Courtland shot a look at Ainsley, who only smiled and shrugged. "I always enjoyed when Isabella wore them," he said, as if anticipating the question. "I should have given Cassandra the set on her eighteenth birthday, I suppose, but better late than never. Don't you agree?"
"Er, yes, certainly, sir. The jewels are yours to give where you will. Isabella wears them in the portrait in the drawing room, doesn't she?"
"Yes," Ainsley said, his expression closing for a moment. "But with Cassandra's coloring, they look equally striking with that gown. Excuse me for a moment, son, I…I think I'll take these drawings to my study."
Courtland watched him go, knowing what Ainsley had been thinking when he looked at his daughter, saw the yellow gown. Isabella, only a year older than Cassandra was now, and always so vibrant, so gloriously alive, had worn the rubies with her colorful striped gown. The same one Ainsley had dressed her body in before carrying her deep into the interior of the island, to hold her one last time, to sob and shout at God while a stone-faced Jacko stood guard and a much younger Courtland had watched from his hiding place amid some nearby bushes, devastated by both Isabella's death and Geoffrey Baskin's grief.
He watched Cassandra now as she and Morgan stood at the piano, poring over sheet music together. Morgan was whispering furiously and Cassandra was shaking her head, just as quietly and furiously objecting to those whispers.
And she was wearing her hair up again this evening, pulled back quite severely from her forehead and tied with a pale yellow ribbon, the mass of barely contained curls falling down onto her bare back.
Her profile, uncluttered by the usually errant ringlets was so pure, so wonderfully sculpted, Courtland found it difficult to draw a breath into his lungs. When had she gone from pretty child to beautiful woman? Where had he been, that he hadn't noticed?
And now that he had, what in bloody hell was he supposed to do about it?
"Something wrong, Court?" Spencer asked, sitting down beside him in the chair Ainsley had just vacated. He looked the Spanish
Grandee
this evening, his linen crisply white against his black evening attire. "You're wearing a sort of pole-axed look, in case you were unaware of it."
Courtland blinked himself back into the moment. "That's because I just heard you plan to sing something. If I promise to fashion another knife-sleeve for you, would that change your mind?"
"I'll have you know my wife enjoys my singing."
"Your wife is delusional," Courtland told him, grinning. "You know all the words. You're loud enough. But when the dogs over in the village start howling, you might want to consider shutting up."
"Very funny. Where's Ainsley taken himself off to, do you know?"
"He needed to check something in his study," Courtland said, still unable to take his gaze off Cassandra who, he just that moment realized, had been avoiding looking at him.
"It's Callie, isn't it? Seeing her this way probably upset him." Spencer looked across the room at his sister. "She looks just like her. Why haven't I ever noticed that before now? The hair? That's probably it. Can't call her the baby anymore, can we? No, our Callie's all grown-up, isn't she? Court?"
Courtland didn't answer him, but just got to his feet and walked over to Eleanor, to bend down, kiss her cheek. "Are you in on this?" he asked her quietly. "Or can I appeal to you for help, for some sanity?"
Eleanor lifted her hand to cup Courtland's cheek. "A plea for sanity? This from a man who wears all this fuzz on his cheeks, just because a certain young woman told you she finds beards unappealing?"
"Then you are in on it," Courtland said, sighing. "What am I going to do, Elly?"
"Follow your heart, Court, not your head. Not in matters that are of concern only to the heart. What other advice could I possibly give you?"
"I was thinking the suggestion of a sharp sword and a long walk into a woods might be appropriate," Courtland said, smiling weakly. "Why did she have to grow up, Elly? And, for the love of God, why now?"
CHAPTER SIX
"DID HE SING YET?" Ainsley Becket asked as he slipped back into his chair beside Courtland as Lisette played an only slightly tentative bit of some French tune on the Bartolomeo Cristofori piano Courtland knew some unhappy matron never saw safely transported from her home in Padua to Jamaica. The harp in the corner, a magnificent piece, had been retrieved from a French ship. Both captures had been under Ainsley's Letter of Marque from the English government, completely legal and acceptable, but sometimes Courtland felt he was living surrounded by other people's belongings, and the thought made him uncomfortable.
"Sorry, but no. You'll have to suffer along with the rest of us," Courtland told him as Lisette finished and everyone applauded politely and Rian banged on his chair seat with his hand and called out
Brava!
"Rian," Mariah said before Lisette could step away from the piano. "Why don't you and Lisette play something together?"
Rian looked at her owlishly.
"Oh, for pity's sake, don't look as if I just suggested you fly to the moon," Mariah scolded. "Lisette can play the…well, the left-hand notes, and you can play the right-hand notes. Or whatever they're called."
Spencer bent his head, rubbed at his forehead. "Only you would suggest something like that, sweetheart. Rian, you don't have to— "
"No, no, of course he does," Lisette said quickly. "Rian Becket, shame on you, not telling your own wife that you play, all the while I sat here, insulting this beautiful instrument with my infantile plinking. Come over here, come over here right now, and we'll play something together."
Rian got to his feet, smiled at the others in the room. "My bride, the nag. Coming, darling. What shall we play?" He sat down next to his wife, who had turned the page in the songbook to the next song, and after a few fumbling starts, the two of them played together, Rian's strong right hand carrying the melody as Lisette slipped her arm around his waist, leaned close against him, moving her honey-blond head in time to the music.
Courtland looked over at Ainsley, who was blinking rather rapidly, and quickly looked away, gave the man his privacy. It had been so hard on all of them, believing Rian dead after Waterloo, coming to terms with his injury when he did return, bringing Edmund Beales's daughter with him.
"He used to play so beautifully," Ainsley said after a moment, as if to himself. "Yet I've never enjoyed his music more than I do tonight."
