by M C Beaton
“Which is just about the only reason she shouldn’t buy it,” murmured Mr. Jensen.
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” grumbled Uncle Wilbur. “I want to get out of here. You, Miss Stevens, take it off, then you, Mr. Glossop, wrap it up. We’ll take it with us.”
The dress was duly carried back to the inn, where Uncle Wilbur ordered champagne and told Miss Stevens the only way to cope with that tiresome gratitude of hers was to drown it. And Miss Stevens, who seemed to be shedding years by the minute, giggled and drank glass for glass with Wilbur.
Enlivened by champagne, Uncle Wilbur then announced that he would hire a boat and take them out on the bay. And so, all of them slightly tipsy, they boarded a rowing boat and cruised over the still glassy waters, Uncle Wilbur rowing with surprising strength.
The boat trip was accounted such a success that they returned to the hotel for buttered shrimps and more champagne, and it was decided that they should take a gentle walk along the beach and then have dinner before returning home.
***
The guests that evening remarked that Lord Peter Courtney was out of sorts and barely said a word at the dinner table. Sophia looked as beautiful as ever and smug, too. For her father had confided to her that Lord Peter meant to propose to her at the ball. All previous failures had fled from Sophia’s vain mind. She was not in the least surprised that Lord Peter should wish to marry her. She considered him to be a very lucky man.
Lord Peter’s gloomy gaze kept drifting down to those three empty seats at the other end of the table. He wondered where they were.
When the ladies retired to the drawing room, he said he had a headache and rose to go to his room. As he was crossing the hall, he heard the sound of singing and laughter.
The hall door was standing open. Up the drive came an open carriage driven by Uncle Wilbur, who was singing “Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill” at the top of his voice. Cassie, flushed and laughing helplessly, was leaning against Mr. Jensen, who had an arm around her shoulders. The carriage swung round in front of the entrance. Mr. Jensen jumped down and helped Cassie to alight. He bent his head and kissed her hand.
Lord Peter turned on his heel and marched up the stairs. Damn her!
***
Cassie finally found the courage to seek out Lord Peter on the day of the ball, finally running him to earth in the library. He put down the book he had been reading and rose to his feet. “Well, Lady Cassandra?” he demanded frostily.
“I came to thank you for your generosity to Miss Stevens,” she said.
“It was the least I could do,” he replied in chilly accents. “Anything else?”
“I also wanted to thank you for not betraying me.”
“I could hardly do that,” said Lord Peter. “I do not wish to tell all and sundry that I am in the habit of kissing serving wenches. What more, Lady Cassandra?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled and turned on her heel, collided with a column bearing a bust of Plato, and sent it smashing to the ground. Plato, now minus his nose, rolled across the floor and lay at Lord Peter’s feet and stared up at him with blind eyes.
Cassie gave a choked sound and ran from the room.
Hatless, she sped out of the house and through the grounds, not stopping until she had reached the coolness of the woods on the other side of the village. A little way into the woods there was an old crab apple tree with wide spreading branches. She climbed up and lay down in a fork of the tree and stared blindly up at the leaves. He despised her. He had only been generous to Miss Stevens out of duty, a duty caused by his lie.
To suit her miserable mood, black clouds were piling up against the sun. The air was very still with a waiting feel about it, as if every parched blade of grass and tree were holding its breath until the blessed rainwater should fall again. Why had she called him old and disgusting? Because he had frightened her, she thought. The effect he had on her senses was alarming. He filled her mind with wanton dreams, dreams that Cassie had been schooled to believe that no lady could possibly have. Ladies, as everyone knew in polite society, were incapable of either lust or passion.
She closed her eyes to shut out the memory of his lips against hers and drifted off to sleep. But in her dreams, he came to her and he folded his arms around her and kissed her deeply, so deeply that her body began to burn and yearn.
None of these feelings showed on her sleeping face, and Lord Peter stood there, looking down at her. He had gone in search of her. He felt he had been rude and cruel. He wondered, as he looked at her, why it was that Sophia should be hailed the beauty of the family and this redheaded witch ignored. Her skin was golden, and the glory of her hair burned like a flame.
