The lovely Veronica Henry has kindly written us a fabulous short story for our Royal Wedding Week so without further ado, please enjoy the brilliant ‘A Right Royal Do’!

“The table looked perfect. It was groaning with food. Home-made sausage rolls and cheese straws. Crown-shaped biscuits piped with intricate icing and studded with shining sugar jewels. A magnificent Victoria sponge. A bowl of spicy creamy Coronation chicken flanked by potato salad and crisp fresh lettuce. Patriotic, English classics fit for the wedding of a prince and his bride. A right royal do.

Sally stood back and surveyed it proudly. She’d gone to town, and her friends teased her. They didn’t know she was such a Royalist.

‘I’m not,’ she replied, ‘but I’m not going to sit here on my own sobbing into my Cup a Soup. I want a celebration.’

The preparations had taken her mind off things. She’d had to embrace the royal wedding totally, in order to forget that this was supposed to be her day, too. She’d ordered bunting, and Union Jack napkins, and glittery crowns for them all to wear. Decorated her tiny little garden flat with red, white and blue. And tried not to think about the all the things she had ordered for her own wedding, all the things that had been sent back, cancelled, returned.

The planning had taken months. When Sally and Richard booked the date, they hadn’t known that William and Kate were going to choose the same day and they’d giggled with glee when they found out. What a stroke of luck that their wedding day was to be a national holiday and that none of their friends would have to book the day off.

Of course, the minute the Royal Wedding date was announced, Sally knew people would be making comparisons between her dress and Kate’s, but she had always known what she wanted to wear and didn’t let it put her off. A strapless sheath of cream silk, embroidered with a thick band of pearls around the neckline. Her hair up in a simple twist, a single cream rose in the knot, matching the ones in her bouquet.

Simple. Elegant. Her dream come true. It was going to be perfect.

But then a national paper had contacted them. Wanted to follow their plans, as a comparison to Will and Kate. Richard had baulked at the idea, but Sally had pointed out that the money they were offering would more than pay for their honeymoon in the Maldives. So they’d agreed. Week by week, their progress was charted, all the minutiae spilled out for the world to read. Sally didn’t care. ‘It’ll just be our friends and family, on the day,’ she assured Richard. That had been part of the deal. Privacy on the day itself. After all, no-one was going to be interested come 29^th April. All eyes would be on Westminster Abbey, not the registry office in Malvern.

Now, however, her dress was sitting in the designer’s show room, with a discreet ‘For Sale’ sign pinned to it. Someone would buy it. The designer wouldn’t reveal that the previous owner had been jilted, as a potential purchaser might think that was bad luck. She would pass it off as a sample, and Sally would get some of her two thousand pounds back. Six hundred pearls sewn on by hand didn’t come cheap, even if they weren’t real.

.

There were five bridesmaids’ dresses for sale too, in dove grey satin, but the designer didn’t hold out as much hope for finding a buyer. ‘Tricky,’ she’d said ‘finding five bridesmaids exactly the same size.’ Claire, Millie, Amber, Freya and Jess. They were all coming over today to watch. They’d be here any minute.

To be fair, Richard had given her the money to cover any loss. It was the least he could do. Pulling out of a wedding four weeks before was unforgivable. He hadn’t given her a particular reason. He just didn’t feel ready, he said. There was no other woman, he promised her, and Sally had no reason to disbelieve him.

It was, she supposed, better than being left at the altar.

Humiliating, nevertheless. And of course she was devastated, bewildered, wondered what on earth she had done wrong. But her friends had been wonderful. They’d taught her just how important friendship is. She could get through life without Richard as long as she had them by her side. And here they were now – the buzzer of her flat was ringing. She ran to open the door, and they bounded in, in a flurry of hair and perfume and laughter and hugs. She felt warm as she passed them each a strawberry champagne cocktail and turned on her television.

As the BBC commentary began, and they watched the coach begin its journey, Sally felt a lump rise in her throat. It wasn’t self pity. Instead, it was the emotion that even the most stony-hearted would surely feel on this joyous day. She felt happy for the beautiful young girl about to start the next chapter of her life, and silently prayed that she would find the contentment that had eluded her mother-in-law, that she and the Prince would fill the Royal nursery with fat, happy laughing babies and live happily ever after. And she prayed that the marriage would be able to withstand the media pressure. She and Richard had only had a taste of that pressure, and their relationship hadn’t survived.

Claire sidled up to her. She had never designated her so, because to her all her friends were equal, but in Sally’s heart Claire was her chief bridesmaid, the one who really was there for her at all hours of the day and night. The one who had texted her at eleven o’clock the night before to make sure she wasn’t in a drunken, snivelling heap.

‘Are you ok?’ whispered Claire. They had all agreed ‘not to mention the war’. It was bad enough that there were going to be wedding celebrations shoved down the nation’s throat all day long, without rubbing Sally’s nose in it.

‘Yes,’ said Sally, picking up her glass, and Claire gave her a squeeze as they watched the bride walk down the aisle, the most moving part of any wedding ceremony.

One day, Sally thought, my prince will come.

Two hours later, the ceremony over, the dress dissected and swooned over, the six of them sat at Sally’s table, stuffed with champagne and cake, giggling and gossiping, when the buzzer went again. Sally frowned, no idea who it could be. She made her way to the door, slightly woozy from all the sugar and alcohol.

Behind it she found an enormous bunch of cream roses, just like the ones she had chosen for her wedding bouquet. There must have been fifty. And behind them, Richard. She blinked in astonishment.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I did the worst thing that a man can do to a girl. But I just couldn’t hack it. It was those bloody journalists, asking if I thought I was doing the right thing. If I thought the 29^th of April was ‘cursed’, because of Diana. If I thought my marriage would last longer than Will and Kate’s. They kept throwing me statistics, about how many marriages end up in divorce. I got cold feet. I panicked. I didn’t want to get married only for it all to end in tears. But I miss you.’

Sally leant against the wall, feeling faint. He smiled at her, his brown eyes totally sincere, the mouth she’d kissed so many times curled up in a smile.

‘You jilted me,’ she said. ‘The whole country knows.’

‘That was the problem!’ Richard shot back. ‘The whole country knew everything. Even what pants I was wearing under my morning suit!’

That was true. Sally had revealed she had bought Richard a pair of Hugo Boss boxer shorts to wear on the day. The journalist running the feature had been delighted.

‘That’s just the sort of detail we need,’ she’d said.

Richard stepped forward, then dropped to his knees.

The thing is,’ he said. ‘I want to marry you. But I want it small. Private. No papers. No publicity. No fuss.’

Five mouths at the table fell open as Sally considered what he was saying.

‘I watched the wedding this morning,’ he went on, impassioned, ‘and I realised that should have been us as well. I love you, Sally. Please marry me.’

She could feel five pairs of eyes on her as she considered her reply. The fact that they were remaining silent, and not one of them had stepped forward to object, said it all.

‘There’s just one condition,’ she said eventually, and pointed behind her. ‘This lot. I want this lot to come. I’m not getting married without them. No way.’

‘Course not,’ he grinned in reply. ‘I’ve always known they were part of the package.’

And he stepped inside, and took her in his arms, dropping the roses to the floor, as a thunderous round of applause broke out, accompanied by party blowers and whistles and whoops of delight.

My prince has come, Sally thought, as she wrapped her arms around his familiar form and squeezed him as tightly as she could.

By Veronica Henry”

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