Jess Michaels
Authors: Taboo
Jess Michaels
For Andrea Williamson,
one of the nicest friends or fans that a girl could ask for,
with much appreciation and affection.
And for Michael.
The reasons could fill a book in themselves.
I’ll just have to recite them to you later.
The Earl of Blackhearth, Nathan Manning, had once considered the…
The moment he asked the question, Nathan wished he could…
Cassandra stood in her bedroom, staring at the open chest…
I hear you saw Cassandra Willows.”
Cassandra shut the bedroom door, letting her head rest against…
If Cassandra lifted her head from the pillows, she could…
Music filled the room, dancers spun around him, women flirted…
Although Cassandra had been hugging a young woman when he…
When the missive came demanding that she meet with the…
Cassandra’s eyes widened as she stared up at Nathan from…
Nathan rubbed his temples as the incessant noise went on…
Cassandra was having the loveliest dream. She was in Nathan’s…
Cassandra lay in her bed, her eyes still closed. It…
Nathan spun around the room, his hands positioned along the…
As the door to his office swung open, Nathan looked…
Nathan released Cassandra’s shoulders and staggered back away from her…
Cassandra watched as her maids folded her clothing, carefully placing…
Cassandra stared out the open breakfast room window down onto…
If Cassandra hadn’t been so utterly aware of every minute…
Jason Manning was three and he acted it as he…
T
he Earl of Blackhearth, Nathan Manning, had once considered the heat of a summer’s day in India to be stifling. But now, after waiting in the parlor of his great aunt’s London home for almost half an hour, surrounded by his mother and two younger sisters, he truly understood what it meant to be stifled. At this point, he would prefer July in India on the back of an unwashed elephant. Anything but this.
And yet he had no choice but to be back in England.
“Nathan, your aunt has been tittering all week about your visit,” his mother said with a conspiratorial smile at his sisters, Adelaide and Lydia.
Nathan arched a brow and gave his mother a look that could not be misinterpreted. His aunt, Lady Worthington, was not a woman prone to “tittering” over anyone. And Nathan had
clear memories of her once berating him quite savagely when he was a child. He had never been her favorite.
But when the prodigal son returned, it seemed he was remembered as
everyone’s
favorite. Which was why he had been paraded around all week, giggled over, pinched, and basically treated like a piece of meat—rich meat that would soon set out to find a wife.
Before Nathan could answer his mother or she could react to his look, the door to the parlor opened and his aunt stepped inside. Nathan got to his feet to greet her. Just as he recalled, she was a tall, thin, stern woman with little light or joy in her expression.
Still, she spared the group with a small, tight smile before she said, “Do forgive me for making you wait. I was just finishing up with my seamstress. I shall return momentarily.”
Nathan suppressed a yawn and turned away from the door to pace the small parlor. Outside, he heard his aunt speaking to someone, her strong voice coming in clear into the parlor.
“Thank you so much, Miss Willows, for your help. I much look forward to seeing the gown.”
Nathan stopped pacing and lifted his head. Miss Willows? No, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t. There was no way it could be…
“You are more than welcome, Lady Worthington. I shall be certain your dress is ready long before the ball.”
Nathan spun around, the voice of the other woman piercing into his body, penetrating his very soul. He found himself moving toward the door, almost against his will. When he
reached the barrier, he stopped, peering into the foyer that was just a few feet away.
And there she was—Cassandra Willows. Just as he remembered her from four years earlier. Except more beautiful, if that was even humanly possible.
Her dark auburn hair was bound against the nape of her neck and little strands fell around her face. The face that had lost some of its innocent roundness, the fullness to her cheeks. Now it was quite slender, her pale skin luminescent, and the freckles he had fallen in love with were long gone.
And her dress. No longer did she look like the daughter of a middle-class merchant. Her clothing was the height of fashion, fitted perfectly to her full breasts, then sweeping down dramatically over her form.
Nathan opened his mouth, but found he had been rendered speechless as he stood staring at a woman he had not seen in four years—a woman whose voice he’d last heard telling him she loved him…right before she did not show up for their planned meeting. Right before she reneged on her agreement to run away to Gretna Green and threw him over for another man.
