by Nancy Warren
“Yeah, I need to talk to you about that.”
“You don’t have to,” Max said. “Chloe rang. God, listen to me. She rang. I’m turning into a Brit. Anyway, she’s canceling the wedding. Can you believe it? Our big society wedding, the one that was going to put us on the map. Gone. Poof. And I already put a deposit on the tent.”
She’d done a lot more than put a few pounds down on a tent, but she was obviously trying to stay cheerful, even though, the way things were going, she and George were going to be too old to get married before they ever dragged Hart House into profitability.
“We’ll figure something out.” Jack’s words echoed unpleasantly in Rachel’s mind. Was it possible that she was jealous of Maxine? She hadn’t exactly been super-supportive of her sister, and yet, look at her. She was glowing. “You’re really happy here, aren’t you?”
Max laughed. “Amazing, isn’t it? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but things keep getting better.”
She knew Max had made up her mind not to marry George until they were in the black, and maybe it was stupid, but Maxine was not one to budge after she’d made up her mind. So it was up to Rachel to help bring in the bucks. Already, she knew they’d made a sizable dent in the bank loan. What they needed was a big, splashy success.
“Don’t cancel that tent. There must be a replacement couple who want a splashy wedding. Let’s brainstorm later. I’m going to shower.”
“It’s not your problem, Rach.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I’m not being clear. In my subtle way I’m giving you my blessing. George is a wonderful man and you two belong together. I’ve been pretty whiny and self-involved recently so maybe I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I could have been, but I’m telling you right now that I’m going to do everything I can to help raise revenue. With the two of us on full throttle?” She grinned. “ England doesn’t have a chance.”
She patted her sister’s shoulder as she walked by. “Now close your mouth and start thinking.”
Rachel had contemplated Jack’s words all the way down on the train. First, she had to take in the astonishing fact that he’d said her loved her, and even more astonishing, that she believed him. Then she replayed the accusations he’d lobbed her way. She was scared, jealous, yearning for love. When she got past the sting, she thought maybe he wasn’t completely wrong.
Even if he was right and she was too terrified to accept love for herself, she could at least be big enough to help her sister reach her happy ending.
A little scary warmth stole through her every time she replayed the moment when he’d looked at her with his sexy eyes all serious and said he loved her. And what about her? Was he right? Was she so terrified of love that she’d turn it away?
A person didn’t fall in love in a week, she told herself furiously. One didn’t!
She showered, and then went into the kitchen and baked shortbread cookies with chunks of candied ginger, a lemon pound cake, and thick, gooey espresso brownies. The baking soothed her and the scents coming from the oven lifted her mood. The kitchen was her place, where she felt in control, and while she worked her mind was free to brainstorm money-making ideas for Hart House.
“Rachel?” She heard George calling her and turned to find him striding into the kitchen. He was so impossibly cute. “I thought I’d find you here.” He stopped to breathe. “God, it smells fantastic in here.” He scoffed a shortbread cookie in a practiced fashion. “Can you come into the drawing room?”
“I’ve still got one batch of cookies to bake.”
“Oh, do come. I’m opening a rather nice bottle of bubbly.”
“All right.” She felt more like being alone-a recluse, in fact. Having her meals sent to her on trays and writing in her journal. She’d have to buy a journal somewhere. What she needed was an elegant journal bound in leather where she could write her thoughts and feelings with a fountain pen. She smiled to herself. She’d just bet that Chloe was at this very moment writing in her journal.
Instead, she was going to have to play nice with two people she adored, but who were going to have her believing in love again if she wasn’t careful. Champagne was for celebrating. George couldn’t have picked a worse time to pop a cork.
George seemed chattier than usual as they walked back to the great house. Given that Chloe had cancelled her extremely expensive and already planned wedding, she was surprised at how buoyant he seemed.
When Rachel walked into the parlor, Maxine was closing her cell phone. “Mum and Greg say hi,” she said.
“You talked to them on Friday. Why are you-”
Then Maxine looked up at her and she noticed the glow. She’d never seen Max look so beautiful, or so happy.
She glanced at George, who’d broken into the widest, most heartfelt grin she’d ever seen.
“Oh, my God,” she squealed. “You’re not?”
“I am. We are. We’re getting married.”
The two of them screamed like five-year-olds who’d drunk too much pop, and were suddenly hugging, laughing, and crying, and hugging some more.
When Rachel pulled away, she glanced at George, who was looking a little shy but pleased. “I’m so happy for you both,” she said, and threw her arms around George, too. “I think you’ll be an excellent big brother. I always wanted one.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said simply, and she believed him with all her heart.
“But how did you get Maxine to agree? She’s got this thing about paying off the debt first.”
“I managed to convince her that she was wrong. No one should postpone happiness for silly reasons.”
The words sent an odd pang through her. Was she doing that? Pushing away happiness for stupid reasons? Like she’d decided never to love again because it had gone wrong once?
George hugged her back and then extricated himself to open the champagne. The business of opening and pouring gave them all enough time to pull themselves together.
