by Candace Camp
“I am sure you will be convinced soon,” Cassandra assured him, her eyes shining in a way that made his loins tighten. “Once you have read Margaret’s diaries, I know you will realize that they are real. You can see how close we are growing in our search. We are already only fifty years or so away from Margaret’s time, and we have all the way to the wall left to look.” She waved her arm toward the end of the attic. “I am sure there are things left from her father.”
“If he saved those letters.”
Cassandra frowned. The possibility that Margaret’s angry father had thrown away the letters from his wayward daughter was not something she liked to think about. She shook her head. “We will find them. We must.”
They continued to unpack the trunks, searching through the stored articles for a packet of letters. Boxes were opened and clothes unwrapped to make sure that no letters were folded inside. Sir Philip was soon distracted by an intricately carved snuffbox so small that it fit into the palm of his hand, then again by a quaint old book on manners that made him chuckle and read choice excerpts aloud.
“Whatever are you doing?” Joanna asked snappishly. She did not understand Sir Philip at all. Her hopes had soared when the footman had announced him. She was certain that he had traveled to Dunsleigh because his desire for her had overcome his brief bitterness at the trick she had tried on him.
But then he had kept on asking about Cassandra and had actually insisted on riding over to Chesilworth to find her. Of course, he had expressed great consideration for Joanna and assured her that she needn’t accompany him, but she had not been about to let such an opportunity to be alone with him get away from her. However, she could not understand why he refused to leave now, or why he was pawing through old trunks and chuckling with Cassandra over things in which Joanna could see no humor. She narrowed her eyes at Cassandra, who was smiling at Neville in a way that made her eyes positively luminous. She was almost pretty, Joanna thought in amazement, even with her hair covered in a powder of dust and a great streak of dirt across one cheek. Joanna found the revelation distinctly annoying. Did Cassandra actually think that Sir Philip Neville would have any interest in her?
“What are you doing, Cassandra?” she repeated when her cousin continued to ignore her. “Why are you looking through all these old trunks?”
“I thought there might be something of interest here,” Cassandra replied vaguely.
Joanna quirked an eyebrow, but her cousin’s interests were always so peculiar to her that Cassandra’s answer did not seem out of the ordinary. “But you are making Sir Philip all dusty.”
“I don’t mind, Miss Moulton,” Sir Philip replied cheerfully. “I am having a perfectly fine time.”
A little to his amazement, he realized that he actually was enjoying himself. It was dusty and hot in the attic, but he was doing something that he had never done before, and it was rather fun exploring the old things in the trunk and sharing his amusement at the antiquated book with Cassandra. He could think of no other woman who would care as little about the fact that he had come upon her when she was dirty and disheveled, clothed in an obviously old, ill-fitting dress. Within minutes she was talking unselfconsciously with him and chuckling over the excerpts he read from the book.
He glanced over at Joanna, whose perfect looks were beginning to melt a little in the airless attic. She was dressed like a lady and acting as one should act; moreover, her coloring and features were such as any woman would envy. But, after ten minutes in Cassandra’s company, Joanna struck him only as dull as ditch water, whereas he felt his eyes drawn over and over again to Cassandra’s animated face.
Joanna frowned at him, annoyed at his cheerfulness. The man was acting like a boor, she thought; any gentleman should have taken the hint and escorted her back to her home long ago. It was obvious to her that stronger action needed to be taken.
She rose to her feet. “I fear that the heat is too much for me. I must go back downstairs.”
“Of course, Joanna,” Cassandra replied in a pleasant voice. “Whatever you think best.”
“Good day, Miss Moulton,” Sir Philip said absently, distracted by a small stack of letters, yellowed with age and tied with a pink ribbon, that were fitted into the corner of the trunk.
He snatched them up and turned them over, aware of a surprising stab of excitement in his stomach. He did not even glance up to see the dagger look that Joanna directed toward him before she clattered down the stairs in a demonstration of ladylike rage.
