When they returned to the street, it was to meet Wyatt just climbing down from his curricle. Bertie had seated her so she could not see out the window, and Cass cast him a suspicious glare, but she could not pin blame on him. He could not know how much she wished to avoid the earl.
Merrick greeted Cassandra with a deep bow, then caught her hand and held it against his arm. “Well met, old boy. I was just on the way to fetch Lady Cass. On her brother’s instructions, I have been scouting the perfect residence for her, and I have finally found one I think will suit. I am most eager to show off my discovery. Shall you accompany us?”
That malicious lie was quite the outside of enough, but when Cassandra opened her mouth to object, Bertie interrupted.
“I’ve told the family I’ll be directly home. Bring Cass by when you’re done inspecting the property, and we’ll have a rousing time discussing whether or not she should settle for your choice.” He bowed to Cassandra. “It will be good to know you’ll be a permanent neighbor.”
What could she say? That Merrick meant to make her his mistress, and she needed rescuing? That was absurd. She wanted to be Merrick’s mistress. Sort of. She just didn’t want to be ordered around. And she didn’t want to put Merrick in the position of protecting her. Should Rupert return, that position could be fatal.
But with no proper argument, she waved farewell, and allowed Merrick to assist her into the curricle. She held her tongue until they were on the road out of town.
“That was not very noble of you, my lord.” Cassandra crossed her arms and glared at the dancing larkspur along the roadway.
“It’s the perfect solution. Wait until you see it,” Wyatt answered.
“I will not allow you to set me up like some light- skirt, Wyatt. I have my own home, and I’m doing quite nicely without your help.”
“You are living in a leaky cave and courting pneumonia. I expect nothing of you. All I want to do is keep you safe until I can make arrangements with Rupert.”
Cassandra’s jaw set even harder. “You must stop talking like that or put me out right here. I’ll not trade one husband for another as a man does horses. What is between Rupert and myself is none of your affair.”
“I’ll not argue that now. First, we must get you into a decent house. I don’t think you’ll disagree with my choice.” Wyatt steered the curricle down an overgrown lane. “There hasn’t been much time to make improvements. I’ll have men clear this lot now that the rain has broken.”
Cassandra couldn’t hide her curiosity as she gazed up at the overhanging elms and around to the riot of rhododendrons lining the drive. The direction seemed familiar, but it had been a long time since she lived here, and she had not yet reacquainted herself with all the area. They seemed to be close to her home, but they had come at it from a different direction.
The trees opened onto a small clearing. A climbing rose covered the side of the stone cottage with red. The thatched roof had been newly mended, and Cassandra drank appreciatively of the scent of fresh-cut grass. The diamond-paned windows gleamed with recent scrubbing, and she knew Wyatt was responsible. She had no doubt that the inside would be as fresh and scrubbed as the outside, and her fingernails clenched into her palms as she tried to hide the longing for just such a home.
It was little use pretending. She scrambled down from the curricle with Wyatt’s assistance and practically ran up to the door.
“Your land runs just the other side of the hedgerows,” he said. “I’ll have a stile built so you can supervise your planting. The cottage isn’t large, but it’s snugly built. The bailiff before MacGregor had a family and used to live here. It’s been empty for some time and suffers from neglect. You will be doing me a favor to look after it.”
“Wyatt, I can’t,” she protested as he threw open the door, but she stepped inside anyway. Her heart raced as they crossed the threshold together. This was the way a husband should introduce his bride to his home, with pride and excitement. But this wasn’t Wyatt’s home. It was one of his many properties.
She couldn’t seem to cling to that harsh thought. The wide whitewashed hall led to two sun-filled front rooms with low beamed ceilings. Wyatt proudly pointed out the hand-carved built-in cupboards, and Cassandra ran to inspect them. The rooms were so clean and dry and full of light, she couldn’t suppress her delight. A home like this was all she asked. She didn’t need mansions. She just wanted to be warm and dry and left at peace.
She raced to the kitchen and servants’ rooms in the rear, then danced up the narrow center stair to the low-ceilinged rooms above. Again, latticed windows thrown open to the air filled the rooms with light, and Cassandra crowed with delight at the view over her bramble-strewn pastures.
Merrick watched her with hope as she flitted from window to window. For one brief moment he saw her as a caged bird, but he shook the image away.
He saved the largest upstairs room for last. Cassandra had thrown off her bonnet, and her hair glinted in the sunlight as she stepped into the spacious room equipped with fireplace and a crochet-draped tester bed. No curtains yet hung on the windows, but this was the room he meant to be hers.
Her light muslin clung to her slender figure as she swung around to face him with a smile of delight. “It’s truly lovely, Wyatt. Do you really think you might persuade Duncan to pay the rent on it? Just for the summer. After harvest, I should be able to pay it myself.”
Merrick knew full well that Duncan would part with none of his coins for a sister who had thrown away their chance for riches. He was not accustomed to lying, but the truth would only send her fleeing to her ramshackle cavern.
The truth was, he had never notified Duncan of her whereabouts and had no intention of doing so until their marriage was a fact. He brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek.
“Of course. The rent is very reasonable since you will be looking after the property for me. You will stay, then?”
