Zoe And The Best Man

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“Zoe lives in Washington, then?”

“Uh-huh. She’s a really remarkable person. Her parents are internationally famous anthropologists and they raised her all over the world. She speaks something like a dozen languages, including a couple of obscure dialects I’ve never heard of. The State Department’s asked her to lecture to new foreign service officers a bunch of times.”

“She’s a diplomat?” His opinion of the striped pants brigade was decidedly mixed. He knew part of his attitude was a legacy of his years in the military. Trained as he’d been to take action, he had problems dealing with people who seemed dedicated to holding allegedly frank and constructive discussions that accomplished absolutely nothing. While his current profession had connected him with a few Foggy Bottom officials who did a hell of a lot more than jack their jaws and dispense red tape, he was inclined to classify these individuals as exceptions to the rule rather than harbingers of a new approach to the conduct of world affairs.

“She’s a social secretary.”

Flynn couldn’t disguise his disbelief. “What?”

“Her job’s a lot more than calligraphy and canapés,” Peachy advised him. “She works for a woman who’s practically a legend in her own time. Maybe you’ve heard of her. Arietta Ogden? Arietta Martel von Helsing—uh—” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! I just remembered. Luc once said something about someone he knew in the service being a relative of hers. Mrs. Ogden’s, I mean. Was that—is that you?”

“The connection was through a marriage that’s been over for a lot of years,” Flynn replied after a moment, his mind racing. “And it was a very tenuous one even when the bonds of matrimony were still holding. I doubt that Mrs. Ogden would acknowledge it today.”

“Still.” Peachy paused, seeming to marvel at the situation. “It’s a pretty amazing coincidence. Small world, hmm?”

With a flourish, the band finished the medley it had been playing.

“Small world,” Flynn echoed, speaking as much to himself as to his partner. “And shrinking all the time.”

“Attention!” Terry Bellehurst said about thirty minutes later, speaking into a microphone that had been set up in front of the band. A pink-cheeked Peachy was standing to his right, fidgeting with a beribboned bundle of white flowers. Luc was standing next to her, surveying the scene from beneath partially lowered eyelids. “Attention, please! Before our newlyweds leave, the bride has to throw her bouquet. So, if we can have all the unmarried ladies out on the floor—”

“That’s your cue, Zoe,” Annie declared.

“I think I’ll just watch the festivities, thank you,” Zoe answered. She was feeling reasonably calm again. She hadn’t seen Flynn in some time and she was beginning to think—hope— that he’d decided to slip away from the reception.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” her friend disputed with a laugh. “It’s your duty as a single female wedding guest to get up and fight for the bouquet.”

“Annie, honestly—”

“Up, up, up.” Annie underscored the instruction with a gesture. “Come on. Be a real Wedding Belle.”

“Yeah,” Matt concurred with a grin. “Do your best to dodge the bouquet the way Annie did when Eden got married.”

His wife rolled her eyes but didn’t deny the allegation.

“Ladies…” Terry intoned imperiously, placing his hands on his hips and shifting into his Terree LaBelle persona. “I don’t want to have to drag you out, but I will if you don’t cooperate.”

“I’d get moving if I were you,” Annie counseled.

Zoe rose to her feet with a sigh of resignation. After casting a darkling glance at her former college roommate, she walked out onto the dance floor and joined the small throng of women gathering there. She positioned herself near the back of the high-spirited group, noting with a hint of humor that the MayWinnies were delicately elbowing for advantage up in front.

“Wonderful,” Terry approved, then turned toward the star of the moment. “All right, sweetie. You’re on.”

The color in Peachy’s cheeks intensified. Zoe saw her dart an appealing glance at Luc. He flashed back a roguish grin, then made a gesture that clearly indicated she was on her own where this particular nuptial tradition was concerned.

Peachy took a step forward. She scanned the women gathered before her for a second or two, almost as though she were picking out a target for her toss.

“You have to turn your back, Peachy,” Terry said in a reproving tone. “No fair aiming at somebody specific.”

The bride continued her careful perusal for a moment more, then did as she’d been bidden. The cream chiffon of her vaguely flapperesque wedding gown swirled gracefully around her legs as she pivoted.

Zoe heard several of the women around her suck in their breaths expectantly and saw others shift their stances as though preparing to jump or lunge. In the midst of her amusement at this behavior, she was startled to feel an anticipatory tightening of her own muscles. She forced herself to relax, discreetly twining her fingers into the silk of her skirt.

Peachy flung her bridal flowers up…and back over her head.

The bouquet tumbled over and over, its pale satin ribbons fluttering as it flew through the air.

“I’ve got it!” one of the women in front of Zoe squealed rapturously, leaping up.

But she didn’t. She lost her balance instead, colliding heavily with Zoe. Zoe extended her arms, instinctively trying to keep herself—and the other woman—upright.

A split second later Peachy’s bouquet dropped into her hands. Zoe clutched the fragrant flowers to her breast before she fully registered what she was doing.

The next minute or so passed in a blur of teasing congratulations and nosy questions about her marital prospects. Zoe smiled at the well-wishers and deflected their inquiries as graciously as she could. She was considerably relieved when an announcement that it was time to bid adieu to Peachy and Luc shifted people’s attention away from her and back to the happy couple.

And then…

It began as an odd quiver of awareness. There was something instinctual—almost atavistic—about the sensation.

The quiver became an electric tingle. Her skin prickled with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Her pulse skipped into an unfamiliar rhythm. Her breathing became quick and shallow.

Zoe pivoted. She had no choice. She felt as though she were being willed to turn around.

She found herself staring up into hazel eyes that seemed to peer into the very marrow of her bones. She realized she was trembling.

Zoe whispered a single syllable name.

One corner of the sensual male mouth she once would have sworn was incapable of smiling kicked up. After a moment the man known by the name she’d so shakily invoked said in a husky voice, “Nice catch, Goldilocks.”

Three (#ulink_6d6c0c1e-ba1f-5a01-8700-4de6ae38d273)

Nice catch, Goldilocks.

Those three words were still reverberating in Zoe’s mind late the following Monday afternoon as she sat in the book-lined library of Arietta Martel von Helsing Flynn Ogden’s exquisitely appointed home in Georgetown. The older woman had dubbed the room her “command headquarters” because it was the setting in which she laid out her hostessing strategies. Although intended as a joke, the nickname was very apt.

Looming most imperatively on Mrs. Ogden’s social horizon: a cocktail-reception scheduled for three days hence. Zoe had spent nearly an hour detailing the arrangements for her. Having finally satisfied herself that what needed to be done had been done and done superlatively, her employer had decreed that it was time for a break.

Her long-time butler, Hugo, had materialized a minute or two later with a laden tea tray. While tucking into the delicious repast with a relish that belied her slim figure, Mrs. Ogden had asked about Zoe’s weekend in New Orleans.

Accustomed to the older woman’s inquisitive nature—and to the fact that Mrs. Ogden tended to treat her more like a favorite niece than a paid staffer—Zoe had braced herself for this eventuality. She’d promptly launched into an account of Peachy and Luc’s wedding, putting special emphasis on the role played by Terry Bellehurst. Mrs. Ogden had seemed amused. She’d also nodded knowingly at a description of the MayWinnies and their supposedly scandalous background. And she’d been visibly pleased to hear about the forthcoming marriage of her old acquaintance, Francis Smythe, to Laila Martigny.

For a variety of reasons, Zoe hadn’t intended to say anything about Flynn. His name had slipped out in response to an offhand comment from Mrs. Ogden. At least she’d thought the comment had been offhand. But as her single reference had expanded into something akin to a full-scale confession, she’d begun to wonder whether it hadn’t been as calculated as the placement of the guests at one of her employer’s famous formal dinners.

“And that’s when I realized I was wrong about his not remembering me,” she finally concluded, grimacing as she realized that she’d reduced a perfectly good scone to crumbs during the course of her verbal outpouring.

“Remarkable,” the older woman said, taking a sip of Earl Grey from a blue-and-white Wedgwood teacup. A cabochon sapphire set in platinum flashed on the ring finger of her right hand.

Zoe sighed. “I know I should have told you about me and Flynn a long time ago.”

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Ogden shook her perfectly coiffed head. Once raven-haired, she’d gone silver-gray very suddenly in her early fifties and declined to try to reclaim her “natural” color through dye. “Not at all.”

“Of course, I didn’t realize you had a connection with him when I started to work for you—”

“I’d hardly call it a connection, dear.” The older woman set her teacup down on its saucer with a genteel clink. “It was a rather distant link by marriage for what cannot, in all honesty, be considered a significant period of time. Which isn’t to say I didn’t develop a fondness for the boy. I did. And I quite sympathized with his situation. Imagine being orphaned at age ten, then packed off to live with a bunch of hidebound rela fives who make no secret of the fact that they don’t consider you worthy to bear their family name. It would be enough to drive anyone wild, much less a youngster of Gabriel’s spirit and sensitivity.”

Zoe bridled automatically at this last characterization. Then her mind replayed the truly unsettling portion of what’d she’d just heard. The part about being orphaned and unwanted at age ten. How in God’s name could people consider a young, probably grief-stricken boy unworthy of anything? she asked herself, appalled.