Snowbound With The Baronet

by Hale Deborah

  For that one evening, the silent tension in their household had been replaced with music, conversation and laughter. His parents put on such a convincing show of domestic harmony that even he was tempted to believe it. Twelfth Night had been one day of the year when his parents appeared to love both their sons equally. Though he knew it was all a ruse for the benefit of their guests, Brandon had still enjoyed the celebration and look forward to it for the rest of the year.

  If he could spend this Twelfth Night in the company of Lady Cassandra Whitney, Brandon reckoned it would eclipse all those past celebrations.

  But did he deserve such a boon after the way he’d treated her?

  All these years he’d thought ill of her, in a fruitless effort to purge her from his heart. Yet when she’d revealed her reason for refusing him, he had not even tried to understand her motives. Instead, he’d taken offence and lashed out at her. Then when Imogene appeared looking like a dog’s breakfast, he had immediately concluded Cassandra must be to blame.

  What made him so quick to suspect her of deceit and so reluctant to trust her? Could it be a tainted inheritance from his mother? If it was, could he make a conscious effort to change his attitude? Or would it always be warped, like wood exposed to the damp?

  Brandon cast frequent disapproving glances at the coach driver and guard. Had they forgotten how to dress themselves? They were certainly taking their time about it. He feared Cassandra might remember some chore she must do for Mrs. Martin and rush away. To his relief, she lingered until the two men headed off.

  When they threw open the door, an icy draft whipped down the hallway. Brandon shivered. The future seemed to skulk outside the Martins’ cottage—cold, stark and empty—waiting to claim him.

  The instant the door swung shut, he and Cassandra spoke at once.

  “There is something I would like to say.”

  “One more thing, if I may?”

  Their words clashed in the air making them both break off in thin, nervous laughter.

  “Do go on,” Cassandra bid him.

  Brandon shook his head. “Ladies, first.”

  “Very well.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I owe you an apology. No doubt I owe you a great deal more than that, but it is all I have to offer.”

  “You have much more to offer.” Brandon lowered his voice to a caressing murmur. What would he give for any of the delights that were in her power to bestow? At that moment he would have bartered everything he possessed for a single kiss. But would that be enough?

  He hoped she might ask him to explain his cryptic remark, but she did not. Did she guess his meaning but shrink from hearing it in plainer language?

  “Perhaps you are right,” she continued as if he had not spoken. “Perhaps I should have told you of my father’s intentions and allowed you to decide whether you still wished to marry me. If you had, I could still have refused your proposal, but at least you would have known the true reason why. You would have had no cause to think my decision reflected ill upon you—that you were somehow lacking. Nothing could have been further from the truth.”

  Cassandra’s dark eyes flashed with passionate sincerity that called forth his old feelings for her.

  Brandon shook his head. “You were trying to protect me from the most powerful source of misery you had ever encountered. You knew how contrary I could be. I might have insisted on going ahead with the marriage and it might have ruined me.”

  It galled him to admit the possibility, even if it was true.

  “We can never know what might have happened,” Cassandra replied. “But I deprived you of a choice you should have been given. At the time, I thought I was protecting you. In the years after, I repeated that excuse over and over until I made myself believe it. Now I fear my motives may have been more selfish than I wished to think.”

  “Selfish?” Brandon echoed in a doubtful tone. “In what way?”

  Cassandra’s whole being radiated reluctance to speak of it. “I wonder now if I was ashamed to expose the unsavory side of my father’s character and my family’s precarious circumstances. I wonder if my pride could not bear to have you reject me once you learned the truth.”

  They might not be noble motives, but they were ones with which Brandon could sympathize.

  Her head bowed in shame, Cassandra glanced up at him through her fringe of black lashes. That look seemed to ask more than she could ever put into words. It made him long to plumb the depths of her mysterious dark gaze, so he could explore all her hidden feelings.

