Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“I don’t know if I can eat eel again,” Victor whispered to Pandora, making her let out a small laugh.
“It smells … different from last time,” she said, though she was having a hard time placing anything.
“Here, my sweet pup,” Elias said, pulling a chair out for Lucy, who looked daggers at him as she slid onto it.
Pandora made Victor sit next to her, regardless of what her mother might have preferred.
Robert sat next to Reginald, with a less-comfortable-looking Mary at his other side.
“There’s no pig this time,” Victor said.
“No dogs at the table,” Ravenna told Henrietta as she came into the dining room, all of her dogs at her heels.
“They’ll be under the table,” Henrietta said, taking a seat next to Mary.
“Tonight, we have baked feta pasta,” Ravenna said, pulling the lid off one of the dishes. “Spicy vodka pasta,” she went on, pulling off another lid. “Sweet pepper sandwiches stuffed with cream cheese and bagel seasoning …”
“Is it just me or are these dishes all the ones trending on social apps?” Victor asked.
He was right about that.
Ravenna, realizing her mistake with the food from too long ago the last time, had done her research and decided to make every trendy food dish that had recently gone viral.
Pandora was touched, again, at Ravenna’s effort to try to do right, to welcome not only Victor, but his parents too, into their family. No matter how tense some others were about the arrangement.
The meal itself went off with a surprising lack of catastrophes. Sure, Pandora’s cousin Jasper was caught staring at Victor’s mum’s neck more than a few times. And, yeah, at some point, Elizabeth, frustrated with not being able to locate the clever Vlad, instead decided to run around under the table, chasing Henrietta’s sixteen dogs. And, sure, Reginald got into far too many details about some minor war that Pandora was pretty sure wasn’t even in any history texts.
But other than that, everyone seemed to enjoy the food. Dante, Elias, and Lucy managed to keep Mary distracted from any oddness.
It all went well. Better than she ever could have expected.
But then there was another knock at the door.
Looking back, Pandora was pretty sure she could pinpoint that as the moment the night took a sharp turn and then veered completely off the tracks.
20
Pandora’s gaze went to her mother, but she looked just as perplexed as Pandora felt, as Lucian rose from the table to ascertain who was at the door.
“How much more family do you have?” Victor asked, looking down the table. Which, despite the many people gathered around, was only half full.
“Well, let’s put it this way. When everyone is here, there’s not only no room at the table, but we usually have people standing around.”
“Wow,” Victor said, shaking his head. “Are they all as … colourful as everyone here?” He glanced over at Dudley, who was feeding his cockatoo pieces of pasta out of his own mouth.
“I wish I could say not,” she said, wincing.
The sound of footsteps drawing near had her attention turning to the doorway.
Really, if she’d been given a thousand guesses as to who might be at the door, she still never would have landed on the right person.
Because right there, standing next to her father, was the woman whose eyes had followed Pandora around the sitting room her entire life.
It was her great-great-grandmother.
Ambrosia Von Ashmore.
She couldn’t exactly say that the quite youthful, stunning woman standing just a few yards away was her great-great-grandmother, now, could she?
But no one else seemed capable of coming up with a good lie on the fly either.
“Well, don’t you look just like your mother,” Ambrosia said, those haunting grey-blue eyes pinned on Pandora.
“I … Thank you,” Pandora said, not really seeing the resemblance herself, but knowing that was meant as a compliment. Even if Ambrosia’s cool tone didn’t suggest as much.
“Wait,” Victor said, brows scrunching as he looked at Ambrosia.
He’d seen the painting in the sitting room.
And there was a spark of recognition in his eyes.
“Aren’t you the woman from the painting?” he asked.
“There is no painting, young man,” Ambrosia said, her tone sending a shiver down Pandora’s spine. But not so much as the way her eyes seemed to glow as she spoke to Victor. Almost as if …
“No,” Pandora said, jumping out of her seat so quickly that her chair overturned, knocking onto the wood floor, making half the table jump.
“Whoa. That was fast,” Victor said, looking at her, seeming a little drunk.
Of course he did.
Her great-great-grandmother had just glamoured him.
That was completely out of line.
“Pandora,” Ophelia said, her voice a hushed warning.
Sure, Pandora had been raised to respect her elders. And you literally couldn’t get any older than Ambrosia. But that didn’t mean she had the right to go around glamouring whoever she wanted. Especially Victor.