At the Billionaire’s Wedding (6 page)

Cauliflower? She was getting a very bad feeling about The Pineapple of Perfection. “Where’s the beef?” she asked. Harry and Mark looked guilty, as well they might.

“Where’s the wine list?” Harry asked.

“Didn’t these naughty boys explain that we’re vegan? If you’re dying for protein, and I know just how you feel after a long day, Carol will make you a lovely grilled tofu steak with caper salsa.”

Sheila had barely left with their order before the men succumbed to hysterical mirth. “You should have warned me,” Arwen said. “I was going to hire these women to roast a pig. Oh my God! Tofu!”

“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “The food really is excellent and I’ve ordered a good bottle of wine. Sheila’s devotion to veganism stops at the wine cellar door.”

His charming hangdog grin made her feel a little bit excited, or would if she could be sure he wasn’t gay. She asked Mark a few more questions and was soon satisfied that with him in charge she needn’t worry about guest services at Brampton. They moved on from martinis and quite delicious vegan snacks to wine and appetizers. She knew she was being played, but these boys were good: far too charming and far too persuasive as they sang the praises of Brampton along with a liberal dose of flattery.

“Arwen has the most brilliant ideas,” Harry said. “Her suggestions for tents and lighting in the garden are perfect. She wants something called fairy lights in all the shrubberies.”

“Not all, I hope,” Mark said. “There’s nothing more conducive to snogging than a dark shrubbery. I could tell you stories…”

“Tact, Mark. And discretion.”

“I know Arwen would enjoy hearing about…”

Arwen wasn’t so sure. “You both know the place well.”

“I’ve lived in the area all my life,” Harry said. “And Mark has been visiting almost as long. We were at school together. That’s why you can absolutely rely on us to make sure Duke’s nuptials go off without a hitch.”

She took a deep breath, pushed aside her wineglass and swallowed a chickpea. “Stop, please guys. I’m thinking and I can’t concentrate with you both telling me how fabulous Brampton is. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard you, and I’m convinced.”

“So the wedding goes ahead here?” Harry asked.

She raised a hand to silence him and made her brain go through a checklist of salient points, a habit she’d developed over the years. She made written lists too, especially those relating to money and numbers, but she liked to keep the most important stuff in her head where she could retrieve it without constantly checking her computer. The mental exercise often turned up problems she hadn’t foreseen. The major issue she could see with Brampton was the lack of a kitchen staff. It simply couldn’t be assembled and ready in time, but she’d already agreed that she could hire a caterer for the weeklong affair. The solution gave her far more control over menus than she’d have with an established chef, set in his ways. Which left only one thing.

“You promise there will be Wi-Fi all over the house and gardens?”

“On my honor,” Harry said. With his English accent, he sounded like a character in a PBS series or one of Jane’s Regency novels. How could she not trust him?

“In that case—”

“Yes?” the men said in unison.

“Yes.”

“Great news,” Harry said. He and Mark exchanged pleased nods, apparently the British version of a high five. “You won’t regret it and I so look forward to working with you.”

“One thing. Remember that Duke and Jane want absolutely no paparazzi. You can’t tell anyone whose wedding it is. The guests won’t even know exactly where they’re going until the last minute.”

“Not a problem. I haven’t told anyone whom you represent and as far as the staff and locals are concerned, it will be the merely the Big Wedding. If I assure them it isn’t a film star or anyone they’ve heard of they won’t care.”

“Why don’t you call Duke now,” Mark said, “while we order champagne?”

Instead she called Jane, raving about the beauty of the place and promising a long conversation the next day to start nailing down the details. By the time they’d polished off a bottle of Veuve Clicquot she was thoroughly relaxed and contemplating a working vacation romance. What happens in England stays in England, surely.

A sensible girl—and with her crazy parents Arwen had always had to be sensible—would combine flirtation with a useful contact in an important company in the hospitality industry. Business
and
pleasure. Yes, Mark the Armani-clad smoothie was the better bet, but Harry the hunky handyman was hellishly hot. He raised his glass to her with a lazy smile that gave her the shivers.

As long as they weren’t totally into each other, which given her luck was all too possible.

