Convenient Engagements: Fiance Wanted Fast! / The Blind-Date Proposal / A Whirlwind Engagement

When they pulled up in the courtyard, a number of wedding guests were milling around by the great doorway to the castle, brushing cheeks and clashing hats together as they caught up with old acquaintances.

Gib switched off the engine.

The silence in the car was very loud. Phoebe didn’t move. For the last few miles she had been so preoccupied with trying not to think about that shattering kiss, and failing utterly, that she had forgotten to worry about the wedding. Now the full realisation of just how completely she was going to lie to her family and her friends hit her and she sat staring rigidly ahead, consumed by panic.

‘Phoebe?’

‘This is crazy,’ she said, swallowing nervously. ‘I’m terrified of getting out of the car and meeting my own family and people I’ve known and loved for years!’

For answer, Gib got out of the car and put on his jacket. He wasn’t going to think about that kiss any more. He was Phoebe’s friend, not her lover, and he was going to see her through this. Straightening his tie, he collected Phoebe’s hat from the boot and came round to open her door so that she had little choice but to swing her legs out and stand up.

‘Now, listen,’ he said, setting the hat on her head, ‘it’s going to be great. You’re going to keep everyone happy and save your own face by getting through this day with your head held high. I think you’re brave and you’re beautiful, so get in there and knock ‘em dead.’

Phoebe looked into his face and saw that the blue eyes were serious again, just as they had been after he kissed her, and for a moment she felt quite giddy with the memory of what it had felt like.

‘I’ll be right beside you,’ said Gib, and suddenly it was easy for her to square her shoulders and walk across towards the others.

‘Smile,’ he murmured under his breath, and Phoebe, who had been thinking about the light touch of his hand against her back, quickly pasted on a smile.

Just in time, too.

‘Phoebe!’

Lara spotted her first, and came running over to hug her. ‘You look fantastic!’ she exclaimed.

Very aware of how many pairs of eyes had swivelled in her direction at the sound of her name, Phoebe hugged her sister back. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself!’

‘I don’t have that extra glow that comes from being in love!’ said Lara, turning to smile at Gib with frank curiosity. ‘You must be Gib,’ she said. ‘We’ve all been dying to meet you!’

In spite of herself, Phoebe tensed and a faint colour tinged her cheeks. Her sister had never been anything but totally upfront. ‘This is my sister, Lara,’ she said, a little disturbed to find that she was jealous of the appreciative smile Gib gave Lara and the easy way they hugged as if they had known each other for ever.

They were so alike, she thought with a pang. Both completely irresponsible, both blessed with that carefree charm that carried them through life. It was obvious already that they were going to get on like a house on fire.

And yes, there was Lara tucking her hand through his arm as if she owned him. ‘Come and meet Mum and Dad. I know they can’t wait to see you.’

Gib held out his free hand to Phoebe as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and she was alarmed at how comforting she found his warm grip as Lara led them through the crowd, talking excitedly. In fact, she rather missed it when he released her to let her kiss her parents.

Her mother had obviously been on the lookout for them, as she dragged her father over to meet them halfway. Phoebe made the introductions nervously, but she needn’t have worried. Gib judged the handshake with her father perfectly and let her mother kiss him enthusiastically.

‘We’re all so pleased you could come,’ she said. ‘Phoebe told us how busy you are at the moment.’

Fortunately there was no time for much more as the guests were starting to drift towards the room where the ceremony would be held, but Phoebe knew her mother would be planning a detailed interrogation later. She just hoped Gib would be able to keep up the pretence under real pressure!

CHAPTER SIX

WELL, if he couldn’t, there wasn’t much she could do about it now, she realised. A certain fatalism crept over Phoebe. It was too late to change her mind, and confess that she had invented herself a lover. That would really spoil everyone’s day, hers most of all.

And she had to admit that Gib was doing a great job so far, being amusing without being too pushy. Her mother was obviously charmed, and Phoebe could tell that her father was impressed too, which surprised her. With his military background, she would have expected Gib to be exactly the type to set his moustache bristling.

Perhaps it was the suit? Gib certainly looked different today. Phoebe studied him surreptitiously as they made their way into a charming circular tower room. It was hard to believe this was the same irritating man who lazed around her kitchen all day. He looked broader, and more solid somehow, and while the suit might be conventional it would take more than that to make him look like the serious, sensible men her father approved of. His face was too mobile, his eyes too full of laughter, his mouth too ready to twitch into a smile. Even straight faced, there was a daredevil quality about him, a reckless edge that set him apart from all the other identically dressed men in the room. Phoebe was amazed that her father couldn’t see it.

Lara was beckoning, and Phoebe and Gib edged past others in the row to sit next to her.

‘Are you OK?’ Lara whispered to her.

‘I’m fine,’ said Phoebe. ‘Why?’