She was lying cradled in the low fork of the apple tree, her face on a level with his own. He bent his head and kissed her full on the lips, letting out a stifled exclamation as the lips under his burned with a fierce passion, for Cassie was kissing him in her dreams. She wound her arms around his neck, and he lifted her from the tree and laid her gently on the warm grass on the ground beneath. Cassie’s lithe body moved sinuously against his own—and then her eyes opened.
She struggled feebly against him, but he continued to kiss her, long, drugged sweet kisses. One huge drop of rain plopped down and then another. There was a tremendous flash of lightning and then a terrific crash of thunder. They were rolling passionately entwined on the ground as the heavens opened and a torrent descended on them.
He got to his feet and picked her up and carried her deeper into the wood, then set her on her feet under the spreading branches of an oak tree.
“Now look at us.” Cassie laughed. “It will take ages to wash and arrange my hair for the ball.”
“The ball!” he exclaimed. “The deuce. That’s where I am supposed to propose to your sister, Sophia.” He had taken out a handkerchief and was mopping his face with it as he spoke. When he put the handkerchief back in his pocket and looked around, bewildered, she had gone.
He ran through the woods, looking for her, finally ending up at Miss Stevens’s cottage. But no matter how loud he hammered on the door, no one answered.
Inside, Cassie sat on the floor with her head on Miss Stevens’s lap.
“There, there,” said Miss Stevens, stroking Cassie’s wet hair. “Do not cry any more. What beasts men are! To kiss you and then tell you he was to wed your sister! I simply do not understand it.”
“It’s because he thinks I am a wanton,” said Cassie, sobbing. “I do not want to go to that ball.”
“I think you should go. Get it over with,” counseled Miss Stevens. “I have a feeling the minute you hear him announce that engagement to Sophia, then you will lose all desire for him.”
“I hate him!”
“Then show your indifference. You can look very charming, Cassie. You could even outshine your sister if you put your mind to it. Gentlemen like you, or so your uncle and Mr. Jensen told me. Mr. Jensen also told me he was present at that ball for Sophia in London during the Season and that all the men clustered around you. You must go.”
Cassie rose to her feet. “You are right. I should go and look my best and show him I do not care a rap. And I must be there to see you in your new gown.”
“I have been thinking about that gown,” said Miss Stevens slowly. “I have never before questioned the order of things, for, as you know, Cassie, God puts us in our appointed stations. But four hundred pounds for a ball gown! That would keep a poor family comfortably off for years.”
“Then wear the gown and sell it back to Mr. Glossop and give the money to the poor,” said Cassie. “We shall both look our very best tonight, Miss Stevens, and may Lord Peter Courtney rot in hell.”
“Language!” shrieked Miss Stevens.
***
The countess looked in surprise at her younger daughter, for Cassie had just demanded the Wychhaven pearls. “Perhaps Sophia may want them,” said the countess, “and everything must be done for Sophia. This is her night.”
“It is always her everyth
ing,” retorted Cassie. “But just for this one ball, I plan to look my best, and I want the pearls.”
“Well, then, you shall have them. But do wear some sort of headdress to cover that hair of yours.”
With a pang Cassie remembered Lord Peter saying he liked red hair. “I shall wear my hair as I see fit, Mama. Now … the pearls.”
The countess told her maid to fetch the pearls. When they were put into her hands, Cassie fingered the cool weight of the necklace and bracelet and then gave her mother a steely look. “I would like the pearl tiara as well.”
“But that is too much!” exclaimed her mother. “Much too much for a young girl who has not yet made her come-out.”
“And never will,” said Cassie, “if it is left to my loving parents. Did you never think, Mama, that I might feel hurt by always being left in the background?”
“But Sophia is the eldest and must be married first. Your turn will come.”
