One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms #2)(35)
Author: Anna DePalo

Michelene looked at her keenly. “I’m a buyer for Harvey Nichols.”

Pia was familiar with the upmarket department store. She just wished she could afford more of their goods.

“It must be so interesting to be a wedding planner,” Michelene continued, hitting the ball back into Pia’s court. “You must have some entertaining stories.”

This year more than others, Pia thought.

“I do enjoy the job very much,” she nevertheless responded honestly. “I love being part of one of the most significant days in a couple’s life.”

Pia could feel Hawk’s gaze on her, his expression thoughtful.

“Pia has been a great help,” Lucy put in with an encouraging smile.

“I see,” Michelene said. “I’ll have to get your business card, Ms. Lumley—”

“It’s Pia, please.”

“—just in case anyone I know is in need of the services of a wedding coordinator.”

Pia again got the sense there was a subtext to this conversation that she wasn’t privy to.

Before she could say anything else, however, the butler appeared again to announce that Lucy’s dressmaker—the one Pia knew had been commissioned to make a suitable confection for the engagement party—had arrived.

As the dressmaker was shown in, Pia cast a speculative look at Hawk’s enigmatic expression.

She wondered if she’d be able to learn the subtext of today’s conversation sooner rather than later. Because she and Hawk would no doubt be seeing Michelene again tomorrow at Lucy’s engagement party.

Pia surveyed the glittering crowd from her position near one end of the long dining table, one of two that had been set up parallel to each other in the Great Hall.

There would be dinner and dancing for the engagement party tonight, as befitted a formal reception given by a dowager duchess, since Hawk’s mother was playing hostess. The men wore tuxes, and the women gowns.

Lucy had dismissed all of tonight’s pomp and circumstance as more of a to-do than the wedding itself would be. But she had conceded that her mother should have a free hand tonight if the dowager duchess was to have very little say over the wedding itself.

Pia had donned one of the two floor-length gowns that she owned. The nature of her line of work required her to dress very formally on occasion.

She wore a lavender, one-shoulder, Grecian-style dress whose artfully draped fabric accentuated her bust and gave her the illusion of additional height. She’d bought the designer Marchesa gown at an Upper East Side consignment shop that was a favorite with the rich and fashionable who looked to retire their clothes at the end of the season.

As she cut into her remaining filet mignon—during a momentary lull in conversation with the guests seated to her right and left—she shot a surreptitious look down the middle of the table at Hawk.

He looked handsome and debonair as he chatted with the graying man to his left—a prince of some long-defunct kingdom, if she recalled correctly, who also happened to be distantly related to Derek, Lucy’s fiancé.

She herself sat far away from Hawk, near one end of the table, as befitted her position as a less notable guest—an employee, really, and no more, in the dowager duchess’s eyes.

She couldn’t help but note that Michelene, on the other hand, had been seated diagonally across from Hawk—within speaking distance.

She wished she’d questioned Hawk about the other woman, but, truth be told, she’d been afraid of the answers. She hadn’t wanted her suspicions confirmed that Michelene and Hawk had been more than friends at one point. And Hawk hadn’t volunteered any information.

Pia patted her mouth with her napkin and took a sip of her wine.

As waiters began clearing plates from the table, Hawk rose and a hush fell over the room.

Pia kept her gaze on him, even though his own eyes traveled over the room, surveying the assembled guests.

Hawk said a few short words, thanking all the guests for joining his family in tonight’s celebration and regaling the crowd with a couple of amusing anecdotes about his sister and future brother-in-law. Then he toasted the happy couple and all the assembled guests joined in.

When he took his seat again, the dowager duchess rose from hers. She gave the engaged couple seated near her an indulgent smile. “I’m so very happy for Lucy and Derek.”

Hawk’s mother cleared her throat. “As many of you know, Lucy hasn’t always followed my advice—” there was a scattering of laughter among the guests “—but in this case she has my unqualified approval.” She raised her glass. “Well done, Lucy, and it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the family, Derek.”

“Hear, hear,” chorused some of the guests.

The duchess lifted her glass higher. “I hope I shall have the opportunity to make another toast on a similarly happy occasion in the not-too-distant future.” Her gaze shifted for a moment to Hawk before returning to her daughter and future son-in-law. “To Lucy and Derek.”

As everyone raised their glasses in toast and sipped their champagne, Pia watched as the dowager duchess’s gaze came to rest on Michelene. In turn, the younger woman glanced at Hawk, who was gazing at his mother, his expression inscrutable.

Pia felt her stomach plummet.

Sightlessly, she placed her glass back on the table without taking a sip.

Feeling suddenly ill, she experienced an overwhelming need to get away—to get some air.

Pia murmured an excuse in the general direction of her nearest dinner companions and rose from her seat.

Trying not to catch anyone’s eye, she hurried from the room as fast as decorum would allow.

In the hall, she ran up the stairs. She was roiled by emotion that threatened to spill over into tears.

She’d been so naive yesterday. It was something that she’d vowed to herself she’d never be again. And yet, she’d mistaken the situation entirely.

It wasn’t that Michelene and Hawk had a past relationship that had been broken off. It was that they had a current tie that had an expectation of marriage.

Pia had gathered as much from the interchange that had just occurred during the dowager duchess’s speech, and from the significant looks that had been exchanged.

She’d finally pieced together yesterday’s puzzle, but in the process, she’d nearly humiliated herself in front of dozens of people.

At the top of the stairs, she turned left. Her bedroom was down the hallway.

“Pia, wait.”

Hawk’s voice came from behind her, more command than plea. He sounded as if he was taking the stairs two at a time.