Magical Weddings (27 page)

“And if the hem still isn’t right?”

“Phone me and I’ll make arrangements to come back and organise another fitting. Oh, and I meant to ask if you could check on Ebb and Flow, as well?”

“Will do.” Cait reached across her desk and wrote on a slip of paper: check goldfish.

“Thanks Cait. I really appreciate this so much.”

“No problem. Tell Guy I hope his father feels better very soon.” Cait hesitated. The last thing Rosie needed right now was her adding to her stress. But if she didn’t say anything and Matthew mentioned he had seen her it would look as if she had deliberately not mentioned seeing him. “So—no biggie…it’s just that I bumped into Matthew Searle this morning.”

“Oh God, I completely forgot to tell you. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Er, yes,” Cait said, thinking that, no, ‘amazing’, wasn’t exactly the feeling she had got when she had spied those broad shoulders of his this morning.

“Guy and I never thought he’d do it, you know.”

“You seriously thought he would miss your wedding?” Wow. Even Cait had never thought he would do that.

“No, neither of us ever thought he’d come back for good.”

Cait blinked.

She was still blinking when Rosie added a quick, “Anyway, I’ll call you tonight to let you know how it’s going at the hospital. Hugs and kisses, hun, ‘bye.”

Cait stared at her phone.

So the fact that Matthew had led her to believe he had come back to keep her from potentially ruining their friends’ big day hadn’t been all of it, then.

He was really back for good?

But why?

What had happened to the: there’s a big wide world out there and I intend to experience all of it?

****

Cait let the door to Rosie and Guy’s apartment swing shut behind her. Walking straight into the living room, she dumped her laptop bag onto the sofa, and then headed through to the kitchen with the bag of laundry she had brought with her. Might as well get a few things done while she waited for Rosie’s gown to be delivered.

In a few moments she had loaded the washing machine and switched on the kettle to make tea. She was about to reach into the fridge to get the milk out when her gaze zeroed in on a photograph stuck to the front of the fridge with a heart-shaped magnet.

There they all were. Rosie, Guy, Matthew and her.

Cait caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Were there actually any photographs from their university days which hadn’t included some version of the four of them?

Cait bit down harder on her lip as she stared at the image.

Rosie, Guy and Matthew were looking at whichever waiter was taking the photo.

But Cait…Cait was looking at Guy.

Heat travelled up her neck to land on her cheeks and breathing in sharply, she yanked opened the fridge door to get the milk.

Guy was her past and Rosie’s present and future.

If Matthew thought she didn’t understand that or didn’t wish her two friends all the joy in the world, then she would just have to show him that she did.

Palazzo Ducale, Venice 1615

Eager to see the ballroom, Caterina and Rosa made light work of refolding all the lace so that they could carry it in one trip.

“Wait,” the dogaressa declared as Caterina walked past her carrying half of the overlays in her arms, “You have dropped a piece.”

Caterina’s gaze flew to the piece of lace her employer had bent to retrieve. Shock held her immobile even as she suddenly felt as if the ground was rising up to meet her.

“But this is truly exquisite,” Margarita said, holding the sample in her hand.

“Please,” Caterina said, her breath coming shallow. “It is only a remnant. It will have dropped from my sleeve.”

Caterina could not understand. She had been so sure she had tucked that particular special piece of lace safely out of sight. Now she knew she should never have taken it from her mother’s sewing basket that morning.

It was a privilege to design and craft lace for the Dogaressa, but Cait knew that there was a finer lace being made in Venice. People had been visiting her mother in secret for years, requesting pieces made with special properties woven in.

The magic her mother wove into her lace would pass to Caterina upon marriage.

Caterina wanted the magic.

But the marriage…

Even so, it had been selfish to take the lace that morning.

A step too far.

In wanting to see if she could understand the magic and perhaps use it to save herself from marriage to a man she did not love, and who, she was pretty sure did not love her, she had forgotten that she would be visiting the palazzo—the very place where magic was forbidden.

