He couldn’t help wondering what Cassandra would have done in this situation. Knowing the little wanton, he rather imagined she would do something completely perverse like calling for his bath and insisting on bathing him.
Merrick started with the shock of that thought. Where had it come from? Why would he even imagine such a lascivious thing about a gently bred young girl? He must be more tired than he thought.
The sight of his mother’s ire upon learning he had spent time in the “little trollop’s” company frayed what remained of his patience. Cassandra’s visit to Thomas had brought sunshine to the sickroom and laughter to a household that had lived on the edge of hell these last weeks. Whatever Cassandra might be, her heart was in the right place.
“We have already had this argument, Catherine. We have agreed we do not suit. Now, if you will excuse me...” He nodded curtly and strode off, leaving his mother to deal with the consequences of his rudeness and her own overbearing interference.
Chapter 13
The package arrived late Friday afternoon. The grubby little boy who delivered it insisted that he had already been paid and rode away in a splatter of mud on a bedraggled pony. When Lotta carried it to her mistress, Cassandra stared at the package as if it were a can of worms.
“I ordered nothing else from the dressmaker’s, just this gown I have on and the other. It cannot be for me.”
The maid gave her an impatient look. “Why question it? If a mistake has been made, someone else must pay, not us. Or perhaps your brother has condescended to spend some of your husband’s money on you. Enough money exchanged hands to pay for a thousand gowns.”
Cassandra studied the papers wrapping the package—ordinary dressmaker’s wrapping. Only the word “Armor” blackened in one corner gave any clue to the sender. Cassandra gulped and hid her dismay.
Lotta removed the paper and withdrew a lovely blue-green and white-striped silk with a simple bodice draped in lace and a skirt ending in a flounce and a slight train. Both women stared at the confection in awe and admiration.
“Look at the wider skirt,” Cassandra whispered in delight. “It is the very latest thing. And the trim... It is so much lovelier than those plain straight things I have been wearing for years. How could he...?”
She bit her tongue. Under no circumstances could she reveal her knowledge of the giver, but she knew who it was.
Even she knew it was highly improper for a gentleman to give a lady a personal or valuable article unless they were betrothed. What had possessed the proper Earl of Merrick to do such a scandalous thing? Her eyes widened as she thought of the expensive gifts her father and brother sent to their Fashionable Impures. This was the kind of gift a man gave his mistress.
Not totally displeased with this idea, Cassandra began to shed the hideous cotton gown she had been disguising herself in. It was all very well and good to swear never to be looked at by another man, but her heart longed for the feminine niceties she had forsworn by retreating to rural solitude.
It fitted beautifully, the draping of lace adding a becoming modesty to her generous figure, the silk clinging to her waist. Beneath the silk lay matching ribbons, and Cassandra gazed at them longingly before glaring at her rebellious tresses.
“How I long to cut all that off! Wouldn’t it look nice with just a fringe of curls and those ribbons? I hate Duncan for not allowing me to see a hairdresser.”
Since of all the things Duncan had done, that was the least, Lotta ignored this childish tantrum and reached for the brush. “Sit down. You just don’t know how to work with hair.”
With a few deft twists and turns and a number of precious pins, Lotta succeeded in taming Cassandra’s unruly hair into a neat roll at the back of her head, with only a few wispy curls dangling in a tantalizing cloud about her face and throat. The ribbons added the finishing touches.
Cassandra gazed at her reflection in delight. “You’re an artist! I almost look like everyone else now.”
Lotta snorted. “You’ll never look like all those other insipid misses. You can just pretend to for the ladies’ sake. The men will see the difference soon enough.”
Cassandra’s shoulders slumped as she prepared to strip off the confection in favor of her cotton gown. “I don’t want men to see the difference. I’ve caused enough trouble as it is.”
A knock at the side entrance put an end to this argument. Jacob’s stiff voice greeted the visitor.
The room Cassandra had chosen for her own had been little more than a potting shed off the sunroom. One door was swollen shut and impossible to open. The other didn’t close properly, and there was no way of barring it. One could only hope the arrival was still another delivery boy.
A man’s deep baritone dispelled that hope. Cassandra glanced nervously toward the door into the entrance hall. Merrick! He had come for her just as he said. Glancing down at her gown, she knew his timing to be impeccable. He had probably watched the box delivered and waited just long enough to be certain she had time to try on the gown. Despicable cad! How had he known that she would try it on and not send it back, as would have been proper?
Foolish question. Cassandra listened as Jacob insisted the lady was not at home, as she had told him to do. Merrick’s reply did not seem angry, but he did not go away either.
~*~
At the door, the earl pinned the lanky butler with his stare. “The lady has a previous engagement with me. Move aside and let me in, and I will wait for her.”
“There is no salon, my lord, I cannot do that. Lady Cassandra would be most upset should her friends see the inadequacy of her establishment. You will have to come back later.”
“Over your dead body, my good man. You will step aside or I shall remove some of those rotten boards in the window and enter that way. Cass will be upset no matter what either of us does. You might as well accept that fact right now.”
Realizing Merrick had the right of it, Jacob reluctantly stepped aside.