He handed them each a flute of golden, bubbling wine. He’d obviously raided the family cellars for something fabulous.
“I’d like to toast my future wife. The woman I’d almost ceased to believe existed. My countess. My love.”
Rachel watched him, heard the sincerity of his words, but what struck her was the way he was looking at Maxine. It was so familiar, that look, and she realized it was the way Jack had looked at her this morning when he’d told her he loved her.
Love. How could you avoid it when it hit you any more than you could hold onto it when it was gone?
“I wish you every happiness,” she said, feeling emotion choke her. She turned to her sister, feeling that it was all becoming too much. “And I don’t care if you do become a countess. I’m not curtsying to you.”
“Throw her in the dungeon, Earl!”
And by dint of being very silly they managed to bring the atmosphere down from its almost painful high to a more rollicking foolishness.
“So when did you decide to get married?”
“We started talking about all the work we’ve already done for Chloe’s wedding. It wasn’t any old wedding, but a pretty big society deal. I told George what you’d said. That we should start working the phones for another society wedding to slot in its place.”
Max reached for his hand. “And he said that perhaps our wedding would do. He said he’s not as rich as the guy Chloe’s going to marry, but his family is much older.”
“You’re such a snob, George,” Rachel said.
Maxine grinned at her. “And there’s bad news for you, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, I know. Even though I am fundamentally opposed to the entire patriarchal institution, you’re going to make me cater your wedding.”
“Worse. You’re a bridesmaid.”
Chapter Twelve
Jack didn’t ring Rachel for a week. He cursed himself up and down for being such a stupid prat as to blurt out the fateful words that had made Rachel run from him. He decided a woman that petrified o
f love needed space and time to come to terms with the possibility that she was in it.
Of course, she loved him. He was almost positive that she must. He’d rushed things, that’s all. He, who’d somehow managed never to fall very hard in thirty-four years, had gone arse over teakettle for a rather bad-tempered chef with violent tendencies almost the moment he met her.
When he could stand it no longer, he rang and she sounded pleased to hear from him. Phew, he thought. First hurdle passed. She hadn’t hung up and told him she never wanted to see him again. And she hadn’t gone back to America. He suggested a date for next Friday and she accepted.
He took her into Salisbury, to an ancient pub he thought she’d like. The food was good, and he didn’t think Los Angeles could boast many places as old. The spires of the cathedral rose in gray majesty and the day was perfect.
With George and Max’s wedding as well as Chloe’s rather surprising decision to study painting in the south of France, there was plenty to talk about. None of it personal.
He’d brought her a cookbook from the shop round the corner from him, the way he’d have brought another woman flowers. She was so pleased with her present that she kept opening it and reading bits of recipes to him.
After the pub lunch, they strolled the narrow streets of the medieval village and toured the cathedral. He wondered if it was a mistake to visit a cathedral, such a grand, solemn place that rather reminded one of the serious ceremonies of life. Birth, death…marriage. But she seemed entranced by the cathedral and when the choir began to practice, she held his hand and stood, rapt.
When he took her home, he was prepared to make do with a quick snog and drive back to London. She gave him her mischievous smile. “Why don’t I practice on you? I’ll cook something from my new book. For dinner tonight.” He helped her in the kitchen, finding pleasure and companionship in being her sous chef. They ate dinner with Max and George, and then she took him to her room, where they made love with quiet sweetness. Her mind might not have been ready to face up to her love, but her body told him everything he’d hoped to hear. They ate breakfast on their own, rising much later than anyone else.
After that it became a regular thing for them to spend Friday evenings, which turned into Saturdays, together. Sometimes they had the entire weekend, but she often did the catering for a small wedding, or an afternoon tea for the ladies of the straw hat society or some such thing. He regretted the hours they could have spent together, but not the way he could see her becoming more and more a part of the estate.
He thought it was a very good thing for her to be exposed to so much successful love as she was surrounded by, not only at the great house, but also in the pub where Arthur and Meg’s affair progressed most satisfactorily. They were back from America and the novelist was hard at work on the next bit of terror she planned to unleash on unsuspecting readers.
Where they’d settle permanently was anyone’s guess. He thought Arthur would follow Meg anywhere.
Would he? he wondered. If Rachel wanted to go back to California, would he be willing to go with her?
He wasn’t sure if being willing to relocate was a true test of love, but he rather thought he would. If his choice was London without her or L.A. with her, he thought he’d be wearing Oakleys, striping his nose with zinc, and ordering half-caps with wings quite happily on Sunset Strip.
One Friday, as he arrived at the estate after a hellish slog down the M5, George said, “Can I have a word?”
The earl had obviously been on the lookout for him, for he’d even beaten Wiggins to the door.
“Yeah, sure,” Jack said, loosening his tie.
George took him into a book-lined library that his father had used as a study. George kept an office on a different floor, out of the way of the tourists, so the library still had the formal atmosphere of the old earl.
George chatted idly about football, but Jack could see there was something on his mind, and after two and a half hours of driving that had consisted of jerking forward a few feet then idling for several minutes, he was more than ordinarily anxious to see Rachel.