Dogaressa Margarita stood transfixed as she held the finely-stitched material draped across her hand and Caterina watched helplessly as the lace shimmered and sparkled and the lines and age-spots on her lady’s skin started to disappear completely.

“What trick is this?” the dogaressa murmured, her voice shaking.

“None,” Caterina answered with her heart in her mouth. To admit knowing of magic, when the Doge had banished the craft a year after his daughter’s accident, would surely seal a desperate fate for her. “A trick of the light, perhaps?” she offered hopefully.

“Rosa,” ordered Margarita, unable to take her gaze from her hand, “take the lace overlays from Caterina and go directly to the ballroom.”

Rosa obeyed with a panicked, desperate look on her face. Caterina tried her best to smile and reassure her friend. All the lacemakers enjoyed a good relationship with Dogaressa Margarita. Everything would be all right, she prayed.

“Come then,” the dogaressa said when Rosa had left the two of them alone, “we will go to the window and see this trick of the light.”

With her hand pressed against her furiously beating heart, Caterina had no choice but to follow.

At the window, the longer the lace rested upon Margarita’s hand, the more her skin began to lose its lines and wrinkles. Where one hour ago knuckles had been swollen with the beginnings of arthritis, now her hand appeared healthy and younger.

Caterina stared, her thoughts whirling as she regretted her impulsiveness a thousand times over in bringing the sample of her mother’s lace that morning.

“You have cast some sort of spell and it has worked. I witness it with my own eyes,” the dogaressa accused.

Fear prickled Caterina’s skin then burrowed deep. “Please,” she begged. “It harms no one.”

“You will accompany me to my apartments,” the dogaressa declared. “I wish you to meet my daughter.”

Caterina wondered if she had misheard until her hand was grabbed in a vice-like grip and she was dragged out of the workroom, out into the palazzo courtyard, and into another wing of the building.

As they climbed a wide stone staircase, Margarita’s grip on Caterina’s hand never loosening, Caterina vowed that whatever was about to happen, she would protect her mother’s secret.

“Daughter?” the dogaressa called out as they entered a large room, left mostly in darkness.

“
Si
, Mama?”

Caterina peered through the tunnel of light coming in from the velvet hung at the windows and realised there was a young woman sitting in the shadows.

“Maria,” the dogaressa said with delight, “I have exciting news. You will attend the masquerade tonight.”

“But Mama, no-,”

To Caterina’s ears Maria sounded absolutely horrified and Caterina tried to control her own fear as the dogaressa released her painful grip on her arm and hurried to the fireplace to light the candles on the mantel.

“I have brought my head lacemaker Caterina Rosso with me,” Margarita said with excitement. “She is going to make you a new mask to wear tonight. You will see. All your troubles are about to melt away.”

Maria stood up and moved towards them and as she did so the soft yellow candlelight fell across her face and it was impossible for Caterina to prevent the gasp from leaving her lips.

“You see?” Maria cried, pointing to Caterina. “What good is a mask? She sees instantly how ugly I am.”

“Not ugly, child,” her mother insisted.

Caterina agreed. Once she had looked past the long jagged scar that ran from Maria’s temple to lip, she could see that she was exceptionally beautiful.

The dogaressa stepped forward to take her daughter’s hand and lead her over to the mirror above the fireplace. Maria made to snuff out the candlelight, but gently, the dogaressa stilled her actions and placed the lace against her daughter’s cheek. Within moments her scar started to fade.

Maria stumbled closer to the mirror, tears filling her eyes, as she stared at her reflection.

“Mama?” she gasped in wonder. “How is this possible?”

“Magic, daughter. The first true magic we have seen.”

Suddenly Caterina understood. Magic had been banished at the palace, not because it was thought evil, but because none before had ever worked. None before had been real.

“Caterina,” the dogaressa said turning to her, “you will take this lace and fashion it into a mask for my daughter to wear tonight.”