  “You had good reason to be angry with me when I told you the truth at last,” she murmured. “I told you before how much I regretted refusing you, but I regret misleading you even more. Can you ever forgive me for that?”

  He reached out and gently clasped her hands. “My dearest Cassandra, there is nothing to forgive. At least, nothing on your part. I was unduly harsh with you earlier, when I ought to have been grateful—or at the very least understanding. My only defense is that your revelation took me by surprise. It made me imagine the life we might have had together if you’d told me the truth four years ago. The truth is you may have saved me from a different future than the one I foresaw.”

  The air between them seemed to shimmer as Brandon had sometimes seen it do on the hottest days of the Spanish summer. Unleashed, it might have the power to melt every flake of snow between here and Bath.

  The last thing Brandon wanted was for that blessed snow to disappear. “I should have thanked you instead of judging and berating you. Is it too late to do that now or have I lost my chance?”

  His pulse and breath both seemed to stop as he awaited Cassandra’s answer.

  “I want to believe there are always second chances,” she replied in hesitant whisper.

  She wanted to believe? That was a long way from certainty, but Brandon was willing to risk it. “In that case, thank you for trying to protect me four years ago. And thank you for telling me the truth today. I know it cannot have been easy.”

  “Then you do forgive me?” She sounded overwhelmed by the possibility.

  Brandon felt overwhelmed too, by so many complicated emotions. “I thought that went without saying. But perhaps it does need to be said. Indeed, I do forgive you.”

  Speaking those words seemed to lift a heavy burden from his heart. He wished he had not held onto it for so long. “I beg your pardon for my earlier ingratitude.”

  The glow in Cassandra’s eyes spoke volumes more than her breathless whisper. “Granted.”

  The brevity of her reply scarcely mattered when it came from such lips as hers. They reminded Brandon of ripe raspberries—full, soft and red. He reckoned they would be even sweeter to nibble. They seemed to call to his, making his lips tingle to kiss her.

  But too many considerations held him back.

  Good sense told him it was too soon. They had only just met again after a long separation and a parting fraught with ill feeling. Discretion warned that this was the wrong place. With so many people crammed into a small cottage, it was a wonder no one had intruded upon them in the past few minutes. The last thing he wanted was to compromise Cassandra’s reputation and perhaps force them both into a situation for which they were not ready.

  Brandon’s sense of fairness weighed in too. Though he had made no formal commitment to Isabella Reynolds, he believed she guessed his intentions and would be expecting a proposal during the house party. He owed it to both ladies to end his connection with Miss Reynolds before kissing another woman. Last of all, but by no means least important, was the urgent whisper of caution. Cassandra might have rejected him for the kindest of reasons in the world, but it had devastated him nonetheless. Did he dare trust his heart to a woman who had proved herself capable of destroying it?

  Chapter Twelve

  WAS BRANDON GOING to kiss her? Cassandra sensed his intention like the invisible yet powerful pull of the moon upon the tides. She held herself in mute, quivering stillness, not wanting any sudden
movement or word to break the spell that drew them toward one another.

  At the same time, propriety demanded she must not do anything to encourage the affections of a man who intended to marry someone else. She told herself these were unique circumstances and she had a prior claim on the gentleman. Brandon had wanted her first. He would never have looked twice at that Miss Reynolds if Cassandra had accepted his proposal four years ago.

  But she had not accepted, her conscience reminded her in the severest tone of her Great-aunt Augusta. That gave her no claim at all—less than none. Where would Society be if all the spurning sweethearts and jilting fiancées suddenly changed their fickle minds and set out to recapture the hearts of gentlemen they had rejected? Chaos!

  Very well, she would do nothing to encourage him. But if Brandon tried to steal a kiss, as she sensed he might, no power on earth could persuade her to resist him.

  The tension and anticipation between them intensified with each passing second. Just as that attraction became too potent for them to resist, a voice shattered it like a bauble of blown glass struck with a fire iron.

