When She Said I Do

by Celeste Bradley

  Raines?

  No. It couldn’t be.

  For the first time, Ren took a good long look at his new staff. There, that bookish-looking fellow in spectacles, carrying champagne flutes arranged upon a tray, reminded him of someone; over to his right, a shorter man bowed two tall, blond ladies past him just as if he were letting them through a door; and that one there, standing at parade rest by the door, almost invisible in the discreet livery of Amberdell Manor.

  Ren peered harder at the fellow. Big and thick, with a thuggish air. He’d known a man like that once …

  A couple danced past, blocking Ren’s view. He stepped to one side and the lady, a curvaceous, dimpled brunette, smiled apologetically at him, her brown eyes alight with curiosity behind her mask adorned with tiny blue silk flowers. The man did not turn his head but Ren found his gaze swinging back to the fellow for another look, only to find the couple had disappeared into the mass of dancers.

  Something about the man’s stature …

  Ren’s skin prickled. His spine tightened. He longed for eyes in the back of his head.

  In his former life he would have interpreted such sensations to mean he was surrounded. But that was nonsense. Those days were over with. This feeling was merely an echo of that past alarm, brought on by being in a crowd for the first time in so long.

  Wasn’t it?

  * * *

  “Mr. and Mrs. Archimedes Worthington! And … er … relations!”

  Callie, who had decided to wait for her champagne—and perhaps another kiss—in the cooler air of the terrace, turned with a gasp just as her hand touched the latch of the doors leading outside.

  Oh, no. Oh, blast. It couldn’t be.

  It most certainly was.

  As Callie’s entire family strode en masse into the ballroom, she heard avid murmurs from around her.

  “Who is it?” “Is it a parade?” “Is it a circus troupe?”

  Well, yes, very nearly. Add a dash of madhouse and you’re close.

  They were all there, a seeming army outrageously masked and costumed, tall and small, dark and light, all so different and all so much the same—all with the unmistakable Worthington insouciance that Callie had almost allowed herself to lose—

  She felt her chin lift and her spine lengthen instantly, immediately imbued with the carefree attitude of resourceful self-assurance that wafted from her family like an exotic perfume.

  How could I forget?

  On they came, the entire exhilarating, exhausting pack of them, coming at her with smiles and open arms and chaos and mayhem, like a hurricane of love and devastation.

  My ball is ruined. I am so happy to see them. This is a disaster. They look so wonderful!

  So, appropriately, she greeted them with both laughter and tears, her arms wide.

  * * *

  From across the ballroom, Ren watched as his bride disappeared into the massed madness that was apparently the entire Worthington mob—er, clan.

  He couldn’t believe it. He’d had no idea there were so many Worthingtons. And by Callie’s helplessly astonished expression, they’d not been on her guest list.

  Button, I truly am going to kill you.

  He must be gracious to her parents, yes, and that arrogant lout, Daedalus. Although Ren had to admit to his own fault on the night they’d met—the night Dade had discovered Callie in Ren’s arms.

  What must the fellow have thought? That Satan himself had arisen to violate his sister? Perhaps it was time to forgive an older brother’s protectiveness. Very well, then, he was willing to tolerate the fellow if Dade behaved himself.

  But the others? Ren tried to replay the stories he’d been told. Callie had mentioned the twins, Castor and Pollux—those would be the identical brown-haired fellows in the matching lime-green waistcoats. Awful.

  Sisters. There had been a few stories about sisters. Elektra and Atalanta. Really, those names! Ren saw one rather lovely flaxen-haired sister and one skinny freckled creature with a wild mop of red-gold curls that must be a sister, as well, or perhaps a pet. It sent him a glance full of murderous intent.

  More brothers. Names, names … Ren thought through the classical stories. He remembered hearing about an Orion and a Lysander. One brother was a bespectacled man with lean, dark good looks and a very serious manner. Another one, similar in coloring if not quite so well groomed, lurked in silence that seemed to surround him like a bubble even his own family did not penetrate.

