Pandora's note caught in a bright, flaring flame. He couldn't tear his gaze away. A tongue of fire leapt, then died, leaving only a misshapen black ash that would crumple to nothingness at the slightest touch.
“Odd, how now that it's nearly over, it's the only thing that matters at all.”
Pandora stared at the note in her hand, with its now familiar crest and message written in an equally familiar bold hand.
My dear Miss Effington,
I concede defeat. As the game expires tomorrow, I shall call on you at five o'clock for your terms of victory.
Please respond as to whether that is satisfactory.
Your servant,
Trent
“Miss?”
Pandora glanced up.
“The footman who delivered it said he was to wait for a reply.” Peters said.
“Tell him it's quite satisfactory.”
“Very well.” Peters hesitated, as if there was something he wished to say, then nodded and took his leave.
Pandora's gaze returned to Max's terse message.
I concede defeat.
A horrible, aching loss swept through her, accompanied by the same pain that had driven her plan with Laurie. Max had the means to earn the final point, but he refused to do so. He'd rather face whatever bride she chose to name than marry her.
How could Laurie have been so wrong? How could she? She crumpled the note in her hand. So be it. She would exercise her right as the victor, in accordance with their bargain, and claim her prize. She had until tomorrow afternoon to decide exactly who Max's bride should be. More than a full day to determine his fate, his future.
How much longer would it take to accept her own?
Time had run out.
Pandora paced the length of the parlor, still mildly amazed that she could do so without having to sidestep any number of artifacts or books or papers strewn wildly about. For some unknown reason, after Grace had learned of Max's concession, she'd been seized by a completely foreign desire to transform this room from its usual state of unrestrained confusion to a rather startling semblance of propriety. Maids had worked late into the night and most of the day. Now, nothing was out of place. It was the perfect picture of a perfectly proper parlor. And it only increased her apprehension.
Max would be here at any moment. Just watching the minutes tick by was enough to drive her mad. She wasn't at all sure what she wanted more: to get tonight's engagement over with as quickly as possible and with a minimum of emotion, or to avoid it for as long as she had breath left in her body.
This was it, then. The end of the game. There would be no more adventures with Max. No more verbal sparring or shared laughter or searching gazes from remarkable gray eyes that seemed to see into her very soul. She'd never lost anything she'd truly wanted in her entire life before. What a pity she didn't realize sooner that she could win the game, yet lose what she wanted most.
“Pandora?” Cynthia stepped into the room and studied her friend. “I came as soon as I got your note. Are you certain you wouldn't prefer to see Lord Trent alone?”
“Quite certain.” A meeting alone with Max was the very last thing she wanted. Pandora smiled wryly. “You may consider yourself my second. Besides, you've been in on the game since the beginning, it's only fitting you're here at the end.”
“I still can't believe you've won.”
“Neither can I.”
Cynthia sank onto the settee, then jumped up immediately, her eyes wide. “What on earth has happened here?” She glanced around the room with a shocked expression. “It looks so…so…”
“Proper?”
“Exactly.” Cynthia nodded.
Pandora shook her head. “I've only seen it like this once or twice and I can't say I particularly like it. It makes me rather uneasy.”
“I can certainly understand why,” Cynthia murmured. “It is unnerving.”
Hercules eyed Cynthia from his perch on the gong. “Meow.”
“Of course, he certainly would not have been missed.” Cynthia said, returning the bird's beady-eyed glare.
The door opened. Peters stepped aside to allow Grace to enter, followed by Max, Laurie, and Harry.
“Never find another thing in this damn room ever again,” Harry muttered, surveying the parlor with a disgusted air.
Peters stepped out of the room, discreetly closing the door in his wake, and Pandora considered calling him back. He would be so much more comfortable here than listening at the keyhole with Mrs. Barnes and Cook and no doubt the rest of the staff as well.
“Good evening, Miss Effington,” Max said politely.
“Lord Trent, as always it's delightful to see you.” Pandora favored him with her sweetest smile. “And you've brought a second as well.”
“I hadn't quite thought of him that way.” Max shrugged.
“I'm here as a curious bystander,” Laurie said quickly. “An observer, nothing more.”
“I daresay, in that you join most of London.” Pandora struggled to keep her voice cool and aloof. “What a shame so many wagers will be lost tonight. I gather most of the money was on Lord Trent.”
“They, like I, underestimated you.” Max smiled in an unconcerned manner. “Now then, if we could get on with it?”
“Of course.” Pandora forced a calm tone in spite of the racing of her heart and the hard, cold weight in the pit of her stomach. “As you no doubt remember, our bargain called for marriage between the two of us if you won, and your marriage to a bride of my choice if I won. I have given this decision a great deal of thought.
