“Tell her,” Rory said. “Promise me that you will tell her who you are and why you have to return home and leave her behind.”
Graydon didn’t turn around, but he nodded once, then went back toward the tent.
It was Rory’s turn to put his hands in his pockets, and he fell back against a tree. His brother had just knocked the air out of him. His request that Rory exchange places with him wasn’t that unusual, as they’d been doing that all their lives. Graydon usually took over for Rory, and they’d done it as recently as a month ago when Graydon wanted an evening off from his duties. It always entertained Rory to see his straitlaced brother trying to be him. Graydon wasn’t one to drive a car at two hundred miles an hour or race a boat across choppy waters. “But it isn’t just me, it’s a whole kingdom I’m risking,” Graydon had said when Rory laughed at his brother’s seeming timidity. Graydon’s words had taken away the laughter. What he was saying was that Rory was expendable; Graydon was not. “UYB,” Rory had muttered. It was a term he’d come up with when they were kids. “Useless Younger Brother”—eventually abbreviated to UYB.
Rory’s self-worth was further trampled when Graydon began to win over the girls. The last time this had happened, Rory had coaxed Graydon into having dinner with a girl he’d been dating for months. He wanted to go to a party given by his ex and he didn’t want to have to deal with his current girl’s jealousy.
It was never easy for Graydon to get away from his bodyguards, but that night he’d managed it, and the exchange went off perfectly. Except that afterward, Rory’s girlfriend wanted him to be the way he was on the night of the exchange. “You were sooooo romantic,” she kept saying. “Remind me again what I did,” Rory said. She sighed in a dreamy way. “You played the lute, sang to me, and fed me those tiny grapes. You—” Rory cut her off and never again asked his brother to take his place on a date. He and the girl broke up soon afterward. “You’ve just changed,” she said when they parted. “There was one night when you made me feel like I was the center of the world, then it was back to … to being you.”
Later, Rory asked Graydon what he thought of the girl. “Very pretty but not a brain in her head. Want me to get Mother to find someone for you?”
Graydon was referring to Danna, who’d been chosen for the future king’s wife. Danna was tall and beautiful, sublimely educated, and the daughter of a Lanconian duke. She could ride a horse with perfect form, play the piano at concert level, host a formal dinner for two hundred with ease. As for her personality, she loved charity work, never forgot anyone’s name, and was always gracious and considerate. She never put a foot wrong or lost her temper with anyone.
All in all, Danna was utterly and completely perfect, and she was to marry Graydon and become the next Queen of Lanconia.
The only problem was that Graydon didn’t love Danna. He liked her well enough, but there was only friendship between them. But at thirty-one years old, Graydon knew it was time that he marry and produce an heir to the throne. As always, he took his duties very, very seriously. He wasn’t his brother; he couldn’t marry only for love. No, Graydon had to find a woman who could do all the things required of her as a princess and later as a queen. Hours of standing, smiling endlessly, being deeply involved in charity work, et cetera. The woman had to be as dedicated as Graydon was, and in this modern age that was nearly impossible to find.
Rory looked across the moonlit landscape. He could hear the band inside the tent beginning to make sounds of rock ’n’ roll. Could his brother even dance to that? Graydon was more of a waltz man than a down and dirty rocker.
The truth was that Rory knew his brother could handle the change quite easily. He’d have a few problems but nothing could stop him for long.
The true problem was going to be Rory’s. He knew he could put his shoulders back and carry himself like his brother. Unbending, inflexible, he could put on that I-will-be-king look that Graydon had perfected.
No, the problem was that Rory had a secret so deeply hidden that even his brother didn’t know it. Rory was totally and absolutely in love with the woman his brother was going to marry.
He moved away from the tree and stood up straight. Maybe it was selfish of him, but he was going to do whatever he could to make this exchange happen. A few days with Danna were better than none at all. And the first thing Rory was going to do was see if he could clear a path for Graydon by getting rid of the roommate. Rory had been told that she worked for Roger Plymouth, a man he’d met several times. Maybe they could work out something.
As soon as Toby saw the inside of the little tent, she knew what the man was after. The question was why she had ever doubted his intention.
She stood there looking at the table with a cloth that went to the floor, lit candles, chairs that were draped in misty blue fabric, and she thought, Scene for Seduction. As she stepped back, she glared up at this man she had begun to think was such a nice person. “No, thanks,” she said, her voice as cool as the scene was warm. She started back toward the big tent where she’d be surrounded by people—not seducers.
When she was about twenty feet away, she heard him say, “Now what did I do wrong?” She took another couple of steps and meant to go on, but she stopped and turned to look at him. He was still standing by the tent and there was an expression of absolute bewilderment on his face.
She walked back to him. “What have you heard about me?”
Graydon blinked at her a few times. He’d assumed that she’d walked away because someone had told her that Graydon was a prince and she wanted nothing to do with him. When women outside his country found out that he was royalty, they went either of two ways. They ran away, or their eyes lit up and they started asking how many crowns he owned. It looked like this young woman was a runner.
