The Best Man's Bride Read online

  The fool boy was, of course, Jonas.

  “Because Hope wanted to be married here. And because Jonas, like you, respects the country he represents,” Celina said firmly. “You had a big wedding, too.”

  The dowager had been barely nineteen when Emilio, the Crown Prince of San Michele, had swept her off her feet to her own royal wedding. Celina had seen pictures. It had been quite the extravaganza.

  “The wedding that ate San Michele,” the dowager muttered now with a shake of her head. “We should have eloped. You eloped.” She fixed her piercing blue eyes on Celina.

  “We didn’t!”

  The dowager sniffed. “You went to some island.”

  “Yes, but we planned it ahead of time.” Two weeks ahead of time. “Jack was playing a concert in Nassau,” Celina told Maggie. “We went to one of the out islands and got married there a couple of days later.”

  She still couldn’t remember her wedding dispassionately. And her throat tightened as she remembered the little island church near the beach, the simple ceremony, and the plain gold band Jack had slipped on her finger before kissing her so thoroughly that Dex, one his band mates had whistled and said, “Get a room.”

  Afterwards Jack had grabbed her hand and they had run out into the surf, laughing and holding on to each other – like their whole lives were going to be some sort of fairy tale.

  Celina felt a pain somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She stared down at the desk, not really seeing it. When she looked up it was to see Maggie regarding her with a sad, tender smile.

  Determinedly Celina gave her head a little shake. “It was a small wedding, I agree,” she said briskly after clearing her throat. “But we didn’t elope. We had family there.”

  Her parents had come. Jack hadn’t invited his. He and his father had not been on the best of terms since Jack had left grad school to go on tour with the band.

  “The guys from the band were there. And Jonas.”

  He had flown down with Celina, had stood up for Jack at the wedding, and had flown back to Iowa with her at the end of the week. The groom had flown on to Rio for the band’s next concert.

  “Well, I still say it’s inconsiderate! They could either elope and save us all this running around or they could get married in San Michele!” Maggie huffed. “Don’t they realize I’m eighty-five?”

  “You’re eighty-four,” Celina corrected her. Maggie’s age varied from ‘barely seventy’ to ninety, depending on how she wanted to spin things.

  “You know too much,” the dowager said, eying her severely, but her lips twitched as she did so. “I’m in my eighty-fifth year,” she said firmly and set down Princess Anna’s multi-page schedule. “We can finish in the morning. It’s nearly six. Go back to your stall in the stable and get ready for dinner.”

  Celina closed the tablet and put it in her tote, then stood up. “I’m not coming to dinner.”

  The dowager’s eyes lit up. “Are you and Jack –?”

  “Fredrik has called a meeting for the staff. He wants to go over security.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake! That man is too conscientious for his own good. He should spend more time with that pretty friend of Hope’s. You know the one.”

  “Ally?” She suspected Fredrik was sweet on Hope’s journalist friend. But she didn’t know that Maggie thought so as well. Fredrik would be mortified to know that his interest was so obvious. He was a man who liked to play his cards close to his chest.

  “That’s the one,” Maggie said cheerfully. “She’ll be the making of him.”

  “I’m not sure she wants to be,” Celina said.

  Maggie’s eyebrows lifted. “Our Fredrik’s a good man. He just needs a good woman to make him even better.”

  Celina laughed. “I won’t be the one telling him that!” She turned toward the door. “Someone will be here at half past six to escort you down to dinner. It’s all arranged. And if you really need me for anything, just call.”

  Maggie sniffed. “I am capable of dealing with things on my own.”

  “Of course you are,” Celina agreed. “I meant, if you want me to finish entering Princess Anna’s schedule this evening after the meeting, I can do that.”

  Maggie grunted and waved her hand toward the door. “You go to your fusty meeting, but then take the evening off. I’ll see you in the morning,” the dowager called after her. “Eight o’clock sharp.”