“I did promise I would not choose someone completely unsuitable, but rather a bride of the nature of Miss Weatherly--”
“I suspected as much,” Laurie said indignantly. “I knew you were going to make him marry Cynthia.”
Pandora shook her head. “Actually, I was--”
“Well, I'm not…I won't…” He furrowed his brow and clenched his teeth, looking every bit like a man deciding to plunge over a cliff and knowing full well the first step over the edge was irrevocable. “I won't allow it.”
“You won't allow it?” Pandora said slowly.
Cynthia stared. “Why won't you?”
“Why?” He crossed the room to stand before Cynthia. “Because I want…I wish…”
“Yes?” Her eyes were wide.
“To let you push me around a dance floor for the rest of my days,” Laurie said quickly.
Pandora bit back a grin. Max made an odd sort of choking sound and she glanced at him. “He can't say the word, can he?”
Max shook his head, his voice ragged with suppressed laughter. “Apparently not when it applies to him.”
“I can say it,” Laurie said sharply, and turned to Cynthia. “He can't marry you because I'm going to.”
“Oh my.” A stunned smile quirked the corners of her lips.
“Well?” An anxious note sounded in Laurie's voice.
“Well,” Cynthia's eyes twinkled with delight. “We shall certainly have to discuss it.”
“Discuss it?” Laurie's voice rose. “Are you saying you might not--”
“I wasn't going to name Cynthia,” Pandora said at once. “I was saying someone like her would be suitable.”
“Then who were you going to name?” Max's cool manner belied the intensity in his eyes.
She stared at him for a long moment. How could she live her life without Max in it? “I really can't--”
“I want this nonsense stopped right now.” A buxom older woman, dressed in the height of fashion, swept into the room.
“Sophia,” Harry said with delight. Grace shot him a reproachful glare. “Rather, I mean Lady Trent.”
Lady Trent?
Max groaned. “Mother.”
“Harry, it's been a very long time.” Lady Trent nodded at Grace. “Lady Harold.” She scanned the gathering and her gaze settled on Pandora. “Now then, Miss Effington, my son has been in his cups for the last few days, according to his servants.�
�
“Mother.” Max ground out the word.
She ignored him. “I have reason to believe it's because of you. I have further reason to believe you have been just as miserable.”
“Do you?” Pandora's brow rose.
Lady Trent sighed as if it was obvious. “Your attempt to run off lasted barely two hours, if I understand correctly. That means either you were suddenly struck by the impropriety of what you were about to do-- which, given all I have heard about you, seems inconceivable to me--or you realized you weren't with the gentleman you wished to be with. As much as I was not initially pleased with this match, even I can see the value of love. Now, don't be a silly twit--”
“Excuse me, Lady Trent, but I'm the twit.” Laurie swept a bow.
“My twit,” Cynthia said with a note of satisfaction in her voice.
“Pandora.” Max stared at her intensely. “Why did you come back?”
Her mouth was abruptly dry. “Why?”
He stepped toward her. “What were you going to say before my mother arrived?”
She stepped back. “What?”
He took another step. “Who were you going to name?”
She matched his move. “Who?”
“Who?”
Pandora shook her head and squared her shoulders. “No one?”
Max's eyes narrowed. “No one?”
He moved toward her. She moved back. “I decided the game, the bargain, all of it, was ridiculous and I shouldn't hold you to it.” She shrugged as if it was of no consequence. “So I'm not.”
“Why not?
“I just explained.”
“I don't believe you.”
“I don't care!”
“Why aren't you holding me to our arrangement?” His gaze was hard and searching.
“I told you!” she said through clenched teeth.
“Now, tell me the truth.”
“It was the--” The restraint she'd struggled to maintain shattered. “Very well.” She glared. “If you're going to marry anyone you're going to marry me. And I would rather be left to dangle by a fraying rope over a pit of deadly vipers than to agree to marry you.”
“Why?”
“Because a horrible lingering death is preferable to marriage to you!”
“Not that part.” Again Max moved toward her, and her breath caught at the look in his eye. “Why did you say if anyone was going to marry me it was going to be you?”
“Because I'm a fool! Your mother said it: a twit!” She didn't like that look one bit.
“What else?”
“Nothing!” She tried to retreat, but discovered she'd backed her way to within a hand's width of the closed parlor doors and there was nowhere left to go.
“Dora.” He was a scant few inches from her.
“Don't call me Dora!”
He stared down at her. “What else?”
“Nothing!”
His voice was unyielding, demanding. “What else?”
“Nothing! Everything!” His gaze bored into hers, into her heart, her soul, and the words she'd held tight inside her broke free of their own accord. “Very well! I can't see you married to anyone else because I love you, you arrogant brute! I've probably loved you from the moment I told you what a rake, a rogue, and a scoundrel you were!”
