“And go where?”
When she did not reply—for she did not want to think about the answer—he smirked, quite satisfied with himself.
“I thought you said you were a rock,” he said, “and could weather my—what did you call it?—my ‘boundless charisma.’”
“I assure you, my resistance to your appeal is as firm as stone, but...” She paused, at a loss for words for a second. “That doesn’t make your presumptuous manner proper or acceptable. Besides, I fell for your superficial charm once before, and look what happened to me.”
His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Indeed, you are in a terrible predicament now, with a child you never dreamed you could have, an annuity forthcoming, and a house soon to be deeded to you. And may I remind you that you are not married to the very balding and bumbling Mr. Clarence Hibbert?”
She frowned. “You remember that?”
He merely shrugged.
She had not thought he remembered anything from that night. She’d assumed he had tossed her into a full pot with every other nameless, insignificant bed partner he’d had over the past year.
Another confident grin stole across his face, and her senses began to whirl, which made her realize with horror that she could not trust herself to be quite so impervious as a rock.
“Would it surprise you to know,” he asked, “that I remember a great many things about that night?”
Her heart pounded. “What sorts of things?”
He smiled deviously, and she felt as if she were looking at sin personified.
“I remember that your lips tasted like honey, and when you were naked and sitting on top of me with your eyes closed, and your soft flesh damp with perspiration, you leaned forward and brushed your hair over my face, and I swear it felt like the silky wings of an angel lifting me off the bed. I thought I’d died and gone straight to heaven.”
Cassandra felt touched by heaven herself at that moment, standing in the private stairwell, trapped by his intoxicating sexuality. He smelled like musk and leather, and the vivid reminder of sitting naked on top of him without inhibitions made her desires spin so fast, she feared that if she let go of the railing, she would topple over and roll straight to the bottom.
“When I accepted your offer a week ago,” she said in a decisively sober voice that belied how frantically she was struggling to wrestle her desires to the ground and stomp on them, “I told you that you were going to have to treat me with the respect I deserve. That there could be none of this kind of talk.”
“I did make an effort,” he explained.
“For about five minutes.”
He wagged a finger at her. “In my defense, you did ask what I remembered about that night. I was only being honest.”
She inhaled deeply, knowing she had no choice but to surrender to that argument. “I should not have asked.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “It certainly doesn’t help me to remember it. Not when I am about to be shackled into the tight bonds of marriage with a woman that I…Never mind.”
Cassandra turned and started up the stairs again. “What an enchanting way to look at your future nuptials. I am relieved that I am not your bride.”
They reached the nursery and paused outside the door. “Tell me,” she whispered, careful to keep her voice low, “does your fiancée know about this arrangement we have?”
Vincent spoke calmly and without reservation, revealed no hint of guilt or discomfiture. “No.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Of course not. It’s completely unnecessary. I am sure she is well aware of the fact that I will have mistresses.”
Cassandra bristled. “Must I remind you again? I am not your mistress.”
“I was not talking about you.”
He might as well have tossed a glass of cold water in her face. Quickly, she reminded herself that she did not care if he had a hundred mistresses. All that mattered was that he had given her the chance to spend her life with her daughter, and he was providing a home where they both could live. That was the only reason Cassandra was having anything to do with Vincent. If not for that, she would be running very quickly in the opposite direction.
The nursery door creaked as she pushed it open, and they walked in to discover Aggie still sitting in the rocking chair, working on the baby bonnet. Aggie rose to her feet while Cassandra set the leather case on the table by the door. She then crossed to the cradle and looked down at her darling girl, who was awake and alert, smiling and kicking her legs.
“Look who has come to see you,” she said, gathering June into her arms. “Lord Vincent is here.”
“She’s awake,” he said.
Cassandra turned to Aggie. “Perhaps you could come back in half an hour.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As soon as Aggie was gone, Vincent asked, “May I hold her?”
It was astounding how all the problems of the world could disappear when one held a baby. “Of course.” She placed June in his arms.
Vincent marveled at June’s sweet little face, then turned to pace around the room. Cassandra watched them with a strange, unanticipated sense of peace.
“Hello there, little one,” he softly said. “You’re very happy today. Did you know the rain has stopped? Is that why you are smiling?”
June cooed and gurgled in his arms while Cassandra stood back, continuing to watch.
Vincent faced her. “Isn’t it amazing how she looks right at you? She’s very bright, don’t you think?”
Cassandra approached. “Yes. Just watch.” She held out her finger, and June grasped it in a tight grip.
“What a strong girl you are,” he said.
“Let’s spread a blanket on the floor,” Cassandra suggested, turning to reach for the quilt in the cradle. She flapped the folds out of it and let it float lightly onto the soft rug.
