Page 35 of Wedding Crasher

Marla shook her head and shot him a glare. ‘Stop being such a bitch, will you? Rupert is doing his best.’

‘His best at what though, my love? Prancing around like Little Lord Fauntleroy? Tell me he has some knee breeches and I’ll think about forgiving him.’

Jonny hadn’t warmed to Rupert at all, and when pressed for an explanation he could come up with nothing more tangible than an ominous feeling in his famously sensitive waters.

For his part, Rupert had been as good as his word and had arranged for the wedding to be covered by the paper. He really was a powerful ally to have on side, as well as a skilful lover to have in her bed.

Jonny batted his lashes at Emily. ‘Will you help me with my make-up?’

‘Like you need it. You’ve got more eyeliner on than I do.’

‘Guyliner,’ he corrected cattily, even though there was no way his eyeliner erred on the discreet side. ‘I need more than my usual day look for this. I’m thinking heavy kohl,’ he painted around his eyes with his fingers to demonstrate. ‘And white pan-stick.’ He dragged his hands down his cheeks, ghoulish.

Marla laughed and headed up to the office, glad of its plain white walls and stark cleanliness after the lurid scenes downstairs. The only thing that stood out in the bleached room was her black lace dress hanging behind the door and her blood-red skyscraper heels ready for the ceremony.

She hadn’t been able to stay mad at Jonny for long. Although he’d overstepped the mark by a long way with the campaign, she knew that his actions had come from a place of loyalty and affection. The way it had spiralled out of control had terrified the living daylights out of him. Over the last week she’d helped him to conduct a huge clean-up operation online, which was rather like trying to unpick the stitches of a very long scarf one by one. Finally they’d re-launched the chapel website with a huge banner thanking people for their support and officially closing the campaign. She could only cross her fingers and hope like hell that it was enough to put the whole affair to bed.

Marla might want the funeral parlour closed down, but she wasn’t prepared to play dirty to make it happen.

‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ Jonny declared. ‘You may now snog her face off!’ He threw back his sackcloth hood and hurled his fake scythe to the floor to join in the thunderous applause.

The ghoulish congregation were packing the chapel almost to its spooky rafters, and from her standpoint at the side of the room, Marla had a clear view of the pure love in Alaric’s heavily made-up eyes as he pulled his new wife into his arms.The Heraldphotographer whizzed from position to position in the background, keen to capture the wedding from every angle. She could see why: it would certainly make an eye-catching splash. The whole production had been likeGone with the Windcrossed withTheAddams Family– it throbbed with a vein of true love that challenged Marla’s mistrust of marriage in a way that few of the more conventional weddings she had organised ever had.

Much as she loved the chapel, she’d fallen out of love with the institution of marriage a long time ago. Her parents had provided her with a close-up view of the reality of marriage throughout her childhood. It seemed to Marla that at its best, it was a soap opera with an ever-changing cast of principal players. If she’d taken one lesson away from her parents’ example, it was that marriage was only ever to be regarded as a temporary arrangement. ‘Till death us do part’ was nothing more than a fairytale, and she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

Outside on the chapel lawns, ghoul-faced guests posed by the fake rusty railings and blood-splattered mock headstones that Jonny had organised to create the perfect ‘fright night’ backdrop for the photos. Jonny himself flitted around the lawn, his scythe raised aloft behind people as a macabre photo-bomber. Marla caught Emily’s eye and laughed, relieved that yet another wedding had gone by without incident. And that was precisely when the incident happened.

‘You haven’t got a coffin, have you?’

Marla shook her head at the guy who lay on top of one of the fake graves. ‘Sorry, no.’

‘I bettheywould.’ Alaric’s eyes slipped towards the funeral parlour.

A whoop went up around the crowd.

‘I’ll ask them! They can’t turn a bride down on her wedding day.’ Gelvira hitched up her scarlet velvet skirts and ran out across the pavement, hotly followed by her new husband and a motley trail of ghouls and ghosts.

Marla watched in horror, well aware that she didn’t stand a hope in hell of halting the stampede. She could only cross her fingers and pray that Gabe wouldn’t be there at this hour on a Saturday afternoon. He shouldn’t be. She knew that much, because she’d surreptitiously checked the sign on the door earlier. It was well after four, so God willing he’d be off in the pub with his jack-the-lad mate. Or sleeping in one of his coffins to avoid the sunlight. Or whatever else it was he did for kicks in his spare time.

The small flicker of hope died as Gelvira and Alaric disappeared through the black and silver doorway. Damn it!Why was he still open? Marla leaned back against the porch and groaned.Just when it had all been going so well.

Several minutes later the wedding party spilled back out onto the pavement. Gelvira’s boobs frothed over the top of her corset as she laughed and led her gothic troupe back over to the chapel.

‘Man, this is the best day of my life!’ Gelvira flung her arms around Marla in delight.

‘He’s bringing over a couple of coffins in a minute. Can you fetch loads of those black rose petals, please? I want to lie down inside one in my wedding dress.’

Inside the chapel, Marla could have screamed with frustration as she grabbed one of Emily’s huge rose displays from the altar. She took her temper and embarrassment out on the dyed flowers as she yanked the petals off, managing to prick her finger on a thorn in the process.

Bloody Gabriel Ryan. Why couldn’t he have just said no?

She sucked the blood from her finger and watched through the window as Gabe, assisted by one of the bridal party, deposited the first coffin onto the grass and strode back over to his lair to fetch a second one. He’d fit right in with this crowd, she thought, not quite able to take her eyes off the sight of his retreating denim-clad backside.

Once they’d set the second coffin down on the grass, Gabe shook Alaric’s hand. His eyes flicked over the groom’s shoulder to Marla as she struggled through the doorway with a huge cardboard box in her arms. Even amongst the impressive display of gothic cleavage that surrounded him, her relatively demure black lace dress clung to her curves in a way that rendered it indecent. Gelvira jiggled up and down with excitement next to him and waved her arms at Marla.

‘Over here!’

Gabe clocked Marla’s gritted teeth through her smile as she headed their way. He grinned, happy in the knowledge of how much it would grieve her that her guests had chosen to call on his help.