At the Billionaire’s Wedding (12 page)

“Thank you for the vote of approval.”

“You’re welcome.”

They walked on for a few minutes, Arwen sneaking glances at him as they went. His habitual calm was wonderfully soothing and she realized that after spending much of the last month in England, she’d come to appreciate a measured approach to life. Take last night. The Bull’s Head had been full of screaming wedding guests, so she’d taken her mother to The Pineapple of Perfection. It was a quiet night and Carol and Sheila had joined them and the four of them had a great chat over a bottle of wine.

Molly and Carol bonded over organic food while Arwen and Sheila talked movies. It was also one of the few times in her life that Arwen could remember spending time with her mom without her dad being present. Perhaps they just needed a vacation from each other.

Sheila occasionally got up to see to a straggler or two at another table and everyone was totally relaxed about it, so different from Arwen’s life in New York where everyone wanted everything yesterday and it was her job to provide it. Her life didn’t hold enough moments like this one, strolling through a gorgeous park in sunshine, with a good man at her side.

“Do you miss living in London?” she asked.

“Not at all. I had a job in a merchant bank and never knew how much I hated it until I left. Now I must try to make the hotel profitable. I could use an experienced wedding planner on the staff.” He wore that hopeful, sheepish grin she found so appealing.

On impulse she tucked her arm into his. “Whatever our relationship is or will be, and at this point I have no idea, I’d like to say I’ve enjoyed working with you. You’ve been great the last few days.” He looked a bit embarrassed, as though unaccustomed to freely expressed praise. “Are you blushing, Harry? You Englishmen are too adorable.”

He recovered quickly enough. “Thanks, darling. Same to you. Together we are a well-oiled machine. Only one more day and I don’t believe anything else can go wrong.”

“Bite your tongue.”

“Um, I think we talked about that phrase before.”

That afternoon, Arwen stood on the front steps of the mansion, making sure all was as it should be for the official group wedding pictures. A man with a very large camera sauntered around the corner, for all the world as though he had the right to be there. There was something familiar about him, although his face was concealed by the brim of a tweed cap. About to head up the drive, he turned and saw Arwen standing at the foot the front steps.

“Hello, bonnie lassie,” he said with a cheeky grin. “I was hoping I’d run into you.”

She knew him.

She’d been working on her laptop, sitting at the empty bar after lunch at the Next Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant, waiting for His Highness to come out and discuss terms. This man—his name was Angus something—had taken the next stool and struck up a conversation. Charmed by his gingery good looks and mellifluous Scottish tones, she’d chatted for five or ten minutes. Although she had told him about her job when he asked, she was one hundred percent certain she hadn’t mentioned Duke Austen or Brampton House. He must have got the truth out of the Next G.R. or his staff. She was going to kill that randy chef.

“Ms. Kilpatrick, is it not? I owe you for this gig.”

Unless.

With horror Arwen recalled getting up from her seat to ask the maître d’ how long his boss would be. Angus Whatsit could easily have taken a peek and one glance at her spreadsheet would tell him all he wanted to know.

Crap, crap, crap.
It was her fault the paparazzo was here.

“I’m sure you remember our meeting. I feel we’re friends and friends lend each other a hand. I’d be grateful if you’d give me a little insider tip about the time and location of the ceremony.” He rolled the R in the last word with horrible emphasis. “If it’s indoors I need a little time to find myself a good viewing spot when Duke and Jane tie the knot.”

“No way.” Arwen found her voice. “Since we’re friends, I would appreciate it if you took your camera away and left the couple to their privacy.”

“I’d like to oblige you, I truly would, but I have to feed my children.” He handed her a card, which she accepted as though handling a scorpion. “Here’s my number. I’m staying at The Bull’s Head if you’d like to join me for a drink later tonight.”

“Thanks, but I have too much to do.”

“As long as you’re employed as the wedding planner you do. I wonder if you’d keep your job if the happy couple knew how I found them.” He shook his head mournfully. “I hope I won’t have to tell, but the kiddies eat a lot. And then there are the school fees. I’ll be getting along now, but I expect I’ll hear from you later. I look forward to our chat.”

Her stomach churned as she scowled at his cheery parting wave. With the nondisclosure agreement, Duke would be in his rights to fire her without paying a penny, and she wasn’t sure even Jane would stick up for her this time. This was far worse than no Internet. She had screwed up. Big-time.

She jumped at the sound of the door opening behind her. “Do you know who that was?” Harry asked. He stood on the steps with his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking at the retreating figure of the Scotsman. “Snooper MacBracken, the most ruthless paparazzo in Europe. He’s the one who caught Prince Harry peeing into a flower bed at a polo match and the Duchess of Cambridge scratching her bottom. Not to mention the famous shot of Silvio Berlusconi groping Gwyneth Paltrow.”

“I had no idea you were such a tabloid fan,” Arwen said, trying to pretend, just for a minute or two, that she didn’t have a massive problem on her hands.

“They’ve given me and my parents grief on occasion. MacBracken’s like a virus. He gets everywhere and there’s no cure but to live with him. And he’s not afraid to play dirty.”

