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  “Marvelous,” Victoria said, squeezing Toby’s arm. “You did a truly wonderful job and no one can thank you enough. In fact, I want you to plan my wedding.”

  Toby looked at Victoria with wide eyes. Victoria was a very famous person, with a great many equally famous friends. She wouldn’t want a wedding with bouquets of what looked to be wildflowers hanging from the top of tent walls. Victoria would want crystal chandeliers and orchids flown in from Hawaii, Kobe beef from Japan, and—

  “Toby!” Victoria said. “Come back to earth!”

  Toby tried to refocus, but she still couldn’t speak properly. “I … I can’t …”

  “Of course you can, dear,” Victoria said. “I must be married in my daughter’s chapel, and since it’s here on Nantucket, that’s where I’ll be married.” Her daughter, Alix, was an architect, and fresh out of school, she had designed the perfect little chapel. Her father, Ken, and Jared, both builders as well as architects, had finished it in time for the wedding.

  Toby was beginning to recover herself. “You’ll want more than I know how to do.”

  “Nonsense!” Victoria said. “Toby, dearest, you just need to dream big, that’s all. And believe in yourself.”

  “What kind of wedding do you want?” Toby asked softly, even as she told herself that she should firmly and irrevocably say no to this.

  “I’ll leave that to you. You’re clever, so come up with a theme. I’d help you, but I’m months late on my next book, so think of something and I’m sure I’ll love it.”

  Toby had a vision of presenting thirty-one possible wedding themes to Victoria and her turning them all down. “I think you need a professional at this. I’ve done just this wedding, so I’m not—”

  “Did you know that your prince is spending the night at Wes Drayton’s house?” Victoria nodded toward the far end of the tent to the two people who were kissing with so much enthusiasm that they were sliding out of their chairs. “Oh, good! Jared is going over there to break them up. Have you ever seen the tiny two-bedroom bungalow Wes lives in? I do hope your prince can sleep tonight. I wouldn’t want him to go back to his own kingdom—Where is it?”

  “Lanconia.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve been there. Lovely place. They mine some metal the U.S. needs to keep the country running. But I’m sure diplomatic relations won’t be hurt because the future king spent a night listening to … well, to fornication. The prince has probably heard it before. Well, dear, I have to go.” Victoria released Toby’s arm and turned away. “Oh, and Toby, dearest child, the wedding has to be by the last day of August. My Nantucket friends leave the island at the start of September and I want them all to come. That’s just over two months away, so let me see your plans as soon as possible. Oh!” Her fiancé had taken her hand and was pulling her toward the dance floor. “Eager, isn’t he?” Victoria said to Toby, who was still unable to speak.

  “What are you up to?” Dr. F. Caleb Huntley said as soon as he had Victoria in his arms.

  “Why, nothing at all.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Caleb said. “Toby is as white as a new sail. You knocked the wind out of her.”

  “I just gave her a little project, that’s all. Lexie is going to be away and Toby’s going to need help, so …” Victoria smiled as Caleb waltzed her across the floor.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going to see if I can get her some help,” Victoria said. “It may not be exactly what she thinks she needs but it will be there.”

  Caleb was looking at her hard. He knew the woman he loved very well. While her schemes always had good intentions, sometimes they backfired. “What did you ask Toby to do?”

  Victoria was looking over his shoulder at the two princes, who were by the doorway. They seemed to have finished their discussion, as one was leaving and the other one was heading toward Toby, who still hadn’t moved.

  “What did you say?” Victoria asked.

  “Your project,” Caleb said. “What have you asked Toby to do?”

  “Oh, that. I want her to plan our wedding. I do hope you don’t mind, but I told her that we had to be married by the end of August.” She looked at him in question. Since the two of them hadn’t so much as mentioned marriage, maybe she should have consulted him first.

  “The end of August?” Caleb asked, frowning.

  Victoria stopped dancing and looked at him in silence.

  “Why so far away? Why not tomorrow?” he said, and Victoria’s laugh echoed around the room as he whirled her in his arms.

  “Miss Wyndam,” Graydon said when he reached Toby, “I fear that I owe you yet another apology. My excuse for not intercepting my brother is that he said he would meet me at Kingsley House. I was halfway there before I realized what he was planning to do.” He was looking at her, but Toby was staring straight ahead at the people on the dance floor. “Has something happened?” he asked.

  Toby tried to bring her mind back to the present. “I need to learn to say no.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t referring to my brother.”

  What Victoria said had shocked Toby so much she had no idea what Graydon was talking about. She looked at him but didn’t see him.

  “Come with me,” he said as he took her arm and led her to the door. As they passed the buffet table, he picked up a bottle of water and an empty champagne flute.

  He led her through the people and into the cool night air, neither of them speaking. They walked far enough away that the music and noise were in the background. A fallen tree blocked their path. Graydon took off his jacket, draped it across the log, and nodded for Toby to sit down.

  “Your jacket will get dirty.”

  “That’s not important,” he said.

  Toby wanted to sit down in the cool darkness but the seat was a little high for her.

  “May I?” He was holding out his hands toward her waist.

  She nodded and he put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on his jacket. He opened the bottle, filled the glass, and handed it to her.

  Gratefully, she drank half of it and handed the glass back to him. “Would you mind?” He nodded toward the log.

  “Please do.”

  Graydon took a seat next to her. “If my brother didn’t upset you, what did?”

  “Victoria wants me to plan a wedding for her.”

  “I can understand that. You did a splendid job on this one.”

  “But Victoria is a famous author! You may not have heard of her in your country, but in America, Victoria Madsen is quite well known.”

  “Of course I’ve heard of her. My grandmother reads all her books and I think maybe my father does too. Why would planning another wedding bother you?”

  “She’ll want something grand, something beyond perfect. She told me to come up with a theme and I don’t know how to do that.”

  “A theme? You mean have everyone dress in costumes?”

  “I guess only the bridal party would, but all the decorations would follow through on it. Like having seashells running down the center of the table, except that Victoria would never want anything that mundane. She’d want … I have no idea what would please her.”

  “How about a Lanconian theme? All the men could wear bearskins and carry spears, and the women would wear short tunics with a quiver of arrows on their backs.”

  For a moment Toby looked at him like he’d lost his mind, but then she smiled. “I’m sure Victoria would love to dress like that, but can you imagine some of those men in bearskins?”

  “Big bearskins,” he said. “Maybe grizzlies.”

  “What food would we serve?”

  “Whole roasted goats.”

  Toby was starting to forget her anxiety. “Will we have a jousting match?”

  “We could have an Honorium. That’s where the women fight each other and the winner marries the king. In this case I guess it would be the groom.”

  “No one would dare go against Victoria. Was that a real event?”