For All Time

by Jude Deveraux

  “It can be done in the morning and I’ll help you,” he said.

  The idea of a crown prince on garbage detail almost made her laugh, but it would be rude to say so. Besides, now that the band was gone and the guests were leaving, Toby felt the tiredness that she’d been fighting. For days she’d been working on adrenaline and little else. Tonight, if it hadn’t been for Graydon, she wouldn’t have had any dinner.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”

  He motioned toward the tent door, where Jilly and Ken were waiting for them. Jilly looked from Graydon to Toby and back again, but she said nothing.

  As soon as Ken started the engine, Toby fell asleep in the back of the big SUV, and her head leaned against Graydon’s shoulder. When he put his hand on her cheek to steady her, she snuggled closer to him.

  Jilly turned in the front seat and looked at Toby, then at Graydon. She couldn’t quite keep the frown off her face.

  “Trust me,” Graydon said softly. “I won’t hurt her.”

  Jilly turned back around and Ken squeezed her hand. Minutes later, they stopped in front of a small house.

  “This is it,” Jilly said, looking back at them. “Maybe Ken should—”

  “Oh! I think I fell asleep,” Toby said as the car light came on, and she sat up straight.

  “You’re exhausted,” Ken said as he got out and opened the door for Toby. He put his hands on her arms. “I can’t thank you enough for today. You did a wonderful job. Everything was perfect.”

  “Victoria wants me to plan a wedding for her and Dr. Huntley,” Toby blurted out.

  “Does she?” Ken said, and he knew Toby was warning him. Sometimes men reacted strangely about the remarriage of their ex-wives. “I’m glad for her,” he said, “and you’ll do a great job.” Bending, he kissed her cheek and whispered, “Will you plan my wedding to Jilly? Our secret? At least until I ask her.”

  Toby nodded.

  Ken got back in the car, Toby waved to Jilly, and they drove away. She turned to Graydon. It was dark around them, with only the porch light on. “Mind if we go around to the back? The front stairs lead past Lexie’s bedroom and I don’t want to wake her.”

  “I’ll follow you,” Graydon said.

  They went around the far side and there were only a few feet between the house and the fence. A narrow stone path went between shrubs and flowers and a couple of small overhanging trees. At the end, the vista opened up to reveal the shadows of what looked to be several raised beds full of flowers, a greenhouse, and a tall ironwork gazebo. It was all lit very subtly, with soft golden spots that made the garden look like a place of enchantment.

  “This is beautiful,” Graydon said. “Did you design this?”

  “Heavens, no! Jared did. Lexie and I had to nag him for months but he did it.”

  “I can see why he’s famous.”

  Toby opened the back door to the house and they stepped inside. She switched on the light by the door and he saw a very pleasant—and very old—room. The ceiling was low. Another few inches and his head would graze the overhead beams. White plaster was between them. There were some built-in cupboards that he guessed to be original. “Early 1700s?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Toby said, pleased by his knowledge. “Jared bought the house with his first commission as an architect and he restored it on weekends. He’s a firm believer of ‘gut fish, not houses.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nantucket’s historical commission is fierce on keeping the exteriors of the old houses intact, but you can tear out the inside and replace it with anything you want, even if that means stainless steel and Plexiglass.”

  “I take it you like the old things?”

  “Yes,” Toby said, “I do.” She started up the stairs with Graydon behind her.

  “My favorite part of my house was built in the 1200s,” he said. “I even found some furniture from then. It has a lot of sword cuts on it.”

  “That vanadium certainly is useful.”

  “It is, or else my ancestors were bad marksmen. ‘Brocan! Strike your fellow Lanconian, not the table.’ ”

  Toby laughed. At the top of the stairs, she pointed to a door and whispered, “Lexie is sleeping in there.”

  Graydon nodded. They turned the corner and saw a pile of luggage left by Rory.

