For All Time is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Deveraux, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Deveraux, Jude.
For all time : a Nantucket brides novel / Jude Deveraux.
pages cm—(Nantucket brides trilogy)
ISBN: 978-0-345-54182-6 (hardback)—ISBN: 978-0-345-54183-3 (eBook)
1. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 2. Weddings—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.E9273F68 2014b
813’.54—dc23
2014017535
www.ballantinebooks.com
246897531
Title page photo by Karin Batten
Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi
Cover photograph: Claudio Marinesco
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
Nantucket
Graydon Montgomery couldn’t take his eyes off the young woman. The bride and his cousin Jared, the groom, were standing at the front of the little chapel, the pastor between them, and Graydon kept looking across them at her. She had on a blue bridesmaid dress, was holding a bouquet of flowers, and her attention was fully on the ceremony.
While she was pretty, she wasn’t conventionally so. She wasn’t the type of woman who’d make people do double takes. With her oval face, eyes the color of bluebells, and flawless skin, she looked like a girl you’d see in the newspaper as having attended a debutante ball. She’d be able to wear pearls and long gloves without looking like she’d rather be in jeans.
Earlier, when the four wedding attendants had been waiting outside, there’d been a lot of commotion inside the little chapel. At the last minute, some kind of mix-up had caused a great deal of chaos. In normal circumstances, Graydon would have made an effort to find out what was happening, but not today. Today he was distracted by her.
Sounds of angry shouts and furniture crashing to the floor had come from inside the chapel. The two bridesmaids and the other groomsman went to the door to see what was going on, but Graydon stood where he was. He wasn’t even curious. All he could do was gaze at the back of the young woman. She had long blonde hair that curled down her back, and a nice figure. Not flashy, but trim and subdued.
Through all the turmoil, Graydon had stood back from them. He was only vaguely aware of the surroundings, of the big tent that was set up for dinner and dancing, of the moonlight on the wooded area around them, even of the brightly lit chapel where the wedding was to be. He seemed only able to think about what the young woman had said to him just minutes before.
When Graydon had been asked to escort a bridesmaid down the aisle, he’d thought it would be an easy, enjoyable task. After all, he was certainly used to red carpets and ceremonies of all kinds.
But when he was introduced to the young woman, he’d been shocked by what she said—and he still hadn’t recovered.
When the noise inside the chapel finally calmed down and they prepared to go inside, Graydon moved to stand beside her and crooked his arm for her to take. When she put her hand on his arm, he smiled warmly at her, slipped his hand over hers, and clasped it gently.
Without a word, she snatched her hand away, took two steps back, and glared at him. There was no mistaking her meaning: He was to make no overtures of any kind toward her. And that seemed to include even friendliness.
Graydon didn’t think he’d ever before been at a loss for words, but in the face of her anger, every language he knew seemed to disappear from his mind. All he could do was stand there and blink. Finally, he managed to nod his agreement. No touching, no smiles, no anything outside what was necessary to get the job done.
As they walked down the aisle together, she kept her distance from him. Her hand was on his arm, but her body was two feet away from his. Graydon held his head high, doing his best to swallow his pride. Never before had a woman found him … well, repulsive. Truthfully, no woman had ever before tried to get away from him.
He wasn’t naive—he knew well that a lot of the fawning and flirting directed his way was because of what he’d come to think of as the “unfortunate circumstances of my birth,” but still … That she didn’t want anything to do with him wounded his ego.
When they got to the front of the chapel, she seemed relieved to get away from him. She went to the left, and Graydon went to the other side to wait for the bride to come down the aisle with her father.
Throughout the ceremony Graydon couldn’t help peering around the bride and groom to look at her. What was her name? Toby, wasn’t it? Surely that was a nickname, and he wondered what her birth name was.
As the ceremony neared the end, Graydon felt that old familiar pull, what people called the “twin bond,” and he knew his brother was there. He glanced to his left, through the crowd of people packed into the chapel. Family was in chairs but the back was full of guests standing and watching. It took Graydon only seconds to find his brother in the very back, purposely hidden behind other people. Rory wasn’t dressed properly for a wedding, but then his leather jacket and casual slacks fit in with the American style. At least his brother didn’t have on jeans.
Rory nodded toward the blonde bridesmaid in question. He’d never seen his brother stare at a woman before and he was curious as to why.
As was sometimes the case with identical twins, he and his brother often communicated without words. But there was no way Graydon could tell his brother the one and only thought in his mind: She can tell you and me apart.
