And if he didn’t want it—if he didn’t want her—then that would be the end of it. He was no fool. He’d keep their secret. He’d never shame her or tease her. She’d be humiliated, but only she would know.
Cassie could live with that. However, she couldn’t live with the regret of never trying. In a few days, Sidney was traveling to Star Frost to visit his cousin, the Duke of Renvere. He’d been planning this trip for months, and Cassie wasn’t certain when she’d see him again. Star Frost was not on the circuit of polite society, until the scandalous ruin of Miss O’Roarke and the downfall of a prominent aristocratic couple, Lord and Lady Osbourne, who purposefully ruined her. Polite society had taken a fervent interest in the elusive Isle, rumored to be the Refuge of the Ruined. Fitting, since that is where Miss O’Roarke, now Mrs. Hunter, was born and lived with her husband, away from the ton’s shrewd glare.
Cassie wondered what it was like to escape the pressures of being a debutante in society. She’d performed admirably, her mother said, and Cassie had enjoyed her first season, but London expectations were so…suffocating. She preferred the country. Her home here in Somerset was a paradise where she could roam the hillsides, ride as fast as she wanted—out of sight of her brother or her maid—and just breathe in the fresh air scented with lavender and damp earth. It was heaven, and London had none of these things, except Sidney. Sidney had stood up with her at many a ball and dotingly led her through a dance at each event. But he never asked her to waltz.
Cassie had taken great pains when learning the waltz, and her toes suffered abuse whenever her brother was forced to dance with her. He did it on purpose. She’d seen Tristan glide across the dance floor with a woman in his arms as if he had wings on his shoes instead of buckles. Though she was loath to admit it, Tristan was a rake and quite handsome. He favored their father, stealing hearts with his quick smile and golden Adonis curls while Cassie inherited her mother’s pale red hair. They all shared the same blue eyes. Women adored Tristan’s easy charm and confidence. He wasn’t a bad brother, but he was a trickster. A silly prankster who delighted in torturing her as brothers do. Sticking twigs in her hair, hiding dead fish in her room, and never letting her come on their adventures. That was years ago. These days he just ignored her.
Sidney was also a bit of a rake. He had that subdued, silent quality that ladies adored. He always left them wanting more. Including Cassie. They’d known each other for years now, and yet, she hadn’t cracked his shell. Women followed him like moths to a flame, but he was the discreet sort. She never knew who held his favor, only that it wasn’t her.
And yet…
There was something she just couldn’t put her finger on that drew her to him, that led her on a merry chase. She had hope that maybe, just maybe, he did feel something. She didn’t know what it was exactly. An awareness, an instinct. When they did speak, when they did lock eyes, delicious tension sizzled through her.
She couldn’t be the only one. He had to feel it too.
He had a way of staring so deep inside her that she felt exposed, her heart open, her dreams and desires laid bare, but she was never afraid to be so vulnerable. She was elated. She felt…discovered.
At the start of the season, she half hoped he’d reveal himself and offer for her. But of the three proposals she’d received, he was not one of them. He’d remained distant and aloof, as always, with rare glimpses of his smile and humor only in private.
But now the season was over, and they were preparing for the holiday festivities. The annual Mistletoe Masquerade was legendary in their parish of Bridgewater. Young ladies who did not find suitors during the year’s social engagements prayed that the famous Mistletoe Masquerade at Riverside Manor would lead to a match. The Manor bore many halls and alcoves which featured carefully placed bunches of mistletoe to inspire romance. Not Scandal! Lady Randall would remind her guests, but moments to promote successful matches.
Cassie was going to use one such moment to bring an end to this tension between her and Sidney. Either she’d leave the masquerade blushing with hope and love, or she’d walk away in bashful humility.
She was putting her future in his hands tonight, though he just might hand it back to her.
Chapter 2
Sidney stared at the printed words on the page, but in his mind’s eye, he only saw Cassandra.
Cassie.
Tristan’s sister.
He’d had his share of women. Collecting paramours had never been difficult, but of late, his taste had become more discerning—no, boring. Things that excited him before had grown tiring.
But watching Cassie over the years had given him a new appreciation for beauty. From a gangly, stubborn girl, he’d seen her bloom. It was a wondrous marvel to watch. Gone were the pigtails and pouty expressions of a youthful heart. And what remained, frankly, stunned him. He remembered fondly the girl she was, pushing every limit she could find, and now stood a woman with a strong spine, a firm chin, and eyes of the bluest sapphire. Her long pale red hair, now coiled on top of her head in artful curls, pinned in place with pins he knew came loose far too easily. Cassie always seemed to appear seductively disheveled, not that she knew it.
It was he who knew how easy it would be to make the rest of her hair fall into his hands. She’d grown a head taller since last winter, and her figure had filled out in ways that made him hot under the collar. She was the perfect height for him, the top of her head coming just to his chin—the perfect height for kissing.
Except she was his best friend’s little sister.
And Sidney would fall on his own sword before betraying Tristan.
Tristan might appear to most as a charming rogue who had the attention span of a flea, but Sidney knew better. He’d known Tristan since Eton. They had similar personalities and moral codes. They’d bonded quickly and effortlessly.