  The minute Celina went out into the back garden, she could breathe again. Really breathe. Not gulp as she turned every corner, sure she would run into Jack.

  The early evening sun was warm against her cheeks, and the light breeze was almost cool and Celina could smell roses in the air. June in San Michele, even on the Adriatic, was often so hot and humid that everyone was wilting. But this was refreshing. Hope’s insistence on her English village wedding seemed like a better and better idea.

  Celina slowed her pace as she crossed the gardens, taking deep breaths and doing her best to clear her mind and allow herself to simply appreciate the beauty surrounding her. Westonbury’s formal gardens were not extensive, but they were as elegant as the much more vast ones in San Michele. Someone had a green thumb – and a particular fondness for roses.

  Celina didn’t know the names of any of them, but there were beds of thick gorgeous many-petaled blooms of dark red and deep rose alongside others filled with sunny yellows, creamy whites and, her favorite, tiny perfect roses the color of ripe apricots. She hadn’t seen any quite like these. She bent to smell them and was rewarded with the distinctive rose fragrance at the same time that she noted the stems were peppered with thorns.

  Old roses, then. She wondered how many years they’d grown here. How many generations had passed through these gardens, had called Westonbury Court home?

  Once, when they were living in Germany, she had bought her mother a small climbing rose for her birthday. They’d planted it and watched it bloom.

  “It will go right up the trellis,” Celina had said, anticipating how beautiful it would be – like the roses of the old hausfrau who lived across the road.

  But the next year they were in Japan. And three years later in Spain. They never saw the rose bloom again. She had promised herself that she’d grow roses when she married and had a home of her own.

  But she’d never had one. Not with Jack.

  She had to stop thinking about Jack!

  Ordinarily she got through entire weeks without thinking about him much at all. Sometimes, mostly when she was walking Roscoe or playing with Prince Carlo and Princess Anna’s children, she did.

  Then she couldn’t help the wistfulness that sometimes overtook her. But for all that she’d felt twinges today when she’d seen Jack in person, she had moved on, had made a life for herself – or at least the start of one.

  She still didn’t have the home she wanted. But someday, she dared hope, she would meet the right man. And then she would.

  She knew herself better now.

  She wouldn’t let herself be steamrollered again. She would resist being seduced by a lethal combination of charm, determination, talent, kindness and enormous energy. Not to mention spectacular good looks.

  She’d fallen hard for him the first night they’d met. And he’d turned his attention on her.

  She had never really even considered the fact that he might not want the same things out of life that she did.

  It wouldn’t have happened if she had stopped and thought, if she had been stronger. She should have been like Hope who stuck up for what mattered to her – a home, a family, roots – instead of besottedly going along thinking everything would be fine.

  If she had she would have recognized that her hopes and dreams were different than Jack’s, that marrying Jack Masterson was a mistake.

  Well, she knew it now.

  And despite today’s damp palms and thundering heart, tomorrow she would be ready. She would smile politely. She might even converse with him, the way a distant acquaintance might. And then she
would move on.

  Resolve firmly in place now, she crossed the drive that looped behind the gardens and let herself into the stable block.

  The large carpentry shop took up several stalls. Beyond it there was a gardener’s work area and a metal-working shop where there had probably been a blacksmith’s forge. All Westonbury’s latches, hooks, handles and various other bits of iron work were still made on site. The smith wasn’t working now, though. Unlike the carpenter he’d been given a holiday during the wedding.

  Celina would have liked to linger and look around the way she had when she’d first moved to San Michele. It wasn’t just the history that drew her. It was the sense of stability, connection, of roots and permanence. The very steps she climbed had hollows where generations of people had climbed before her. They had undoubtedly seen the roses in the garden bloom year after year after year.

  “And probably hadn’t cared a bit,” she told herself sharply. Exhausted from long hours of labor, and eager to get some food and sleep, she suspected they would have walked right past.

  And so should she.

