“I gather you believe this is a mistake?”
“A mistake?” Laurie scoffed. “The first war with the Colonies was a mistake. The great fire of London was a mistake. But they are a picnic in Hyde Park compared to this.”
Max struggled to contain his laughter. “So your answer is yes?”
“That is an understatement.” Laurie glowered at Max over the rim of his glass. “Is there any hope I can talk you out of this?”
“None whatsoever. I am two-and-thirty, and it's past time to marry and start a nursery. Besides,” Max swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his voice level, “she fascinates me. I've never wanted a woman as I want Pandora.”
“I think this will be a disaster of biblical proportions.” Laurie's voice was grim with the specter of doom. “And allowing her to propose a test…” He lifted his glass in a half-hearted toast, “I wish you luck. You shall surely need it.”
“Perhaps it's Pandora who will need it. You see, my friend,” Max grinned and lifted his own snifter, “this is one game I do not intend to lose.”
“You what?”
“You heard me.”
“I did indeed, but even for you, Pandora, it's quite beyond imagining.” Cynthia Weatherly sank onto the settee in the cluttered parlor of the grand old Effington mansion. She sprang back to her feet with a shrill shriek. “What on earth…”
“Sorry.” Pandora plucked the small shard of pottery from the damask upholstery and eyed it thoughtfully. “Mycenaean. Very nice.”
“To be sure,” Cynthia said weakly, and felt the back of her frock for rips in the fabric.
“Cynthia, do sit down. You're quite safe now.”
Cynthia inspected the settee for any other hidden threats to her backside. Gritting her teeth, she lowered herself gingerly on to the edge of the sofa and cast a suspicious glance around the room. “Is he…?”
Pandora shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Cynthia nodded in long-suffering resignation and turned her attention back to Pandora, fixing her with an accusing eye. “I don't know what you could have been thinking.”
Pandora pushed aside the jumble of artifacts, small chunks of statuary, and various unidentified antiquities that littered the top of a nearby table and placed the piece of pottery in the newly found space. “Frankly, I was thinking of you.”
“Of me?” Cynthia's typically startled expressed grew even more pronounced.
Pandora sighed. What was she going to do with the girl? She'd taken the younger woman under her wing two years ago during Cynthia's second season. She'd hoped the friendship of an older, hopefully wiser, and definitely more assured woman could help Cynthia cope with life on the marriage mart. Unlike Pandora, Cynthia wanted nothing more than the dubious bliss of wedlock.
But Pandora's influence hadn't done a great deal of good. Cynthia refused to assert herself. And assertion was sorely needed if Cynthia was to overcome the handicap of being a--how did Max put it?--a paragon of virture. Pandora had made it her mission to find the spark hidden inside her quiet blond friend.
“Yes, your future and your happiness.”
“Oh dear.” Cynthia's voice was faint.
Pandora picked her way past haphazard stacks of books, large pieces of elaborately carved marble, and the assorted odds and ends that made up her parents' studies to the only chair in the room relatively uncovered by the antique debris that filled nearly every nook and cranny of her home.
She tossed the handful of scribbled notes left abandoned on the seat into a wicker basket filled with what might have looked like rocks in another household but here were probably significant remnants of a long ago civilization. A few brilliant green feathers drifted to the floor. Pandora plopped into the now vacant chair.
“I asked him what he planned to do about you. I told him he broke your heart.”
“You told the Earl of Trent he broke my heart?”
Did Cynthia's porcelain complexion actually grow paler? “If you faint on me, Cynthia, I promise you I shall let you lie here among the ruins until you are an antiquity in your own right.”
“No, no. I'm fine.” She gripped her hands tightly together in her lap. Cynthia's tendency to swoon was one of her more annoying habits. However, in this particular circumstance, her faint might well be justified. “How could you, Pandora?”
“It was not at all difficult.” Pandora shifted uncomfortably in her chair at the memory of last night and how very little of the discussion had been about her friend. “Max has been paying you a great deal of notice this season.”