“Cassandra—” he said in a low voice, not noticing that he called her by her first name, an unwarranted familiarity given the short time they had known each other.
Cassandra turned, as oblivious as he to his use of her given name. Her heart speeded up as she saw the pile of letters, even as she reminded herself that she had found dozens of other packets of letters already, and none of them had been the ones she was looking for.
She reached out for them, saying pragmatically, “I am sure these are too recent,” even as her fingers closed around them with trembling eagerness.
Cassandra brought them closer, but as soon as she saw the spidery writing, she sighed. “Oh, no! This is Edna Verrere’s writing. I would have thought I had discovered everything she ever wrote by now. She was a most faithful daughter, and she wrote her mother regularly after she married. Her mother was equally faithful about keeping her letters.”
She pulled the top letter from the pile and quickly skimmed it, just to make sure that it was indeed Edna Verrere who had written. “Yes, she’s talking about her son Reginald again—a most priggish-sounding fellow.”
“Oh, him!”
Both Cassandra and Philip looked up at the sound of one of the twins’ voices. Both the boys had made their way over to them when they saw the packet of letters, but now Hart threw himself down in disgust atop one of the trunks.
“What a prosy bore,” Crispin agreed, coming to stand beside his brother. “Is it Edna again? We thought you had actually found something.”
“No. We are still in too recent an area, I’m afraid,” Cassandra told them.
“Why don’t you just move over a few trunks and start investigating further back in time?” Neville suggested.
“Mmm. We tried that. Unfortunately, they are not in perfect order. Sometimes you will find a box from a much earlier era in with the others—and sometimes items are even within the same trunk or box.”
“Besides,” Olivia added, coming up to join them, her eyes glinting with amusement, “it would not suit Cassandra’s sense of order.”
Cassandra lifted her chin and gave her a lofty look. “I merely try to bring some degree of order to all this chaos. If I left it up to you, in two days the contents of the trunks would be scattered all over the attic floor.”
“Yes, but we would have found the letters.”
“If you hadn’t overlooked them among the rubble.”
Crispin, long used to Cassandra’s and Olivia’s running argument over Cassandra’s tidiness and Olivia’s lack of it, ignored his sisters and spoke to Sir Philip. “I say, sir, are you planning to help us look for the Spanish dowry now?”
Neville looked at the young boy’s lit-up eyes and found that he could not bring himself to deflate his hopes. “Yes, if we are able to find the letters.”
“Capital!” Crispin beamed. “I was hoping that you would turn out to be a right ’un, sir, even if Cassandra said you were not.”
Philip looked at Cassandra, his eyes lit sardonically. “Is that what she said about me?”
“Crispin!” Olivia admonished, frowning at him. “Of course she didn’t say that.”
“She said you lacked imagination,” revealed Hart, who was blessed with an infuriatingly accurate memory. “But you couldn’t help it, ’cause you were a Neville.”
“Miss Verrere, you wound me.” La
ughter shimmered in Philip’s voice.
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Don’t be nonsensical. I told you that to your face, if you will remember.” She bent a stern gaze on her younger brothers. “However, I think we’ve had about enough out of you two on the subject. It isn’t always polite to quote one’s elders.”
“Especially if they’ve been maligning others,” Crispin added, his eyes dancing.
“Oh, you!” Cassandra reached out to playfully swat at her brother, but he hastily jumped back out of her reach.
She returned the stack of letters to the pile of discards, saying, “Now, I suggest that you three get back to work—unless, of course, you prefer to join Joanna downstairs.”
Hart made a choking noise at this suggestion, and the three children drifted back to their respective areas. Cassandra and Philip returned to their work, as well, and for the next two hours they worked steadily through the paraphernalia in the attic. They were interrupted twice by Joanna’s groom, coming up to relay Joanna’s desire to leave, but they did not stop until the light slanting in through the small attic windows became too difficult to see by.