Mariah led the applause when the tune was over, literally jumping to her feet, and Rian stood up from the bench, held out his hand to Lisette, holding tight to her as he bowed, and she dropped into a deep curtsy. Then he lifted her hand to his lips, looking deeply into her eyes as he kissed her fingertips.
"She's just what he needs, Ainsley," Courtland said, watching his brother's amazingly handsome face, the smile that turned it beautiful.
"Yes, she is. She cajoles, she bullies, and she gives without reservation. I would forgive her a thousand sins, for the love she bears my son. I only wish Jacko could see that," Ainsley said, and then sighed. "And now, as we've enjoyed ourselves mightily, it's time to be punished. Spencer is about to abuse our ears. Are you sure there isn't some emergency you and I need to attend to for, oh, the next quarter hour?"
"Sorry, sir," Courtland said, and only hoped the quarter hour could stretch out even longer, if not into infinity— for Spencer was an enthusiastic but far from accomplished singer— so that he could be spared singing a duet with Cassandra.
Cassandra had sat very still on a chair in one corner for the past hour or more, looking excruciatingly proper, as well as heartbreakingly beautiful. She had never once met his eyes (eyes he couldn't seem to stop turning in her direction). Strange. It wasn't like her to hold a grudge. And what had he said? That she shouldn't put up her hair again? It was up tonight, wasn't it, at least partially, so she'd ignored his disapproval, as she always did.
No, this had nothing to do with her hair. It had to do with that kiss. That kiss, that had seemingly come out of nowhere, shocking him, thrilling him…frightening him.
Had that kiss been a turning point, a corner that, now that it was turned, meant they could never again go back to where they'd been all these years?
No more Cassandra following him about, teasing him, bedeviling him, flattering him, bringing turmoil and constant sunshine into his life?
Had he turned her away one too many times, so that now she believed him, even agreed that there could be nothing more than friendly, familial affection between them?
That gown, those rubies…the hair. All outward signs of something he should have seen for himself without the aid of Morgan-engineered props. Cassandra wasn't a child anymore. She was eighteen, of an age to go to London for the Season, be put on the marriage mart. Old enough to have a home, a husband and a child of her own by this time next year.
The thought of Cassandra in London, looking as she did tonight, put a hard knot in the pit of Courtland's stomach, and he actually moaned, low, under his breath. Or so he thought.
"I heartily agree," Ainsley whispered, leaning close to him. "Moan, groan, plead with the boy to stop— all three have occurred to me. But look at Mariah. She's gazing at him as if he's got the voice of an angel. Love, Courtland. Blind and deaf. Please, for the love you bear this old man, go get Cassandra out of that corner and the two of you sing something that won't have my ears bleeding in a moment."
"Yes, sir," Courtland said, getting to his feet to applaud loudly before Spencer could take a breath and begin the twelfth verse of a song that would have benefited from being not only less lengthy, but by being sung by someone who could at least hold a tune in a bucket. "Wonderful, Spence! But now I think it's our turn, before Jack insists on taking Elly back upstairs. Cassandra?"
She got up from her chair, smoothed down her skirts, and walked over to the piano, shaking her head as Morgan attempted to push a sheaf of sheet music at her. "No, not that one, please," she said quietly, but Courtland heard her.
"But this is the perfect song for the two of you," Morgan insisted.
"Morgan, have you learned nothing of diplomacy since becoming a countess?" her husband, Ethan, asked her, and then smiled. "No, no. Please, consider that a rhetorical question. Push on, darling, you push so well."
"Is something wrong?" Courtland asked, now standing close enough to Cassandra to smell the sweet lavender in her hair. "Don't you want to sing with me, Cassandra?"
"It's not you," she told him. "It's the song. I think we should find something else."
"Nonsense," Morgan said, shoving the sheets at Cassandra again, so that Courtland took them from her. "Since Elly shouldn't do anything but lie here and enjoy herself, and Rian isn't…well, he isn't prepared to accompany you, I thought you should sing something that really needs no accompaniment. Yes?"
"And tact," Ethan added from his chair. "There are some strides still to be wished for there, too, sweet wife."
"Oh, hush, Ethan," Morgan told him, not even turning to look at him. "It's the perfect song for a duet."
Courtland looked down at the sheet music in his hand. A pretty enough tune, but one that was really a battle between a man and a woman, each asking the other to do impossible things to prove their love. A duet, yes, but also a duel. Did he really feel up for a fight tonight, even a musical one? "'Scarborough Fair?'" He shook his head. "No, I think Cassandra's right. Isn't there something else?"
"Oh, no, Court," Eleanor said as she readjusted the blanket over her rounded belly, and Courtland knew he had lost the last of his allies. "I adore the song. And it's the perfect duet. Please?"
"They hate us," Cassandra whispered from between clenched teeth, and she and Courtland took up their places alongside the piano.
"Worse than that, Cassandra. They're enjoying themselves. You may think twice before you ask their assistance again."
She looked up at him, her eyes shooting blue-green sparks at him. "Just sing your part, and let's be done with this charade," she told him, taking the sheets from him and plunking them down on the piano. "You know the words."
"Very well, yes, I do. If you're ready?"
She nodded, and then turned away from him, to face the middle of the room, beginning on her own, her sweet soprano joined before the second word by his clear baritone:
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Remember me to one who lives there,
For she once was a true love of mine.
For he once was a true love of mine.
Courtland was aware of Cassandra with every fiber of his being as he sang the next verses alone, beseeching his listeners to inform the woman they met to sew him a cambric shirt without any seam, wash it in water from a dry well that has never seen rain, dry it on a thorn that has never borne a blossom, "'And then she'll be a true love of mine.'"