Cynthia's eyes widened. “Are you certain?”
“I am.”
“Well, what did he say?” Excellent. Wasn't that even a bit of color in Cynthia's cheeks?
“Actually, he denied it.”
Cynthia's expression fell.
“I am sorry, dearest,” Pandora said quickly. “But I am still convinced of his interest in you.”
“He was being polite. Nothing more.” Cynthia slumped back on the settee. “I suspect it's past time you and I faced some rather unpleasant facts. I am nearly two-and-twenty. This is my fourth season--”
“But I am four-and-twenty and this is my seventh season and I do not consider those facts at all unpleasant.”
“For you, they're not. You've never had the mildest interest in marriage. Your father has settled a handsome income on you. You have been doing exactly as you've wished ever since you came out in society. You're extremely pretty and very witty and you don't seem to care who knows you're clever.”
“I have always thought a woman should be intelligent and I see no reason to hide what I consider an attribute.”
“I know.” Cynthia heaved a heartfelt sigh. “You're unique. Practically a legend.”
“Am I?” Pandora smiled with pleasure. “How delightful.”
“Most women wouldn't think so.”
“I am not most women.”
“That's exactly the point.” A rare glimmer of determination sparked in Cynthia's eye. “I am very much like most women. Not unique at all. At least, not in the ways that count. I am too tall and too thin. My complexion is far paler even than fashion decrees. I have a rather sickly nature and a timid disposition.”
“Nonsense. You're quite lovely. We shall simply have to--”
“Pandora, stop.” Cynthia's tone was surprisingly firm. “Don't you see? Lord Trent is used to clever, sophisticated, beautiful women. Why, the man is a rake.”
“A rogue, a scoundrel, and a beast.” Pandora nodded.
Cynthia shook her fair head. “I'd hardly go that far. He has a sizable reputation, but given his title and wealth he is considered quite a catch. A man like the earl could never be seriously attracted to someone like me.”
“Of course he could.”
“Put that clever mind of yours to work for a moment, Pandora. Does that make any sense at all?”
“The nature of attraction is not at all sensible,” Pandora said primly.
“Be that as it may, I suspect that if indeed Lord Trent was paying attention to me, it was his way of getting to you.”
“To me?” Surprise and more than a touch of satisfaction coursed through her.
“For a women who is so proud of her intelligence, you certainly seem lacking in it to-day,” Cynthia said with an unaccustomed sharpness. “How many proposals have you had?”
“A few.”
Cynthia raised a brow.
Pandora lifted her shoulder in a casual shrug. “Very well, dozens.”
“And how many have you accepted?”
“None, of course.”
“And what do all those suitors have in common?”
“Despair and disappointment, I suppose.” Pandora grinned.
“Beyond that.”
“I have no idea.”
“Every one of those discarded admirers wanted you much more than you wanted them. You are always the fox and they are always the hounds. Already Lord Trent has turned the tables. You approached
him.”
“But I wished to talk about you.”
“Regardless, you ended up agreeing to this ridiculous game.” Cynthia smiled in an altogether too smug manner. “He turned you into the hound. You went to him. You started it.”
“Well, perhaps I did, but I had no intention…”
“Or had she?
Max was indeed nearly the only eligible man in all of London who had not paid her heed. Of course, she had been aware of him through the years. Who wouldn't be? The man cut a wide swath through society. She could even vaguely recall seeing him during her first season. Dark and reckless, with eyes that smoldered and a swagger that proclaimed he was intent on having a far better time than he could expect from a green girl.
In recent years, perhaps, she had noticed him with increasing frequency. Wondering why he had not married. Why some charming young thing with a determined mother and an impressive dowry had not snatched him up long ago. Wondering what he was really like and what he really wanted. He had seemed no more interested in her than she was in him.
