The Marriage Miracle. Liz Fielding
delay the dance until you’ve decided that I’m worth the effort. I’ll just call a cab and we’ll go somewhere quiet for dinner.’
Even as he took out his cellphone it occurred to him that he had no idea if she could manage a cab. Or whether any of the restaurants he knew were wheelchair accessible. And while he hesitated, confronted by a reality that was quite new to him, Guy came to his rescue.
‘Matty, Fran wants you in the marquee. Apparently she’s got some journalist slavering to look at that alphabet book you made for Toby.’
‘She’s what? It’s her wedding reception, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Hey, don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger. Since she’s discovered how good she is at business I get the feeling that nothing is going to stop her from taking over the world.’
‘I know,’ she said, backing away from the table. ‘To be honest I find it just a little bit scary.’
As Sebastian moved to accompany her, Guy, hand on his shoulder, detained him. ‘Oh, no. My lovely wife has plans for you, too.’ Then, as if suddenly aware that he’d interrupted something, ‘You don’t mind if I borrow him for a moment, do you, Matty?’
‘You can keep him, darling. I’ve been neglecting my duties for long enough.’ She extended her hand in a gesture that clearly said goodbye. ‘Lovely to meet you, Sebastian.’
He held it rather than shook it. ‘I thought we were going to have dinner?’
‘Thanks, but it’s been a long day. Next time you’re in London, perhaps.’ As if to emphasise her dismissal, she disentangled her fingers and, with a little wave, said, ‘Try and be kinder to your sisters; I’m sure you needed bossing. And give my love to New York.’
She didn’t wait for a response, but executed a neat ninety-degree turn and moved swiftly along the path. He watched her until she had been swallowed up in the crowd of people milling around the entrance, then he turned back to Guy.
‘She’s some woman.’
‘Yes, she is. I’m sorry if I broke up something…’
‘No. You heard her. We’ll have dinner next time I’m in London.’
Guy grinned. ‘She doesn’t know you’re staying?’
‘I don’t believe I mentioned it.’
Most people had deserted the gathering dusk of the garden for the flower-scented warmth of the marquee, and Matty paused for a moment in the entrance, assailed by a sudden ache in her throat as she watched couples wrapped in each other’s arms swaying to the music.
She had so loved to dance. Loved the intimacy of being close to a man, her arms about his neck, while he whispered hot desire in her ear.
She shivered a little, looked back to where she’d been sitting. But as the crowd shifted she could see that the terrace was empty and, as she remembered the whispered exchange between Guy and Francesca, it took all her will-power to resist the feeling that Sebastian had sent out some kind of ‘rescue me’ signal.
She’d liked him. Wanted to believe he was better than that. And dinner, once, would have been special. But then he’d have gone away. And even if he hadn’t—
‘There you are,’ Fran said, appearing at her side, saving her from her thoughts. ‘Susie Palmer, the reporter who wrote that first piece about my business, wants to meet you—talk about Toby’s alphabet book.’
‘You gave her a copy?’
‘Forgive me for being a smug mother, but I wanted her to know that you’d made the original for Toby.’
‘If I was Toby’s mother I’d be smug. Has Connie found him, by the way? He was running around in his pyjamas a little while ago.’
‘Forget Toby for a moment. This woman has it in her power to give you the kind of publicity money can’t buy.’
She wanted to tell Fran that she didn’t want any kind of publicity. She wanted to say, Don’t do this to me. I’m not you…
But her cousin was glowing with happiness, wanting so much to include her in her joy, so instead she smiled and said, ‘Well, don’t just stand there. Lead the way.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘FOREST FAIRIES?’
Sebastian closed his eyes. Maybe this was all a bad dream, he thought. Maybe, if he concentrated very hard, he’d wake up in the pastel-free zone of his loft apartment…
Nothing doing.
When he opened them, the display of neon-bright, fairy-bedecked birthday cards was still there.
A week ago he’d been sitting in his Wall Street office, the fate of major corporations in his hands. All it had taken was one phone call to change his life from the American dream to a British farce. He just wished Matty Lang were here to see what the ‘big-shot New York banker’ had come to.
She, he was certain, would have enjoyed the joke. With her there he might have been able to see it for himself.
‘They were our most profitable line…’
Blanche Appleby, Uncle George’s secretary since time immemorial, hesitated, unsure exactly how to address Sebastian now that he was a head taller than her and, in his real life, the vice-president of an international bank.
He let the image of Matty’s smile fade. ‘It’s still Sebastian, Blanche.’
She relaxed a little. ‘It’s been a good many years since I called you that.’
‘I know, but you don’t have to go all formal on me just because I’ve grown a few feet. I’m still going to need you to hold my hand on this one. I know nothing about the greeting card business.’ Knew nothing and cared less. But he was stuck with it.
‘What about the staff?’
‘I’ll talk to them all later, when I have a better idea what’s—’
‘No. What do you want them to call you?’
He stifled a groan. Life was so much simpler in the US. There he was simply Sebastian Wolseley, a man defined by what he did and how well he did it rather than by the fact that one of his ancestors had been the mistress of Britain’s merriest monarch.
As Viscount Grafton, his title was a courtesy one, one of his father’s spares, passed on at birth to keep him going until he inherited the big one. He’d made damn sure that no one in New York knew about it. And perhaps that was a small upside.
Baiting minor aristocracy was a blood sport in the British media; any coverage of his involvement in Coronet Cards was likely to be of the mocking variety. Since it would be the Viscount they were mocking, he might just get away with it.
It would be worth any amount of mockery if it meant no one in New York discovered that he’d put his career at the bank temporarily on hold to rescue Forest Fairies from fiscal disaster.
‘What did the staff call George?’ he asked.
‘Everyone but the senior staff just called him Mr George.’
Paternal respect for the Honourable George, what else?
‘Maybe in another twenty years,’ he said. ‘For now I’d prefer it if everyone just called me Sebastian.’
‘Everyone?’ She sounded slightly shocked.
‘If you’d pass that on.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want.’
‘I do.’ Then, since there was no point in putting off the inevitable, he indicated the display of birthday cards, paper plates, napkins and balloons strewn across the conference table that took up one end of the office. ‘You say these were Coronet’s bestselling