  “There you are, Brandon.” Imogene Calvert marched into the parlor with an air of regal authority at odds with her ridiculous appearance. “I wondered what could be detaining you. Now I see.”

  His cousin’s sudden arrival roused Brandon as if from a sweet, improbable dream. He inhaled a sharp breath, sending a tremor through his tall, lean frame. He dropped Cassandra’s hand with a guilty start. “What is it you want now, Imogene?”

  “The same thing I have wanted for the past three days, of course.” His cousin advanced upon them and insinuated herself between Brandon and Cassandra. “I want to get to Everleigh. Do not forget what awaits us there.”

  The young lady kept her back toward Cassandra as if she were unworthy of notice. Though Miss Calvert did not address a word to her, Cassandra recalled her last comment with harsh clarity.

  “You may save your flattery and your flirtatious banter.”

  Did Brandon regard her behavior that way as well? Cassandra could hardly blame him after his family experience and her rejection. Though she’d only meant to spare him from being exploited by her father, her refusal had instead taught him that he could not trust others to have the feelings they claimed.

  “I thought you must have gone out with the other men, to fetch someone to repair your carriage.” Miss Calvert continued to address her cousin as if Cassandra was not even there. “Perhaps we will be able get back on the road today after all.”

  “I doubt it.” Brandon replied. “Depending on how the snow has drifted, it could take hours to dig the carriage out.”

  “Then perhaps we should go in the stagecoach and leave Perkins to bring your carriage to Everleigh when it is ready. It may seem an odd arrangement, but I doubt the other guests will take exception to it under the circumstances.”

  Brandon hesitated. Cassandra held her breath. Would he agree to his cousin’s suggestion or reject it? Did she want to share the stagecoach box with him all the way to Bath? They would not be alone, but at least it would allow her more time in his company. On the other hand, such a journey made it more likely he would discover the humble position she would occupy in her great-aunt’s household.

  She would have told him the truth about her circumstances if he had not been about to propose to another woman—an heiress at that. But if he was committed to someone else, what would it matter? It might only make Brandon suspect she was trying to snare him for his fortune. He had thought badly enough of her over the years. She could not bear to have him think worse now.

  At last Brandon answered his cousin. “There is no guarantee the stagecoach will get on the road today, either. Besides, I promised Mrs. Martin we would celebrate Twelfth Night with them and I mean to keep my word.”

  Imogene Calvert stamped her foot like a petulant child denied her way. “What about your promise to take me to Everleigh? Does that count for nothing?”

  “I mean to keep my promise to you,” Brandon replied with admirable restraint. “But not necessarily today.”

  His cousin stormed and wheedled but he remained firm. “Are you certain you would want to appear at Everleigh looking as you do at the moment? Have you even glanced in a looking glass?”

  Miss Calvert raised a hand to her hair as if she’d forgotten. “Is it that bad?”

  “Worse.” The flesh around Brandon’s mouth flexed and tightened in an obvious effort to suppress a grin. “It is your own fault for never learning to look after yourself without the help of servants. And for refusing Lady Cassandra’s generous offer of assistance.”

  “How could I accept?” Miss Calvert spun around to glare at Cassandra. “After the way she treated you, I would rather look a perfect fool than have such a person pretend to be kind to me.”

  “Then you have got your wish,” Brandon rolled his eyes and pulled a droll face behind his cousin’s back.

  It was all Cassandra could do to contain the laughter that bubbled up within her. It was not simply amusement at his antics, but relief that he seemed not to heed Miss Calvert’s snide comment about her.

  “Lady Cassandra has shown you sincere kindness,” he continued, “perhaps more than you deserve.”

  “She has not!” With her wild tangle of hair and baleful glare, Imogene Calvert suddenly looked more sinister than comical. “She is only making a show of interest in me to appeal to you. Now that she has been on the shelf for a while she sees that you are a good catch after all. She is trying to win you back and I will not let her use me to do it!”

