True Love

by Jude Deveraux

  Ken took a breath and continued. “Glenn and Izzy decided that they wanted a more private wedding, so they and their siblings and a couple of friends flew to, uh … Lanconia to get married there.”

  “Instead,” he said as he looked directly at Victoria, “Jared Kingsley and my daughter, Alix, are going to get married today.” In a reflex motion, Ken prepared to duck, for surely Victoria would start throwing things. When all she did was smile in the most self-satisfied way he’d ever seen, his jaw dropped.

  When he’d recovered himself, he realized that the rest of the guests had risen from their seats and were coming for him. Only Victoria and Dr. Huntley stayed seated.

  “This is our wedding!” one of the mothers was shouting. “I came here to see my daughter get married. It was bad enough that we had to fly to this place and now to—”

  “Where is my son!?” the other one demanded. “We were told by that Kingsley man that Glenn and Izzy were already here. If he doesn’t—”

  “Was this a plan for those two to get a free wedding?” one of the fathers said. “If you think I’m going to pay for this, you have—”

  “Glenn’s mother said I could be a bridesmaid and I’m going to be one even if I have to—”

  “Alix has always tried to upstage my daughter. I think Izzy was run off from her own wedding by her. It’s always been—”

  At that comment, Victoria got up and confronted the woman. Victoria was taller and a great deal more majestic than she was. “How dare you say that about my daughter! She has always helped Izzy! Alix has—”

  Ken looked over the audience. Everything was in chaos. The front door had opened and as many Nantucketers who could fit into the chapel were lined up along the walls and enjoying it all immensely. All the bride’s and groom’s relatives were out of their seats and shouting—at Ken, at each other, and at Victoria, who was holding her own in the yelling. She was defending Alix, Jared, the island, and the institution of marriage. Overall, the tone of anger was rising by the second.

  The only person still seated was Dr. Huntley. In fact, he was calmly reading the menu for the coming meal. To look at him one would have thought there was nothing going on around him, that everything was peaceful.

  It was only when one mother shoved the other that Dr. Huntley looked up. He didn’t seem concerned, just mildly interested.

  Ken sidestepped the two angry fathers, who were arguing over money, to get to the shoving mother just as the other one raised her hand to administer a slap. Ken grabbed the slapping woman’s wrist and held it firmly. Holy mackerel, but the woman was strong! She pulled against him so hard he didn’t know if he was going to be able to hold her.

  Meanwhile the other mother—the shoving one—turned to Victoria. “Is all this your doing? Is it some kind of stunt to help sell those books of yours?” She was practically spitting in Victoria’s face, which was now as red as her hair.

  A movement caught Ken’s eye and he saw Dr. Huntley put his hands on his knees and slowly stand up. As Ken struggled with the woman—they were now almost wrestling—the man made his way through the screaming crowd to the front of the chapel to stand before the big stained-glass window.

  He stood there for a moment, shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then he took a breath and bellowed the word, “QUIET!”

  To say it was loud was an understatement. The windows seemed to draw inward, the stained glass quaked, and a number of chairs fell onto the tile floor.

  Everyone froze. Hands on other people’s hair, arms in midair, sentences being shouted all came to a halt.

  “Sit!” Dr. Huntley ordered and, meekly, everyone began to go back to their seats. He waited but not for long. Ken stepped back against the wall; Victoria took her seat. All eyes were on Dr. Huntley. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked and began talking.

  It was his stance, his hands, and especially his voice, that made Ken feel he was seeing a ship’s captain from long ago. A man who had to be heard over a raging sea. A man who could take charge over an entire crew.

  “You will get your money back,” Dr. Huntley said in a voice that didn’t allow any interruptions. “That you should consider coins over integrity, over kindness, is despicable. The lot of you harassed young Isabella until she ran off from her own wedding. All of you should be ashamed!” Turning, he glared at each one of them, his eyes lingering on the two mothers.

