“Oh, no you don’t,” Keelan said. “No rest for the wicked. You two have to cut the cake.”
“Cake?” Jane asked, nonplussed.
“I’ve been waiting for that cake all afternoon,” Lanyon said, abandoning his piano. “I thought you’d never get back from the courthouse.”
“Cake,” Jesse yelled, triumphant.
“Really? Before dinner?” Brina asked, vainly trying to stem the clamor for cake. She soon realized she was grossly outnumbered. She sighed and nodded to Mr. Nakamura.
Jane shot an embarrassed look at Kemble. Everyone had taken so much trouble for them. He shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t expected it either, but he obviously didn’t feel as bad about it as Jane. Every kind gesture his family made revealed her fraud more clearly.
Mr. Nakamura wheeled out a butler’s trolley from the kitchen. On it was a two-tiered cake with cream-colored frosting. One of those little bride and groom couples stood on the top.
“Kee and I made dinner, just so Mother could work on it,” Tamsen announced.
“You made the cake?” Jane felt tears start to her eyes. Drew slipped into the kitchen.
“Where was I going to get a carrot cake on short notice?” Brina asked, rising. Carrot cake was Jane’s favorite. “You know, Jane, you aren’t the only one who makes desserts,” she added with mock severity. “Just the one we depend on to do it every day you can be here. Mr. Nakamura, do you have the cake cutter?”
He held up the triangular silver implement with delicate filigree holes. He looked a little pinched and unsmiling. Jane had an uneasy feeling that all was not right with him. She’d have to ask him about it later. She’d have to find out why Drew was so pale and drawn as well. But right now, she and Kemble were herded over to the trolley. Mr. Nakamura handed Jane the knife. Under shouted instructions, Kemble took his place behind her and placed his hand over hers on the knife. Jane sure hoped no one in the room knew how that affected her. And she sure wished she could control these darned blushes.
The cake was cut. Kemble handed the plates around. The chatter of the full living room was comforting. Jane promised Lanyon there would be seconds when he was ready, as he swore to his mother that things like cake never spoiled his dinner. He was right. The boy had a hollow leg. Well, he wasn’t a boy anymore either. She was so lucky to be part of this family, though that thought promptly brought up its dark companion. She was an interloper who had taken advantage of Kemble’s moment of weakness.
Drew appeared with an armful of presents.
Oh, no. Jane could feel her expression falling. “Please say you didn’t,” she whispered.
“Why would we not?” Drew scolded. “Perhaps you thought you’d outwitted us by hopping off to the courthouse so suddenly. But we had nearly a whole day.”
“I didn’t,” Tamsen pouted. “Kee and I were cooking.”
“Nevertheless.” Drew frowned at her sister and took out a package that was obviously hastily wrapped from the pile she set on the coffee table. “Tammy does have a gift for you two.”
Jane looked to Kemble. “You’d better unwrap,” he said. “I’m no good at that stuff.”
Right. He couldn’t unwrap packages? Men. She took the small silver parcel tied with a rather lopsided bow and began carefully unwrapping it.
“It’s okay to rip it open,” Tamsen said, eyes full of eager anticipation.
Jane got the point. She was being too anal about the paper. She pulled it off and opened the box. A handwritten note was stuffed rather haphazardly inside. Jane pulled it out and spread it open. “Good for one shelter animal of your choice at the South Bay Pet Rescue.”
Jane grinned and looked up at Kemble. Of course Tamsen would think they needed animals in their life immediately, since her life was so wound up in her animals. “Wonderful,” she said, smiling at the girl. “Thank you.”
“I’ve always rather thought you were secretly a dog person,” Tamsen pondered, tapping her chin with one finger. “But I wasn’t sure, since you . . . you couldn’t actually have animals at your house. They’ve got a lovely Rottweiler named Suzie there right now. I saw her online. She’s about a year old. But of course, you should pick whatever you want. They have lots of cats. And pit bulls, which actually make great pets.”
Jane had a feeling Suzie would be coming home with them shortly.
“Mine next,” Lanyon called from his piano bench. “It’s the red one.”
Lanyon was right. There was a large, red envelope among all the white and silver boxes, no bow and no card. Tristram pulled out a pocketknife and pried open a blade, handing it to Jane.
