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A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016
Copyright © Jane Linfoot 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design by HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover design by Cherie Chapman
Jane Linfoot asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780008190507
Source ISBN: 9780008197100
Version 2017-06-26
PRAISE FOR JANE LINFOOT
‘Jane Linfoot has got out the mixing bowl and whipped up a truly gorgeous story… A deliciously scrumptious treat’
Rebecca Pugh, bestselling author of Return to Bluebell Hill
‘Just like the perfect wedding cake, Cupcakes and Confetti is beautifully crafted and wrapped in romance’
Heidi Swain, bestselling author of The Cherry Tree Café
‘A pure delight… fabulous, fun and unforgettable’
Debbie Johnson, bestselling author of The Birthday That Changed Everything
‘Simply stunning’
A Spoonful of Happy Endings
‘Gorgeous book with characters full of heart, and an impassioned story to make you smile’
Reviewed the Book
‘This author packs a punch’
My Little Book Blog
‘Loved this book. The main characters are vividly drawn… the writing is fast and feisty’
Contemporary Romance Reviews
‘With every book I read I fall more in love’
Booky Ramblings
Dedication
For Anna and Jamie, Indi and Richard, Max and Caroline, M and Phil xx
Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until they get into hot water.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Jane Linfoot
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgements
Favourite Christmas Cocktails from Brides by the Sea
Favourite Recipes from Brides by the Sea
Coming Soon from Jane Linfoot
About the Author
Also by Jane Linfoot
About HarperImpulse
About the Publisher
1
Friday, 16th December
Brides by the Sea: Crossed hearts and mermaid tails
‘Leave the Closed sign up for now, Sera.’
Jess, my boss and mentor, is thinking ahead as usual, talking to me over her shoulder, as I wait for her to unlock the door to Brides by the Sea, the most popular wedding shop in all of Cornwall and where I’m lucky enough to work. Even though I pass them every day, the trails of frosted ivy and those cascades of tulle in the Christmas window displays still send shivers down my spine which are nothing to do with the icy blast of the December wind that’s howling across St Aidan Bay. I know most brides choose to get married in summer, but when I see the whirl of hanging snowflakes and the sparkle of sequins against the snowy lace dresses, I completely understand why my sister, Alice, fell in love with the idea of getting married at Christmas. In less than a week’s time, a hundred and fifty guests will be descending on a Cornish country house for her four-day-long wedding celebration. Yes, it’s as epic and ambitious as it sounds. Only a power house like Alice would ever try to pull it off. As for whether she’ll succeed… Well, watch this space.
Coming back down to earth this morning, beyond the suspended silver baubles flashing with the reflections of a thousand fairy lights of the window displays, the remnants of last night’s staff Christmas-drinks party are waiting for us inside the shop. As the warm air of the entrance hall wraps around us, I peer through into The White Room, where we were partying last night, then pull back sharply.
‘Jeez, it looks as if a giant party popper exploded in there.’ The low whistle I let out is to hide my horror at the mess. From the number of glasses, you’d have thought we’d invited the whole town, not just a few close friends from the business.
As I stoop to ease a cashew nut out of the gap in the floorboards and flick on the lights on the giant Christmas tree in the hall, my head throbs. There’s a tinkle of dangling sleigh bells as I nudge the branches on my way back up, and set the white painted pine cones spinning on their ribbons.
I pick up a tumbler and shudder at the dying raspberries in the bottom. In the cold light of morning, I can’t believe we got so carried away by Christmas that we flouted Jess’s ‘clear drinks only in the wedding shop’ rule and went for red punch. Or worse, that we were rash enough to float exotic fruits in the Ruby Duchess cocktails next to so many precious and beautiful white dresses.
‘We had a lot to celebrate, Sera, we’ve had a fantastic year.’ Jess is looking surprisingly upbeat for someone who was at the after-party until four, and has come in to find her main bridal room trashed. It’s possible she might still be drunk. She’s also building up to a purr, so even though she said it all last night ten times at least, it’s obvious what’s coming next. ‘All thanks to you and your wonderful Seraphina East dresses.’ Truly, someone needs to move her on from this loop to save me all the blushes. However hard I try, she doesn’t take any notice.
