The moment passed and Birdie dropped back into her seat, the stack of enameled silver bangles on her wrist joining in with the recessional music, causing her mother to turn and look at her with concern.
“Birdie?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m good.” She needed to take a powder room break, if only to get some strength back in her legs and wipe up some drool.
She wasn’t good, but she would be. Too bad she didn’t have an excuse to leave the reception early. Last thing she wanted was to find herself forced to dance with Ozzie. And knowing Drew, it would happen.
Once the participants passed down the aisle, Birdie’s parents stood and allowed Meilin’s immediate family to precede them toward the exit. Dad tucked Mom’s hand around his arm on his right and held out his left to Birdie.
“I’ll get Gran,” she told him.
The old lady sniffed from the aisle seat of the second row, but stood to her full height only a few inches shorter than Birdie and accepted her assistance, and they fell into line behind her parents, her grandfather Dailey right behind them. As elegant as any woman there, Gran maintained the slender build and blonde hair Birdie had inherited from her. The woman may have been seventy, but she easily passed for sixty. The result of good living and strong genes. Didn’t mean she was as sweet as pie. The opposite was true, in fact. Hard headed and extremely proud of the Robinsons’ vaulted position in British society, the woman’s ideals and prejudices had been a pain in Birdie’s back side from the start. And yet, they’d found enough common ground to sort of like each other. Or at least tolerate each other and get along with a veneer of civility. Most of the time.
“You next,” the old bat whispered at her.
“Not bloody likely,” she whispered back. The curse earned her a pinch on the inside of her forearm.
“Unless I miss my guess, the next to head the company will be a pair. A married pair.”
Birdie stared at her grandmother. The cranky old witch, who could never seem to find anything right about Birdie from her speech to her posture, had a positively wicked gleam in her blue eyes. It unnerved Birdie that the look was as familiar as the one in her own mirror. “You mean Drew and Meilin? Possibly.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re an evil woman,” she told her grandmother.
The woman’s laugh rang out in the church, enough to rise above the general murmur, enough that both Mom and Dad looked back over their shoulders.
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” This time she patted Birdie’s arm. It was less comforting than the pinch.
“Well, we’ve got a long time to figure it all out.”
“So the young always believe,” her grandmother said cryptically.
“Not going to let you ruin this day, crazy woman. My brother just married a beautiful, wise, and loving woman. My parents are so happy they’re nearly stupid with it, and I am done with school. The sun is shining, the sages say this is a lucky day, and I’m going to enjoy it to the max.”
“Never said you shouldn’t. And mind your manners. Respect your elders. We’ve been in your shoes. You should listen to us more than you do. And mind your language. We don’t want her family to think we’re baseborn.”
“Anything else, Your Majesty?”
This time the old woman slapped her shoulder. “Be good or I’ll sic Oswald and Larry on you.”
Now there was a threat to make her shake in her Jimmy Choo’s. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Anything I can get you, ma’am?”
“Just hush up, get me through that receiving line, and deliver me to the party.”
Sounded like a good life motto to Birdie.
Get me to the party.
“Easy peasy lemon squeezy, Gran.”
Something good to focus on for the coming year or two.
Because it would be a party when she got to London. She’d make sure of it.
Chapter 2
Speaking of parties, Birdie had to give Meilin and her family props for the reception. Not far from the cathedral, limos dropped the family at the Saint Francis Hotel as the sun was beginning to lean toward the west with a few hours left to sunset. They’d been ushered into a ballroom filled with forty-three round tables set for ten each. The bridal party had a long table set on the other side of a parquet dance floor, behind them an incredible view of the city beyond filmy curtains. The room sparkled with crystal, candlelight, the guests, and particularly, the newlyweds. Not that they paid much attention to anyone other than the photographer and videographer.
Which meant Martin and the wedding planner hired by the Wu family had the job of making sure things kept moving. Receiving line, first toast, various speeches, the buffet, and the cake cutting. Jack, Drew’s best man, kept the crowd in stitches with his speech. Dad nearly brought them to tears with his emotional acceptance of Meilin and her family as part of the Robinson family. Meilin’s father unbent enough to allow that he considered Drew a very good son-in-law, even if he wasn’t of Chinese descent. The crowd laughed, but Birdie didn’t think he’d been joking.
Somewhere around her third or fourth glass of champagne, the after dinner dancing started. She’d had to swipe one of Dad’s spare handkerchiefs, for there was not a dry eye in the room. Anyone watching Drew and Meilin dance felt a touch of magic as the power of their love seemed to sweep across the room like a warm breeze. Or maybe it was the influence of the wine making her overly sentimental.
A small prickle of awareness made the small hairs on the back of her neck rise. She’d piled her long blonde hair on top of her head with a small red clip Meilin had given her. Meilin had also chosen a dress for her, embroidered red Chinese silk, but styled as a simple sheath with a slit up the back, much like the dress Birdie had worn for her parents’ second wedding a year before. Western in style, but Chinese in material. It was a beautiful compromise that tied her into the wedding party. Mom’s dress was similar, but floor length and gold rather than red, to set off her red hair and make her stand out from the bridesmaids, while complementing the mother of the bride.
The prickle grew stronger, and Birdie raised her champagne glass as a cover to search for the source of her intuition, or whatever. Something woo-woo in nature.
Over the rim of her crystal flute, her gaze caught on the intense regard of Oswald. While the rest of the room watched the newlyweds, Ozzie’s eyes were on her.
A wash of heat covered Birdie, and she tossed back the remains of her drink to hide what felt like ten shades of scarlet painting her skin. Her blush intensified when she recalled the twenty she’d slipped the DJ. The agreement was that if he saw Ozzie leading her to the dance floor, he was to put on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” Sophomoric on her part, but it annoyed Ozzie, which was the entire point. Anything to get that stick unstuck from his uptight backside.
She was saved by Drew coming to take her mother onto the dance floor while Meilin grabbed her father. Next up they’d swap parents, Drew dancing with her mother, while Meilin danced with his father. The plan was then for the newlyweds to dance with their grandparents and siblings. Then the dance floor would be opened to the masses. Birdie had time for another glass of bubbly. Another hand beat her to the bottle.
“I think you’ve had enough for now,” Ozzie said in her ear, then took the seat beside her as he set the bottle out of her reach. No one else at the table seemed to notice Ozzie’s invasion. Indeed,