And Then Comes Marriage (28 page)

The hot slide of fury, a knife to cut through the shadows with. “You.” He stared at Poll, feeling shame and pain and hatred boiling up from deep and long ago. “Anyone but you! You set me up—you and Miranda, manipulating me, twisting and turning me—”

Poll paled. “No. No, Cas. Not like that. I just—I simply couldn’t allow you to ruin it—I knew you’d let her get away, just like you’ve walked away from every chance of happiness you’ve ever had!” Poll took a step forward, one hand reaching out. “Cas, you need Miranda. You need love. If you lose her, you’ll just be emptier than ever—”

Too much truth. Too raw. Too open.

Cas spun from it, from the look of pity and love and Poll’s eyes, from the knowledge that once again he’d been moved about like a pawn on the chessboard, thinking himself a free man, all the while naked and blind.

“No.” He turned away from Poll, away from Miranda, away from all of it.
“No.
I am no one’s puppet! Do you hear me?
I will not dangle from your strings!”

He left Poll there, pale and shaken.

*   *   *

Miranda poured the tea and smiled at Mr. Seymour, trying to conceal her exasperation. There was so much to do and so little time left!

Of course, she ought to have realized that he would keep to his regular—one might almost say “mechanical”—calling schedule. A brief note in yesterday’s post about her unavailability would have freed up her afternoon nicely!

As it was, she could scarcely tell him so now. She only hoped he would drink his tea quickly, recite his usual newsy tidbits, eat a bit of cake—and then leave!

Mr. Seymour took the tea with his usual gravity. “I am most glad to see you are well, Mrs. Talbot. It distressed me greatly when you were abed.”

I will not turn his words into innuendo just to keep from nodding off. I will not.

Instead, she decided to put the bothersome call to good use. Standing, she moved across the parlor. “Mr. Seymour, while I must thank you for this very thoughtful offering—” She took the box containing the dress from a shelf by the door and held it before her. “—I now find myself in an uncomfortable position. I do not wish to offend you, but I cannot accept this gift.”

He blinked and then he flushed oddly. “I am confused, Mrs. Talbot. I had hoped … but it seems that you are not interested in my pursuit of you after all.”

“I apologize for that, good sir. I ought to have made my feelings clear sooner. I was merely distracted—” One could certainly say that truthfully. “—by some unrelated concerns, which have now come to a close.”

With sudden and strange urgency, he reached for her hand. “If I may be so bold, Mrs. Talbot, I implore you to consider my suit one last time. I know I am not the most exciting of fellows but I do like to believe I am a solid contender for any lady’s hand. You should think on this, before it is too late—” He went down upon his knee at once. There was no mistaking the pose or the gleam in his eye. “Mrs. Talbot, I am your humblest servant and I long for your good company for the rest of my life. Will you be my wife?”

One had to give him points for boldness, and she never thought she would say that about Mr. Seymour.

Pulling her hand from his damp grip, Miranda inhaled. “Mr. Seymour, please stop. You have been a fine friend to me, but I am not interested in your suit. And I shall not alter my feelings.”

Mr. Seymour cleared his throat. Slowly he released her hands. “Mrs. Talbot, I am disconcerted.” He stared at her with bulging eyes unblinking.

Then, as he started to recover from his surprise, she saw it. She saw the thing that had been lurking behind the polite mask and the well rehearsed newsy tidbits.

There was no mistaking the gleam of vindictive fury in his eyes. She knew it. She recognized it at once. It had been the gleam in her grandmother’s eyes, and in Constance’s.

A curl of his lip resembled a snarl. She leaned away from his scornful countenance. “Mr. Seymour, it seems it is time for you to leave.”

He drew back, his face gone blank with surprise for an instant. It was a relief to see the sneaky little reptile that was his true self scurry back behind his bland camouflage.

Miranda stood and strolled to the door of the parlor, where she turned to assess him evenly. “Twigg will show you out, sir.”