“Don't forget beast,” he said mildly, the corners of his lips twitching as if he stifled a smile.
“I could never forget beast!” She stared up at him. “You think this is amusing?”
“A bit.”
She whirled to slip past him, but he pulled her back and trapped her against the door. “You do realize, as much as I appreciate your reluctance to compel me to marry someone else, you don't have that right.”
“Of course I do. It was part of the bargain. If you won, I had to marry you. If I won, I got to pick your bride. You conceded defeat. I won.”
“Not really.” He shook his head. “At least, not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet?” The beat of her heart sounded in her ears.
“When we agreed to a time limit, you said it would start with the agreement of our bargain.”
“Four weeks ago today.”And it's over now. All of it!
Max shook his head. “Not exactly. When we agreed to our contest in the burying grounds--”
“Good God,” Harry groaned. “Grace, did you hear that? They forged this bargain in a graveyard.”
“Hush, dear,” Grace murmured.
“It was well after midnight,” Max said. “Which means the game does not expire now until after midnight.”
She couldn't seem to breathe. “But you've already conceded.”
“I've changed my mind.” He glanced at Laurie. “Did you by any chance…”
Laurie grinned, pulled something from his waistcoat pocket, and tossed it. Light glittered and gleamed off a golden object streaking in a high arc across the room, looking for all the world like a gilded star shooting across the heavens. Max caught it with one hand and wrapped his fingers around it. He turned to her and held out his fist. “The twelfth and final point.”
His gaze trapped hers, and she wanted with all her heart to believe it was surely love she saw in his wonderful gray eyes. Her gaze slipped to his hand and his fist unfolded.
Tears blurred her vision and she reached for a tiny gold sphere hung on a delicate gold chain. Her hand trembled. No, not a sphere. Her breath caught. A solid gold apple rested within a slightly larger latticework apple, itself captured in an apple fashioned of gold wire, the entire piece no bigger than the first joint of her thumb.
“It's a wedding gift, you know.” His voice was gentle.
She nodded, but couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. Not yet. “From Hera to Zeus.”
“No.” He placed two fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head until her gaze met his. “From me to you. Max to Dora.”
“Matched hounds.” She sniffed back treacherous tears.
“Well matched, I think.” He laughed. “By love.” His voice sobered. “I do love you, you know.”
“Do you?” She couldn't keep the wonder from her voice. “Are you certain?”
“Very certain. But I could prove it to you.” He pulled her into his arms. “Test me, Pandora. Make me prove it to you.”
“And if you should pass my test?” She could barely choke out the words.
“Then you will be my wife and I shall spend the rest of my life as your hero.” His gaze searched hers, looking for the answer to a question he hadn't asked. “And your husband?”
“I wasn't especially looking for a husband.” She gazed up at him. “But I think perhaps you may be preferable to a horrible lingering death, after all.”
“And preferable to being torn apart by wild camels in the deserts of Egypt?”
She swallowed hard. “Possibly.”
“Or tortured at the hands of naked savages in the wilds of America?” He grinned.
“Very likely.”
“Then I claim my prize, as the game is indeed at an end.” He lowered his head to hers, his lips barely a breath from hers. “And the rules are no longer necessary. Any of them.”
“Every one,” she murmured and his mouth covered hers.
Dimly, she noted applause from those gathered in the parlor and vague cheers from the servants on the other side of the door and marveled that she didn't care the tiniest bit who witnessed their embrace or who knew how very much she loved him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and reveled in the welcoming feel of his body close to hers and the crush of his lips and returned his kiss with the utter joy that welled up inside her.
A kiss that marked the end of a game played between a hellion and a hero and marked as well the end of a bargain struck for a husband and a wife. Or marked perhaps…
…Just the beginning.
About the Author
New York Times-bestselling author Victoria Alexander was an award-winning television reporter until she discovered fiction was much more fun than
real life. She turned to writing full time and has never looked back. Her Avon romances include: The Pursuit of Marriage, The Lady in Question, Love with the Proper Husband, Her Highness, My Wife, The Prince’s Bride, The Husband List, The Marriage Lesson, and The Wedding Bargain
Victoria grew up traveling the country as an Air Force brat and is now settled in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two teenaged children, and a bearded collie named Sam. She firmly believes housework is a four-letter word, there are no calories in anything eaten standing up, procrastination is an art form, and it’s never too soon to panic.
And she loves getting mail that doesn’t require a return payment. Write to her at: P.O. Box 31544, Omaha, NE 68131.
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Avon Romances by Victoria Alexander
The Pursuit of Marriage
The Lady in Question
Love with the Proper Husband
Her Highness, My Wife
The Prince’s Bride
The Husband List
The Marriage Lesson
The Wedding Bargain
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE WEDDING BARGAIN Copyright © 1999 by Cheryl Griffin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
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