Anna DePalo - One Night with Prince Charming

S hed just witnessed a train wreck.

Oh, no, not a literal one, Pia shook her head now at the wedding reception. But a figurative one was just as bad.

It was funny what a train wreck looked like from one end of a church aisle, with yards of ivory satin on display and the mingled scents of lilies and roses in the June air. As a wedding planner, shed dealt with plenty of disasters. Grooms with cold feet. Brides whod outsized their wedding dress. Even, once, a ringbearer whod swallowed one of the rings. But surely Pias always-practical close friend would have no such problems at her wedding. Or so Pia had thought up until about two hours ago.

Of course, the passengers in their pews had all been agape as the Marquess of Easterbridge had stridden purposely up the aisle and announced that, in fact, there was an objection to Belinda Wentworth marrying Tod Dillingham. That, in fact, Belindas hasty and secret marriage to Colin Granville, current Marquess of Easterbridge, had never been annulled.

Collectively, the cream of New York City society had blinked. Eyes had widened and eyebrows had shot up in the pews of St. Barts, but no one had been so gauche as to actually faintor pretend to.

And for that, Pia was grateful. There was only so much a wedding planner could do once the dog ate the cake, or the cab splattered mud on the brides dress, or, as in this case, the legal husband, for Gods sake, decided to show up at the wedding!

Pia had sat frozen in her position off the center aisle. Angels, shed thought absently, were in short supply today.

And on the heels of that thought had come another. Oh, Belinda, why, oh, why didnt you ever tell me about your Las Vegas wedding to, of all people, your familys sworn enemy?

But in her gut, Pia had already known why. It was an act Belinda regretted. Pias brow puckered, thinking of what Belinda was dealing with right now. Belinda was one of her two closest friends in New Yorkalong with Tamara Kincaid, one of Belindas bridesmaids.

And then, Pia heaped some of the blame on herself. Why hadnt she spotted and intercepted Colin, like a good little wedding planner? Why hadnt she stayed at the entrance to the church?

People would wonder why she, the bridal consultant, hadnt known enough to keep the Marquess of Easterbridge away, or why she hadnt been able to stop him before a very public debacle ruined her friends wedding and Pias own professional reputation.

Pia felt the urge to cry as she thought of the hit that her young business, Pia Lumley Wedding Productions, would take. The Wentworth-Dillingham nuptialsor more accurately now, almost -nuptialswere to have been her most high-profile affair to date. Shed only struck out on her own a little over two years ago, after a few years as an assistant in a large event planning company.

Oh, this was horrendous. A nightmare, really. For Belinda and herself.

Shed come to New York City from a small town in Pennsylvania five years ago, right after college. This wasnt the way her dream to make it in New York was supposed to end.

As if in confirmation of her worst fears, right after the bride and both her groom and her husband had disappeared at the church, presumably to resolve the irresolvable, Pia had been standing in the aisle when a formidable society matron had steamed toward her.

Mrs. Knox had leaned close and said in a stage whisper, Pia, dear, didnt you see the marquess approaching?

Pia had smiled tightly. Shed wanted to say shed had no idea that the marquess had been married to Belinda, and that, in any case, it wouldnt have done any good to intercept His Lordship if, in fact, hed still been married to Belinda. But loyalty to her friend had kept her silent.

Mrs. Knoxs eyes had gleamed. You might have avoided a public spectacle.

True. But, Pia thought, even if she had known enough to try to stop him, the marquess had been a man on a mission, and one who had at least sixty pounds and more than six inches on her.