She’d begun to wish he’d ask her to dance, but he never did. She’d danced with the squire and the grocer’s son. And then, after a particularly energetic reel with the young blacksmith, she’d gone outside to get a breath of fresh air and cool down. He’d followed her outside. And told her that she was being foolish to do so, alone. And had escorted her inside, having made her feel wretchedly guilty.
Especially because, for a moment, in the moonlit inn yard, he’d looked at her, or she’d thought he’d looked at her, or she’d imagined he’d looked at her, with a sort of admiration tinged with longing. As though he had been considering kissing her.
Wishful thinking, obviously. Ah, well. She knew better now. About a lot of things.
Including how much information to impart to someone she didn’t, really, know all that well.
‘When I was sixteen years old,’ she therefore told Rosalind, cutting right to the heart of the matter, ‘I eloped with a soldier.’
‘No!’
Far from being outraged, Rosalind looked positively enthralled.
‘’Andsome, was he? ’Andsome as that Colonel?’
‘No,’ said Cassandra at once. She’d never met anyone who could hold a candle to Colonel Fairfax. Not even considering the changes the years had wrought in him. He’d been taller than most of the men at the dance, so that he literally stood head and shoulders above them all. And he’d also had an air of self-containment about him, so that he’d seemed far more dignified than the rest of the laughing, sweating, roistering crowd.
Tonight, he’d looked like a pared-down version of himself. As though he’d been ill and was still recovering. Although the biggest change had been in his eyes. Or, at least, in the way they’d looked at her. No longer with kindness and understanding, but with a cold, implacable hostility. Like two chips of ice. She gave an involuntary shiver.
‘A good kisser?’
What? She’d never kissed the Colonel, or come anywhere near it. Oh, but Rosalind was still harping on Guy. ‘He only ever kissed me once or twice, to be honest,’ Cassandra explained. ‘And only on the cheek, or the hand...’
‘Then why on earth did you elope with him? Was it money?’ She frowned. ‘Nah, because you don’t have any. Or you wouldn’t be taking Pa’s wages to introduce me about to titled people.’
Cassandra flinched. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the blunt way Rosalind spoke about money, nor did she appreciate the reminder that she was being paid to be her friend.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t about money.’
‘Forbidden love, then? Ooh, how exciting! I never knew you had it in you. You always looks so prim and proper.’
‘Well, if I am a bit prim nowadays,’ said Cassandra defensively, ‘it is because I learned my lesson back then. Guy was trying to rescue me from an unhappy home, as a matter of fact. My mother, who was a widow, was deceived into marrying a horrible, horrible man who made my life an utter...hell.’ She shivered as she recalled those dark days. Darker than anything that had happened since. ‘And Guy, well, he was my friend’s brother, or, to be completely accurate he was only one of them, she had several. They lived in the neighbourhood where we went to live when my mother remarried. At least, some of the time. You see, Lady Agatha’s father was an earl, who had several properties dotted all over the country. When they came to stay, they were the principal family in the area, which made it hard for my stepfather to refuse to let them in when they came calling. Even though he wouldn’t allow Mama or me to pay any social calls in return.’
‘What? That’s...that’s...’
‘Mean, yes. And when, one day, things had become particularly unbearable and Guy saw how things were, he, well, was overcome by a fit of chivalry, I think. Said he couldn’t bear to leave me and begged me to run away with him. He promised that we’d get married. That his regiment was going abroad soon, but that as an officer’s wife, I could go with him. He made,’ she said sourly, ‘living in a billet in a war-torn country sound terrifically exciting—’
‘I’ll say!’
‘But the reality was anything but. When we got to Portsmouth, Colonel Fairfax—’
‘The one who just called you a siren?’
‘Yes. He...he really shouted at Guy. Said he’d ruined me because we were both under age and that I couldn’t get married without my guardian’s permission, and the permission of his commanding officer, as well.’
‘He was your Guy’s commanding officer?’
