I Thee Bed.... Jule McBride
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has it that a Southern belle named Miss Marissa Jennings put a curse on all the Benning women during the Civil War when her own love life didn’t work out,” Edie began, then she plunged into the wealth of family stories told since time immemorial about the wedding curse, including the fact that Joe Benning wasn’t her biological father, since her mother had previously been married to a man named Jasper Hartley.
“You don’t remember him at all?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I was too little when he died. Bridget had just been born. And Mom met Joe shortly afterward, so he’s all I’ve ever known as a father. It’s been great. Our only real legacy from Jasper Hartley is the family’s wedding curse.”
“And because of this, no Benning woman will ever marry?”
“So the stories go.”
“Not very nice of Miss Marissa,” Seth commented, clearly warming to the tale. He leaned forward as if to hear better, coming so close that their knees touched under the table. He pulled away, but not before a white-hot jolt shot through Edie’s system.
“No, it wasn’t,” she agreed. “Anyway, there are plenty of family stories about the ghost of Miss Marissa, so from an early age, I thought opening a wedding-planning business might…”
“Bring the Benning women better marriage Karma?”
She sipped her coffee, then made a show of smacking her lips, tilting the cup and toasting him since it tasted absolutely perfect. “Exactly.”
Seth squinted. “But I met your sisters. Marley and Bridget, right? They’ve both stopped in. I thought the two of them said they were engaged.”
Edie grinned. “See. My plan worked.”
“Touché.”
Her smile tempered as she glanced across the threshold and to the outer windows where twilight was waning and the snow was still falling. Her business was situated on the corner of Hudson and Perry streets and her parents, Viv and Joe, lived at the other end of the block. She had a sudden urge to call her mother, to ask if she could bring Seth Bishop home with her for dinner—assuming he’d want to come, of course. Her grandmother, fondly known as Granny Ginny, was still visiting, and she imagined Seth would enjoy the older woman’s company.
Turning her attention to him again, she startled. He’d been looking at her with…intensity, she realized. Longing. Raw sexual need. For just a second, she felt completely unbalanced, although she shared the sentiment, she was deeply attracted to him, and more than once she’d fantasized about going to bed with him. It was unwise, since they were working together, yes. Still, the more she got to know him, the more she wanted him. She also realized his knee had found hers under the table again. How long had it been brushing hers?
“Uh…” Somehow, she found her voice. “My sisters are engaged, but they’ve only became so recently.” Continuing, now speaking almost by rote, since his proximity was claiming most of her attention, she caught Seth up on how her life had spun out of control after Sparky Darden had hired her. She told him about how Celebrity Weddings had talked her into going on a reality show called Rate the Dates with a man she’d been dating at the time, named Cash Champagne, and how he’d only been using her to get close to Julia Darden, since he was Sparky Darden’s estranged biological son and Julia’s half brother.
“That’s a wild story,” Seth agreed.
“Nothing compared to what happened after that,” assured Edie, reporting that things had gone further awry since Marley, while attempting to cancel Edie’s appearance on the reality show, had wound up being a contestant, herself—something that had led to her engagement with Cash. And then Bridget, determined to put an end to Miss Marissa’s wedding curse on the Benning women for good, had talked her longtime best friend, Dermott, into traveling down South to an old family plantation in Florida, owned by their grandmother, to do some ghost-busting.
“According to Bridget, she rid the plantation of Miss Marissa, not to mention her curse, which is how Bridget wound up engaged to Dermott.”
“Again, impressive,” said Seth.
“And why I know no more adventures can come my way until after the Darden wedding,” Edie finished, chuckling softly.
“I’m not sure I follow. Why?”
“I’ve had my quota,” she explained.
He was smiling. “Well, you don’t seem cursed to me.”
“Believe me, my own luck’s been lousy.”
“You found me.”
“True. But only after the videographer for the reality show I mentioned found out Marley had taken my place.” She paused, suddenly pondering the wisdom of going into all this with a man to whom she was so attracted. “I hate to admit this, but they…they, uh, announced on national television that my love life was in the toilet.”
His shoulders shook with merriment. “You’re kidding me, right?”
She slowly moved her head from side to side. “I wish.”
“Tell all.”
She plunged into the story of how the videographer, a man named Vinny Marcel, had exposed that Marley was pretending to be her twin on the show. “Marley won, and I did get a cut of the money,” she said, finishing, “and I put it into the business. Still, the publicity really wasn’t good. I probably gained as many clients as I lost. And I lost some couples when Cheryl ran off with one of our customers, too.”
“I promise I won’t abscond with a bride,” Seth offered.
“I’d appreciate it,” said Edie. “I know it’s tough on you. I could see you eyeing Stacy.”
“Oh, please.”
She laughed.
“Seriously. Did you really use ideas for your own dream wedding while planning Julia Darden’s?”
She glanced over the sketches and photographs on the table. “Sure. This wedding could make or break my reputation, so I’ve wanted it to be perfect. And like most little girls, I always had a fantasy about what the ultimate wedding would be like.”
“You do have great taste.”
Edie looked at the picture of the dress, her heart suddenly aching. Seth was the only one who knew it had been her own dream outfit, and now unexpectedly, she almost wished she hadn’t shared the design with the heiress, although she did like sharing her thoughts and emotions about the matter with Seth. Once more, her eyes drifted over him, and her internal thermometer climbed like a fever. She sighed. “Julia came to the table with so few of her own ideas,” she admitted as she surveyed the dress for the thousandth time, admiring a square neckline calculated to show off an ample swell of breasts. Long sleeved, it was made of gossamer fabric, hand sewn with pearls and white crystals. “My mother helped with my initial vision of the design,” she added. “And as I told you before, she’s actually making it.”
“She’s good. If anyone I know ever needs a dress designer, I’ll mention her.”
“She’d love to hear you say it.”
“And the ring?” he prompted.
“Bridget designed it. Here are the others.” From under a stack of papers, Edie lifted out Bridget’s discarded designs, letting Seth leaf through them.
Suddenly, he stopped and said, “This.”
Edie could merely shake her head. At least once an hour, she found herself wondering if she’d met her soul mate. For the past three days, she’d barely dared to think it, and yet, their tastes and attitudes seemed impossibly in sync. She eyed the star-shaped setting of diamonds. “That’s the ring I imagined for myself,” she admitted. “And see—” She lifted another drawing. “The flowers are interwoven with lavender glass beads. Lavender’s both my and Julia’s favorite color, as it turned out.