In case you’re wondering, I’m Sera, short for Seraphina, and I design a lot of the wedding dresses Jess sells in the shop. And if you don’t already know, Brides by the Sea is four floors of bridal gorgeousness, in the seaside town of Saint Aidan. No prizes for guessing it’s almost on the beach, which is where I wandered in from, with my scrap book of dress designs eight years ago. And I’ve been here ever since. Jess, the owner, began by doing wedding flowers in one tiny room, and built her way up to what is here today – a Bridal Emporium containing everything you could need for a wedding. And brides flock here from Devon, Cornwall, and the world beyond.
And what Jess is talking about here is me getting the chance to design a celebrity wedding dress earlier this year. Which obviously was great for the shop, and is why my designs now have a dedicated room of their own, and why my name is painted on every shop window. But given I hate the attention being on me, it’s also meant I’ve spent the last few months trying to hide in corners.
‘Weddings taking off at Daisy Hill Farm brought us a lot of business too,’ I say. I’m trying to shift the glory off myself here, because last year Poppy, the wedding-cake maker who lived upstairs and worked at the shop, became a wedding organiser at a local farm. So if we’ve had a brilliant year, it’s down to her too.
‘It was so nice to see Poppy again,’ I muse. However awesome the party, my high point last night was Poppy coming home after a couple of months in London, and looking so happy to be back. Come to think of it, I could murder a giant piece of Poppy’s carrot cake right now.
‘I’m so pleased Poppy’s come to her senses and grabbed Rafe at last,’ Jess says. ‘We could all do with a farmer like him, he’s completely yummy.’
Jess is talking about very own Brides by the Sea in-house romance, which was finally sealed yesterday evening. After a whole year, Poppy is finally going out with Rafe, her boss from the farm.
Jess begins to unwind her silk scarf. ‘I haven’t booked any brides in for this morning, because we’ve got so much work to do here.’ She’s not joking about that. And given most days she’s meticulous enough to have us wiping away the rings on the coasters every time someone lifts a prosecco glass, we need to get cracking.
‘Great, shall I collect glasses and you do surfaces?’ I rub my hands together to show that despite my headache, I’m ready to get stuck in.
Jess sends me one of the despairing looks she saves for when I’m being dense. ‘We aren’t here to clear up, Sera.’
‘We’re not?’ This is news to me.
There’s more purring going on. ‘Two tame and very sweet bar boys from Jaggers will be arriving any minute to look after that.’ So that explains that purr. Jaggers Cocktail Bar is Jess’s favourite hang out in town. Even though the clientele are half her age, when it comes to downing cocktails, Jess can drink most of them under the purple plastic designer tables, no problem. And given she spends so much time there, she’s great friends with the staff.
‘So what are we doing?’ If Jess doesn’t have cleaning plans for me, I’ll head upstairs to my studio. Not that I’ve told her, but I’m very behind with my dress designs for next season’s collection.
Jess sends me another despairing look. ‘Sera, please tell me you haven’t forgotten. We’re sorting out your bridesmaid’s dress. Obviously.’
‘Oh shit.’ My groan is long and heartfelt as I hitch up my shorts.
I design dresses, I don’t wear them. Ever. And I know I have to make an exception for my sister’s Christmas Eve wedding, but thus far I’ve been in denial. Although the bridesmaid’s dress arrived weeks ago, despite Jess’s best efforts, I’ve dodged trying it on. Although, as I think about Alice, I let out a shriek. ‘Oh shit, Alice wants a Skype call, I need to set up my laptop. Like now…’
If someone said ditsy, I’d have to hold my hands up to that one. I’m the dreamy person, with the attention span of a gnat. The one who’s so easily distracted that when I dunk a biscuit, it invariably falls in my tea. Let’s face it, I’m creative. Coordination and organisation aren’t in my mindset. Which is why Jess is so great for me to work with. She keeps me on track.
‘Set up your Skype in your room, Sera, I’ll get your dress from the store. That sister of yours can wait five minutes while you try it on.’
Jess deals in orders, not suggestions. She might be bossy, but I forgive her every time. In the last eight years, it’s her hard business head and her drive that have taken me from a student with a sketch book to a designer with a studio and a dedicated room in her shop. Plus an annual collection, and more couture clients than I can handle. If it hadn’t been for Jess, I would still be lazing on my beach towel, drawing and dreaming. And Jess has supported me all the way, financially too, which is unthinkably generous and why I don’t mind her railroading me sometimes.
