"Oh, for the love of God— " Courtland got to his feet, pushing back his chair with some force. "When did I become an object of amusement to you all? This isn't funny. I think Cassandra may be out to…to seduce me."
"I think so, too," Chance said, and looked to Rian. "You?"
"Oh, yes, definitely," Rian said, smiling up at Courtland. "Shall we have a drink to the shameless little minx?"
"Spence and I discussed just this subject last night," Ethan told them, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand— an earl in name, but not one who worried overmuch about his manners when out of sight of the society he wished to have believe him a fool. "We're considering placing bets as to the timing of the thing, actually. We've tentatively settled on fifty pounds to the winner. Court? I give you two weeks before you succumb. Spence says a full month, but we all know he's never right about anything. At least I hope so."
"Three weeks, and we each ante up fifty pounds for the winner," Chance said, holding out his hand. "Rian?"
"Chance took my guess," he said, winking at his brother. "Very well, fifteen days. I could say thirteen, but our dear brother is made of sterner stuff. Aren't you, Court?"
Courtland sat down again, with a thump. "Aren't any of you the least bit concerned that Cassandra is, in all but blood, my
sister?
"
They all looked to one another and answered almost as one.
"No, I don't think so."
"Callie doesn't seem to be put off by it— or that ridiculous beard."
"I can't speak for myself, having only married into the family," Ethan said, "but Morgan seems to think you and Callie are fated. And my wife, I warn you, is not averse to helping Dame Fate along, when she thinks it appropriate."
"I know what it is," Chance said when Courtland glowered at them, one after the other. "You think Ainsley wouldn't approve. God, Court, the man thinks the sun rises and sets on you. You really should be embarrassed."
"He thinks the sun rises and sets on all of us," Courtland said, feeling his cheeks growing hot, for Ainsley's approval was all he'd ever wanted out of life, ever since the day the man had saved that life. "We've all been very, very lucky to have him."
"Even when he thinks we should all leave him before Edmund Beales makes his move, get as far from him as possible. Save ourselves." Chance balled his hands into fists. "Sometimes I just want to knock him down."
"He's a father, Chance," Ethan said quietly. "Just as you and I are fathers. What would you do if you believed having your children with you needlessly exposed them to danger?"
"You make a valid point, Ethan, considering that I'm sending Julia and the children back to Coventry once we reach London," Chance said. "But I was seventeen the day I stood on the deck of the
Silver Ghost
as we sailed out of that damn mist and into the middle of a half dozen ships to our two, because Beales and his three ships had slipped away during the night, leaving us to be slaughtered. I was seventeen when I walked onto the beach to see it stained red with the blood of old men, women and small children. I'm going nowhere. My place is right here, and Julia understands that."
Courtland closed his eyes, Chance's words bringing back memories he fought away every day, and Isabella's words to him.
You are her protector. Never leave her, not ever. Promise me.
"We all belong here," Rian said quietly. "Courtland? You won't leave, we all know that. Callie most especially. You're her rock, you know. Her rock and, God help you, her
target.
"
"You just want to win the bet," he complained, lifting his mug to attract Ivan's attention. "And now, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to sit here and get myself very, very drunk. Does anyone care to join me?"
Chance laughed again. "Are you kidding? We're all married, Court. Falling into a bottle is for the free and unfettered, that don't have to answer to a wife. Enjoy yourself, this may be the last time you'll be able to toss up your accounts in your chamber pot without abjectly apologizing between retches."
"You're all wrong. All of you. If none of you care for Cassandra's happiness, I do. And that happiness doesn't lie with a man like me."
"A man like him. As if he has two heads, or something, and not a brain between them." Ethan chuckled softly as he lifted his mug. "A toast, gentlemen. To Courtland Becket, one poor, deluded bastard."
"Hear! Hear!" they all agreed, clinking their mugs together, and Courtland sank low on his spine in the wooden chair, believing the entire world, save him, gone mad.
CHAPTER FIVE
"DOMINOS?"
Eleanor Eastwood looked levelly at Cassandra, saying nothing, although her dark eyes spoke volumes.
"All right then, not dominos," Cassandra said, knowing that look. "Chess? I'll even magnanimously allow you to beat me."
"I always beat you, Callie," Eleanor reminded her. "And, before you ask, I don't wish to play Hearts, I don't care to read another book, hem another gown for the baby, have another slice of cake, nor will I ask you to plait my hair. What I want to do, Callie, is to scream. Loud and long."
Poor Eleanor, confined to her bed all summer and now into the fall and winter, as well. She looked so small in the huge bed, except for the swell of her belly beneath the covers. Eleanor was, as they all said, their lady. Small-boned, regal, fragilely beautiful, but possessing a will of iron that had no one in confusion as to who was in charge of Becket Hall. That their
grande dame
should be hidden away upstairs, unable to quietly ride herd on all of them had to be endlessly frustrating to her.
Cassandra attempted to stifle her smile, but it was no use. Her sister was the most sensible, calm, collected person in the universe, and seeing her so agitated was almost amusing. "Oh, you sad thing. You won't be locked up in here for much longer, will you?"
Eleanor pleated the covers with one hand as she looked up at the cut velvet canopy over her bed. "One moment more will be too much longer, Callie. Would you like to know how many roses are in this canopy? Six hundred and forty-three. And I loathe and detest every single one of them." She sighed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm being such a sad complainer, aren't I?"
"If someone put me to bed for— what is it now, seven months?— I would be much more than a sad complainer. I would be carted off to Bedlam, that madhouse in London."