Wyatt’s caress meant more than his words. Cassandra saw the emotion in his eyes, and warmth welled in her heart. She ought to be angry with him, but she could not remember why. Instead, she rose on her toes to kiss his lips.
She was unprepared for the sudden blaze of hunger. This fire in her belly always caught her by surprise, but now she knew where it led. Instead of resisting, she leaned more fully into Wyatt’s embrace. This was what she wanted: a lover, a home, and freedom. She had not known it before, but it seemed so natural now.
Wyatt crushed her against him, and Cassandra parted her lips in complete surrender. She sensed his tension, his resistance to desire, and she kneaded her hands over the taut muscles of his neck. The tension slowly drained, and his kiss became ravenous, demanding more.
It was as if they had been apart years and not days. Cassandra wasn’t certain how they came to be upon the bed, but she arched eagerly as Wyatt cupped and lifted her breast. It was a reckless madness that he had taught her, but it was a madness that gave her more pleasure than she had ever known in her life.
A breeze blew across her skin as Wyatt undressed her, but it didn’t cool the heat that sensitized every inch exposed to his touch. Cassandra gazed up into his dark eyes and her midsection clenched in recognition of what came next. She was no longer innocent of a man’s touch, and the knowledge was a powerful aphrodisiac.
Wyatt’s linen and shirt fell open beneath her nimble fingers, and she explored the rough texture of his hair there, comparing it to the glossy thickness about his head and neck. He breathed her name as he divested her of gown and chemise, and little flames ignited along her skin where his breath touched.
It was a magical fantasy world where he took her, one where the toplofty Earl of Merrick and the Countess of Eddings’ bastard daughter didn’t exist. They were just man and woman, Adam and Eve, discovering the delights of forbidden fruit. Cassandra cried a little and shivered as Wyatt’s hand explored and possessed the aching junction between her legs.
When he finally eased into her, she cried out in relief and pulled him do
wn to take her kiss. Their tongues met in the same union as their bodies, and she shuddered. It was happening again, but she was no more prepared for it now than she had been the first time.
The bed creaked as they gave of themselves, tasting, touching, abandoning their restraints to find a plane where they could both exist in joyous union. For a few short moments they found it, claiming and being claimed, acknowledging the power and possession.
After their glorious joining, they returned to the more natural boundaries of existence. A bird sang outside, and Cassandra turned her head to watch the branches of the tree. Wyatt’s kiss whispered along her cheek and throat, and she closed her eyes to better absorb the sensation of his heavy weight pressing her into the mattress. She wasn’t quite so sore this time, but she was still sensitive to that part of him inside her.
Wyatt, Earl of Merrick, her staid and proper lover. She smiled.
Wyatt kissed her cheek and idly played at the still-swollen tip of her breast. “Tell me what you’re dreaming.”
“Of this. Of holding you. Of having you near and hearing you speak. Will you come to me often if I agree to stay here?” The words came out in a hushed rush. She always spoke too hastily, without thought, but she needed to know. She wanted him here every night, and in wanting, knew it was impossible.
Wyatt kissed her cheek and rolled on his side, pulling her with him. “I would be with you every night and every day if I could, Cass, you know that. It will take time, but that day will come. I promise.”
Bitterness welled up inside her and Cassandra turned from his honest gaze. “It can never come. You will never understand, so please just accept it. I will be happy to know you are close by. Perhaps I could still come once in a while to sing with you.”
Wyatt caught her chin and forced her to face him. “I won’t be happy knowing you are here alone, and I can’t come to you. Be reasonable, Cass. We must marry. Let me deal with Rupert.”
The anguish marring her perfect features was so deep and so unalterable that Wyatt felt his heart shrivel and die even before she spoke.
“I’ll not agree to an annulment, Wyatt. If that is the cost of staying here, I will not come. If you go against my wishes, I shall leave and never come back.”
She meant it. He knew better than to underestimate the power of Cassandra’s will. Her words hurt like all the brands of hell, but he refused to let her see the damage.
“You are willing to settle for being my mistress?” he demanded harshly, still holding her face between his fingers.
“For me, it is not settling,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “It is a great leap upward to my heart’s desire. Please, Wyatt. I need you to be my friend and to hold me. Just that. Can that not be enough for you?”
His whole body grew taut with the need to reject that proposition. He didn’t need a friend. He needed a wife. And despite all the differences between them, all the reasons that made them unsuitable for each other, he needed this woman to be his wife.
But if he couldn’t have what he wanted, he would take what was offered. He didn’t think he could drive the need for Cassandra out of his soul anytime soon, if ever.
Knowing that she asked the impossible, knowing the world would soon come crumbling down upon their heads, Wyatt bent to take her kiss. “Friend and lover,” he corrected her.
Chapter 18
Wyatt paced the library floor like a caged animal, stopping to stare at the shelves in search of a book that didn’t exist, roaming between the tables and leather wing chairs as if they were trees in a jungle where he didn’t belong. He halted at the far end of the room overlooking the park, pulling back the heavy draperies to stare into a darkness that gave him no glimpse of the lights he sought.