And Tristan had saved his life.
Sidney could never forget that.
They’d been drunk, taking a shortcut through Ford Park to another brothel, when thieves had come upon them. Sidney remembered four foes, but someone had caught him from behind with a cudgel. When he woke up, Tristan had fought them off alone and took a knife wound to the side for his efforts. Tristan had then, somehow, got them both safely to Mrs. Mooney’s House of Playful Pleasures, where they were promptly tended to by the house doctor.
Sidney didn’t remember most of the night, but he remembered the slash to Tristan’s side as Mr. Rose changed the bandage the next morning. Tristan swore him to secrecy, and Sidney never told a soul about that night.
He closed his eyes behind the paper. The way Cassie made him feel, like a boy in his first rush of love, seemed obvious to everyone but Cassie. He did his best to stay away. To keep the relationship between them as calm as a duck pond, but every day the strain grew.
Every day she appeared more lovely, and keeping his distance, keeping his admiration from his gaze, seemed insurmountable.
Thankfully, he’d soon be traveling to Star Frost to visit his cousin. Physical distance is what he needed. Tristan would never forgive him for lusting after his sister. As a brother, he didn’t show it, but Tristan adored Cassie. She was the perfect mix of minx and sweet, according to Tristan. He loved to toy with her, but when alone, Tristan had nothing but praise for Cassie, and no man would ever measure up to Tristan’s standards for her.
Not even Sidney. Sidney assumed. Every lout who had dared to propose to Cassie after her season, Tristan had politely warned away. With polite threats.
Sidney was sure that Tristan had never considered Sidney a threat, and Sidney wanted to keep it that way. Cassie had been labeled an incomparable beauty during her season, and Tristan had come to blows more than a few times with drunken youths who couldn’t hold their liquor, or their lascivious tongues, regarding Cassie. Sidney had done his fair share of punches too.
In Cassie’s honor.
But deep down, he knew it was jealousy.
He wanted to be the one holding her, swi
nging her around the dance floor, but he’d tethered himself to country reels and cotillions to keep the distance between them.
To keep the peace between him and Tristan.
Cassie huffed in annoyance, and Sidney lowered his paper just enough to see her over the top.
She glared at her brother, infuriated by her exclusion from the smoking room. The blue of her dress made her eyes shimmer, even in the hazy room. Her cheeks flagged with pink, and his mouth went dry. She radiated energy, restrained aggression toward her brother, and a fieriness that never ceased to amaze him, as if streams of fire could shoot from her manicured nails.
She was a goddess, and he, a helpless mortal man, doomed to worship her from afar.
“You better run away before Father catches you in here. Mother will smell the smoke on your dress,” Tristan said to her.
She moved to stand in the open French doors. Light haloed around her curls, setting them on fire with glowing red light. His lungs froze. The paper slipped from his hands; thankfully, she wasn’t looking at him.
“While you wile away your afternoon, I’m taking charity baskets to the vicarage. It was supposed to be you, but Mother says you’re too busy. I see doing absolutely nothing is taking much of your time and energy.”
Tristan snorted. “I’m preparing for the masquerade by resting. As Viscount Rivenhall and future Earl of Summers, I’m quite the catch. Also, I’m supposed to look after you tonight. That will be difficult enough without being”—he yawned—“tired, to boot.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“I’ll take you,” Sidney blurted. His heart hammered as her gaze met his, and uncertainty flashed in her eyes. She blushed.
“Don’t be so noble,” Tristan said. “She’s safe to go on her own.”
“There are twenty charity baskets,” Cassie argued. “I can’t carry them all myself.”
“Take the cart,” Tristan returned.
She flinched, her gaze jumping back to her brother. “You know I can’t drive the cart.”
“A groom—”
Sidney rose from his seat. “I’ll drive you.”
He saw that wince of fear, and it pierced his gut. He recalled the frightful day she’d turned the cart on herself. The way she’d sobbed in her father’s arms as the horse was put down. She’d broken her arm, but they don’t shoot girls for broken arms. Only horses who will never walk again. Sidney knew she’d never forgiven herself, and she never drove the cart again.
“A groom will suffice,” Tristan said in exasperation.
“Then I should do just as well,” Sidney returned. “Besides, I need the fresh air, and I’m bored.”
Tristan scoffed. “How can you be bored?”
“You’re boring,” Cassie said.
Sidney chuckled. “Shall we?” His stomach did a flip as he offered his arm to her.
Cassie gathered her warmest cloak and gloves and met Sidney at the front of the house. Her stomach did a nervous tremble as he handed her up to the seat, but that could be because horse-drawn carts still frightened her. The day she turned over the cart, she’d been ten and seven. She’d driven the cart many times with Old Bill leading the way. Perhaps she’d been overconfident, perhaps she’d been driving too fast or the turn too sharp, but over they’d gone, flipping and sliding down a small hill. She still had nightmares of Old Bill’s screams, and her own, as her arm turned the wrong way, and she was stuck for what felt like an eternity.
Farmer Walter and his son had come upon her, and her father was fetched. But Old Bill would never leave that spot again. Farmer Walter had mercifully shot him, and he was buried there at the bottom of that hill.