And why on earth not? The question nagged at her each time she happened to see the dashing Earl of Trent across the room at a ball or riding in the park or kissing the hand of her dearest friend. Was Pandora somehow not to his liking? Not lovely enough or wealthy enough? Even if her parents were a bit unusual, their ancestry was impeccable. Why had he never cast his attention in her direction?
He himself said he wanted a wife with fire in her eyes and spirit in her soul. Who better fit that description than the Hellion of Grosvenor Square? Who and who alone could meet the requirements of the rakish earl as perfectly as if they'd been designed with her in mind?
The answer slammed into her with the vengeance of a summer storm. How could she have been so blind? She rose to her feet, a touch of awe in her voice. “By the gods, the man tricked me!”
Cynthia's face took on its familiar dazed-rabbit expression. “How?”
“Never mind how.” She flicked a dismissive hand. It was all so clear now. She pushed away the persistent thought that last night's confrontation was due as much to her own desire to have an encounter with a man who'd never sought her out as any overt effort on his part. “He is a beast. And I'm Dora. A hound! Bloody hell.”
“Pandora!” Cynthia clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Sorry.” Pandora grimaced. She'd used the occasional satisfying obscenity since she was twelve, when she had dropped a small bronze statue on her foot. “I shall not let him get away with this.”
“Away with what?”
“You said it yourself. He was flirting with you to attract me. That's truly vile.”
“He hardly put any effort into it,” Cynthia said under her breath. “I hadn't even noticed.”
“I did, and that's all he wanted. The scoundrel.”
“But why--”
“Because I'm perfect for him.” Pandora glared at her friend. “I'm everything he wants in a wife. Everything he's ever wanted.”
“But I thought--”
“And this test nonsense! Oh, he is clever all right. Wanting to be my hero--”
“He wants to be your hero?” Cynthia's expression brightened with delight. “How romantic.”
“How devious!” Pandora scoffed. “‘Let me prove it to you,’ he said. ‘Test me,’ he said. And I believed him. Oh, I am a fool.”
“But I thought you got to devise the test?”
“That's what makes it so much more appalling. He wants to make me think this is all my idea. He's an intelligent beast, I'll grant him that.” Pandora shook her head slowly. “If I can't devise a way to outwit the blasted man by tonight, I'll be the next Countess of Trent before you can snap your fingers.”
She stalked past a bronze figure of some god or other, skirted a large earthenware urn, and stepped over an untidy mound of loose papers to reach the fireplace and the magnificent Chinese gong positioned to one side. A wooden hammer dangled by a leather thong. Today, it was particularly gratifying to lift the matching wooden hammer, haul back, and let it fly. The thunderous bong echoed through the house.
The double doors to the huge receiving hall swung open almost at once. Peters stepped into the room. “Miss?”
“Tea, please.” Peters never failed to amaze Pandora. He was the quintessential proper British butler, and yet he refused to abandon the Effingtons' strange abode even for tempting offers from households boasting bigger incomes or loftier titles.
The butler nodded and turned to leave, stooping quickly in a motion so fluid it took Pandora a moment to realize just what he'd done and why.
“Oh, botheration. Cynthia, perhaps you'd better--”
A small blur of greenish-blue soared into the room, diving low over Cynthia's head. She screamed and lunged off the settee to the relative safety of the floor, upsetting a precarious pile of books and overturning a box of pottery fragments in the process. The crash of the volumes and clank of the crockery clashed with the distinct sound of the poor girl's dress ripping and the unmistakable meow of a cat.
“--Duck?” Pandora said in a faint voice.
“How on earth can you people live with that--that--that creature running amuck in your home?” Cynthia crouched amid the ruin on the floor.
“He doesn't run amuck. He simply enjoys a certain amount of freedom. Hercules.” At once the parrot settled on her hand.
Cynthia scrambled back onto the sofa. “That bird hates me.”
“Nonsense. He loves people, don't you, sweeting?” Pandora turned to the gong and Hercules hopped onto the crossbar. “Why, he practically saved Father's life on one of his trips to Greece. Distracted a thief intent on Father's purse.”