"Bethlehem Hospital, yes," Eleanor said, smiling at last. "And I shouldn't be anything but happy that this baby is still where he or she belongs, waiting patiently to grow and be born. Odette swears it's a boy, you know. I'm at the point where I don't care what it is, as long as it's healthy, and arrives before Christmas. Now, tell me what's going on downstairs The entire place is a shambles, I just know it is."
Cassandra shook her head. "Jack and Odette would have my head. You're not to do anything save to lie here and think pleasant thoughts, remember?"
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid. And, since I'll worry anyway, why don't you tell me what's going on concerning that terrible man?"
"Courtland?" Cassandra said with a grin.
Eleanor picked up a small pillow and tossed it at her sister. "We'll get to him in a moment. You know who I mean."
"I can't tell you anything about Edmund Beales because nobody knows anything about him other than that he's out there somewhere, looking for us as desperately as we're looking for him. You know that Chance and Julia and the children left this morning for London, don't you?"
"They came to say goodbye, yes. And Alice gave me a drawing she'd made of Odette, Lord love her. It's a good thing Odette can't really turn little girls into toads. Only Chance is staying in London, however, sending Julia and the children on to Coventry with their London servants and some others to watch them until this is over. You, I understand, were supposed to have gone with them."
"Papa relented," Cassandra told her, quietly glorying in her victory. "He realizes I'm a woman now, and capable of making my own decisions."
Eleanor pushed herself up against the raft of pillows behind her. "I imagine that's why you're considering Court a terrible man right now. He wasn't happy for you to remain?"
Cassandra shrugged as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "He hasn't said. Actually, he's not speaking to me at the moment, which is fine with me, for I'm not speaking to him. He told me to never put up my hair again. Who is he to tell me how to wear my hair?"
"Yes, indeed, who is he? As if his opinion matters a jot to you one way or the other. After all, you don't care a snap for him, correct?"
Cassandra allowed her body to list over to one side until she was lying on the covers, her head on Eleanor's knees. "He drives me insane."
"That seems only fitting, as turnabout is fair play," Eleanor teased, stroking Cassandra's tumbling curls. "Morgan and Mariah were in here earlier, visiting, and looking extremely guilty and altogether too pleased with themselves. What have our conspirators advised you to do now?"
"You
know?
" Cassandra sat up, pushed her hair out of her face. "Morgan said not to tell you because you're so…poor spirited, and would probably ring a peal over all our heads."
"Poor spirited? Is that what she calls being sensible?" Eleanor said, reaching for her cooling cup of tea. "Although, to Morgan, anyone a step below the rank of hellion is too boring to contemplate. Are you all so certain I disapprove?"
"You don't? Really?" Cassandra allowed her shoulders to relax. And then she made a confession she hadn't shared with Morgan or the others, because it was all just too embarrassing. "I kissed him two days ago," she said, watching Eleanor's face closely for her reaction.
"Is that so? My, and Morgan suggested this course of action?"
"Well, no…not directly. She just said— they all said— that Court has to stop seeing me as a child. So I…I just…"
"Ambushed him?" Eleanor suggested, handing Cassandra the empty teacup. "What did you do, jump out from behind a statue and hang yourself around his shoulders like a limpet?"
"It wasn't
that
bad," Cassandra said quietly. "Almost, but not quite. We were sitting on the steps below the terrace and I just…I just turned to him and, well,
launched
myself at him, I suppose you'd say. It was very impulsive, not well thought out at all. But the entire thing seemed perfectly logical at the time."
"Oh, I'm sure it did, after Morgan filled your head with nonsense. Cassandra, that probably wasn't a good idea. You know what a stickler for propriety Courtland can be. You'll have to be less obvious.
Launching
yourself is not being less obvious. Next time, you might want to find a way to make him think the kiss was his idea."
Cassandra's eyes went wide for a moment. "You're giving me advice?"
"Why shouldn't I? It would seem everyone else has, yes? And this is a baby I'm carrying, and we all know how babies are made. You and Fanny may have called me Saint Eleanor a time or two behind my back when I tried to school you in proper deportment, but I am a woman, you know. And, speaking of Fanny, please tell me
she
didn't give you advice."
"Well, Fanny didn't say too much, as she and Valentine were in a hurry to get back to their estate. Something about a small fire in the kitchens, or something. A messenger arrived yesterday evening with the news, and they left this morning soon after Chance and Julia. But you know that, too, don't you? Nobody hid that from you?"
"Yes, I'm allowed that sort of information, since Brede Manor didn't burn to the ground, thank goodness. It's probably better to have Fanny and Valentine gone, in any case, if things become, well, complicated. No one will know Fanny is a Becket, and Valentine shouldn't be involved in anything that could end in violence. He has his place in Society to consider, his Earldom."
"Not to hear him talk about how much he'd like to be the one who personally puts a ball between Beales's eyes," Cassandra said, sighing. "All of them, all the men. It's all they talk about. Like little boys. They really want to see it come to a fight, Beales sailing into the harbor, his cannon run out, ready to deliver a broadside, or riding across the Marsh with one hundred well-armed men behind him, set to attack us. Do men never tire of war?"
"Are you including Court in this group of blood-thirsty avengers, Cassandra? I would have counted on him to be more subdued."
"I suppose he is. He seems more interested in protecting us than in destroying Beales. He and Papa closet themselves together every morning, going over their plans as if something changed during the previous night."
"And what are their plans? To defend Becket Hall, that is?"
Cassandra shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not going to be tricked into telling you things Jack says you're not to know."
"But I feel so helpless, lying here. I've rolled enough bandages to wrap every other man here from head-to-toe if the occasion arises, and I've been over and over our list of supplies, until I could tell you precisely how many sacks of flour we have stored away, how many dozens of candles. Anyone would think we were Troy, about to come under siege. And all with me stuck here, unable to help. It's so frustrating!"
