The Matchmaker's Apprentice. Karen Whittenburg Toller
responsible when she knew in her heart she was. “I set up the match,” she said, unable to prevent the misery of the past two days from welling up in her voice. “I know I wasn’t supposed to do any matchmaking until you gave me the okay. I know I’m only an apprentice and that I haven’t learned everything I need to before I start taking clients. But Scott’s a cousin. I didn’t think of him as a real client.”
She paused, briefly hoping Ilsa would just fire her on the spot so she wouldn’t have to confide the rest, but Ilsa didn’t say a word. “It was more like a…a favor,” Ainsley continued, feeling the words doubling up on her tongue, knowing she talked too much, too fast, when she was nervous. But there were mitigating circumstances in this case and she wanted Ilsa to understand. “I never meant to tell anyone—well, no one other than Miranda and my brothers—that you’d hired me as your apprentice, but with Scott, it just sort of slipped out. He pestered me about finding a match, begged me to set him up with someone who might want to have a relationship with him. He has a wonderful heart, but on the surface he’s your ordinary goofy, geeky type, the kind of guy women never give a second glance. I doubt he’s had more than a dozen dates in his entire life…and he’s nearly thirty.”
“Self-conscious, ill-at-ease, lacks confidence and consequently tries too hard.” Ilsa nodded. She understood the problems of a lonely heart.
“Yes,” Ainsley agreed, latching onto the sympathetic image. “On top of that, he’s never figured out how to handle social situations with any polish, so he routinely avoids them and spends way too much of his time in his lab studying the mating habits of bugs…or something equally unromantic and boring. His work is practically all he ever talks about, though, so when he pleaded with me to set up an introduction of possibilities for him, I couldn’t say no.”
“Naturally, you wanted to help your cousin.”
“Yes, and I just happened to know the perfect woman for him. You know Shelby Stewart, right? Well, she is exactly what Scott needs. She’s bubbly, fun and very different from him. Her personality would be such a complement to his. She’d bring out his sense of humor—he honestly does have one—and force him into social situations where he’d have to pull himself together. She’d put some sparkle in his life, and Scott is exactly the sort of man she needs, too. He’d help her organize her life—she’s been something of a wild child, you know—and provide her with some stability. He’d be good for her. She’d be good for him. They’d be good together. I just knew in my heart they’d be a perfect match.”
Ilsa’s expression remained interested, but neutral, so Ainsley stopped trying to justify her reasoning and rushed on with her confession. “To make a long story short, I set up a ‘chance’ encounter a couple of months ago. On Valentine’s Day. Except somehow, Scott wound up at the wrong table and met Molly by mistake. It was a fluke. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong table, wrong match…and it’s all my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, Scott would never have gone anywhere near The Torrid Tomato—it’s not his kind of place, at all. Too trendy and fun, if you know what I mean.”
An arching of eyebrows indicated Ilsa did know the place and what Ainsley meant.
“The truth is, Scott would never have been there if I hadn’t set up that introduction of possibilities with Shelby. He’d certainly never have noticed Molly if I hadn’t told him to keep an eye out for opportunity as he walked in. I wanted him to be thinking about something other than how uncomfortable he felt, you see, but I guess he took that to mean he was supposed to come in and start looking for Ms. Right. I don’t know what he was thinking. He was supposed to see me and come straight over to where I was sitting with Shelby. Then I was going to make an excuse to slip away for a couple of minutes and let them get acquainted. But he walked through the door and zeroed in on Molly, who was sitting all alone at a table for two back in the far corner. I still don’t know how he happened to see her, much less why he decided to walk over and introduce himself. I mean, he’s not normally brave. And I don’t know how she happened to catch his eye. She’s so shy and quiet, so timid and reserved…so much like Scott. Who would have imagined she’d invite him to join her for dinner? Or that he’d propose to her only a couple of days later?” Ainsley paused, knowing even as the words left her mouth that she should have imagined at least the possibility of something going awry. A good matchmaker would have thought out more than one scenario before she ever set up the initial encounter.
But she hadn’t.
The silence stretched and Ainsley finally forced her eyes up to meet Ilsa’s, made herself look for the censure she was sure she’d find.
Ilsa’s expression reflected only a thoughtful curiosity.
“You warned me to be cautious,” Ainsley said. “You told me to learn the basics, to be patient. But I completely ignored your advice because I was so certain Scott and Shelby would hit it off…and now it’s all a big mess. Scott is devastated. The whole Danville family is in an uproar. Uncle Edward has declared Molly will never be welcome in his home, so even when—if—she comes back, Scott won’t be able to forgive her without upsetting everyone all over again. It’s an awful situation and it’s all my fault.”
Ilsa, a master at interpreting even the slightest slip of the tongue, sat quietly for a moment. “Do you know why Molly ran away from her wedding, Ainsley?”
Time to face the consequences and divulge the worst truth of all. “She ran away because I said she was the wrong match for Scott.”
Ilsa blinked. “You said that to her?”
“Not those exact words.” Ainsley felt sick with regret. “And I said it to everyone present at the time, not directly to her.”
“When did this happen?”
“At the wedding rehearsal Friday night.”
“You told a couple, in front of their family and friends, and on the day before their wedding, that you considered their match a mistake?” Now there was astonishment in her voice, a startled surprise, a hint of dismay even her refinement couldn’t disguise. “Why would you do that, Ainsley?”
“I didn’t mean to. I tried to finesse my way out of the question, but Scott wouldn’t let it go. He wanted to tell everyone I was responsible for matching him up with Molly…as if I’d want people to know I’d put together such a mismatch. I reminded him that he’d promised to keep my secret. That he’d sworn he’d never reveal my part in the setup, not even to the woman I’d matched him with. But at the rehearsal, he was like a little kid, so excited and emotional and wanting everyone to understand how happy he was. There was a lot of champagne flowing, which didn’t help matters, and suddenly, he stood up and told the entire gathering he and Molly owed their happiness all to me and that they were going to name their first child after me.
“Needless to say, it was an awkward moment and before I realized how it would sound, I blurted out that if I’d had anything to do with it, he’d be marrying Shelby Stewart, not Molly.” Ainsley winced at the memory. “The minute I saw the look on Molly’s face, I knew she realized I’d never intended for her to meet Scott, that I’d meant him to meet Shelby instead, no matter what he believed.”
“Scott told her you’d set up that initial meeting at the restaurant?”
“Probably the first words out of his mouth.” Ainsley shifted in the chair. “He’s even worse at discretion than I am.”
“Perhaps it would have been better if you’d kept your own counsel,” Ilsa said, her smile unexpectedly gentle. “But Ainsley, I don’t see how you can take the blame for everything that happened. Your only true mistake was in concluding the outcome of your introduction of possibilities was the wrong one.”
“Please don’t try to make me feel better, Ilsa. Scott and Molly aren’t simply a bad match. They’re totally wrong for each other.”
“You seem so certain about that.”
“If you spent five minutes with my cousin, you’d be certain, too.”
Ilsa