With that she turned and left the room, her thoughts already turning to her room upstairs, where waited Mr. Button, Attie, Cabot, and an enticing pile of boxes marked with a distinctive looping
L
.

I am going to a ball! With Cas!

Her feet fairly danced her up the stairs, with not a single stumbled step.

*   *   *

Cas snapped his cravat about his neck and began to tie it in short, sharp jerks.

Through his open door, he could hear his father reciting. “‘We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.’”

Involuntarily, Cas’s well-trained memory provided the footnote—in Iris’s voice, of course—
The Tempest,
Act 4, Scene 1.

Miranda.

Ah, so his parents were in on the scheme.

What of the post-boy? How about the fellow who delivered the produce? Would he walk down the street and see knowing amusement in every face?

His cravat tore from the fury of his tying. The damned Gordian knot he was attempting to tie resisted his best effort—not that he cared. He wasn’t going to Wyndham’s ball, to wait on bloody Miranda like a pet! No, he was going to Mrs. Blythe’s Midsummer Madness orgy, and he was going to plow Lily
and
Dilly
and
any other female who held still long enough!

After all, it was what he was best at. What he’d been born for, according to the lovely, filthy Lady Quinton. How had she described him, all those years ago—a great cock with a trivial man attached?

There was no point in trying to be anything else. There was no point in trying to keep the Prince Regent’s bargain, no point in wishing he were something he was not.

No point in wanting to be
more.

He had assumed that Poll would no longer be interested in Mrs. Blythe’s entertainments, that he would go dance attendance upon Miranda at Wyndham’s, but he’d learned an hour ago that Poll had every intention of accompanying him.

Cas had looked around the table at his wide-eyed expectant family and declined to fight about it.

Not that a rousing fight wouldn’t do him good.

He stripped off the mangled cravat and grabbed his last pressed one. Glaring at it in the mirror, he pointed a finger. “You will tie correctly or you will undergo the dreaded iron torture.”

“You can’t torture it. It’s mine.”

Cas turned to see Poll in his doorway, wearing pegged knee trousers and a fine white shirt. At Cas’s hard look, Poll shrugged irritably.

“Mama forced me to rig out. You’d better, too. She said it isn’t respectful to Mrs. Blythe to go underdressed.”

Cas didn’t reply.

Poll wrinkled his brow. “Do you suppose she understands who Mrs. Blythe actually is?”

Cas—who once would have joined him in a highly entertaining rant on the various, hilarious, and incorrect perceptions of Iris Worthington toward Mrs. Blythe, notorious madam and happy corruptor of innocent youth—merely stared at his twin flatly.

“Cas, you shouldn’t do this. Go to Wyndham’s with me. See Miranda. She’ll make you forget all about this—”

Cas growled. Poll held up both hands. “Fine. All right. But don’t betray her, Cas—you know what she’s been through—”

“Get. Out.”

Poll gave up. “I need my cream jacquard weskit.”

Cas turned away. “Not here.”

“You borrowed it, last October, and I haven’t seen it since.”

Cas’s fists clenched, promptly ruining the press of the cravat. With a growl, he stripped it off and threw it at his twin. Then he went to his wardrobe and gathered half a dozen weskits into his arms.

Depositing the entire pile over Poll’s head was childish but satisfying. As a seething Poll bent to gather them up again, Cas snatched up his first wrinkled cravat and turned back to the mirror. Another time he might have asked Philpott to press it again. However, the flustered housekeeper was already overwhelmed with preparing everyone else in the family for the fancy do at Lord Wyndham’s.

In the mirror, he watched as Poll carefully smoothed the weskits and turned slowly to leave the room. He would not lose control. He would not slip in the slightest manner.

For if he did, he was rather afraid of what he might do to the man who used to be his best friend.

Chapter Twenty-five

In the mistress’s bedchamber in the house on Breton Square, Attie was having a marvelous time, unpacking and dumping Button’s boxes of pretties as fast as Cabot could follow behind her busy fingers and set them aright.

