When Honey Got Married (12 page)

Chapter Five

Three hours later Nina turned into the driveway of her family home and pulled up behind several other cars already lining it. She cut the engine and then the silence fell on them, heavy and waiting.

“Impressive,” Alex said.

“Old money.” It wasn’t a plantation house—it was too close to the center of town—but it wasn’t far from it. “The houses get shuffled around between generations every now and then, but they tend to stay in the family. This one belonged to Great-Grandmother Beth on my mother’s side. The servant’s entrance is around the side.”

“We’re not using the side entrance, Nina.”

“We’re not?”

“No.” The smile was back in Alex’s eyes. “Front door and no apologies. You’ve been invited here. You’re the maid of honor.”

“You know I’m not confident of a warm welcome from
anyone
except Honey, right?”

“So?” He was out of the car already, stretching his legs on account of the long drive. Nina, on the other hand, didn’t want to leave the security of the car at all. She wasn’t dressed for a homecoming; this morning she’d put on a plum-colored sleeveless sundress—A-line with a boatneck collar, and it made her feel good and Alex had murmured his approval, but it wasn’t what she’d have chosen for this meeting. It was too loud. It was last season. As for her hair…where was her hairbrush? She dug it out, whipped her cap off and tried to restore order to the tangles of her mid-length brown hair. A dark, lustrous brown, because a few years back a good hairdresser had introduced her to the concept of no more mousy brown.

“Tell me when it stops looking like a rat’s nest,” she said, brushing fast and furious, right up until Alex gently pried the brush from her hand and traced a finger over the curve of her brow.

“Breathe,” he said gently, and tossed the brush in the back of the car. He opened the door for her and extended his hand.

Nina took it and felt his fingers close around hers, and the simple touch settled her in a way that no words ever could.

“Ready?” he murmured.

“No.” She wasn’t ready. Not when it came to seeing her parents again. Not when it came to dealing with Honey in full pre-wedding-day panic.

But confidence was key. Same thing she told every new dancer who took to the poles and the rings, the high wire and the aerial silks.
Fear is not your friend.

She could do this.
Was
doing this.

“Don’t let my father diminish you,” she told him fiercely. “It’s something he does, it’s a test, and if I’m not there to fight for you— If I get caught up with Honey—”

“I’ll be fine.” Alex pressed a gentle finger to her lips and Nina couldn’t help but let the tip of her tongue taste the salt on his skin. Alex’s eyes darkened and his smile widened, even as he shook his head to signal no—no distraction to be had here. “Ring the doorbell, Nina. You’re stalling.”

So she dragged her reluctant self to the front door and rang the bell the way a stranger would and they waited, and the sound of hurried footsteps came swiftly to their ears. The door opened and Honey stood there smiling, and then Honey was in her arms, a mass of trembling limbs and huge, noisy tears.

Oh, boy.

Nina closed her eyes and hugged her sister back, letting love pour out because her sister deserved to be happy and to hell with big society weddings and families who didn’t get along. Who on earth had let Honey work herself into such a state?

And then Nina opened her eyes and her mother was standing nervously a few feet away, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and her father stood a little farther back, his face a stony mask.

Oh, yeah. Them.

Nina condemned them with her eyes, even as she whispered soothing nonsense in Honey’s ear. Calming her. Holding her.

Her father’s gaze had shifted to Alex.

Nina pulled back, keeping one arm firmly around Honey’s waist. “Everyone, this is Alexander Carradice. Alex, my sister, Honore, my mother, Olivia, my father, Theodore.” Nina put her hand to Alex’s forearm, wanting the reassurance of his touch and the warmth of the smile he sent her way. Wanting it known, without words, just how much she valued this man. “Alex is with me.”

The satisfaction that rolled through her at those simple words warned Nina just how much trouble she was going to have when it came to letting this man go.

Honey laughed, a hiccup through her tears, and moved tentatively forward, one hand sliding to wrap around Nina’s elbow, as if she weren’t quite game to let
Nina
go. Honey held out her other hand for Alex to shake.

Alex took it and brought her hand briefly to his lips. “A pleasure to meet you, Honore,” he offered, all easy charm, and Honey smiled and her tears started flowing again. Alex didn’t even flinch. “I believe you asked for Nina,” Alex said next, and those were smart words to be going on with and Nina was glad of them.

