Thinking of what she herself had done, Cassandra could only marvel that her mother had the moral fortitude to surrender only once. Then, trying to imagine an affair with anyone else but Wyatt, she understood.
“You loved him, didn’t you? And he left you. How could he? How could any man leave you to a life like that? Did he not care at all?”
Sadness flickered across Elizabeth’s features, but then she donned a mask of determination. “He cared enough to risk two families for me. I was the one who was weak. You were not born yet. You cannot remember that time. There were debts. There were drunken parties, the gambling all of society indulges in, but not the financial disaster of now. I was a marchioness. I had a young son, a place in society, respect. I was never very strong, but I had admirers. It wasn’t an unpleasant life.”
Cassandra resisted the impulse to get up and walk away. She didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t want to hear any of it. She had always known her mother was weak, but she had thought it a physical weakness. She didn’t want to know she had been condemned to a life of wretchedness because her mother enjoyed her title too well.
Lady Eddings continued. “I met your father at one of the parties the marquess liked to indulge in. Your father had just bought the last of the Howard shipholdings, although I didn’t know that at the time. He was here alone. His wife didn’t like to travel. He is an American, you see.”
Cassandra gulped and her stomach tightened into unreasoning knots. An American! That was so far outside society as she knew it that she couldn’t stretch her imagination to picture it.
“He stayed longer than he intended. We had one lovely summer together. He wanted me to leave with him, but I could not. We would both have to petition for divorces. We would have been banned from society forever. And we would have lost our children. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give it all up, even for him. I didn’t know about you until after he left. He left me the name of his London solicitors, but I never wrote to him. It was simply too late for us.”
The sorrow in her mother’s voice brought tears to Cassandra’s eyes. Somewhere across the sea she had a father and half-brothers and half-sisters, a whole world of people she would never know.
“Why are you telling me this now, Mother?”
Lady Eddings nodded approvingly. “Because I wrote to your father when Duncan threatened to marry you off to Rupert. And because he replied.”
The breath rushed out of her lungs as Cassandra stared at her mother. “He replied? How?”
Her mother shrugged. “Very curtly, actually. Just a note to say he was making arrangements to be here. He cannot be very pleased with me to discover after all these years that he has a child he knew nothing about. But since I received the reply a few weeks ago, I should think he would be on his way by now.”
Cassandra couldn’t remain seated any longer. Her mind boiled with all the possibilities. She had a father. He could take her away from here. He could hate her, disclaim her. He could settle a sum on her mother so she needn’t worry about providing for her anymore. Anything was possible. But it was all too late.
She faced her mother with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for telling me, but I cannot wait for his rescue. Forgive me, Mother, but I must follow Wyatt. Rupert will kill him. I cannot allow that to happen, don’t you see? I must do whatever is necessary to put an end to this. I will not allow the Howard taint to destroy his life as it destroyed yours.”
She rushed from the room before her mother could stop her.
~*~
“Where the hell is she, Eddings?” Rupert demanded, swinging his ebony cane against the fireplace pokers. “And don’t give me that faradiddle about not knowing! She’s your bloody sister; you know damned well where she is.”
Duncan rested his much larger frame against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t even know she’d gone to Paris to see you. You don’t know Cass very well if you think I have a chance of keeping up with her. Why did she go to see you?”
“To warn me about you.” A malicious gleam lit the baronet’s eye. “It seems my generosity isn’t sufficient, you want my lifeless body as well. Not very sporting, old friend.”
“Cass is a damned fool,” Duncan muttered. He watched his unwanted visitor warily.
“My wife is a very resourceful lady. She has kept me in France by keeping the news of her lover’s recovery quiet. She has demanded an annulment by assuring me that to do otherwise would mean my certain death. And she brought her latest lover with her to emphasize the point physically. Most resourceful, I must admit. But I don’t intend to let her go just yet. And I certainly don’t mean to otherwise enhance your coffers, old friend.”
