Buch lesen: «The Matchmaker's Apprentice»

Chapter One

Discretion was not Ainsley Danville’s strong suit.

Which was why she was standing at the back of the Newport Presbyterian Church—the second of three bridesmaids who were all wearing silky poufs of lavender organza—and waiting for the wedding coordinator to cue her entrance. Ahead of her, a bower of roses lined the doorway like a dowager’s perfume, thick and thorny with fragrance. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” gushed from the pipe organ in a waterfall of chords, beckoning the bridesmaids forward and down the aisle. The flames of a hundred candles lent an eerie glow to the dark interior of the old church, lighting a sure path to disaster.

Ainsley clenched the nosegay of pink rosebuds in her hands and watched as her elder sister, Miranda, the first bridesmaid, started down the aisle. Ainsley craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the groom. If he had any sense, he’d be halfway to Canada by now. But no. There he was, her cousin Scott, looking slightly less geeky than usual, so hopeful and eager to see Molly, his bride, it was heartrending. He was about to make a terrible mistake. Ainsley knew it in the depths of her matchmaker’s soul. And it was her fault.

She had wanted to be a matchmaker for as long as she could remember. Well, actually, she’d started out wanting to be everyone’s fairy godmother. While other little girls dreamed of being Cinderella, Ainsley had practiced waving her sparkly plastic wand and sending the transformed Ella off to the ball, where she would meet the man of her dreams…a prince who would fall madly, instantly in love because he’d been cunningly placed in her path by her wise fairy godmother. That was the way happily ever afters really happened.

Ainsley had suspected it for years, long before she began reading everything—nonfiction, fiction, biographies, cultural histories—anything with even a slight relevance to the art of courtship and marriages. She’d weathered her family’s teasing and a lot of snickering from friends. But a matchmaker is what she wanted to be and, as if her own fairy godmother had arranged it, she had discovered a mentor in Ilsa Fairchild of IF Enterprises, an elite, very selective matchmaking service located in Providence. Just a hop, skip and jump from Newport. Ainsley had invested her considerable energy into lobbying for a position at IF, and to everyone’s amazement—even a little to her own surprise—Ilsa had taken her on as an apprentice.

Ainsley couldn’t have been more excited. Or more enthusiastic. Finally, she was going to have a career of her own. Finally, she was going to be a bona fide matchmaker. Finally, her overprotective brothers and sister would have to stop treating her like a baby and admit she was capable of so much more than being “cute.” The position with IF Enterprises was perfect in every way and it suited her to a tee.

Except for her ongoing struggle to keep a lid on her enthusiasm.

If only she’d been discreet and told people her job was in personal relations, as Ilsa had advised her to do. If only she hadn’t informed the family, bragged, in fact, that she’d taken an apprenticeship with the most exclusive matchmaker in New England. If only she’d kept her mouth shut about IF Enterprises and her dream-come-true job, then she wouldn’t be standing at the back of a church right now watching her cousin prepare to marry the wrong woman.

“Ainsley…?” The wedding coordinator—a largish woman in a purple smock—hissed at her to get her attention. “You’re next. Remember…left foot first. Count your steps just as we practiced.”

But Ainsley had no recollection of last night’s rehearsal. She’d been too busy trying to think of some way to sabotage the wedding and stop the marriage from taking place. Obviously, no good plan had occurred to her because here she was, about to imitate the rhythmic steps that had taken Miranda three-quarters of the way to the altar already.

Miranda had paid attention last night.

Miranda always paid attention.

Miranda did everything to perfection. If she’d wanted to stop this wedding, none of them would be here now.

“Ainsley!” The coordinator hissed at her again, propelling her under the rose bower with a firm hand on the back of the organza bustle. Ainsley nearly stumbled, but caught herself and took the first fateful step—with her right foot. “Left foot!” The coordinator’s whispered reminder had her switching rhythm in midstride and coming even closer to losing her balance. If she’d thought that falling flat on her face would do anything more than merely delay the bride’s entrance, she’d go sprawling here and now. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Molly, in her bridal white, hovering in the bride’s room doorway, looking excruciatingly nervous, but committed.