I mean who – except Jess – would have imagined that five minutes later, instead of washing up I’d be emerging from the fitting room in a dress…
‘It’s very pink.’ As I gaze down at myself, a croak is the most I can manage. Imagine an explosion in a glitter factory colliding with an avalanche and you’ll still only be halfway there. Although that might be the least of my problems, given the skirt is fluffing out to the size of a small tree. And right now I have to forget I’d ever hoped for cloud grey tulle, with tiny silver flecks.
‘I’d say it’s oyster rather than rose.’ Jess’s voice is breathy. ‘And it’s exquisite, just look at these seed pearls… did you ever see sequins so tiny?’
Don’t worry about the hyperventilating. Jess can’t help getting excited over anything with lace and sparkles. That’s why she’s got such a great wedding shop. At least she’s temporarily suspended her disapproval of all things Alice, though.
Alice, importing her entire wedding from London to Rose Hill Manor, the Cornwall country house, where she’s getting married, got the ‘thumbs down’ from Jess. Big time. Alice has somehow blagged the most spectacular wedding venue from a friend of Dan, her fiancé. But Alice not shopping at Brides by the Sea for her bridesmaids caused a tidal wave of discontent from Jess. As for Alice choosing a wedding dress from another designer when she could have chosen me, in Jess’s eyes that’s SO awful, we haven’t even got onto talking about it yet.
‘Forget about their size, did you ever see so many sequins in one place at one time?’ I ask. No way can I be as enthusiastic as Jess when I’m the one wearing them all.
Don’t worry, I’m completely cool with Alice shopping elsewhere. A bride has to find the perfect dress, and Alice and I have always been very different. Where I’m boho and scruffy, she’s super-stylish and uber-smart. We live in entirely different worlds, our tastes don’t coincide. So my dresses wouldn’t be her thing at all. As for how we’re going to get on when we’re thrown together for the wedding… that’s another instance of ‘watch this space’.
I try a tentative swish with the skirt. ‘Maybe maximalist bridesmaids will set off Alice’s minimalist dress.’ The sketch she showed me was so severe and pared back, it only had two lines. I’m guessing it’s some kind of haute couture silk column. ‘She’s definitely embracing the “Snow Queen” theme.’
Alice’s favourite book when we were kids was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She starred in the Christmas production at school when she was ten and I was eight. Whereas I was a snowflake, and I fluffed my entrance, I’m not sure Alice ever forgot her triumph as Queen Susan. But Alice going for a full-blown Narnia wedding still came as a shock. Somehow I hadn’t pegged my ambitious, order-obsessed, high-flying sister as nostalgic.
‘If she’s hoping for snow she’ll be disappointed.’ Jess is smoothing out my skirts now. ‘This is Cornwall not Krakow. Someone should have told her – the climate’s oceanic.’ Jess drops onto her hands and knees, and begins to work her way around, giving the hem gentle tugs as she goes.
‘Okay, stand still, I’ll see how the length is. And while we’re here, you can tell me how your collection designs are coming along.’
The question floats upwards through waves of tulle, but it still makes me stiffen so hard that my spine goes ramrod straight. Jess is talking about my ideas for my next collection of dresses.
‘Alright… I s’pose…’ I try to make the lie sound nonchalant and laid-back.
‘Hadn’t you hoped to be finished by this weekend?’ Jess is slipping the questions between tweaks, but, believe me, there’s nothing casual about them. This is the interrogation I’ve been dodging for more weeks than the dress.
We both know that I usually get all my design sketches consolidated easily, in two short weeks while I laze on some exotic beach in the cheap off-peak time before Christmas. And we both know, with Alice’s wedding coming up, I’m here, not there. And somehow Cornwall in winter isn’t doing it for me like Bali does. I’d promised myself and Jess I’d work my butt off, and whatever happened I’d have everything sorted by this weekend. But somehow it hasn’t worked out like that. I’m a beachy girl, and that’s where I do my best work. The designs flow much more easily when I’m flat out on the sand. Add in the crippling worry that I’m never going to be good enough again after designing for a celebrity, and I haven’t been able to draw a thing. Between us, I feel about as creative as a turnip. I’ve got no designs finalised at all, but even worse, I haven’t any ideas either. So where there should be a complete collection of worked-up designs, instead there’s an empty sketch book. Sometime in the next week I’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do.
