Page 34 of Wedding Crasher

He excused himself to the gents and found himself shoulder to shoulder at the urinal with Rupert, who’d followed him in.

‘Stay away from her,’ Rupert muttered, midstream.

‘Ibegyour pardon?’

‘You heard me. Leave Marla alone, or I’ll smear your fucking name in so much shit that you’ll be hounded out of the country, let alone the village.’

Gabe zipped his fly and turned to Rupert, who did the same.

‘Are you actually trying tothreatenme?’ Gabe couldn’t decide whether to laugh at him or knock him out.

Rupert shrugged, and turned to the mirror over the washbasin to fiddle with his artfully arranged hair. ‘Call it what you like.’

Gabe was having a bad day, and Rupert’s glib smugness made his fists itch. He stepped in close behind him and met his eye in the mirror. ‘You’ve got that much right. I will call it whatever the hell I like, and I willdowhatever the hell I want,withwhoever the hell I want. Have you got that?’

‘Tosser.’

Gabe sensed the scared posh boy lurking behind Rupert’s glib, Boden-poster-boy confidence. ‘What is it thatreallybugs you, paperboy? Don’t you trust me with her? Or is it that you don’t trust Marla around me?’

Back in the bar, Gabe glanced over at Marla as he sat back down and found her watching him. Her expression gave him little clue of what was going through her head. Something serious though, going by her frown. She was probably wondering if he’d just killed her fop of a boyfriend in the loos. Even from across the other side of the room, he could make out the dark circles underneath her eyes and, despite the events of the day, he still wished he could smooth them away.

Crazy.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘This has to be one of the weirdest weddings we’ve ever done.’

Emily glanced over at Jonny as she arranged the huge displays of dyed black and purple roses around the altar, glad that he and Marla had made up again after their falling out. He’d been bereft after the smashed window incident, sending her all manner of oddball gifts, from subscriptions to cakes in the mail, to an oversized handmade card complete with glitter and lipstick kisses. In the end Marla had forgiven him on the understanding that he stopped putting her in such an untenable position with her postman.

‘I love it. So dramatic …’ Jonny sighed as he wobbled around on the stepladders to adjust the fake cobwebs that shrouded the rafters.

‘Of course you do. It involves dressing up,’ Emily rolled her eyes and shuddered. ‘I’m not struck. It’s like a scene fromNight of theLiving Dead.’

It wasn’t Emily’s idea of romance, but then who was she to define love? She’d lost any authority on the subject the moment she’d allowed Dan anywhere near her. She admonished Bluey with a stern tut as he delicately pulled one of the black roses out of her artful display with his teeth.

Marla came through from the storeroom with her arms full of heavy purple velvet to create the gothic aisle. Alaric and Gelvira weren’t your run-of-the-mill couple, but despite their ghoulish make-up and dark sense of fantasy, Marla had warmed to them straight away. They wanted a full-blown gothic extravaganza for their special day, and that was exactly what she intended to give them. The chapel looked resplendent in forbidding regalia, and Jonny was all too happy to conduct the ceremony decked out as the Grim Reaper.

‘How long have we got left?’ she yelled. It was tricky to make herself heard above the creepy organ music Jonny had stuck on the sound system.

Emily glanced at her watch. ‘Three hours or so? We’re on track.’

Marla joined Emily by the doors and together they surveyed the transformed chapel with a laugh.

‘It’s hideous.’

Emily nodded. ‘I know. Perfect, huh?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘At least there’s no danger of the funeral parlour upsetting these guests,’ Emily said, leaning back to glance out of the shrouded chapel window at their neighbours. ‘Looks like it’s all quiet over there, anyway.’

‘Let’s just hope it stays that way,’ Marla muttered.

She’d mailed a second copy of their bookings list to Gabe in the hope that he’d honour his original promise to do his best not to disrupt them, but after the fiasco with the window last week there could be no guarantees.

‘Jonny, you better get your gear on soon. The photographer fromThe Herald’s coming by early to take some atmospheric shots.’

Jonny all but curled his lip. ‘Will super-toff be coming too?’

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