West tried his best to maintain an indifferent silence. In a moment, however, he couldn’t resist asking, “What did he die of?”
“A kind of wasting disease. The doctors could never agree on a diagnosis.” Pandora paused as she saw arriving guests funneling into the entrance hall. She tugged West toward the space beneath the grand staircase, her voice lowering as she continued. “Lord Clare was ill since the day he was born. He suffered dreadful stomach pains, fatigue, headaches, heart palpitations . . . he was intolerant to most kinds of food and could hardly keep anything down. They tried every possible treatment, but nothing helped.”
“Why would a duke’s daughter marry a lifelong invalid?” West asked, puzzled.
“It was a love match. Lord Clare and Phoebe were childhood sweethearts. At first he was reluctant to marry her, because he didn’t want to be a burden, but she persuaded him to make the most of the time they had. Isn’t that terribly romantic?”
“It makes no sense,” West said. “Are we certain she didn’t have to marry in haste?”
Pandora looked perplexed. “Do you mean . . .” She paused, trying to think of a polite phrase. “. . . they may have anticipated their vows?”
“That,” West said, “or her first child was sired by another man, who wasn’t available to wed.”
Pandora frowned. “Are you really that cynical?”
West grinned at her. “No, I’m much worse than this. You know that.”
Pandora moved her hand in pretend swat near his chin, as if administering a well-deserved reprimand. Deftly he caught her wrist, kissed the back of her hand, and released it.
So many guests had crowded into the entrance hall by then that West began to wonder if Eversby Priory could accommodate them all. The manor had more than one hundred bedrooms, not including servants’ quarters, but after decades of neglect, large sections were now either closed off or in the process of restoration.
“Who are all these people?” he asked. “They seem to be multiplying. I thought we’d limited the guest list to relations and close friends.”
“The Challons have many close friends,” Pandora said, a touch apologetically. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like crowds.”
The remark surprised West, who was about to protest that he did like crowds, when it occurred to him that Pandora knew him only as he was now. In his former life, he’d enjoyed the company of strangers, and had lurched from one social event to another in search of constant entertainment. He’d loved the gossip, the flirtations, the endless flow of wine and noise that had kept his attention firmly fixed outward. But since he’d come to Eversby Priory, he’d become a stranger to that life.
Seeing a group of people entering the house, Pandora bounced a little on her heels. “Look, there are the Challons.” A mixture of wonder and unease colored her voice as she added, “My future in-laws.”
Sebastian, the Duke of Kingston, radiated the cool confidence of a man who had been born to privilege. Unlike most British peers, who were disappointingly average, Kingston was dashing and ungodly handsome, with the taut, slim physique of a man half his age. Known for his shrewd mind and caustic wit, he oversaw a labyrinthine financial empire that included, of all things, a gentleman’s gaming club. If his fellow noblemen expressed private distaste for the vulgarity of owning such an enterprise, none dared criticize him publicly. He was the holder of too many debts, the possessor of too many ruinous secrets. With a few words or strokes of a pen, Kingston could have reduced nearly any proud aristocratic scion to beggary.
Unexpectedly, rather sweetly, the duke seemed more than a little enamored of his own wife. One of his hands lingered idly at the small of her back, his enjoyment in touching her covert but unmistakable. One could hardly blame him. Evangeline, the duchess, was a spectacularly voluptuous woman with apricot-red hair, and merry blue eyes set in a lightly freckled complexion. She looked warm and radiant, as if she’d been steeped in a long autumn sunset.
“What do you think of Lord St. Vincent?” Pandora asked eagerly.
West’s gaze moved to a man who appeared to be a younger version of his sire, with bronze-gold hair that gleamed like new-minted coins. Princely handsome. A cross between Adonis and the Royal Coronation Coach.
With deliberate casualness, West said, “He’s not as tall as I expected.”
Pandora looked affronted. “He’s every bit as tall as you!”
“I’ll eat my hat if he’s an inch over four foot seven.” West clicked his tongue in a few disapproving tsk-tsks. “And still in short trousers.”
Half annoyed, half amused, Pandora gave him a little shove. “That’s his younger brother Ivo, who is eleven. The one next to him is my fiancé.”
“Aah. Well, I can see why you’d want to marry that one.”
Folding her arms across her chest, Pandora let out a long sigh. “Yes. But why does he want to marry me?”
West took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Why wouldn’t he?” he asked, his voice gentling with concern.
“Because I’m not the sort of girl everyone expected him to marry.”
“You’re what he wants, or he wouldn’t be here. What is there to fret about?”
Pandora shrugged uneasily. “I don’t really deserve him,” she confessed.
“How splendid for you.”
“Why is that splendid?”
“There’s nothing better than having something you don’t deserve. Just say to yourself, ‘Hooray for me, I’m so very lucky. Not only do I have the biggest piece of cake, it’s a corner piece with a sugar-paste flower on top, and everyone else is sick with envy.’”
A slow grin spread across Pandora’s face. After a moment, she said in an experimental undertone, “Hooray for me.”
Glancing over her head, West saw someone approach—someone he had not expected to see on this occasion—and a breath of annoyed disbelief escaped him. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to start off your wedding festivities with a small murder, Pandora. Don’t worry, it will be over quickly, and then we’ll go back to celebrating.”
Chapter 3