Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  Shock washed through me. What he suggested was so far from reality it was laughable. But it occurred to me how things might look, when phrased a certain way. "Sir, you need to know that I've intended to marry Sophie since we were but wee little weans running about at Mam's skirts."

  "We'll see about that."

  "I love her, and she loves me as well."

  He made a noise—of disbelief or disregard, and then bid me good day. I set my phone down, my head spinning. I had no idea how long it had been since Mr. James had spoken to his step-daughter, but I was fairly certain she wouldn't be pleased to learn he planned to visit her now.

  I opened my laptop, ready to email my brother Charlie, but found he'd beat me to the punch. He'd been granted use of the royal jet and would be arriving in three days. Wednesday. I'd been directed to locate accommodations for Charlie and his wife Penny, Marigold and her husband Oscar, James and Dane (my twin brothers — eternal bachelors, as far as I could tell), Mr. James, and an official from Uncle Vlad's palace to oversee activities on the crown's behalf. The email went on to say that the Feats should be planned for the following weekend and that it would have to be up to me to secure an appropriate location in which to perform them.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Where the feck would I find a couple sheep, sixty sacks of grain, and a place willing to let us fill a swimming pool with turtles?

  I started with the easy part, and began looking for a hotel where the family could stay while they were here.

  Then I'd need to call Sophie.

  Chapter 103

  Fetch the Farm Animals

  Sophie

  I woke up Monday feeling like a new chapter of my life had begun, and Anna noticed my mood as soon as I popped through the door at the bakery. She'd been in earlier than usual, going through the books and working on our accounting for tax season, something I'd been thankfully left out of. When I pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen, she looked up with relief on her face.

  "Oh good. Can I put this aside and do fun stuff now?"

  I grinned at her. "As far as I'm concerned you don't have to do that at all, but I suppose the IRS would beg to differ."

  She blew her lips out comically in exasperation.

  "That bad?" A little shot of worry went through me. I might not be the numbers girl, but I still needed to know if the business was in some kind of trouble.

  "No," she said, laughing and standing up, shutting the laptop in front of her. "It's been a good year, actually. I'm just tired of looking at the numbers. I was thinking of making some petit-fours today since I don't need to get started on anything for the wee..." Anna trailed off, stepping closer to me and squinting as her head fell to one side. "Wait a minute," she said slowly. "What's going on?"

  I swallowed a laugh. Was my happiness that obvious? "Nothing," I said, but my voice rose and my good cheer was impossible to stifle.

  "Liar. Something's different. Something good. You're all pink and floaty."

  "Really? Pink and floaty?"

  Anna poked me in the arm. "We've discussed our belief in intuition and auras. Don't make me feel like some kind of new age freak now. Something's different. You're happier."

  "I'm engaged," I said softly, the words feeling exotic on my tongue. My stomach did a little flip and Anna's immediate exuberance brought a wash of glee through me.

  She squealed and grabbed both my hands, jumping up and down until I joined her. "Oh my god! Tell me every last detail!" Then she stopped jumping, her face becoming suddenly serious. "Just a second. A week ago, you hadn't even mentioned you knew the Hammer. Now you're marrying him? As your friend, I should caution you. This is quick."

  "It's not, really." I dropped her hands and went to lean against the prep table. "We've been in love since before I can remember. It's practically a formality."

  "So romantic." She rolled her eyes.

  My heart protested her loss of enthusiasm, and I leaned forward, still smiling. "But it is, Anna." How could I explain it to her? That the universe intended Hamish and me to be together, that the trappings and decorations didn't matter to us, that it was something much deeper than that? "We're fated."

  That did it. Her eyes rounded. Anna loved anything to do with mystical and unexplained phenomenon. "Do you really believe that?"

  I lifted a shoulder. "Even if I didn't believe in that kind of thing, I'd still believe in this. It's just...there's never been anyone else for either of us. There've been dates, and flings. But no one else here." I tapped my heart, which felt swollen with pleasure.

  "That is romantic," Anna said, sinking back down into her chair. "So you're engaged, and Mr. Match is still giving me the silent treatment. Oh Soph," Anna said, her voice taking on a dreamy quality. "This is amazing. I'm so happy for you! Are you going to go home for the wedding? Can I come?"

  I smiled at her. "I hoped you'd be in the wedding. You're my best friend."

  "Oh my god, I'd love that," she said, standing again to come give me a hug. "Isn't Hammer a prince or something?"

  "Not really," I said, but Anna was already going on with a litany of questions that were more like thoughts.

  "So will the king come to the wedding then? Will it be like a royal wedding? Will there be a red carpet and doves and—"

  "Think more like kilts and maybe sheep," I told her. "We're a little more rustic than the Brits."

  She nodded knowingly. "I can't wait."

  As we got to work, something about her mention of the royal factor served to dampen my excitement. I hadn't thought about Hamish's responsibilities to his family in the royal sense. How much pomp and circumstance would they require? I knew they intended for us to participate in Feats, but that was nothing unexpected. What else did a royal wedding entail when you were this distant from the crown? Not much, I hoped. If I'd stayed at home, I would know—several of Hamish's siblings had married while I'd been gone. But since I'd cut off ties with Durnland for the last several years, I wasn't sure exactly what I was in for.

