Elizabeth Mansfield (24 page)

Jeremy was startled. It hadn't occurred to him until this moment that no one had informed her of his unsuccessful suit. "I think you've made an error, ma'am," he said gently. "It's Charles who deserves the congratulations."

"Charles?"
Her eyes widened in shock, and her hand fell from Jeremy's arm. She took a step backward, her whole demeanor expressing her astonishment and disappointment.

"Yes, I'm the lucky man," Charles said, too delighted by the events of the evening to take offense. "Come, sit down, ma'am, do, and let Cicely tell you the whole. It's a very romantic story, I promise you."

Cassie sank into the chair that Charles held for her, and all the others gathered round, even Annie. There was a merry babble of voices as Cicely told her tale with assistance from Charles, questions from Clive and exclamations of delight from the housekeeper. Only Cassie, tight-lipped and pale, and Jeremy, watching her face with intense attention, were silent.

When the tale was told, Cassie rose and wrapped her shawl tightly round her shoulders. She looked down at her daughter with a strained smile. "Cicely, my love, you know without my saying it that I wish you happy. We shall speak of this again, but meanwhile, you must excuse me. It's very late, and I'm very weary." She leaned down and planted a kiss on her daughter's cheek before turning to the door. "Clive, my dear," she added before departing, "if you'd be good enough to see me home, I'd be most grateful. I'll leave Annie to chaperon Cicely on the trip back to her aunt's."

"Of course, your ladyship," the lad said. "My pleasure, I assure you." He cast a glance at Cicely—who looked as if she'd been doused with cold water—before following Cassie out.

Jeremy sat motionless as he watched her go, trying to straighten out his confused thoughts. Then he shook himself out of his lethargy, jumped to his feet and hurried out of the room. As he left, he heard Charles speak consolingly to his betrothed. "Don't look so stricken, my love," the happy man said with buoyant confidence. "I'll bring her round. Your moth-er'll be very fond of me before I'm through, take my word."

Clive was just about to help Cassie up the carriage steps when Jeremy came out to the courtyard. "Wait a moment, please," he said, coming up behind her and grasping an arm. "I must speak to you."

She shook his hand off. "I have nothing whatever to say to you, my lord," she said icily. "Step out of my way, if you please, and let Clive hand me up."

"Clive," his lordship said quietly, "leave us for a moment."

"The boy will stay right where he is!" Cassie said furiously.

"Clive," Jeremy said in a voice neither of them had heard before,
"go inside!"

The poor fellow succumbed at once. "I'll be right back," he said to Cassie lamely as he scurried off.

Cassie turned her back on Jeremy, seething in helpless fury. "Well, since you've prevented my departure, say what you have to say."

"Damnation, ma'am, what's wrong with you?" he demanded. "I know you've always believed that Charles is a rake, but he's a very fine fellow, really. One of the finest. And they do say, you know, that a reformed rake makes the very best husband. You should be overjoyed. You've just learned that your daughter, rather than lying prostrate at death's door, is perfectly healthy and has won her heart's desire."

Cassie wheeled round.
"Her
heart's desire? Don't take me for a fool! It's
your
desire, that you've somehow convinced her is hers. Not willing to offer for her yourself, you manipulated your friend into
doing it for you."

"Good God," he exclaimed in utter stupefaction, "is that what you think?" He ran his fingers through his hair, momentarily deprived of speech.

"It's what anyone would think who knew our situation."

"You can't really believe what you're saying!"

"Oh, yes, I believe it. And I'll never forgive you for it."

He wanted to slap her! How could she even think such things of him? he wondered. But then something in him softened. Perhaps she didn't deserve his anger. After all, no one had told her about his offer. "But Cassie, you don't know the whole," he pleaded in desperate urgency, fearing that her lack of trust would kill whatever was left between them. "I
did
offer for her. She refused me."

"Don't make matters worse with lies," she said scornfully. "She would
never
have refused you."

