Chapter 1 #3
Peaches had watched as he’d gone down on one knee.
She had no idea what he’d said, but she’d watched him pull something out of his pocket and slip it on his girlfriend’s finger.
The girl had started to cry. And then her newly minted fiancé had taken her by the hand, pulled her into his arms, and begun to dance with her.
As if by magic, a violinist had appeared on the edge of that very pedestrian quad and begun to play a waltz.
The magic in the air had been palpable. Peaches had forgotten about her notes and simply stared, openmouthed, at the most romantic thing she had ever witnessed in the entirety of her life—in and out of a book.
The girl had looked around her in wonderment, then stared up at her fiancé with the same expression. “Why?” she had asked.
He had only shrugged with a slight smile. “It’s all for you,” he had said. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
And Peaches had known then exactly what she had wanted: a man who would look at her, love her in spite of her flaws, then sink to one knee and ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.
The violin was, of course, optional.
She looked up into a rare clear winter sky and sighed. That sort of fairy tale had happened for her twin sister, who had walked away with a great guy and a castle. It had happened for her younger sister, who’d had a bit of dancing, a great guy, and a slightly older castle.
But it hadn’t happened for her.
She wanted it to. And while she was wishing for the impossible, she decided she wanted the entire fairy tale.
She wanted a guy to fall instantly in love with her, then cross through a sea of ultra-gorgeous would-be girlfriends and ask her to dance.
And then after they’d danced, she wanted a wedding with a foofy cake and lots of food that probably couldn’t be classified as healthy, an orchestra for their first dance, and then a carriage to climb into and ride off in with her prince to a fairy-tale castle that boasted running water and an Aga in the kitchen.
Peaches had to admit she wondered if she were crazy. Worse still, she didn’t dare bounce the idea off Tess on the off chance that she was really losing it and Tess felt compelled—as she apparently had with Brandalyse Stevens—to tell her so.
“Excuse me, miss—”
Peaches whirled around to find a liveried servant standing there.
She felt her mouth fall open. All right, so he was just a delivery guy. He had on a tie and a cap and looked fairly official. She put her hand on the stone of Tess’s castle wall to steady herself. It was obviously just something for Tess, but that didn’t make her knees any less weak.
“Yes?”
“A delivery for Miss Peaches Alexander, care of the Lady of Sedgwick, Sedgwick Castle.”
Peaches looked at the large white envelope he held out and felt something shudder to a halt.
It might have been her heart, but she could still hear that pounding in her ears.
It might have been a sonic boom above her head.
It might have been Fate standing behind her shoving her really hard in the small of the back to get her to step forward.
She reached out with a shaking hand and took the envelope. As an afterthought, she patted herself for something to give the messenger, but found only a pair of breath mints and her cell phone. The younger man shook his head with a smile.
“I’ve been well paid, thanks.”
She nodded and watched him walk away. She looked at the envelope, then flipped it over to look at the seal.
It was tempting to hurry inside and dig out that book on English genealogy she’d put in her suitcase on a whim and see to whom the seal belonged.
She decided that maybe the insides would reveal the same, so she very carefully lifted the wax up and opened the envelope.
She pulled out a gilt-edged invitation and read.
Miss Peaches Alexander, you are hereby invited to a ball…
Peaches read the rest, realizing with a start that it was from David, the Duke of Kenneworth.
The gorgeous, perfect, eminently available Duke of Kenneworth.
She had just begun to hyperventilate when her phone rang.
It continued to ring as she struggled to get it out of her pocket.
She dropped it twice before she managed to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Peaches, it’s Andrea.”
Peaches blinked, trying to clear the fog from her brain. “Um—”
“Andrea Preston? David’s cousin? Remember, we met at that house party at Payneswick earlier this month?”
“Oh, Andrea,” Peaches managed faintly. “Of course.”
“Did you get the invitation from David? I told you I was sure he would send it, judging by how he couldn’t keep his eyes off you.” She paused. “You remember, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Peaches managed, but at the moment she could hardly remember who Andrea was.
Actually, that wasn’t true. She remembered Andrea and she most definitely remembered her cousin David.
She might have remembered more, but she’d spent that Regency house party avoiding Stephen de Piaget and worrying that Tess was going to get herself killed before the weekend was over.
She remembered sending Tess off back to Sedgwick and going to London with a trio of interior designers who had dragged her to a week’s worth of parties with other designer types, which had convinced her that design was not her thing.
“He thought you were gorgeous, of course,” Andrea said without a hint of envy.
“That’s why he wanted your address from me, so he could invite you to the house party next weekend.
It’s a silly Cinderella sort of thing, but I’m definitely going.
The number of rich men who’ll be there is vast, of course.
Having David’s sister there is a bit pants, but what can you do? ”
Peaches agreed there was really nothing to be done about the absolute pantsitude of having David’s sister there—a woman she most definitely couldn’t remember—listened to Andrea continue to be excited for a moment or two, then managed to get off the phone with a promise to call back when the second communiqué arrived with all the details about the weekend itself.
Peaches carefully put her phone in her pocket, then looked out over the grassy courtyard and tried to identify the sensation she was experiencing.
It was a fluttering.
In the vicinity of her heart.
She was tempted to immediately list all the reasons it was ridiculous and then make another list of things she could do to bring herself back to reality, but for the first time in seven years, she took her sensible mental shoes and chucked them out the window.
She would wear dangerously high heels, blow some money on a decent dress, and indulge herself in the fairy tale. Just for the weekend.
What could it hurt?
She held out her arms and spun, just twice, in the middle of the courtyard.
She would have spun around more than that, but spinning made her dizzy so she thought it might be prudent to stop while she was still functional.
She opened her eyes in unfortunately the exact spot where that Scottish ghost was loitering, just outside the prop room door.
She quickly gathered her dignity, made him a brief wave, then turned and walked to the hall.
She knew what sort of tabard he would be shaking at her and it wouldn’t be a Kenneworth-inspired one.
At least she could reasonably expect that Stephen de Piaget wouldn’t be at her fairy-tale weekend. She didn’t know much about David Preston, but she had heard that he and Stephen weren’t exactly on friendly terms. And why, when Stephen was only interested in musty old medieval texts?
She studiously ignored the fact that her sister Tess was also interested in musty old medieval texts but managed to stay insanely gorgeous and sexy.
Stephen probably not only went to sleep soothed by Gregorian chant, he no doubt donned tweed pajamas before he did so. He was not gorgeous, not charming, and he absolutely did not pad across any floor that had to endure him like a jaguar stalking its prey.
And she was not and had never, ever been interested in having any of his attentions.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder because it was a very symbolic way of putting him and his unattractive self behind her so she could move on to greener and more handsome prince-ish sorts of pastures.
Miss Peaches Alexander has been invited to a ball…
She could hardly believe it, but maybe dreams really did come true.