Frowning, Rory let Graydon know that he didn’t understand. He slanted his head to one side and Graydon nodded. They had just arranged to meet outside as soon as possible.
That done, Graydon gave his attention back to the young woman. In a moment they’d again walk down the aisle, and he looked forward to it.
After the ceremony, Toby left the chapel and was on her way to the big tent to check on the wedding guests there. Even though she wasn’t a professional planner, she had done most of the work to put this wedding together. A lot of the ideas had come from her friend Alix, the bride, but it had been Toby who put in endless hours and lost sleep to pull it off. For the last several weeks, whenever there was a problem, the solution had been “Ask Toby.” That she’d been
able to solve most of those problems made her feel good. Right now all she wanted to do was see that everyone was happy and do her best to enjoy the celebration.
“Miss Wyndam, I don’t mean to take your time, but I’d like to apologize,” a man’s voice said from behind her. She knew who he was, as his voice was quite distinctive: deep and smooth. Too smooth. Too slick. Too cultured. Too much like all the men her mother had tried to force on her.
Toby hesitated before turning to look at him. Last night she and her roommate, Lexie, had taken the bride out for drinks. Toward the back of the restaurant had been a man with a girl on his lap and two more laughing at whatever he’d said. When he saw Toby and her friends enter, he set aside the girl on his lap, got up, and went to their table. He was smiling in a way that seemed to say he expected the young women to stop what they were doing and give their attention to him. He was handsome enough, but there was something—maybe his presumption or her feeling that he was a bit shallow—that made Toby instantly dislike him. She had picked up her bag and left, and the other two women had followed her.
Earlier this evening, the groomsman who was asking for her forgiveness had tried to make Toby and Lexie believe that he had been the man in the bar last night. But she knew he wasn’t. And whatever his reasons for doing this, she didn’t like liars.
Turning, she looked up at him. He looked like his distant cousin Jared Kingsley, who was Toby’s friend and landlord, only this man was younger and, well, cleaner. He stood as straight and as inflexible as a marble statue. There wasn’t a hair on his head out of place, a speck of lint on him, or even a crease in his tuxedo. He was so perfectly shaved and laundered that he didn’t look real.
“An apology isn’t necessary,” she said as she stepped past him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have guests to attend to.”
“How did you know?” he asked.
Toby really did have a lot to do for the wedding, but she heard the appeal in his voice. “How did I know what?”
“That it was my brother and not me in the bar last night.”
Her impulse was to laugh. Surely he was joking. To her, the two of them looked nothing alike. She got herself under control and as she looked back at him, she even managed a bit of a smile. After all, he was Jared’s cousin. “He looks like a pirate, while you look like a … a … lawyer.” Turning, she started back to the big tent.
“So you do think we’re identical,” he said from behind her.
Toby stopped walking. Flattery got nowhere with her, but a man who could make her laugh got her attention.
She turned back to him. They were in the wooded area around the two tents and the chapel, with the only light coming from inside. It made the area around them almost golden. “All right,” she said, looking up at him. “What’s your apology?”
“The pirate version or the one from the lawyer?”
It looked like he wasn’t serious after all. She didn’t smile. “Excuse me, but I have work to do.” She again turned away.
“My brother gets into trouble and I cover for him,” he said. “It keeps our father from anger that I fear would be injurious to his health.”
She knew when she heard the truth, so she looked at him. Toby knew a lot about parental problems.
“Usually …” he said. “No, actually, we always get away with it. You’re the first one outside the family to recognize our exchange. I really do apologize. When your friend thought I was the one she had seen last night in the bar, it was just less complicated to act as though she was right. Until then, I didn’t even know my brother was here on the island.”
When he finished, he just stood there and looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. He had a strong jaw and a straight nose. His eyes were a deep, dark blue, with heavy black brows over them. His mouth had a curve to it, as though he was about to break into a smile, but at the same time there was something intense about him that made her think there was a depth that he hid from others.
“Maybe I jumped to conclusions,” she said and gave him a small smile. “Why don’t you go inside and get some food? And thank you for coming to Nantucket to escort me down the aisle.”
“It was my pleasure.”
He was staring at her in a way that she’d never seen before, as though he didn’t understand who—or what—she was. It was beginning to make her uncomfortable.
“All right, then,” she said. “I’ll leave you to … uh, find your brother.” Again, she turned away from him.
“Do you know anywhere I can stay?”
She turned back, frowning. “I thought everyone had been given a place for the night.” She and Lexie had worked frantically to get every guest a bed. This man had flown in from Maine for the sole purpose of being a groomsman. Had she and Lexie forgotten to take care of where he was to stay? “I’m sorry for the oversight,” she said, “but I’m sure we can find you a bed somewhere.”