“Arwen darling,” Mark said, refilling her glass. “Are you New York born and bred or did you come by your Proenza Schouler black dress the hard way?” He had to be gay. Or maybe English straight men knew designers.

“I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and went to college in the south, where I learned to appreciate manicures and catered affairs.”

“And wisely moved to New York. Which couldn’t you stand: the heat or the crazy?”

It wasn’t often anyone realized that the only thing to do when you were a cross between a hippy and a steel magnolia was to move to Manhattan. “You have an impressive understanding of American culture.”

“I went to college there. Princeton.”

“You too, Harry? Didn’t say you were friends from school?”

“Poor Harry stayed in England, where his most interesting cultural experience was going to the pub with a lot of oarsmen.”

“Hence his physique.”

“He is quite ogle-able, isn’t he?”

Arwen’s woozy eyes veered from the way the handyman’s tanned neck set into his collarbones. “Is that a word?”

“For heaven’s sake, Mark.” Harry was actually blushing. God, he was cute. But so was Mark. Arwen probed with a stilettoed foot, dodged the table leg, and hit pay dirt with a warm limb. But whose? With whom was she playing footsie? God, her grammar was good.

Harry stood up. Question answered, rather to her disappointment. She should have recognized the touch of Armani against her ankle.

Harry said something about going to the loo and saying hello to Carol in the kitchen. Through the door into the main dining area she saw him stop at a table and say hello to a middle-aged couple. Friendly with everyone, he seemed universally popular.

Mark twinkled at her across the table and gave her calf a rub. “Really darling, I thought you lived in New York. What happened to your gaydar?”

“I don’t have one. In college I was voted the Girl Most Likely to Fall in Love with a Homosexual.”

“A sign of excellent taste. We are superior beings.” He shot his pale pink cuff revealing gold crested cuff links. “Not that I don’t enjoy playing footsie with a pretty thing of any sex, but I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.”

“Are you and Harry…?”

“Just good friends.”

Yes! She gave Mark’s groomed perfection a last look without any regret.

The one downside of life in the city was the dating, or lack of it. Admittedly she hadn’t given the matter the energy it deserved. On arrival she’d technically still been with her college boyfriend, but the relationship had shriveled on the vine of weekend train rides to Washington, DC, where he worked for a congressman. She sometimes thought his main appeal had been the fact of him being a Republican and pissing off her parents. Since then, consumed by growing her business and pursuing designer clothing on deep discount, she’d had occasional dates and less frequent hookups with a disparate collection of New York professionals introduced by her friends. Being away from home and a little blitzed on champagne made her realize how one-dimensional her life had become.

“Harry’s wild about you, you know,” Mark said. “Or perhaps you don’t since you’re clearly a woman of remarkably little perception.”

“Really?” She hadn’t been sure.

The man in question, tall and fit and rumpled in his casual clothing, returned to the table. “What have you been talking about?” he asked, shooting Arwen a look that warmed her to her toes. “Did I miss something interesting?”

Her chest fluttered wildly, more so than she’d felt in eons. Dormant hormones were on the march. Ambition and common sense seemed to have been replaced by a driving need to get laid.

It was a curse to be born with compunction. Honor might be an old-fashioned virtue in the days of hedge funds and the Russian mafia, but Harry wished it wasn’t. He hadn’t like shading the truth about the readiness of Brampton for a weeklong luxury affair, but consoled himself with the excuse that there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed or skirted. He had about a month to make sure the marriage of Duke and Jane went off smoothly.

Making him feel especially guilty was his attraction to Arwen. As he pulled the Land Rover up next to the house, he took a sideways glance at her singing along to Gotye, black skirt hugging her spectacular thighs, short dark hair all messed up and making her look like an elf, whatever she might claim. A very sexy elf. Her decline from no-nonsense, razor-sharp businesswoman to tipsy, completely adorable forest creature wrought havoc with his sense of fair play about professional relationships and secret identities. To tell the truth it was rather flattering to be desired as Harry the odd job man instead of the Honorable Harry, future Lord Melbury.

