Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice Read Online Free PDF Page B

a printed bookplate beneath the cover. She'd never seen a real bookplate belonging to a live person before. She traced the words "Ex Libris S. Calder Westing III" with her eyes. "What does the 'S' stand for?"
       His face shuttered slightly. "Stephen."
       She smiled at him. "Stephen—I like that. It's a little less… stuffy, or patrician, somehow. Does anyone call you that?"
       "Nobody I know. If you like it better, you're welcome to use it."
       "Stephen." She rolled the name around in her mouth for a moment, wondering why he had made the offer. He was being unusually enigmatic tonight. "All right." She would have to be careful. He could be much more approachable as Stephen than as Calder, and she didn't intend to let him close. She was already curious about what lay behind his facade, and that way lay danger. He was a Westing, and she was nobody. He would never have nightmares about knives in the street.
       "My grandfather was Stephen. They called me Calder to avoid confusion."
       "The name skipped a generation, then?" She realized she was being an idiot. Like everyone else, she knew his father's name perfectly well.
       "No. His eldest son, my uncle, was Stephen Calder as well. You've probably never heard of him. The story is that he died in Korea during the war."
       She looked at him sharply. "I'm not sure what you mean by 'the story.' I probably know less about your family than you think. Nothing personal, but it's just not the kind of thing I follow. I care more about a politician's positions than his relations. The lives of the rich and famous don't interest me."
       He ran his finger along the edge of the lab bench. "You wouldn't know this bit even if you read every word ever written about my family."
       Cassie was growing more and more puzzled by his behavior. "Well, I suppose every family has its secrets." Not that the Westings could ever have the kind of secrets her family did.
       "He was in the Korean War, and was badly shellshocked—what we'd call severe post-traumatic stress disorder now. He was shipped home pretty much non-functional." Calder's voice became darkly sardonic. "That wasn't acceptable in the heir to the Westing fortune, especially as my other uncle was just beginning to succeed in politics. So he was secretly put into 'retirement.' When it became clear that he wasn't going to get better, they announced he had been killed in the war, quietly disinherited him, and made sure he was taken care of by people who would never breathe a word of it. It was much more acceptable to have a brother who died a heroic death than one who panicked any time he was in a room with more than two people in it."
       He had her full attention now. She didn't know how to respond to a story like that. "Sort of like Mrs. Rochester in the attic?"
       He grimaced. "Well, he was kept in a bit more comfort than that, but yes. He died about ten years ago, and his last few years were fairly good ones as better medications became available. I wasn't told the truth until after he died."
       "I'm sorry." She felt a surprising urge to reach out and touch him. She wondered what his arm would feel like under her hand.
       "As I said, I never knew him." He looked suddenly stiff. "You could sell that story to a tabloid for a great deal of money if you wanted to. I hope you won't."
       Cassie could practically see him withdraw behind his eyes. He had seemed human for a few minutes there, but now the other Calder was back. Insinuating she'd violate a confidence for money, indeed! Of course, if that little story was any indication of what his family was like, she could hardly blame him for being unpredictable.
       "Don't worry; no one will ever hear about it from me." It was good to have the reminder of how cold he was most of the time. For a moment there he had almost drawn her in. No, she found him altogether too attractive to risk allowing herself close to him. A man like Calder