Christmas at the Little Wedding Shop

‘Sera…’ It’s the Sunday girl calling up. ‘There’s a guy waiting for you downstairs. I put him in the White Room.’

If this is Quinn, it’s an entirely unscheduled visit. Right now he should be at Rose Hill Manor, taking delivery of the starry ceilings for the ballroom. Thank goodness he didn’t do his usual trick of walking right on in like he owns the place, and make it all the way up to the studio. I hurl myself down the stairs, and thirty seconds later I’m skidding to a halt on the bleached floor of the White Room, gasping.

‘What the hell are you doing here? What about the heavenly ceilings?’

From the way Quinn’s holding back his smile, he looks like he’s trying not to laugh ‘Nice to see you too.’ His hands are deep in the pockets of a well-worn duffel coat. ‘Poppy told me I might find you here.’ He’s really rocking the laid-back thing this morning. Which is really damned annoying, when I’m in such a razz.

I pull out my phone and check the time. ‘Well I’m in a hurry, even if you’re not,’ I snap, and give him the most threatening stare I can drum up at short notice. ‘Some of us have to get to the airport.’ Between us, this is the kind of move I usually practise in front of a mirror for a few weeks before I let it loose on the outside world. But we all know there’s no time for that here. ‘If you miss the Celestial Ceilings people…’ Alice will go apoplectic/through the roof/ape – or maybe even all three.

But before I can get that far, he interrupts. ‘Okay, take a chill pill, Sera…’

If he knew how patronising he sounded, he really wouldn’t say that.

He carries on. ‘The flight’s not in until this afternoon, there’s no need to set off yet.’

I’ve done the calculations and I know better. ‘At forty miles an hour it takes…’

He cuts me off mid-sentence. ‘That’s what I came to say. Given you said yesterday how much you hate driving, maybe we should swap jobs. You stay at Rose Hill and I’ll do the airport run.’

‘Right…’ I’m not sure how he picked up on that, but I’m relieved enough to go momentarily floppy. ‘That would be so brill,’ I say weakly, propping myself up on the tilting mirror as my knees collapse with gratitude.

‘But then I got side-tracked by your flamingos.’

‘Flamingos?’ I really have no idea what he’s talking about here.

He lets his smile go. ‘On those very smart pyjamas you’re wearing…’

For a second I think he’s joking, then I look down. As I catch sight of my favourite Topshop shorts sleep set on top of my woolly winter-night tights, my tummy takes a nose dive. How the hell did I forget to get dressed before I came out?

As I squirm in embarrassment, my mouth is gaping, but no words are coming out.

Jess, who’s arrived without me noticing, swoops to my rescue. ‘Sera often wears leisure wear in the studio. Basically talented designers have to feel relaxed or they can’t come up with the goods.’ She’s beaming at Quinn, extending her hand. ‘We haven’t been introduced yet, lovely to meet you, I’m Jess.’

I wince at how horribly close Jess is to the truth there. She’d have a complete hissy fit if she knew about the state of my current non-collection of wedding dresses.

‘So this is your shop? What a fabulous place.’ Quinn’s turned all his attention onto Jess now. ‘I’m Quinn, by the way, Alice’s best man.’

‘Lovely.’ From the way Jess’s purr has switched on, she’s warming to Quinn. ‘Do come through and have a peep at Sera’s room, while you’re here.’ As Jess steers him through, the heat’s right off me, because, true to form, she’s pretty much taken him over.

In a last-minute move, she grabs my wrist and yanks me with them. Before you can say petticoat, there’s a flurry of tulle and lace and whispering voile and she’s whipping dresses off the rails right left and centre. In thirty seconds flat she’s whisked Quinn through the key pieces in the Seraphina East collection, and she’s onto the celebrity pictures.

‘And this is the couture dress designed by Sera, which Josie Redman wore for her celebrity wedding.’ She sounds like a cat that got double cream.

‘The Josie Redman?’ Just this once Quinn is gobsmacked enough to look shocked. ‘Impressive…When you said you made wedding dresses, Sera, I had no idea you meant real ones.’

Even though I hate being around when people see my dresses, I’m indignant enough to chime in here. ‘What other kind are there, Quinn?’

