Dear Reader,

      It’s a bittersweet honour for me to be asked to write a letter to go in the front of this beautiful new collection of Penny Jordan’s ‘Bride’s Bouquet’ books. On one hand it’s given me a brilliant excuse to drop everything else and lose myself in Claire, Poppy and Star’s stories, which has been a joy. On the other it is a fresh reminder of the great sadness that Penny is no longer here to introduce them herself.

      The books are now fifteen and sixteen years old and yet they retain the freshness and sparkle that are the hallmarks of Penny’s writing. The characters are sharply observed, and each of the three stories that spring from the initial confetti-strewn, champagne-sealed pact between the heroines is fabulously distinctive and sizzling with its own unique chemistry. Reading them, I was reminded firstly what a truly wonderful, natural storyteller Penny was (in fact I was so wrapped up in devouring them it was a job to remember anything else!) and also that, although I can’t pick up the phone and speak to her or share a gossipy lunch, I can still hear her voice in her books. In them, she has left a legacy and a gift that will be enjoyed by generations to come.

      Writing was Penny’s passion, and she spoke very often of her gratitude to every one of her readers for enabling her to make her living doing the thing she loved. She’d be really cross with me if I didn’t end this by saying thank you on her behalf for picking up this book, and I really hope you enjoy it.

       India

      PROLOGUE

      THERE has been a long tradition at weddings that the one to catch the bride’s bouquet as she throws it will be the next to marry.

      The bride emerged from the hotel bedroom, giving her skirts a final shake, turning round to check on the long, flowing satin length of her train before turning to smile lovingly into the eyes of her new husband.

      Her two adult bridesmaids—her best friend and her husband’s young cousin—and her stepmother had been dismissed for this, her final appearance in her wedding gown. Chris could be her attendant on this occasion, she had told them.

      ‘Come on; we’d better go down,’ he warned her. ‘Otherwise everyone will be wondering what on earth we’re doing.’

      Laughing, they walked to the top of the stairs and then paused to stand and watch the happy crowd in the room below them. The reception was in full swing.

      The bride turned to her husband and whispered emotionally, ‘This has been the happiest day of my life.’

      ‘And mine too,’ Chris returned, squeezing Sally’s hand and bending his head to kiss her.

      Arm in arm they started to walk down the stairs, and then, somehow or other, Sally missed her footing and slipped. The small group of people clustered at the foot of the stairs waiting for them, alerted to what was happening by Sally’s frightened cry, rushed forward, James, the best man, Chris’s elder brother and two of the ushers going to the aid of the bride, whilst the two bridesmaids and the bride’s stepmother reacted immediately and equally instinctively, quickly reaching out to protect the flowers that the bride had dropped as she’d started to fall.

      As three pairs of equally feminine but very different hands reached out to grasp the bouquet, the bride, back on her feet now, smiled mischievously down at them and warned, ‘That’s it! There’ll be three more weddings now.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Never!’

      ‘Impossible!’

      Three very firm and determined female voices made the same immediate denial; three pairs of female eyes all registered an immediate and complete rejection of the bride’s triumphant assertion.

      Marry? Them? Never.

      The three of them looked at one another and then back at the bride.

      It was just a silly old superstition. It meant nothing, and besides, each of them knew that no matter what the other two chose to do she was most definitely not going to get married.

      The bride was still laughing as she swept down the few remaining stairs on her husband’s arm.

      Her two bridesmaids had both already separately and jointly informed her that they had no intention of taking part in any silly old rituals which involved the degradation of them vying for possession of her wedding bouquet, and as for her stepmother…

      A tiny frown pleated Sally’s forehead. When would Claire accept that, at a mere thirty-four and widowed, she was not, as she always insisted, too mature to want to share her life with a new partner?

      While Sally and Chris made sure that they spoke with every guest once the speeches were over, the two bridesmaids and Claire worked together to gather up the scattered wedding presents. Poppy, Chris’s cousin, suddenly spotted Sally’s wedding bouquet lying on one of the tables. Unable to help herself, she went over to it and picked it up, tears filling her eyes.

      ‘Forget it,’ Star, her fellow bridesmaid, instructed her, grimly removing the flowers from her tense grip. ‘It’s just a stupid superstition. It means nothing, and I for one intend to prove it by saying publicly and unequivocally here and now that I never intend to marry.’

      As her eye was caught by an unopened bottle of champagne, she reached for it, opened it deftly and poured the foaming liquid into three empty glasses, challenging the other two, ‘I’m willing to make a vow not to marry. What about you two?’

      ‘I certainly have no plans to remarry,’ Claire, Sally’s stepmother, agreed more gently.

      Tearfully Poppy nodded. ‘I shan’t marry now. Not now that Chris… Not now…’ Fresh tears filled her eyes as she solemnly joined the other two in a pledge of solidarity.

      All three of them raised their glasses, none of them aware that their conversation had been overheard.

      CHAPTER ONE

      CLAIRE MARSHALL gave a rueful look at the now empty, still confetti-strewn reception area of the hotel.

      Was it really less than a couple of hours since her stepdaughter and her new husband had run laughing down those stairs, trying to dodge the happy bombardment of rose petals?

      Most of the guests had left now, just a small nucleus remaining in the hotel lounge. She had only come back in here to check that nothing had inadvertently been left behind.