‘Which one do you think she is?’ Inigo nudged his elbow as they watched the dancers. So many smiling, hopeful faces. None of them Em’s. A dangerous flash of her flared to vivid life past the dulled edges of his memory.
If you were here, Em, we’d dance beneath the chandeliers as if they were the stars in the sky, we’d stroll the gardens, I’d steal a kiss.
Em would look stunning in a silk gown of seafoam to match her eyes, an opal pendant at her neck, her hair done up high to show off the length of that neck. His Em would be a swan among these downy young ducklings.
These were dangerous imaginings. Duty had no time for them. ‘I have no idea.’ Cassian pushed the thought of Em away. He wished he shared Inigo’s enthusiasm for the venture. ‘Is this what it’s like to invest other people’s money for them?’ he joked. ‘I suppose it’s easy to be excited when the risk isn’t yours.’
Inigo frowned, missing the humour. ‘Oh, no, investing other people’s money is positively nerve-racking.’
‘And contemplating marriage to a stranger is not?’ Cassian laughed in spite of himself. ‘Perhaps that’s why I brought you along. It’s all about perspective.’ He’d come to grips with that perspective over the past few weeks. In order for his dream to thrive his other dream would have to die. He would give up a romantic’s marriage for a practical marriage in order to honour one man’s legacy, to avenge his brother and to right wrongs. It was what the greater good demanded. Dukes lived to serve that hungry beast. It was the code the Four Cornish Dukes lived by.
They nodded to a group of young girls as they strolled. Four sets of eyes followed them along with a trail of giggles at their attentions. ‘Speaking of perspective, it seems your presence tonight has brought a certain level of excitement to the evening,’ Inigo pointed out. ‘I wonder how many people Redruth rushed out and told you’d be here? You’ve been in town for three weeks, but you haven’t been out yet. Redruth can claim he was your first stop. Quite the coup for him.’
Cassian shrugged. ‘This wasn’t the first stop. The Trelevens’ musicale was and I’ll be sure to tell anyone who asks.’ They’d spent the early part of the night with their neighbours from home, Sir Jock Treleven, his wife and his five unmarried daughters, all of who were talented musicians. Vennor had been there as well. It had been a quiet, low-profile way to start the evening. ‘I wonder who will be the talk of the town tomorrow? Sir Jock with his smaller but tasteful and more exclusive affair with three ducal heirs present, or Redruth’s ball?’
‘Redruth is usually a hermit. Everyone will be attracted to this anomaly of his. I doubt the Trelevens will even get a mention in the columns,’ Inigo offered honestly. ‘But you will be mentioned for certain. Everyone is already looking at you. Once you dance with Redruth’s daughter, no one will want to look away. I wager you’ll be in the betting books at White’s by morning.’
Cassian grimaced. ‘If you think you’re raising my spirits, you’re failing. Just so you know.’
* * *
Pen was miserable. Everyone was watching her. Talking about her. She was the centre of every conversation. She didn’t even have to guess at what was being said. Pen knew. She’d walked in on one such discussion in the retiring room, some silly girls being indiscreet with their gossip.
‘There’s the girl who is making her debut at twenty-one.’
‘There’s the girl no one has seen for years.’
‘I wonder what’s wrong with her?’
Curiosity could be a cruel thing.
She’d exchanged the prison of Castle Byerd for the glittering prison of London of her own accord. She stood with her father and her aunt amid the splendour of the Byerd House ballroom; the chandelier dusted, the floor polished to a walnut gleam, surrounded by silks and jewels and all she could think was ‘This is all my fault.’ She’d asked for London and she’d got it. Her father had spared no expense for her debut. Food had been delivered in endless waves today: cakes from London’s finest pastry chefs, chocolates in the shape of Castle Byerd and crates of champagne that had been chilling since early this morning. There were flowers, too, white roses in cut-crystal vases tied with pale pink ribbons everywhere in the house, except for the one bouquet of roses tinged with yellow-rimmed petals which had already arrived from Wadesbridge. It was set in pride of place on the mantel in the drawing room, perhaps as a subtle reminder of what her fate would be should London not inspire a different choice.