‘Yes. And he ordered Guy to send me back to my family. But Guy couldn’t, because he’d spent every penny he had getting us that far.’ Guy had been all chivalry and no sense, she reflected sadly. Insisting on separate rooms when they’d had to stop overnight on their journey, to preserve her virtue. Hiring a chaise he could ill afford rather than mounting her on horseback where she’d be exposed to the elements...
‘In the end, it was the Colonel himself who provided the fare home. And arranged for one of the other soldier’s wives, one who didn’t get picked to go with the regiment, to act as my chaperon, because,’ she explained, seeing Rosalind’s puzzled frown, ‘only a certain number of the common soldier’s wives are allowed to travel abroad and they draw lots to see who can go. And I was that grateful to him,’ she said, running her hands up and down her arms again, in agitation. ‘I thought he was sorting out the awful mess Guy had made of rescuing me, was being kind, when all the time...’
‘He was rescuing Guy from your clutches,’ said Rosalind, with a giggle.
‘It isn’t funny,’ retorted Cassandra, recalling the way she’d felt when he, her hero, had said he thought her neck was pretty. It had taken a moment or two to realise he wasn’t paying her a compliment. A few more insults before she’d seen that all these years, he’d been blaming her for the mess Guy had led her into and thinking she was some sort of siren who lured unsuspecting men to their doom.
‘Why are you giggling?’
‘That Colonel. Thinking that anyone would need rescuing from your clutches. At that age! And you not even knowing as much as that you were too young to obtain a special licence...’
‘We were so silly. The pair of us. If I hadn’t been so desperate to escape my stepfather, and of course in those days I thought marriage was the only way a girl could escape...’ She shook her head. ‘Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. I was desperate and I did trust in a foolish boy, and ended up ruined.’
‘Ooh.’ Rosalind sidled a bit closer and leaned in. ‘What was it like? Being ruined?’
‘Cold and uncomfortable.’
Rosalind frowned. ‘Cold? Didn’t he...you know...snuggle up when he was doing it?’
‘Doing it? Oh!’ Cassandra suddenly saw that they’d been talking at cross-purposes. ‘No, I thought I told you, we never did...that.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘It wasn’t him, or anything he did that made me cold and uncomfortable. He was always a perfect gentleman. It was after. When I got home again. That was the worst bit. My stepfather refused to take me back. Said I was a...well, I don’t want to repeat any of the names he called me.’ She shuddered, recalling the look of glee on his face when he’d said that her behaviour obliged him to wash his hands of her. That from now on she was dead to him and to her mother, and to her brother. That she must never return and not a penny would she ever have from either of them.
‘Betty and I had no money left and nowhere to go.’
‘Betty?’
‘The soldier’s wife I told you about. The one who came with me, to lend me respectability on the journey. Fortunately, my stepfather hadn’t seen her, since he’d been too busy shouting at me and forbidding me to enter the house. She had the sense to sneak round the back and ask the servants if any of them knew of anywhere else we could go. And the cook, who’d been with the family from before my mother’s second marriage, let her know about an aunt of mine who was suppose
d to be living in a scandalous manner. I’d never heard of her before, because, well, nobody talks about scandalous aunts to young girls, do they?’
‘I don’t suppose they do, no,’ said Rosalind, enthralled. ‘And they took you in, did they?’
‘Ah, eventually, yes.’ It had taken weeks to reach the house in Devon. She and Betty had to walk all the way, foraging for food from the hedgerows as they went. They must have looked like scarecrows by the time they knocked on the front door of the cottage in Market Gooding, so she supposed it wasn’t so surprising the two older ladies had been reluctant to let them in. It was only when Betty had broken down in tears, saying they had nowhere else to go and threatening to lie down and die in their front garden, that they’d said they supposed the pair could stay for a while until they thought of something else.
