My Wedding Knight (A Wedding Season Series) Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Also by Alexis Adaire

  Other Wedding Season Books

  The Flirt Club

  About the Author

  Abby

  I know something’s up the moment I turn on my computer when I get to work Monday morning. I’m usually smarter than to hit that power switch before I get my tea, but this morning Abby’s brain is on autopilot.

  There’s a message waiting from Geoffrey McKibben, Cabinet Secretary of the Cabinet Office Honours and Appointments Secretariat. Mr. McKibben is also my boss and the chair of the department in which I work, the Main Honours Committee. We’re the ones responsible for determining who is deserving of British knighthood and damehood, appointments to the Order of the British Empire, and the other various gallantry awards to servicemen and women, as well as UK civilians.

  Anyway, the message from Mr. McKibben says simply:

  Abigail, please be in my office at 8:30. Urgent.

  Mr. McKibben always uses my full name.

  “Urgent”? Nothing around here is ever urgent. The Main Honours Committee offices are at 70 Whitehall, just a stone’s throw from Downing Street and about a kilometer from Buckingham Palace. Unlike those two places, my place of work is calm and serene, just how I like it.

  Except today, apparently.

  I have just enough time to set my things down and catch my breath before I head down the hallway to Mr. McKibben’s office.

  “Do come in,” he says upon my knock. “Abigail, good morning. Please, sit down.”

  Mr. McKibben is nearly always serious. It’s not easy to catch him smiling. In his sixties, he’s a fatherly figure, portly with a shock of white hair and green eyes hidden behind round wire-rim spectacles.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, taking a seat in one of the two brown leather chairs facing his desk. “I can’t recall you ever using the word urgent before.”

  “Yes, well, you’ll see when our guest arrives.”

  Right on cue, there’s another knock. When the door opens a second later, I immediately recognize Malcolm Owensby, one of the subcommittee chairs. There are nine different honours committees that judge nominations for the various types of work and achievement: Arts and Media, Economy, Education, Health, Parliamentary and Political Service, Science and Technology, State, and Community, Voluntary and Local Services. And then of course, Mr. Owensby’s committee, Sport.

  Each of those committees sorts through thousands of applications sent in by the public and by government departments to find the most deserving of recognition for exceptional achievement or service, then hand their lists to the Main Committee for review. Twice a year, we pass our recommendations directly to the Prime Minister and the Queen for consideration for the official Honours List. Of course, Her Majesty has the final say in the matter, but seeing as how she’s so busy being Queen and all, she generally approves our suggestions.

  Malcolm Owensby couldn’t be more different from Mr. McKibben. Tall, slender and broad-shouldered, with just a touch of gray in his close-cropped black hair, he looks every bit the former Olympic athlete he is. The people still talk about his decathlon victory in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

  Malcolm politely bids me a good morning before sitting in the other chair.

  “Have you told her yet, Geoffrey?”

  “Not yet, she walked in just before you did.”

  “Told me what?” I ask, now very curious. Both of these men are normally quite relaxed, but there seems to be some agitation in the air today.

  Malcom turns to me. His svelte, athletic body makes me self-conscious about my own decided nonathletic one, and whenever I see him, I can’t help but think about the twin demons who constantly bedevil me for avoiding them: diet and exercise.

  “Abby, have you ever done any babysitting?” he asks with a grin.

  I laugh. “What an utterly odd question.”

  “It won’t seem so odd when you know the whole story,” Mr. McKibben says, his brow furrowed.

  “Let me ask a different one then,” Malcolm says. “Do you know who Rory Winston is?”

  “Well, of course.” I’m surprised that he thinks anyone in this entire country might not have heard of Rory Winston. “Sure, the football guy.”

  “The football guy?” Malcolm’s arched eyebrow tells me he’s about to let me know how utterly insufficient my response was. He doesn’t disappoint. “Rory Winston is the best footballer in the world, and among the greatest sporting heroes this country has ever produced. I’m sure you know that last year he led England to its first World Cup title since 1966. Additionally, he took his Tottenham club to their first four English League championships since 1961 as well as their first three UEFA Cup championships ever. All in the space of five years, before his thirtieth birthday.”

  This guy really loves his football. And he also loves Rory Winston, apparently.

  “I must admit I’m not so football crazy,” I say apologetically. “I know him more from the red tops, I’m afraid.” Rory is a regular on the cover of trashy British tabloids and seems to be constantly in some sort of trouble or other.

  “Yes, we’ll that’s precisely the problem,” Mr. McKibben says with a frown.

  I look from one man to the other without a clue as to where they’re going with this.

  “Rory Winston,” Malcolm says, “womanizer, bad boy, tabloid sensation”—he pauses for effect—“is about to become Sir Rory Winston.”

  My mouth hangs open in an unattractive manner as I look from one man to the other.

  “The Sport Committee is recommending him? Sport gets only one recommendation and you pick Rory Winston?”