“The bird's a vicious menace,” Cynthia said under her breath.
Hercules cocked his head and fixed her with a single beady, black eye. “Meow, auk.”
Cynthia glared back. “And stupid as well. He thinks he's a cat.”
“He's just a bit confused.”
Cynthia examined the tear in her dress, her voice low. “He should be roasted for supper.”
Hercules meowed.
“Cynthia! Hercules is very much a member of the family.”
“I daresay Lord Trent won't appreciate him once you're married.”
“I am not going to marry that man!”
“Of course you are.” Cynthia stared her straight in the eye. “You want to marry him.”
“I most certainly do not.” Pandora lifted her chin in indignation. “I should rather be boiled alive by tribes of ill-mannered cannibals in the South Seas than marry him.”
“Oh? You've never risked marriage before with any man. And,” Cynthia paused in an unusually dramatic manner, “you call him Max.”
“Max is his name.” Even as she said it she was aware of the impropriety.
“Everyone else calls him Trent.”
A sinking sensation settled in Pandora's stomach. “I don't see--”
“You call him Max.”
“I simply like the sound of it. There is nothing more to it than that.”
Cynthia smirked. “Except that you want him to win.”
“I do not,” Pandora said with a lofty air. Cynthia couldn't possibly be right. Oh, certainly Max--Lord Trent--was intriguing. And she did have an odd desire to know him better. And the thought of marriage to him wasn't quite as repulsive as the thought of marriage to anyone else. Still…she sank into a chair. “And I shall prove it with a test he will never pass.”
“You haven't much time.”
She sighed. “I have to think of something…”
Hercules preened on the gong.
“…Something clever…”
Hercules swung upside down and dangled from the crossbar.
“…Something inspired…”
Hercules meowed.
“Hercules, be still.” Pandora cast the bird a threatening glare. “I will admit, sometimes he is annoying, but my father has always called him his hero. That's why he named him Hercules, after the
Greek…” Pandora caught her breath, “…hero.”
Cynthia eyed her cautiously. “What are you thinking?”
“That's it! I've got it!” Pandora laughed with the sheer delight of victory. “The perfect test. He may well give up before he even starts.”
“It won't kill him, will it?” Cynthia's forehead furrowed in an anxious frown. “Or ruin him financially? Or destroy his good name?”
“His life, his finances, and his honor should remain intact. But his arrogance--” Pandora cast her a wicked grin, “--that's another matter.”
“Are you certain you really wish to defeat him?”
“Absolutely.” Now that she realized how he had manipulated her, she could not allow him to win. “It's a matter of principle.”
“Oh dear.” Cynthia's voice was faint. “I should probably pray for the poor man.”
“Indeed you should.” Pandora settled deeper against the back of the chair and smiled sweetly. “He shall need it.”
Chapter 4
The Gauntlet is Thrown
“What is this?” Max drew his brows together and studied the neatly written page.
“It's your test.” Pandora's voice was light.
He'd been supremely confident when she'd asked him to meet her in the library, away from the crush of guests at Lady Harvey's rout. Now…Max looked up from the paper and stared at her. “This is the test?”
“Indeed it is, my lord.” She was a perfect image of charming innocence. Judging by the sheet in his hand, it was a forged likeness.
“Surely you are not serious?”
She tilted her lovely head in feigned surprise. “Surely I am.”
“But this,” he waved the sheet at her, “this is impossible!”
“Then you concede defeat? You forfeit the game and I win? With all the benefits due the victor?” A charming smile played on her lips, but a spark of wicked triumph shone in her eye. Damn the woman, anyway. He had never even considered going through this kind of trouble for a mere female before. “My lord?”
Pandora Effington was no mere female.
“No, I am not conceding defeat.” His words were slow and measured. “I simply did not expect anything like this.”
The Wedding Bargain Page 4
