Bridal Favors by Connie Brockway

woman in whose debt, coincidentally, I am, to secure the rental of North Cross.”
    “Another young woman? What young woman?”
    “Evelyn Cummings Whyte.”
    Bernard ruminated a moment before his face lit with realization. “Good God, Jus, Lally’s granddaughter?”
    Jus slanted Bernard a curious look. “Yes. Do you know her?”
    “Only by reputation. Her grandfather is an acquaintance. He calls his grandaughter
Her Preternatural Formidableness.
Swears his entire family runs in terror of her.”
    “Terror?” Justin tried out the word. “She’s as big as a minute and looks like a schoolgirl. In fact, I mistook her for one. Now, ‘strange,’ I might concede you, but I must disagree on ‘terrifying.’ ”
    Bernard lifted his hand in a gesture of exasperation. “I’m sure you know best.”
    “Normally I wouldn’t be so presumptuous,” Justin demurred. “But it’s amazing the camaraderie that can develop between housebreaker and house owner.”
    “What in God’s name are you talking about now, Justin? Is this your idea of a joke? Your sense of the absurd has always been your Achilles’ heel. Speak plainly, man. What has a housebreaking to do with the Duke of Lally’s granddaughter and an American widow?”
    “I thought I’d been clear,” Justin said. “Lady Evelyn broke into my house in order to collect on a favor I owed her. She felt it necessary to gain illegal access because legitimate routes had been closed to her by Beverly, who, acting upon my orders in an apparently futile attempt to keep my presence in the city from being known, told her I was not in.”
    “Does it ever worry you that you play the part of an absentminded muttonhead too well?” Bernard asked, winning a brilliant smile from Justin.
    “No, but I thank you for your concern. Again, where was I? Oh, yes. Apparently, her aunt—Lally’s daughter—arranges,” Justin groped for the right term, “matrimonial fracases or fetes or banquets or such.”
    “Ah, yes, I recall,” Bernard mused.
    “Well, the aunt has eloped, leaving Evie—Lady Evelyn—minding the store. Unfortunately, she seems to have been making a hash of it. She is certain this American widow is her last chance to save the family business from disgrace. And, I suspect, herself from humiliation.” His expression grew pensive. “I don’t think the word ‘fail’ is a part of that young woman’s lexicon.”
    Bernard retained his good humor. He’d learned from long past experience not to bother trying to rein in Justin’s conversation. Eventually, Justin would get to the point. But Bernard once more was overtaken by the suspicion that Justin did it on purpose, to distract and trick a fellow into revealing more information than he intended to. “You are getting to your actual
plan,
are you not?”
    The puzzlement vanished from Justin’s expression. “Everything in its given time,” he said. “The reason all this is material, Bernard, is that in order to transform my dusty inheritance into a suitably impressive stage, fit for the widow’s wedding, my little housebreaker will have to import a great many things. Which means—Bernard, are you attending? Good—which means that the abbey will receive shipment upon shipment, crates upon crates of accoutrements, flowers, food, trimmings, equipage, and various and sundry wedding paraphernalia.”
    “Ah!” Bernard released his breath.
    “‘And thus, the veil lifted from his eyes,’ ” Justin intoned. “That’s right, Bernard, your mysterious foreign agent can ship the even more mysterious ‘diabolical machine’ to the abbey without anyone remarking it. What’s one crate amongst dozens? Then, after it arrives, we slip your pet scientist in to do a quick little anatomical survey, so to speak; trash the prototype and back off to Oxford he pops to report in to the rest of the brain bank. It’s perfect.”
    “What if Lady Evelyn opens it?” Bernard asked dubiously. “The hell of the situation is that we