For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

“What does that mean?”

“I’m going to see if I can get her some help,” Victoria said. “It may not be exactly what she thinks she needs but it will be there.”

Caleb was looking at her hard. He knew the woman he loved very well. While her schemes always had good intentions, sometimes they backfired. “What did you ask Toby to do?”

Victoria was looking over his shoulder at the two princes, who were by the doorway. They seemed to have finished their discussion, as one was leaving and the other one was heading toward Toby, who still hadn’t moved.

“What did you say?” Victoria asked.

“Your project,” Caleb said. “What have you asked Toby to do?”

“Oh, that. I want her to plan our wedding. I do hope you don’t mind, but I told her that we had to be married by the end of August.” She looked at him in question. Since the two of them hadn’t so much as mentioned marriage, maybe she should have consulted him first.

“The end of August?” Caleb asked, frowning.

Victoria stopped dancing and looked at him in silence.

“Why so far away? Why not tomorrow?” he said, and Victoria’s laugh echoed around the room as he whirled her in his arms.

“Miss Wyndam,” Graydon said when he reached Toby, “I fear that I owe you yet another apology. My excuse for not intercepting my brother is that he said he would meet me at Kingsley House. I was halfway there before I realized what he was planning to do.” He was looking at her, but Toby was staring straight ahead at the people on the dance floor. “Has something happened?” he asked.

Toby tried to bring her mind back to the present. “I need to learn to say no.”

“Please tell me you aren’t referring to my brother.”

What Victoria said had shocked Toby so much she had no idea what Graydon was talking about. She looked at him but didn’t see him.

“Come with me,” he said as he took her arm and led her to the door. As they passed the buffet table, he picked up a bottle of water and an empty champagne flute.

He led her through the people and into the cool night air, neither of them speaking. They walked far enough away that the music and noise were in the background. A fallen tree blocked their path. Graydon took off his jacket, draped it across the log, and nodded for Toby to sit down.

“Your jacket will get dirty.”

“That’s not important,” he said.

Toby wanted to sit down in the cool darkness but the seat was a little high for her.

“May I?” He was holding out his hands toward her waist.

She nodded and he put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on his jacket. He opened the bottle, filled the glass, and handed it to her.

Gratefully, she drank half of it and handed the glass back to him. “Would you mind?” He nodded toward the log.

“Please do.”

Graydon took a seat next to her. “If my brother didn’t upset you, what did?”

“Victoria wants me to plan a wedding for her.”

“I can understand that. You did a splendid job on this one.”

“But Victoria is a famous author! You may not have heard of her in your country, but in America, Victoria Madsen is quite well known.”

“Of course I’ve heard of her. My grandmother reads all her books and I think maybe my father does too. Why would planning another wedding bother you?”

“She’ll want something grand, something beyond perfect. She told me to come up with a theme and I don’t know how to do that.”

“A theme? You mean have everyone dress in costumes?”