They hadn’t been there long before discovering why the two ladies had been so reluctant to have them stay and also why they didn’t have any live-in servants already. Although the house was relatively spacious, they shared a bedroom. Betty had explained to the puzzled young Cassandra that the pair of them were in love with each other, in a romantic way, and were probably worried about what people would say if they found out.
‘For my part, Miss Cassy,’ the pragmatic Betty had declared, ‘I don’t care what they get up to as long as they give me houseroom. And nor should you.’
And she didn’t.
‘Betty gradually took on more and more of the household chores,’ she said, ‘and I became an apprentice in their dressmaking enterprise.’
Rosalind frowned. ‘You had to work with the needle to earn your living?’
Cassandra nodded, maintaining the fiction that her aunts used to disguise the real reason why they chose to live together, without a husband between them. People accepted the story of them being indigent females, throwing in their lot together and plying their needles to eke out a living, assuming that neither of them had managed to find a husband to support them. And the aunts, and now Cassandra and Betty, too, took great care to conceal the fact that they loved each other in a way that society would find shocking. As Rosalind might. Which was why she wasn’t going to tell her about it. Or, at least, not right now.
‘So what was all that about running through Guy’s fortune?’
‘I don’t really know. I mean, he did leave me some money in his will—’
‘Oh, did he die, then?’
‘Yes, in the retreat to Corunna. Along with Betty’s husband, which actually settled her position in my aunt’s household. She is their cook-housekeeper now, with a proper wage to reflect her status.’
‘And Guy left you a fortune...’
‘No. I mean, he didn’t have a fortune to leave. I receive a small annuity, that is all. Though even that took me by surprise.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Even though he kept in touch, after the way things had ended, I didn’t really believe a word he wrote.’ She wouldn’t even have written to let him know where she was and what had become of her, if her aunts had not insisted, saying that he was responsible for it and should shoulder the blame. ‘I mean, he said that he considered himself betrothed to me and that he would carry through on his promise to marry me as soon as we were old enough. And that he would always take care of me, no matter what. But...’
But Rosalind had clearly lost interest in Guy.
‘So that Colonel was blowing a lot of smoke, then? He really has no reason to threaten you, or force me to go home?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. But,’ she said, lowering her voice and leaning in a bit closer, ‘if he decides to make trouble for us, people might feel obliged to look a bit deeper into the reasons Godmama is giving everyone for our, um, relationship. And rumour can be terribly damaging.’
‘So what are we to do?’
Cassandra had no idea. ‘We will ask Godmama,’ she said. ‘I am sure she will come up with one of her clever notions.’ And if not, well, at least she’d had a few weeks in London, which she’d thoroughly enjoyed, before having to pay the piper.
It was just such a shame that Rosalind’s plans, too, would come to nothing.
Chapter Four
‘Godmama,’ said Cassandra, the moment they stepped through the front door of the house on Grosvenor Square which the Duchess called home. ‘We need to speak with you, Rosalind and I.’ She glanced at Captain Bucknell, who had been their escort as usual that night, and who was still loitering in the hall. ‘In private.’
‘Yes, yes, in the morning,’ said the Duchess, as the butler reverently removed the cloak from her shoulders.
‘I am afraid not, Godmama,’ said Cassandra. ‘We shall neither of us be able to sleep for worrying. Could we not just step into the drawing room for a while? I am sure you will excuse us, Captain,’ she said, forcing herself to smile at him sweetly, ‘won’t you?’
‘Oh, ah, I suppose I could do that,’ he said, looking a bit annoyed. Which didn’t surprise her. For usually, after acting as their escort for the evening, he would stand in the hall, arm in arm with Godmama, watching the girls go up to bed. Cassy suspected that he never left the premises before he’d spent several more hours with Godmama. ‘That is, I mean to say...’
‘Dear Captain Bucknell,’ said Godmama, tripping across the hallway and extending her hand for him to kiss. ‘It was so kind of you to escort us to the ball. How lucky I am to be able to rely on you so very often, for the most tedious of favours.’