Vincent lowered June down and sat back on his haunches, while Cassandra knelt on the other side of her. Together they watched their baby girl kick and move and giggle. They glanced across at each other often, and after a time, they both lay down on their sides, cheeks resting on hands, their daughter between them.
“Vincent,” Cassandra said, thinking back to their earlier conversation about his marriage. “How can you be so sure that Lady Letitia is aware of the possibility that you will have mistresses?”
His eyes lifted but he did not respond.
“As I said before,” she continued, “maybe she thinks this is her fairy-tale wedding. Maybe she believes she is the woman who has tamed your philandering spirit. And what if she believes in the sanctity of marriage, like I did, and still do?”
He shook his head. There seemed to be a warning in the gesture. “The circumstances of my marriage don’t concern you, Cassandra. You are not responsible for my behavior as a husband, or for my wife’s happiness. Or mine, for that matter.”
“I understand that,” she replied, “but in a way, I will be a part of your marriage because June is an extension of you, and I am not sure I can bear to be the cause of anyone’s unhappiness, even though there is no longer anything improper going on between us, nor will there ever be.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “You’re quite sure about that?”
“Of course I am sure,” she quickly retorted.
Yet they were alone in a room, lying on a blanket, doting over their daughter. “I am a woman from your past, nothing more.”
“Indeed,” he said with a casual sigh. “There are so very many women from my past. I can hardly keep all of you straight.”
She rolled onto her back and cupped her forehead in both hands. “Maybe you should tell her.”
“Why?”
“Because she should at least have the opportunity to choose her future for herself, knowing all the facts. At least if she knows about me, I will not
feel like such a dirty little secret.” Cassandra sat up and looked at him. “Although you must be sure to tell her that I am not your mistress, nor will I ever be. But she should know about June.”
He shook his head. “I do not want the world to know that June is illegitimate.”
“But if Letitia is going to be your wife, there should be no secrets between you.”
“Unfortunately, I would not trust her with that information.”
Vincent never failed to astonish her. “How can you marry someone you do not trust?”
His eyebrows lifted. “A strange question coming from you, considering that your husband spent all your money on his mistress, then died in her arms and left you destitute. Did you trust him when you married him?”
She felt flustered all of a sudden. “Rightly or wrongly, I entered into that marriage in good faith.”
“To your detriment, obviously. You made quite a colossal mistake there, if I may say so, believing in happily ever after. There is simply no such thing, Cassandra.” Vincent offered his forefinger to June, who grabbed hold of it and smiled. “That is why I have chosen the perfect wife,” he added with cheer. “She does not share your romantic views about love and marriage.”
Troubled not only by Vincent’s patronizing tone, but by the cavalier nature of his values, Cassandra rose to her feet. “Then we shall agree to disagree.”
He looked up at her. “Where are you going?”
“I am tired. If you will excuse me.” She turned to go.
“Tired of what?” he asked, craning his neck to follow her with his gaze. “Our lively debate on the institution of marriage? Or are you tired of fighting your honest desire to drag me to your bed and ask me to make love to you?”
Cassandra stopped dead in her tracks, resenting him deeply for having no scruples. None whatsoever. “I have no such desire.”
He sat up on the blanket. “Well, at least one of us is on the straight and narrow.”
She strove to control her body’s response to his suggestion. When she spoke, she managed to convey polite courtesy as she moved toward the door and picked up the case that contained the contract.
“There is no need for you to hurry out,” she said, purposefully ignoring his last comment. “Stay as long as you wish. June enjoys your company.”
When she glanced back at him, he was sitting up and leaning on one arm. “Then I shall bid you farewell until next time,” he said.
Cassandra left the room and made her way back to her bedchamber, hugging the contract to her chest and wishing he had not openly acknowledged what had once existed between them. She supposed it was her fault as much as his. She had allowed him to lead her down that path when she asked him what he remembered about their unforgettable night together.
She stopped in the corridor and laid a hand on her belly. That moment in the back stairwell had been excruciating.
She started walking again and decided it would perhaps be wise in the future to leave the house when Vincent visited June. Cassandra did not need to be present, hovering nearby and watching him play with their baby. She did not need to see June smiling up at her father and giggling happily. That simply would not do, not when he seemed determined to shock and seduce Cassandra at every turn. He truly was a wicked scoundrel.
Chapter 10
I found it very difficult to concentrate on anything today. I could not stop thinking about certain, specific details of that night. There are some moments I recall vividly. My body remembers the sensations. I wish I could stop myself from remembering it.
—from the journal of
Cassandra Montrose,
Lady Colchester,
May 20,1874
Vincent walked into the billiards room and found Blake asleep on the sofa with his boots on, still wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before. For a moment, Vincent considered turning around and walking out so as not to wake his younger brother, but it occurred to him that he might end up in the drawing room going over flower arrangements with Letitia, so he decided to knock some billiard balls around instead.
