Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) (14 page)

Cam had the grace to look embarrassed. “She
broke my guitar.”

“What are you, twelve?”

“You’ll understand when you get there,” Cam
said wryly. He pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to watch a movie in the
bedroom. Have a nice evening you two.”

“Night, Dad.” They watched him go, looking
at each other and laughing as he disappeared, mumbling under his breath.

“Do you think we’ll still be together in
thirty years?” Honey asked, snuggling up to Dex.

A wedding ain’t superglue.
The words rang in Dex’s head, but he pushed them away, lifted her
chin and kissed her. “Forever and ever, amen,” he murmured, meaning it, hoping
beyond hope that it was true.

Honey had to drag herself out of bed on Thursday
morning. The thought of the coming day at court hung over her like a raincloud,
making her grumpy as she helped prepare breakfast. By the time everyone was
seated around the table, she’d snapped at every one of her sisters and soured
the atmosphere as sure as squeezing lemon into milk.

“Honey,” her father said firmly as he took
his seat at the head of the table, “for God’s sake, take your bad mood
elsewhere if you can’t control yourself.”

Tears pricked her eyes—he so rarely snapped
that she knew she must have deserved it. She covered her emotion by giving a
hoarse apology, pushed herself away from the table and walked stiffly to her
bedroom, hearing the hushed whispers of her family behind her and knowing she’d
shocked them with her unusual temper.

It was her youngest sister who came in to
find her.

“Are you okay?” Lily perched on the edge of
the dresser. Small, slender and dark, Lily had seemed the most affected by
their mother’s death, and she was the only one of her sisters that Honey still
worried about on a regular basis.

Honey adopted a bright smile. “I’m fine.
Just nervous about today.” It was partly true. She pushed the ever-present fear
about Dex away and came over to give Lily a hug. “How are you?”

Lily shrugged. “Okay.”

“What are you working on today?” Lily had a
day off, and usually she spent her spare time indulging in her favourite
hobby—painting.

Lily’s eyes lit up. “I’m starting a new piece.
I was looking at pictures of Jupiter last night, with its huge spot and
swirling clouds, and it gave me an idea for a series of abstract paintings
based on the planets.”

“What a great idea.” Honey hugged her
again. “I don’t know where you get all your inspiration. I couldn’t dream these
things up in a million years.”

Lily hugged her back. “Are you sure you’re
okay? Don’t brush me off. You’re worried about Dex, aren’t you? What has he
done? Is he misbehaving?” Her manner was only a little teasing. The whole
family knew about his troubled youth.

Honey pulled back, her eyebrows rising,
although she wasn’t sure why she was so surprised. Her sister had always had a
special knack for reading people’s emotions. “He hasn’t done anything.” She
turned away and pulled on her jacket, not wanting to worry her baby sister.
“Everything’s fine.”

“Honey…” Lily folded her arms. “If you
can’t talk to me, who can you talk to? I know you don’t want to worry Dad.”

“I don’t want to worry you either,” Honey
pointed out wryly.

“I’m not made of paper,” Lily said. She
looked down at the floor. “I know I’ve not been the most…resilient of people. I
know I haven’t coped with everything as well as I could have. But that doesn’t
mean I’m fragile. Everyone acts like I’m going to slit my wrists if they tell
me something negative, but I’ve never been like that.”

“I know,” Honey said.

“I miss Mum,” Lily said. “But I think
that’s allowed, you know? The others all do too but they try and hide it, as if
it will somehow go away if they ignore it. But I’ve never been like that. I’d
rather face up to something. I’m not afraid to feel, you know?” She spoke
fiercely, passionately. She’d always been like that, Honey thought. Somehow
experiencing things on a deeper level than everyone else.

Perhaps she’d been too protective of her
little sister. The very fact that she was the baby of the family meant they’d
spoiled her, indulged her, and when Marama had died, they’d tried to protect
her and wrap her in cotton wool as if they could somehow muffle the pain. But
it hadn’t worked and all it had done was made Lily feel patronised. Although
only twenty-one, she was an adult. She didn’t deserve to be mollycoddled.

Honey sat on the edge of the bed with a
sigh. “Okay, I give in. I don’t have anything concrete to tell you. It’s more
instinct, you know? A gut feeling. Something doesn’t feel right, but I don’t
know what it is. Dex seems…distracted. And I worry that he’s having second
thoughts.”

“About marrying you?” Lily studied her
thoughtfully. “I very much doubt that’s the case. He’s waited an awfully long
time to get you down the aisle, and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who
takes to celibacy easily.”

Honey’s lips twisted as Lily’s eyes
sparkled. “No.”

“I don’t get the impression he’s suddenly
changed his mind,” Lily continued.

“But something’s bothering him.”

Lily shrugged. “What happened last time is
bound to play on his thoughts. At the moment he associates weddings with
negative emotions, with anger and possessiveness and fear. It sounds like last
time he agreed to marry Cathryn the Crackpot even though he knew deep down she
wasn’t the love of his life. He did it out of duty, and he regrets that. It’s
probably making him uncomfortable, remembering that day.”

“Hmm.” Honey wasn’t convinced. Dex hadn’t
looked uncomfortable. He’d looked like he was trying to find a way to tell her
he didn’t want to marry her, but he’d chickened out.

Still, maybe Lily had a point. Perhaps she
should just accept he was going to think about the past and wait for the storm
to blow over. It would have been easy for him to call it off last night—she’d
given him every opportunity. But he’d insisted he still wanted to marry her.
What was she trying to do—talk him into it?

She sighed. Worry about the day ahead made
her shoulders sag. “I wish it was Saturday,” she whispered. “I wish it was all
over.”

“I know.” Lily got up and came over to hug
her again. “Chin up, sis. You’re marrying the man of your dreams! I wish I was
in your shoes.”

