I
Crushed Velvet
Chapter One
Some women were bornto wear beautiful wedding dresses, and some women were born only to make them.
Laura folded the exquisite crushed-velvet gown. It was one of her most beautiful creations; a tailored column dress in pearl-grey that shimmered silver where the light caught it, perfect for a winter wedding. Perfect with her figure and colouring.
She lifted the coronet from her dressing table. Deep red winterberries and purple crystals arranged in a circle to hold her long dark hair away from her face. The red berries motif would be echoed in the bridal bouquet, the table settings, and the flower arrangements. She’d chosen it to contrast with the snow outside the church in Sweden, where Jacob’s family lived.
As soon as she’d packed the dress and all the accessories in the box, she picked up a thick felt tip marker. On the lid, she wrote, in big black letters:Oxfam Charity Shop, 146 York St, Brighton.
An involuntary sigh escaped her, quickly suppressed. There was no room for self-pity. And it was her own fault really, for being slow to learn the lesson.
One would think, after four failed engagements, four discarded wedding dresses, she would be used to it. That she would take the disappointment in her stride. But in fact, each break up took a slice out of her hope and confidence ‘til she had nothing left.
Hope and confidence that she’d collected for herself because no one at home had given her any. She had to scrape together every word of praise from anyone, a school teacher, an elderly lady at the bus stop, even the occasional “Oy! Come ‘ere princess,” from the drunk who slept outside the old cinema. Laura saved every compliment like pennies in a porcelain piggy bank, kept for a rainy day when she might need it.
Her mother had fallen pregnant at sixteen, then run away to be a stripper a year later. At least that was how Laura’s grandmother always told the story. Old family pictures showed her mother as a very pretty girl with a sweet smile, always practicing ballet dance moves. There was also a flyer for a touring dance company – not striptease – which the young mother must have joined. Either way, she’d left her baby behind to be raised by a very bitter and resentful gran. Secretly, Laura sympathised with the mother she never knew because the grandmother was like a giant hen that never stopped squawking and pecking at you.You’re as useful as a chocolate teapot.Squawk, squawk.You are just like your mother,peck, squawk.
It’s not that her grandmother was unloving; she had plenty of love. But it was all given to Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler, also known as Mick and Milo, her cousins. Their mother, unlike Laura’s was properly married of course – to Ebenezer Scrooge. And the extended family had lost no opportunity to remind Laura that they were stuck with her, that she was a second-class relation.
Little Laura had sought refuge in weddings. Hiding in her room, she’d pour over the pictures in bridal magazines. The handsome groom waiting at the altar for the woman he adored. What must it feel like to be the bride walking down the aisle to a man who had chosen her over everyone else in the world…
Granny!Vlad the Impaler would shout.Laura’s looking at wedding magazines again.
One day, she too would marry a man whose eyes shone with love for her, a man who wanted her more than anything else in the world. A man who couldn’t wait to build a happy home with her and choose furniture and beautiful things to fill it.
Granny!Ivan the Terrible would snitch.Laura’s pasting pictures of white dresses in her scrap book again.
Stop dreaming.her grandmother would scold.Who’s going to want you?
But little Laura continued to dream. One day, she would prove them all wrong when she, too, got her happily ever after.
One day.
Her best friend at school had advisedStop talking about marriage.You’ll scare boys away. If you hope to keep a man,you should play it cool.
She tried.
Played it cool, then played it hot. Played hard to get and easy to get. She read every book about finding love, theMars &Venusseries, The Rules of Dating, What Men Like About Women. And she’d followed the advice.
Standing now in front of her full-length mirror, Laura undid the large jaw clip and let fall her rich shiny darkest-brown hair. It hung in a perfect curtain down to her elbows. She’d spent hundreds on it because, apparently, men found long, glossy hair sexy. Then, before she could chicken out, she reached for her best scissors.
Cut, cut, cut.
All of it.
She’d go to the salon later and let them shape it, but it was done. It didn’t matter what men liked; Laura was out of the man business.
Chapter Two
“Nice haircut,”Joanie said, placing two cups of hot chocolate on the table. “Trés chic.”
“Is that French, for ‘sexless urchin’?” Laura touched the re-styled pixie cut. They were sitting outside the café and the February air was cold on her newly-exposed neck. Blue-Sage Bistro was the newest café inThe Lanes, but already it was very popular. Even at four in the afternoon, half the tables inside were occupied. Laura was in no mood for people, so she’d chosen a table outside on the narrow stone-paved lane. Joanie took advantage of the afternoon lull to leave the kitchen and sit with her.
“Now don’t be upset,” Joanie said using the cinnamon stick to stir her hot chocolate. “I didn’t want to say it before because you were all dreamy and full of big plans, but I didn’t like him. I mean he was, er…” Joanie cast around for the English word then gave up. “Sans saveur. You know? Like cottage cheese.”
