Jacob removed his lanky frame from the chair with a glum expression. “I expect you will be wanting me to catch them?”
Cassandra continued to beam with delight. “Not at all. I am very proficient at it. You can clean them.”
Ignoring the butler’s crestfallen expression, Cassandra slipped out the makeshift door in search of a suitable stick for use as a pole. Lotta’s glare of disapproval had been sufficient reminder that the pond in question belonged to Merrick, but the small matter of property lines had never inhibited her. A pond was made for fishing, just as apples were meant for eating.
Feeling as if she were finally being of some use, Cassandra gathered her rudimentary fishing gear and set off across the fields. The sun had risen warm and high, and the heavy cotton of her coarse gown weighed down on her. By the time she reached the pond, she had loosened the tucker to let her skin breathe.
She found a grassy overhang beneath a towering beech and settled on a tussock. Removing her shoes and stockings, she wriggled her toes in the cool water. Rolling her skirts up to her knees, she reveled in the breeze. This was much better than trudging out to the fields to see if her new workers were making any progress in the weed-grown pasture.
The fish bit willingly this day, and soon she had a small string floundering in the water. Unwilling to return just yet, she sent her line out one more time, wondering if the huge trout that used to hide on the bottom had ever been caught. Feeling quite at peace with the day, Cassandra began to sing to herself.
Rather enjoying the joyful noise she made, she tried out a more boisterous tune. The water carried the sound back to her better than the choir loft of a church, not that she had tried that holy place on many occasions. Still, the music appealed, and Cassandra began a haunting lover’s lament in full soprano.
By the chorus, a rich male baritone had joined her, and Cassandra hid a grin as she added dramatic emphasis to the pathos of “his lovely lids closed over his sad, dark beautiful eyes.” The ringing high notes blended smoothly with the deep counterpart, and she launched into a livelier tune as Merrick crouched down beside her.
His brown eyes crinkled with amusement, but he met her note for note with a voice smooth enough to raise the hairs on Cassandra’s arms. Garbed in a rough pair of broadcloth breeches and an open-necked white shirt, he did not wear the formality of the earl.
Cassandra started on a rolling “fol-de-rol-ra-ra” that caught the best of tongues, when a sharp tug on her line jerked her attention from Merrick’s smile.
Nearly tumbling in, Cassandra hauled backward in an attempt to draw the line.
“Hang on, I’ll get it. Old Bess must have liked our singing.” Crouching behind her, Merrick added his strength by wrapping his arms around her and grabbing the pole. “Steady now, or she’ll break loose. What the deuce did you use for bait?”
“Worms. What else is there?” Cassandra gasped as the fish struggled harder. Raising the pole in tandem with Wyatt’s efforts, she tried to pull her catch toward shore. In the next instant, the pole snapped, she tumbled backward, and Wyatt collapsed with a soft “Oomph” as he padded Cassandra’s fall.
Giggling, she tried to extricate herself from the entanglement of line, pole, skirts, and Wyatt’s long legs. “Such a good pillow you make, my lord,” she murmured.
Fairly caught, she gripped Wyatt’s thigh to balance herself. Liking the muscular hardness, she made little haste to escape but turned a pert smile at the trapped earl.
Whatever words she meant to say disappeared, seared from her tongue by the look in Merrick’s eyes. Lying flat on his back, his arm clamped around her waist, the earl looked at her with desire igniting his eyes.
Knowing what she did was brazen beyond all the bounds of propriety, Cassandra turned more fully in Wyatt’s grasp. Still lying between his thighs, she rested her hands against the rough weave of his shirt and bent forward to place a kiss upon his lips.
The grip at her waist tightened, hauling her upward so she no longer possessed all the advantage. Cassandra sprawled full length along a man’s hard body, her breasts pressed against an unyielding surface, her legs entwined about limbs stronger than a young tree’s. Wyatt’s lips drew her concentration back to the wondrous blending of their mouths and breaths and tongues.
Sighing with pleasure, Cassandra gave herself up to the kiss she had feared would live only in her imagination. It burned like fire but sent shafts of pleasure through her center.