  “That you should do something like that to your own kin is without honor. It is the lowest form of inhumanity. And especially when that lovely girl is carrying a child!” He stopped to scowl at them.

  “I didn’t mean—” Izzy’s mother began.

  “Quiet, woman!” Dr. Huntley shouted so loudly that the windows rattled.

  He waited in silence for a moment, then lowered his voice. “Outside of this room is a bride. Whether you believe her to be the right one or not, she is due the respect that all brides deserve. And you will show it! Do I make myself clear?”

  He waited until he’d seen every guest nod his or her head. As for the Nantucketers in the back, they were smiling as though they were at last seeing the world set in its proper order.

  “Let me assure you that if any of you don’t behave yourselves, if you don’t sincerely wish the bride and her fortunate groom the best life has to offer, I will personally pick you up and throw you out of here—and that goes for the women too.” Again, Dr. Huntley looked at every set of eyes.

  In the back, a woman’s voice said, “Me first,” and there were a few female snickers, but Huntley’s steely gaze stopped that. He turned to Ken. “Take your place, now. You are the father of the bride.” Victoria came to her feet and looked as though she was about to say something. “And you sit down,” Dr. Huntley said and she obeyed instantly.

  With one more stern look at them, he walked toward the side door, where Jared stood staring. Dr. Huntley strode toward him, shutting the chapel door hard behind him.

  “Landlubbers! If I had them on a ship I’d keelhaul the lot of them.”

  Jared was still staring at the man, unable to make words come out of his mouth. A few minutes earlier, the voice that had come through the door was one that he’d heard all his life. It certainly wasn’t Dr. Huntley’s soft, placid tone. And when Jared opened the door he’d seen a man whose every movement, every gesture, was that of his grandfather. Dr. Huntley, who usually walked with his shoulders bent, was standing so straight that steel poles would envy him. And there was nothing meek or mild about him. He was angry and he let the crowd know it. It was nearly impossible for Jared to comprehend, but he was seeing his grandfather alive and in the body of someone else.

  Now, staring at him in disbelief, Jared reached out his hand to touch the man’s shoulder.

  “It is a weak body. I must strengthen it.”

  “How? When?” Jared whispered, not believing what he was thinking. Was this actually his grandfather, Caleb?

  “It is I,” he said. “You look at me as though you’re seeing a ghost.” This jest seemed to amuse Caleb a great deal, but when Jared kept staring in silence, he relented. “Last night, my father left Huntley’s body.”

  “You mean he died?” Jared asked.

  “Yes,” Caleb answered. “I was not expecting that.” For a moment he looked away and there were tears in his eyes. “When my father was no longer in a body, he could see me and he remembered all the times we’ve been together. He offered me this body if I wanted it.” Caleb took a breath. “Then my mother came to get him. For one brief moment, the three of us were together again. They kissed me and left. They were so happy to be with each other. And I found myself back in a human body.”

  Jared was still staring. “What did you do then?”

  “What do you think I did?” Caleb asked, looking at his grandson as if he weren’t very bright. “I went upstairs and climbed into bed with Valentina. Two hundred years of celibacy makes a man eager.”

  Jared blinked a few times, then burst out
laughing before grabbing his grandfather and hugging him.

  Caleb embraced him back, but in the next second he stepped away. “I am not of your century. Control yourself!” His words were chastising, but his eyes were glowing.

  Jared couldn’t help again putting his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. It was so odd to feel him as a solid form. His face was different now, older, not quite as handsome, but good. But the eyes were the same ones Jared had been seeing all his life. “How does this body feel?”

  “Heavy!” Caleb said. “This morning I ran into a wall.”

  Jared laughed.

  “And it feels very strange that people can see me. I think—” He stopped because behind them the music had begun. “You must go to claim your bride.”

  Jared started toward the chapel but he paused at the door. “What are you going to do now that you have a body?”

  “I have a job. I am going to marry Valentina and—”

  “Victoria.”

  “Whichever. She is the same. And you are going to produce half a dozen grandchildren for me to spoil. What more is there to life?”