  Ren knew enough about burning self-loathing to recognize it when he saw it. Every instinct told him that the silent man was a cannon waiting to fire.

  Iris and Archimedes, along with some rawboned elder female relation, held Callie tightly and beamed happily if indiscriminately about the ballroom, indifferent to any stares of avid interest.

  But … was that woman’s bodice moving?

  * * *

  Still breathless from all the loving compression, Callie was next swept into the embrace of a tall woman in a swirling turban that made her tower over most of the men in the room.

  “Er—Aunt Clemmie?”

  Something was licking Callie’s chin where her face was pressed into the woman’s bosom. Yes, definitely Clementine, Iris’s eldest sister, furry little bodice-passengers and all.

  “There, there, girl. We’ll get you out of this mess if it’s the last thing we do. Married? Fah! Men!”

  Callie sighed. Worthingtons.

  * * *

  Ren could not reach Callie, swarmed as she was. Yet, there was an empty space around him, he realized suddenly. Not just in the ballroom, but in the world itself. It was that space that for most was filled with family. He could see it in the way they surrounded her, a circle of loving arms, a fortress of trust and faith and need.

  He’d had it as a boy. It had been a small circle, true, but his parents and his elder cousin John had been a family.

  That is not the only place you had it.

  Yes, he’d thought he’d found it with the Liars, with that motley band of thieves and gentlemen spies.

  Of course, in the end he’d been quite mistaken, hadn’t he? Watching her now, her face alight with love for her demented clan, something cold went through him.

  Was he wrong about finding it with Callie, as well? Would she break his heart now that he had let her hold it in her hand?

  He fought the impulse to turn away, to stride from the room and the possibilities. His parents had left him, his mother in an accident and his father quite willingly when he followed her that night, the vial of laudanum standing empty by the bedside, the single-line note scrawled on a crumpled page. I cannot live without her.

  He’d thought his father a coward then.

  And who’s been hiding in a cave?

  Ren let out a bark of self-deprecating laughter and strode toward the tight knot of Callie’s family. If he wanted her he was obviously going to have to fetch her himself. He need not have worried. The Worthingtons parted before him with wide eyes.

  Ah, yes. For a moment Ren had forgotten about the exposed portion of his face. Hello, monster. Welcome to the family.

  Chapter 29

  “Ahem.”

  Never had the mere clearing of a throat implied so much irritation. Callie unwrapped Aunt Clemmie’s long arms and turned to smile tentatively at Ren. She saw Betrice and Henry trailing behind him, their eyes alight with curiosity.

  “My family came to the ball!” she said brightly. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Ren gazed back at her for a long moment. Callie smiled harder. Be good. Be a nice hermit and say pretty things to my family.

  His silence continued a beat too long. Whispers began to breed in the ballroom. Callie bared more teeth. The sharp ones. Her toe began to tap.

  Her brothers stepped back warily.

  Ren, the idiot, held his ground. His shadowed gaze ran over the boys and her sisters, lingered on Aunt Clemmie and the small furry snouts poking out of her neckline, then passed over her parents and came back to meet
hers.

  Be nice. Please?

  Ren deflated before her eyes. He closed his eyes wearily for a moment, then stepped forward and snapped a very formal bow. “Mr. Worthington. Mrs. Worthington. What a pleasant surprise. We are delighted that you traveled so far to join us this evening. Might I beg introduction to the rest of the family?”

  His words were very pretty. If his tone was a bit flat, at least it was not harsh.

  He continued to behave very well, even prompting some nice manners from Dade, who was ever the competitive sort. The rest of the boys did not embarrass her … much … and of course Elektra’s public etiquette was always pinpoint.

  Then Atalanta was presented to Ren. Callie knew she wasn’t the only one of the Worthingtons holding her breath. One never knew what Attie would do. Ought I to worry?

  However, little Attie, clad in a sweet pink gown that used to be Elektra’s, topped with a flowered mask cleverly constructed of papier-mâché, curtsied with gangly competence and murmured the usual nonsense with an entire lack of expression. Hmm. The one thing Attie was incapable of was dullness. I rather think I ought to worry.