Cassie’s arm had been set by the parish surgeon. She could hardly recall her own pain, but she could still hear Old Bill’s in his piercing cry, and she carried her guilt like a scar. A wound that never healed right.
“Thank you,” she said as Sidney handed her up.
“It’s no problem. We’d been sitting there for some time, and I know how you fear the cart.”
Cassie was silent as he came around the other side and climbed up. He flicked the reins and then rolled down the drive.
“Tristan thinks I just need to get over it, but I can’t.”
“Understandable,” Sidney replied.
“Is it, though? Could it be as simple as driving the cart again, like he says? I don’t see how that would erase…” She shivered.
“Erase what?”
Cassie swallowed the ball of painful memories rising in her throat. “What happened. I’d forget it if I could, but I don’t see how.”
“Time has a way of dulling memories, but you shouldn’t force yourself to do something uncomfortable. I don’t see how driving a cart will significantly better your life.”
“I used to enjoy it. I felt…capable. But I can’t let what happened, ever happen again.”
“Those things are out of your control.”
“That is exactly how I felt. Out of control, and a poor creature died because of it. It was my fault it happened.”
“You don’t know that. I’ve never seen you behave recklessly.”
Cassie chanced a look at him. “Haven’t you? I’m not known for my sedentary riding skills.”
“You aren’t any worse than I or your brother. You push the limits for your sex, but you are not inherently careless or dangerous with your horse.”
She swallowed. “I still have nightmares…sometimes. I can hear him scream.”
“Him?”
Cassie stared off into the distance and tensed. “Old Bill. He’s buried right there.”
The cart slowed to a stop, and Cassie found she couldn’t breathe. “What are you doing?”
“We should pay our respects to Old Bill.”
“I—haven’t—I can’t.”
He looped the reins around his hand and twisted to face her. “Have you been back since the accident?”
Cassie shook her head.
“Why, may I ask?”
Cassie tangled her fingers in her lap and stared down at her lined kid gloves, but she felt cold, numb to her toes. Despite the man beside her who set her on fire. And she couldn’t bear to look at him, even though she knew he was not judging her. She still felt weak, and in all her life, she’d never felt so ashamed of her cowardly state. She couldn’t drive a cart like her brother wanted. She couldn’t…get over it.
“I can’t.”
“I think you can.”
The quiet strength in his voice gave her the courage to lift her head. Their gazes locked and held, and like always, something invisible, a string, a tether, connected them. Did he feel it? His strength flowed to her. Did he know what he did to her? For her?
Could she face one of her greatest fears by his side?
“Sidney—I mean, Lord Reardon, you don’t have to do this.”
“You can call me by my given name. We’ve known each other long enough. At least in private.”
Cassie nodded. He’d said as much before. But it was so personal, an intimacy she was afraid to give herself.
He pulled the parking brake, and her heart pounded as he jumped down and secured the reins to the cart, then came to her side. He offered his hand. “Come.”
She could not resist him. Cassie placed her hand in his, and he helped her down. The hill was not very steep or long. Farmer Walter had repaired the fence immediately after the accident, and there on the other side was a simple cross. Cassie had insisted. They halted at the railing.
“I remember him. He was a stout old horse,” Sidney said.
“He was eight and twenty but so strong. His muzzle was nearly white, and he only ate oats and apples or fresh cut hay. He had no patience for the colts, but he liked to pull the cart and go to the village. Father said he was seeing the sights and greeting friends.”
“He sounds like quite the character.”
“He was.”
“It’s not your fault. None of it. Sometimes, terrible things happen.”
�
�If I’d been more careful—”
“You don’t know. You can’t know if there was anything you could have done differently.”
Something in his voice sounded pained.
“You speak from experience?”
Their gazes met, and a thread of past regrets connected them.
“Will you tell me?”
“I can’t,” he said.
The thread snapped.
Cassie leaned on the fence for support as tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I was sworn to secrecy, or I’d tell you.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Old Bill harbors no ill will toward you.”
“You can’t know that,” Cassie returned.
“Neither can you. Do you assume Old Bill is in the horse hereafter harboring ill will against you?”
Cassie sniffed. “No.”
“Then give yourself permission to accept something terrible happened. It wasn’t the way you wished him to go, but it’s how it happened. It’s no one’s fault.”
“And then what? I drive the cart back?”
“No, don’t ever drive the cart again if you don’t wish to. But don’t blame yourself any longer.”
“Do you blame yourself for whatever happened that you can’t share?”
Chapter 3
The question stunned Sidney. Did he?
He carried the burden of Tristan’s wound. The terror of the unknown, the what if. They could have both died, or just he, or just Tristan. Tristan had brushed it off. One of their few scraps he didn’t brag about at the card tables. Tristan had said his mother and father would have worried and made a big fuss. Cassie would have been frightened. It was better to keep it to themselves. The only other person who knew was Tristan’s valet, who’d been bribed handsomely for his silence. It all had ended well. The only time Sidney saw the scar was when they boxed at Gentlemen Jackson’s Club.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1) Page 97
