The minister was asking whether anyone could show any just cause why these two should not be joined together. Tasha would have liked to stop the whole thing then and there, but she stayed standing in front of him.
‘I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.’
Tasha gritted her teeth. Why, oh, why had she said she would do this?
The minister read inexorably on. Chaz said ‘I will’ with an air of patient politeness. Tasha repeated the words mechanically. And now they had come to point of no return.
‘I Chase Adam Zachary Taggart take thee Natasha Susan Merrill to my wedded wife....’
Chaz progressed through a long series of vows he’d gone out of his way to avoid heretofore, and certainly had no intention of keeping, with aplomb.
Then it was Tasha’s turn. ‘I Natasha Susan Merrill,’ she whispered, ‘take thee Chase Adam Zachary Taggart to my wedded husband...’
Somehow she managed to pronounce the words.
‘I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together,’ said the minister. ‘You may kiss the bride.’
Chaz brushed her mouth with his lips.
‘Well done,’ he said softly. ‘Not too much longer now.’ Soon they were walking back down the aisle. It was done now. Maybe one day she would meet a man she loved and many him, but if they had a ceremony she would know that she’d been through it before, and lied.
Then there was about an hour outside the church with the photographer. After the sham ceremony the perfectionism of the photographer was almost unbearable; first this group, then that, then about twenty different positions of her and Chaz, just as if anyone would ever care enough about this wedding to open a photo album and look at the pictures. He was just doing his job, of course. He had no way of knowing that there would never be children to leaf through an album, laughing at the old-fashioned nineties clothes, looking at their parents when they were young and in love... There would never be grandchildren looking through the yellowed pages, trying to imagine their parents’ grey-haired parents when they were a young and handsome couple...
Chaz glanced down at the woebegone face beneath the veil. They were standing to one side while the photographer took shots of the parents of the happy couple. This was taking some time, since two out of the four had not been on speaking terms for years and arrangement of the party was a delicate business.
‘You all right?’ Chaz asked.
Tasha nodded.
‘Well, if you say so.’ A sardonic eyebrow flicked up. ‘Fifty pounds says you’re thinking of all the adorable children who’d be looking at this rubbish if it were the real thing.’
‘It wouldn’t be rubbish if it were the real thing,’ Tasha hissed.
‘Tash, darling,’ said Chaz, sounding impossibly bored. ‘If it were the real thing you’d have a lot of pictures of you with a man passionately in love with six million pounds you don’t happen to have. The only good thing you could hope for in those circumstances would be that there wouldn’t be any children left sitting in the wreckage afterwards. You can’t make it the real thing by feeling the right thing at the right time, so stop wallowing in sentimentality.’
Tasha glared at him. ‘I’m not.’
‘No?’
Before she could crush him with a retort, they were swept off to the reception. Hundreds and hundreds of guests shook their hands. A substantial proportion whispered in Tasha’s ear how glad they were to see Chaz had found the right woman at last.
Then it was time to wander around the reception greeting people. Chaz stayed close by her side, murmuring wicked comments about people just out of earshot and providing a running commentary on the proceedings. At one point an elderly gentleman came up and shook Chaz’s hand.
‘Well, you won’t remember me,’ he said bluffly. ‘It’s Mr Phipps.’
‘Mr Phipps,’ Chaz said suavely. ‘Of course.’
‘Oh, you won’t remember,’ said Mr Phipps. ‘But it’s good to see you. Good of you to invite me. To tell you the truth I wouldn’t have recognised you, Jeremy—but then that’s often the way, as I always tell my boys. Sometimes the plainest little devils you could imagine turn into real ladykillers, heh, heh, heh.’
‘Is that a fact?’ said Chaz, with a perfectly straight face.
‘Well, life is full of surprises,’ said Mr Phipps. ‘But I won’t keep you.’ He wandered off in search of the buffet.
‘I wonder if it’s true,’ said Tasha. ‘After all, you were beautiful from the day you were born.’
‘You weren’t born when I was born,’ said Chaz.
‘I’ve seen pictures,’ said Tasha. ‘For all we know, all the ladykillers he thinks plain boys have grown into have been impostors.’
‘For all you know someone could have faked those pictures,’ he pointed out. ‘It isn’t true of you, anyway.’
‘I know,’ Tasha said with a grimace. ‘I was nothing much to look at then, and I never grew out of it.’
An eyebrow swooped up in exaggerated scepticism. ‘Fishing for compliments, Tash? You were lovely then; you must know you’re lovely now. I’m happy to say it if you’d like to hear it.’
Tasha stared at him in astonishment.
‘Natasha the fairy princess,’ he said mockingly. ‘Corny but true. Look at your hair. What colour is it? It’s not blonde, or brown, or red. It’s got threads of gold and silver and copper that catch the light, and every time the light changes your hair changes with it... And look at your eyes. What colour are they? You might as well ask what colour is water. Green? Silver? Depends on the light.’
He looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if trying to bring her into focus. ‘The funny thing is, it never comes out in photographs at all. I’ve never seen a picture of you that wasn’t terrible. It’s as if there really was something magical about it, something the camera can’t catch.’
Tasha was struck literally speechless. She couldn’t believe Chaz could actually mean this seriously—he had to be making fun of her. But he didn’t seem to be joking. But if she took it seriously he’d probably burst out laughing because she’d swallowed it.
‘You don’t believe me?’ he said. ‘I knew there was a jinx on cameras; don’t tell me it works on mirrors as well?’
‘I—I,’ she stammered. ‘That is, we—we’d better go in to dinner.’
The seating for the dinner had been one of those problems which make a bride wonder whether there isn’t something to be said for elopement. Jeremy’s side of the family had been all right; he came with a complement of two parents, both speaking to each other. They might not have had a lot to say, but they didn’t snub each other and they didn’t insult each other.
On Tasha’s side, on the other hand, were her father, her mother, her father’s second wife, her father’s second wife’s third husband—the marriage to Professor Merrill hadn’t lasted, but they wouldn’t miss Natasha’s wedding for worlds. There were also her mother’s third husband, her mother’s second husband and her mother’s second husband’s third wife—the marriage to her mother hadn’t lasted, but they wouldn’t miss little Natasha’s wedding for worlds. There were also Aunt Monica and her five husbands—the third, of course, being Chaz’s father as well, though this had not been uppermost in her mind when struggling with