She meant, Cassandra supposed, all the times she’d put him to use as a partner for the girls to practise on. He’d nobly allowed them to tread on his feet during the dancing lessons given by the wizened little dancing master Godmama had employed. And sat through many dinners during which Rosalind had learned how to carry on the kind of conversation considered appropriate in polite society—just in case anyone ever invited her to dine in such company. Given the fact that he’d never treated either girl as if he regarded them as nuisances, Cassandra couldn’t really understand why she didn’t like him.
But she felt a definite frisson of revulsion when Godmama reached up, on tiptoe, to whisper in his ear. Especially when whatever it was she’d whispered brought a smile back to his face. A rather devilish smile.
‘Come, girls,’ said Godmama, once she’d appeased Captain Bucknell. ‘Let us go to the drawing room so that you can tell me all about whatever it is that has put you both in such a pother.’
While Godmama and Rosalind chose seats by the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze was crackling away, Cassandra hung back, listening out for the sound of the front door opening and closing. However, just as she’d suspected, instead of hearing anything to indicate Captain Bucknell was leaving the house, she heard the tread of heavy footsteps going up the stairs. She knew it! Godmama and Captain Bucknell were lovers.
The fact that there was a fire lit in here and that a decanter, two glasses and a plate of the Captain’s favourite biscuits were set out on a little table beside the chaise longue was even further proof.
Even though she had no right to criticise a single aspect of Godmama’s behaviour, she couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed, for Godmama had lured Cassandra to London with promises of restoring her reputation. And had also undertaken to find a titled husband for Rosalind. How on earth did she think she was going to accomplish either feat when she was carrying on with the big Guardsman so brazenly?
It wasn’t as if he was irresistible. The best she could say about him was that he was easy-going. Many people said he was handsome, but Cassandra didn’t find all that facial hair of his the slightest bit appealing. Nor the way the blackness of his whiskers made his lips look unnaturally red. What was more, he was one of those officers who had his uniforms tailored to fit so tightly that his breeches, in particular, left nothing to the imagination.
‘So, girls,’ said Godmama, thankfully interrupting Cassandra’s train of thought before it could dwell too long upon Captain B
ucknell’s skin-tight breeches. ‘What is so urgent it cannot wait until morning?’
‘Colonel Fairfax was at the ball tonight. He—’
‘Colonel Fairfax? Was at the ball? Gracious heavens! Lady Bunsford must be in alt.’
Cassandra frowned at her godmother, wondering what on earth she could mean.
‘In alt? But he was only there for about five minutes.’ Nearly all of which he spent glaring and growling at her.
‘That makes no difference. He was there, when he is famous for never wasting his time attending anything so frivolous as a society ball. Not unless someone from High Command hints that it might be of use to Wellington’s plans. And I’m sure nobody in command would have thought any such thing about a function arranged by the likes of Lady Bunsford!’ She laughed. ‘But now Lady Bunsford will be able to claim the cachet of being the first hostess to succeed where so many others have failed.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Cassandra persisted, having learned by now that if she didn’t pull the conversation back on track very swiftly, Godmama would find some other way of diverting it in the direction she wished it to take. ‘He approached us and threatened to tell everyone about...’ she swallowed ‘...my past.’
‘No!’ Godmama, at last, looked suitably shocked.
‘Only, he had things all muddled up. He seemed to think that I had deceived you into launching me and Rosalind into society and insisted I confess all to you.’
‘He said what? Oh!’ Godmama burst out laughing.
‘Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but I don’t find it very funny,’ said Rosalind mulishly. ‘He said I wasn’t fit to mix in polite society and would force me to leave.’
Godmama produced a handkerchief from somewhere and dabbed at her eyes with it. ‘But don’t you see? He has spiked his own guns by insisting you make a confession to me. Because the next time he challenges you, you may say, perfectly truthfully, that I know all and that I am very happy to continue to sponsor you. Both of you,’ she added, sending one of her charming smiles at each girl in turn.
The Scandal of the Season Page 4
