Devil's Food Cake [✓]

54 | water (under the) bridge

The Malones' sprawling residence Waterbridge in Louth, Ireland was magnificent. Heather and her fiancé Edward had decided to hold their wedding and reception on the grounds of the estate. My family had been invited to stay as guests in their rooms. We gladly accepted. The next week before the wedding was a flurry of activity as my father and his team raced to prepare the wedding cake in time.

I'd never seen him in his element as he was then. He'd exclaimed that it felt like how he'd felt in the early days of career — uncertainty mixed with something more, an irresistible thrill which threatened to overtake him. Now he had years of experience to draw from to calm his nerves and provide guidance.

* * *

I seized on the opportunity to have a gander around around the estate once I had taken my fill of the many rooms in the house, overflowing with priceless antiques and artwork from masters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Titian. It was a bit weird to see them just hanging there so casually in someone's home instead of a museum. It left me feeling a bit overawed. I was about as far away from my father's bakery as I could ever be. Strangely enough, it didn't feel as intimidating as I'd expected. Some bits still were like their family history and their extravagant dinners, but they seemed like such a down-to-earth family. Perhaps it was because their mother had given them grounding since she'd remembered what it had felt like to come from nothing. She was refreshingly unstuffy.

I had yet to meet Zachary's dad. He was away on a business trip, but he would come back a few days before the wedding. By all accounts, Heather was a complete daddy's girl.

I'd learned a lot about their ancestors from the paintings in the house and a book that Hetty had encouraged me to have a look through ('The stories are weird. Weirder than anything on TV' she'd giggled). It was fascinating leafing through the book. This had been the Malone family seat for since the 1500s. Strictly Zachary's father Peter was also a baronet, a title which Heather assured me that he was never going to use. Zachary wasn't interested in carrying out 'knightly behaviour'.

I thought that fit well with his personality.

* * *

On my birthday, the 20th of July, I headed out to the pond and took in the scene, lazing allowing my eyes to follow a family of swans, gliding across the serene waters. It was just beautiful. I allowed my eyes to luxuriate in the majestic and awe-inspiring surroundings. I loved the symmetry of Waterbridge in its Elizabethan splendour; it was enough to make me truly appreciate the opportunity I had given my father. What if I had refused to accept Zachary's offer to of principle?

Then, I suppose I wouldn't have got to see such an unearthly sight.

I was eighteen years old; I certainly didn't regret being here at that very moment.

'Penny for your thoughts?' A silky-smooth voice disrupted the relative silence of nature.

Startled, I turned round to face the source of everything I'd previously thought I'd disliked with so much vigour.

'Oh, I was thinking how much can change in the space of a year...' I picked a daisy and started to twirl it around my fingertips.

'Mind if I sit down?' Zachary made a swooping gesture with his hand to the patch of grass I was sitting on.

'Sure,' I grinned, 'free seating. Unfortunately no al fresco dining at the moment. Kitchen's closed.'

With a teasing shake of his head, he gave me a flash of a smile, as he settled onto the grass beside me. Much to my hilarity, he had brought an artist's stool along too, which he proceeded to settle into, wagging his eyebrows as I began to laugh at his fastidious presentation.

'Why can't you sit down like average folk?' I said.

'Well...' He thought about it for a few seconds, a smile playing on his features. 'All the better to see your face, Candice.'

He was enjoying it when I began to blush. So much so that he didn't even care when I protested that he stop staring at me. His eyes refused to leave mine, even as I covered my face with hands and peaked out between my splayed fingers.

He winked, much to my intense embarrassment.

'Just spending some quality time with my bff,' he said with barely suppressed glee.

'BE QUIET!' I forced out between my laughs.

'No,' came his sharp reply. The matter was settled, Zachary Sutton Malone wasn't going to be deterred from bursting into my life. Not then. Not now. Not for the foreseeable future.

'How do you like the place?' he finally said after we'd been staring at the family of swans for about ten minutes, exchanging a couple of remarks about who was who. The mother. The father. And the children.

'No words,' I murmured, 'this is your palace, I suppose.'

'In time. Now I think a palace needs a queen, don't you think?' he was smiling at me at with a look of such undisguised adoration that my heart seemed to splinter into a thousand pieces, light catching on it and causing an eternal rainbow to spread inside me.

'Maybe,' I winked.

He took my response as a cue to get up smoothly from his artist's stool and, I began to yelp, as he bent down to pull me upwards.

'Zach, what are you doing—' I struggled in his strong arms.

'You need a coronation,' he declared. 'Sit.'

'And who are you supposed to be?' I retorted, my hair was windswept and my body aflame at his gentle but firm touch. I was reminded of the kiss we'd shared. Much to my disappointment, he didn't give me the answer I wanted, but I realised that perhaps he was just joking. Trust my overactive imagination to seize on anything resembling... hope.

Instead of replying directly, Zachary pulled an azure-box out of his jeans pocket and, looked at me, mouthing, 'one, two, three' then casually threw it me. I shrieked as my fingers wrapped around the tiny blue box.

'Well, that's for you to decide, isn't it, birthday girl?' Throwing me a satisfied grin over his shoulder, he left me on my makeshift throne as he strode purposely back to the house. The cerulean blue of his wool sweater standing out amongst the green, but almost, almost blending in.

Opening the box with a sense of curiosity, I took out a delicate eggshell blue pendent that sparkled in the sunlight.

It was a brilliant birthday gift.