  “Right. What more is there?”

  Smiling, feeling that a thousand pounds of worry had been lifted from his soul, Jared went into the chapel and took his place beside Tim.

  The audience was very quiet, subdued, and one of the mothers gave Jared a tentative smile. As they waited for the procession to begin, Jared said to Tim out of the side of his mouth, “When you looked in on Victoria this morning, was she alone in bed?”

  “No. The man sitting beside her was there this morning too. That guy has a voice on him, doesn’t he?”

  “You didn’t think to tell me that someone else was in bed with her?”

  Tim gave his partner a look as though he were crazy. “If a woman who looks like her had been alone, I would have remarked on it. As it was, it seemed perfectly natural. What’s up with you that you need to know what your mother-in-law does in bed?”

  “It’s not her, it’s him,” Jared said. He started to say more, but the pastor cleared his throat. It was time for them to stop talking.

  Lexie was coming up the aisle, her arm hooked through that of some man Jared had never seen before, but it didn’t take much for him to figure out this was her boss. Too pretty, was Jared’s first thought, but Plymouth did have a look about him that he might enjoy a Nantucket sleigh ride.

  Next came pretty Toby. She held the arm of a tall man who looked like the Montgomerys Jared had met in Maine, but he didn’t remember this specific one. Whereas Lexie’s boss was holding her so close it’s a wonder he wasn’t tripping on her skirt, Toby was walking rather far away from her escort. A porpoise could have been passed between them.

  In the next minute, the attendants broke apart and went to stand at the front of the chapel. Behind them was Alix. Never in his life had Jared seen anything as beautiful as she was in her white dress. A light veil covered her face, but he could see her smiling at him.

  He watched her, never taking his eyes off her, as she came toward him, her arm hooked with Ken’s. When they reached him, he stepped forward and Ken put his daughter’s hand in Jared’s.

  As Ken raised his daughter’s veil, he said, “I’m entrusting you with my most precious possession.” It was what Victoria had said, and only Jared heard him and saw the tears in his eyes.

  Jared nodded in agreement, a sacred vow between the two men, and Ken stepped away to go sit by Jilly.

  They had decided not to write their own vows, as the words in the traditional ceremony said everything. “Through sickness and health.” “Till death do us part.”

  At the mention of death, Jared thought of his grandfather and what he had endured to be with the woman he loved. Jared smiled at Alix, who smiled back. As always, they seemed to have the same thoughts at the same time.

  Alix repeated her vows to him and Jared thought how they were all about sharing. Sharing all that you had, all that you were, with another human being. He remembered her telling Victoria that she thought Jared’s life had been lonely until now. He’d never thought it was but he knew she was right. One by one, he’d lost the family he’d been born into, but gradually Alix’s family had replaced them. And now the circle was complete.

  “I do,” Alix said, and in the next moment the pastor said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  Jared took Alix in his arms and kissed her sweetly, a kiss of promise. For a second he held her, and their eyes seemed to say it all. Turning, they looked at the many people inside the chapel.

  It was as though all the anger and hostility had been erased by the magic of the wedding, and the crowd began to applaud joyously.

  Jared took Alix’s hand and started to run back down the aisle. But when Alix stumbled over her long skirt, he picked her up in his arms and carried her. The audience loved the gesture and broke into spontaneous laughter and even more applause.

  Outside the chapel, Jared set Alix down. For just a second they were alone. “To forever,” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Forever.”

  Epilogue

  Jared leaned back in the chair and looked at his grandfather. It had been three weeks since the wedding and as he’d predicted, Alix had wanted to go to New York right away to see his offices.

  All the way there she’d been nervous that once they left Nantucket things would change. Specifically, she was worried that her new husband would turn into a different person, that he’d become the Great Jared Montgomery.

  Of course it hadn’t happened. While it was true that most of the employees were in awe of him, Alix wasn’t. No matter how other people saw him, she saw the man—and let him know it. The first day they had a rather loud argument about a house remodel that was to go out with his company’s name on it.

