Read The Winter Folly for Free Online

an almost ghostly white figure, its face concealed, the eyes only just discernible
through the net. She could not see her own expression.
    Outside the church her father turned to her, smiled and said, ‘You look lovely, my dear.’ He kissed her cheek and took her hand, placing it on his arm and covering it with his own.
Her heart lifted with pleasure. ‘Are you ready?’
    She nodded. The strains of Handel were pumped out by the wheezing organ, and they set off up the aisle, followed by two tiny attendants, the children of a relation – a little girl in pink
organza and a boy in a kilt and a brass-buttoned jacket with a frothy lace cravat – towards Laurence, who waited at the top, his brother beside him. The church was full. Through her veil,
everyone seemed misty and half obscured but there they all were: her own family, local people who’d known her all her life and, on the other side, Laurence’s family. There was his
mother, small and fair and somehow a little monkeyish, a bit like Laurence himself, his sister Maeve, and his father, her own father’s friend, who had made this come to pass. They’d all
come, putting on dresses and hats, morning coats and polished shoes. Everything that needed to be done had been done. There was no backing out now. She clutched her father tighter, taking comfort
from the unfamiliar feeling of his closeness and the firm arm beneath her hand.
    As she approached Laurence, she could see beads of sweat on his nose and forehead. His skin was paper white and his chest moved rapidly under his coat. He looked as though he was going to faint.
Alexandra felt light-headed and dizzy herself; she had not been able to keep down the toast that Aunt Felicity had made her eat, and now there was a painful knot in her stomach. It occurred to her
that both she and Laurence might faint and she had a wild urge to laugh at the mental picture of the bride and groom both unconscious before the altar.
    Laurence tried to smile at her as she came level with him but he looked suddenly sickly and swayed for a moment before he seemed to regain control of himself.
    ‘Are you all right?’ the vicar asked quietly as the organ sounded the last notes.
    Laurence nodded, gulping for breath, and his brother said, ‘He’s fine. Overcome with happiness, that’s all. You can start.’
    Alexandra had the sudden feeling that until now they’d been playing a game of getting married and everyone had made a terrible mistake and taken them seriously.
What are we doing?
she thought.
Isn’t anyone going to stop us?
    But no one said anything, not even when they were asked if they knew of any just cause or impediment. When bidden, Alexandra took Laurence’s hand, repeated the words, listened as he spoke
the same to her, and still couldn’t shake the strange impression that all this was make-believe, not really happening to her, even as she watched him push the slim gold band onto her fourth
finger. Surely at the end of this odd ritual, she would take off the white dress and the veil, give back the flowers, put on her old clothes and go back to her room, still Alexandra Crewe, nineteen
years old, living with her father and wondering when her life would begin.
    But when she walked out of the church at Laurence’s side, into the blustery June sunshine, everything had changed. In half an hour, and to the tune of reedy hymns and an aria sung flat by
a girl from the village, she had been transformed into someone called Mrs Laurence Sykes. She was now a wife, a woman of the world, with new duties and tasks ahead of her.
    That evening they set off in Laurence’s Triumph Herald, her suitcase wedged on the back seat, to go to the seaside for their honeymoon, and they would return not to her home but to married
quarters in London.
    Her old life was gone forever.

Chapter Four
    Present day
    Delilah’s whole life with John had almost never come to pass. The magazine had booked a fashion shoot at Fort Stirling and she was