sounds dreadful and I probably can’t prove a thing. But Sam-my fiane-lived next door to Lizzy Hurst all the time he and Lizzy were kids. Lizzy adored him. She always assumed they’d marry.
‘Well, at seventeen, Sam decided he wanted to leave the island and be a lawyer. He didn’t want Lizzy. Lizzy hit the roof. She did all sorts of crazy things. Every time he’s come back she’s made his visits miserable-even though he’s been gone now for over ten years.’
‘So you believe…’ Quinn Gallagher let out his breath on a long, slow whistle. ‘You believe this is a deliberate attempt at sabotage?’
‘Lizzy has an oyster lease south of the island. She knows everything there is to know about oysters. She’ll know just when they start to turn-and she’ll know we won’t be able to prove a thing.’
Quinn gazed round.
‘The photographer’s not ill,’ he said. ‘Was he…?’
‘He wasn’t at lunch.’
‘Your uncle?’
‘He hates oysters.’
‘And you?’
‘I was too nervous to eat anything.’
‘OK, it fits,’ Quinn said decisively, and Fern had a sudden image of him in Casualty Department, complete with white coat and stethoscope. She found the image strong, competent and strangely comforting. ‘But we need to find Lizzy and confirm it.’
‘I guess…’ Fern looked doubtfully over the scattering groups of guests. They were nearly all gone now-taken to their cars and bolting like rabbits to the privacy of their own homes.
‘You know where she lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we phone her?’
‘She doesn’t have a phone.’ Fern grimaced. ‘And if I know Lizzy, she’ll be hard to find. But I agree; she has to be found and I guess I know the places to look. OK, I’ll go.’ She looked ruefully down at her bridal splendour. ‘But I’ll stop on the way and get something more suitable to wear.’
‘What you’re wearing is hardly clinical.’ The smile surfaced again. ‘Though it’s white enough.’
‘There’s no need to laugh.’ Fern drew herself up to her full five feet three inches and glared. ‘It’s not your wedding that’s been totally ruined.’
‘No.’ He smiled down at her, his lips curved in what almost seemed a trace of self-mockery. ‘A pity…’
‘We’re wasting time,’ Fern snapped. ‘Are you coming with me to find Lizzy?’
‘No.’ Quinn shrugged expressive shoulders. ‘There’s work that might need doing here.’ He looked across to where Sam was still in deep distress, his lean and harshly contoured face growing grim.
‘I’ll check Sam before I go,’ Fern told him. ‘I’ll take him home to his parents.’ She stared around helplessly. ‘They seem to have gone already.’
‘I’ll check Sam,’ Quinn said brusquely. ‘He’s the least of our troubles. It’s not the fit young men I’m worried about.’ The laughter had completely faded from Quinn Gallagher’s voice.
‘There are others we need to be worried about. Lizzy Hurst might have thought she was doing nothing but playing a sadistic joke, but there are a couple of your wedding guests whom this could really hurt. Frank Reid’s elderly and diabetic. As far as I can see he’s gone home alone-and gone in a hurry. I’ll go there now.’
Fern drew in her breath. She had forgotten Frank.
Who else? She forced her mind to run through the list of guests. ‘There’s Pete Harny,’ she said finally. ‘You’ve been here for six months, haven’t you, so I guess you know he’s haemophiliac. He was there at lunchtime and I think he ate the oysters-but his parents will phone if he starts haemorrhaging.’
‘His parents will phone if they’re capable-if they’re not in too much trouble themselves-and I’d rather treat him before he starts haemorrhaging.’ Quinn’s eyes were suddenly cold as consequences started flooding through both their minds. ‘What a foolish girl! What a stupid, stupid thing to do.’
‘She’s in love,’ Fern said bleakly. ‘Anything’s supposed to be excused if you’re in love.’
‘Well, you’re a bride and I can’t see you poisoning people,’ Quinn retorted.
‘But I’m not in love!’
The words were said before Fern had time to stop them. They hung in the warm evening air, as incongruous as everything else that had happened this day. As incongruous as the white satin…
Quinn Gallagher stared down at her for a very long moment. Fern stared straight back, her huge eyes defiant. They looked a picture, the two of them; the bride in a floating vision of white satin and the muscular man by her side, virile, capable and commanding in the deep black of his tailored dinner suit.
Bride and groom-from a mockery of a wedding!
‘Then, would you mind telling me what we’re doing here?’ Quinn demanded finally. ‘If you’re not in love what in heaven’s name are you doing playing brides and making island girls so jealous they commit criminal injury?’
‘I mean…I mean I’m not in love like Lizzy,’ Fern stammered. ‘I…Sam and I are getting married for sensible reasons-not for stupid, romantic love.’
Silence.
This was crazy.
She was going mad. She’d have to get out of here.
Fern lifted the folds of her white skirts from the ground and cast a doubtful look across at Sam. Sam would just have to cope with Quinn Gallagher’s ministrations. She had to find Lizzy.
She had to get away from Quinn Gallagher. He was unsettling her more than anything else was.
‘Look, I have to go,’ she stammered. Quinn Gallagher was watching her as a bemused hawk would have watched a tiny chicken’s futile attempts at escape. ‘The sooner I find Lizzy the better.’ Fern took two hasty steps down from the church door. ‘I’ll telephone if I find out anything,’ she called as she backed away. ‘Where…where can I reach you?’
‘Mobile phone.’ The hawk, it seemed, was releasing his prey. Quinn lifted the machine from the belt under his jacket and held it up. ‘The island telephonist has the number.’
‘Can you…? You will check Sam before you go? Please…?’
‘I’ll check your beloved,’ Quinn said grimly. ‘Just make it worth my while by finding Lizzy fast.’
Fern nodded, lifting her skirts high and breaking into a run.
Bridal chicken in full flight…
She needed a car.
There was only one car available in front of the church-the big white limousine in which her uncle had been planning to drive the newly married pair to the reception. It stood deserted, beribboned in white satin, white net over the back seat and a set of bride and groom dolls smiling at the world from the back shelf.
The dolls must be the only happy couple on the island!
The keys were in the ignition.
It was all Fern needed.
Ignoring the impulse to pick up the dolls and throw them as far as she could, Fern wedged herself into the driver’s seat. The hoops of her bridal gown welled up around the steering column.
Good grief…
Get on with it, Fern…
She started the car and put her satined foot on the accelerator, all the while crazily aware of the dark figure on the church steps, watching…
She could feel Quinn Gallagher’s eyes still on her until she rounded the bend and was out of sight of the church.
It was all she could do not to glance back.
It was the end of her wedding.
For good?
That was a crazy notion. They could try again tomorrow, Fern thought, and closed her eyes at the idea of the reorganisation her aunt would insist on.
Aunt Maud wouldn’t be well enough tomorrow. Or the next day either, Fern thought savagely. Fern’s aunt had seemed weak and out of sorts since Fern had arrived home on the island and Fern had fretted that Maud seemed to
