Bridal Favors Read Online Free PDF

none of the modern conveniences. It doesn’t matter. She insists she wants to have her wedding celebration there.”
    “Great sheep fancier, is she?” Justin asked, and Evelyn felt a smile slip out.
    “Not that I know,” she said. “She is Mrs. Edith Vandervoort of the New York City Vandervoorts.”
    “Never heard of her,” Justin said. He picked up her glass and carried it to the sink.
    “She’s a very, very wealthy American widow,” Evelyn called after him. “
Very
high society. Her first husband was a Knickerbocker.”
    The term, adopted by the ancestors of the Dutch settlers who considered themselves the aristocrats of New York society, didn’t appear to mean anything to Justin. He turned around and regarded her blankly.
    She tried a different tack. “She is marrying Lord Boniface Cuthbert, one of the most celebrated economists of our day.”
    This got a response. “She’s marrying old Bunny Cuthbert?” Justin exclaimed, grinning broadly. “Well, well.”
    “Bunny?”
    “He was one of my professors at Oxford. First-rate chap, though timid as a blind tortoise. She must be quite the effervescent creature to have lured Bunny out of his shell.”
    Evelyn thought of the cool, blond American woman. Mrs. Vandervoort had more hauteur in her little finger than any European crown princess but, as for effervescence, Evelyn had seen mud more bubbly. “She’s certainly unique.”
    “Why does she want to have her wedding at North Cross Abbey?”
    Evelyn wasn’t sure she had the right to reveal the information Mrs. Vandervoort had given her. On the other hand, it might persuade Justin to grant her request.
    “It’s a personal matter that I divulge in the strictest confidence. You see, though her first husband was a Knickerbocker, Mrs. Vandervoort herself comes from less illustrious stock. In fact, before emigrating to America, her grandmother served as the cook at North Cross Abbey.”
    Justin gave a low whistle and leaned back against the sink. “I can’t say which is more surprising, that the old skinflint actually paid to keep a cook, or that Mrs. Van-whatever’s granny liked him well enough to have fond memories of the place.”
    Evelyn shifted uncomfortably. “They’re not exactly ‘fond.’ Mrs. Vandervoort grew up on her grandmother’s stories about North Cross and its inhabitants, but they weren’t very nice stories, I’m afraid. She—the grandmother, that is—” Evelyn cleared her throat, “felt ill-treated.”
    “Aha,” Justin said. “What happened? Was one of the footmen fresh?”
    “No, no. Nothing like that. Actually, she felt a grievance against your grandfather. Thought he looked down on her and treated her contemptuously. I’m sure he didn’t,” she hastened to reassure him. “Most likely it was all in the poor woman’s mind. When some people find themselves in positions inferior to others they get to imagining all sorts of things that never—”
    “Oh, no. I ’spect he did,” Justin interjected calmly. “He was frightfully bigoted, loud, and critical,” Justin went on. “Recall the first words he said to me—well, not actually to me, but to my father. Suspect he didn’t think I was worth addressing. ‘Good God, Marcus!’—that’s my father’s name—‘Good God, Marcus, I do hope you produce a soldier to carry on the family tradition before I die, something other than this
dilettante
.’ ‘Dilettante’ being not the worst but, I like to think, one of the more accurate terms my dear grandfather applied to me.”
    Evelyn’s eyes grew wide. “How terrible for you.”
    Justin gave her a wicked smile. “Not anywhere near as terrible as it was for him; I never was blessed with a little brother. But, as you can imagine, I am in full sympathy with anyone who suffered under the old tyrant’s domestic rule.”
    “Then you’ll rent the abbey to me?” Evelyn asked eagerly.
    He shook his head. “I didn’t say that. I only said I was in sympathy. It would take a