So the marriage was going to take place, despite Ainsley’s misgivings. She’d done all she could, had said as much as she dared, had hinted at her doubts—as a professional and a loving cousin—to both Scott and Molly with no results. She hadn’t confessed her part in the matchmaking, but she had tried to explain her concern to her siblings. As the three of them typically did, they’d discounted her qualms and assured her there was nothing to worry about. Scott and Molly were perfect for each other. Two peas in a pod. Two nuts in a shell. Two bugs in a bottle.

Which, of course, was the problem.

There was nothing for it now, but to hope they would have a brighter future than she could imagine for them. So as the music swelled around her, Ainsley put a smile on her face and did her own version of the bridesmaid’s shuffle—step-pause, step-pause—letting her hips sway just a little under the yards of shimmering lavender organza.

Miranda, who looked stunning as always, had reached the front and was making her final turn. Eldest brother Matt was standing tall and straight next to Scott. He smiled encouragingly at Ainsley as she reached the midway point. Andrew, Ainsley’s twin, stood next to Matt, looking handsome, but uncomfortable in his tuxedo. He winked at her and her heart sank all over again. Even Andrew didn’t understand why this match was so wrong or why she was so worried about it.

But no one would listen to her and now it was too late. It had been too late from the minute she’d set up that first, disastrous introduction of possibilities for Scott. Or more probably, it had been too late from the moment she’d confided excitedly to him that she was working for IF Enterprises and he’d asked her, begged her, to set up a match for him.

And she had.

Despite Ilsa’s cautioning her from the start that she needed to learn some basic tenets of matchmaking before taking on any clients. Despite knowing on one level or another that she was acting on impulse as much as intuition. She’d been certain, though, that she knew the right woman for Scott. Bubbly, extroverted and warm, Shelby would have been the perfect foil for Scott’s shy, introverted and intellectual self. Ainsley had been positive that once the two met, the result would be an instantaneous attraction and a match truly made in heaven.

And she hadn’t necessarily been wrong. Just unfortunate in where she’d set up that initial meeting. A bit unlucky with the timing, and tardy in stepping forward to rectify the mistake. Scott wound up at the wrong table in the restaurant and, within an hour, was head over heels in love with a quiet mouse of a woman named Molly…instead of meeting Shelby as Ainsley had intended.

Two unbelievably short months later, here they were, Scott and Molly, about to be married.

Two-thirds of the way down the aisle, Ainsley realized how few guests had actually shown up to witness the ceremony. Of course, there’d never been any question of the wedding being anything other than small. Molly didn’t have family, except for her ancient Aunt Beatrice, who was too elderly to travel but who’d sent the couple an enormous soup tureen shaped like a swan. Even Miranda had wondered aloud what use Molly and Scott would have for a soup tureen, since neither of them had any friends. Well, at least, not any close friends, which was why the bridal party consisted of Scott’s four cousins and his two younger sisters.

Another reason this match was all wrong, Ainsley decided as she reached the front and made her final turn, was that the bridal party was out of balance. There was one more bridesmaid than groomsmen. Miranda had tried to fix the problem because she disliked odd numbers, but Scott’s father—who wasn’t that happy about the wedding to begin with—had declared quite firmly that he wasn’t paying for some stranger’s tuxedo just to even out the bridal party. Scott had said he didn’t care, and Molly had agreed because she and Scott agreed about everything.

Which was the main reason this marriage was a bad idea.

Two people shouldn’t expect to be everything to each other. But Molly and Scott seemed to believe it was possible…and perfect. Neither of them possessed much in the way of social graces, so there was little hope either of them would expand the social circle of the other. They were both shy. Both inhibited and unassertive. Between them, they possessed barely an ounce of backbone.

Scott and Molly had too much in common. Ainsley could see that very clearly. While she wouldn’t go so far as to predict that happiness was an impossibility for them, she could not believe it was very likely, either. They’d grow bored with each other, stifled in the narrowness of their lives.

Ainsley was only an apprentice matchmaker, but she knew there was a reason opposites attract. She understood that familiarity could, and often did, breed contempt. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this marriage wouldn’t set the world on fire…or, more important, either one of its counterparts. But no one other than Ainsley seemed concerned.