Wyatt groaned when she parted her lips and allowed his tongue entrance. Cassandra melted against him, wanting to know more of his hard male body and kisses. She sensed his tension, but the sweetness of his kiss and the tenderness of his hold were too new an experience to abandon.
As the kiss deepened, Merrick’s hands roamed, and Cassandra shivered, wrapping her fingers instinctively in the thick hair at the nape of his neck. When one large hand cupped her breast, she made no effort to resist. The shivers had become something else, a need, a yearning for more.
When hard brown fingers pushed aside her tucker to caress her bare flesh, Cassandra gasped, but she scarcely had time to explore this new avenue of pleasure.
A loud male voice yelled “Merrick!” from just beyond the bushes, bringing their idyll to an abrupt end.
Cursing, Wyatt rolled Cassandra to the ground and sprang to his feet. Grateful he was wearing loose breeches, he adjusted himself and strode to the pond’s edge, avoiding the tumbled beauty lying in the grass. One sight of her might destroy all the good intentions in the world. Just that brief glimpse of fair, full breasts had nearly crippled him. Aware of Cassandra’s attempts to right her appearance, he called out to the intruder.
“Bertie, you damned fool, don’t you know better than to yell around fishermen?” He stooped to retrieve the broken pole.
Wyatt couldn’t turn around until his ardor cooled, and he listened with disgruntlement as Cassandra greeted their neighbor with pleasantries. He heaved the snapped pole into the water after the treacherous trout and greeted their jests with grunts.
“He got away, Bertie, the biggest fish you ever did see! Snapped my pole right in two! You should have seen it. I’ll have to come back tomorrow with a stronger pole.” Cassandra chattered senselessly.
“I’ll bring one of my lines down to try if Merrick’s are so flimsy as to break at a mere tug,” Bertie said. “He hasn’t got time to idle away. They’re raising a hue and cry for him back at the house. I just came to ask if our lofty earl will honor our poor house with his presence on Friday eve. And now that I’ve found you” —he glanced down at Cass sitting cross-legged with her maid’s discarded skirts billowing around her— “I would ask you the same. It will just be an informal dinner and musicale. Do say you will come, Cass.”
“It is very kind of you to ask me, Bertie, but it would probably not be appropriate for me to attend a respectable neighborhood gathering. I would like very much to see your brother again, if I might.”
Merrick hauled in her catch line. “She’ll be there, Scheffing. I’ll bring her with me. If Thomas is up to it, I’ll bring her over for a few minutes this afternoon.”
“Merrick, of all the high-handed—”
Bertie grinned and cut Cass off as he helped her to her feet. “His lordship speaks. We must obey. We keep country hours. You needn’t worry.”
She angrily shook out her skirts and glared at them. “It is all very well and fine for you to say, gentlemen. You do not have to show up in cotton skirts and be the butt of gossip. I will accept your offer to see Thomas, Merrick, but I cannot attend a social occasion.”
Bertie looked dismayed, but Wyatt merely handed her the line of fish. “You will have to face them sometime. It might as well be among friends. You can wear what you have on for all I care. I’ll be by this afternoon to take you to Thomas. First, I better see to the uproar at the house.”
He strode off without leaving a chance for reply. Left with the choice of following at the earl’s heels or staying with Cass, Bertie chose
the latter.
He reached for her line of fish. “I don’t know what’s got into Wyatt these days. He didn’t used to be so toplofty. Let me see you home.”
Cassandra felt a tug of sadness at Merrick’s retreat, but she donned a smile and disengaged herself from Bertie. “My maid would be all up in the boughs did she know anyone saw me like this. I thank you for your offer, but I had best see myself home.”
Before Bertie could object, she scampered away, her lips tingling with delicious stolen kisses better than any pilfered apple.
~*~
Merrick climbed over the stile and into the manicured park of his estate. Ancient evergreens beckoned him with their shade, but he trudged toward the sunny cascade of the flower gardens in the side yard.
