Page 61 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘I think it’s bad luck to cry at a Christmas party, Posy,’ she said. ‘It means that you’ll cry at every Christmas party from now on.’
‘That’s birthdays,’ Posy sobbed and Mattie wondered how soon it would be before she could make her excuses and leave.
‘Oh God, Posy, stop crying!’ Verity demanded. ‘You have to stop crying all the time. Think of something nice.’
‘I’m giving birth to a barely sentient creature. That’s not nice!’
‘Way to overreact, Pose,’ Sam said, which earned him a withering look from Sophie. It was left to Verity to provide the diversion by jumping to her feet and announcing to the assembled company, ‘I’m engaged!’
Nina turned her head so quickly, it was a wonder she didn’t get whiplash. ‘You’rewhat?’
‘Johnny asked me to marry him last Thursday night after we had an argument about Strumpet’s litter tray – we’re still not letting him out after the gate incident,’ Verity explained like anyone even cared about Strumpet’s litter tray at that particular moment. ‘Anyway, I said yes and now we’re engaged and you absolutely can’t tell anyone. Posy, why are you still crying?’
‘They’re happy tears,’ Posy insisted snottily, as everyone got to their feet to congratulate Verity and hug her, though she backed away, hands in front of her.
‘You know how I feel about hugging. This isn’t an occasion that merits hugging,’ she said.
Tom settled for patting her on the arm, while looking quite unsettled. ‘Another one of you getting married? Is there something in the water supply at the shop? I’m going to have to start drinking the bottled stuff.’
Sophie smirked. ‘Are you sure you’re not already married, Tom?’
‘No, I’m not secretly married with five children and neither am I a Russian sleeper agent waiting to be activated by my handler,’ he sniffed, sitting back down. ‘I know exactly what you all say about me behind my back.’
‘You don’t know the half of it. Now, come here, Very, and prepare to be hugged,’ Nina said fondly, smooshing Verity to her bosoms. ‘How exciting! I barely got to plan my wedding, what with us being in Vegas. Oh! You can get married in Happy Ever After. We could apply for a special license. We’d be bound to go viral.’
Posy clasped her hands together in rapture. She was no longer crying, but sporting an ear-to-ear grin. ‘That would be perfect!’
‘Or I can get married in the village church that my father happens to be vicar of,’ Verity said tartly, accepting Cuthbert’s congratulatory handshake. ‘Can we all sit down and stop making a fuss? You know how I feel about fusses.’
Yet for someone so newly engaged, Verity didn’t look very happy. If Mattie had found someone that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, she’d be quite chipper about it. She waited for that horrible scalding, panicking feeling that she always got when she thought about being in another relationship, but it never came. Instead she felt the faintest pinprick of excitement at the possibility that there might be someone out there for her.
‘You’ve had the soppiest smile on your face,’ Tom whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t say you’re going to be next and I’ll have to go to all the trouble of finding a new flatmate.’
That wiped the allegedly soppy smile off Mattie’s face immediately. ‘Highly unlikely,’ she whispered back. ‘Don’t forget, I hate all men.’
‘Notallmen,’ Tom quoted back at her with a sly little smile, which made Mattie want to smile too while she dug him in the ribs.
‘Also, as you pointed out when you were trying to do me out of the flat, you’ve worked in the shop longest so it will definitely be you who gets married first,’ Mattie informed Tom. ‘It’s obvious that working in a romantic fiction bookshop addles the brain.’
Mattie could tell that he was working up to saying something particularly crushing from the way his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, but Verity provided another diversion. She’d only just sat down again and had Nina on one side and Posy on the other, both of them yammering in her ears, so who could blame her for jumping to her feet again and shouting, ‘Stop! Just stop it! All of you! I never meant to tell you that I was getting engaged. I only did it to stop Posy crying and now you all have to swear to keep it secret! No one must know. Even Merry doesn’t know!’
Verity was the middle one of five sisters, all four of them garrulous and completely lacking in personal boundaries. Much like Nina, and Mattie’s own mother. But despite the fact that Verity was the complete opposite, she was very close to all her sisters, particularly Merry (or Mercy as she’d been christened), so it was quite the surprise that she hadn’t told her the good news.
‘We want to do things properly,’ Verity explained, sitting back down. ‘Johnny is planning to ask Dad for his blessing. In person. Over pints in the local pub, as is traditional.’
Nina pulled a face. ‘So old-fashioned and kind of sexist.’
‘He’s not asking for permission, I’m not a piece of property, but I am a vicar’s daughter and Johnny says that as he only plans to marry once, he wants to do things by the book.’ Verity smiled happily. Then the corners of the smile drooped. ‘It’s just that we already promised that we’d spend Christmas with Johnny’s dad and his girlfriend, Celia, and we’re booked to go away after Christmas, so we won’t be able to go up to Lincolnshire until the new year. And I can’t tell my sisters in the meantime.’
‘They wouldn’t mean to but all four of them would end up telling your parents in a matter of minutes,’ Tom said because they’d all met the Love sisters and while they were good company, they couldn’t keep a secret if their lives depended on it.
‘Exactly,’ Verity said rather unhappily. ‘I have this lovely news, the best news, and I have to sit on it for weeks when I want to shout it from the rooftops.’ She pulled a face. ‘Not that I ever shout but I would like to tell my parents …’
‘You’re having next weekend off and that’s an order!’ Posy shrieked. ‘It will be my engagement present to you!’
‘Do we have to buy engagement presents now?’ Nina asked. ‘As well as a wedding present and shelling out for the hen do …’
‘I am absolutely not having a hen do,’ Verity said firmly. She took Posy’s hand. ‘And I am not taking next weekend off. It’s the last weekend before Christmas.’