Her father had very subtly drawn a line in the sand with his birthday gift. He’d given her London, as she’d asked. Now, he would expect something in return—that she choose a suitor, that she make a commitment to marriage. If not, a suitor would be chosen for her: Wadesbridge, solid, predictable, stable, close to home, far from her dreams. It would make her father happy. He would have succeeded in keeping her safe until he could hand her off to a husband.
There would be no travels, no grand adventures, no danger. No passion. She could not imagine Wadesbridge’s kisses exciting the same response as Matthew’s, could not imagine lying on a faded quilt with Wadesbridge, yearning to be naked, yearning to put her mouth on him as he’d done her. Surely, Wadesbridge or whomever she selected would not expect her to do such a thing with them, or expect to do such a thing to her. She didn’t want to think about it. She only wanted to think about Matthew: his hands, his kisses, his touch, the way he talked of seeing the world. Pen swallowed hard and fought back a sudden rush of tears.
In the weeks she’d been in London, she’d spent hours pondering how that visit had gone. How long had Matthew waited for her? Had he gone back to the cottage after that? What had he brought her for her birthday? What might they have done in the cottage that afternoon? More kisses, more mouths—would they have consummated their relationship as she had wanted? Once, she’d thought such a thing inevitable. Every time they’d met had led them closer to that conclusion. She’d wanted to. She’d made up her mind. She’d wanted a memory to hold against all the nights to come.
Pen fingered the glass heart tied about her wrist on a pink ribbon with her dance card. She was decked out in her mother’s tiara and diamonds, but the glass heart was the most precious thing she wore tonight. She’d wanted it with her, a talisman, perhaps, to bring her luck, to keep Matthew close a little while longer. Her dance card was filled with the names of strangers, men only interested in her dowry.
Men, perhaps, like the Duke of Hayle’s heir who was claiming the seventh dance. She could picture how delighted her father would be over that—a duke’s heir dancing with his daughter and a man from their part of the world at that. It quite positively put Wadesbridge in the shade. She ought to be relieved. But she wasn’t. What did it matter who she danced with or who she married if it wasn’t Matthew?
At the thought of Matthew, her gaze unerringly picked out the tallest dark-haired man in the room and not for the first time that night. She’d noticed him immediately even though he’d arrived late. He hadn’t been in the receiving line—she would have remembered. But her gaze, it seemed, had made a habit out of looking for him once her memory had decided he reminded her of Matthew with his height and his breadth. His shoulders were exquisite. She wished she could see his face, or maybe not. If she saw it, she would have to give up the fantasy. It wasn’t Matthew. He was perhaps country gentry, not the sort at all to mingle among the glamour of the ton. That didn’t stop her, however, from thinking about how different this ball would be if Matthew were here, how she’d look forward to every dance in his arms, how he would look at her if he could see her in this ballgown, her hair done up, his common girl transformed into a princess. He would tell her she was beautiful and she would believe him because Matthew didn’t flatter.
Matthew didn’t lie.
She would not be the only one transformed. How wonderful Matthew would look in evening clothes, a tail coat cut to his physique. No woman in the ballroom would be able to keep her eyes off him. Not even the presence of H
ayle’s heir could compete with Matthew.
Her father nudged her elbow. ‘Trevethow is coming, my dear.’ Her stomach sank. The dreaded seventh dance was here, the one with the much-anticipated heir to the Duke of Hayle. Of all the dances, she was looking forward to that one the least. Trevethow was bound to be a pompous cad. Tonight, when people weren’t talking about her, they’d been talking about him. Apparently, he was handsome and rich and every woman in the room was dying of love for him, never mind he hadn’t been to any grand balls yet this Season. It was enough to make the girls swoon to know he was in London, that they might run into him at any time, on Bond Street, at the Park.
‘Trevethow is the big fish tonight. Penrose, please, be nice to him. He would be a good match, perhaps the best we could hope for.’