But if so, why was she asking what he knew about her? “I don’t know much about you at all,” he said, his voice conveying his consternation. “Your name is Toby. You are a friend of the bride and the other bridesmaid. I’m afraid I don’t know much more than that. Should I have asked someone about you?”
Toby was beginning to be the one who was confused. “If you know nothing about me, then why all this?” She motioned to the tent. The flap was still open, with candlelight wafting over them.
“Oh,” Graydon said, seeming to at last understand. “You’re thinking like an American.”
“How else could I think?”
“Miss Wyndam, again I apologize. I have no ulterior motive with this dinner than to sit at a table and eat in peace, perhaps with some intelligent conversation. I would have asked my brother to join me, but you are prettier than he is, and you haven’t eaten, so …” He shrugged. “I must tell you that I have now apologized to you more than I have collectively in the entirety of my life.”
Toby couldn’t help but smile at the last part of his little speech. “Do we Americans often confuse you?”
“Endlessly,” he said. “You wouldn’t possibly reconsider and join me for dinner, would you? My brother is not happy with me at the moment and he wouldn’t be good company.”
“All right,” Toby said, and stepped inside the tent. She was beginning to feel that from their first meeting she’d been too harsh with this man.
He held her chair out for her, then took his. “May I?” he asked as he picked up a large spoon and fork and motioned to serve her. “What should I know about you that would cause you to refuse to dine with a man?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, but he kept looking at her and waiting. While he looked somewhat like Jared, whose skin was always tan from spending time on his boat, she had an idea that this man’s skin was naturally darker. “Some of the boys on the island—and I do mean boys—have started trying to … to see who can, well, I guess you could say, win me.”
“I see.” He put scallops on her plate. “What is that American phrase? To ‘lure you astray’?”
She smiled at the old-fashioned term. “Yes, that’s what they’ve tried to do.” She help
ed herself to salad.
“But none of the young men appeals to you?”
Toby didn’t like where this conversation was going, as she certainly didn’t want to discuss her personal life. “You said your brother isn’t happy with you right now. Why not?”
“We had an argument about you.”
“Me? How could that be?” Her voice rose in alarm. “I don’t know either of you well enough to cause you two to argue.”
“I misspoke. Sorry again. My brother thinks I must tell you about myself. That not to do so is cruel.”
Frowning, Toby looked at him through the candlelight. “I think you should tell me what this is about.” She had visions of his having a prison record, that he was just out of rehab or under investigation by Interpol.
“My American grandfather married the woman who inherited the throne of Lanconia, so that makes me and my younger brother princes.”
“Oh.” It took Toby a moment to recover her equanimity. “Did your grandfather do a good job?”
“Yes, he did,” Graydon said. “He took my old country into the twentieth century. Thanks to him, we are now self-supporting. We’re still old-fashioned enough that we draw tourists but that helps the economy. When my father reached forty, my grandparents turned the throne over to him and my mother. My parents have done a wonderful job, but with fewer Americanizations.”
“So you’re to be a king. Is there anything else I should know about you?”
“Later this year there will be a ceremony in which my engagement to Lady Danna Hexonbath will be announced.”
Toby took her time eating a scallop while she thought about what he’d told her. “So you want a bit of a vacation here on Nantucket before you take on the responsibility of a wife and even of a country?”
“That’s exactly right,” he said. “Rory is going to be me.”
“What does that mean?”
“My brother is going to impersonate me so I can have this week off.” When Toby looked skeptical, he continued. “You seem able to tell us apart, but no one else can. Well, my grandparents can, but then, Rory and I spent most of our childhoods with them. My parents were busy running the country.”
Toby saw a tiny flash race through his eyes. She thought, He was hurt by his parents’ neglect of him. But she wasn’t going to say that out loud. “Do you love her?” Toby asked.
When her words seemed to jolt Graydon, Toby knew that she’d made a mistake. The warmth in his eyes disappeared and his spine straightened. “Of course,” he said.
He’s lying, Toby thought. Or else he’s hiding the truth. He either loves her very much and he wants that kept private, or he doesn’t love her at all—and he doesn’t want that known. Surely, she thought, he wouldn’t be in some arranged marriage. Not in the twenty-first century! But then, she’d seen a documentary on TV that said arranged marriages were still common in most of the world.
“All right,” Toby said, “I’ll see if I can find you a place to stay.” As she looked at him, her mind was racing with ideas. “However …” She paused. “I don’t think we should tell anyone what your, ah, job is. The family will know, but we shouldn’t tell outsiders.”
“Especially since I’m here in hiding,” he said in agreement.
“Do you have people with you? To help you do things?”
“To serve me food, to drive me places, that sort of thing?”
She hesitated, but then nodded.
“Thanks to my cousins in Maine, I’m a fully functioning person. I can even put on my shirt and tie my own shoes.”
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Toby said and glanced toward the entrance of the tent. Maybe it was time for her to go.
“I do have to be honest,” he said. “There are things I don’t know how to do.”
“Such as?”
“Buy food. I’ve been to a grocery before, in Maine, but I didn’t pay for it. Rory uses a credit card so maybe I can borrow it. I know how to drive a car but at home they stop traffic whenever I’m on the main road, so …” He shrugged, leaving the rest to her imagination.
