The Matchmaker's Plan

Home without Ainsley.

Miranda would marry Nate Shepard and leave, too. She was newly engaged and no wedding date had been set as yet—at least as far as Matt knew—but he didn’t think it would be long. Probably by spring, Danfair would be home only to him and Andrew, Ainsley’s twin, born an hour before her. A place where two brothers, both bachelors, slept and ate and kept their clothes. They’d manage just fine, of course. There would always be other people around; a rotating staff of immigrants and foreign students sponsored by the Danville Foundation was a fixture at Danfair. A fairly constant stream of gardeners, landscapers and maintenance crews were on the estate at any given moment, as well. And guests. Miranda and Ainsley would no doubt visit frequently, if for no better reason than to make sure he and Andrew adequately missed them.

But it wouldn’t be the same. The magnificent mansion that had been both refuge and playground, shelter and security for the four of them growing up would become strangely quiet and empty.

With the girls married and all of them well into adulthood, Matt suspected his parents might curtail their occasional visits home to Danfair to once or twice a year. Over the course of his life, he’d seen them spend less and less time in the States and more and more in other countries, fulfilling their mission of philanthropy. They carried out the work of the Foundation, whatever the personal cost, offering help and hope to children of other cultures while leaving their own children to grow up—for the most part—on their own. Charles and Linney’s extended absences had turned their offspring into virtual orphans, supervised but not parented, protected but not policed. It had made for a strange sort of freedom, a childhood Matt had always considered a rather extraordinary gift. The four of them had formed an odd little family of children and had turned their home into a playhouse where they’d lived, quite happily, without much adult interference.

Matt was proud to take his share of credit for the fact that they’d all turned out to be good, upstanding citizens. It had been his responsibility, after all, to set the example. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been conscious of being the oldest, the pathfinder, the first in a new generation of Danvilles. He was the firstborn son of the firstborn son and he’d been given the name Jonathan, as had all firstborn sons before him. The middle name varied from one generation to the next. His happened to be Matthew, his father’s was Charles. But it was the inherited “Jonathan” that designated him as the one who would continue the work of the family foundation. He’d been born to responsibility, to be the role model not only for his younger brother and sisters, but for his cousins and for the next generation, too. It wasn’t a job he’d applied for or particularly wanted, but it was his job, nonetheless.

“I’m thinking of sending you a memo,” the pretty woman in his arms said with a laugh. “If only to get your attention.”

And Matt returned to the pleasure at hand—dancing with Jessica Martin-Kingsley. “You already have my attention, Jessica.” Which was true enough. She was a woman accustomed to getting whatever she wanted—the only child of wealthy parents who doted on her and made generous donations to the Danville Foundation at her request, Jessica was both a tremendous asset to the work of the Foundation and an attractive nuisance—and it was becoming transparently apparent that she wanted Matt, even though she was not only not what he wanted, but married besides. “There probably isn’t a man in the room who wouldn’t love to be in my place at this very moment. Including your husband.”

Her smile was one of pretty calculation. “You’re a gentleman, Matthew.” She always called him Matthew, never Matt. “A liar, but a gentleman. Your attention has wandered ever since this evening began—I’ve been watching you—and if I can’t distract you, then there must be something momentous on your mind. Please tell me you’re not still worrying about the Black-and-White Ball. I feel just awful about that entire situation.”

So did he, but he wasn’t about to soothe her conscience over it. “Why would I be worried?” He turned her expertly, smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Especially tonight when my thoughts are a very long way from anything having to do with the Foundation.”

Her laughter was softly acerbic. “Your thoughts are never far from the Foundation, Matthew. Whatever you may pretend.”

He caught a shimmer of white in his peripheral vision a second before his elbow was bumped once and then—lest he think it an accident—again. Baby to his rescue.

“Oops!” Ainsley said brightly. “Guess I wasn’t looking where we were going.” Her smile encompassed Jessica, Matt and her own current dance partner, their cousin, Scott. “Matt! What a happy coincidence. You’re just the brother I wanted to dance with next.” And as smooth as cream, she negotiated a change of partners. Scott swept Jessica away before she quite realized the old switcheroo, and Matt was left holding the bride.

“Nicely done, Baby,” he said, using her nickname and knowing how very much he would miss his little sister. “Were you worried that I couldn’t stave off Ms. Martin-Kingsley’s advances all by myself?”

Ainsley, gorgeous in her splashy beaded silk wedding gown, radiant in her happiness, gave him an arch look. “I knew you could. I was worried you wouldn’t. Big difference. But mainly I wanted to dance with my big brother.”