Then again, she was the only one who knew what a mismatch she’d inadvertently put together. She was the only one who felt guilty for bringing about this ill-fated romance.

Emily, the older of Scott’s two sisters and still young enough to consider her curly red hair a curse, looked worried as she reached the end of the aisle. “Molly tore her dress,” she said to Ainsley in a whispered aside as she stepped into the maid of honor’s place. “She stepped on her train.”

A bad sign.

Ainsley looked toward the entrance, where Claire, Scott’s baby sister, was starting her walk down the aisle, scattering rose petals over the carpet. Claire was also a redhead and, at eleven, too old really for the role she was fulfilling with such exaggerated care…dropping two petals on this side, three petals on that side. Molly had wanted a flower girl and there was no one else. The ring bearer—Molly had wanted one of those, too—had been easier to find. They’d borrowed Calvin Braddock, the five-year-old son of Bryce and Lara Braddock, who, if not close friends of either Scott or Molly, were at least considered friends of the Danville family. Ainsley could see Cal’s white-blond cowlick darting back and forth behind the purple smock of the wedding coordinator, who seemed to be trying to keep the boy from dashing down the aisle.

The music was too loud at the front of the church to hear what was happening at the back. Ainsley was surprised to see a sudden collective stir of activity. The congregation—at least, the dozen or so Danville relatives seated in the first few rows—grew restless and began turning around in the pews to see what was going on. Even Scott, who’d spent the entire processional so far staring anxiously at his shoes, looked up.

“I got to tell the groom somethin’!” Calvin’s little-boy voice broke through the lull between the final chords of Pachelbel and the opening chimes of Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” “She told me to tell him!”

Cal pulled free of the wedding coordinator’s grasping hands and ran, tuxedo tails flying, down the aisle, dashing past Claire in a move that knocked her off her feet and scattered her rose petals in one thick, damp clump. “She ’loped!” Calvin shouted as he caught sight of Scott at the altar. “The bride ’loped!”

Scott went pale with alarm, but it was Matt who moved forward to calm the ring bearer and ask for a more coherent explanation.

“Catch your breath, Calvin,” Matt said soothingly. “And start from the beginning.”

Cal obediently sucked in a huge gasp of air, his bright gaze darting toward Scott. “Miss Molly,” he said in a rush. “She told me to tell you she’s sorry, but she ’loped.”

“Eloped?” Matt questioned, articulating the word carefully. “Are you saying that Molly eloped?”

Confirming the interpretation with a vigorous nod, Calvin repeated the message excitedly. “She ’loped with Mad Mack in the Mackmobile.”

SITTING ON A LOW RISER under the bridal bower, Ainsley plucked at the pouf of organza bunched around her like a lavender nest and felt guiltier by the second. Calvin’s startling announcement still reverberated in the church sanctuary, picked up by one person after another after another, repeated in a confusing hum of overlapping voices.

She eloped? With a cartoon character?

Mad Mack? Are you sure that’s what he said?

She must’ve had an emergency. Why else would she run off like that?

He said Mad Mack, I’m telling you.

How can the bride have eloped if the groom’s still standing up there?

Mad Mack? The bride eloped with someone called Mad Mack?

That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

The bridal party of sisters and cousins had stood restlessly for a few awkward moments, not knowing where to look or what to do. Then, one by one, they settled on the altar steps or found a seat in the front pews. And there they sat, awaiting instruction or dismissal, without a clue as to what action—if any—might be appropriate. Matt, being the oldest of the cousins and the best man, had immediately gone to the back of the church, where he could be seen firing brusque questions at Phyllis while he paced from the vestibule doorway to the empty bride’s room and then outside to the front church steps, where he stared at the street. Inside the sanctuary, the clatter of conversation rose and fell in hushed waves. Whispered questions quickly took on an indignant tone and grew louder, becoming quietly outraged that anyone—especially a woman without connections, or much in the way of beauty, brains or personality to recommend her—would offer such an insult to Scott Danville. The entire Danville family, for that matter. Every wedding guest present was, after all, either a member of the Danville clan or a close friend of the family since Molly came, basically, unencumbered with kith or kin.

