CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – SYLVIE
“Thank you,” I said to Louise, taking the glass of water she held out for me. “Sorry you’ve had to sit here wasting your time.”
“Oh, please,” the young girl said. “It wasn’t a waste of my time at all. I’m a nursing student, so that’s why His Grace asked me to stay with you.” She smiled warmly. “Besides, I’ve been getting paid to read my book for the last forty minutes, so it was hardly a terrible deal for me.”
“Wow. Your boss isn’t half bad. Is he hiring?”
She grinned as three loud knocks sounded at the door. “Ah, that’ll be the duke now.”
I touched my fingertips to my eyes. I didn’t need a mirror to know they were puffy and probably red, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the first time Thomas had seen me at my worst.
He’d really seen it an hour ago.
Louise opened the door and bobbed her head. “Your Grace.”
“Thank you,” Thomas said, touching her upper arm. “The housekeeping staff are to gather in the ballroom with Heath. Feel free to take a ten-minute break before you head over there.”
“I’m quite all right. I’ll head right there.” She ducked out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving us alone.
You could hear a pin drop in the silence that hung between us.
Thomas cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”
“Slightly confused about how I ended up here,” I admitted, looking over at him. “And pretty emotionally wrecked.”
“Well, then let me soothe your worries somewhat.” He crossed the room and sat on the bed next to me. “You got yourself so worked up that you fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. I hauled you into my car, brought you here, carried you to bed, and had Louise look after you until you woke up.”
“That makes a lot more sense than a wormhole to a parallel universe opening.”
“I’ll say.” His lips tugged to one side, and he reached over and laid his hand against my cheek. “Are you sure you’re all right? I didn’t call for a doctor or an ambulance, but I can if you want me to.”
I turned my face into his palm slightly. “No, it’s okay. I think the stress of everything hit me all at once. It’s like I was waiting for one little thing to set me off, but instead of a little thing, it was… Oh, my God.” I grabbed his shirt. “Does Hazel know? Is she okay? I need to—”
“Stay right where you are,” he demanded, blocking me from getting out of the bed.
“But I—”
“Need to stay. Right. Here.”
I stared at him. “Yes, sir.”
He shivered. “It’s a bit different when you say it.”
Oh.
I blushed. “Stop flirting with the patient.”
“Absolutely not.” He leant forwards and brushed his lips over my forehead. “Yes, Hazel knows. She’s upset, but I promise you, she’s absolutely fine.”
“How can she be both of those things? Her wedding is ruined!”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. You see, while you’ve been sleeping, my mother has been plotting.” Thomas tapped me on the nose. “Your grandparents, parents, and Julian’s parents are downstairs right now, and we’ve figured out how the wedding can go ahead.”
I was still asleep.
That was the only explanation.
Or maybe I really had gone through a wormhole to a parallel universe.
It simply had to be one of the two.
There was no way it was possible.
I had one thousand questions, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a very eloquent, “You what?”
Thomas stared at me for a second before he burst out laughing, smothering it with a hand over his mouth. “How very elegant of you.”
“I’ve given up on elegance for the day. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“This is a licensed wedding venue.”
I met his gaze. “How convenient.”
“It really is. Do you want to see the documentation? I’ll have someone bring it, if so.” He laughed again. “We were going to let the permit lapse after Dad died because we weren’t sure we wanted to continue hosting them. I had a feeling it might have been renewed, so I checked.”
“How do you forget something like that?”
“Grief.” He shrugged. “After he died, I had a ton of paperwork to go through, and I remember instructing the experienced admin staff of the estate to just handle what they could on their own. The license renewal was apparently one of those things.”
That made sense. Grief was a weird thing.
“So, it’s happening here?”
“Yep.” His face lit up like the lights on the town square. “Oh, it’s going to be a lot of work, but I think we can manage. It won’t be the wedding your sister imagined, but there wasn’t much she could say after Julian boldly announced he’d marry her in an alleyway if he had to.”
“I am continuously impressed at his ability to reign her shit in,” I mused. “What about the vendors?”
“Zara and Julian should be in my office printing off all your spreadsheets from your shared folder as we speak.”
“The guests?”
“The same. Your mum and Cassandra are going to take the lead in contacting the guests.”
“The registrar?”
“Mum’s on it.”
“What about the décor? The trees? Everything is—”
“Under control, Madam Wedding Planner.” He slid his fingers into my hair, cupping the side of my head and drawing his face close to mine. “Although I am going to need you to accompany me to the tree farm this afternoon so we can pick out some new trees for the ballroom.”
“You know how to woo a girl,” I deadpanned. “Do you even have the facilities to pull this off?”
“No, I thought I’d round up extra picnic chairs from the sheds of the residents of Castleton and hope for the best.” He dropped a kiss on my cheek, just millimetres from my lips.
“You’re getting far too comfortable with that,” I warned him, smacking his arm away. “I’m going to need a full overview of the plan of action and to see your facilities.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
Huh.
It really was different when he said it. How about that?
“Wait. How did this even happen? Do we have an explanation yet?” I grabbed his wrist, shoving the covers aside with my other hand. “The demolition.”
“Ah.” He rubbed the back of his head. “How angry are you going to be if I tell you that it’s an incompetent admin at the council?”
“I’ll be more angry than surprised. I don’t think it’s possible to be surprised at incompetence in a local council.”
“Well, that’s exactly it. The confirmation and contract you received had the date written in longhand form, but it looks like the one sent to the contractor was in numerical form and a typo turned the month from one into twelve and nobody noticed that the year was different.”
I wished I could say I couldn’t believe it, but I could.
“Haaa,” I said on an exhale, burying my face in my hands. “This is why I said this was a bad idea. I knew something like this would happen when everything started going wrong, and I had the worst feeling this morning when I woke up.”
“Hey.” Thomas leant forwards and gently peeled my fingers from my face, slipping his much larger hands beneath mine until he was cradling my face and forcing me to meet his eyes.
“Don’t dwell on it anymore. We can’t change what’s happened, and Steve is going to open a lawsuit as soon as he can to recover all the costs associated with the failed venue.
What we can do is work with what we’ve got, and it’s not impossible to make sure they have a fantastic wedding. ”
“I just feel like… I don’t know.” I laid a hand over one of his. “Like everything I’ve done so far is for nothing.”
“Don’t be so stupid.” He lowered his face to mine once again. “Without your meticulous planning and recording of everything, we wouldn’t be able to save the wedding the way we are. It’s not nothing, okay?”
Tears spilled from my eyes before I could stop them, but they were unlike the loud, painful ones I’d cried earlier. These were quiet, gentle tears—of relief, of gratitude, and of comfort.
For the first time in life, I wasn’t alone to deal with such a disaster.
“Why is it always you?” I whispered, closing my eyes as I leant into his touch. “Why are you always here when I’m at my worst?”
A quiet chuckle escaped him, and he lightly touched his lips to mine. “Well, you see, Miss Harding,” he murmured without pulling away. “It’s all a part of my grand scheme to make you fall wildly in love with me.”
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
Mission accomplished, Your Grace.