Toby was blinking at him. She had a vision of him sitting in Jared’s huge house and slowly starving to death. Or maybe he’d die in a car crash because he didn’t know what to do at a stop sign. Nantucket had no red lights but it did have a few rotaries that the tourists went through at full speed—and blew their horns if anyone got in their way. They could be dangerous!
“Maybe Jared can …” she began, but trailed off. Jared was going to be off-island at his architectural firm, and she and Lexie had full-time jobs. It was summer and everyone was busy. “I think you need to stay with someone.”
“Are you saying that I need a caretaker?” He was smiling, teasing.
“Everyone needs companionship. I do think you should stay in town so you can walk to restaurants. Victoria spent a lot of time here over the years, but she’s never kept a car here.”
“Who is Victoria?”
“Red hair, green suit?”
“Oh, yes,” Graydon said. “I remember her well.”
“All men do.” Victoria was tall and beautiful, and had an exaggerated hourglass shape. That she was the same age as Toby’s mother didn’t diminish Victoria’s sex appeal. Men still watched her walk across the room.
“Where does she stay when she’s here?”
“Kingsley House,” Toby said.
“Perfect,” Graydon said, smiling. “This Victoria would be my roommate?”
“I thought you were about to get engaged.”
“I like beauty around me, whether it’s a Van Dyck painting or a beautiful woman in a suit so tight I could see the lace underneath.”
The way he said that, with such an air of innocence, made her laugh. “I don’t think Dr. Huntley would like that, and he seems to have laid claim to Victoria. She may move to his house, but it’s awfully small. I’ll find you something. Lexie will know where.”
He held out the plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but where do you live?”
“Just down the lane from Kingsley House. And speaking of presumptions, if you’re about to be engaged, why are you asking about me?”
“I’m not trying to lure you into anything. It’s just that I’ve never met someone outside my family who could tell Rory and me apart. People who have known us all our lives can’t tell one from the other. That you can makes me feel a bond with you. Besides, you and Aunt Jilly are the only people I know here, and I don’t think I’ll be asking her for help.”
Toby nodded. His aunt and Ken, the father of Toby’s friend Alix, had recently become a couple. They made it obvious that they didn’t need or want anyone else. It really did seem that this man knew very few people on the island, and for all that he wouldn’t be here very long, it could be lonely. “I’ll ask around,” she said, but even as she thought it, she couldn’t imagine where he could stay and be comfortable. A hotel? Who would he talk to? Maybe she could find him a place with one of the Kingsleys. But who would fit with this man with his perfect table manners? And who would resist telling that they had a prince living with them? Then what would happen? The people on the island would probably protect him—they were used to high-ranking visitors—but what if the off-islanders heard he was here? He might as well put himself in a glass cage.
“You’re looking at me very hard,” Graydon said. “I can assure you that I’m a flesh and blood human being.”
“It’s not a matter of how you see yourself but how others see you.”
“How perceptive you are.”
“I wish Jared’s aunt Addy were still alive. She’d take you into her house and under her wing and protect you. And give you lots of rum to drink.”
Graydon laughed. “That sounds perfect, but I can assure you that I need no protection. Maybe from a stray bullet now and then, but not many.”
His tone was joking, but Toby didn’t laugh. She’d heard too many stories of assassination attempts on royalty. “Do
you have a bodyguard?”
“I do at home, and I left one in Maine, but I’m here by myself.”
“But what if someone recognizes you?”
“Miss Wyndam, one of the best things about being a prince of a small, obscure country is that no one in the outside world recognizes me. I am not—thank heaven—a member of the British royal family. Their every movement is recorded and talked about and criticized, but outside our own borders we Lanconians are not that interesting.” He didn’t add that in his own country everything he did was in the headlines.
Toby, who wouldn’t have missed a second of Prince William’s wedding, suddenly had a vision of it from the other side. Where was the privacy, the romance, of such a wedding for the couple? “Will your wedding be a gala?”
“Oh, yes,” Graydon said. “We have a huge old cathedral and it will be packed with people. The entire country will have a three-day holiday.”
“You said an ‘engagement ceremony.’ What will that be like?”
He held the plate for her to take the last strawberry. “It’ll be the first of many celebrations over the year.”
“And they will all involve you?”
“Yes,” Graydon said and bent his head for a moment. “Once the engagement is announced, I’m fair game. I will go to each of the six provinces and participate in days, weeks even, of games and feasts, and I’ll laugh at all the bawdy jokes that they can come up with.”
“What about your bride?”
“Traditionally, she’s considered a maiden, so she doesn’t usually attend. She stays at home, but then Danna has her horses and she must prepare her trousseau.”
“It doesn’t seem fair that she gets to enjoy herself while you have to run around, does it?”
Graydon laughed. “I think it’s the other way around. Some would say I have the better bargain—I get to party and she doesn’t.”
“Then there’s the wedding, and after that …?”
“After that Danna and I will take on a lot of my parents’ duties. My mother doesn’t like to travel, so Danna and I will visit the United States and any other country where we hope to persuade people to buy what we produce or sell us what we need.”
For All Time Page 3
