Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

‘I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’m right,’ Mariella admitted. ‘Although I’m pretty sure that I am, and if I’m not…’ she gave him a flirtatious look ‘… then I’m sure we can find a way of ensuring that I soon am! Anyway, what about my anniversary present? You still haven’t told me what it is.’

‘Come with me,’ Xavier instructed her, bending to pick up their son and hand him to Mariella before lifting Fleur up into his own arms.

‘Close your eyes and hold onto me,’ Xavier said as he led her out into their own private courtyard, and through it to the new courtyard that had been developed behind it.

Mariella could smell the roses before he allowed her to open her eyes, and once he did so she drew in her breath in delight as she saw the new garden he had been having designed for her as a special surprise.

A softer and far more modern planting plan had been adopted for the new garden than the one favoured by Xavier’s grandmother. The design was reminiscent of an English country garden with the flower beds filled with a variety of traditional plants, but it was the wonderful scent of the roses that most caught her attention.

‘They’re called “Eternity”,’ Xavier told her softly as she bent her head to touch the velvet-soft petals of the rose closest to her. ‘And I promise that I shall love you for eternity, Mariella, and beyond it. My love for you is… eternal!’

Warm tears bathed Mariella’s eyes as she smiled at him.

‘And mine for you!’ she whispered lovingly to him.

Silently, they walked through the garden together, his arm around her drawing her close, her head resting against his shoulder, the children in their arms.

Dear Reader,

It’s a bittersweet honour for me to be asked to write a letter to go in the front of this beautiful new collection of Penny Jordan’s ‘Bride’s Bouquet’ books. On one hand it’s given me a brilliant excuse to drop everything else and lose myself in Claire, Poppy and Star’s stories, which has been a joy. On the other it is a fresh reminder of the great sadness that Penny is no longer here to introduce them herself.

The books are now fifteen and sixteen years old and yet they retain the freshness and sparkle that are the hallmarks of Penny’s writing. The characters are sharply observed, and each of the three stories that spring from the initial confetti-strewn, champagne-sealed pact between the heroines is fabulously distinctive and sizzling with its own unique chemistry. Reading them, I was reminded firstly what a truly wonderful, natural storyteller Penny was (in fact I was so wrapped up in devouring them it was a job to remember anything else!) and also that, although I can’t pick up the phone and speak to her or share a gossipy lunch, I can still hear her voice in her books. In them, she has left a legacy and a gift that will be enjoyed by generations to come.

Writing was Penny’s passion, and she spoke very often of her gratitude to every one of her readers for enabling her to make her living doing the thing she loved. She’d be really cross with me if I didn’t end this by saying thank you on her behalf for picking up this book, and I really hope you enjoy it.

India

Woman to Wed?

PROLOGUE

THERE has been a long tradition at weddings that the one to catch the bride’s bouquet as she throws it will be the next to marry.

The bride emerged from the hotel bedroom, giving her skirts a final shake, turning round to check on the long, flowing satin length of her train before turning to smile lovingly into the eyes of her new husband.

Her two adult bridesmaids—her best friend and her husband’s young cousin—and her stepmother had been dismissed for this, her final appearance in her wedding gown. Chris could be her attendant on this occasion, she had told them.

‘Come on; we’d better go down,’ he warned her. ‘Otherwise everyone will be wondering what on earth we’re doing.’

Laughing, they walked to the top of the stairs and then paused to stand and watch the happy crowd in the room below them. The reception was in full swing.

The bride turned to her husband and whispered emotionally, ‘This has been the happiest day of my life.’

‘And mine too,’ Chris returned, squeezing Sally’s hand and bending his head to kiss her.

Arm in arm they started to walk down the stairs, and then, somehow or other, Sally missed her footing and slipped. The small group of people clustered at the foot of the stairs waiting for them, alerted to what was happening by Sally’s frightened cry, rushed forward, James, the best man, Chris’s elder brother and two of the ushers going to the aid of the bride, whilst the two bridesmaids and the bride’s stepmother reacted immediately and equally instinctively, quickly reaching out to protect the flowers that the bride had dropped as she’d started to fall.

As three pairs of equally feminine but very different hands reached out to grasp the bouquet, the bride, back on her feet now, smiled mischievously down at them and warned, ‘That’s it! There’ll be three more weddings now.’

‘No!’

‘Never!’

‘Impossible!’

Three very firm and determined female voices made the same immediate denial; three pairs of female eyes all registered an immediate and complete rejection of the bride’s triumphant assertion.

Marry? Them? Never.

The three of them looked at one another and then back at the bride.

It was just a silly old superstition. It meant nothing, and besides, each of them knew that no matter what the other two chose to do she was most definitely not going to get married.

The bride was still laughing as she swept down the few remaining stairs on her husband’s arm.

Her two bridesmaids had both already separately and jointly informed her that they had no intention of taking part in any silly old rituals which involved the degradation of them vying for possession of her wedding bouquet, and as for her stepmother…

A tiny frown pleated Sally’s forehead. When would Claire accept that, at a mere thirty-four and widowed, she was not, as she always insisted, too mature to want to share her life with a new partner?

While Sally and Chris made sure that they spoke with every guest once the speeches were over, the two bridesmaids and Claire worked together to gather up the scattered wedding presents. Poppy, Chris’s cousin, suddenly spotted Sally’s wedding bouquet lying on one of the tables. Unable to help herself, she went over to it and picked it up, tears filling her eyes.

‘Forget it,’ Star, her fellow bridesmaid, instructed her, grimly removing the flowers from her tense grip. ‘It’s just a stupid superstition. It means nothing, and I for one intend to prove it by saying publicly and unequivocally here and now that I never intend to marry.’

As her eye was caught by an unopened bottle of champagne, she reached for it, opened it deftly and poured the foaming liquid into three empty glasses, challenging the other two, ‘I’m willing to make a vow not to marry. What about you two?’

‘I certainly have no plans to remarry,’ Claire, Sally’s stepmother, agreed more gently.

Tearfully Poppy nodded. ‘I shan’t marry now. Not now that Chris… Not now…’ Fresh tears filled her eyes as she solemnly joined the other two in a pledge of solidarity.

All three of them raised their glasses, none of them aware that their conversation had been overheard.

CHAPTER ONE

CLAIRE MARSHALL gave a rueful look at the now empty, still confetti-strewn reception area of the hotel.

Was it really less than a couple of hours since her stepdaughter and her new husband had run laughing down those stairs, trying to dodge the happy bombardment of rose petals?

Most of the guests had left now, just a small nucleus remaining in the hotel lounge. She had only come back in here to check that nothing had inadvertently been left behind.

It had been a lovely day, a perfect wedding, marred only by the fact that her husband, Sally’s father, had not been with them.

It was over two years now since his death but she still missed him; he had been a good husband—kind, loving, protective. As she bent to touch the bouquet which Sally had so cleverly tricked the three women into catching, Claire acknowledged that the adjectives she was using to describe her husband were more those that she would use to describe a loving father.

‘You should marry again,’ Sally had urged her more than once recently. Sadness darkened her eyes. She had been lucky to find one loving and understanding man; she doubted that she would ever be lucky enough to find a second. And besides, she didn’t really want to marry a second time—to make explanations, excuses or apologies.

She was distracted from her thoughts as both the adult bridesmaids came to join her. Poppy, the bridegroom’s cousin, glowered angrily at the bridal bouquet and curtly echoed Star’s earlier bitter comment.

‘No one pays any attention to those silly old superstitions these days anyway…’