“Is that even a word?” Rebekah interrupted her husband.
“If not, it should be,” he said.
“It wasn’t you?” Aggie asked, leaning around Jace to look at Eric. Her ice-blue eyes were pleading with him to admit he was lying.
“Nope. We’ve been here waiting for you to arrive,” Eric said. “Maybe Jace’s fangirl—he only has one that I know of—has come to sabotage the wedding.”
“Or maybe the place really is haunted,” Jace spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Did you see a ghost?” Rebekah said excitedly. “I heard the queen’s ghost haunts the grounds. I’ve been hoping to catch sight of her all evening.”
“I saw…” Jace crumpled his forehead as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen out in the field. “Something.”
“You did?” Aggie squeaked.
“It was just some reflection of light on the fog.” Jace shrugged, trying to convince himself—more so than his captive audience—that what he’d seen hadn’t been a ghost. He didn’t believe in such things, did he?
“Rawr!” Eric growled and bumped into Jace, trying—and failing—to startle him. Eric earned a stomped-on foot for his efforts.
“You’re sure you didn’t write the message on the mirror?” Aggie asked.
Eric shook his head. “Maybe you’re seeing things.”
“I saw it too,” Jace said.
“So you’re having sympathy hallucinations,” Eric said with a shrug.
“This is cool!” Rebekah said. “I want to see it. Did you wipe it off?”
Aggie shook her head. “We’ll show you later.”
Much later, Jace thought. Maybe after the sun rose and Halloween was over. Rehearsal dinners usually continued until dawn, didn’t they? He hoped so. Jace bit his lip and continued to fill his plate, not paying much attention to what he was going to have to eat once he sat down.
The four of them joined Brian and Myrna at a nearby table. The couple had already finished eating, but they were still trying to convince their stubborn son to ingest unfamiliar foods in a place that had far more interesting things to watch than the spoon making daddy-derived airplane noises at him. It seemed Mal wasn’t a fan of British fare, if one was to judge by the state of his father’s food-splattered shirtfront.
“He doesn’t like that,” Myrna said.
“He doesn’t like anything,” Brian said, closing his eyes as Mal blew out a spoonful of red mash. Beets? Brian reached blindly for a napkin and wiped the bright red muck from his face. “Are you going to eat anything, Mal?”
“No!” Malcolm said.
“If you eat your dinner you can have cake.” Brian tried bribery.
“No!”
“Are you tired?” Myrna asked.
“No!”
“What do you want?”
“Down!” Malcolm tried to snake his way down out of his high chair, but a strap between his pudgy legs thwarted his escape.
Brian tugged the baby back up into his seat and tightened the tray to keep the squirmy child in place.
“Down pwease, daddy,” Malcolm said, his most heart-melting expression plastered to his face as he lifted his chubby arms and opened and closed his hands repeatedly.
Brian was made of stronger stuff than Jace was. Jace knew without a doubt that he’d have succumbed to the child’s wishes immediately.
“Maybe he just needs to crawl off some energy,” Myrna suggested.
The youngster must have been sucking energy out of his parents while they slept and stockpiling it for his own use; the two of them exchanged weary smiles.
Yeah, Jace decided. Parenting was not something he’d be any good at. He needed his sleep, if nothing else. Sleeping until noon wasn’t something he’d be able to enjoy with a baby in the picture.
“You’re not getting down until you eat your supper,” Brian said to his pouting little one.
“Twey!” Malcolm screamed at the top of his lungs. “Twey!”
The godfather in question appeared at the table a moment later. “What are you doing to my favorite buddy?” Trey swept a hand over Malcolm’s fluffy black hair.
“Making him eat,” Brian said.
“Who wants to eat when you can party?” He bestowed an ornery grin upon his godson. One that was immediately mirrored by the child. “Do you want to party, Mal?”
“Twey!” Malcolm said, reaching for the dangling cuff of Trey’s shirt and giving it a tug. “Pwease.”
Brian rubbed his forehead and shook his head. “I give up.”
Trey rescued his godson from the high chair. Free of his prison, Malcolm immediately spotted his favorite object to yank—Eric’s hair—and leaned over to wrap his fist in a long red strand resting temptingly on Eric’s shoulder. Eric rose to his feet to prevent being scalped and trailed after Trey and Malcolm, now making for the dance floor, until he was able to extricate his hair from Malcolm’s grip.