“Yes,” Honey said. “Yes. God, I’m a mess. Yes. I’m so sorry.”

And then her diminutive mother stepped forward and subtly took control, smiling at Alex and Nina and setting the palm of her hand to Honey’s back as if urging her to stand up straighter and be more composed. Nina tried to pretend that it didn’t matter. That her mother’s hands-off welcome didn’t hurt. And then Honey hugged her again as if to make up for it, and maybe her mother just couldn’t get to her through Alex and Honey both. Maybe that was the reason there was no touch for Nina.

A daughter could hope.

“Honey, why don’t you take Nina to your room?” her mother directed smoothly. “Nina, I’ve put you in with Honey tonight.” Her mother turned her attention to Alex. “Mr. Carradice, we’ve a full house—

“Don’t,” Nina snapped. “Don’t you dare turn him awa—

And then her mother lifted a bejeweled hand in silent warning for Nina to zip her mouth. It had worked on Nina as a child. It worked on her now.

“As I was saying,” her mother continued smoothly. “We’ve a full house on account of the wedding, so I’ve taken the liberty of putting you in Nina’s old room. It’s not one we usually offer to guests, but I’m sure you’ll find it comfortable. Nina, you have something to say?”

“I— No.” Damn. Not two minutes here and already in the wrong. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right, Nina,” Honey said. “We knew you were bringing a guest. It’s all sorted. Truly.” And then Honey was hugging her again as if she were afraid that Nina would disappear if she let go. “I would love it if you stayed with me in my room tonight. Please say you will.”

Nina looked to Alex. He’d known what he was getting himself into by coming here, hadn’t he?

“Go,” he ordered softly.

…

Alex watched as Nina’s eyes flashed with gratitude and Honey’s flashed with relief. Beautiful woman, Honore, even through her tears. Nerves shot to hell. His older sister had been much the same the night before her wedding. Not enough sleep and too much pressure to perform.

The mother of the bride looked close to being overwrought too.

“By the time my younger sister got married, my mother had a plan for the night before,” Alex offered cordially. “It involved late-night snacks, bad movies, and good wine in my sister’s room. No menfolk allowed, and no exceptions. It worked.”

“Is that so?” Olivia offered him what might have even been a genuine smile as Honey took Nina’s hand and dragged her inside, past the silent judge and on toward the stairs. “I might—” Olivia waved her elegant hand in the direction of the staircase and Alex saw longing there and a desperate need to follow. “I might go on up as well. Alexander, if you’ll please excuse me…”

Alex couldn’t see the look Olivia Moreau gave her husband as she turned and followed her daughters upstairs, but he noted the quirk of the older man’s eyebrow and the tiniest smile of encouragement the judge gave her in reply. It was a lot like the look his own father got when his wife told him in no uncertain terms to behave.

With the ladies gone, Alex waited for Theodore Moreau to invite him inside. He felt like pushing the hospitality issue and damned if the canny judge didn’t take one look at him and know it. Theodore’s sharp gaze flickered to the Corvette parked behind all the others and then back to Alex. “You’ll be wanting that under cover, I expect.”

“Only if you have cover to spare.”

“No, but Honey’s car can go out. She’s very environmentally friendly, our Honey. Drives a hybrid. Wonderful things, hybrids. Ugly as sin.”

Alex tried not to smile but his eyes gave him away. They usually did.

“You may as well bring the luggage in now,” Nina’s father continued. “You can leave it at the base of the stairs.”

“Of course.” Alex didn’t have a problem playing servant when the situation warranted it. But he didn’t have to be the only one. “You’ll be fetching Honey’s car keys, then?”

Loaded word, fetching. And Theodore Moreau knew it.

“Yes.” The older man inclined his head, no mockery there, no servitude at all, and Alex grinned, he couldn’t help it. Amusement might have passed swiftly though the older man’s eyes. Hard to know for certain. The judge was almost impossible to read. Nina favored him in that regard. Her coloring came from him too.

The luggage came in. The car got garaged with minimum fuss, and Alex found himself heading inside via a garage door and taking a quick tour of the ground floor of the house with Theodore Moreau. Kitchen, conservatory, breakfast room, office, and library.