He didn’t know why he had even gone to the pond this morning. He had just felt misplaced and out of sorts and wanted some time alone. The quiet reflections and musical bird calls of the pond had always been one of his favorite escapes. Too favorite, obviously, he grunted to himself. Elsewise, Bertie would never have found him.
Imagining what might have happened had Bertie not arrived, Merrick bit back a deep groan and covered his eyes. Neither action appeased the surge of lust in his loins.
Never in his life had a woman driven him to this sort of behavior. He had considered himself a dispassionate man. He enjoyed the brief pleasures of a woman’s body, but not to a degree to distract him from his goals.
Awakening to the fact that he was in danger of trampling his mother’s prized flowerbeds, Wyatt halted to admire the unopened new buds of the rosebush. Cassandra was like a rose in that she had her roots in the muck of Howard ancestry, but she still produced the heady, sensuous beauty of a perfect blossom. No man in his right mind clasped thorns, particularly when the rose belonged to another man.
Wyatt glanced up to see his mother bearing down on him, followed by a harassed and angry MacGregor. It would not do to make his steward angry. The man was worth his weight in gold. But then, Lady Merrick on her high ropes was not an adversary to be discounted either. Cursing his unlucky stars, Wyatt stretched his legs in the direction of the coming battle.
His mother glared at his rough garb. “Where have you been, traipsing around like some Gypsy? You even have grass in your hair!”
With a tired sigh Wyatt ran his fingers through his hair to remove the offending article. “Bertie says there is some problem, Mother. I assume my offensive appearance is not what he had in mind.”
“Most certainly not! You have no cause to be rude, Wyatt. The men are planting turnips in the south field. We always plant oats in that field. Your father swore the soil was best for them there. You must order them to stop at once. MacGregor won’t do it. He is above all insolent.”
Merrick sent his steward a sympathetic look. “Quite right, Mother. The soil in the south field has been diminished by too much planting of oats and no replenishment of nutrients. I told MacGregor to have turnips planted there.”
As his mother choked on her outrage, Wyatt dismissed the steward before he could be subjected to another scathing attack of the countess’s particular brand of vitriol. He watched the man stride away, wishing he could do the same.
“You never told me, Wyatt! I should have been told. You cannot go making decisions behind my back and leaving me ignorant in front of the servants.”
Wyatt offered her his arm as he steered her toward the house. “If you did not interfere in what is not your concern, Mother, there would be no reason to show your ignorance. Why can you not visit the other ladies and hold teas and parties and play cards and leave me to running the estate?”
Lady Merrick sniffed. “I always helped your father run the estate, and I am sure he did not object. But if it is parties you want, you will be pleased to know we are entertaining this evening. I have invited Catherine and her family. It is time you mend this foolish breach. You must have heirs, and even you have admitted that Catherine is the ideal candidate for your wife.”
He nodded politely to his mother’s chatter and concentrated on the day’s chores ahead.
The fact that they included driving Cassandra to visit Thomas presented both irksome and pleasing aspects to the afternoon, Merrick decided later that day as he guided the curricle down the rutted drive of the Eddings estate.
He had changed into suitable attire for an afternoon visit, and glancing down at his companion, he could see that Cassandra had done the same. Rupert could not have left her entirely impoverished. The high-necked sprigged muslin gown she wore was of the highest quality.
Clearing his throat, he began the speech he had practiced these last hours. “I wish very much to apologize for this morning, my lady.”
Blue eyes the color of gentians flashed up at him. “I should certainly think so. You cannot imagine how awkward a situation you place me in. I am quite certain Mrs. Scheffing had no intention of inviting me and polluting the polite air of her company. Even if she did mean well, I could not possibly go. I left those hideous evening gowns Duncan bought for me behind, and I could not possibly attend in one of the two morning gowns I came away with. I had sufficient of that embarrassment at Hampton Court. I am happy to hear that you finally see reason.”
Merrick didn’t know whether to laugh or weep that his hours of agonizing over the insult he had offered her had completely gone by Cassandra’s pretty head. He quirked his lips wryly. “That is not precisely the incident to which I referred, Cass.”
That brought a flush of color to her cheeks, a rarity if he ever recognized one.