‘Realistically, nothing gets going again until after Christmas.’ I’m bluffing here. ‘I decided it’s way more sensible to give myself a New Year deadline.’ I’m staring in the mirror over Jess’s head, exchanging OMG glances with myself. Praying that the word ‘sensible’ will be the one Jess hones in on.
‘I see…’ Jess says, sounding like she really doesn’t.
I’m dragging in a breath so huge it almost makes my eyes pop, waiting to see if I’ve got away with this when there’s a loud squawk at floor level.
‘Sera, what the hell have you got on your feet under here?’
Shit. I’ve been rumbled. Which is really bad luck, considering exactly how many layers of dress there are between Jess and my…
‘Biker boots?’ Jess’s voice rises to a scream that makes my hangover head reverberate horribly. ‘You have to be joking me. Where are the white bridesmaid’s boots Alice sent you, Sera?’
My feet in those pointy toes? It’s not happening. But I might as well come clean. ‘The kitten heels are upstairs in the studio.’ Buried under a week’s worth of completely useless sketches. Along with the white fur jacket and the wedding manual she also sent. ‘They totally kill my feet.’ I can tell excuses are falling flat. ‘The heels on these are pretty much the same height.’
Jess is staring up at me, her arm like a signpost, finger pointing at the door. ‘Go.’
‘Fine,’ I say, with a sniff.
‘And come back wearing the proper boots.’ Her shouting softens. ‘You’ll have to break them in some time. You might as well start now.’
I look down at the skirt the width of the bay and know there’s no way I’ll make it up the narrow stairs to the studio in the dress. There’s only one thing for it. I squirm, undo the zip, let the dress fall to the floor. As I leap across the bunched-up acres of skirt, being careful not to trample it with my biker boots, there’s another howl from Jess.
‘Sera, I don’t believe it! You’ve got all your clothes on under there!’
‘And?’ I stare down at my leopard-print leggings, shorts and shirt. ‘Good thing too, now I’ve had to strip off.’ Honestly, it’s December, there’s no point being colder than I have to be. And if the dress is the size of a snowstorm, no one’s going to notice a bit of underwear. Besides, Jess is the original inventor of the mantra, ‘No one’s looking at the bridesmaids’. So I sense she’s being a) a bit of a stickler and b) slightly hypocritical here.
Five minutes later, when we resume, I’m wearing the kitten heels – yes, they’re agony, in case you’re wondering – and I’ve compromised hugely by taking off my shorts. And Jess has gone in to attack the hem with her pins. My toes feeling like they’re dropping off is a small price to pay when the heat’s off my designs. Or the lack of them. Which Jess appears to have completely forgotten about now.
‘You’re lucky Alice hasn’t got you in six-inch stilettos,’ Jess says.
I don’t bother to tell her that’s really not Alice’s look. Instead I lock my knees, settle down to listen to the gentle sound of guys washing up two rooms away, as I stare out of the window. Although, with the explosion of Christmas sparkle on the glass, it’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on in the world beyond, other than a solitary figure pausing to look at the displays.
‘Jess…’ One of the helpers has stopped clattering glasses and is calling through. ‘There’s someone at the shop door, wanting to come in.’
‘Take a break, Sera, I won’t be long.’
In a second Jess pushes herself up, shoves her feet back into her loafers and marches out into the hallway. Although the shop is technically closed, so long as Jess is in the building, there is the potential for trade. She’s never one to let the opportunity of a sale slip by. Sure enough, next thing, I hear her opening the shop door.
‘Come in… it’s horribly cold outside… definitely no snow though… yes, we’re closed, but we always make exceptions…do tell me, what can I do to help?’
Call me cynical, but from the welcome, I already know it’s a guy. Thirty to forty, to judge by Jess’s pitch. A smile spreads across my face, because the supercharge of charm tells me he’s probably good looking too. And just because I’m nosey, and amused, and a little bit bored, I tilt my head to hear better.