In that moment, there were so many emotions bombarding Nathan that he could scarce name or place them all. But two exploded to the forefront, making themselves known in powerful, almost equal measure.
The first was lust, a need that heated his blood to a surprising level and made his hands shake with a desire to reach out and cup the swell of those luscious breasts. He was startled
by a powerful drive to feel this woman writhe beneath him in ultimate pleasure as he claimed her again and again.
The second was anger. Anger he had tried to tamp down and deny during his years away in India. It was a strong emotion he thought he’d mastered until this moment, when it washed over him in a wave that threatened to drown him. This woman had lied to him, betrayed him, and played him for a fool.
And for some reason, he still gave a damn about that fact, even after all this time.
“That sounds perfect, Miss Willows, I shall see you then,” his aunt said with a smile that was far warmer than those she gifted to most people.
Cassandra opened her mouth to reply, but then stopped. She turned slightly, almost as if she sensed his stare burning through her clothing. Her gaze slipped to Nathan, standing in the doorway like a fool. The moment stretched out between them for what felt like an eternity, though in reality it was little more than a few seconds. All the blood left Cassandra’s already pale cheeks, she swallowed hard and blinked a few times.
But then all the reaction was wiped clean from her expression. She returned her attention to Nathan’s aunt. “Good afternoon, Lady Worthington.”
Without so much as a second glance in his direction or a word of acknowledgment for his presence, Cassandra turned away and departed the house. Nathan could do nothing but stare at her retreating back until his aunt’s servant shut the door behind her.
“Great God, Nathan, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Have I changed so much during your years in that savage country?” his aunt snapped, as she grasped his arm and almost dragged him back into her parlor.
“O-Of course not, Aunt Bethany,” he stammered, finding his voice with much difficulty. “I was simply admiring your fine home.”
“Bah.” His aunt blessedly released his arm from her claw-like fist and motioned for the rest of his family to retake their seats. “You were staring at me while I spoke to Cassandra Willows about my gown.”
Nathan swallowed hard at the mention of Cassandra’s full name. He shot a sidelong look at his mother. Though his aunt and his sisters might not have any idea of the connection he had once shared with the popular seamstress, his mother was fully aware. Shifting uncomfortably, she managed to keep a bright smile on her face, even though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You are having Miss Willows design your gown for the soiree?” Nathan’s sister Adelaide said with a sigh of pure delight. “Oh, I have seen some of her creations and they are divine! Mama, why have you never employed her services?”
Nathan arched a brow as he waited for his mother’s reply, curious as to how she would respond. She had been as against the match between he and Cassandra as his father had been, though perhaps less vocal.
“Yes, you really should, Philippa!” Lady Worthington continued with a rap of her hand against the arm of her chair. “She is a marvel with silk.”
“Oh, yes!” Nathan’s other sister, Lydia, cooed. “Please do, Mama. Fiona Grey would
die
if I had a Cassandra Willows creation and she did not.”
Nathan’s mother slowly rose to her feet, patently refusing to make eye contact with him. “That is hardly a reason to employ a seamstress, Lydia. And I’ve never been quite as taken by Miss Willows as the rest of the
ton
seems to be.”
“Oh, Mama!” Lydia wailed.
Nathan’s mother lifted her hand to silence all protests. “Enough, child. Now we should be getting along. I hate to depart so quickly, Aunt, but we have other calls to make this afternoon.”
Lady Worthington got to her feet with a grunt of displeasure. “You have hardly arrived, Philippa.”
Nathan folded his arms and watched his mother squirm under Aunt Bethany’s hawkish and utterly disapproving stare. It seemed he wasn’t the only person still affected by memories of the past.
If only Cassandra had been.
His mother patted their aunt’s hand. “I truly apologize, but it cannot be helped.”
The older woman’s eyes narrowed ever further, but finally she shrugged. “I shall see you at your dinner engagement in a few days regardless.”
His mother let out a sigh of relief. “Indeed you shall.”
Aunt Bethany turned to Nathan with an appraising look. “It was wonderful to see you again, my boy. You’re too tan by far, but I’m certain we’ll see you married off before the Sea
son’s end. A new face is almost always snatched up. Besides, you need to start providing heirs, don’t you?”