One day she would likely bother with all the ribbons and corsets and powder and go to balls and such—but in the meantime, putting Miranda together would do. It was very much like building a suspension bridge out of candles and string. Everything had to go together in the right order or, like that ill-fated construction, Miranda might list to port and not be able to hold up under the weight of Attie’s wooden horse and cart that Poll had made for her when she was just a child.

So there was no call for the strain in Miranda’s voice when she turned from the mirror to help Tildy rescue the long blue-green hair ribbons from Attie’s fingers, which were truly only a tiny bit sticky.

“Attie, I don’t believe Mr. Seymour stayed long enough to eat his tea cakes. If Twigg is being his usual dubiously efficient self, they will still be downstairs in the parlor.”

Attie’s eyes narrowed. She knew perfectly well she was being ousted from the proceedings. Still, tea cakes.

“What kind are they?”

Miranda frowned, thinking back. “Almond and poppy seed, I believe.”

Tildy nodded helpfully. “Yes, missus. And Cook put on some of those little ginger biscuits from yesterday, too.”

Cabot perked up. “Far too good for the likes of Mr. Seymour.” He looked at Attie. “I call rights on the biscuits.”

Attie folded her arms. “Fine. I’ll go, but only because I feel like it.” She flounced from the room, followed by Cabot.

As she left, she heard Miranda breathe a sigh of relief. “I do love that child, but I am as nervous as a cat as it is!”

Cabot smiled down at Attie as they went down the stairs, just a quirk of his perfect lips. “I heard it. You cannot deny it now.”

“I know. I can’t help being lovable.” Attie grumbled. “She’s all right—and she can be friends with Ellie, if she likes. It would do Ellie’s vanity good to have someone around who is nearly as pretty as she is.”

Cabot tilted his head, considering. “But not friends with Cas and Poll?”

Attie wrapped her arms about herself and followed Cabot into the parlor, dragging her feet a little. “I suppose it isn’t Miranda’s fault, how those two carry on—but they never fought before she came along and now they’re fighting all over again!”

Cabot listened intently as he munched a ginger biscuit—despite his claiming them all, he ate only one to keep her company, she knew—and Attie allowed herself a full confessional, the kind of thing she kept from her family at all costs.

“(Sniff) And Ellie said that Cas’s face was the color of ice—except that ice doesn’t have a color, but that’s Ellie for you—and (sniff) she didn’t know what they said because she lost her nerve—Ellie!—and she ran for it!” She poked miserably at the tea cake on her saucer. She was so distraught, she’d eaten only four-fifths of it. She’d barely been able to choke down the first one at all. “But Philpott told me that neither Cas nor Poll are going to Wyndham’s now—and they won’t even see Miranda get all those new beaus, because they’re both going to that party at the House of Pleasure—”

Cabot choked on his biscuit. “Attie! How do you know about that place?”

Attie chewed, absently finishing her second cake after all. “Mama told me. She said it’s like a garden, full of flowers, that gentlemen come and pluck whenever they need to relax—although I’ve never known Cas and Poll to be all that interested in botany. Orion, perhaps, but—Cabot, are you quite all right?”

She banged Cabot on the back, most helpfully, she thought. He had no call to wave her off like that. And then he sort of covered his face with his handkerchief for a moment. If it were anyone other than Cabot, she might have suspected him of laughing at her.

But Cabot never laughed.

Poor Cabot.

A sound came from the doorway, the clearing of a male throat. Attie turned. It was that Twigg fellow, the one who looked like he didn’t know whether to cross the street or go home. That’s what Philpott called it when someone couldn’t make up his mind about what to do, except that Twigg always looked like that, in Attie’s opinion.

“If the young miss is finished with the tea tray?” Twigg looked at Attie for permission, but not at Cabot. Cabot was no better than a tradesman, it was plain on Twigg’s face, and ought not to sit about in parlors with young ladies eating the household’s ginger biscuits.

Which wasn’t fair, really, for Cabot had only had one.