No surprises when the older man ushered Alex into the library and offered him a drink. The library was a large room lined floor-to-ceiling with leather-bound books sitting pretty in wooden bookshelves. Theodore probably meant for the setting to intimidate people, but the fact was, Alex had vroom-vroomed toy cars all around a room very similar to this one. He’d played caves under his father’s glossy walnut desk, and he and his sister had taken the thousand-year-old tapestries off the wall once and strung them between the backs of leather armchairs to make more caves. He could still remember his mother’s loud and lengthy objection to the cave game. This library didn’t intimidate him.

And neither did Teddy Moreau.

Alex had waited almost two years for an opportunity to get Nina on her own, away from the dance and the bright lights of the circus, and it was working. Nina was finally seeing him, leaning on him, touching him…maybe even falling for him.

She
had
to know how long he’d been in love with her. Didn’t she?

Everyone else at the circus teased him about it mercilessly.

Damn right Judge Teddy Moreau didn’t intimidate him. The only Moreau with the power to crush him with a word was Nina.

The whiskey the older man poured for him ran sweeter than the whiskey at home, but it still lit a fire in his throat on the way down, and that was fine by Alex too.

Nina’s father offered him a seat by a hearth filled with flowers. Not a large man, Theodore Moreau, but whipcord lean and economical of movement, and presumably economical with words, for he’d offered very few of them to Alex. Nina had his eyes.

“The flowers aren’t usually in here,” Theodore said finally. “Weddings.”

The judge sounded heartily sick of weddings. Or maybe it was just
this
wedding. Alex wasn’t about to comment, just made himself comfortable in the low-backed leather chair. He was two days short of a shave and not exactly dressed to meet the father of the woman he had every intention of making his own. He had on his roomiest jeans, mainly because he could no longer look at Nina without getting hard. A ratty white T-shirt. The jacket Nina liked.

He had other clothes, more suitable clothes. He just didn’t have them on.

“So, Lex—

“Alex,” he interrupted smoothly. “Alexander if we’re being formal. My mother prefers it.”

“I see.” They were sparring and the canny old judge knew it. “Family name, is it?”

“Distant.” His mother had named him after a king.

“Your family is based in the UK?”

“Derbyshire.”

“And you met Nina where?”

“I run the finance and marketing side of the Night Circus corporation. Have done so, for the past two years.”

The judge didn’t sneer, just reached for his whiskey and drank deeply.

Alex lifted his glass to his lips and drank too, and then lowered his arm along the arm of the chair, dangling the finely cut crystal from careless fingers, every bone in his body insolent.

Too damn pretty for your own good
, his older sister had delighted in telling him.
People let you get away with murder.

He didn’t think the judge felt like letting him get away with anything. “Have you ever been?” Alex asked.

“To Derbyshire? Yes. I have acquaintances there.”

“To the Night Circus.”

“No,” the judge said.

“Shame. Mesmerizing, the
Washington Post
called one of your daughter’s routines. Stunning. Incandescent. She’s fearless. And gifted. A performer at the peak of her career.”

“Tell me, Alexander.” The judge smiled cordially. “Are your intentions toward my daughter in any way honorable? Or do you just like sleeping with a pole dancer?”

“Let me know when you’re next in Orlando.” Alex made sure every word dripped with disdain for this man’s willful misinterpretation of his daughter’s art. “I’ll send you some tickets to the show. And, yes, my intentions are honorable. If Nina had a father who showed the slightest interest in her welfare I’d ask his permission for her hand in marriage. Given your current relationship with your daughter, I doubt I need to afford you the courtesy. Your call.”

Teddy Moreau hated him.

For shoving his shortcomings as a father in his face. For forcing him to tolerate insolence from a jumped-up circus clown who wanted his daughter’s heart.

The same clown who was about to ask Nina to walk away from the lights and the applause just so he could have her at his side.

Alex didn’t know which of them was the bigger fool.

He
knew
what happened to loved ones who came between Nina and the dance.

He and the judge…they both knew.

Movement in his peripheral vision made Alex look past the judge to the doorway beyond. Nina stood there, her expression unreadable. How much had she heard?