Enraged, he took hold of her shoulders, his grasp purposely cruel. "Do you really think I'd lie to you? Damnation, woman, look at me! Is that the sort of man I am in your eyes? A lying, manipulating cheat? And I was fool enough to think you loved me. It finally occurs to me that I never really knew you. I don't think you're capable of love. Perhaps not even mother love. If you truly loved Cicely, you'd see how she really feels, not as you think she ought to feel." He thrust her away in disgust and strode back toward the inn. "Clive, you may come out now and take this woman out of my sight!"

Chapter 35

Eva was not completely surprised by Cicely's news; she hadn't forgotten that the girl had developed a
tendre
for Charles when they'd stayed at Inglesby Park. Of course, now that the matter had become an actual betrothal, she immediately made some discreet inquiries about the fellow, and learned from her friends much that gladdened her heart. The Percys were an old, honorable family, and Charles's title brought with it several large holdings and an income in the neighborhood of twenty thousand. With such an income, the fellow could be forgiven his libertinish tendencies, which, after all, one had to expect when a man was single, idle and rich.
"You should feel nothing but delight"
she wrote to her sister,
"for in addition to his wealth and name, the fellow has a great deal of charm, and, moreover, everyone knows that there is no better husband in the world than a reformed rake."

Cassie wrote back that since Cicely's letters were so full of enthusiasm, she could not but accept the situation and give her blessing. She also thanked Eva from the bottom of her heart for offering to take care of the details of the wedding breakfast, which the bridegroom insisted had to take place no later than mid-June. Eva could not have been more pleased to do it. She loved planning fetes and galas, and this one for Cicely was especially dear to her heart.

At her daughter's insistence, Cassie arrived in London a fortnight before the wedding. Cicely was right to insist, for there was a great deal to do. She warned her mother in advance that not only did Cassie have to approve her daughter's gown, order one for herself, go over the guest list with Eva, and visit an assortment of glovemakers, shoemakers and milliners, but she would be expected to engage in a round of parties and dinners and other prenuptial celebrations. For Cassie, who'd not come to town in many years, it was enough to have her quaking in her boots.

On the second day of her stay, Cassie received her first caller. It was her son-in-law-to-be, who breezed into Eva's drawing room in riding clothes, his crop tucked under his arm, and demanded that she get her hat at once. Before she could voice an objection, he'd pulled her out of the house, thrust her up on the seat of a small, dangerously high-perch phaeton and set off for a spin round Hyde Park. "This carriage is Clive's," he said after he'd maneuvered it into a place in the line of carriages making similar afternoon spins. "I wouldn't own a silly little contraption like this."

"Then why did you borrow it?" Cassie asked. "Surely you have carriages of your own you could have used."

"Not one as small as this." He turned and looked at her frankly. "I wanted us in close quarters, and this is as close as we can properly get."

"But why?"

"So that we might have an intimate talk. You see, Cassie— may I call you that? I somehow don't think it would be comfortable to call you Mother."

She gave a reluctant laugh. "Yes, I suppose you may as well."

"Thank you. You see, Cassie, I'm well aware that you don't like me. Your evaluation of me that very first night at Inglesby Park is seared in my memory. You called me self-indulgent."

"But that was when I thought you were Inglesby."

"Did you like me any better when you learned I was Lucas?"

"No," she admitted. "I suppose not."

"That's why I had to speak to you. I don't know exactly what you mean by self-indulgence, and I suppose I
have
indulged myself over the years. I never had to go hungry, after all. I don't deny I enjoy the luxuries my place in life affords me. But I've never cheated anyone, or treated anyone unfairly, even the ladies who from time to time have lived under my protection. And I did acquit myself with honor in the Peninsular campaign."

"I didn't know you served in the army," she murmured, glancing up at his face.

"I don't mean to make too much of it. Serving in the army is a family tradition. I only did what was expected."

"But with honor."

"Yes. It isn't modest for me to speak of it, but if you'd like to hear the details, you could ask Jeremy. We served together, you know, and were both decorated, though he more than I."

"I didn't know," she said in a low voice.

"But of course that's neither here nor there. The point is that I love your daughter very much, much more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and you can be sure I'll never do anything to hurt her. It would hurt her, however, if she believed you did not approve of the match."

"I gave my blessing, did I not?"

"Yes, but not quite with enthusiasm."

"Perhaps it's not possible for me to look on marriage with enthusiasm. My own was not... ideal. But I will say this, Lord Lucas—"

"Charlie."

