Death in Kenya by M. M. Kaye

the summer was over and Victoria had gone on with her secretarial course, because, she told Eden, it would be a help in the running of Flamingo.
    They were to be married when Eden was twenty-four, and he had actually married when he was within a week of his twenty-fourth birthday. But it had not been to Victoria. It had been to Alice Laxton. Five years ago … Yet even now, to think of it brought back some of the suffocating, agonizing pain of those days.
    It had happened suddenly and without warning. Eden had arrived one afternoon to see her mother, and left again without waiting to see Victoria, who was out. Helen had looked pale and upset but had said nothing more than that Eden had been unable to stay as he had to spend the weekend with friends in Sussex, but that he would be writing.
    The letter had come three days later, and Victoria could still remember every line of it as though it had burned itself into her brain. They had made a mistake, wrote Eden, and confused cousinly affection and friendship for something deeper. Nothing could alter that fondness and friendship, and he knew her too well not to know that if she did not agree with him now, she would one day. One day she would fall in love with someone else, as he himself had done, and then her affection for him would fall into its proper place. And as they had never really been engaged, neither of them need suffer any public embarrassment.
    As he himself had done  … In the face of that statement there was nothing for Victoria to do but write an unhysterical letter accepting the inevitable and agreeing that his decision was the right one. She had saved her pride, and probably salved Eden’s conscience, by doing so; if either of those things were worth doing.
    Helen had been relieved and had not attempted to disguise the fact. ‘I never think that marriages between cousins are a good idea,’ she said. ‘Inbreeding never did anyone any good.’
    Em had written from Kenya. She had quite obviously accepted Eden’s view that the break was mutual, and the letter had been charming and deeply regretful, and had ended with the hope that they might both think better of it. But on the same morning as its arrival The Times and the Telegraph had published the announcement of Eden’s engagement to Alice Laxton, and less than a month later they had been married.
    Oh, the agony of those days! The tearing, wrenching pain of loss. The shock of casually opening an illustrated paper at the hairdressers and being confronted with a full page photograph of Eden and his bride leaving St George’s, Hanover Square. Eden, grave and unsmiling, and as heart-breakingly handsome as every woman’s dream of Prince Charming. And Alice, an anonymous figure in white satin whose bridal veil had blown across her face and partially obscured it.
    â€˜Better looking than Robert Taylor or any of those,’ said the hairdresser’s assistant, peering over her shoulder. ‘Ought to be on the films, he ought. It’s a waste. Don’t think much of her, do you? Can’t think how she got him. Money, I expect. The papers say she’s got any amount of it. Wish I had! What about just a touch of brilliantine, Miss Caryll?’
    Any amount of money … Had that been why Eden had married her? No, he could not be so despicable! Not Eden. But Flamingo, she knew, had been losing money of late, and Eden had expensive tastes. Em had spoilt him. It would be nice to be able to think that he only married Alice Laxton for her money, for then she could despise him and be sorry for his wife, and apply salve to her own hurt pride. But what did hurt pride matter in comparison to the pain in her heart? I won’t think of him any more, decided Victoria. I won’t let myself think of any of this again.
    It had not been easy to keep that vow, but hard work had helped, and at last there came a time when memory did not rise and mock her whenever she was