“And you?” she asked Millie.
Millie laid a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, George did a full background check on him before we went to South Africa, but there didn’t seem to be a reason to mention it at the time.” There was genuine empathy in her face.
“And then you got back and it was too late I was already having an affair with a married man.”
Millie frowned and gave her a quizzical look.
“You thought I knew all about it and didn’t mind being the other woman?”
“Laura,” Joanie interjected. “You don’t know.”
At the same time, Millie said, “He’s a widower.”
A wid—a what?
It was Millie, predictably again, who explained. “His wife died. She’d been very sick. Bed-ridden I think, and in the last year developed more breathing difficulties, and eventually passed away last September.”
Laura stared into her glass. Her mind was struggling to put the information together.
Joanie topped up her wine.
“Stop trying to make me drunk.”
“Drunk is the best thing when you’ve had a shock.”
Why hadn’t he told her all that? He’d had loads of time. Walks in the night, conversations about his mother and father and her grandmother. Why hadn’t he thought to tell her a small detail like this?
Jacob, her ex-fiancé, had kept important information from her, too. Always the previous relationship, the other woman they had loved and kept hidden from her, until it came out and smacked her in the face.
She sat in silence staring at the full glass of wine by her hand. All her life she’d been the outsider. Family outings planned in secret because Laura couldn’t come, didn’t have enough money to afford the ticket. Secret gossip that her cousins, Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler whispered about in front of her but never told her.
She took a big gulp. “This wine is too nice. But I’m not drunk enough to forget that he lied…” There. She said it and didn’t cry. “And now the subject really is closed.” She pushed her plate away. “I’ve had enough chicken and mushroom pie. I need cake.”
Pierre passed her the tray of cupcakes and Laura chose a poppyseed one with lemon icing.
A little later, Rovena asked, “Can we talk about the wedding dress?”
“What is there to talk about?” Laura gave them a brave smile. At least in her mind it had been a brave smile, for all she knew it came out looking like Jack Nicholson inTheShining.
“We might have a solution,” Pierre started.
Millie picked up the topic. “For a start, I have no intention of wearing the VW monstrosity.” She poured them all more wine.
The atmosphere was – if not more cheerful – much louder.
“We looked,” Rovena said. “It’s not as bad as we thought. As long as you remove the silk underskirt, the Chiffon is almost OK. The bodice is unharmed, and beautiful, the rest is…”
“Almost OK,” Laura repeated “But ‘almost OK’ is not enough.”
“I don’t care.” Millie held up her glass in a toast. “It’s my wedding and I’ll wear what I like.”
“Without the silk underskirt, everyone will be able to see your legs.” Laura explained much too loudly. She really had had too much wine. “They’ll see right through the chiffon layer, and with the holes it’ll be a more tantalizing peekaboo of your underwear as well.”
They were all looking at her and smiling. What was wrong with them; were they stupid?
Joanie licked the icing off another cake then wiped her mouth on a napkin. “When Laura is upset, she can’t see what’s right in front of her.” Her friend gave her a loving look full of her usual challenge before turning back to the others “You’ll need to spell it out.”
“We can weave silk here.” Rovena waved a hand at the machinery. “The loom is fast, and we have lots of white, and off-white thread. You’ll have enough silk in the morning.”
