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This was the first husband candidate who had received a hint that his attentions toward Cynthia might be welcome. Van, however, wasn’t entirely sure the prospective bridegroom was smart enough to recognize the hint. Maybe that was a good thing. Mary would have a fit if she found out Van had blabbed. She’d insisted that some chemistry would sizzle in the air as soon as Cynthia met her mate. Nothing must cloud that. He must not know he was on trial for acquiring a bride with a big enough bank balance to block out the sun.
Too bad. If Mary had wanted to get her way, she should have come along to Van’s carefully arranged chance-first-meeting with His Loftiness to check the man out. Not that Van had figured out a thing about the man. Van should have met the prospect in a boardroom. Then Van would know all there was to know.
And speaking of Mary, she tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow and tugged. “Have you checked on how bad the food is?”
Brock Samuel, of course, was not the caterer at this party. “Just heading to one of the tables now. Did you? How was it?”
Mary’s silence was eloquent.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“You’ll stay hungry, unless you drop your standards a few miles below Uncle Brock’s.”
The white lacy stuff covering the tables looked goodenoughtoeat.WhathadMarycalledit?Bruges lace, or something like that. It was supposed to be a big deal.
The food, on the other hand … Some of it looked like funny-colored cream cheese on Ritz crackers. Hmph. He spotted an enormous platter of shrimp, but the blasted things still had their shells. How long would it take to get a decent mouthful?
“The caviar’s good,” Mary said. “The guy couldn’t do too much to mess that up. Just open a can. But Uncle Brock wouldn’t have brought that kind. He knows where to buy caviar twice as good at half the price.”
Van grunted. He wasn’t sure whether he was grunting over the blasted fish eggs or that cursed uncle of hers. That was the majestic thing about grunting. You could vent your displeasure without having to explain why you were displeased, or even figure it out yourself.
At the moment, he was probably even more out of sorts because it was getting still harder to breathe. Curse this tie. He’d ask Mary to retie it looser, but she’d probably do it in the middle of what would be the dance floor, where everybody could see that he couldn’t tie his own tie. Curse this neck of his. It felt strangled, as though it was blocked up with something determined to come out.
Van scowled. Maybe he had to admit he was worried about Aunt Cynthia. Then he could get someone else worrying too.
“Where’s this count, or whatever he is? I want to check him out in this milieu,” Van said.
“You mean His Royal Highness Prince Tomas Cerny.”
Mary rolled out the “r” in Cerny for what seemed like half a minute. Showoff.
Never mind that now. Aunt Cynthia had circulated her way toward the guy. Well, look at that. He was anotherhandkisser.Marysaidawomancouldswoon away — yeah, that’s the way she put it, swoon away — when a guy did that. Van made a note to himself to try it out on Mary when he finally got rid of his ill-temper.
He hadn’t felt right at all since — Since when? It might even be since Aunt Cynthia had called him in tears to say Brock had started speaking to her again long enough to say he was breaking up with her. It always drove Van crazy when he couldn’t fix things for people. No wonder he wanted distance from people. They kept suffering from things he had to fix, and he was miserable until they stopped being miserable.
Van desperately wanted this Cerny fellow to take over one of Van’s most important people. Van had to admit, though, he didn’t much like the way the man was prancing around Aunt Cynthia now.
He’d go check on the dogs. That was it. They always made him happy.
The puppies were a lot bigger than they’d been at the last party. This time he’d set them up in a pantry that opened onto the kitchen but was off the beaten path. Guinevere and Lancelot would make sure the puppies weren’t trampled underfoot by the catering staff.
When Van got to the pantry, he found the entire family having a great little snooze in the midst of the kitchen’s semi-controlled chaos. One puppy was chasing something fun and wonderful in his sleep, and another’s nose was twitching. Guinevere was curledaroundallofthem,andaroundLancelot.Good thing there was so much of her to go around.
She hadn’t joined the others in their nap. Her head was up, and her eyes darted around the vicinity. She looked a little restless, or alert, or on guard.
Suddenly,shestoodup.Lancelotandtheirchildren groaned at being jostled but subsided back into their dreams. Guinevere quietly padded away. She probably wanted to scout out the territory for any danger to her family.
She was good at such things. Van might as well go seeifhecouldcornerAuntCynthiaandfindoutwhat she thought of the prince. If she’d recovered from swooning away over his hand kisses, that is.
Van found Aunt Cynthia sitting in a small room around the corner from the pool and the main party area. It was used as a coatroom when it was needed for that. The corner blocked off much of the soft light from the moon and the stars winking on the ripples in the pool, but the pin lights from the dance area spread some shadows into the room.
Aunt Cynthia was in the semi-dark, listening to the party. That wasn’t like her. She was usually the elegant center of all the action.
“Soooo,” he said heartily, hoping the oomph in his voice would spread to his aunt.
Hersmilebarelycurvedherlips.“Youwanttoknow what I think of Prince Tomas.”
“Yes.”