That made Honey smile. “Oh, your Mr. Right
is out there somewhere, sweetie. Don’t you worry. You’re only twenty-one—you
have years of fun and romance ahead of you yet.”

Lily looked doubtful. She’d only had one
boyfriend, and Honey wasn’t sure they’d slept together. “I guess.”

“Of course you have. You just need to get
out more!” She stood and shooed her sister with her hands. “Now go on and let
me get ready. I’ve got to be at court in half an hour—I have to get moving.”

They kissed and Lily left. Honey sighed and
straightened her jacket in the mirror. After Daisy had moved in with Reuben,
Honey had taken over the motherly role of the family—not that Daisy had been
that good at it anyway. Daisy had been better at bossing everyone around and
organising the practical side of the household, but Honey had always been the
heart of the house, providing a listening ear to all their troubles and a
comforting hug should one be needed. She enjoyed the role, but with it came all
the worries of a parent too, as well as the concern that she should be doing
more, and the anxiety about what would happen when she left to move in with
Dex.

She surveyed herself in the mirror, noting
the frown lines between her eyes and the dark rings beneath them. She didn’t
look like a bride-to-be. She should be excited, double-checking all the
arrangements for Saturday and throwing hissy fits because the flowers were the
wrong shade. But worry about the big day was almost the last thing on her mind.

Her watch read eight thirty. She should get
going. She didn’t want to be late for court.

Hesitating for a moment, she crossed the
bedroom to the wardrobe. Hanging on the side was her wedding dress, covered in
a blue plastic zipped bag. She brought it around and hung the hanger on the
front of her wardrobe, then unzipped the bag part of the way.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she
reached out to brush the layered skirt. Fashion dictated that meringues weren’t
stylish anymore and to be elegant one had to wear a long straight strapless
dress in empire line or ‘fit and flare’, but Honey had passed impatiently over
those styles in the catalogues. Why should she choose a dress she could have
got away with at a dinner party? She’d wanted something magnificent and
princess-like, straight out of a Disney movie.

In the end, she’d chosen a breathtaking
tulle and sequin ball gown with lace appliqués, spaghetti straps and a sweetheart
neckline. It was demure and dignified and utterly impractical, and she wanted
to wear it all day every day for the rest of her life.

She fingered the tulle, unable to believe
she’d get a chance to wear it. And then she sighed, frustrated at her own lack
of confidence. Her therapist had told her that she had to believe in herself
before she could expect other people to. If she didn’t think she deserved to be
happy then other people wouldn’t either. It had not been an easy lesson for her
to learn, but she’d been getting there. But the recent events were causing all
the old feelings of worthlessness to rise to the surface.

She zipped up the bag, imagining as she did
so the old Star Trek adage of “Shields up!” A firm fan of The Next Generation
and Jean-Luc Picard, the therapist had suggested the mental manoeuvre whenever
she felt the need to protect herself, and it had proved surprisingly
successful. And sure enough, as she encased herself in her mental armour, her
resolve stiffened and her confidence grew. She would go to court and do her
best to sort out the case, and then she would be free to concentrate on her
wedding. The wedding that was definitely going to go ahead because she loved
Dex and Dex loved her, and that was all that mattered.

An hour later, Honey’s protective shield
was wobbling under the direct onslaught of resentment and even anger from ten
of the other jury members.

They’d entered the jury room after being
counselled by the judge to concentrate on the matter at hand—namely whether
Sarah Green was guilty of intending to do James Hill serious harm on the night
in question. The judge directed them to focus on the facts and only the
facts—in other words to leave their emotions outside of the jury room.

Honey couldn’t do it. How could she? Sarah
had turned distressed eyes on the twelve men and women as they’d shuffled from
the courtroom, worry written all over her face. Would she be able to tell how
each of them would vote just by looking at them? Honey had an idea how the
decision would go, and her suspicions—and fears—had been confirmed when they
seated themselves at the table and Tom, the foreperson, suggested they start by
taking an initial vote to see where everyone stood.

She and Alice, an older woman with grey
hair, had voted Sarah innocent.

The other five women and all the men voted
her guilty.

And so here she was, sitting at the table,
being glared at by the majority of the jurors who were fed up and wanted to go
home.

“Shit.” Matt—the aggressive investment
banker—stood and slammed his chair under the table. “I knew it. What a fucking waste
of time this is going to be.”

“There’s no need for that sort of
language,” Tom said. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion. We’re here to talk
about the evidence and make sure we all come to an agreement.”

Honey was determined not to let the brash
suit browbeat her. “This is a woman’s future we are deciding here,” she said as
calmly as she could manage. “Surely it warrants at least a small amount of
discussion before we come to a decision.”

“That’s true,” one of the women said. “It’s
fair that we at least talk about it for a little while.”

Matt leaned on the workbench where there
were coffee-making facilities and biscuits, and his eyelids lowered as he
surveyed Honey.

She could guess what he was thinking,
because he was like a carbon copy of Ian. That she must be having her period
because she was being obstreperous. That she was doing it just to annoy him.
And that she was the worst sort of woman—opinionated, un-charmable and
stubborn.

As she lowered her gaze, intimidated by his
hard stare, she knew he would also think of her as a challenge, someone he
could bully into doing what he wanted.

Her fists clenched in her lap. She forced
her fingers to unfurl, poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the
table and drank it slowly.

There were two Peters in the jury. The one
they’d all named Peter1 wore scruffy workman’s clothes and had stated he worked
in the building trade. He had a devil-may-care attitude and Honey suspected that
he probably had half a dozen girls on the go who didn’t know about each other,
but she found herself liking him nevertheless. He leaned forward and also
poured himself a drink before saying, “So do you two really think Sarah didn’t
mean to take that knife to James?”