Then they rose and went down the narrow attic stairs, brushing—to little avail—at the dust that had settled on them. They found Joanna in the kitchen, where she sat at the huge, scarred oak table, the only piece of furniture in the house left unshrouded. She was drumming her fingers on the table impatiently, her face a study in discontent, and she jumped up when she saw them, her brows rushing together.
“There you are at last!” she snapped at her cousin. “Really, Cassandra, you have no consideration for anyone but yourself.”
“I was not keeping you here,” Cassandra stated reasonably. “You could have gone home any time you wished.”
Joanna’s eyes narrowed, and Cassandra thought that she was about to let fly with one of her temper tantrums, but at that point Joanna apparently realized the unattractiveness of her features in that expression and, with obvious effort, she smoothed her face out and forced a small approximation of a smile. “It would have been rude to have left our guest here.” She directed a look of great sympathy in Sir Philip’s direction. “I am so sorry that you have been subjected to such an afternoon, Sir Philip.”
“Think nothing of it. I had a most…diverting time.”
“You are too kind, Sir Philip.” Joanna went to him, reaching out to tuck her hand companionably into his arm, but stopped, hand in midair, as she looked at the the state of his coat.
“Pray, Miss Moulton, you must not get too near me. I am afraid that I am something of a mess.” Neville sketched a bow in her direction and started toward the door, taking Cassandra’s arm.
Outside, the groom hurried toward them, leading Joanna’s and Sir Philip’s horses. Joanna mounted with the groom’s help, but Sir Philip said cheerfully that he would walk and lead his horse, since the Verrere party were all on foot. Grinding her teeth, Joanna watched as Neville strolled along chatting with Cassandra and her sister, leading his bay gelding. Joanna, who had planned to cut Sir Philip from the group by riding with him while the others walked, instead found herself isolated by being the only one on horseback. Even though Cassandra and Neville politely addressed a few remarks to her, she still could not join in, for the two of them were discussing some boring book that Joanna had never heard of, let alone read. She would have been thoroughly disgruntled had she not been able to comfort herself with the reminder that gentlemen did not like ladies who were intellectual.
When they reached the Moulton house, they “happened” to meet Aunt Ardis, emerging from the door. She started toward them, smiling hugely, her hands extended toward Sir Philip, then stopped in some dismay as she saw his appearance.
“My goodness! Well, uh, won’t you come in?” she continued gamely, trying not to think of the state of her silk damask chairs in the drawing room if Sir Philip sat upon one of them.
“No, no,” Sir Philip said hastily. “I must return to the inn and change. I am not fit for company, I’m afraid.”
“Then you will not be staying with us?” Aunt Ardis’s face fell. “I thought you would be honoring us with a visit. Do not tell me you have come so far out of your way for only a day.”
“No, I shall be happy to remain in Dunsleigh for a time, madam, but I could not impose so as to stay with you unannouced.”
“But ’tis no trouble,” Aunt Ardis assured him gaily, as if unexpected guests were a common occurrence at their home. “We at Moulton Hall are always ready for a guest or two.”
They continued to argue politely over the matter, but Sir Philip won the day, steadfastly refusing to put Mrs. Moulton out with his presence. Cassandra knew, as did Sir Philip, that there was nothing Aunt Ardis would have loved as much as having one of the most eligible bachelors in England trapped in her house for several days, and she had to hide a smile as her aunt finally gave in to him with ill grace. After that there was another small skirmish over whether he would return that evening for supper, which ended with Sir Philip politely insisting on declining, with a promise to return to pay a call on them the following day.
When he had ridden out of sight, with Aunt Ardis and Joanna waving their kerchiefs to him to the very last, Aunt Ardis whirled around, clasping her hands together in front of her bosom in seeming ecstasy.
“Can you imagine?” she exclaimed. “Sir Philip Neville, here in Dunsleigh—and with no other purpose than to visit us! Oh, Lilah Davenport will have an apoplexy when she hears this.” She seemed transported by the vision of her friend’s jealousy. “Joanna, this is such a coup. He could not stay away from you.”