“Thanks,” she said and slit the envelope. Inside were . . . papers? No, handwritten sheet music. As she put the envelope down a CD in a sleeve slid out and Kemble picked it up.
“ ‘Nocturne in C Minor,’ ” he read. He looked up to Lanyon. “Yours?”
Lanyon nodded and shrugged like it didn’t mean anything to him. But that was a lie. “Thought it might go with Drew’s gift.”
“Thank you.” Jane was a little stunned. Who got an original piece of music as a gift?
Jane looked to Drew. “Nope, not happening. Mine is last.”
“Next to last,” Maggie grinned. “Mine’s last.”
“Next to next to last,” Brina said. “There will be no arguing. Mine is last.”
That made Brian grin. “I’ve always said I married a tyrant. I’m a broken shadow of my former self.” At which point all the men let out guffaws.
“No, really, she broke my proud spirit.”
“I wish,” Brina muttered.
“Uh . . . then which one is next?” Jane asked when the laughter subsided, afraid to touch any of them.
“I guess that would be yours, Kee,” Drew said.
Keelan cleared her throat. “Some of the other presents are pretty much for you, Jane. But mine is pretty much for Kemble. It’s kinda from both of us, Jane.” That had Jane curious. Keelan pointed to a box wrapped in white paper covered in swirls of silver and a kind of iridescence. Kemble picked it up. Jane realized as she looked closer that the swirls were hand painted. She should have known. Keelan had grown into a remarkable artist.
Kemble unwrapped the beautiful gift carefully, ignoring shouts to hurry from Lanyon and Tamsen. Inside was another “certificate.” Kemble swallowed as he read it. Then he looked to Jane with an expression she couldn’t read. He handed it to her.
“This entitles Kemble Tremaine to one portrait of Jane Tremaine by Kee in a pose and manner of his choice. Artistic consultations available from Kee at Kemble’s discretion.”
Jane didn’t know what to say. That was a beautiful, thoughtful gift. But frightening.
“Thank you, Kee,” Kemble said. His voice was low. He hardly ever called her anything but Keelan, just like his parents. Jane always unconsciously followed his lead. But this was a small expression of intimacy that Jane saw Keelan accept for what it was.
“No problem,” she said airily to cover the moment of connection between them.
Drew had no compunction about interrupting the moment. “Mine. Now.” She handed the big, elegantly wrapped box to Kemble. “This is probably mostly for you too, big brother.”
Kemble wasn’t as careful with this box. Jane got a really bad feeling.
Oh, God. It was a négligée. It was red, what there was of it. A more-than-frightening gift.
Lanyon let out a whoop. Tristram and Michael were grinning. “Good going, Drew,” Tristram said, offering a high-five, which Drew, in spite of her usual droll sophistication, returned with relish. Jane chanced a glance to Kemble, who was looking mortified. Oh dear.
“That color will look lovely on you.” But Brina was smiling a little too broadly too.
“Goes right with the color of her face,” Lanyon chuckled.
“Let Jane alone,” Brian said, trying to be severe.
“So, your Nocturne goes with this?” Tristram asked. He was half laughing too.
“Top flight m
ake-out music,” Lanyon agreed. “Guaranteed chick magnet.”
“Stupid child,” Drew admonished. “He’s already got the chick.”
“So the music will maybe help him know what to do with her.” Lanyon was incorrigible.
Kemble looked like he wanted to die as much as Jane did. Was that because he didn’t want her in that way? She was the one in love, not him. And how could he want her that way? She wasn’t magnetic or gorgeous. She wasn’t a lot of anything. He could have anybody. He’d probably do his husbandly duty in the dark, under the covers, where he couldn’t see her at all.
Maggie hefted a huge box, cutting short Kemble’s response. “Cue me,” she said, unable to suppress a batch of giggles. “Definitely for Jane. It goes with Drew’s. And Lanyon’s.”
I can hardly wait. Still, she was glad to have something to concentrate on while her blush subsided. Hopefully. But as she unwrapped the box, laughter that began with shrieks from Tamsen gusted around the room. What were they laughing about? Then she saw the label on the side of the box. A case of First Response pregnancy test kits.