“I apologize for not being clear,” he said. “I have accommodations for tonight, but I want to stay on Nantucket for a week. Perhaps I could rent a place?”
In other circumstances she would have said that what he was asking was nearly impossible. The summer weather on Nantucket was divine, as though it had been made up in a fairy tale. Warm but not hot; cool but not cold; sunshine but not blistering; constant breezes that refreshed. The paradise of perfect weather drew about sixty thousand tourists in the summer, and everything needed to be booked in advance.
But this man was related to the Kingsley family and they owned several houses on the island. “I’ll ask Jared,” she said. “He’s often in New York, so maybe you could stay in his house. Or the guesthouse, but then …” She trailed off.
He gave a bit of a smile. “Were you about to say that my aunt is staying there and she seems to have formed an … an attachment to the bride’s father?”
Toby smiled. “Yes, she has. Is she the reason you want to stay?”
“I want a holiday,” he said. “At home I rarely have time off, but I thought perhaps now I’d be able to manage it.”
Toby glanced at the tent. Inside, as far as she could see, everything seemed to be fine. The caterers were very experienced and they were keeping the buffet table laden. The band had arrived and soon the floor would be cleared for dancing. Right now everyone seemed to be happy, eating, drinking, and laughing.
She looked back at the man. What was his name? She’d been introduced to so many people in the last twenty-four hours that she couldn’t remember all of them. “Where are you from? Your accent—” She stopped because it didn’t seem polite to say that he had a slight, almost undetectable accent.
But he smiled. “My English tutor will feel that he’s failed, as will my American relatives. I’m from Lanconia, but my grandfather is from Warbrooke, Maine. When I was growing up, I spent time there every summer.”
“You and your brother?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was with my brother, Rory, and a hundred or so other relatives. It was always an exciting time, the happiest of my life, really. What about you? Are you a Nantucket native?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Lexie—she’s my roommate—would say that I haven’t been blessed with that honor. She’s descended from the proprietors, the first English people who lived on the island. My ancestors came over on the Mayflower, but Lexie says that since they didn’t land on Nantucket, they’re just poor, sad dissidents.”
“Not the blessed ones,” he said, and his smile made his face soften. “My ancestors were tribes of bearskin-clad warriors who loved to fight each other. What would your roommate think of them?”
“She’d feel very sorry for you,” Toby said, and they smiled at each other. For a moment they were silent. “I better go see that everyone has what they need. You should go in and get something to eat.”
“What about you? Have you eaten?”
Toby sighed. “Not since early this morning. There’s been too much to do. Some of the flowers fell down, the plane was late with supplies, one of the
band members wasn’t feeling well, and then of course there was the whole secrecy thing, and … Sorry. More than you wanted to know. I need to go.” But she didn’t move.
“So you did all of this? You were in charge of it?”
“More or less. The bride made a lot of the decisions, and Lexie helped with the work, but she has a lot of other responsibilities and …” Toby shrugged.
“Let me guess. She’s not as detail-oriented as you are, so she left everything up to you.”
“Oh, yes!” Toby said. “I love Lexie, but when it got to be too many things to do, she ran away.”
“What’s that American expression about been and done?”
“Been there, done that?” Toby asked. “Is that the one?”
“Yes. When we were kids, whenever there was work to do, my brother would hide under a table that had a big cloth over it. I think my father knew where he was, but back then Rory’s antics amused him. What about you?”
“Your brother’s antics did not amuse me.”
“No, I meant—” Graydon broke off and for the first time he laughed, showing his perfectly even, white teeth.
Toby relaxed her shoulders, and as she looked back at the tent, she wished she didn’t have to deal with everyone.
“I guess you have to go inside,” he said.
“Yes, I do. I’m not sure how it happened but I became a wedding planner.”
“My guess is that it was because they knew you’d do the perfect job that you did.”
“Are you saying that I was used?” Her tone was teasing.
“Completely.” His eyes were laughing, sparkling in the lights from the tent. “Who knows you so well?”
“That would be Jared. Your cousin.”
“Separated by generations,” he said, “but, alas, my blood relative. I think I should make it up to you.”
Toby lost her smile and took a step back. Moonlight always seemed to do something to men. In the next second he’d probably be reaching for her. “I’d better—”
“How about if I go inside and get you something to eat?”
“What?”
“I don’t know much about event planning, but from what I’ve seen, if you were to go in there, you’d be surrounded by people asking you questions such as—”