For a moment he’s chastened. ‘Okay, what I mean is, I had no idea they’d be this beautiful… or high end.’

‘Well thanks a bunch for that.’ Talk about wrapping a compliment up in an insult.

He frowns. ‘I can see I’m digging a hole for myself here. But even when you’re not in your jim jams, there’s a big gulf between Sera’s holey denims and Seraphina’s exquisite dresses.’

Even though I think he just said ‘exquisite’, he’s still coming over as pretty insulting, overall.

‘You’ll see.’ I stick out my chin in protest. ‘I scrub up.’ It’s complete bull. The furthest I go is black silk shorts rather than ripped denim. But I can’t let him talk down to me like this.

He laughs. ‘I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s a surprise, that’s all. In a good way.’

As a particularly long and loud blast on a horn in the street resonates around the room Jess hangs up the dress she’s holding and covers her ears. ‘Whatever’s going on out there, it’s playing havoc with my head.’ She pushes back a swathe of tulle and fairy lights and peers down the mews. ‘Looks like some kind of traffic jam…’

Quinn puts his hand to his mouth. ‘Ooops… I think that might be me…’

Jess is at the window in a flash. ‘No, it won’t be, it’s actually a sports car causing the trouble. Dark grey. There’s a traffic warden too.’

Dark grey? I groan. It’s the traffic warden that’s the real giveaway. ‘Quinn, what did I tell you yesterday?’

‘Sounds like my free parking’s over.’ He pulls a face. ‘Sorry to rush you, but we’d better run. Sera, I’ll take you home to get some clothes and drop you at Rose Hill…’

‘But why didn’t you tell me Quinn drove a Ferrari?’

Actually I told her as little as I could. Not that she needed my info, after she’d pumped Poppy dry. As if I noticed the car make. ‘Maybe I was too busy counting the parking tickets.’ As a reply it’s completely true. One blingy car is very much like another, after all. Let’s face it, they’re all totally impractical on the roads round here.

‘Sera’s not the only one full of surprises.’ Quinn’s laughing over his shoulder at Jess, as he heads towards the door.

As I hurtle off towards the stairs to grab my coat and satchel I can’t help hoping there won’t be any more surprises today.

10 (#ulink_e962a5cc-51f8-57af-91c6-f15ab069d8ed)

Sunday, 18th December

At Rose Hill Manor: A cottage by the sea

It’s no surprise that Quinn drives at the speed of light, all the way to Daisy Hill Farm, where we show Poppy how Alice would like her cottages. Then we head over to Rose Hill Manor, which is quarter of a mile down the lane. Yesterday, in the van, we went around the back to the coach house, but today we roar all the way up to the front door.

‘The great thing about this house is it’s relaxed rather than starchy and grand.’ Quinn leaps out of the car and digs deep in his duffel coat pocket for a key. Seconds later he’s pushed open the wide oak door and his arm’s sliding around me, as he shows me into the hall.

It’s a shame he wasn’t this efficient with the cottage keys yesterday, but whatever.

Blinking as I spin away from Quinn’s grasp, I take in a tall white hallway, washed with pale light from high leaded windows. A staircase that’s wide, but definitely more ‘Sleeping Beauty in the country’ than ‘Cinderella at the ball’. Given he smells of something manly and expensive rather than salt, I’m guessing he hasn’t been for a dip in the sea today yet.

‘See what I mean?’ He leans a shoulder on the stair post as he gazes around. ‘Small, yet perfectly formed.’

I’m not sure where Quinn hangs out if that’s how he sums it up. There’s nothing small about the rooms I’m glimpsing behind the half-open doors. But despite the lofty ceiling and the expanses of white walls, the warm pine-drenched scent of the house immediately wraps itself around me. I feel welcomed rather than intimidated.

‘And what a whopper of a Christmas tree.’ I get a crick in my neck as I look up at the branches, tapering up the stair well. It has to be the largest I’ve seen outside Oxford Street. For a moment it spins me back to the last Christmas at uni when one of the guys from the upstairs flat hauled in a tree from someone’s garden that was so big and spiky we couldn’t get down the hallway.

‘And like the rest of the house, it’s still waiting for its decorations.’ Quinn raises one eyebrow. ‘How are you on step ladders?’