There was nothing for it but a full confession. “He’s blackmailing me.”

“Darling, what did you do? Don’t tell me you’ve been having an affair with the former Prime Minister of Italy. Not a good idea. The man’s an utter shit.”

“This isn’t funny, Harry. I have totally screwed up.”

“It can’t be that bad.” He put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Tell me all about it and we’ll work something out.”

“It’s my fault he knows about the wedding here. I met him in London and he snuck a look at my laptop. Now he’s going to tell Duke if I don’t tell him everything he wants to know.”

“Bastard. I told you he played dirty.”

The man was a saint. “How can you be so nice when I was a heinous bitch about the Internet thing? Aren’t you going to crow even a little bit?”

Pulling her into a full embrace, he rested his forehead against hers. “You didn’t mean it, darling Elf. It’s just your way to be a bit bitchy. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

She couldn’t allow herself to relax into his blissful hold when she faced the worst crisis of her career. Neither did she have time to melt at having found a man who appreciated her for her worst traits. “Obviously I can’t tell this Snooper guy what he wants to know, so I guess I’ll have to face Duke and Jane. Even if they give me the boot, it’s too late for them to move the wedding, so you and your library should be okay.” She didn’t want to have messed it up for Harry too.

“We can’t have you getting the sack. I wouldn’t know how to get through the next day or two without you. Let me think.” She tried to pull away but not very hard. Instead her tension subsided by a degree at the confidence in his voice. “We’re not going to tell the truth,” he said, “not the whole truth, anyway. I have an idea. We can present it as a way of getting rid of Snooper without letting on how he got here in the first place. Let’s find Mark. We’ll need him to set this up.”

An hour later, summoned with the brief explanation that they needed to have an urgent discussion about anti-paparazzi measures, Jane and Duke joined them in the small sitting room.

“What’s happened?” Jane said. “Surely we can get rid of one guy without too much trouble.”

Duke raised an eyebrow at Harry and raised an invisible shotgun to his shoulder. “We’d better or
People
will call off the deal and the puppies and kittens will lose out. We’re already on shaky ground with them.”

“I’ve texted Roxanna to hurry back here. She’s good at plotting.”

Arwen exchanged a quick glance with Harry. They’d discussed the maid of honor’s little feature on Jezebel and wondered if she could possibly be in cahoots with Snooper. Also, Harry had reminded her that Damien Knightly, Roxanna’s boyfriend, had something of a media empire himself. But when she asked Jane about the Jezebel pictures, the bride had told her not to worry. It was some kind of joke that Arwen didn’t have time to figure out.

“Let’s get started,” Harry said. “I can escort Snooper MacBracken off the estate a dozen times and he’ll keep coming back since I can’t actually have him put in prison. Worse comes to worst he’ll call in his charming colleagues and we’ll have a dozen of the bastards to deal with, not just one. However, old Snoops has a problem.”

Arwen took up the narrative. “He tried to make me tell him where and when the ceremony will take place. We thought the best thing is to give him the information he wants.”

“It’s all right,” Harry said quickly when Duke started swearing. “We’ll set up a decoy wedding at the gazebo. I gather Jane has two wedding dresses. Arwen will wear one and I’ll dress like Duke. With a veil and a hat respectively, we should be able to fool anyone at a distance.”

Duke looked intrigued. “I’m guessing the fake bride will be wearing that weird thing Roxanna showed in her article. I was praying you weren’t really going to be married in that.”

“No way,” Jane said. “The real one is lovely and that’s all you’ll know until I walk up the aisle.”

Consoling herself with the fact that her face would be covered when she wore the ugliest dress in creation, Arwen nodded. “We’ll have a quick fake ceremony at the top of the hill so that Snooper will get his pictures. Then he’ll be shown from the premises and hopefully be too busy selling his pictures of the false wedding to bother to come back.”

“And when do we get married?” Jane asked.

“Immediately afterward. I already had a closed passage built from the house to the big marquee. The real guests—the fake wedding will be attended by the hotel staff—will get into place without anyone outside seeing them.”

While the wedding party went off to change for the rehearsal and dinner in the State Rooms, Harry and Arwen planned setting up the gazebo—as he’d now become used to calling the Mausoleum—for the fake wedding.

Mark, predictably, was enchanted by the whole thing. “Bags I perform the ceremony for you two lovebirds. I have the very costume in mind. Now I’d better tell the staff to go home tonight and dig out their best clothes and Ascot hats. This could be the worst-dressed wedding in history, especially the bride.” He nodded at the gigantic pouf of sequins and feathers that Arwen had fetched from the bridal suite. Much to her disgust, it fit her. “Now I must be off to find enough white tulle to drape the Mausoleum. And flowers in some really ghastly clashing colors.”

Arwen sat on a sofa in the small sitting room, frowning at the endless lists on her laptop. Harry could feel her tension, yet she managed to keep going, no matter what the Fates bowled at her. When he’d accepted Duke’s offer he’d been hopelessly naive about what was involved. The billionaire’s wedding had been a baptism of fire and without the wedding planner it would have been a disaster. He hoped the bride and groom appreciated what she’d done for them.