“Oh, that, well, you were hardly to blame, were you? Does a lady apologize for forwardness?”
“A lady is not forward, so she has no reason to apologize. But you did not know what you were doing, and I did. Therefore, I must extend my most abject apologies and promise it will never happen again.”
Cassandra thought about that for a minute. The curricle in which they rode was small, and she had a new awareness of the hard male thigh not inches from hers. The tight pantaloons encasing his muscular leg heightened her fascination. There was a subtle difference in the way he treated her now, as if he had finally become aware that she was a woman.
Cass realized she wanted Merrick to think of her as a woman. “Why do you think I did not know what I was doing?”
Merrick gave her a startled glance, then flicked the whip and continued to watch the road. “You are not old enough to know what you were doing.”
Cassandra flounced on her seat. “I am old enough to be married. I should certainly think a married woman ought to know what she was doing.”
“This is a ridiculous argument. I will rescind my apology, if you prefer, but you will still go to the musicale Friday. You cannot hide forever. The frock you have on will be far grander than anything the other ladies will have.”
Cassandra pondered this. Wyatt was no arbiter of ladies’ fashions, obviously. She knew perfectly well that what she wore now was suitable for morning company at home, not even appropriate for this afternoon call, and certainly not suitable for evening attire. But the question was more of her courage than her attire. Did she dare face a house full of condemning, critical people, even with Merrick at her side? Why should she?
“It is easier to slay dragons while wearing armor. I’ll not go. You may make my apologies to Bertie.”
“You had best be dressed and ready when I come for you, or I shall take you wearing whatever you have on.”
Cassandra sent his determined jaw an uncertain look. Wyatt’s unprepossessing demeanor did not speak of a man capable of physical violence. A shock of chestnut hair fell down over his forehead, and whereas his high brow and square chin might have classical proportions, his nose had a sharp look to it that diminished the image. He did not possess the deep romantic eyes of a Byron or the sardonic piratical features of a Raleigh. He was just Wyatt, the toplofty Earl of Merrick. He wouldn’t carry out his threats.
Cassandra crossed her arms and repeated, “I won’t come.”
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Wyatt shrugged. “We’ll see about that.”
~*~
Wyatt had forgotten that conversation by the time he staggered out of the stable later that evening and turned his weary legs toward the house.
It had been a monstrously long day, starting with that tussle with Cassandra and ending with the foaling of his favorite mare. The birth had threatened to be a breech, but the blood and filth halfway up his arms testified of his successful struggle to prevent it. All Wyatt wanted now was a long, hot bath, some of his best brandy, and his dinner.
As soon as he walked through the door he realized his mistake. Voices and light drifted from the first drawing room, which was never used except for entertaining. His mother’s words of earlier that day came back to haunt him, and he groaned. Catherine was here.
Any attempt to escape was thwarted by his mother and Catherine. They must have been lying in wait for him, or else he had a traitorous footman on the staff. Glaring at the closest servant, Wyatt waited as the two women approached.
His mother screeched in dismay at his appearance, and Catherine’s venomous glance spoke volumes. Merrick bowed mockingly.
“Forgive me, ladies. I had not meant to offend your delicate sensibilities with my appearance. I was inexcusably delayed by Mother Nature. Perhaps you could go in to dinner without me?”
By this time Catherine’s parents had joined them in the foyer, and Merrick nodded to Baron Montcrieff. The jovial older man gave him an understanding grin, but his wife’s grim expression kept him silent.
“I have had quite enough of your insults, Wyatt.” Catherine spoke before anyone else could offer a placating word. “You had time enough to escort that little trollop through the countryside, but you do not have the decency to let your grooms handle their own jobs while I sit waiting for you to put in an appearance. I’ll not be treated as an old shoe by anyone. I demand an apology.”
Wyatt gazed down into her small, tight features, wondering at the hostility in her voice. She was twenty-five, well able to attend a small family dinner without her parents, but she continued the act of demure young maiden—except at times like these. When loosened, Catherine’s tongue could be as strident as any jackdaw’s.
Dash of Enchantment Page 12