She only half-heard him. The tall man she’d spied throughout the evening was on the move. Her gaze had found him again and it was far more interesting to watch him than it was to listen to her father enumerate the benefits of an alliance with the house of Hayle. Pen stilled as the tall man drew near, her breath catching at the growing possibility that the tall man who’d captured her attention was Trevethow. Someone touched her arm to ask a question and Pen stepped aside for just a moment to answer.
‘Allow me to introduce my daughter, Lady Penrose Prideaux.’ Her father tapped her elbow, reclaiming her attention. Pen turned, her gaze and her mind struggling to register who stood before her. It was her tall stranger from tonight, but there was something of the familiar about him, sans greatcoat and dusty boots, but the same broad shoulders and square jaw, the same warm amber eyes. Pen’s stomach plummeted and her mouth ran dry while her thoughts were assaulted with a hundred realisations, the foremost among them was that Matthew was here, the very fantasy of her thoughts brought to life in vivid physical reality. How? Why? What did it mean?
Pen’s shock was overwhelming as he bent over her hand and kissed it, the little glass heart dancing on the ribbon about her wrist. His eyes were no longer the warmed whisky she remembered, but hard amber flints instead, full of their own shock. ‘Lady Penrose, how charming to meet a neighbour so far from home.’ His words were edged in an irony meant just for her. So he knew. He recognised her too. So much for the protections of secrecy.
Other realisations assailed her in a relentless barrage: not only was Matthew here of all places, he’d lied. The son of a country squire was in truth a duke’s heir! He’d gone slumming, hoping to turn a simple country girl’s head with all those pretty lines, all the professions of affection. Had he just said them to steal kisses? All this time while she’d been in London worrying over Matthew, worrying over the hurt she might have caused him, he wasn’t hurting in the least! He was attending balls and asking permission to court earls’ daughters. He’d not been languishing for her. While she’d felt guilty about dancing with other men tonight, he’d been coming to court a faceless girl he’d never met with deadly intent, simply because she was Redruth’s daughter.
He’d already been to visit her father, he’d already asked to court her. He’d made his intentions known to her father. He quite obviously had one goal in mind, which begged the horrible question: How long had he known he was going to court Redruth’s daughter? Had he been contemplating it during their time together? Had he known the whole time he would be going to London? Had he always known exactly when their affair would end? It seemed so. He’d known it would never last beyond April because he would be gone.
The other set of realisations were not flattering: she’d been played for a fool and that was all her fault. She’d been naive to believe in his protestations of affection, that she could trust him, that she meant something to him. Noblemen toyed with common girls all the time. Had it all been a game to him? What had he meant to do? Set her up as his mistress? Or perhaps not even that courtesy. Perhaps he thought to marry well and keep a little country mouse on the side.
Worse, what did he mean to do now with that information? Her mind ran wild with dark speculation. Would he use their secret affair to coerce her to the altar? To take away all choice? What if he told her father she’d been gallivanting around the countryside meeting strange men under aliases? There would be no place for her to hide if that happened. Her father would insist on marriage.
He managed a cold smile so unlike the smiles she was used to, his voice tinged with irony as he said her name. ‘Lady Penrose, I believe this dance is mine.’
Chapter Twelve
He’d found Em. For just one brilliant, sparkling moment, when she’d turned around, the world had been perfect. If only he could have held on to that singular moment, frozen it in time, Cassian would have gladly lived in it for ever. But then he’d seen her eyes, seen her look of stunned surprise turn to something akin to loathing and fear and the moment passed, perfection shattered by the hammer of reality. Em didn’t want him here. Em hadn’t wanted to be found. Em had left him. Only it hadn’t been Em leaving him, it had been Lady Penrose Prideaux, the woman who held his land. It could not be worse. How could he marry the woman he had loved for her land? How could they recapture what they’d once had when everything about them reeked of rank distrust?
