Born to Be Trouble by Sheila Jeffries

Author:Sheila Jeffries [Jeffries, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

PART TWO

1970

CHAPTER 13

Honeymoon

The first cracks in Tessa’s relationship with Paul appeared just hours after the wedding.

An enthusiastic group of friends and family followed their car with its tin cans, balloons and streamers flying, to Castle Cary Station, armed with bags of confetti and rice. They gave chase as Paul and Tessa ran, giggling, over the footbridge. Tessa felt strange in her ‘going away’ outfit, a heavily textured Crimplene jacket and skirt in ‘duck egg’. The colour suited her, but the fabric felt scratchy and toxic. ‘But you MUST have a hat,’ Kate had insisted, and Tessa had reluctantly chosen the smallest possible hat, a crescent of blue feathers curled uncomfortably over the top of her head. It felt like a dragon’s claw. The hairdresser in Monterose had dragged her hair back and created an extravagant bun held together with sharp hairpins. It felt like a teazel.

Paul had nodded approvingly. ‘Very ladylike!’

Tessa didn’t want to look ladylike. She felt hot and itchy and longed to get on the train and hang her head out of the window, let the claw and the teazel unravel and blow away, let the wind stream through her hair. She was fed up with acting the radiant bride, smiling at aunties, sipping champagne when she wanted water, and striving to light a spark of approval in Penelope’s leonine eyes.

The hardest bit had been saying goodbye to her dad. Face to face on the platform as the train from Paddington came in, Freddie’s steady blue gaze was full of anxiety. She knew that he knew. ‘You remember your old dad,’ he said, ‘and remember you can always come home.’

I’d like to go home with you right now, Tessa thought, but her lips said, ‘Thanks, Dad. Don’t worry about me.’

They boarded the train under a hail of rice and confetti. Cameras with big flash guns flickered too close to their faces.

Kate blew a kiss, her eyes brimming with emotion. ‘Goodbye, darling,’ and she wagged a finger at Paul. ‘You look after my little girl.’ The train was moving now, and they hung out of the window waving, watching the loving faces getting smaller and smaller. It’s like dying, Tessa thought, watching your entire life vanish into a multi-coloured dot.

With her soul disappearing into infinity, she had a burning need to know where Paul was taking her. He’d relished keeping it a secret, his eyes twinkling stubbornly whenever she asked. She hoped the train was going to Southampton to catch the boat to France. But as the sleek diesel engine hummed past her on the platform she’d noticed the proud lettering on the side. It was the Cornishman. Surely, surely Paul wouldn’t be taking her there?

‘Now will you tell me where we’re going?’ she asked as they settled into two window seats.

Paul twinkled. ‘This train stops at about twenty stations so you’ll have to keep guessing! Or we might change trains. Now – come here, Mrs Selby, it’s time I kissed the bride properly.’ He pulled her towards him and kissed her long and hard, his hands grinding the rice and confetti into her back.

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