  “I hate this thing! And you cannot possibly allow anyone to see this. It’s so far beneath your usual work that you should be embarrassed by it,” Alix said with passion.

  “There’s nothing wrong with this plan,” Jared answered just as vehemently.

  Alix proceeded to tell him in detail what was wrong with every window, door, and wall. One by one, the other employees tiptoed down the corridor to listen and watch. They were shocked that anyone would talk to Jared Montgomery like that.

  But Tim, also watching, was grinning.

  It was only after Alix had gone over every detail of the twelve pages of drawings that she realized that actually, Jared agreed with her. She looked around, saw the office watching, and knew what he was doing. He was showing everyone where Alix belonged, that she had veto power over all plans, his included.

  Suddenly, she realized that the design wasn’t Jared’s. It was the product of someone in the office—who was now going to hate her. Her face turned red, she rolled up the set, and held it up. “Who did this?”

  A young man with dark hair timidly raised his hand.

  Alix tossed him the plan, then, too embarrassed to speak, she left the room.

  It took Jared some coaxing to get her to forgive him, not for what he’d done but how he’d done it. It was only when she saw that instead of being hated by the people in the office, she was very much liked, that she forgave him.

  The employees saw Alix as the perfect step between Tim’s anything-goes attitude and Jared’s “No” that rarely came with an explanation. By the end of the first week, Alix was indispensable to all of them. Tim asked her about everything from making the employees stop using so much copier paper to presenting Jared with a bill for new computers. The other architects asked her to look at their plans before Jared saw them.

  As for Jared, he was so happy to turn things over to her so he could create that he could hardly stop smiling—something few in the office had seen.

  Last night they’d returned to Nantucket for the first time since the wedding, and this morning Alix had run off to see her mother and Toby. As soon as she left, Jared went to see his grandfather at Dr. Huntley’s house in tow
n.

  Since Victoria was living in the little house with him, and because Jared knew she wouldn’t like the modest place, right away he’d offered them Kingsley House.

  “I never want to enter that house again,” Caleb said with so much venom that Jared laughed. They had a lot of catching up to do. It was too soon for him to have mastered a keyboard or even a cell phone, so they’d left everything to when they saw each other in person.

  “Did you find out from the journal what happened to Valentina?” Jared asked.

  “Yes,” Caleb said. He was sitting by a window and lifting his face up to the sun, loving its warmth. He knew Jared had waited a long time to hear the story, so he didn’t postpone it. “Even when I was here on the island, my odious cousin Obed used to follow Valentina around. He would skulk and hide behind trees to watch her. I threatened him more than once.”

  Caleb took a breath. All this was hard for him even after so many years. “Valentina begged me not to go on what was to be my last voyage, but I wouldn’t listen. I was so full of myself! Anyway, after I left, Obed must have seen the symptoms in Valentina and known she was in the family way. He didn’t wait long before he told her a lie. He said that he’d had news that my ship had gone down with me on it. This was years before it actually happened.”

  He paused, remembering the story. “Valentina wrote in her journal how gentle Obed was when he told her about my death, and how kindly he offered her marriage. He said he’d give my child the Kingsley name, and he swore to love them both and to build them a fine house on Main Street. Valentina wrote that she was so miserable at hearing of my death that she couldn’t think clearly. She married him.”

  “But it was all a lie, wasn’t it?” Jared said.

  “The only truth was that my son got the Kingsley name. Obed always was a skinflint and he kept Valentina in what was little more than a shack on the North Shore. I’d given him that place but I’d meant for him to build there,” Caleb said. “What Obed really wanted was her recipe for soap. It seems that when he’d been stalking her he’d been trying to see how she made it.” Caleb shook his head. “I was so in love with her that I thought everyone looked at her as I did.” He grimaced. “Yes, it was all a lie. After they were married, Obed treated my son like a servant, and he kept Valentina making that damned soap fourteen hours a day.”