  I reassured myself that nothing else really mattered, as long as Hamish and I were together. But as I began filling a bowl with flour and eggs, Madame Anastasia's strange words ran through my head again.

  Familiar things are those most likely to deceive. Those we know wear many faces.

  Chapter 104

  Crown? Check.

  Hamish

  I put aside the idea of calling Sophie and showed up at the bakery instead, stepping inside just as Anna was about to lock the door, walking toward it with keys in hand.

  "Oh!" she cried on seeing me, and a wide smile took over her face. "Sophie can barely keep both feet on the ground today, she's so giddy about you," she said.

  A warm contentment replaced some of the trepidation that had filled me about what I needed to come tell Sophie. "I'm feeling pretty giddy myself," I said. "Is she here, or have I missed her?"

  "She's here!" Anna darted through the swinging door behind the counter to get Sophie, and I was left alone with a display case full of the most delicious looking tiny chocolate cakes I could imagine. I was happy Trace Johnson wasn't along or this would surely devolve into some kind of chocolate cake challenge. Though since becoming engaged, Trace had matured. He hadn't challenged me to eat a teaspoonful of cinnamon in at least two months. I wondered if that was because he was challenging Magalie instead. In a way, it would be like they were doing their own matrimonial feats, I thought. His were just a bit less institutionalized and involved fewer sheep.

  "Hi you," Sophie said, appearing from the back like every amazing daydream I'd ever allowed myself to have. A happy word flitted through my brain on seeing her: Mine.

  "Hello, lass," I said, sweeping her into my arms as she approached and kissing her like I meant it, dropping a hand down to get a quick little squeeze in.

  "Hamish!" she giggled, looking over her shoulder to where a flash of blond hair was disappearing from the round window in the kitchen door.

  "Sorry," I said, though I wa
sn't sorry at all. Only sorry maybe that she'd probably protest even more loudly if I were to suggest that we go ahead and lock the door and then defile the bakery a bit. "Do you have time to chat a bit?" I asked her.

  She nodded, untying the pink apron that had been around her waist. "I was just finishing up. Let me get my bag and we can grab a bite."

  I waited while she disappeared into the back and then came back out with a sweater and her purse. Anna locked the door behind us and waved, and Sophie and I went to a little cafe nestled up next to a towering hotel. We ordered some wine and a cheese board, and then I sat back, taking a deep breath and preparing to fill Sophie in on the developments of the last twenty-four hours. A little twirl of dread pirouetted in my stomach.

  "Cheers!" Sophie said, tapping her glass to mine and sipping her wine.

  I watched her for a long moment, still finding it somewhat surreal to sit across from this beautiful, grown-up version of the girl I'd loved—the girl I'd been dreaming about forever.

  "Cheers," I said, and Sophie's expression sobered as she caught the serious note in my voice. "I spoke to your stepfather today," I began.

  A frown pulled Sophie's lips down and a little crease appeared between her brows. "I knew you were planning to. You didn't waste any time," she said.

  "Well, I told Charlie and Mari about our engagement, and it seems news travels as fast as it ever has back at home. He called me this morning."

  "Aw, shite," she breathed. "He was angry, then?"

  "Might be putting it mildly, but yeah."

  "Well, it's done now." She gave a quick nod and took a sip of her wine.

  I forced a smile. "Nearly so, at least."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Well, you knew Charlie was probably going to be coming over for a visit—bringing a proxy for the crown and all that."

  "And?"

  "So there are a few others coming along as well."

  Sophie lifted her eyebrows and waited for me to continue.

  "Charlie and his wife, Mari and her husband. James and Dane, an official palace representative, and your stepdad."

  She put her drink on the tabletop so firmly I worried the stem might snap. "He's coming here?"

  I swallowed hard and nodded. I'd forgotten that Sophie could be frightening when she was angry.

  "When?"

  "Day after tomorrow?" It wasn't a question, but I felt like if I slid the words over to her gently, she might accept them more graciously.

  Sophie stood up fast and her chair skittered backwards, into the table behind us. "Well, tell him he's not welcome. I don't want him here. I won't see him."

  I stood and stepped close to her, taking one of her hands, but she pulled it from my grasp. "Is there more between you than I understand?" I asked quietly. A few others around the cafe were watching us now, and I didn't need a soccer fan popping over for a chat right now. I turned my back to the onlookers, hoping not to be recognized. "Something I don't know about?"

  "There is absolutely nothing at all between us. Seems like that should be answer enough."

  I took her hand again, pulled her back to our chairs, and she sighed and sat.

  "Did he do something, Soph? Something I should know about?"

  She shook her head definitively, red curls bouncing around her shoulders.

  "Then what?"

  Her eyes wouldn't meet mine for a long minute, but then they rose slowly, meeting my gaze and making my heart wrench inside my chest. "He hated me, Hamish. He loved my mother, and when she died, he hated me because I was hers."

  I didn't know what to say, so I sat quietly, hoping she'd explain.