Matt took that at face value, although she had already danced with him twice. Knowing Ainsley, he suspected there was another explanation, a hidden agenda which would be revealed in a minute or two if he simply waited her out. Or if he asked pertinent questions. It didn’t really matter which course he chose, because Ainsley was never especially good at keeping her own counsel. “Are you having a good time?” he asked, knowing the answer, wanting only to see her face light up with it again.

“Best time ever,” she replied, dimples framing her smile. “But ask me tomorrow. The wedding night might turn out to be the best time I’ve ever had. Then again, the honeymoon is going to last two whole weeks and that could be the best. And after that, I get to live with Ivan and sleep with him every night and that could be the absolute best time ever. You never know.”

“More information than a brother needs…except for the fact that you’re happy. Ivan had better make sure you stay that way.”

“He makes me happy just by breathing,” she said, and the conviction in her voice made Matt almost envious.

He gave her a hug and began moving toward the edge of the dance floor as the song neared its conclusion, but Ainsley, in a clever countermove, managed to alter their direction and bumped him, a little forcefully, into another tuxedoed back. Her devious plan, Matt thought, was revealed. He’d suspected for some time that Ainsley, a matchmaker’s apprentice with two successful matches under her belt, had a specific someone in mind for him and had been trying to find a good opportunity to set him up with what she referred to as an introduction of possibilities. And here was the proof, standing right in front of him when he turned around. Peyton O’Reilly, possibly the most impossible woman of his acquaintance.

“Oops!” Ainsley said brightly, but this time her smile encircled only one. “Ivan! What a happy coincidence! You’re exactly the husband I wanted to dance with next.”

Somehow, in the lull between the end of one song and the start of another, Ainsley pulled another switcheroo and danced off with her new husband, giving Matt a little wave of encouragement and leaving him with two unappealing options. Walk away from Peyton or stay and dance with her. He didn’t want to do the latter but, as Jessica had accused, he was a gentleman. A liar, perhaps, on occasion. But still a gentleman. “Peyton,” he said with a polished warmth, “you look lovely tonight. Thank you for coming.”

Her smile was equally noncommittal. “Thank you for the invitation.”

An invitation, she knew, of course, hadn’t come from him. She and Ainsley were friends, worked together as volunteers at the new pediatric center. She knew, too—or believed she knew, at any rate—that if the decision had been left to him, she wouldn’t have received an invitation to the wedding at all. From the moment they’d met, Matt had somehow managed to rub Ms. O’Reilly the wrong way. And vice versa. But Ainsley refused to believe the two of them couldn’t be friends, that the sparks between them weren’t indicative of romantic possibilities, and Matt felt certain that was why she’d arranged this devious and awkward introduction of possibilities moment on the dance floor. Consequently, here he stood, face-to-face with Peyton, friction already established in the course of two overly polite sentences and not a possibility of rescue in sight. But this was Ainsley’s wedding reception. A happy occasion. He could spend ten minutes being nice to Peyton O’Reilly.

“Dance with me?” he asked, because it seemed the obvious thing to say. “This is my favorite song.”

Her eyebrows went up. The corners of her mouth lifted. And his lips moved upward in unbidden response. Which seemed the effect she consistently had on him. One minute she was the most exasperating, irritating woman he knew, and the next minute he got all tangled up in her smile. Peyton wasn’t a particularly beautiful woman, but there was something about her long, dusky hair, not quite black, not entirely brown, that made a man think it would feel thick and luxurious tangled in his hands. There was a trusting innocence in her hazel eyes that had a man standing taller before he even knew why. And her smile, as wide and warm and winsome as an early spring, got under a man’s skin before he could recall exactly why he was upset with her.

“Well, then,” she said in that soft Louisiana drawl that played so charmingly against the clipped New England accents all around them. “If it’s your favorite song, I don’t see how I can refuse.”

She moved into his arms easily and fit there as if she belonged. Which surprised him. He’d thought—if he’d thought about it at all—that the two of them, in close quarters, would be all odd angles and awkward adjustments, their bodies at the same cross-purpose as their personalities. Instead, it felt effortless to hold her, and more pleasurable than he would ever have imagined. She smelled fresh, clean, as if she’d been dipped in dew and dried in the morning sun. Her body swayed against his—not too close, but close enough—and he was aware—very aware—of her curvy, womanly physique. This was no pencil-thin, reed-slim female he held. Peyton was full breasted and nicely filled out, and if not exactly voluptuous, she was certainly well proportioned. A subtle and seductive response welled inside him and Matt reluctantly recognized it for what it was—sexual attraction. A sizzle beneath the surface. A spark waiting to be struck.

