‘You look gorgeous, Thadie,’ Micah said, crossing the harlequin floor and carrying a glass of champagne. He turned to look at the twins, who wore long trousers, and silver vests over open-neck, long-sleeved shirts. ‘Tuck your shirt back into your pants, Gus.’
Gus looked at Finn before sending his uncle a disparaging look. ‘Why are we being punished because they want to get married? Why can’t Mum and Dad just dress up and leave us alone?’
‘It’s a mystery,’ Micah wryly replied.
‘And why do we have to stay inside?’ Finn demanded. ‘We want to be with our dad, in the tent outside.’
Micah looked as if he was about to argue but Thadie shook her head, shrugging as she took the champagne. ‘If you guys want to go and stand with Dad instead of walking up the aisle in front of me, that’s fine.’
The twins grinned and ran across the hall, nearly running into Jabu as he walked into the hall, looking dapper in his black tuxedo. In the garden Angus—and his best man, Heath—stood under the fairy-tale gazebo, waiting for her to walk through the garden to him, her hand tucked into Jabu’s arm.
They’d invited fifty of their closest friends, and she’d left the rest of the wedding for Ellie to organise, knowing her wedding was in safe hands. All she wanted was to marry Angus at Hadleigh House, have lots of flowers, great champagne and lively music.
All that was important were the ‘I do’s. Everything else was the icing on her very delicious cake.
Jabu took the champagne glass Jago held out and they all clinked glasses together in a toast.
‘Here’s to you, Thadie,’ Jago said, his voice deeper with emotion. ‘If it wasn’t for you and your wedding adventures, we wouldn’t have found Ellie and Dodi.’
Thadie pulled a face, thinking how close she came to making the biggest mistake of her life by marrying a man she didn’t love. ‘I swear, I’ve actually thought about hunting Alta and Clyde down and hugging them until they couldn’t breathe,’ she said with a huge grin. ‘If they hadn’t sabotaged that wedding, I wouldn’t be about to marry the love of my life.’
‘I hope you’re talking about me.’
Thadie whirled around to see her fiancé leaning against the frame of the enormous front door, looking spectacular in a black tuxedo jacket, and wearing his clan kilt. She placed her hand on her heart, for a moment not able to believe that she was going to marry this gorgeous man.
She handed him a wide smile. ‘I’m not sure, he’s supposed to be waiting for me at the altar in the garden,’ she teased him.
Love radiated from his eyes. ‘And he will be, I promise. But he seems to have acquired two brand-new, three-foot-high groomsmen.’
Angus walked across the hall to her, clasped her face in his hands and shook his head. ‘You look breathtaking. I can’t wait to marry you.’
He gently kissed her lips, before stepping back and snagging the champagne glass out of her hand and lifting it in a toast. ‘Here’s to you, the almost Mrs Docherty.’
‘Le Roux-Docherty,’ Thadie pertly reminded him as he drained her glass of champagne. ‘Hey! I was going to drink that.’
Angus tossed her a grin and briefly placed his big hand on her stomach.
‘You can’t drink alcohol, remember?’ He stepped back, his hands loosely holding his silver sporran, laughing as Jabu spluttered and her brothers laughed.
‘See you at the altar in—’ Angus tapped his watch ‘—exactly five minutes.’
It took her ten. Mostly because she had to waste valuable time reassuring her overprotective brothers and Jabu that she was only baking one new Le-Roux-Docherty cupcake. They couldn’t, they earnestly told her, cope with another set of male twins.
Thadie laughed, knowing that they absolutely could, that they’d love the challenge. But no, as they’d found out yesterday, she was having a girl, much to Angus’s delight. He had this crazy idea that she was cooking a sweet, docile, angelic pink child but Thadie instinctively knew their princess was going to be more of a handful than her ever-mischievous older brothers combined.
Her family had no idea what they were in for.
Genuinely, she couldn’t wait for the rest of her life...