  Those accusations skewered Cassandra’s pride until it writhed, not least of all because there was a tiny grain of truth amid the condemnation.

  “You are mistaken!” She struggled to suppress a furious blush which would make her appear guilty of all charges. “I was only trying to help you because it is what I hope others might do for my younger sisters if they were in your situation. I have no designs upon your cousin. I would never pursue a gentleman I had once refused!”

  She expected Imogene Calvert to scoff, as her own conscience did. But something in her tone must have rung true enough to give Brandon’s cousin second thoughts. “You wouldn’t?”

  Cassandra shook her head, even as she did battle with her conscience. She would have welcomed Brandon’s attentions if he still had any feelings for her, but she would not make a fool of herself by pursuing him.

  “Are you satisfied, Imogene?” her cousin demanded. “Lady Cassandra has no romantic interest in me whatsoever.”

  That was far from the truth, but Cassandra could not bring herself to contradict him.

  “Not that it is any of your business,” Brandon continued, all trace of levity gone. “Besides it is not necessary for you to prove your loyalty to me by being rude to Lady Cassandra. She and I are not enemies. I may not have been pleased when she declined my proposal but she had every right to exercise her choice. If her feelings for me were not sufficient to sustain a marriage between us, I am grateful to her for being truthful with me instead of allowing other considerations to influence her decision. That would not have been in the best interest of either of us.”

  He was right, of course, about several of the things he’d said. Cassandra could not deny it. And yet, it grieved her to hear him speak of her refusal as if it had turned out to be a fortunate escape.

  Brandon clasped his hands behind his back and regarded Miss Calvert with the air of a stern father rather than a cousin. “Now, I believe you owe Lady Cassandra an apology.”

  The young lady hesitated for a long moment then turned and dropped a curtsey to Cassandra. “I beg your pardon for anything I said that was not true. I sincerely hope you can excuse me, for my cousin’s sake.”

  She did not sound entirely sincere in her apology. Her wording seemed suspicious, for one thing. Cassandra wondered if the young lady blamed her for Brandon’s annoyance. Yet, for his sake, she was prepared to bear with his cousin, no matter how disagre
eable the girl might be to her.

  “There is no need for an apology, Sir Brandon. I understand why your cousin would not wish to consort with anyone she believed had injured you. I would do no less in her place. All I ask is for her to accept my assurance that I have no designs upon you, though I do wish you all the good fortune and happiness in the world.”

  “Of course,” Miss Calvert murmured, though Cassandra sensed she was not convinced.

  Which part did she doubt—Cassandra’s assertion that she wished Brandon well or her denial of any romantic interest in him? Imogene Calvert might not be the most sensible person, but she was no fool.

  Cassandra sensed it would take more than a lecture from Brandon to make his cousin view her as anything but a threat.

  It appeared his cousin had saved him from making a colossal fool of himself, Brandon reflected as Cassandra and Imogene returned upstairs to repair his cousin’s toilette.

  If she had not intruded when she did, he would certainly have succumbed to the temptation to kiss Cassandra. If she had not flung about ridiculous accusations, he would not have heard from Cassandra’s own lips that she had no romantic feelings for him.

  Clearly the response he’d sensed from her had been nothing but remorse, perhaps with a flicker of their old camaraderie. He must put Lady Cassandra Whitney out of his mind once and for all. He must return to his sensible plan to secure Miss Reynolds. At least now that he had confronted Cassandra, the old, festering wound to his heart had been lanced so it could heal properly.

  Now that he knew the truth about her feelings, he need not linger around the cottage and risk falling prey to any more foolish fancies about a lady who wanted nothing more to do with him.

  He strode off to the kitchen and summoned his driver and footman. They both seemed quite comfortable. Perkins was drinking tea while Edward cracked nuts into a bowl for Mrs. Martin.

  “Why do we need to go out, sir?” the young footman asked, clearly not eager to stir outside on a winter morning. “I thought we were going to stay here another night.”