Merrick entered the dark interior Cass called home. While it might still be daylight outside, in here all was gloom except for the occasional sunbeam through a chink in the walls or ceiling. Setting his jaw, Merrick stalked unerringly across the flagstones. He shoved at the nearest door, finding it thoroughly embedded.
He had seen a light shining through the boarded window beside the door, so he knew someone was on the other side of this wall. They wouldn’t waste candles on unoccupied rooms.
Following the flagstones, he reached the roofless corridor on the other side of the conservatory. Here, he discovered light streaming through a partially open door. This, then, was her hiding place.
He shoved the door open and stared at the vision glowing in candlelight. The soft blue-green made Lady Cass’s hair seem more gold than red, and he wasn’t at all certain that he approved. Yet she looked as demure as any mother could desire. Her armor was quite complete. She had been right. The proper attire would sway the old biddies before ever a word could be said.
He bowed stiffly. “I see you are ready. Excellent. My carriage is waiting.”
“I’ll not go, Merrick,” Cassandra responded nervously. “I don’t wish to cause more trouble. I just want to be left alone.”
That was entirely unlike the Cass he knew, and Merrick frowned. “You’ll cause no trouble. Mrs. Scheffing knows you are coming and is agreeable. You are gowned appropriately. You have Bertie and me to stand at your side. What trouble can you possibly cause?”
Lotta scornfully marched past him. “You can look at her and ask that? I did not take you for a blind man.” She walked out, leaving them alone.
Merrick studied strawberry-golden curls dancing about slanted eyes fringed with thick lashes. Full pink lips formed a natural pout to beckon a man’s kiss, and skin fair and rich as any bowl of cream enticed the touch. All that, without even looking lower at the woman she had become. Merrick kept his groan to himself.
“You’re beautiful. I’m not blind. But beautiful women walk this earth all the
time. They don’t hide their looks in dismal caverns. Now, come, they’re waiting for us.”
“Look what I’ve done to Thomas,” Cassandra whispered entreatingly. “And Rupert. That was my fault. All my fault. I’ll not have it happen again. Leave me be, Merrick. Stay away from me.”
It was much too late for that, Merrick could have told her, but she was frightened enough. She had learned grown-up games much too young to know how to deal with the results.
Patiently he took her hand, and placed it on his arm. “Cass, you’re braver than that. I’ve seen you stroll through a gambling hell that would have made an Amazon faint. You can face a room of old biddies and a few young striplings. What happened between Thomas and your husband was one of those things that life hands out upon occasion. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.”
Oh, yes, there was. She could have agreed to be Rupert’s wife as promised, and none of this would have happened.
Reluctantly she took Merrick’s arm and walked out, ignoring the incredulous look on Jacob’s face. She couldn’t yell at her servant for allowing the earl in when she had given in to him herself. It was amazing how Wyatt was able to do that.
Dinner was an agony of form and address, but Merrick somehow maneuvered a place at her side and kept a running commentary that allowed Cassandra to relax to a degree and follow his example. When some particularly catty remark reached her ears, or when someone asked a pointedly personal question, Merrick stepped in before Cassandra’s temper could ignite. To be defended was such a novel experience that she managed to complete the meal in a silence of amazement.
Due to the entertainment, the gentlemen couldn’t linger over brandy and cigars. Cassandra was grateful for this small favor, although she was increasingly aware that she was now a target of disapproval for monopolizing the earl’s time.
Drawing a breath as they entered the music room, Cassandra bravely disengaged her hand from Merrick’s arm. “The ladies will expect you to circulate, my lord. You need not stay by my side all night.”
Merrick glanced down at her questioningly but obliged.
A gaping emptiness opened where Wyatt had stood, and even though others strove to fill it, she felt curiously alone. Aside from Lotta, she had never had a close friend to confide in. She couldn’t fathom why Merrick invited her confidences.
Bertie sat by her through the recital, and Cass lost herself in the music, supremely unaware of his presence. It would be marvelous to play like that, but without teachers, she had never been able to beat out more than the most perfunctory of tunes.
When the recital ended, the audience demanded selections from its members. Proud mothers paraded their daughters’ talents, and Cassandra’s fear built. Surely they would not call on her.
As if sensing her weakness, Mrs. Scheffing smiled at her. “And you, Lady Cassandra, will you not play? I can remember your parents had a grand music room. Surely you have absorbed some of their love for music?”
Cassandra bit back a sharp retort. The only music the late marquess enjoyed was the sound of his own voice brutalizing a tavern ditty. If her mother loved music, she had not stirred from her bed in years to acknowledge it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Scheffing, but I really cannot spoil the lovely music I have heard here tonight. Perhaps another time.”
A polite murmur of insistence arose, and Cassandra nearly panicked until a familiar male voice intruded.
“Lady Cassandra has an excellent voice, Mrs. Scheffing. I could be persuaded to play for her if she would sing.”
With a slight flush, Cassandra met Merrick’s dark eyes, but the happy applause prevented refusal. Obviously Merrick’s talents were known. Reluctantly she rose to join him by the pianoforte.
“What if we know none of the same tunes?” she whispered as he seated his elegant frame on the bench.