Caterina swallowed. What would happen to her if the magic wore off, or if it did not work at all in a mask? Would she be taken to the dark, damp prisons across the bridge from the palace and perhaps left there to rot?

She wanted to be able to speak with her mother but dare not reveal her as the source of the magic in case that brought worse on her family. If the magic did fail and a punishment was to be meted out, Caterina would gladly take it in place of her mother, who did not even know she had taken the lace.

“Maria,” the dogaressa told her daughter with love and hope shining out of her eyes, “tonight, for the first time, you will dance freely, you will laugh with a light heart and perhaps you will even find your prince.”

Caterina watched Maria press fragile fingers to where her scar had once been. “How long will my scar stay disappeared?”

Caterina met her eyes in the mirror. “Truthfully, I do not know,” she answered.

Maria considered her for a moment and then asked, “But this lace is your talent? You are the one who wove it with magic?”

Caterina hesitated, and then, to protect her mother, simply nodded.

“Then we will send a messenger to your house to inform them you are attending the ball tonight as a reward for all your hard work,” Maria informed her.

Before the events of the past hour Caterina’s heart would have filled to bursting to be invited to the ball, but now all she felt was her nerves quiver against the lie of stating she knew of the magic in the lace—that it was her who had created the piece.

“You can wear the mask that had been made for me and one of my spare gowns,” Maria said smiling and then paused before taking care to meet Caterina’s gaze in the mirror. “And you will stay close at hand in case the magic wears off.”

Caterina nodded as the fist of fear squeezed around her heart. There was a fragility to Maria’s personality that shone through her beauty and Caterina was not naïve enough to miss the note of warning in the dogaressa’s daughter’s voice.

****

Hours later Caterina watched the party-goers from the safety of the edge of the ballroom. Without the wand of the jewelled mask to hold to her face she was quite sure she would not know what to do with her hands. It was hard enough to resist the urge to tug on the rich navy silk gown she was wearing. The dress felt unfamiliar, the material heavy and stiff and so opulent she had not had anything to eat or drink for fear of spilling something down it.

Her gaze panned the room in search of Maria and when she found her holding court to a group of suitors it was impossible not to be struck by her poise and beauty.

Every now and then, Maria would lower her mask, and with a blush, smile warmly. Then, as if unused to having anyone look at her without pity in their eyes, she would raise the mask to cover her face again.

Caterina suspected she was not the only one feeling like she was in a dream she might wake up from at any moment.

To ground herself Caterina studied the mask she had made for Maria. Objectively, she could see that she had created something to match Maria’s beauty. When it was lifted to her face it caught the light and made one think of a magnificent white swan.

She had set the lace so that it covered the entire mask and she had sealed the edges with virginal white feathers, hundreds of tiny seed pearls, glass sequin cut crystals and the finest silver thread she had ever been given to work with. She could hardly believe she had pulled it off, her hands had been shaking so much, and when Maria had held the mask to her face Caterina’s breath had stopped in her lungs, so afraid was she that the magic would not work.

But it had and all Caterina could do now was pray it did not wear off until after the ball because she could not help feeling that if this evening did not go well for Maria, then it would not go well for her.

“You look beautiful,” a deep voice said close in her ear, making Caterina’s heart flutter as she realised the owner of the voice was addressing her.

Turning, she whipped her mask up to her face and felt the heat of her blush rising from her breastbone to creep up her neck. Not knowing what else to do, she tipped her head to acknowledge the compliment.

“But then,” the stranger continued, “I have not yet encountered an occasion where you haven’t.”

Caterina let his words dance over her skin, heating her to the point of loosening some of the tension inside of her. For the first time since watching the procession into the ballroom this evening, Caterina felt connected back to every inch of her body.

This was truly happening then. She was actually here.

And a man with a voice like dark velvet claimed to know her—to think her beautiful.           

“You do not recognise me?”

Under his quiet regard, Caterina blushed more intensely. With him standing so close and the mask only covering a third of his face, she could not think who would know her here.