Finally he interrupted a pointless treatise on Manchester United’s last match. “What is it you want, George?”
“Well, the thing is, I’d like it very much if you’d be one of my groomsmen. For the wedding.”
The irritation that had begun to build dissipated immediately. He felt the grin spread on his face and shook George’s hand heartily. “I’d be delighted. Thank you for asking me.”
“I hesitated, because I know you’ve been in about a hundred wedding parties.”
“Not so many. Not quite fifty, I should think. But I’d be truly happy to stand up for you.”
“Thanks.” George blew out a breath. “There’s such an awful lot to think about with a wedding. You were starting to look so cross I thought you’d refuse.”
“Actually, I thought you were about to ask me what my intentions were with regard to your future sister.”
“God, no. None of my business, really,” George said, walking behind his father’s desk and pouring out two stiff whiskeys. He handed one to Jack and sipped his own. Then he said, “At least, well, I suppose it is my business in a way. Not that the lady would thank me for interfering.”
He glanced at Jack, obviously enjoying his position of power, however bogus. “Just out of interest, what are your intentions?”
“Oh, I’m going to marry her.”
Jack had the satisfaction of seeing his old friend snort thirty-year-old single malt up his nose and cough until his eyes watered.
“Really? But you never marry them. They always marry someone else.”
Jack settled into one of the leather wing chairs and regarded George. “You know the way you feel about Maxine?”
“Yes, of course.” He nodded, as it all came clear. “You, too?”
“I thought it would never happen.”
“Stunning when it does.”
They sipped for a quiet moment. “And what do you reckon for Manchester ’s chances in this week’s match against Cheltenham?”
And so the two were comfortable again, having done as much emotional sharing as they were ever likely to.
The year had ticked over and spring was unfurling all over the estate. Rachel hadn’t gone home. He never asked how she managed to stay in the country, or for how long. He’d rushed his fences once; he wouldn’t do it again. Instead, he tried to show her how their life could be. He introduced her to his friends, he flew her to Paris for a very decadent weekend, and they’d all spent Christmas at Hart House, including various brothers and sisters and George’s odd relatives.
He was waiting, he knew. And wooing the hell out of the woman he loved.
Maxine and George’s wedding day dawned as blue and glorious as the wedding of a titled gentleman marrying his true love on an ancient English estate ought to dawn.
Rachel was probably as happy about the fact as the bride was. They’d worked out contingency plans in case of rain, there was a big tent on the grounds, and loads of room in the house, but it wouldn’t have been the same. Max wanted to get married in the village church and celebrate the event on the grounds of Hart House. The society photographers would be there, and blooming roses and sparkling water photographed so much better than sodden branches and dripping umbrellas.
And, of course, Rachel’s food would present so much better without a drenching.
Her dress-thank God for Maxine’s excellent taste-was a soft, sage green. Designer simple, it fit her perfectly and brought out the green in her eyes.
The bride wore antique satin and carried the softest pink roses.
The ancient church was hushed as they walked in. Rachel followed two flower girls, and while George looked down the aisle behind her to where Max would appear, Jack looked at her, so she felt as every step brought her closer that she was making a tiny vow. Their gazes held and she saw his lips curve, ever so slightly.
It was a strange moment to have an
epiphany about her own heart while celebrating her sister’s union, but perhaps it was appropriate. For she saw Jack standing there at the front of a church, ready to celebrate a marriage, and she knew without a doubt that he was waiting for her. As she’d been waiting for him.
The next wedding Union Jack took part in was going to be his own. It might not happen for a while, but she knew in her heart it was right.
I love you, she told him with her eyes.
I know, his said back.
They stood together while Maxine took George to be her lawfully wedded earl and George took Max to be his lawfully wedded countess.
The tiny village church contained royalty, TV people from L.A., Meg and Arthur, who’d flown home for the event, and family and friends. Rachel’s eyes widened slightly as she recognized Chloe, who’d flown back for the wedding. Like the latest Prada bag, she sported the latest darkly handsome boyfriend.
There’d been enough media to guarantee a lot of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic. Rachel strongly suspected that Maxine, ever the overachiever, had accomplished her goal. The Hart House Wedding Package was booked through the summer at rates that had made George’s eyes bug out when he’d first heard them.
Of course, Rachel didn’t believe in a perfect love, but she had to admit while watching her sister and her brand-new brother-in-law walk down the aisle, with quiet joy pretty much radiating off them, that they had found something very special.
Then she felt Jack take her arm and walk her down the aisle behind them, and she knew she’d found something special, too.
Will you take this man? The words of the wedding service echoed in her head as they emerged into sunshine and a shower of rose petals.
Did she have the courage to risk her heart again? To let go of a painful past and take a chance on an unpredictable future?
Will you take this man?
“Yes,” she said aloud.
“What’s that, darling?” Jack asked, turning to look at her with that special look he kept just for her.
“Yes,” she repeated, while bells rang and rose petals floated and laughter danced on the air. “Yes, I believe I will.”