Laughter crinkled his eyes as he glanced up at her. “I can assure you, I know every tune that you know, and I know which ones not to play before polite company. Shall we try ‘Greensleeves’?”
The first haunting notes of the old melody rang from the pianoforte, and Cassandra’s soprano joined in so quietly that it was a second or two before anyone realized her voice and the instrument’s were not one and the same. The passionate music rose and swelled with the refrain, filling the room with a haunting tale of lost love. By the song’s end, many were surreptitiously drying their eyes.
Shaken by the intensity of the musical joining they had created, Merrick hastily stood and bowed as applause thundered. Never had he shared the intensity of his love for music, but in Cassandra he had found a soul mate. Judging from Cassandra’s dazed expression, she felt the same, and he pressed her shaking fingers protectively against his arm as she dipped a curtsy.
The carriage was brought around, the last farewells were said, and they stepped out into the cool evening starlight without exchanging a word. Merrick assisted her into the closed carriage. Cassandra reached for his hand as he settled beside her.
“How do you play like that?” she whispered in wonderment, her eyes wide in the lantern light as she gazed up at him.
“Shall I ask how you learned to sing like that? Even a nightingale couldn’t hit some of those notes.”
“I have tried to play ‘Greensleeves’ on every instrument imaginable,” she said. “It is one of the few tunes for which I know the notes. I cannot make it sound the way I want it to except when I sing. You played it better than I heard it in my head.”
Merrick remained silent. His mother deplored his useless habit of wasting hours at the pianoforte. He could not explain to her that he was happiest during those hours. The music challenged him, absorbed him, and carried him to other worlds. The woman-child beside him tonight was telling him she felt the same, or perhaps he was only imagining that in her simple words.
“You are welcome to try out our instrument anytime you like, my lady,” he answered formally.
Cassandra shook her head, loosening a shower of curls. “I could never make it sound like you did.” Hesitantly she asked, “Would you, sometime, play more for me? I’m certain the musician tonight was very talented, but I was not familiar with the music. Perhaps you could teach me more?”
He was asking for trouble to even consider it. To unleash Cassandra’s willful spirit in his quiet household would be akin to opening the gates to heaven and hell. Merrick squeezed her hand.
“You are welcome any evening. We will polish our duet, shall we?”
He knew he was committing the unpardonable, but Merrick never felt more satisfied than when she kissed his cheek.
Chapter 14
“I will not take up gambling, I will not!” Cassandra stomped her foot, threw her head haughtily, and glared at her servants. The effect was spoiled by the fact that her gown was less elegant than their attire and that she stood in the remains of a burned-out kitchen holding an iron skillet over the fire.
“Not gambling, just a few friendly social games now that you are appearing in society again. A few coins won here and there will tide us over to the harvest.”
Since the work progressing in the fields was so slow as to make the possibility of a harvest almost laughable, Jacob might as well have said “until our ship comes in,” but Cassandra shook her head.
“Absolutely, uncategorically, no! We will starve before I cheat friends.”
“We will starve undoubtedly,” Jacob intoned gloomily. “It is just a matter of how soon. You have spent the bulk of your money on repairs to this monstrosity. How were you planning to eat this summer?”
“We have a garden,” Cassandra pointed out. “It will grow in due time, provided you and Lotta spend more time weeding it than complaining about it.”
“My lady, we aren’t farmers.” Lotta interrupted their argument with her protest. “Can you not write to Duncan or Rupert’s solicitor and demand they provide you with funds for support? Surely there must be some law that says they must provide for you.”
Cassandra’s expr
ession grew even more mutinous. “Certainly, they will provide me with a one-way ticket to France. I’ll return to gambling before I return to them.” At the relieved look on her servants’ faces, she hastily added, “And I never intend to return to gambling.”
As she set out later to meet Merrick for their evening music lesson, Cassandra pondered the problem. She could not ask Jacob and Lotta to starve with her, and their funds were running desperately low. She had not meant to mend that hedgerow just yet, but when the deer had cropped nearly their entire planting, she knew she had to do something. She had not realized how expensive farming could be. She had thought it just a matter of clearing some land and dropping some seed and watching it grow.
And now that they finally had a crop growing, the men were murmuring about wagons to haul the grain to market and tools with which to thresh it and any number of other impossibilities. If she did not have the funds now, she was less likely to have them at the end of the summer.
Merrick met her at the stile, as had become his custom. She had insisted he was not to waste his valuable time coming to fetch her every evening, but he was unwilling to allow her to wander through the forested park unaccompanied. So they had silently compromised on this arrangement.
Cassandra was still amazed that they managed to get along so well. She was ever conscious of their differences. He dressed in sartorial splendor, never raised his voice, gave orders with a quiet authority that sent people scurrying. She couldn’t manage the two miserable servants she possessed without screaming arguments. He was half a score years senior to her with a world of experience and sophistication she could never attain.
Yet they came together over their music in complete accord.
Tonight, however, there seemed to be a change in plans. Beside Merrick waited two beautifully groomed thoroughbreds patiently champing at the grass along the fence. Cassandra cast the earl’s impassive features a glance askance. “Do you have company?”
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