  Then Callie noticed that the twins had quietly slipped away. Oh, no. The twins quiet were the twins lethal.

  Fortunately, they reemerged almost immediately, coming back into the ballroom through the double doors on the terrace. They moved slowly, bent almost double over wooden yokes, towing something behind them.

  Whatever it was sat upon a two-wheeled cart and was draped in canvas. From the ten-foot height Callie surmised that her brothers were not exaggerating the weight of it as they strained at the yokes.

  She felt Ren come up behind her. His hand snaked about her waist. The embrace was ever so slightly too tight.

  “Callie…”

  Closing her eyes and reaching deep for strength, Callie turned into his arm and went on tiptoe. “Please, darling, let me handle them.”

  She felt the depth of his sigh.

  “This is your evening, Callie. You worked so hard. I simply don’t wish you to be disappointed.”

  The worry in his voice made her want to melt into him. Please fix it for me. Make it better.

  She loved that he would truly try, if she asked him to. Unfortunately, management of the Worthingtons was not for beginners.

  So she patted him briskly on the shoulder and smiled up at him. “Everything will be fine!”

  He looked as doubtful as she felt, but he nodded. She slipped from his hold with a squeeze of his gloved hand and went to meet the twins as they wheeled the creaking cart across the ballroom to the large inlaid star in the center of the marble floor.

  There was no point in playing nice with the twins. She crossed her arms and tapped her toe. “What is that?”

  “That, dear sister—”

  “is what was formerly known—”

  “as the Blasted Contraption!”

  The twins had been working on one version or another of the Blasted Contraption since they were fourteen. Attie was sometimes drawn into—and drew on—the creation, as did Iris. All the Worthingtons had contributed over the years. The thing was very nearly a member of the family.

  However, it had long been a policy of Callie’s to distrust any and all statements from the combined mouths of Cas and Poll. She gazed at the canvas-covered lump with suspicion. “If that’s the Blasted Contraption, then where are the articulated tentacles? And what of the spire made of silver hair combs that was supposed to vibrate to the music of the spheres? If you’ve finally dismantled that bit, I’ll be wanting mine back.”

  “Oh!” Elektra’s hand went up. “Mine, as well!”

  The twins beamed paternally at them. “All in good time—”

  “All in good time!”

  Elektra crossed her arms. “You’ve sold them, haven’t you?”

  Callie, though she also dearly wished to know the answer to that, waved her sister silent. “You still haven’t told me what it is doing here.” She glanced around at her guests, now milling in a loose circle, heads bent together as they doubtless discussed the very strangeness of all things Worthington. Callie sighed inwardly. All her hard work to be accepted, now to be at the mercy of her collected oddity of a family.

  Someone snickered in the crowd. Callie whirled to see, scowling. She might whinge away in her own head about her strange relations, but no one in Amberdell would get away with a single snide comment about her loved ones!

  However, most of the guests seemed intrigued and happily anticipatory. That was nice … or, it would be if Cas and Poll had ever invented anything that actually worked—well, other than their marvelous talent for explosives.

  Then Orion stepped up. “The articulated tentacles did not support the new theme. The receptor made of combs was simply ludicrous. I made them take it down when I revamped their design.”

  Callie blinked. If Orion had lent a hand to the twins, then the object “formerly known as the Blasted Contraption” might truly have a chance of operating!

  She blinked at her scholarly brother. “But…” She tried but she simply couldn’t keep the helpless note out of her voice. “What is it?”

  Mama wafted past on Archie’s arm. “A celebration, of course! We’re all been slaving over it for days. It is a Grand and Eloquent Expression!” She drifted on, tilting vaguely in the direction of Mr. Button’s array of nibblements.

  Callie gazed at her blissful mother with fond vexation. Honestly, sometimes Mama made her spine weaken! She rubbed at her temples. “Orion, are you planning to explode my ball?”

