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As Toby ate the last strawberry, she leaned back in the chair. “This really is your last moment of peace, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling at her understanding. “I would like to have a week of no schedule, with no one telling me where I have to be when.” He paused. “Now I must ask. Why are the men on this island working so hard to win you? I can see your beauty, but is there anything else?”
“Just that I won’t go out with them,” she said. “It’s male machismo, that they feel they must win what they can’t have. When—?”
She was cut off because Lexie threw back the tent flap and looked at Toby. “Sorry to interrupt, but people are getting worried about you. They won’t cut the cake without you there, and if another kid asks me when they’re going to get cake I might throw them on top of the thing—except that they’d like that too much. Brats! Do you know where the keys to Jared’s truck are? And Plymouth wants me to leave tomorrow morning to go to the south of France to chaperone his sister.” Lexie looked at Graydon. “Oh, hi. You and I are cousins.” She looked back at Toby and waited for an answer.
Toby took a breath. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Give the kids the cupcakes stored in the blue cooler at the back corner of the tent. The truck keys are over the visor. You want to leave tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Lexie said. “Tomorrow.” She held up her naked left hand. “Now I have a reason to postpone everything.” As she turned away, she looked back at Graydon. “Toby is great, isn’t she?”
“I do believe she is,” Graydon said.
Smiling, Lexie left the tent.
The instant Toby stood up, so did Graydon. “It looks like I’m needed,” she said.
“Who is Plymouth?”
“Lexie’s boss, and I fully believe there’s more to them than just work.”
Graydon’s eyes were intent. “What does he do?”
“For a living? Nothing that I know of. Family money. I think he plays all the time. A lot of people who come here are like that.” She glanced at the table. “I’ll send someone to clear this away.”
“I can arrange that,” Graydon said.
Toby remembered how he’d easily commandeered three of the waitstaff to put everything out for him. At the time she’d not understood how he’d done it, but a prince would be able to do that. “Should I curtsy?” she asked, trying to keep a straight face.
“Yes, please do,” he said. “I love it when women bend before me.”
“Hold your breath.” She was laughing as she left the tent.
For a while, Graydon stood there looking after her. He liked that she was perceptive and wasn’t intimidated by his … as she said, his “job.” Never before had he felt so quickly at ease with a person.
Abruptly, he came out of his reverie. He remembered her roommate saying she wanted to leave the country tomorrow, and she was going with a rich man who did nothing. That fit the description of every friend his brother had—and Graydon knew, without a doubt in the world, that his brother was behind this trip. It seemed that Rory—yet again—thought that his brother couldn’t handle his own life.
Graydon took his phone out of his pocket and texted his brother, NOW!
Toby went back into the big tent, into the noise of the band and the many guests, but all she could think of was the man she’d had dinner with. A prince! And somehow, she’d been given full charge of him.
She looked up at the swags of ribbons and flowers that hung around the top of the big white tent. She and Alix and Lexie had spent hours consulting to come up with the design, but it was Toby who had done the actual work. She’d wired every little bouquet together, trying to make it seem as though someone had skipped through a field and gathered wildflowers.
Turning full circle, she looked at each one. For the last weeks, her whole life had revolved around this wedding. She couldn’t help envisioning the great extravaganza that Prince Graydon’s wedding would be. If she helped him now, would she get an invitation?
No, no, she told herself, she couldn’t think like that. She must help him without thought of anything for herself.
As she looked around the room at the crowded dance floor, she tried to see if everyone was having a good time. In one corner was a large round table packed with older kids. They were silent, not participating in anything. Each one was tapping out messages on his or her phone. Earlier, Toby had stopped by and asked who they were writing to. It turned out that they were texting one another. Shaking her head, not understanding why they didn’t just talk, she left them. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The bride, in her beautiful dress from the 1950s—found in a Kingsley attic—was dancing with a little boy named Tyler. They were holding hands and the boy was smiling angelically. As Toby watched, Jared walked up to the two of them and asked to join in, but Tyler’s face instantly went from happy to ferocious. He glared up at Jared and said “No!” loud enough to be heard over the band.
When Toby laughed, Jared put his arm around her waist and pulled her onto the floor. “Laughing at me, are you?” He had to put his head close to her ear to be heard, but then, abruptly, the fast, loud song ended and a slow one began. “Thank God,” he mumbled and pulled Toby closer to him for the dance.
As he twirled her about on the dance floor, Jared couldn’t help remembering how they’d met. A few summers ago he’d designed a guest wing for the house Toby’s parents owned on Nantucket and stayed in every summer. Toby’s dad, Barrett, flew in and out every weekend, but her mother, Lavidia, stayed on the island.
Once a week Jared stopped by the site to check on the construction—and every time he went he had to listen to Mrs. Wyndam berate her pretty daughter, Toby, who had recently graduated from an exclusive all-girls college. One day Mrs. Wyndam had been loudly telling Toby that she wasn’t standing up straight enough, that her clothes were a disgrace, and that she was never going to get a husband if she didn’t start paying attention to how she looked.
“I guess I better go save my daughter,” Barrett had said with a sigh and he’d plodded off to the patio.