“A case?” Kemble asked, incredulous. “Really?”
“Figured you’d be busy. And I’m anxious to have some company in the grandchild-production racket,” Maggie explained. “I want to know the good news as soon as possible.”
Jane thought she might sink through the floor. She was so not ready for this. She couldn’t even look at Kemble. She couldn’t look at anybody. Could someone die of blushing? Fainting was a possibility, surely. That was it. She’d faint, and escape all their laughter and stares. They couldn’t seem to grasp that it wasn’t like that between her and Kemble. They weren’t magical-Destiny-crazy-in-love. The desperate and insatiable physical desire Drew had once described as coming along with the magic wasn’t happening for them. Why should it? Jane wasn’t a siren like the Tremaine women were, so beautiful they made men want to cry. And there was no magic.
“Aw, honey, I didn’t mean to make you nervous about your wedding night,” Maggie said, taking her hand.
Drat. Maggie was way too perceptive. Jane managed a lopsided smile and shook her head as though it were nothing, this feeling of desolation that had crept into her heart. Kemble deserved what his siblings had with their mates. He deserved more than Jane Butler.
“I’m last,” Brina announced, and picked up the remaining small, white box from the table and handed it to Jane. “This one is for you.” It was wrapped carefully, with a simple, elegantly tied bow around a silver spray that looked like shooting stars. This was a box from a person with magic, without doubt. Whether it was the magic of her warm and loving personality or the DNA she inherited from Merlin didn’t matter. Jane cut the ribbon with Tristram’s pocketknife, wanting to keep the bow intact. Then she opened the box.
It was a gold locket, oval, with delicate filigree around the outside. There was engraving on it that swirled across the face into an elaborate “T.”
“It was my grandmother’s.” Brina explained. “She was a Tierny before she married my grandfather. Her mother gave it to her in honor of her first communion.”
“This was a gift from your grandmother?” Jane whispered. “I . . . I can’t accept it.”
Brina put her arm around Jane’s shoulders. “Of course you can. The T now stands for Tremaine and I want you to have it. Welcome to the family, Jane. We’re very glad to have you.”
Jane’s brimming eyes spilled their tears as the others seconded Brina’s sentiment. “Hear, hear,” and “Well done,” echoed around the room. Lanyon gave a whistle to split eardrums.
Brina moved away and suddenly Kemble was there to take her place, his arm around Jane. Looking up into his face, she wondered if there was any hope that he would grow into the love she felt for him at this moment.
Several flashes went off. Jane couldn’t help but gasp.
“Got to have a picture to put in that locket,” Tamsen announced, putting away the cell phone that was no longer pink. She said she’d grown out of such girly colors. So it was green, to match her dress. She had a whole collection of different colored jackets for it.
Jane blinked and sniffed, biting her lip. Kemble came up with a handkerchief. Of course he would carry a handkerchief. She daubed at her eyes. “Thank you all,” she said. “For making me feel so welcome.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
At dinner Kemble broke the news to the family that he’d bought a house, and he and Jane didn’t intend to live at the Breakers. Kemble could see his father was a little hurt that he hadn’t been allowed to build them a house on the estate, as he had for Drew and Michael, or remodel a section of the house as he had for Devin and Keelan. Maggie and Tristram lived in one of the apartments over the garage with Jesse because their tastes were simple. Kemble and Jane would be the first to live off the estate. His mother’s look was one of faint disapproval when he told her the arrangements he’d made for Jane. Puzzling. He was proud that he’d secured a first-rate residence on a moment’s notice, one Jane wouldn’t even have to bother herself to decorate. He’d been too absorbed answering his father’s barrage of questions about security to figure out the puzzle of his mother’s disapproval, though.
Then during dinner, as talk swirled around the table, his gaze had been drawn to Jane, seated across from him. She was quiet, picking at the macadamia-crusted halibut and the roasted asparagus vinaigrette, the mango coulis. Her longish, brown hair was pulled back from her temples with a small silver barrette in the back. It curled softly over her shoulders. The fan of her eyelashes brushed her cheeks. Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were flushed. She had pretty, plump lips. It occurred to him that it wouldn’t be onerous to kiss Jane Butler. Well, Tremaine.