Lara nodded towards the front of the room where the groom was waiting nervously with his best man. ‘I was afraid it might be difficult for you seeing Ben again,’ she explained tentatively.

Ben. Phoebe stared at him, confused. He was the love of her life, her soul mate, the man she had dreamed of marrying as long as she could remember. Shouldn’t she have noticed him as soon as she came in?

She shook her head a little as if to clear it. This was the moment she had been dreading for months. She couldn’t believe that his presence hadn’t even registered with her until Lara had pointed him out. Something was wrong somewhere, surely?

‘No … no, I’m fine,’ she said again to Lara, but she didn’t feel fine really. She felt disorientated and unnerved, as if the one certain thing in her life had suddenly vanished.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Lara whispered back. ‘I’d be fine if I had a man like Gib,’ she added enviously. ‘He’s a bit gorgeous, isn’t he?’

Involuntarily, Phoebe’s eyes returned to Gib on her other side. He was talking to a couple on his left, and making the girl giggle. His head was turned away so that all she could see of his face was the lean line of his jaw, but her heart dipped and lurched anyway. She swallowed.

‘He’s all right,’ she said, knowing that Lara wouldn’t expect her to gush, but her sister only laughed.

‘You’re not fooling anyone, Phoebe! It’s obvious you can’t keep your eyes off him.’

After that, of course, Phoebe tried everything not to look at Gib again, but it was impossible when she was sitting right next to him. She tried to concentrate on the ceremony, but no matter how fiercely she stared ahead, her eyes kept drifting sideways, distracted by ridiculous details, like the length of his thigh, or the whiteness of his collar against his brown skin, or the laughter lines fanning the corner of his eyes, and the memory of how it had felt to kiss him flared along her veins all over again.

Once, Gib caught her looking at him. His eyebrow lifted in a faint question, obviously wondering why she kept staring at him. Terrified in case he thought that she had already forgotten their first rule of engagement and was reading more into that kiss than the practice it had been, Phoebe jerked her gaze away so abruptly that her dark hair swung beneath her hat.

At the front of the room, Ben and Lisa were about to exchange rings. Shifting upright in her chair, Phoebe’s brows drew together in an effort of concentration. This was Ben, she reminded herself. Ben, whom she had loved and wanted as long as she could remember. It had felt so right and so comfortable to be with him, that she had never imagined that he would be making those vows to somebody else. She should be thinking about him, not about Gib and the way they had kissed in the car.

As Ben promised to love and to honour Lisa ‘so long as we both shall live’, Phoebe found herself remembering when he had told her that he would love her for ever. They had been so happy together for so long. Impossible not to think about the times they had shared or to feel a pang as she watched him slide the ring onto Lisa’s finger.

But it was just a pang. She had dreaded this moment for months, expecting to feel a terrible, tearing pain in her heart, not this wistful sadness for the dreams she had nurtured for so long.

So this was it. Ben was married and there was no way to turn back the clock. No more pretending that he might, maybe, change his mind, or that somehow Lisa would disappear and everything would be the way it had been before. It was time to stop wishing and hoping and dreaming that things could be different, time to start accepting that she was on her own and making the best of it.

Phoebe wasn’t aware of her expression changing, but she suddenly found her hand gathered into Gib’s. He held it in a warm, strong clasp that was amazingly comforting, and although she didn’t dare look at him, she didn’t pull her hand away either. Instead, she watched Ben kiss Lisa and felt Gib’s fingers tighten around her own and wondered how it was possible to feel aware of every tiny millimetre of his skin pressed against hers.

The string quartet in the bow-window struck up a suitably celebratory tune and the bride and groom turned, beaming, to their guests, who stirred in anticipation of the champagne to come.

It was over, thought Phoebe, and knew that she ought to feel relieved while feeling only a curious sense of deflation when Gib let go of her hand. People were standing up and pressing forward to congratulate the happy couple, but Lara was already nudging them towards the door.

‘Might as well get a head start on the champagne,’ she said. ‘We can do the kissy-kissy bit later.’

They weren’t the only ones to have the same idea, and the walled garden, romantically lined with herbaceous borders and climbing roses, was soon crowded with little groups of guests clutching flutes of champagne and, in the case of the women, trying not to get their heels stuck in the grass.

This was the big test, thought Phoebe, her stomach clenching with nerves again. Gib was going to be exposed to some pretty expert questioners, beginning with her mother, who was making a beeline for them. She would have to stick beside him until she could manoeuvre him over to Ben’s tedious uncle, who could be relied upon not to talk about anything but sport, or if things got really bad to Penelope and Derek’s neighbour who was about ninety-seven and unlikely to cross-examine him on the detail of banking or be able to hear much about his supposedly passionate affair with Ben’s ex-fiancée.

Not that you could ever tell with old ladies, of course. In Phoebe’s experience they were much sharper than they let on, and could hear perfectly well when it suited them.