Her hand lay on his sleeve, barely brushing it as he led her on to the dance floor, as if she could treat him as a ghost. ‘You used to like touching me,’ Cassian whispered low at her ear as he placed his hand at her waist and moved them into position for the waltz.
‘Not you. Never you. Only Matthew.’ The ice of her tone matched the ice in her eyes as the music began and they started to move. ‘I should slap you for your deceit.’ Her hand curled into the fabric of his coat where it lay on his shoulder. For a moment, he thought she might do it. It would be deuced unfair of her since he was the wronged party.
‘As I recall, you were the one who left me.’ Cassian took them through a turn at the top of the ballroom with a nod to a passing couple.
‘You were always planning to leave and you said nothing! I told you from the start my father wanted me to marry,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.
‘Smile, Lady Penrose, people are watching. They’ve talked of nothing else all night but your debut and my presence at a ball for the first time this Season. You can imagine what they’ll talk about now that their two favourite subjects are united as one.’ This was not the way he’d envisioned finding Em, of dancing with her, of having her in his arms again.
But this wasn’t Em. This was someone else entirely, someone he didn’t know. This was a woman who’d no doubt found Matthew dispensable, a man of no consequence compared to the match she was expected to make. She’d discarded him without a thought. There’d even been a man in mind, not a gardener as Cassian had originally thought, but a man of rank. Yet she’d kissed him, touched him, seared him with hot looks and hotter promises, all the while using him to cuckold another.
Be fair, his conscience prompted. You participated willingly. She told you her father wanted her to marry.
But it stung. She’d used him and discarded him without saying goodbye. She’d broken their pact and now she wanted to call him to account. He should resent her, but he couldn’t bring himself to it, not without reason. Not until he heard her story. This woman in his arms wasn’t Em and yet Em was inside those sharp green eyes somewhere. He just had to get her out from behind this wall she’d built. He couldn’t do that in the middle of a ballroom with the ton’s gaze on him unblinking, assigning nuance to every move.
‘We can’t talk here.’ Cassian put his mouth close to her ear, breathing in the vanilla sweetness of her, a scent he thought he might never smell again. ‘Meet me in the library. We need privacy.’
She pulled back, fixing him with a look of pure disdain. ‘So that you can compromise me? You forget I know what happens in private with you.’ Her words carried a bite. Is that what she thought of him? Em would never have thought twice about being alone with him. Em would have relished every moment. But Em had no reput
ation to protect, no consequences to think about should they be caught. He understood: Lady Penrose Prideaux had everything to risk.
‘Please, give me five minutes. There are things we must say to one another, questions that need answering.’ Five precious minutes to change their trajectory. ‘If you don’t give me those five minutes now, I will be back tomorrow and the day after that. You will not be rid of me until you hear what I have to say.’
Logic flickered in her eyes as she weighed her decision: to see him now for five minutes alone, or to allow him to come back where his time might be unlimited, where he might have a chance to speak with her father. ‘All right,’ she said, relenting. ‘The library. But only for five minutes.’
Victory lit him up from the inside. Cassian returned her to her father and bowed over her hand. He made his way casually to the library, stopping to talk here and there with friends, making sure no one would align his disappearance from the ballroom with hers.
The library was thankfully dark, signalling its emptiness. Cassian turned up a lamp and stirred the fire. He poured himself a drink while the mantel clock ticked off the minutes and he waited. By the time she arrived he’d begun to doubt her intentions. She’d made this promise before and broken it. ‘You’re late,’ he ground out from his chair by the fire.
‘How can I be late? We didn’t set a time.’ Penrose shut the door behind her but kept her distance. Perhaps their dance had affected her more than she’d let on, perhaps she was the one who didn’t trust herself with him. One touch, one kiss and she’d crumble. But there was too much to settle between them before he could contemplate such actions.
‘Forgive me my doubt, but you have something of a track record in the absentee area.’ Cassian rose and poured another drink. Redruth kept excellent brandy. The clock chimed half past eleven.
‘Your five minutes are starting.’
The Passions of Lord Trevethow Page 10