  Orion blinked seriously at her through his spectacles. “No. Any impending destruction will be entirely unplanned.”

  There was some comfort to be had in the fact that Orion never lied. He would never bother to shade the truth to make one feel better. He simply didn’t see the point in feelings.

  Callie turned to find the single voice of reason. “Dade?”

  Her eldest brother stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Callie. When I received the invitation, I meant to come alone, but—” He waved a hand helplessly. “The family is getting out of hand without you home to calm matters.”

  Invitation? Callie swept the room with her eyes, but saw no sign of the traitorous Mr. Button. Well, he’d probably meant well. Honestly, how could he have known?

  Henry approached, Betrice on his arm. They greeted her father cordially. Ah, yes. They’d met at the wedding—and still claimed the acquaintance. Callie’s estimation of Henry went up another notch.

  “We have brought a very special exhibition for this auspicious occasion,” Archie said to a rapt Henry. “Such as never before seen by your village! It is be timed for the stroke of midnight, concurrent with the moment of revelation!”

  Ren, who stood nearby sourly toeing a grimy mark on his marble floor from the cart wheel, felt his gut go cold.

  The moment of revelation. The unmasking of everyone in the ballroom.

  The unmasking of him.

  * * *

  Betrice left Henry’s side and wandered curiously toward the canvas-covered cart. The two identical young men were tinkering secretively with something under the tarpaulin.

  “There. Tighten that—”

  “Bolt, yes, got it. Now for the—”

  “spring. Winding now—”

  “And don’t forget the—”

  A hand emerged, fumbling for something in a wooden toolbox balanced on the edge of the cart. Curious, Betrice sidled closer.

  “Linchpin.” The searching hand pulled a gleaming brass bolt about five inches long from the clutter within the box.

  “There. Wouldn’t want to—”

  “do without that!”

  “Disaster!” The last was said happily, with some relish.

  “Check! Now for champagne!”

  “And girls! Country girls and stealing kisses.”

  “So impressed, we won’t have to steal ’em!”

  Callie’s brothers strode away from the strange thing. They never noticed
Betrice peeking inquisitively beneath the canvas drape.

  * * *

  “It isn’t as though I’ve been gone for months, Zander,” Callie said, trying to maintain a reasonable tone. While she spoke, she absently removed a glass of champagne from the grasp of Attie, replacing it with her own lemonade. “Surely you older boys can maintain order for more than a few days at a time!”

  Lysander only shot her a dark look.

  Callie crossed her arms. “There’s no need to get huffy about it. I was bound to get married sooner or later!”

  Lysander shrugged sullenly.

  Callie rolled her eyes. “No matter what you say, what’s done is done. I’m married now!”

  Attie scowled at the lemonade and poured it into a potted palm. “You might have thought to marry someone in London,” she pointed out. “Someone not him.” She gestured across the ballroom toward Ren with her empty glass. Drops of remaining lemonade flew out to land on Callie’s lovely new gown. “We’ll never see you.”

  Callie’s teeth gritted together as she dabbed her handkerchief on the stains. “Less than a fortnight. It’s been less than a fortnight.”

  She needed a bit of water, before the lemon juice discolored the silk. She turned away from her brother and sister, tired of arguing with Lysander.

  It wasn’t actually an argument, of course, since Lysander wasn’t one for using actual words. Callie was simply used to filling in the blanks herself.

  Where was the blasted water?

  It was nothing, really. Merely a snippet of conversation heard between two stout women from the village. One, costumed as Queen Mary with a frilled lacy mask, inclined her head toward a round Queen Elizabeth with a red wig and spoke in hooting tones that carried well.

  “… my Sarah was visiting with her friend Penny, who is stepping out with the butcher’s boy, who told her that Sir Lawrence’s new cook is an absolute giant!”

  Giant.

  Callie stopped short, her belly gone cold. Mr. Button’s cook, a giant?

  Then one of the servants began to beat out the stroke of twelve on a triangle. The chimes rang out over the ballroom. As one, the guests turned to fix their gazes on the mystery cart.