Okay, so he would give Ainsley credit for having picked up on something he’d missed. But this spark of attraction was going nowhere. He didn’t especially want to set himself ablaze, for one thing, and even if he did, he felt certain Peyton would stomp the spark out before it ever had a chance to catch fire.

“I’m really going to miss working with Ainsley at the pediatric center,” she said, destroying his moment of fantasy with her stilted, studied remark.

“She’s only going to Italy for two weeks, you know. She will be back.”

“Well, yes, but it won’t be the same, will it?”

He drew back slightly, kept dancing as he frowned down at her. “Because she’s married?”

Peyton blinked, then she laughed. Just a little gurgle of amusement in her throat, but still a laugh that wrapped its warmth around him like the hug of an old friend. “No,” she replied, drawing the syllable out long and low. “Because she won’t be volunteering at the center anymore.”

This was news to him. “Why not?”

“What she told me is that she’s getting so many clients, she has to curtail some of her volunteer hours.”

“Clients?” He repeated before he thought. “She has too many clients?”

Peyton drew back, returned his frown. “What? You didn’t think she was good at her job?”

“Ainsley is a match…” He bit back the rest of the word with a snap. He didn’t go around telling people his sister was a matchmaker’s apprentice, that she actually believed she could kindle romance simply by putting two people in proximity and waiting for the possibilities to erupt. Luckily, Ainsley didn’t go around telling people, either. Ilsa Fairchild Braddock, the founder of IF Enterprises, an elite matchmaking service, was wise enough—thank goodness—to insist upon discretion. Except, of course, that discretion had never been Ainsley’s strong suit and there seemed to be quite a number of people who knew that IF Enterprises had more to do with personal relationships than public relations. Still, he found himself hoping, rather fervently, that Peyton wasn’t privy to that particular information, that she didn’t suspect Ainsley wanted to set up a match between the two of them. “Ainsley is a match for whatever she sets her mind to,” he said, correcting his slip of the tongue. “I’m just a little surprised she told you she would be doing less volunteering before she told me.”

He saw the warmth recede in her eyes, knew he’d offended her in some inexplicable and mysterious way.

“Ainsley’s been a good friend to me ever since I moved to Rhode Island earlier this year,” Peyton explained in a stiffly neutral tone. “We talk about a lot of things and I’m absolutely certain she didn’t intend for you to feel slighted because she told me before she told you.”

“I don’t feel slighted. Only a little surprised, that’s all.”

“Oh, perhaps I misunderstood.”

It was clear from her tone she didn’t think so, and Matt had to wonder how his conversations with Peyton turned into these ridiculous and exaggerated attempts not to offend each other. Resulting in greater offense than if they’d either one meant to offend in the first place. “I’m sure she will tell me,” he said. “When she thinks of it.”

“Knowing Ainsley, I imagine she thinks she already told you.”

Which was almost certainly true—Ainsley went through life like a sunbeam, making the world a brighter place wherever she happened to alight, blissfully unaware of practical matters—but somehow it annoyed him that Peyton knew his sister so well. “Perhaps she does,” he answered, his voice sounding as stilted as hers.

For a moment—the space of five, maybe six heartbeats—Peyton drifted in his arms like a summer cloud, her steps perfectly matched to his, her body effortlessly responding to the slightest nuance of his lead. Matt marveled again at the graceful ease with which they danced together, wondered how the action could be so uncomplicated and their conversation so problematic.

“I met your mother and father.” The sentence came out sounding a little desperate, as if she’d searched long and hard to think of something unexceptionable to say. “They’re remarkable people.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “They are.”

“You must be so proud to be their son.”

“Yes, I am.” And that was about as far as that conversational line could go. He couldn’t very well return the compliment, as he’d met her parents and found them unremarkable except for their great fascination with their new money and status. Peyton didn’t seem to share their attitude, but then that was just an impression. Based on little more than observation and, of course, on frequent and somewhat heated exchanges of opinion about allowing her creative ideas—and she had many of them—to run full steam ahead, regardless of who or what got bulldozed along the way. Peyton demonstrated little patience for protocol and procedure, and a decided disdain for tradition. She believed fiercely—he knew this from painful experience—that raising the funding for a project was more important than coddling personalities, and she’d proved willing to butt heads with anyone who tried to derail her parade. That anyone being, lately and most often, him.