For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

“Too much Lanconian,” he muttered as he got out of the shower and stood there for a moment. He’d opened the window and the cool night air felt good on his wet, bare skin.

He reminded himself that a quarter of him was American. “And I must be politically correct,” he said aloud. American men didn’t slash down walls, didn’t jam swords into beds, and most certainly didn’t rip off a woman’s clothes.

He dried off and got into bed, but it was a long time before he slept.

In the morning Toby quietly dressed and tiptoed down the stairs. She thought she’d make corn muffins before Graydon got up. But when she entered the kitchen she saw him sitting at the little round table in the newly cleaned sunroom, a laptop open before him. “Good morning,” she said.

Looking up, he smiled as though she were the person he most wanted to see. “Good morning. I thought I’d look online and see whether or not my brother has brought about the downfall of my country.”

“Has he?” Toby asked as she got a box of cornmeal out of the pantry.

“So far, no. He has a factory opening ceremony tomorrow, so later I’ll check to see if he set fire to the ribbon and kissed three pretty girls while it burned.”

Again, Toby wasn’t sure if he was kidding or being honest. “Did you have any new ideas about the wedding?”

“Pirates? What about American gangsters?”

“That’s possible. The bridesmaids could wear flapper dresses with long pearls. Victoria would like that.”

“What about you? If you were getting married, what theme would you want?”

“No theme,” she said. “I just want a beautiful white gown with yards of lace and all my best girlfriends wearing dresses in shades of blue. I’d have white and blue flowers everywhere. Pale blue tablecloths and white dishes, and a cake with icing cornflowers falling down the side.”

Suddenly, she stopped, embarrassed at having gone on in such detail. “Sorry. At the shop we deal with weddings all the time so I’ve thought about mine.” She shrugged.

Graydon got up and walked to stand behind her. “I think your wedding sounds more beautiful than all the themes we’ve come up with.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, still embarrassed. When he didn’t move, she looked up at him. For part of a second there was a look in his eyes that made her step toward him.

When Graydon turned and stepped away, Toby couldn’t help her frown. All right, so he wasn’t interested in her that way. Good. Didn’t that show he loved the woman he was to marry? And wasn’t that good?

She turned back to the stove.

After breakfast, they bought watercolors, then drove to the Jetties and walked for a long way by the water. At first, they came up with a few more themes for the wedding, but then they began to talk about their lives—at least Toby talked about hers. Graydon asked her questions about her childhood, her schooling, her friends, what she liked and what she didn’t.

She answered everything, but she was cautious and careful not to reveal anything that was truly private. When it came to her mother, she told how efficiently she ran the household, but Toby le

ft out how much her mother’s constant criticisms hurt.

But if Toby was concealing the truth about her life, she knew that Graydon was worse. He’d said he had some life problems he needed to solve. But no matter what she asked him, he never came close to revealing what they were.

After lunch at Brant Point Grill, they drove back to the house. While Graydon finished with the watercolors, Toby took a shower and changed before Victoria arrived.

When Graydon saw Toby come down the stairs, for a second that look was there again. She’d taken her time in dressing and put on a blouse that she’d been told matched her eyes. Graydon seemed to appreciate it, but in the next second his eyes cooled and he put back on what she was beginning to think of as his “prince face.”

He saw that she was nervous. “I’m sure she will love so many of these ideas that tomorrow you’ll be ordering flowers.”

Toby sighed. “All I hope is that she will like one of them.” The drawings were spread across the dining table, twenty-six sketches, some simple, some elaborate. Graydon had put color on a few of them. Based on what Toby had told him, he’d bought every color of green the store sold and later he’d mixed the paints so there were even more shades.

At a knock on the door, Toby took a breath and was shocked at how anxious she felt.

“I’ll be right here with you,” Graydon said and for a moment he held her hand, then he released it to open the door.

Victoria was there, the sun glinting off her auburn hair, her outrageously curved figure clad in a green silk blouse and perfectly tailored dark trousers. “Prince Graydon!” she said as she walked past him and into the house. “How good to see you again. Toby, darling, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking better.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Toby said as she kissed Victoria’s cheek.

“Do either of you need anything? I can send my dear Caleb to visit, as he knows everything that can be known about this island. Or would you two rather be alone? So where is this fabulous presentation of yours?”