Olivia let out an unlady-like snort at these words. “I noticed how difficult he found it to stay away from her this afternoon.”
Joanna rounded on her. “He was merely too polite to go over there to Chesilworth and then leave immediately. I am sure that it is all your fault, Cassandra, that he would not stay here or even come back for supper. He was probably afraid that you would trap him to work in the dirt and heat again.”
“I suspect it was a different sort of trap he feared,” Cassandra commented coolly, sending her cousin a significant look.
Joanna’s eyes shot sparks. “How dare you!”
“Dear cousin, I am afraid you left yourself open for that. It took little daring.” Cassandra walked past her into the house.
Joanna followed, her face drawn up in a harsh mask of fury. “Why else would he come here, if not because he could not stay away from me? I certainly hope you don’t entertain any delusions that he came to see you!”
“He did too come to see Cassandra,” Crispin cried out in fury at the slight upon his sister.
Joanna cast him a withering glance. “What would you know about it? You’re just a boy.”
“I know plenty!”
“Crispin…” Cassandra said warningly. He shot her a mulish look, but closed his mouth and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I have no delusions where Sir Philip Neville is concerned,” Cassandra told her cousin blandly. “If you will excuse me now, as you can see, I must take a bath.”
She walked off, leaving Joanna looking after her distrustfully.
* * *
SIR PHILIP CAME to call on them the following morning as early as it was polite to do so. Aunt Ardis did not bother to inform Cassandra of his presence, so she did not know he was there until Olivia came hurrying into her room with the news.
“That woman is such a witch!” Olivia exclaimed, her cheeks high with angry color. “She is deliberately trying to conceal him from you. She knows that it isn’t Joanna he is here to see.”
Cassandra pressed her hand against her stomach, which had done unaccounted flip-flops at the news that Philip was in the house. She glanced in the mirror anxiously, then told herself not to be foolish. Neville did not care how she looked. It would not matter th
at she had worn her pale blue dress, the one that did so much for her eyes, or that she had arranged her hair this morning with greater care, creating a fuller frame for her face.
She strove to keep her voice light and calm as she replied, “I imagine Aunt Ardis thinks he is here because of Joanna. You know how highly she regards Joanna’s ability to attract any and every male. If a person wears trousers, she thinks he is in love with Joanna.”
“She does have a wonderful ability to delude herself,” Olivia agreed. “But she didn’t tell you he was here just for spite—to keep you from having any fun.”
“Our aunt is not a woman who likes to share,” Cassandra agreed. “However, I think that this time she is up against someone who is even more used than she to getting his way. And since, as we know, Sir Philip is not here out of desire for our dear cousin—” she smiled knowingly “—it might be interesting to see just what happens.”
“That’s true.” Olivia’s frown vanished at the thought of her aunt having to endure Sir Philip’s insistence on seeing Cassandra. With a grin, she flopped down onto her bed and curled her legs up under her in her usual way. “He is a handsome man, isn’t he?”
“Sir Philip?”
Olivia grimaced. “Of course Sir Philip. Who else would I be talking about? And don’t try to act as if you did not notice. Who could not notice that dimple in his cheek? When he doesn’t smile, he looks quite stern, doesn’t he? And then—when you made him grin yesterday, there was that dimple, and his eyes lit up, and, well, he looked like an entirely different person.”
“He is attractive when he smiles.” Cassandra herself smiled at the memory of that boyish dimple.
“Oh, pooh, Miss Prunes-and-Prisms,” Olivia teased. “You are not an old spinster yet, no matter how you try to paint yourself one. And Sir Philip knows it, too.”
“What?” Cassandra glanced sharply at her younger sister, heat rising in her cheeks. How could Olivia have guessed that something far more than conversation had happened between her and Sir Philip? “What do you mean?”
