Page 32 of Marry Me…Maybe?
‘I’m with you on that one.’
He nodded to punctuate the end of the conversation and turned to walk away, but Lula put her hand back on his arm to stop him.
‘Look, I know she can come across as a bit of a handful, but she’s a good person – the most fiercely loyal, kind and caring person I’ve ever met – and if you’ve made it into the small circle of people she cares about, you should congratulate yourself. She doesn’t trust people easily. Not after what happened with her mother.’ She let out a low, sad-sounding breath. ‘It’s no wonder she doesn’t ever want to see her again after what she had to go through.’
He went suddenly cold, and a heavy feeling slid uncomfortably into his stomach. ‘I thought her mother was dead?’
Colour flooded across Lula’s cheeks and her gaze shot away from his, as if she’d realised that she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
‘Lula?’
‘I just mean… I’m surprised she talked about her mother at all. It’s not a subject you can get her to discuss very easily,’ she mumbled, still not looking at him.
‘That’s not what you meant, Lula. It sounded like you said she wasn’t dead. Is she alive?’
Lula’s face was now beet-red. ‘I shouldn’t have—’ She shook her head, her eyes wild. ‘Em’s going to kill me!’
‘Tell me what’s going on, Lula.’ He realised his tone was gruff, but he needed to know what he was up against here. If Emily had lied to him about her mother being dead, what else had she lied about?
Lula’s shoulders sagged and she gave him a pained look from under her lashes. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that. She doesn’t want other people to know about – things.’
‘So her mother’s alive, then?’ This was like getting sludge out of an engine.
Lula was staring at the floor now, and when she answered, her voice was so quiet he only just caught the word.
‘Yes.’
His chest tightened with unease. ‘Why did she lie to me?’
Lula shook her head, still staring down. ‘You should ask her that. I think I’ve done enough damage already. My lips are now sealed.’ She looked up at him and drew a finger across her mouth as if to zip it.
He let out a breath, trying to keep his frustration out of his body language. ‘Okay.’
It wasn’t fair to put Lula through an interrogation on her wedding day, and from the shuttered look on her face he didn’t think she’d be giving anything else away anyway.
‘Well, congratulations on your marriage. I’m really pleased the house worked for you as a venue,’ he said, then nodded curtly at her and walked out of the room before Emily caught sight of him.
Leaving the festive atmosphere humming behind him, he went and paced around in the cool air of the garden for a while, turning over the information he’d just heard in his mind. He felt uneasy and restless. Why would Emily lie to him like that? What was she hiding?
He had no idea, and it was probably better not to know.
After a bit more pacing, he decided to make a quick trip to the kitchen and fetch a bottle of whisky from the larder to take back to the guest house with him, before settling in there for the night.
The image of Emily in her red dress, her expression alive with laughter, played round and round his head as he pushed through the crowd of people towards the kitchen. He prayed he wasn’t going to bump into her. He didn’t know whether he’d be able to keep his cool with the knowledge that she’d been lying to him firmly embedded in the front of his mind.
Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. He was definitely in need of the numbing effects of alcohol tonight.
As he walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, he thought he could hear raised voices coming from that direction and picked up his pace, his heart thumping in his chest as he recognised Emily’s voice.
Striding into the room, he was alarmed to find a small group of people watching Emily in bemusement as she pointed a shaking finger in a man’s face while he stood there with a contrite expression on his face, his arms folded defensively in front of him and a coat grasped in his hand.
‘I can’t believe you’d try and sneak off early from your own daughter’s wedding!’ she was yelling at him, her face flushed with anger and her eyes wild.
The man’s expression morphed into a sneer. ‘I really don’t think it’s your place to tell me how to behave, Emily.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she shot back.
‘Considering your loose reputation, I don’t think you have any right to be taking the moral high ground.’