He dropped the draperies and forced himself to face a shelf of philosophy. He needed a good sound philosophy right now to persuade him that what he was doing was right. He didn’t think Socrates had anything that would apply to his situation, but if he were lucky, the Greek would put him to sleep. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in years.
It had been only a week. One week. Wyatt stared at the shelf, his search for the Greek philosopher forgotten. Except for the briefest and politest of social calls in the company of others, he had not seen Cassandra since she had moved into the cottage. She had seemed so happy and content feathering the nest he had provided for her that he couldn’t think of sullying her happiness by forcing her into a relationship that could only be disastrous for both of them.
That wasn’t quite right. He could think of it. He thought of it all the time, night and day without cease. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was wrong.
But he couldn’t stop thinking of her as she lay naked beneath him on that sun-blessed bed, her hair spilling in wild abandon across the sheets, her skin flushed with ecstasy, her eyes speaking her desire and happiness. Had she despised him, he could stay away. Had she been cold and unfeeling, or even experienced and cynical, he could have stayed away.
But she wanted him as much as he did her, she needed him, and that drew him more powerfully than any magic potion mankind could distill.
So instead of himself, he had sent presents. Any little thing that caught his eye that he knew would please her, he had sent by way of messenger to her door. He tried to imagine her reaction when she opened the box with the crystal vase that captured the sunlight and filled the air with color. He liked to think of her sipping from the china teacups he had found stored in some ancient cabinet of the kitchen. They were fine Chinese porcelain, but the set wasn’t complete and was never used anymore. He had known Cassandra would love them as they ought to be.
He wanted to send her music, but even if he could smuggle a pianoforte into the cottage, she wouldn’t be able to play it. So he had searched the attics until he had found a wooden music box he remembered from his childhood. He hoped she would understand when these tokens reached her door without a message.
But the gifts didn’t appease Wyatt’s restlessness. He needed to talk with her, to hear her voice, watch her smile, touch her hand. Her laughter had awakened him and her song had stirred his soul, just as her caresses had eased his longing.
Wyatt stiffened at the sound of footsteps in the hall. He schooled his expression to boredom as he pulled down a volume and opened it to a page when the door opened. The anguish in his soul was his own private torment, not there for anyone else to peruse.
The butler entered with a card on a salver, hesitating to disturb him.
A muscle twitched in Wyatt’s cheek as he read the piece of pasteboard. Without a word to the butler, he turned on his heel and strode eagerly for the stairs, brushing his hair in place.
Wyatt took the stairs down at a pace greater than was customary. At the bottom of the eternal length of mahogany stairway stood a tall, slender figure garbed in a gold pelisse of silk that he remembered ordering just last week. She wore no hat, and the light caught in strands of red and gold more brilliant than the expensive fabric. Her eyes smiled as he approached.
And then he was beside her, taking her hand, guiding her toward the one room that they could regard as theirs alone, and his soul soared. He read the questions in her eyes, but he couldn’t answer them here, not with words. He helped her discard the pelisse, seated her at the piano bench, and took his place beside her. The music could speak his thoughts.
She had come to him. There would be no holding him back now.
~*~
Wyatt waited outside the cottage in the darkness beyond the square gleam of golden light from the bedroom window overhead. Cass had not yet installed draperies, and he could see her slender shadow crossing the room. She had dismissed her maid and was undressing herself, softly singing a tune they had shared earlier.
He had done his best to stay away. He knew his mother was suspicious of his decision to rent the cottage to Cassandra. The neighbors running in and out all week had eased those suspicions. His presence would have been conspicuous.
But when she had turne
d up on his doorstep this evening, he hadn’t needed any more invitation than that.
So he stood here now like some lovesick fool, staring up at her window, wondering how he could enter his own house and take her to his bed without compromising both of them.
The back door opened and slammed behind two incongruous shadows, one tall and lanky, the other short and plump. Wyatt could hear soft giggles as they strolled arm in arm through the moonlight. There was no mistaking the pair. He didn’t know whether to reward them or sack them for their desertion, but he wasn’t wasting any opportunity.
Cassandra looked up in surprise, but she offered a joyous smile when he entered. Garbed only in a thin nightrail that revealed every curve of her body in the lamplight, she lifted her arms in welcome.
Merrick hesitated, aware, as she was not, that they set a pattern for the nights to come in what they did now. She came to him as a wife would, or should, he amended, without guilt or self-consciousness, with only joy at his presence. He would not allow her to feel ashamed for what they felt.
In a few strides he was across the room and taking her in his arms. Never would he let her feel anything but joy for what they did now.
~*~
Cassandra awakened to the sun streaming through the open casement. Summer was finally in the air, and the gentle breeze made her warm and languorous as she stretched joyfully, reveling in her nakedness.
Her foot brushed a long, muscular limb, and she smiled at the sleep-tousled hair of the man on the next pillow. She ran her fingers through the thick chestnut locks and watched his eyes open.
“I’m glad you stayed,” she whispered as she bent to press a kiss along his beard-stubbled cheek.
A hard arm circled her waist and pulled her closer. There would be no disguising their relationship for very long if he never slept in his own bed, but the world could be damned for all she cared this morning.
Dash of Enchantment Page 17