“Latest lover?” Duncan sought some benefit for himself in these discoveries. “Cass is quite likely to lie about anything that aids her cause. I should like to hear a fuller version of this tale. Of just what do I stand accused?”
Rupert laughed, a sound that held little merriment but much cynicism. “I’m certain you would like to hear more, but I did not come to entertain you, only warn you. You will gain nothing by my death. Only by my continued existence will you and your heathen sister benefit. Now, I suggest it is in your best interest to remember where you misplaced her. I will be at my club when you come looking for me.”
As he stalked out, Duncan resisted the urge to spit on his shadow. Cass had a lot to answer for, but he’d be damned if he let that rutting scoundrel have the best of him.
Merrick arrived at the Howard townhouse at the same time as a stranger garbed almost entirely in gray and wearing a diamond in the folds of his immaculate linen neckcloth. Merrick bowed and allowed the older man to enter first. Both men presented cards to be carried away by a servant who appeared to have spent the better part of the day in the wine cellar.
Restless, Merrick was disinclined to converse, but the older gentleman had a commanding presence. As he stood perfectly still, concentrating on the stairway, Merrick sent him a surreptitious glance. He was frighteningly familiar, but Wyatt was certain he had never met him before.
When the servant returned to inform the stranger that the marchioness was not at home and that the marquess was not available, the stranger merely bowed and strode out.
Merrick stared after him, then asked of the footman, “What name did he give?”
“‘Is lordship said Wyandott, milord. Can’t rightly read, so don’t know what was on the card. The marquess said as how he’s too busy to see you.”
Wyatt uttered a curse and brushed past the bewildered footman. He didn’t know any Wyandott, but he knew a lying marquess when he heard one. And this particular species of mendacious nobleman was about to be brought to heel.
After a bitter argument with Cassandra’s recalcitrant brother, Wyatt ordered his curricle toward the business district. He preferred handling the ribbons himself, but he needed someone to mind the horse while he carried out his errands, and his driver aped grave insult when not allowed to flaunt his expertise.
After dealing with Jacob and Lotta these last days, he was in no humor for arguing with servants. He was in no humor for arguing with anyone. He had argued more in these last days than he had in a lifetime, but the results were about to pay off.
Merrick strode into his solicitor’s office with the air of a man about to demand satisfaction. “Well, what have you found?”
The nervous lawyer behind the desk hastily wiped his spectacles. “We have found out much, milord,” the solicitor murmured. “But there has been so little time... He is an unsavory character. His reputation is of the lowest in every endeavor, but he is immensely wealthy, milord. He has covered his trail well. All of your leads have been good ones. Your manservant has been extremely helpful. We are on a trail of something of great importance if I can only find the proof...”
Wyatt paced. “I need truths, not promises, and I need them now. Immediately. What have you got that I can use without being labeled slanderous?”
The solicitor sucked in hi
s breath and consulted his file. The most promising issue would not only be slanderous if it couldn’t be proved, but also cataclysmic if it were. Flipping over that page, he began with the better documented details.
Chapter 27
Completely cloaked in a black domino, Wyatt commanded his troops. The Marquess of Eddings’ town house—Cassandra’s old home—had already been stripped and cleaned by an army of servants and refurbished by what could only have been a tribe of imps from hell, commanded by Jacob.
Walls and windows of the downstairs rooms were draped in black, pitching the rooms into complete darkness even before the sun set. Lanterns covered with thin red shades cast eerie glows in obscure corners. The tables scattered throughout the rooms held only one candle.
Merrick pointed at a masked devil. “Bertie, you take this room. You have your story straight?”
The devil nodded. “Deuce take it, Merrick, I ain’t no green schoolboy. I can remember lessons, not that I see where it will do any good.”
