Countdown to the Perfect Wedding

“Don’t worry.” Gladdy patted her hand reassuringly. “We do.”

Eleanor tried to be good. Truly, she did. She stayed out of Tate’s supposed love life, although honestly, she doubted there was any kind of love involved, emotional or physical. Poor thing.

And what did her noninterference get her?

Six months after first mentioning her, Tate announced he was engaged and finally admitted the woman he’d been seeing all that time was none other than Victoria Ryan! A girl he’d known for years. They’d practically grown up together, acting more like brother and sister than anything else. And Victoria, unfortunately, had the most disagreeable mother. Eleanor shuddered at the thought of ever having to face that woman over a holiday dinner table or, even worse, at a wedding.

Still, Eleanor thought it wouldn’t last. No woman ever really had with Tate. She wasn’t worried, wasn’t sorry she’d stuck with her plan of not butting in.

Six months after that, the wedding—a huge extravaganza in that mausoleum of a place Eleanor once called home—a mere two weeks away, she was hungrily searching for any signs that the nuptials would somehow fail to take place.

Two days before the first of the family guests were scheduled to arrive for the five-day event, she was desperate and went to Kathleen and Gladdy.

“Well, the simplest thing, of course, is another woman,” Kathleen said quite calmly in the face of Eleanor’s outright panic.

“But, he’s not seeing anyone else,” she explained. “Not that I know of.”

“No, I mean, we have to find him another woman—a real one, not an ice sculpture,” Gladdy told her.

“Where are we going to find him a real woman in two days? He’s been dating for fifteen years and hasn’t found one yet,” Eleanor said. “And even if we did find one, what then? It’s not like we can guarantee he’s going to fall for her. I mean, he’s a man, and we all know what most of them are like. But he’s not a rat. I just don’t think he’s going to be looking for another woman on the weekend of his wedding.”

“We put them together and see what happens. That’s all it should take,” Kathleen said, sounding remarkably confident.

“Yes, and we all know just the woman!” Gladdy announced, glancing into the kitchen, where Amy, their sweet, most favorite former employee, newly graduated from cooking school, had arrived with a special birthday cake for one of the ladies in their cottage who’d always been a favorite of hers. “Eleanor, didn’t you say you were going to hire a chef for the weekend? To feed all those guests staying at your house?”

“Yes, I did. A lovely man named Adolfo.”

“He’s going to come down with something at the last minute,” Gladdy said, pointing to the woman in the kitchen. “And you’re going to replace him with her.”

Chapter One

Tate Darnley was later than he’d planned getting to the house Wednesday night and a little bit tipsy. Victoria’s father and some of Tate’s colleagues had thrown a little cocktail party in honor of their upcoming wedding, and the champagne had flowed freely.

He came in through the side door leading past the servants’ quarters and the kitchen, as he always did, hoping to avoid any friends and family members who might have already arrived for the long weekend, looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet before things got too crazy for the wedding.

What he’d hoped would be a small, family-only affair had turned into an extravaganza, and Victoria, normally the epitome of calm and grace under pressure, now seemed like a woman trying to steer the Titanic through a vast, bottomless ocean, fraught with all sorts of confusion and peril.

It was a little disconcerting, but not overly so. Tate had always heard weddings made just about everyone crazy. It would all be over soon, and he and Victoria could get on with having a life together, which he expected to be nothing but smooth sailing—two intelligent, hardworking people with the same goals, same values, who’d known and respected each other for years. How could they go wrong?

Tate checked himself for any twinge of impending nerves, happy to find none. He was even whistling a bit, striding down the back hall when the most amazing smell hit him.

Tangy, citrusy…lemons, he decided.

Something sweet, too.

Lemons, sugar no doubt and…some kind of berries? He groaned, it smelled so good.

Someone preparing food for the wedding, he supposed, and yet, he didn’t remember anything that smelled that good at the various tasting menus they’d sampled, at Victoria’s insistence.

He lingered in the hallway, thinking if he couldn’t get a bit of that sweet lemony thing right now, who could? After all, he was the groom. So he turned around and headed into the big, open gourmet kitchen, finding a slender young woman clad in a starched white apron, her copper-colored hair tied back in a braid, testing the firmness of a plate of lemon bars she’d just pulled from the oven. That luscious smell was even more irresistible here in the kitchen.

A boy of maybe seven sat on a high stool beside her, pouting for all he was worth. “One?” he asked. “Come on, Mom. Just one?”

“Max, you already had two from the earlier batch. Any more and you’ll be sick, and I can’t have you sick this weekend, because I can’t take care of you and cook for all these people.”

“But—”

“No.” She didn’t let him get out another word, as she slid her lemon bars one by one onto a waiting cooling rack. “Now stay here, and guard these for me. I just used the last of the powdered sugar, and I have to search the pantry for more.”

The boy pouted mightily but held his tongue.

Tate waited until the cook disappeared into the butler’s pantry and the even bigger pantry closet in back of that and then strolled into the kitchen, saying, “Wow, that smells amazing.”

The kid looked up and frowned. “Yeah.”

Just then, from deep inside the pantry, Tate heard a woman’s voice call out, “Tell me you’re not eating those, Max? Because I counted them already. I’ll know if you do.”

The boy sighed and looked resigned to following that order. “I’m not.”

“Just not fair, is it?” Tate said quietly to the boy.

The kid shook his head. Judging by his expression, he was trying to convince Tate he was a poor, abused child, left to starve among all this bounty.

Tate finally got a good look at the things. Lemon, indeed, and something pinkish mixed in. “Lemon and strawberry?” he guessed.

“I dunno. They just taste really good.”

“I’m sure,” Tate agreed, sniffing again. “Raspberry. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Do you remember?”

“I think so,” Max said, looking none too sure of himself. “Mom calls ’em sugar daddies.”

“Oh.” Tate nodded. Interesting name. “Because she’s going to sprinkle powdered sugar on top of them?”

“’Cause of Leo,” Max said.

Leo?

Sugar daddies?

Surely the kid didn’t mean what Tate was thinking? “So, Leo is…your dad?”

“No.” Max shook his head. “A friend of mine and my mom’s. She cooked for him and stuff, and he liked her a lot.”

“Oh.” Tate didn’t dare ask another thing.

“She got to go to cooking school ’cause of it,” Max said, obviously a talker. “She always wanted to go to cooking school. And I get to go to school, too, someday. I mean, I didn’t really want to, but Leo left me some money for that, too. Not cooking school, but…the big place? You know?”

“College?” Tate tried.