The Competition

How had they ended up here? The luck of the draw... or something more mysterious?

- POLLY CROSBY

Sarah stood in the driveway, looking up at the beautiful manor house in wonder. She thought back to the moment she had opened the competition letter, the crisp, thick card inside, proclaiming, Congratulations! in plush embossed lettering, and her heart skipped all over again.

Dear Sarah and Mark, it had read.

You have won an all-expenses-paid wedding at Hammersham Hall. Please get in contact so that we can begin to plan your big day!

And now, two days later, here they were, meeting the Hall's owner for the first time. She gazed up at the handsome red-brick building, taking in the grand pillars on either side of the huge oak door, the pretty spring roses tumbling around it. Turning to her fiancé, Sarah saw that he looked as shocked and dazed as she felt.

"Who should I ask to walk me down the aisle?" she said, not for the first time.

The question had been playing on her mind ever since Mark had asked her to marry him. Sarah had never known her parents. She had grown up in care, flitting from home to home, never quite fitting in.

She wasn't quite sure why this decision was so important to her, it simply was.

"For someone with such an unconventional past, you're very bent on convention," Mark said.

He was right; tradition was important to her. A life spent on the move meant that until recently she'd never put down roots. She knew little about her background names of a few distant relatives, that kind of thing, though none of them offered to take her in as a baby. Her favourite hobby was researching her family tree, trying to piece together where she fitted into it all.

"Here we go," Mark said, squeezing her hand encouragingly and nodding towards a man who had emerged from the house, and Sarah swallowed back a tremor of nerves. Mark was right; he was her family now. That was all she needed.

"Sarah and Mark?"

"That's us," Mark said nervously.