“You’ve got a point there, Albert.” A starkly garbed gentleman in flowing black cape, top hat, white gloves, and half-mask leaned arrogantly against a mantel festooned in henbane. “As a gambling hell, this is all very clever. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. But you can be certain this is no more than an imaginative party to our prey. I see nothing in it for me.”
“Your soul, Eddings. You’ll have your soul. At the worst, you’ll save your life. If you fail me in this, I’ll skewer you to the wall.” Wyatt made a gesture of irritation as he paced the room, waiting for the rest of his troops to appear.
The marquess laughed. “You and who else, Merrick? My lovely sister? Hitting me over the head with a poker is more Cassandra’s style. I’ll believe it of her faster than of you, St. Wyatt.”
Merrick swung around, his growing tension escalating into flaring anger. “We have an agreement, Eddings. It’s too late to back out of it now. For once in your damned life, think of someone besides yourself.”
Eddings shrugged and shut up as a tall Roman soldier entered, his visor concealing his face and the wide breastplate disguising his gaunt frame.
“Damn, it’s about time.” Merrick spun around to confront his valet. “Where’s Lotta? The women are already gathering in the back room.”
“She’s with them now, milord,” Jacob intoned formally.
“Good, then take your position.” Merrick turned to a shadowed figure resting in a chair in a far corner. “Thomas, you are to take your place and not move. I need you for the final act, and I’ll not have you giving out before then. Is that understood?”
An amused young voice responded, “Aye, aye, Captain.” Rising, Thomas strode out of the larger room to his appointed station.
As the door knocker sounded, Wyatt took a deep breath and sent a prayer winging to the heavens. He would feel more confident of the outcome of this charade were Cassandra at his side to help direct it, but he could not risk her in the same company with Rupert. The evening he had planned was fraught with peril.
Checking his pocket for the papers crackling there, he blended into the darkness to take his own position.
Rupert arrived in the company of the tall distinguished man Merrick had met on the Eddings’ doorstep. Neither man had wasted much time in costume, although the invitation had specified this was a masquerade. Each wore a half-mask as a concession to the occasion.
A plump Cleopatra immediately brought drinks and led them to the first salon, where a crowd had already gathered around several faro tables. Rupert joined in, while his companion idled in the background, watching his surroundings with hooded interest.
Under the servants’ careful observation, Rupert’s glass was never left empty. A heavily veiled Salome sidled up to him, snaking her hand about his waist as he raked in his winnings. Rupert pinched his consort’s ripe bottom and eased from the table.
“Let me show you some of the other rooms,” Salome whispered, clinging to his arm.
Rupert followed, abandoning the friend with whom he had arrived. He smiled when they entered a secluded alcove off the main rooms. A candle burned in the sconce over an inviting velvet settee, and Rupert turned to the lady attending him.
She came willingly into his arms, pressing heated kisses to his mouth through the layer of veils. He pushed her backward toward the settee.
“Ahh, my little man was always a hasty lover,” Salome murmured mockingly as she sprawled back across the cushions and brought him down with her.
Intent on removing the voluminous cloth hindering his access to the flesh beneath, Rupert halted with his hand halfway up her skirts. Lying half across her, he stared suspiciously into her covered face. “You know me?”
The laugh following this question was hollow. “I know you, my noble baronet. You were my first. With luck, you will be my last. Do you not remember me, Rupert? I have cause to remember you for the rest of my life.”
She moved seductively beneath him, her hands disarranging his clothes with practiced gestures as her hips ground against him. Rupert jerked at her veils, swearing when one came loose to reveal another.
“Oh, no, you really wouldn’t rather see,” she admonished. “I am not what I once was. After what you did to me, I had no choice but to sell my favors elsewhere, you see. I was too green to avoid the dock taverns back then. I thought one man the same as any other. They didn’t all have your polished manners, but some were much kinder, I discovered.”
She ground against his arousal as the last of the veils fell to the floor. At the sight revealed in the candlelight, Rupert gagged in disgust and swiftly gained his feet. The whore sat up and taunted him as he averted his eyes and arranged his clothes, rubbing his hands against the cloth with revulsion. Her ravaged face wore an expression of contempt as she watched.