“I have heard you,” said Cassie bitterly. “ ‘I suppose we must do something with little Cassie. Tunbridge Wells or Bath, or perhaps ship her out to India where she might catch the eye of some female-starved officer.’ ” She held out her hand. “The pearl tiara.”
“We always try to do what is best for you,” said the countess huffily. “You are jealous of Sophia, and you are trying to put a damper on this great occasion …”
“The tiara, Mama!”
“Oh, very well. Betty, fetch the thing and give it to Lady Cassandra.”
Cassie retreated triumphantly to her room. She shared a lady’s maid with Sophia, so she knew that usually meant she would need to dress herself, the maid being kept dancing attendance on Sophia until the very last minute.
She took out the simple white muslin ball gown she was expected to wear. And as she looked at it, she remembered that Sophia had a gauze overdress edged with pearls.
She went along to Sophia’s room and hesitated outside the dressing room door. Sophia’s petulant voice was raised in anger as she berated the maid for having overheated the curling tongs.
Cassie went next door and let herself quietly into Sophia’s bedroom and went straight to the huge press and opened it up. She scrabbled quickly among the piles of clothes until she seized the overdress and scampered off to her own room with it over her arm.
She sat down at her toilet table in her shift and carefully began to arrange her newly washed hair in one of the latest Roman styles. She heard the rumble of carriages as guests arrived at the house. She heard Sophia’s voice and her mother’s answering one as they walked along the passage and down the stairs to take their places beside the earl to receive the guests. A lump rose in Cassie’s throat as she realized that her mother and father would barely notice her absence if she did not attend. The lady’s maid came scurrying in, apologizing for having left Cassie to her own devices.
She helped Cassie into her ball gown and then the overdress. Then Cassie sat down at the toilet table once more, and the maid lifted the fairylike pearl-and-silver tiara and placed it on Cassie’s flaming curls.
“Why, Lady Cassandra,” said the maid, “you look like a princess. But you must hurry. You are already late.”
Cassie grinned. “I plan to make an entrance.”
***
The first dance was over. Miss Stevens, sitting beside Uncle Wilbur, said anxiously, “I wonder where Cassie is.”
Lord Peter promenaded on the arm of the countess and wondered the same thing. And then, just as he was passing Mr. Jensen, who was standing with a group of men, he heard exclamations and saw that they were all staring up at the staircase.
“Oh, my stars,” whispered Miss Stevens. “Cassie!”
She came slowly down the staircase, her head held high, the gauze of the overdress floating about her slim body. She looked magnificent.
“Excuse me,” said Lord Peter and went to meet Cassie at the foot of the stairs. But Mr. Jensen was there before him. Cassie smiled up at him. Lord Peter turned on his heel and strode off.
Cassie danced the next dance with Mr. Jensen and the following one with a young man from the neighboring county. She laughed and talked, but all the while she noticed Lord Peter, noticed him dancing with Sophia and wondered in a bleak way which would break first, her face because it was so stiff from trying to smile, or her poor heart.
The next dance was the waltz, and suddenly Lord Peter was there at Cassie’s side, telling all her other courtiers that this dance was promised to him.
For the first few steps she stumbled blindly over his feet until he pressed his hand hard into the small of her back and said in a low voice, “I love you, Cassie.”
She stumbled again and whispered fiercely. “You want to amuse yourself with me while you marry my sister.”
“That was a misunderstanding. I want to marry you, my darling. That is why I could not tell your father I was not going to announce an engagement at this ball. In my heart I must have known all along that I wanted you as my wife—yes, from the first moment I met you when you were wearing that ridiculous wig.”
How gracefully her steps now followed his. Sophia watched her little sister with angry eyes, suddenly recognizing that overdress as her own and wanting to tear it off Cassie’s back.
“You have not answered me, Cassie,” said Lord Peter. “Will you marry me?”
“If you are sure you want to.” Cassie looked shyly up at him. “I am very clumsy and gauche. Will you not fear for all your works of art?”
“I don’t give a damn if you break the lot so long as you will be mine.”