  “We’d be crucified if we didn’t,” Malcom says. “Since the World Cup win, there’s been a growing sentiment for over a year that Rory be recognized for the glory he’s brought to England with his sporting accomplishments. At this point, if we don’t follow through the public outcry would be deafening.”

  “But certainly the entire public doesn’t agree?”

  Mr. McKibben pipes up. “Polling shows that about a third are vociferously against the idea. They either think he’s a boorish lout or they don’t watch football at all. Their voices, however, are drowned out by those in favor.”

  Sir Rory Winston.

  The very sound of it seems maddeningly wrong.

  “Okay, but what does any of this have to do with me? Or with babysitting, for that matter?”

  Rory

  I’m hungry. Like, starving hungry.

  The problem is I’m pretty sure neither of the two girls who shared the bed with me last night can cook at all. Judging from their bodies, they rarely eat anything but salads anyway, and I’m not a salad guy. I think I’ll sneak into the kitchen and see what I can find in the fridge. My chef always has several days’ worth of great food ready to warm up. If I can find a steak, I know how to fry up a few eggs.

  What will the girls eat, though? I would ask them if they weren’t sound asleep.

  And if I knew their friggin’ names.

  Maybe I can find them some fruit and just call them both “love.”

  I look to my left and see the blonde with the large lovely jubblies, the sheet covering her only from the waist down. On my right is the ginger with the smaller—yet also
lovely—tits. This one was a bit too skinny for my taste. I tend to like women with a little meat on their bones. Even the blonde was too thin, but it seems like everywhere I go, it’s always the thin model types who compete for my attention.

  Most other guys would kill to switch places with me right now. And I’m not talking about the football skill or the money, I’m talking about being the meat in a lady sandwich. But this morning, I look at these two and feel the same I’ve felt for the last year or so: numb.

  Numb and bored. There has to be a better way to spend my time than having to entertain women I don’t really care much about.

  My stomach rumbles again. I don’t want to wake them up, but the only alternative would be to remain hungry. I decide to risk retracting both arms from around their necks lest my stomach begin eating itself.

  My mobile rings loudly on the nightstand and renders my decision moot. As the two of them are grumbling and opening their eyes, I free up an arm and reach over big tits for the phone.

  “It’s early, Allen,” I say. “This better be important.” My manager has instructions not to call before noon, yet here he is doing just that at 9:30 a.m.

  “What’s going on?” asks the redhead. The blonde shushes her and points to the mobile in my hand.

  “Are you sitting down?” Allen asks.

  “Actually, I’m lying down between two birds.” I fill my other hand with a breast as I say it. Emily! I’m pretty sure the owner of this tit is named Emily.

  “Of course you are. Anyway, I have some amazing news for you. Are you ready for this?”

  “Ready.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I hate it when he does this.

  “For fuck’s sake, Allen, out with it.”

  “You, my friend”—he pauses until I’m about ready to hang up—“have been chosen to become a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.”

  What the actual fuck? That can’t be right… can it?

  “Rory? You do know what that is, right?”

  “Yes, I know what a KBE is. I play football, not rugby.” Hey, they aren’t the brightest fellows. “Where did you hear that? The Sun?”

  “I just received a ‘preliminary call’ from Malcolm Owensby, who chairs the Honours Sport Subcommittee. He said to keep this a secret for now, but he needed to know if you would accept the award if offered.”

  “Accept it? Can you actually turn down a knighthood?” The very idea seems insane.

  “Of course one can turn it down. John Cleese did. W.B. Yeats, David Bowie, Aldous Huxley, Keith Richards... a smattering of people turned down the offer. You can’t, though, because I told Owensby that you’d be honoured to accept. You’ll be meeting with Owensby and the chair of the Main Honours Committee this afternoon at 4 p.m. sharp. I’ll forward the address to your mobile. Please set an alarm right now and do not be late. This is a big, big deal.”

  Stunned, I thank Allen for the call and tell him I’ll make the meeting on time.

  “Congratulations, Rory,” he says. “Or should I say Sir Rory?”

  That sounds so weird, I hang up without a response.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. Just a business matter, Emily.”

  “She’s Emily,” she says, pointing at the redhead. “I’m Sophie.”

  Emily, Sophie… it doesn’t really matter because they’re all the same. They trade their bodies for a few hours of being with a celebrity so they can tell all their friends, who won’t believe them anyway. Unfortunately, these are the women I meet in my line of work: groupies.

  I accepted it years ago. I’ll have my fun, but won’t get tricked into marriage.

  “Sorry about that, love,” I say. “It’s too early to think.”

  A KBE? A friggin’ Knight of the British Empire?

  Sir Rory Winston?

  Nah. Something must be wrong. Me? A knighthood?

  Bollocks. Something’s off about this. Allen must be taking the piss.

  Time to get some breakfast.