Nathan muttered one of the same platitudes he always repeated when his romantic—or lack of romantic—future was brought up by a meddling relative. As his mother and sisters filed from the room, he stayed back for a moment.
“Aunt Bethany,” he said, as he took her arm and led her into the foyer where she had stood with Cassandra not half an hour before. He imagined he could still smell Cassandra’s perfume hanging in the air. “Do you have a card with Miss Willow’s direction?”
His aunt wrinkled her brow, but she snapped her fingers at the butler who stood beside the front door in the parlor. “I do, why?”
Nathan shrugged as he took the card the butler had produced. A high quality one, to be certain, on expensive paper and with gold foil lettering. It seemed Cassandra was doing as well as his spies had reported over the years.
“My sisters seem quite taken with the idea of having her design something for them,” he explained, as he placed the card into his breast pocket. “And since my mother seems immovable on the subject, perhaps
I
shall call upon the lady.”
“She runs a fine business, very busy, especially this time of year when the flock returns to London and starts getting itself into a snit over which gowns they should wear.” His aunt rolled her eyes. “But I’m sure she will make time for a powerful man such as you.”
Nathan could hardly contain his smirk as his aunt mo
tioned toward the door and the waiting carriage. “Good-bye, my boy.”
He nodded his farewell and made his way to the carriage and the next tortuous stop with his family. But for the first time since his return to London, he was distracted from his ennui. In fact, he felt alive.
As the carriage began to move, he patted the pocket where the card lay. Cassandra Willows would make time for him, of that he was certain. After all, they had much unfinished business.
Cassandra Willows stood in the large parlor that she had long ago converted into a sewing studio and stared at a beautiful piece of blue silk stitched with perfect white roses. With a sigh, she drew out her measuring tape and did yet another calculation.
“Measuring again?” her friend and assistant, Elinor Clifford, asked as she lifted her gaze from the overflowing calendar of appointments she had been reviewing.
Cassandra clenched her teeth. “I mismeasured Miss Tensley’s gown not half an hour ago, and I shall have to absorb the cost of replacing the silk myself. I do not wish to make the same mistake twice.”
Elinor shook her head and returned her attention to her own task. “I’ve never known you to make that mistake once, let alone twice.”
Cassandra chose not to answer her friend. There was no use in responding, for she couldn’t reveal the truth to Elinor
even if she wanted to. She couldn’t tell anyone that the reason for her distraction was that she hadn’t stopped thinking about Nathan Manning since the moment she saw him at his aunt’s home yesterday.
She shivered at the memory of him standing in the parlor doorway, staring at her with such a cold, dismissive air. It had taken all her strength and presence of mind to simply turn away as if she hadn’t recognized him.
No one could ever know the past they shared—the passion, the love, and the heartbreak that had torn them apart in the end and made Cassandra realize how little regard the man truly had for her.
“I must be off and check on that special order of thread you placed last week.”
Cassandra heard her friend’s words, but they didn’t fully pierce the fog of her mind.
“Cassandra?” her friend asked, tilting her head in concern. “Are you quite well?”
“Very fine, thank you,” Cassandra lied, as she shook off her thoughts and began to cut the expensive fabric before her. “I am very busy, but it is always this way at the beginning of the Season. I’m certain all will be calm and normal again soon.”
Elinor closed the calendar and rose to her feet with a sniff of discord. “Perhaps, but I still say you are running yourself ragged. Between this business and your…
other
one, you hardly sleep at all. I worry…”
Cassandra cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I appreciate your concern, but it is unnecessary. I know my limits.”
“Do you?” her friend asked, as she exited the room. “Sometimes I wonder.”
Cassandra watched as her friend departed, only to be replaced by the butler who was coming through the door. “What is it Wilkes?”
“You have a visitor, Miss Willows,” the servant said.
“If this person does not have an appointment, tell them they will have to return later,” she sighed as she looked at the mountain of fabric on the table across the room. “I am behind as it is.”
Mostly because she had spent the previous evening mooning over the past rather than working. A fact she didn’t share with the servant.
“I did mention that you saw clients by appointment only, Miss Willows,” the butler continued and he was beginning to look distressed. “But the gentleman is insistent, almost threatening. He refuses to give a name or to leave until he has an audience with you.”