  At the top of the stairs off a long central hallway were half a dozen doors on each side. Servants’ quarters. Clean and freshly painted, but still utilitarian. There was no velvet here. No elegant wallpaper. A narrow wooden bench sat at the end of the corridor under a window. A pair of straight-backed chairs pressed against the walls. No invitation to linger.

  As she reached her own door, she saw Fredrik coming towards her from the other end of the hallway. She paused, key in hand, and waited for him with a smile.

  Fredrik wasn’t smiling. He looked out of sorts, his hair ruffled, his narrow dark tie uncustomarily askew.

  “Celina.” He gave her a brief nod, but his eyes were North Sea stormy.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Generally Fredrik’s demeanor gave away as much as a cigar-store Indian. But now he looked rattled as he fished in his pocket for his own key in front of the room right across from hers.

  “Everything’s fine.” His words were clipped, not measured. “All fine,” he said, an edge to his tone.

  Fredrik wasn’t given to repeating himself. “Can I help?” Celina asked.

  They were friends, even though they had failed miserably at their two attempts to date not long after she’d come to work for Maggie. The dates had been pleasant – and awkward – proving how much alike they were and how little chemistry they had. Fredrik was handsome in a hard-edged, sharp-featured Scandinavian way, all icy calm and control. The antithesis of Jack.

  The way she’d felt after the divorce, Fredrik should have been perfect for her. He had turned out to be a perfect friend.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then I’ll see you in a few minutes at the meeting.”

  “Meeting’s cancelled.”

  Celina blinked. “Cancelled?”

  “No need. Everything’s under control.” The look he gave her dared her to dispute it.

  Celina didn’t. Perhaps she was just projecting her own anxiety onto Fredrik. She smiled. “Of course it is.”

  Something flickered in Fredrik’s gaze, but whatever it was, was shuttered so quickly that Celina was sure she’d imagined it.

  “Things okay with you?” he asked, finally looking at her as if he were really seeing her.

  “Absolutely.” She gave him a bright smile. Probably too bright a smile.

  But his usual attention to nuance and detail was missing. He didn’t even notice. “Good. Maggie okay?”

  “She’s fine. Still a little disgruntled that I’m relegated to the stables.” Celina gave a short laugh.

  Fredrik nodded. “She would be. Defending the lambs – when she’s not slaughtering them.” He stuck an old-fashioned key in the lock. “If you notice anything of concern, let me know. My mobile is always on. And with no meeting you can have a good dinner in the manor house.”

  “I have an apple and a granola bar in my bag. That’s all I need. Maggie will be with the family this evening. So I’m going to have some peace and quiet and an early night.”

  “Lucky you.” Fredrik’s smile was wry and perhaps a little envious. “Enjoy yourself.” He opened the door to his room.

  “I intend to.” Celina took out her own key, stuck it into the ancient lock, then twisted, and pushed it open.

  “’Bout time,” said a gravelly baritone.

  Jack.

  Chapter Two

  He lay on her bed, sprawled against the pillows, arms folded behind his head as he smiled roguishly up at her.

  “What are you doing here?” Celina clutched the doorknob, her heart banging against the wall of her chest.

  Jack shoved himself up to a half-sitting position, then leaned back against her pillows again. One dark brow lifted. “Waiting to see you, of course.”

  “Well, I don’t want to see you!” Celina flung the door open wider and pointed toward the corridor. “Out! Now! I mean it, Jack!”

  It was the shock that was making her act like an idiot. The expectation that she’d dodged the day’s bullet, that she could deal with him tomorrow. And now, here he was!

  And of course, being Jack, he didn’t move. “Nope. We need to talk.”

  “No. We don’t. Go away.”

  He didn’t move. His blue eyes were boring into her. “Why aren’t you in the house?”

  “What?” She looked at him, confused.

  “What are you doing out here? Staying out here? In the stables, for God’s sake?”

  “You sound like Maggie.”

  “Maggie?” Now it was his turn to look confused.