How had this happened? She was his wife. And Drew’s gift had made it very clear that marriage was supposed to be more than just platonic companionship. Kemble had been around the block. In his twenties he’d even kept up with Tristram, clubbing, dating, general man-on-the-town-type stuff. He’d had his share of one-night stands and intense relationships that lasted only as long as the Dom Perignon held out. He didn’t like to think he’d left a string of broken hearts like Tristram. He might be the heir apparent to an empire, but he wasn’t as magnetic to the opposite sex as his younger brother. Still, he’d bedded a lot of women. Not the innocent ones his mother introduced him to, but those who were experienced enough to go after what they wanted.
Unlike his wife. She’d become his wife so suddenly they’d never even kissed. He probably should have kissed Jane at the courthouse, come to think of it, but it had just seemed too pedestrian a place what with all those people standing in line behind them. He began to get acutely uncomfortable about tonight. What if he and Jane didn’t suit? What if he couldn’t meet her expectations? That wouldn’t be a shock, with his track record of disappointing people.
At that moment, Jane raised her eyes from her plate and her gaze locked on him. It was tentative, vulnerable. His breath caught. He swallowed and tried to manage a smile. Whatever grimace he achieved made her eyes widen and she looked away.
Great.
After dinner and the inevitable teasing toasts, Jane got up to do dishes as usual and was promptly hooted down. Tristram and Maggie took her place. Tamsen picked up the detritus of the party in the living room, and his parents went out to listen to Lanyon play. Drew pulled Kemble into the large, walk-in pantry. He noticed she was looking very tired. There were dark circles under her eyes. Was she having trouble controlling her visions again?
“Is it time for hide and seek?” he asked. The place smelled like spices and flour and dried chilies that hung in a ristra from the ceiling.
She pulled the door shut and switched on the light. “No, stupid. We need to talk.”
Kemble frowned. What could this be about? “Father already gave me a book about the birds and bees. About twenty-five years ago.” He said it as a joke, but Drew’s response was unexpected.
“But he didn’t talk to you about Jane.”
Kemble felt the floor drop out from under him as he realized what Drew might be about to say. “You’re not saying. . . .”
Drew pressed her lips together at what could only be a look of horror on his face. “Yes,” she said shortly.
“But you two spent a summer in Paris!” Could you get through a summer in Paris and still come home a virgin? The word reverberated with consequences in his mind. “Mrs. Simpson couldn’t have been that much of a dragon.”
Drew took pity on him. She sighed. “No, she was a great chaperone. She took us everywhere. She was a fount of knowledge. In fact, she was so knowledgeable about French culture that she actually encouraged us to . . . well, to go out and live a little, with precautions.”
“But Jane didn’t.” He knew his voice sounded wooden with dread.
“It wasn’t as if there weren’t interested young men. But Jane just . . . wasn’t.”
Kemble started to panic. “I thought. . . . Well, I guess I. . . .” His gaze caromed off the shelves full of supplies and came back to his sister’s face. “What do I do?”
Drew blinked. Maybe she hadn’t expected him to ask her that. “Well,” she said, looking like she was trying to buy time, “you go slow. Be gentle.”
“Maybe I should wait for a few weeks.” Or months. Or years?
Drew closed her eyes and took a breath. Was she summoning patience? “Don’t you think she’ll have some expectations of her wedding night? If you don’t make love to her, she’ll think you proposed to her for convenience, not because you care for her.”
That twisted a knife in his gut. He tried to breathe.
“Look,” Drew said, gripping both his shoulders. “You go to the house. You have a glass of wine together, just to relax.”
Was there wine at the house? Furnished didn’t mean a full wine cellar. He hadn’t even thought of that. What kind of a provider was he?
“I’ll get you a bottle to take with you,” Drew said, apparently reading his thoughts. Her hands were rubbing over his shoulders now, soothing. “Then you ask her if she’s tired. You escort her to the bedroom. She’ll probably go into the bathroom to undress, maybe put on my gift. But if she doesn’t, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to have a full, uh, spousal relationship with you. She’s just shy.” She snapped her fingers in front of his unseeing eyes. “Are you hearing me, Kemble?”
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