“I do believe your friends are a bad influence on our child,” Myrna said to Brian. “Especially that Twey character.” Her crooked grin indicated she was teasing, but Brian rested his head on the table and rubbed his face over the table cloth.
“We’re doomed,” he murmured. “Doomed!”
“He talks so well already,” Aggie commented. “Do they usually talk that much at nine months?”
Myrna beamed. “Not usually. His pediatrician says he’s never met a more gifted child.”
“Doomed!” Brian repeated.
Jace laughed and sampled what he believed was kidney pie. The dish was a bit salty, but not as disgusting as he’d feared.
“He’s so goddamned cute, it should be a crime,” Aggie said, watching the baby giggle and squeal in Trey’s arms as the pair energetically took up a mix of disco and swing dancing to the Metallica song blaring from the speakers.
Eric returned to the table, rubbing his scalp, which was likely down a few hairs at Malcolm’s insistence. “Your kid hates me.”
Myrna shook her head. “He adores you, Eric. He just knows Trey is his little bitch, so he gravitates toward him.”
Brian lifted his head. He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his knuckles. “Hear anything from the adoption agency?” he asked Eric.
“We’re still on the waiting list for a baby,” Rebekah said, “but when we get back we’re going to check into fostering some older kids.”
“Kids?” Brian said, enunciating the S.
“We figured we’d start with two or three,” Eric said, picking over his food. “They have a hard time placing siblings in the same home. But we’re very open to that.”
“You sure you want to start that big?” Myrna asked. “This child-rearing stuff is exhausting.”
“We’re sure,” Rebekah and Eric said in unison.
Jace glanced at Aggie, who was scowling at her plate. He decided it wasn’t because she was trying to figure out what to try next. He took her hand under the table and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Just wondering if you’ve changed your mind about having kids,” she said.
The table fell silent as four sets of eyes were suddenly staring directly into their business.
“Uh,” Jace said. “I’m not good with kids.”
“It’s different when they’re your own,” Brian said.
“Or adopted as your own,” Eric said hurriedly. He placed a protective hand on his wife’s back.
Yeah, then he’d be entirely responsible for screwing them up.
“Do you want kids?” Jace asked Aggie under his breath. He sq
uirmed in his seat, not sure he wanted the answer.
“Only if they’re yours,” she said.
“Aw,” Eric said and reached over to pinch Jace’s cheek. “I think she likes you, Tripod.”
Jace felt the heat rise up his face to greet Eric’s fingertips. He’d been trying for years to control his blushing, but it was no use. “I should hope so,” he said. “She’s marrying me tomorrow.”
When they finished their meal, Eric rose to his feet and clanged on his glass with a spoon. The thundering music died, and everyone turned to look at him.
“A toast!” Eric called and those on the dance floor returned to their tables to find their glasses.
Aggie took Jace’s hand under the table—probably for moral support. There was no telling what was about to spew from Eric’s lips.
Jace offered her an encouraging smile and lost his breath as a face not belonging to Aggie smiled back at him. A face he recognized as the likeness of the long-dead Queen Katherine Parr. Heart thundering in his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, releasing a sigh to be staring into the bright blue eyes of his fiancée. Perhaps he should lay off the booze tonight. Not that he’d had any yet.
“Thanks for taking time out of your jet lag to join us this evening,” Eric called out to the crowd. “I know it’s not customary to throw a Halloween ball in place of the rehearsal dinner or to invite more than the wedding party to the event, but I have a feeling that the happy couple will cut the reception short tomorrow afternoon before I’m drunk enough to spout sentimental drivel in front of all our friends and family. Lucky for you all, I’m on my fourth whiskey sour.” He downed his drink in several gulps and clunked the empty glass on the table. “Make that my fifth whiskey sour.” Laughter chased the downing of his whiskey.
“Even though these two are doing things out of order…” He lifted an eyebrow at them. “You’re supposed to consummate the marriage after the wedding, you know.”
The jibe was greeted with shouts of approval, catcalls, and whistles.
“You can talk,” Jace mumbled.
“…they’re finally going to make it legal. When they return to the States and get their actual marriage license. Do you have to say your vows again?”
Aggie nodded.