  “Jonas’s grandmother. The Serene Dowager,” she reminded him. Surely he hadn’t forgotten Maggie.

  He shoved himself up higher. “What’s she got to do with it?”

  “I work for her.”

  Apparently Jonas had taken her plea to heart and had never betrayed her confidence.

  Jack sat up. “You work for Jonas’s grandmother? Doing what? Where?”

  “I’m her personal assistant. And I work wherever she is. Primarily in San Michele, of course. Which is why I’m staying in the stable,” she added. “I’m staff.” She lifted her chin daring him to make something of it.

  There was a beat of complete silence. Jack stared at her. “Bloody hell,” he said at last. You could have heard a rose petal drop. Then he smacked a fist into his other palm. “That bastard!”

  “What?” She stared at him.

  “Jonas! The rat never said a word!” Jack looked absolutely furious. He sprang up off the bed, making Celina take a quick involuntary step back. He glared at her.

  The glare made her stand her ground. She was susceptible to his charm. She could deal with his anger. “What difference does it make?” she challenged him. “Why should he tell you? It’s no business of yours where I am or what I do,” she reminded him. “We’re divorced, remember?”

  He gritted his teeth. “Yes.” He opened his mouth as if he would have said something else. But then he shut it again, glared at her another long moment, then flung himself back on the bed again.

  Not the way it was supposed to happen. “Go away, Jack,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Too damn bad.” He folded his arms across his chest. “We need to talk.”

  Celina hugged her arms across her chest. “We don’t, actually. It’s too late to talk. We just need to be polite enough so that we don’t wreck Jonas’s wedding.”

  “I’d like to wreck his wedding,” Jack muttered furiously. “How the hell could he not tell me?”

  “Because I asked him not to.”

  His gaze snapped up. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  Jack growled something under his breath, then ground his teeth. He stared at his hands for a long moment, then looked up again and changed the subject. “How long have you worked for Maggie?”

  “Two years.”

  “Two years?” He looked shocked. “Ever sin
ce –?” The implication hit him. He didn’t finish the sentence.

  So Celina finished it for him. “Ever since the divorce was final,” she said flatly, “Who let you in?”

  Whoever it was, she was telling Fredrik. He’d sort it out.

  Jack looked offended. “I let myself in.”

  “You’ve taken up breaking and entering?”

  “I didn’t break. I just entered,” he retorted indignantly. “My key works perfectly well in your lock.” He dug in the pocket of his jeans, then held up an old-fashioned one that looked identical to hers. Probably was.

  So much for security. Did Fredrik have any idea?

  “Don’t know why they bothered with keys at all,” Jack said as he stuffed it back into his pocket. He leaned back into the pillows, as if he was settling in for the duration. “Would you rather meet face-to-face in a crowded room?”

  “I’d rather not meet at all.” Celina clamped her teeth together.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen and you know it.” He sighed and, after a moment, shoved himself around so that his feet hit the floor. But he didn’t get up, his head was bent, his shoulders slumped. He suddenly looked more weary than roguish. “Shut the door.”

  Celina didn’t move.

  “Suit yourself, then.” Jack lifted a shoulder in casual indifference. “Leave it open. We can entertain the passers-by.”

  As if to reinforce his words, the door downstairs opened. Two pairs of footsteps started up the stairs. Girlish giggles and the name “Jack Masterson” reached her ears.

  Celina shut the door with a bang, then flung herself in the armchair next to the small wardrobe. Folding her arms across her chest, she glowered at him. “Happy?”

  He gave her a wry look. “I’ve been happier.”

  It wasn’t what she expected him to say. The footsteps, titters and giggles passed by her door and continued on down the hallway. Thank God they hadn’t stopped next door. Celina had no idea how much insulation existed between the rooms.

  Once the girls had gone, she faced him again, but she didn’t pick up on his statement. Instead she asked, “What do we have to talk about?”

  “Why you were spying on me over the back of sofa.”