Try this jacket on, Dom. What do you think of this dress for the honeymoon, Dom? Will you wear a boutonnière, Dom? Shall we go with Royal Doulton or Wedgwood china, Dom?
As if it made any fucking difference what he liked! Dom thought darkly. Gemma always did whatever the bloody hell she wanted anyway, regardless of his opinion.
He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and staggered to the door. Gripping the ancient-looking metal handle, he yanked on it with all his might, but the heavy oaken door didn’t budge.
It was locked. What the!?
There were bars inset in a small window at the top of the door, like the kind you saw in that Man in the Iron Mask film. But wait a minute – the man in the iron mask spent most of that film in a bloody prison.
What in hell was he doing in prison?
Panic overtook him as the whisky fumes fogging his brain began to lift. This was no prison. This, he remembered from the tour Tarquin had given them when they’d arrived at Draemar, was the dungeon.
He was locked in a dungeon in the bowels of the castle. And no one – no one! ‒ knew he was down here.
‘Help!’ Dominic bellowed, as real panic set in. ‘Let me out of here!’ He cast his eyes wildly over the dirt floor, hoping to find a key, or a crowbar, or maybe one of those tin cups that prisoners dragged across the bars in prison films.
But there was nothing. No key, no crowbar. Not even a tin cup. Just...dirt.
Right, then, he told himself as he began to hyperventilate. This was it. He’d always wondered how he’d die...and now he knew. No massive cocaine overdose for him, no heart attack whilst romping in bed with a couple of curvaceous groupies.
No, instead he’d die of starvation, wasting away little by little, until one day they found his bones in a pathetic heap on the floor of this bloody Scottish dungeon.
‘Lemme out!’ Dominic howled as he pounded his fists against the door. ‘Somebody get me the fuck out of here!’
Halfway down the stairs, Gemma came to a halt. ‘I can’t go down there,’ she said, and shuddered as she brushed another cobweb away from her face. ‘This is disgusting.’
Tarquin, a few steps ahead of her, turned and looked up at her with a raised brow. ‘You want to find Dominic, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she gritted, ‘but only so I can kick him in the balls and give him his bloody ring back!’
‘Stay here, then. I’ll go ahead and have a look round.’
‘No, wait!’ Gemma’s eyes widened as he started back down the steps without her. ‘Don’t you dare to leave me here!’ She eyed the moss-covered stone wall that pressed in closely on either side, and with another shudder, she hurried after Tarquin.
The floor, if you could call it that, consisted of packed dirt. Gemma wrinkled her nose as she glanced around. It was dim down here, and dank, and it smelled like earth, and moss, and damp.
Oh well, she reasoned uneasily, dungeons aren’t meant to be comfortable or sweet-smelling, are they?
‘Do you really think Dom’s down here?’ she asked Tarquin.
‘I doubt it. But we’d best have a look, just to be sure.’
‘Right,’ she agreed reluctantly, and followed close behind him.
They were halfway along the corridor, its length liberally festooned with cobwebs and inset on either side with thick oak doors, when Gemma came to an abrupt stop.
‘Did you hear it?’ she asked as she clutched his arm, her words breathless.
‘Hear what?’
‘That!’ she hissed. ‘Listen!’
Tarquin tamped down his rising irritation – really, Gemma Astley was more dramatic (and more annoying) than a six-year-old schoolgirl – when he heard it, too. It was a low sort of moan...
...followed by the unmistakable sound of someone bellowing, ‘Get me the fuck out of here!’
‘Dominic!’ Gemma cried. ‘Where are you?’
They stopped outside the last door along the corridor.
‘Gems?’ he croaked. ‘Gemma, is that you?’
They heard a scrabbling sound, then Dominic – looking a bit wild-eyed – pressed his face against the barred window at the top of the door.
‘How did you end up down here, locked in the dungeon?’ Tarquin asked him in bewilderment.
‘How the hell should I know?’ Dom snapped. ‘The last thing I remember is looking for a set of car keys.’
‘Car keys? Why would you come down to the dungeons to find a set of car keys?’ Gemma demanded. ‘You were drunk, weren’t you?’
He started to protest, then realized there was nothing to be gained by denying it. ‘Yeah, I was. I was drunk. So what? When I’m pissed, at least I can stop thinking about boutonnières and bridal gowns and bouquets for a bit. You’re doing my head in with all this wedding shit.’
She stared at him. ‘Are you saying...are you saying you don’t want to marry me?’
He gripped the bars more tightly. ‘I’m saying I’m having second thoughts about this whole wedding thing. You’ve turned into a bridal-obsessed cow, Gemma! I don’t care whether the guests throw rice or confetti or...or spears, I don’t care if the cake is made of vanilla or marzipan or fucking mud! I just want to marry you, babes, that’s all. I want this wedding to be about us, just us, not about table arrangements or personalized party favours or...or a trending hashtag on bloody Tweeper!’
‘So you don’t want a Scottish wedding with all the trimmings?’ she asked, incredulous. ‘No kilts? No tartans? No horse-drawn sleigh, no white roses or Prada gown or hand-made dried heather wreaths on the end of every pew?’
‘Of course we can have all of that stuff, if that’s what you really want, babes.’ Dominic lowered his voice as Tarquin solicitously stepped away and pretended to study the moss at the end of the hall. ‘You know me – I don’t care if your wedding gown is Prada or Primark. But in the end, none of it really matters, does it? What matters is you and me, exchanging our vows, and,’ he swallowed ‘and spending the rest of our lives together.’
Gemma’s eyes were awash with tears. ‘That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Dom. Have I really been such a beast?’
‘You have,’ Tarquin called out.
‘Sorry, babes,’ Dominic agreed, ‘but Tark’s right. You’ve been a fucking nightmare lately.’
She sniffled and stepped closer.