  Abby

  “We need you to make sure nothing happens between the announcement and the investiture ceremony.”

  Malcolm Owensby is dead serious about this. I’m to be a babysitter for an adult man.

  Well, semi-adult lout in Rory Winston’s case.

  “How long a period of time are we talking about?” I ask. I don’t recall “Taking care of rowdy man-child” being in my job description.

  “The announcement will come out tomorrow in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.” Mr. McKibben’s brow is comically furrowed. “As you know, the normal waiting period before the investiture ceremony’s actual knighting can be months. In this case, Buckingham Palace agreed that it would be best to hold the ceremony much earlier to reduce the chance of any embarrassment beforehand. It will take place next Monday, a week from today.”

  “The ceremony will be private, I take it?”

  Mr. McKibben looks at Malcolm.

  “Public,” Malcolm says. “On the balcony at Buckingham Palace.”

  Uh-oh. Something tells me this is a very bad idea. “That makes no sense at all. He’ll show up drunk with a stripper on his arm. Whose brilliant idea was that?”

  “The Prime Minister’s,” Mr. McKibben says flatly. “He’s been told the public will demand to watch the ceremony.”

  This is sounding worse and worse. “I suppose since Winston has known for a while now and not leaked it to the press, maybe he’s taking it seriously.”

  Again the two men look at each other.

  “What?” I say. “Does he not know? We always tell the honourees six weeks in advance of the announcement.”

  “I called his manager this morning,” Malcolm says. “Again, the Prime Minister asked us not to inform him in advance that he was chosen for a KBE. The manager will tell him today, and the announcement is made public tomorrow on Her Majesty’s birthday.”

  I take a moment to let it all sink in.

  “Why me?” I ask. “Surely there’s someone more qualified, or a friend or family member who can just keep him under lock and key for a week.”

  Malcolm lets Mr. McKibben field this one. “Abby, in the three years you’ve worked here in the Main Honours Committee, you’ve shown a particular aptitude for troubleshooting. You also have the kind of calm demeanor required for this particular task. You don’t suffer fools gladly, and since you’re not into football, you won’t be star-struck in Rory’s presence.”

  Then Owensby opens his mouth and instantly reminds me that he’s just another clueless jock. “And let’s not overlook that you’re not really Rory’s type of girl.”

  I glare at him. “Just what exactly are you saying, Malcolm?”

  He’s flustered, as he should be. “Nothing bad, I assure you. It’s just that we need someone for this job whom Rory won’t attempt to bed, and you’re… um…”

  “Chubby? Not thin enough for his taste?”

  I can actually see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to weasel out of his asinine comment.

  “That’s not what I meant, Abby. As you know from the tabloids, Rory has a preference for women who parade themselves around him in skimpy outfits. That’s all.”

  Nice save, you prat. But we both know what you really meant.

  Mr. McKibben intervenes. “Abigail, if Winston goes off the rails in the next week, the Queen herself will be mortified, and the Prime Minister will obviously be livid. This is no meaningless task we’re talking about. Entire British institutions would be embarrassed by an unthinking act or comment from a man who has a history of not thinking. We need someone we can trust to do the job and rein him in for a week. And I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you were perfect for this.”

  Part of me appreciates my boss’s confidence in me. But I’m still stunned by all this and have no idea how to go about it.

  “Where do I begin? How does this even work?”

  “Rory will be coming here to meet with us this a
fternoon at 3. We will subtly remind him what a great honour a knighthood is and ask him nicely to tone things down for a while. And we will assign you as his press liaison, to accompany him to various interviews and photo shoots and the like in the week leading up to the investiture ceremony.”

  “So I just have to find a way to make him behave until the Queen’s sword lands on his shoulder?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Perhaps Her Majesty should consider beheading the wanker instead.”

  Rory

  After breakfast, I dispatch my personal assistant, Henry, to take the two sleepover guests to their homes. Henry’s a great guy, but I really only need him for about half of the time his salary covers, so he does a lot of just hanging out waiting for me to come up with something. I can tell he liked taking the Bentley out with two beautiful women as passengers.

  I could have just called cabs for both of them, but sending Henry off gives me a reason to take the Lamborghini out. I must be daft to want to drive that thing in London traffic, but I haven’t been in it much since I bought it last month, so any kind of drive is better than none.

  Of course, having to drive no faster than twenty mph in a beast of a car like this just makes me anxious. When I get to the A13, I’m able to hit fifty, which is only slightly better. I push it to seventy, knowing that if I get cited for speeding, I’ll just have my solicitor work it out so that I pay a large fine but get to keep my license. He’s been doing that for the last three years and is quite good at it. Even seventy feels restrictive in a Lamborghini Huracán, which can do twice that without breaking a sweat.

  The auto looks even sleeker in the custom Venetian crimson metallic paint color I chose. People turn their heads as I go by, but my tinted windows hide my identity. On those days when I want to be noticed, I just lower them.