He opened the car door for her and caught her when she stumbled on the gravel. She was warm and soft and firm. Mark’s Porsche had arrived before them but there was no sign of him and Harry guessed that Mark had gone straight to the study to watch television.

“More champagne?”

“Yes, please.” Once in the house she walked quite normally, dissipating his fear that she’d fall asleep and ruin the rest of the evening.

“With Mark in the study watching
Mad Men
?”

“Seen every episode.”

“In the garden?”

“Are we allowed to drink champagne in the State Rooms?”

“Wait there a second.” He left her standing in the back passage among the boots and riding crops and slipped into the butler’s pantry to grab a bottle of vintage Krug from the fridge. “Hold these,” he said, putting a pair of champagne glasses in one hand and leading her by the other through the great house that he knew so well, the dark passages illuminated only by the rising moon. “Any preferences as to room?”

“The Gold Saloon is my favorite.”

“Mine too.” He’d always loved Brampton’s biggest and most splendid apartment. His pulse sped when he considered ideas he’d first conceived about the room when he was a spotty thirteen-year-old. He found the switch that turned on the ceiling lights, leaving the rest of the room in shadows.

“Gorgeous!” Arwen said, staring at the enormous frescoed ceiling. “I hardly noticed it before.”

“It’s better seen without distraction. We’ll get the best view sitting on the carpet in the middle.”

He popped the champagne cork. “To Antonio Verrio,” he said, admiring her stretched out on her side like a short-skirted odalisque.

Arwen raised her glass, took a sip, and sneezed. “Now I know why coupe-style champagne glasses are less popular, even if they were modeled from Marie-Antoinette’s breasts. Who is this Antonio guy?”

“The painter of the ceiling.”

She flopped onto her back and his heart went into double-time. “I’m lying in state,” she giggled. “Come down here and tell me what I see.”

He lay beside her and gazed at the great painting, so familiar to him yet always fresh. A complex tangle of near naked bodies and swirling fabrics floated against a celestial blue sky, lit by the blazing sun that was echoed in the furnishings of the golden saloon and gave it its name.

“The marriage of Venus and Mars. They are the couple in the center.”

“A wedding. How perfect! Most of their guests seem to be underage.”

“What’s a party without putti?”

She giggled again. “Right, those little angels. I’ll suggest them to Jane. Why the wedding theme?”

“The saloon was part of the original design for Brampton. It was built after the Restoration of Charles II, when the family was rewarded for its fidelity during the Civil War. Trouble was, the old manor was in ruins and Lord Melbury almost broke. He found himself an heiress, the daughter of a man who’d made a fortune selling cannons to the other side. The couple built this house from scratch and this fresco celebrated their nuptials, as well as the reconciliation of strife through love.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Supposedly it was a love match. The Melburys have a history of happy marriages. My … employers, the current Lord and Lady Melbury, have been devoted to each other for forty years.”

“I love stories like that,” she said with a sigh. “It’s one reason I went into the wedding business.”

“So you’re a romantic underneath that hard-boiled exterior.”

“Do I seem like that?” Her voice quivered.

He wanted to kick himself. No woman, however tough, wants to be compared to a ten-minute egg. “I have nothing but admiration for your strength and efficiency. Also your legs.”

She was smiling again. “I have a feeling that may be sexual harassment.”

“Absolutely. In this room I claim immunity from prosecution on the grounds that Charles II practically invented the crime. More champagne?”

“I’m good. So does that make you one of those rakes that Jane’s always writing about?”

The amused lilt in her voice set his heart racing and he answered more seriously than he’d intended. “I’ve always been a monogamous sort and at the moment not even that.” He didn’t want to invite questions about his life by explaining that he hadn’t had a girlfriend since he moved back to Brampton. Too busy.

They turned to each other for a few breathless seconds, then Arwen looked back at the ceiling. “This room makes me think of the Beistegui Ball.”

“What?”

“A fantastic ball given in Venice in the 1950s by a guy named Carlos de Beistegui, one of the great parties of the twentieth century. The guests wore costumes inspired by Venetian paintings. You could do the same thing here.”

“Uh, Arwen. Most of these characters aren’t wearing much at all.”