  “My goodness,” Toby said softly as she looked at the stack, four high, three deep. It took up half the wall against the stairs. There were two leather cases big enough to transport a person, several duffel bags, a couple of attaché cases, three thick garment bags, and things on the bottom that she couldn’t see.

  “My brother doesn’t travel lightly,” Graydon said.

  “What about you? What do you usually travel with?”

  “Half an army,” he said with a grimace.

  She looked at him. “How did you get away?”

  “By lying. Right now all my staff except for my head bodyguard believe I’m locked away with a highly contagious virus. One of my Montgomery doctor cousins verified it. If I’m found out, it won’t be pleasant.”

  “You risked all that just to come to a wedding?”

  “It was more to get away from scrutiny for a few days.” He smiled, his eyes having a faraway look. “But to think of an entire week! It’s more than I thought possible and it’s all because of your extreme generosity. I can never thank you enough.”

  Toby was a bit embarrassed by his praise.

  “I can certainly never fully repay you,” he said, his voice soft and so low it was more of a feeling than a sound.

  Toby realized that it was turning into an awkward moment. A very attractive man, the dim light … “Invite me to your wedding,” she said.

  “I would be honored. Front row?”

  “Perfect,” she answered. The reminder of who and what he was cleared the air. He helped to remove the cushions from the big old couch and pull out the bed. They halted once when it let out a loud squeak, but it was silent behind Lexie’s door so they continued. There were clean sheets on the bed, and Toby got a couple of blankets out of the closet.

  “Sorry, but you and I share a bathroom,” she said. “Lexie has a private one, but mine opens into this room.”

  “I spent three years in the Royal Guard and I shared the baths with hundreds of men.”

  “I hope I’m not quite as bad as that,” Toby said.

  Graydon’s instinct was to say something flirtatious, flattering, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to ruin this before it started. He’d made promises to his brother and to his aunt Jilly, and he meant to keep them.

  “All right,” she said when the bed was ready. “I’ll go first.” She nodded toward the bathroom.

  “Of course,” he said politely.

  Toby took a shower, washed away all the sprays and foams the hairdresser had put into her hair for the wedding, and scrubbed the layers of makeup off her face. She took longer than she meant to, but it felt good to get clean. She dried off, then put on lots of moisturizer and a freshly laundered nightgown.

  She wasn’t sure what to do next. What was the proper way to tell a prince that the bathroom was free? She told herself she was being ridiculous. Prince or not, he was still a human being. She opened the door into the sitting room a bit and looked out.

  He was sitting in the old wing chair in a far corner of the room. The reading lamp was on and he had a book open. It was one of Nat Philbrick’s exciting nonfiction accounts of Nantucket.

  Toby didn’t say anything, but looked at Graydon. Even when he was alone he sat up very straight, and even though he’d removed his jacket, his shirt was buttoned almost to the collar.

  At first glance, he seemed very formal, but there was something about him that made her able to imagine him with a rough fur thrown across his shoulders and wielding a heavy sword. Maybe it was what his brother had said about Graydon doing anything for his country. If saving it meant brandishing a sword, that’s what he’d do.

  He looke
d up at her, as though he’d known she was watching him, and smiled.

  “Bathroom is yours,” Toby said, and she went into her bedroom before he could see her red face. How awful it must be for him to have people staring, she thought.

  She got into bed and was asleep instantly.

  In spite of Lexie’s excitement about going to the south of France for the rest of the summer, last night she’d slept like she was half dead. Maybe it was all the champagne and how, when she got home, she’d run up and down the stairs about a hundred times as she packed. Whatever it was, when she fell into bed, she was out of it. She vaguely remembered hearing Toby in the sitting room and the creak of the old sofa bed being pulled open. It looked like someone was spending the night. Lexie didn’t think any more about it and went back to sleep.

  This morning, she got out of bed and went into her bathroom. It was barely daylight and she was to meet her boss at the airport at seven. They were flying out on his private jet—her first time on it.

  In the summer, the little Nantucket airport looked like a parking lot for private jets.