“Some of those sailors carried the French pox, I fear. Does that disturb you, Rupert? I’m still a good lay, ain’t I? I know a lot more than the day you raped me, Rupert. Don’t you want to see what I’ve learned?”
He would swear he had never seen the creature before. No one could prove he had anything to do with it. She was in all likelihood quite mad. But the memory of a sunlit day in his sixteenth year and a buxom dairymaid flitted into memory as she spoke with the accents of his home.
He strode out without a second look back. He’d find Eddings and demand to know why poxed whores were on the premises. It was enough to turn a man’s stomach. Why, he could have... It didn’t bear thinking about. Remembering her impassioned kisses, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and reached for another drink on the tray of a footman.
The damned darkness made it difficult to discern faces. He wasn’t even certain what disguise Eddings wore. Cursing, Rupert stumbled into a room of eager dice players. His drink was replaced as he stepped up to the table, and he indulged in a small wager while examining the company.
A heavyset devil eased into an opening at his side. Wheezing drunkenly, he pitched his coins on the table. “Never thought I’d do this again,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Not since Teddy got taken that way. Demmed shame, that. Lost everything he owned at the tables, left his widowed mother and sister homeless. Saw them in the streets just the other day. I’ll spit on that fellow Percival if I ever find him. He ruined that family, and no need of it, I hear. Has guineas up his nostrils, they say. I say, don’t know the fellow, do you?” the devil demanded.
“Never heard of him.” Leaving his bet on the table, Rupert hurried from this company.
Damn Eddings, anyway. He probably had every rumormonger in town in here. That story about Teddy Wilhoite wasn’t common knowledge. It would be if that drunken devil kept on about it. He’d be ruined in what little society was still open to him.
What was Eddings up to with this charade? Rupert wasn’t a superstitious man, but he suffered a shiver of apprehension and tried to hang on to his anger as he searched for his host.
Finally feeling the effects of drink, he stumbled into the marquess
. Before he could take him to task for the rudeness of the company, Eddings caught his shoulder and steered him toward a private parlor.
“I’ve been looking for you. We have a lively game going in here, more your sort than those others. Can’t introduce you to the company, don’t recognize them all myself, but I wager we’ll figure them out by the way they play their cards.”
Reassured by his friend’s bluff heartiness, Rupert took a chair at the table. Duncan Howard was a fool, but he had friends in the right places who gained him access to a more exalted society than would otherwise welcome him. Once he had Cassandra in line, invitations to these affairs would start pouring in. The Howards might be a beggarly lot, but even Prinny recognized their stature. He glanced around surreptitiously to see if any of the company rated royal status.
Recognizing only the American who rose from the table to give up his place, Rupert picked up his cards. Gambling was merely a game he played in order to forward his acquaintance among the ton. In time, given the right connections, he might persuade a more noble title from the pockets of the perpetually bankrupt nobility. A small barony somewhere might be found in return for a large enough sum to the right party. Opportunities abounded if one knew the right people.
He craved a “Lord” before his name. Duncan was the last of the Howards, and he didn’t appear ready to perpetuate the line. Married to Cassandra and willing to change his name to hers, it might be possible... In the event anything happened to Duncan, of course.
Rupert lost the first and second rounds but didn’t count the sum. He gestured for another drink. He had already dropped a few hundred pounds, but his markers were good everywhere.
Rupert scanned the company again, trying to deduce their identities. The man in the black domino seemed familiar. He didn’t speak, so he had no clue to judge by. He knew Eddings and Wyandott, the American, of course. The fourth player seemed rather young, but he was raking in quite a bundle. Whom did he know with that color blond hair who could wield cards like a professional? He couldn’t think of any that age who were so proficient, other than Cassandra.
Dash of Enchantment Page 25
