about to ask who Archie is, but we’ve reached the front entrance and emerged back out of the castle again, and Alice and Carolyn are tearing down the stone steps. I follow after them as they race towards a hedge-lined rose garden. Working away with a pair of shears is one of the blokes I saw earlier while waiting for Alice to park the car. He barely glances up from his task when Carolyn calls out his name and the sisters tear off towards him.

‘Tom? Didn’t you hear me calling you?’ Carolyn’s enthusiasm hasn’t abated by the time she’s reached the gardener, despite his reticence. He’s still working away with his shears, pausing only briefly to flicker a smile at the pair. The smile doesn’t even come close to reaching his eyes.

‘Gosh, it’s been such a long time! I can’t believe you’re here.’ Carolyn’s smile is wide, genuine, and I feel a stab of anger as I watch him snipping away at the hedge. Talk about rude!

‘The gang’s back together again,’ Alice says, though, unlike her sister, her enthusiasm has dampened due to their old friend’s lack of interest. ‘Archie’s here somewhere too. We should all get together for a drink.’

‘I’m pretty busy,’ the gardener says without disrupting his snipping.

‘I can see that.’ Alice is frowning at Carolyn, who gives a small shrug. ‘I didn’t mean right now. Tonight?’

The gardener straightens and swipes at his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Don’t you have plans? Big wedding stuff?’ I see his lip start to curl as he turns towards the hedge again. Is he pissed off because he wasn’t invited? He has a bit of a cheek, especially since it appears he was the one who severed contact.

‘We’re having cocktails and dancing after dinner.’ Carolyn doesn’t appear to have clocked his resentment, even though he’s completely turned his back on us. ‘You should come!’

‘Maybe.’ Tom, still facing away, shrugs his shoulders and resumes his hedge-trimming. ‘I’ll see if I have time.’

‘Please come.’ Carolyn’s voice is so small, so disappointed, that I can’t help feeling for her. She was so excited to be reunited with her old friend but he’s behaving like a bit of a turd.

‘It’ll be fun,’ Alice says. ‘Like old times.’

Tom stops now, turning to face the sisters with a deep frown, but his forehead smooths out again and his lips flicker into a suggestion of a smile. ‘I can’t promise to stay for long, but I’ll pop over for a bit. Toast your marriage. Have a quick catch-up.’

‘Maybe have a dance?’ Carolyn nudges him playfully, but his smile doesn’t return.

‘Don’t push it.’ He opens the jaws of the shears and starts to snip away again. ‘We all know I’ve got the coordination skills of a drunken elephant.’

‘You were never that bad,’ Alice says, but Tom shakes his head, still working away with the shears.

‘I think you’re looking back with rose-tinted glasses.’

A silence follows, the only sounds coming from the shears as they lop off unruly clumps from the hedges.

‘We’ll let you get back to work then.’ Carolyn reaches up on tiptoe to kiss Tom’s cheek, ignoring the way he flinches away from the contact. ‘See you tonight.’

Tom simply holds up a hand in farewell before the three of us wander back towards the castle.

‘He seemed… nice,’ I say, once we’re far enough away from the rose garden.

‘He is.’ Alice glances over her shoulder, where Tom is merrily working away uninterrupted. ‘At least he was. He isn’t usually so…’ Grumpy? Uninterested? Rude? Alice can’t seem to find the right words, so she simply shrugs. ‘We were really close, but then we stopped coming here after…’ Alice’s eyes widen as she looks at her sister. ‘He hasn’t forgiven me, has he?’

‘Forgiven us .’ Carolyn puts a hand on Alice’s arm. ‘But I’m sure he has. It was a long time ago. I’m sure that whatever’s going on with Tom, it has nothing to do with…’ Carolyn’s gaze slides towards me briefly before returning to her sister. ‘ That . Maybe he’s just really busy and couldn’t stop to chat. There’s a lot to do before the wedding. I have high standards, you know.’ She winks at Alice, who manages a small smile. ‘Speaking of the wedding, I should be getting back to Francelia.’ She pulls a face. ‘She has so many to-do lists, I’m exhausted just thinking about them.’

Alice smiles wryly. ‘Have fun. I’m going to give Emily the grand tour and introduce her to the male guests. She’s single and ready to mingle.’ Alice giggles at the look of disgust I throw her way.