"Charlie. I like you better for having spoken to me like this."

"Well," he said cheerily, flicking his crop at the horses, "at least it's a start."

* * *

She was remembering that conversation a couple of evenings later while sitting with Eva on the sidelines of a ballroom. The ball was hosted by Eva's friends, Lord and Lady Murchison. It was a large affair, with more than one hundred guests. There were two rows of chairs edging the dance floor to accommodate those who were not dancing. A goodly number of dowagers and widows occupied those chairs. Eva sat in the first row, chatting happily with friends, but Cassie had taken a place in the vacant second row, where the light from the chandeliers was less bright and where there was no one seated nearby who might force her to make polite, meaningless conversation. She didn't wish to chat, for she wanted to watch her daughter waltzing with Charles. It was a pleasure to see them dance together. Cassie was recalling how sincere Charles had sounded when he spoke of his love for Cicely. He certainly seemed at this moment like a man in love, for he kept his eyes fixed on her face as he whirled her round the floor. Cassie's heart warmed with motherly satisfaction as she watched.

But that warmth was to be short-lived. At that moment her eye was caught by a face so familiar that her heart stopped beating. It was Jeremy, waltzing by with a lovely young lady in a spangled white gown. Jeremy, dancing the waltz! She'd never envisioned him dancing. It was a sight that delighted her eyes and tore her heart.

Clenching her hands, she ordered herself to be calm and not let his presence affect her. She had warned herself, when she was preparing to come to London, that she might run into him. She'd eased her qualms by assuring herself that such meetings would not present undue difficulties. After all, she and Jeremy were no longer on speaking terms. If they were ever to come face-to-face, all she'd need to do would be to return his bow and move off.

Reminding herself of that, she regained her equilibrium and permitted herself to watch him dance. It was a sight of him with which she was totally unfamiliar. He looked remarkably handsome in his evening clothes, his shirtpoints stiff and modestly high, his pristine neckerchief intricately folded and his silk breeches perfectly fitted to his shapely legs. And his execution of the steps of the waltz, too, won her admiration. He was smooth and graceful, well schooled in these social amenities that she knew nothing of. Perhaps it was just as well that nothing had come of their... their little moment of attachment. She could never have kept up with him.

When, a few seconds later, the dance ended and he was escorting his partner from the floor, he passed someone he knew—a dignified lady wearing a jeweled, feathered turban atop a head of elegantly coiffed gray hair and seated half a dozen chairs down from Cassie in the first row—and he smiled and nodded to her. Then, as he looked up, his eyes fell on Cassie. His face stiffened; she could see that. But it was so small a change of expression that she was sure no one else would detect it. But the woman to whom he'd nodded did detect it. She immediately turned her head, lifted her lorgnette and stared at Cassie with such intensity that Cassie blushed and looked away. But Jeremy did not look at her again. He turned back to his companion and walked on.

When next Cassie glanced up, she saw the lady in the jeweled turban whispering to her neighbor and pointing at Cassie. The neighbor whispered a response, and the turbaned lady stared at her again. This time Cassie lifted her chin and coldly looked away. That stare was rude if ever one was.

Before she knew it, however, the lady was standing right at her elbow. "Good evening, Lady Beringer," she said in a deep, mellow voice. "You
are
Lady Beringer, are you not? Cassandra Beringer?"

"Yes, I am," Cassie answered stiffly.

"I know you must find me abominably rude. And my son, I'm certain, would kick up the devil of a dust if he knew I'd accosted you in this way—"

"Your son?" Cassie felt her knees begin to tremble.

"Yes. Oh, dear, haven't I introduced myself? I'm Jeremy's mother, Sarah Tate."

"Oh! H-how do you do, your ladyship," Cassie stuttered in confusion.

"I know I shouldn't be doing this... introducing myself to you in this unorthodox way, and striking up a conversation with you, especially after I'd
sworn
to myself that I would never, never interfere again! But he's spoken of you so often, you see, and when I saw ..." She gave a helpless shrug. "To see you here, sitting all alone like this... You can understand, I'm sure, that I couldn't resist the opportunity to meet you."