The clamor stuttered suddenly into a moment’s awkward pause just in time for everyone to hear Uncle Edward’s vehement instruction to his son. “Forget it. You are not going after her, Scott. She just jilted you, for heaven’s sake. You! A Danville. Clearly, the woman is insane. You can’t possibly want her back even if you knew how to find her, which you don’t, and which I wouldn’t let you do, if you did. She’s gone,” he said angrily. “And I say, good riddance!”

Ainsley glanced down the riser to watch Scott, flushed with humiliation, hurt and anger, give up the struggle like a balloon with a slow leak. She knew the moment the reality hit him full in the heart—Molly was gone!—and he sank like a stone to sit, slumped and stunned, with his head in his hands, devastated, desolate and without a shred of hope to hold on to. In her whole life, Ainsley had never seen more eloquent body language. Even his vividly red hair seemed to have lost its light and become nothing more than a listless covering on his head.

This was her fault. Ainsley knew it all the way to the tips of her lavender-painted toenails. She didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to see herself as the spoiler, but there it was. Molly’s baffling departure wasn’t quite so much of a mystery to Ainsley as it was to everyone else. Unexpected and surprising? Yes. In a million years, Ainsley wouldn’t have predicted Molly’s last-minute dash from the church. But now that it had happened…?

Well, she could think of a possible explanation, a plausible, probable interpretation, one glaring moment at last night’s rehearsal dinner when the apprentice matchmaker had, once again, forgotten the importance of discretion and opened her mouth before engaging her brain.

Obviously, she was still several lessons short of being the prudent, discerning matchmaker she wanted, and was determined, to become.

“I realize this joyous occasion has taken a somber turn, Ains, but you look unaccountably gloomy. What gives?” Handsome as a god, with a smile that quite simply made the world a brighter place, Andrew dropped down to sit beside her, bustling the yards of organza out of his way and fixing her with a persistent, you-may-as-well-tell-me look.

But Ainsley couldn’t confess. Not yet. Not even to her trusted twin. “In case you haven’t noticed, our cousin is devastated.”

“Can’t argue with you there. But since you were completely convinced Scott was marrying the wrong woman anyway, I thought you might see this as some form of divine intervention. Even if it is a little difficult to envision Mad Mack in the deus ex machina role.”

“I never even heard of Mad Mack,” she said with a sigh. “Much less a Mackmobile.”

“You should spend more time watching cartoons,” Andrew suggested. “Mad Mack is a part-man, part-machine superhero and the Mackmobile is the coolest car on television. Well, at least it’s the coolest animated car on the Cartoon Stars channel.”

“You obviously have too much time on your hands.”

“Me and Calvin,” he agreed. “He’s five and I’m still five at heart.”

Ainsley offered a frown, although she adored her twin for trying to cheer her up with his silliness. “I feel awful about this, Drew. Even though I never thought Molly and Scott were a match made in heaven, I never wanted him to suffer. Especially not because of me and my big mouth.”

“You do not have a big mouth.” Andrew slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Your tongue may run like an outboard motor at times, but proportionally, your mouth is the perfect size for your face.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “This is serious, Andrew. Don’t make jokes.”

“I can’t help myself, Ainsley. The bride eloped with Mad Mack. That’s a little difficult to take seriously.”

“Try,” she urged him, although truthfully, she wished she could see the humor in the situation. Any humor at all.

“Okay,” he said, “but I can’t promise a non-serious remark won’t slip out from time to time.”

“Just so it doesn’t happen here and now or any time Scott is around.”

He nodded, rested his forearms on his knees, clasped his hands together and let the resulting loose knot of fingers rock up and down, up and down, as he contemplated the here and now. “Do you think we’ll still get to have the wedding feast?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I imagine dinner will be canceled.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “And, please, don’t ask Uncle Edward if you can make yourself a plate for later.”

“Seems a shame to waste all that food. And the wedding cake. Maybe I should take the cake to the studio, take a few pictures for the old Danville scrapbook.”