“Oh.” Cassie sighed with pleasure. “I feel like Miss Stevens, about to faint with delight.”
Sophia marched straight up to her father after the waltz was finished. “Get Courtney to make that announcement now,” she hissed. “Cassie is making a fool of me. Look at the way she hangs on his arm!”
She watched as her father crossed the ballroom and said something to Lord Peter, saw both men walk to the raised platform where the orchestra sat, saw the earl say something to the conductor. There was a roll of drums, and all the guests turned and faced the earl, who was standing with his hands raised.
“Lord Peter Courtney has something very special to say.”
“Come, my precious,” said Lady Wychhaven to Sophia. This is a proud moment.”
Sophia shrugged. “A proud moment for Lord Peter, Mama,” she corrected.
Lord Peter looked down at the guests, a commanding figure in black evening dress. He held out his hand to Cassie, who slowly walked forward and took it.
“What is that silly wigeon doing?” demanded Sophia.
“My lords, ladies, and gentlemen,” said Lord Peter, “it gives me great pleasure to announce my engagement to Lady Cassandra.”
“Thank God!” cried Miss Stevens, clutching hold of Uncle Wilbur. “Oh, thank God.”
Sophia’s normal icy calm cracked. “You’ve made a mistake, you fool!” she cried, advancing on the rostrum. “You’re supposed to be engaged to me!”
Lord Peter looked down at her. “Control yourself, Lady Sophia, and wish your sister well.”
Sophia turned this way and that, noticing all the watching eyes, and then she turned and stumbled blindly from the room.
“That was bad of you, Lord Peter,” said the earl. “You gave me your word that Sophia was to be your bride.”
“I unfortunately led you to believe so,” said Lord Peter, “for which I am truly sorry. But the shock might do Lady Sophia some good. You have spoilt her so badly, you have made her nigh unmarriageable. Wish Cassandra well. In my opinion, she is the real beauty of the family.”
The earl scratched his head in bewilderment. “Well, there is no accounting for taste,” he said and went off to comfort Sophia.
Cassie could find it in her heart to be deeply worried about her sister’s humiliation and was prepared to have the rest of the evening ruined by that worry. But Sophia soon reappeared, as glacially beautiful as ever. Her parents had told her that Lord P
eter was an eccentric, and that she had had a lucky escape. They told her that all the men at the ball were in love with her, and Sophia gradually began to believe them until bit by bit the armour of her colossal vanity was restored. So Cassie drifted through the rest of the evening in a daze of happiness.
Toward the end of the ball Lord Peter led her out onto the terrace. The rain had stopped, and a full moon was riding high in the sky. She trembled as he took her in his arms and kissed her fiercely and then said, “How soon can we be married?”
“As soon as possible,” said Cassie. “You have brought about happy endings, to me, and to Miss Stevens.”
“I think Miss Stevens may yet surprise us with another happy ending. Look there!”
Across a path of moonlight on the lawns strolled Miss Stevens with Uncle Wilbur. His old voice reached their listening ears. “I never thought I would want to get married again, Tabitha, until I met you.”
“He means Miss Stevens!” cried Cassie. “What a happy night.”
“Except, I think, for your friend Mr. Jensen.”
“He felicitated me on our forthcoming marriage and said he already knew we were in love. Would I be very bold if I asked you to kiss me again?”
“Yes, my wanton. Come here to me!”
***
A month later they were married, Sophia refusing to be bridesmaid because she heard Miss Stevens was to be maid of honor. There was a slight flurry as the nervous bride entered the church and tripped over her wedding gown. Cassie was suffering from bridal nerves and had begun to think Lord Peter did not really want her.
But as he turned at the altar and looked at her, no longer cold and stern but with a face altered with love, Cassie lost all her fears, and nothing spoiled that perfect wedding service except for the noisy and sentimental crying of Miss Stevens, who was to be married herself in the following month.
Other Books by M.C. Beaton
THE POOR RELATION SERIES
Lady Fortescue Steps Out
Miss Tonks Turns to Crime
Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace
