One step, but it feels like I’ve stepped off the edge of the world. The grass isn’t there, and my foot plunges over one of those dratted pieces of timber edging. Platform heels are nothing like as stable as the name makes them sound. When I topple, it’s backwards, in a series of staggers. I’m preparing myself to end up flat on my back in a border, with everyone gawping at me. Bad enough, but I’ll have to handle it. Then something whacks me on the back of the calves, and tips me over. The toppling I was doing before is nothing compared to this. As I plummet into oblivion, instead of the thumping impact of my backbone on soil, there’s a huge splash.
‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh …’ Every bit of air leaves my lungs as I plunge into freezing liquid. Even my shriek dwindles to nothing. I’m not sure if my skin is burning hot or ice cold. What I am is wedged. Totally stuck. With my bum, head and body in sub-zero water and my knees hooked over some kind of wall.
Jess’s voice is a squawk. ‘Good heavens, Lily, Jules did mean real water. How could we miss an above-ground pond?’
‘Did someone call me?’ A second later, Jules’ telephoto lens is pointing down at me.
Spluttering through clenched teeth, I point at his camera. ‘Don’t you dare!’ Seeing a couple of open mouthed faces appearing, I let out a wail. ‘Don’t just stand there, get me out …’
Out of nowhere some broad shoulders are blocking the sky, and strong fingers close around my wrist. ‘Great attention-grabbing stunt you pulled there. But we’d better get you back on dry land.’
Just my luck to get an ironic one. Where was lovely Chas the fireman when I needed him? Although on second thoughts, as Immie’s spectacularly absent too, don’t answer that. There’s a sudden panic I’ll be too heavy for this guy to lift dry, let alone wet. But I needn’t have worried. One easy yank later, I’m upright, water sluicing down onto my shoes. Even if I’m giving mental groans at how an LK Bennett dry-clean-only suit will stand up to a soaking, the good news is that somehow my Kurt Geigers stayed out of the water.
Despite my convulsive gasps, and the dimness of the garden up-lighters, when I look up the eyes I meet are smoky grey. They’re also disarmingly familiar considering they belong to a stranger. From the way his lips are twitching there’s a laugh bursting to get out. And he’s right about the audience. Beyond the straggling curtain of my hair, I make out a circle of wedding guests, clapping.
As I scrape the pond weed out of my eyes, my other hand is still clasped in his.
‘We might as well get the introductions out of the way.’ He gives another tug on my hand, and lets his smile go. ‘I’m Kip Penryn. Happy to drag you out of the carp pond.’
Penryn. I’m half way to being dazzled by the charm of it all, when the filing system in my brain catches up, and my stomach sags. Then shrivels. Back in the day Penryn meant rough denim, hot skin, and more brothers you could comfortably count on one hand. A motherless hoard, who descended on their uncle’s second – or third – home every summer. They’d roar in to the big house, and disappear just as fast. Wildly unreliable, and between them they covered every kind of bad. Filed under ‘B’ for ‘best forgotten’. At least that explains my racing heartbeat. Sending female pulses soaring off the scale is programmed into the Penryn DNA.
I drag myself back to reality. ‘A carp pond? At the Goose and Duck? Aren’t carp huge? I could have been eaten.’ Bloody Alan Titchmarsh has a lot to answer for.
‘Probably only goldfish in there.’ He leans closer, examining the leaf he drags out of my hair. ‘And water lilies, by the looks of this.’ Now that super-smile of his has gone, he’s back to the kind of hollow cheeked chic we all know is best avoided.
‘So what are you doing here … Kip, is it?’ I’m ransacking my brain, trying to remember all the names. And work out if we’ve met before. That’s the other thing with Penryns. There’s no point backing off, you have to face them out.
‘Apart from rescuing drowning damsels?’ He gives another sardonic laugh. ‘I’m from the exclusive local wedding venue, Rose Hill Manor.’ Many more laughs like that could get annoying.
‘Right.’ Two out of ten for an answer that explains zilch. But the Manor’s where Sera-the-dress-designer’s sister got married at Christmas. They only have about two friends-and-family weddings a year there. Which is a bit of a strange thing to refer to, but whatever. There’s something about him that makes me push. ‘So how come you know Sam, whose wedding we’re at now?’
‘I don’t.’ His shrug is unrepentant. ‘I dropped in for supper at the pub, and had to settle for left over hog roast. That’s why it’s worth paying for an “exclusive use” wedding venue every time.’ He actually does the finger wiggle speech marks. And there’s that damned laugh again. ‘Exclusive use means you avoid random strangers like me looking for pasties and crashing your wedding party. As you’ve found out, it’s well worth paying for.’
What a disgusting attitude. As for him scoffing the hog roast, I’m so angry I’ve practically got steam coming out of my suit pockets. I’m opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish – or maybe a carp – because I’m in so much of a rage the words won’t come out. But then a knight in shining armour walks in to fill the gap with his smile.
I’m joking here, obviously. It’s Rafe’s friend who was waving at me earlier. Wearing a three-piece tweed and brogues, not chain mail. As he shoulders Kip out of the way, he’s whipped off his jacket. And he’s holding it out to me.
‘You’re shivering. Here, take this.’ His Cornish burr is soft after Kip’s clipped moneyed vowels. ‘We’d better get you inside.’
The jacket’s heavy as it wraps around me, but it immediately stops the wind. As for my knight, he’s all boy-next-door, and close up his smile is even easier than it was from across the room. Which is way less disconcerting than the Penryn high-wattage version.
‘Here, take these …’
If I’d actually got around to shutting my mouth, I needn’t have bothered. The next moment, he’s handing me his waistcoat, and what the hell …? He’s pulled his shirt off over his head, and he’s handing me that too. I try to make my eyes less wide. Close them even. Not that I’m an expert, but as torsos go, this one’s ripped.
‘If you wanted a stripper, you only had to say …’ It’s Kip, laughing in my ear, before backing off across the grass. ‘Catch you later, Water Lily.’
What? I stamp on the shiver that rattles through me. The name thing has to be a coincidence. He can’t know me.
‘He’s right, we should go inside.’ It’s Jess, her hand on my arm. ‘Fabulous apps though.’ She’s not wrong. Apart from the obvious.
‘Abs, not apps.’ However many times I say it, it doesn’t go in. ‘Apps are on your phone, Jess, abs are …’ I stop short of drawing any more attention to what’s right in front of our noses. Despite the over-powering smell of wet pond, the scent coming up from the jacket wrapped around me is a lot like Jules. Only considerably more subtle.
Jess is steering me back towards the pub. ‘We’ll dry you off, and get a taxi back to town.’
But Rafe’s bare chested friend is on our heels, protesting. ‘You can’t leave now. There’s clearly enough clothes here for both of us.’
When I run my fingers through my sopping hair, it’s a mass of straggly curls. Worst case scenario. ‘I don’t know.’ What’s more, as we come back into the brightness of the pub, the only visible patch of my silk top is completely transparent.
There’s another waft of Jules’ scent, as Rafe’s bare-chested friend leans in close enough to nudge my elbow. ‘We