Blake responded with pained annoyance to the noisy clack of the three balls as Vincent dropped them onto the tabletop. Blake rolled over with a scowl and a groan. “What the devil are you doing? And what time is it? Bloody hell.”
“It’s almost four in the afternoon,” Vincent replied, circling around the lavishly carved oak table and placing the cue ball behind the balkline. He glanced briefly at Blake, who rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and strained to sit up.
“Late night I presume?” Vincent said.
Blake tipped his head back against the sofa cushions. “I should know better.”
“Should you? And when would you have learned? You’ve never been one to misbehave like the rest of us.” Vincent went to fetch a cue stick from the rack on the wall.
“Was it really necessary to come in and do this just now?” Blake asked. “I was dreaming.”
“Well, I hope it was a pleasant dream. I apologize for interrupting, but may I remind you, you do have a bed of your own in the south wing?”
“I couldn’t make it that far this morning.”
Vincent noted the empty brandy bottle and glass on the end table. “Rough night?”
“It was, in a word, intriguing.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
His brother seemed to consider with great care whether or not to reveal where he had been. Then, at last, he began to explain.
“Promise me you will keep this between us for the time being, Vincent, because I am not yet ready to announce anything officially.”
Vincent bent forward to take aim at the cue ball.
“I have met a woman,” his brother said.
Vincent straightened before he took the shot. “You don’t say.”
Rubbing a hand down over his stubbled cheek, Blake paused. “I shouldn’t even be speaking about it. I know so little about her.”
Vincent, who was more than familiar with the nuisance of prying questions when he was in Blake’s condition—which was often—was far too curious to let the subject go.
“Does she come from a good family?”
“She does. Her father is on the board of directors for the London Horticultural Society, which incidentally is the beneficiary in Father’s will if we do not abide by his orders to marry. How could he argue?”
“That is an interesting coincidence, I must say.” Vincent bent forward and took another shot. “Is she pretty?”
“Devastatingly so.”
Vincent moved around the table. “She wasn’t the one who kept you up until dawn, I hope, because you know Father. He will require nothing less than a respectable young lady. No illegitimate children allowed.”
Blake chuckled. “No, it was not she who kept me up all night, but I have struck up a friendship with her brother, and the chap likes to gamble.”
Vincent pointed the cue stick at his brother. “Be careful, Blake. You never did have much luck at the tables.”
Blake rose to his feet and fetched another stick from the rack. “Don’t worry, I have a good head on my shoulders. Let’s play to three hundred. Loser sits beside Father at dinner.”
“Deal.”
Simultaneously they hit the two white balls up the table. Blake’s ball came back closest to the balk cushion, and he chose the marked white ball to begin. He made his first strike, then they played in silence for a time, earning points at equal measure.
“Can I ask you something?” Vincent said, circling around the table, studying the lay of the balls. “Do you think you will be faithful when you marry?”
“I don’t know. It depends on the wife, I suppose.”
“Does it?” He took another shot.
“I believe so. Look at Devon. Can you imagine him being unfaithful to Rebecca? I certainl
y cannot.”
Vincent straightened and took a deep breath to stem the resentment he still felt toward Devon, which was only aggravated by the idea of his marital bliss. “I suppose if one is fortunate enough to find a woman like that.”
“I take it, you don’t imagine yourself being faithful to Letitia?”
Vincent looked up from the table with a raised eyebrow.
“I didn’t think so,” Blake said.
Vincent hit his brother’s ball, then potted the red, scoring an easy cannon. He circled around to the other side. “Do you think she’ll mind? If she were the docile sort, I would have no concerns, but she seems rather...”
“Rather what, Vincent?”
He paused and ran his fingers along the cue stick. “While Letitia claims she is not sentimental, she is most definitely spoiled and possessive. I am having visions of coming home to the surprise of razors or snakes in my bed if she does not feel she is getting what she wants.” Vincent another shot and knocked the red ball off the side cushion.
Blake chuckled. “Maybe you shouldn’t marry her, then.”
“If I don’t, Father will go into convulsions. We’d all end up without a bloody farthing to our names. That damn birthmark,” he added.
“It doesn’t look anything like the sun to me,” Blake said. “I don’t know how Father imagined that.”
“He’s mad as a cuckoo bird.”
“Like a monkey in a drainpipe.” Blake missed a difficult shot. “Bugger.” He backed away from the table.
“I suppose I could simply ask Letitia.”
“Ask her what?” Blake questioned. “If she’ll mind if you sleep with other women?” He shook his head at the foolhardy notion and set the cue handle on the floor, gripping the stick with both hands. “Do that and you’ll end up with worse than snakes in your bed. She’d stuff you down the drainpipe with father.”
Vincent chuckled bitterly. “At least we would keep each other company.” He took another shot and completely missed the ball.
The Mistress Diaries (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 2) Page 10