  There were so many smaller ones by the fence that they looked common, like something every family had. The big ones were parked farther back on the tarmac. There was a saying about the two big islands off Cape Cod: The millionaires went to Martha’s Vineyard and the billionaires went to Nantucket. Her boss, Roger Plymouth, fit into the second category.

  The upstairs of the small house they rented from her cousin Jared was meant to be three bedrooms, two baths, but Toby and Lexie had scoured Kingsley attics until they found the furniture needed to convert the middle bedroom into a sitting room with an office. Now and then they allowed someone to sleep over on the old couch’s pullout bed.

  She heard the shower running in Toby’s bathroom, and Lexie was glad her friend was awake, as she wanted to say goodbye to her. She felt bad about leaving Toby with the garden to take care of, but last night Jared had assured her that he’d find someone to help.

  As Lexie put paste on her toothbrush, she thought how she was going to miss Nantucket in the summer. The light, the salt-filled air, the sunsets, cursing at the tourists who never looked where they were going—she would miss it all.

  Most of all, she was going to miss Toby. Right now Lexie wanted to hear every word about that private dinner at the wedding. Candles and champagne and Nantucket bay scallops. What little Lexie had seen of it had been beautiful. She wondered if Toby—

  Suddenly, she accidentally knocked her drinking glass off the counter. It hit the tile floor and shattered, sending slivers of glass all over her feet. “Damnation!” she said loudly.

  “Don’t move,” said a male voice and she looked up to see the most extraordinary sight. The man Toby had dined with last night was standing at her bathroom door—and he was wearing only a small white towel tied above his left hip. On that side he was nude from stem to stern, from foot to head.

  “I apologize for my dishabille,” he said, “but if you move you’ll cut your feet.”

  Lexie couldn’t have moved if she’d been told a bomb had been planted. Since the man she worked for was considered “beautiful” and often ran around half dressed, she would have said that a nearly naked man wouldn’t affect her. But this man had a body like an Olympic athlete, with lean muscle and no fat on him. And there was something different about him, as though he might do the unexpected at any moment. Throw a woman over his shoulder and carry her off?

  Lexie stood there, immobile, toothbrush in hand, and stared down at him as he began to pick up pieces of glass. The open side of the towel showed quite a long stretch of honey-colored skin. His garment made her think of a Native American loincloth.

  Looking up through thick dark lashes, he nodded toward the box of tissues beside her. She pulled out a few and handed them to him.

  “There, that should do it,” he said as he slowly came up from the floor. Lexie was presented with his bare chest inches from her face. Abs you could count, pecs like steel, and very little hair until the line that disappeared down into the towel.

  She just stood there staring.

  He put the broken glass in the trash bin, then turned and smiled at her. “Shall I make breakfast for you before you go?”

  All Lexie could do was nod and he left the room, his long legs striding out.

  It took her a moment to recover. It wasn’t every day of your life that you broke a glass and a nearly naked man of mythical beauty appeared out of nowhere and rescued you.

  Turning, she saw herself in the mirror, toothpaste foam on her lips, her hair a disheveled mess, and wearing an old T-shirt that she’d stolen from Jared. Yet he’d looked at her like she was a princess in a satin gown.

  “Toby,” she said into the mirror, “you are in way, way over your head.”

  “Good morning,” Lexie said as she entered the kitchen. He was standing by the stove and it had three pans on it, each one sizzling, and the smell was divine.

  “Tavar nuway,” he said. “That’s ‘good morning’ in Lanconian.”

  “I knew that,” she said, joking, as she stepped farther into the room. She was very aware that this man would someday be a king. And she was even more aware of her vision of him in a teeny tiny towel.

  Graydon smiled. “Somehow, I doubt that. Few people can even find my country on a map, but I understand. We’re buried in the mountains and overshadowed by some major world powers.” He glanced at the stove. “I didn’t know what you like to eat, so I have eggs, bacon, and griddle cakes.”

