this.
But Serena was looking at him gently, her face riveted with concern and unspoken understanding. “Please …” She faltered for only a moment. “You're upset about me, aren't you? Is it so great a shock? Am I so different really?” She sounded almost consumed with distress and guilt.
But Teddy nodded slowly. “Yes, you are. But not in the way you think. Serena,” he sighed and reached for her hand. What the hell. Brad wouldn't kill him. “You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and if you weren't my brother's wife, I'd ask you to marry me right this minute!” For a moment she thought he was joking, and then she saw something almost heartbreaking in his eyes. Her own eyes widened in surprise as she looked at him.
“Making time with my wife, little brother?” B.J. opened the door of the elegant limousine and hopped inside with a casual look of unconcern which belied the faint tremor he had felt while he busied himself outside. Teddy had always been the best-looking of the brothers, and he was certainly more her age, but that was crazy thinking and he knew it. Serena was his wife, she loved him, and she was having his child.
But Teddy only laughed and shook his head as he ran a hand through his hair. “I think you just saved me from making a total ass of myself, Brad.”
“Want me to get out so you can try again?”
“No!” Teddy and Serena said it in unison, and with that they looked at each other, and both of them began to laugh, like hysterical children, and the uncomfortable moment was broken. They laughed half the way home, suddenly began teasing each other and Brad, and the friendship began in earnest that morning.
Teddy gave them a brief rundown of what the wedding would be like, what was expected of them, and who was coming to the rehearsal dinner. Brad already knew that he was going to be the best man, and Teddy was an usher. In addition there were to be ten other ushers, eleven bridesmaids and a maid of honor, two children as ring bearer and flower girl, and the ceremony was to be at St. James Church on Madison Avenue, with an enormous reception at the Plaza Hotel, immediately thereafter. It was expected to be a grandiose affair and the Athertons were spending a fortune.
The rehearsal dinner, on the other hand, was being given at their father's club, the Knickerbocker, and there were to be a mere forty-five guests, in black tie, for a formal dinner.
“Oh, Christ.” Brad groaned aloud. “When's that again?”
“Tomorrow.”
“And tonight? Can we have some time to ourselves, or do we have to perform some other tribal dance with the whole troupe?”
“Mother's planning a small family dinner. Just Mother and Dad, Greg and I, and of course Pattie.” A flicker of worry showed in Teddy's eyes.
“That ought to be cozy.” The last time Pattie had seen Serena she had called her a whore, and he had broken their engagement, and not even a year had gone by since then.
A moment later they pulled up in front of the awning of their building, and the doorman rushed forward to open the door, as Jimmie stepped out to take over.
“Is Mother upstairs?” Brad wanted the meeting over with. His eyes bored into Teddy's, as if trying to take support and energy from his younger brother to help protect and buffer his wife.
“Not yet. She won't be home till three. We'll have the place to ourselves, while Serena gets acquainted.” It was a kind of blessing. Serena meekly followed her husband and brother-in-law inside, into a richly paneled, tapestry-hung lobby, with high ceilings and marble floors, immense plants, and a chandelier worthy of Versailles twinkling down at them.
Brad and Ted whisked her into the elevator and up to the top floor, where the hallway led to a single apartment, the penthouse overlooking Central Park, where all three boys had grown up, and which sent a little shiver of excitement down Brad's spine now as Teddy unlocked the door and stood aside for them to enter. Two maids in black uniforms with lace aprons and caps were frantically dusting the main hallway. It was paneled in extraordinarily beautiful Japanese screens, the floors were a harlequin black and white marble, and here again was a beautiful chandelier, but this one much more so than the one in the lobby. It was a Waterford piece, over two hundred years old, and