  "I look just like her," she went on. "When she was alive, he'd pull me into his lap and call me mini-Maggie. He was sweet to me then, but when she died, I was too much a reminder, I think. And at the end of it all, I was another man's child. So he fed me and clothed me and pushed me away. I was lucky your property was right next to ours or I'd have grown up completely alone."

  "I'm sorry, Soph." I knew her father had been mostly absent from her life, but I'd never thought much about why. My parents had been parents to Sophie too in so many ways, it had rarely occurred to me to think about how she must feel about her own stepfather being so cold to her.

  "So I don't know why he'd suddenly want to be involved now." She sniffed and I could see tears standing in her eyes.

  I suspected Mr. James was suddenly invested because he saw a connection to the crown as a potentially lucrative opportunity, but maybe I was underestimating the man. I'd need to talk to Charlie. Maybe he'd have more insight into his neighbor's motives.

  Chapter 105

  Durnish Chaos

  Sophie

  I generally did not allow myself to think about my stepfather. Thoughts of him led down a mossy slippery path to thoughts of my mother, who I remembered well despite the fact she'd died when I was ten. My father had been killed in a farming accident just after I was born, and my mother had remarried by the time I was three. Aaron James was a friend of the family, a boy she'd gone to school with who'd always had a crush on her. He waited an appropriate amount of time after my father's death and then began to court my mother. I was too young when she passed to understand her reasons for marrying him. I liked to tell myself that she loved him, that he'd been sweet to her.

  I had no memories to suggest otherwise.

  But if Aaron James loved my mother, it was possible that love did not extend to her little mirror-image daughter. I think he'd been prepared to accept me, and as I told Hamish, I had memories of him being kind and loving. But his love was contingent, I understood now, on my mother being present. And once she was gone, either I was too much trouble or too painful a reminder of a woman to whom he'd given his heart. In the days when he might have picked me up and held me close—I'd just lost my mother, after all—he chose instead to pick up a bottle and look for the relief of his own pain within it.

  There was a brief time I remember being alone, wandering the grassy expanses of our property, hearing the distant laughter of the MacEvoy children ringing through the hills beyond our little house and feeling that sound echo through my ache. I remember too, seeing them playing once, watching from the top of a big boulder that sat between our lands, and feeling a rush of fear as Mam spotted me and walked purposefully in my direction.

  "What are you doing up there, child?" She'd asked me, and I knew I was in for it. I'd taken to spying on the MacEvoys, trying maybe to absorb a bit of the happy chaos that surrounded a family of so many kids.

  But she'd reached a hand up to me, lifted me down and shocked me by pulling me into her chest and cooing soft words into my ear. I don't remember the specifics of the days and months that followed, times that found me at the MacEvoy's place more than with my stepfather, but I will always remember the scents of sugar and flour, lavender and lilac that surrounded me in Mam's soft arms.

  After that, I'd grown less and less interested in a relationship with my stepfather. Half the time, it wasn't him who fed and clothed me. Half the time I wasn't sure he remembered that I was his responsibility. He drank, and that's really all I recall. He was a sad and sloppy drunk, but not an angry or mean one.

  I felt little about him, really, besides a deep longing sadness. He'd been a connection to my mother, and with his indifference, I lost her again.

  So Wednesday, when I stood on the tarmac at the private airfield with Hamish, watching the enormous group of Durnish citizens debark the private jet the king had sent, it took me a minute to even recognize him.

  Hamish stood at my side, his arm around me.

  "I'm nervous," I told him. I wasn't sure if his family would be angry at me for disappearing for so long. And I didn't know how my stepfather might greet me.

  "No need," he told me, kissing my cheek. "They're family. They'll be so happy to see you again."

  And he was right. A moment later, we were surrounded, and the first set of arms to slip around me, frailer now and connected to a boso
m far less plush than it had once been, were Mam's.

  "Sophie, love," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "I'm so happy to see you again, so happy to know you and Hamish have found each other again." She kissed my cheek and stepped back, still smiling at me as her scent of lavender floated around us.

  "I didn't know you were coming," I said, my voice breaking as a tear pushed its way down my cheek.

  "They tried to leave me home," she said. "Told me I was too old, can you believe that?" The woman whose face I brought to mind when I needed comfort had aged, that was sure. But her bright green eyes still gleamed with intelligence and life, and she looked healthy to me.

  "I'm so glad to see you," I told her.

  "And what of me?" Marigold pulled me into a hug next, and my tears broke free. Soon, I was sobbing, being passed between Dane and James, Charlie and his wife Penny, who I'd never even met, but who hugged me like an old friend, and the same was true of Mari's husband Oscar. Finally, my stepfather stood before me, and we regarded one another awkwardly as the MacEvoys beside us shouted and laughed, their reunion every bit as chaotic as their regular days had been when we were kids.

  "Hello, Sophie," he said, looking uncertain. His cheeks were red, and his nose had a bulbous appearance, capillaries broken across the bridge. He was much smaller than I remembered him, but it had been years since I'd left. His dark hair had turned grey at the temples and thinned on top, and his almost-black eyes weren't altogether unfriendly, but I'd learned not to expect much from them a long time ago.

  "Sir," I said, nodding.