  “I like anything I don’t have to cook,” Lexie said, still staring at him. He was wearing dark blue trousers that looked like they came from a hand-tailoring shop in London and a tan shirt that had initials on the cuff: RM. “Where did you learn to cook?”

  He piled a plate high and motioned her through the kitchen. There was a little sunporch on the back of the house. It was a pretty room—or would be if she and Toby didn’t use it for storage. But this man had cleared a place in the corner by the kitchen, removed all the bags and boxes off the table, and set it with the good china they kept in the top cabinets.

  “When did you do all this?” she asked in astonishment.

  “I don’t sleep much, so I came down early. This is a nice room.”

  “It is,” Lexie said. “But Toby and I each have two jobs so we tend to dump things in here.”

  “What are your second jobs?”

  “That,” she said, nodding out the window to the greenhouse and the raised beds. She looked at the single plate he’d put on the table. “You aren’t eating? Or maybe you want to wait for Toby.”

  “I would be pleased to join you,” he said and went to the kitchen to fill a plate. He sat down across from her. “I apologize for this morning. I heard the glass breaking followed by your exclamation. I feared there would be cut arteries.”

  “No, just feet in danger. Thank you for rescuing me.”

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  “I think I’m the one with the pleasure,” she said with her eyebrows raised.

  He glanced at her across the table and his eyes were so warm that Lexie felt like fanning herself. But she didn’t. Instead, she frowned. “I don’t know what you have in mind with Toby, but I’d better warn you that she isn’t one to fool around with some man just to have a good time.”

  Graydon’s face changed in an instant. He went from hot to an expression so remote, so reserved, that Lexie began to doubt what she’d seen. “Miss Wyndam has been nothing but a friend to me and it will stay that way. I’m here for a short time, then I must return to my own country and resume my responsibilities. I would never be so crass as to cause problems for the young woman who has been so helpful to me.”

  As Lexie chewed, she thought about what he’d said in his very formal manner. “You hurt Toby and I’ll tell the newspapers.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, and between them passed an understanding. “Would you like more eggs?”

  “No, thanks. All this t
astes great. So where did you learn to cook?”

  “In the Lanconian Royal Guard. It’s our army, navy, and air force combined—not that we have many ships or planes. But I served for three years, and my loyal subjects thought it was a great joke to give me the lowliest jobs and the hardest training.”

  “To see what you’re made of?”

  “Precisely. One of the tasks assigned to me was to cook for a hundred or more guardsmen at a time. It became a challenge to prove that I could do it, so I learned quickly—and I found that I rather enjoyed cooking. When I got home I wandered down to the kitchens and started asking questions. I’m quite good at stuffing game birds.”

  She took a bite of one of his griddle cakes. It was delicious and also unusual, as if a liqueur had been added. “You almost make me sorry I’m leaving—for more reasons than one.” At her flirty tone, he gave her a cool, polite smile. She didn’t have to be told that there would never be anything between the two of them. He’d never look at her as he had at Toby in the tent the night before. There was a knock on the front door. “That’s the car for me.”

  “Is your luggage upstairs?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Would you mind asking the driver to wait for a moment? I want to tell Toby goodbye.” When she stood up, he did too. He went toward the front door and Lexie ran up the stairs.

  She paused for a moment to stare at the mountain of luggage against the wall. It looked like the prince planned to stay for months, not just a week.

  It was dark in Toby’s bedroom and she was buried deep under the covers. “Hey!” Lexie said as she sat down on the side of the bed, and Toby rolled over and opened her eyes. “I’m about to leave and I wanted to say goodbye.”

  Toby put a pillow behind her and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Already? I haven’t adjusted to the idea of your being away.”

  “I know,” Lexie said, “and I’m eaten up with guilt over it. Maybe I should stay and—”

  “Miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime so you can help me cut flowers? Sure. That makes a lot of sense, and Nelson will be ecstatic.”

  Lexie laughed. “I’m going to miss you so much!”