Patricia Rice (19 page)

But she was married, and he was not a man who dallied with
other men’s wives.

“I don’t know what to say, Cassandra. There is no excuse for
my behavior, nor any remedy. Will you forgive me?”

She wrapped her fingers in his shirt. “Don’t set me aside,
Wyatt. I should never have embarrassed you like that at Hampton Court, but I
tried to relieve you of your obligation by marrying Rupert. And I know they’re
whispering all over the neighborhood about our being so much in each other’s
pockets, but I promise never to be seen in public with you again if that will
help. Just do not abandon me entirely, Wyatt. Tell me you will still see me.”

Merrick wasn’t quite certain he believed her. Cassandra
could be a melodramatic little flirt, but he did not think she was normally
given to begging.

“You married Rupert to relieve me of my obligation?” he
asked in disbelief. “Forgive me if I appear a little caper-witted, but wasn’t
that a rather drastic means of settling the matter?”

Now she had done it. He was angry with her, and she would
never be able to explain. Cassandra yanked from his grasp and turned to her
nervous mount. The sky was growing darker, but no real rain had come of it yet.
She wished for a quick drenching downpour to soothe her fevered skin.

“I had very little choice in the matter, Wyatt. Let us not
argue now.” She kept her chin up as she waited for him to assist her into the
saddle.

He did not immediately oblige. “Perhaps my memory is ailing.
Did I not come to see you after the announcement was put in the paper? Did I
not offer for you again, even though I was no longer under an obligation to do
so?”

“Yes, you did,” she whispered at the saddle.

“But you still felt you had no choice but to marry Rupert?
That is not how I see it.”

She didn’t want to explain why she had to marry Rupert. She
didn’t want anyone to know how great a fool she was, nor to reveal her mother’s
secrets. She led her horse to a fallen log and prepared to climb into the
saddle without his assistance.

Furious, Merrick strode across the distance between them and
threw her up in the seat. The silence stretched between them and grew like a
tangible thing, a briar patch of thorns that could not easily be traversed.

The thunder continued to roll as Cassandra lay sleepless
in her lonely bed, waiting for the patter of rain to begin. Her body ached with
a fierceness hitherto unknown as she relived the past hours.

Closing her eyes, she could feel Wyatt’s hands still on her,
smell the masculine scent of his skin with his beard-roughened kiss, see the
smoky desire in his eyes. If she had anything at all to give, she would give it
now to have Merrick by her side again. She just wanted him to hold her, to lie
here beside her so she wouldn’t be so alone.

She had once asked Peggy, her father’s mistress, what
happened between husbands and wives in bed. Peggy had always been honest with
her, and she had replied that husbands and wives held and loved each other in
bed. That was what Cassandra wanted: to be held and loved.

A tear slid down her cheek, and she hastily rubbed it away.
When she was twelve years old she had resolved never to cry again. Crying
accomplished nothing. When she felt like crying, she hit something instead. But
it was hard to find satisfaction in bruised knuckles.

She loved her parents. They were all she had. And sometimes,
she knew, they loved her back. Even though she wasn’t his true daughter, the
marquess had paraded her before his friends and called her his little princess.
When he was in funds, he would buy her pretty trinkets and ribbons and carry
her beside him on his horse or carriage. She had never even known he wasn’t her
father until Duncan had told her when she was twelve, and the marquess hadn’t
denied it.

She had punched Duncan in the stomach and walked away, head
held high.

She had no one to hit for her pain now.

~*~

Cassandra approached the stile the next night with trepidation.
She had talked herself to the meeting place with arguments too obscure to study
closely. She just knew she had to see Merrick again.

When he didn’t come, she let anger build over the pain that threatened
to swallow her. She refused to think that what they had done was wrong. Anger
carried her over the stile toward the mansion in the park’s center.

No lamps illuminated the front drawing room, so they weren’t
entertaining. Maybe Merrick wasn’t there at all. Maybe he was out courting
Catherine, as his mother had made plain that he must do. Let him marry
Catherine. All she wanted was a little of his love. Catherine would never have
that.

The knocker sounded hollow against the great front door. A
servant answered with smooth efficiency and stared at her as if she were some
waif washed upon the step by a wayward tide. Cassandra met his blank stare with
fury.

“Let me in, James. I wish to see Lord Merrick.”

“His lordship is not at home, my lady.”

She had no way of knowing if the servant lied at Merrick’s
or his mother’s request. Anger made her brave. “I daresay he will be soon
enough. I will wait in the music room until he comes.”

The servant opened the door a little further, but her voice
must have carried up the stairs. Lady Merrick sailed down the hall, her silks
flying in the breeze.

“You are letting in a draft, James. Close that door at once.”
As if just noticing a visitor, she frowned. “Lady Cassandra, what brings you
here tonight? Wyatt has gone out and I don’t expect him to return soon. I am so
sorry you have made the journey for nothing.”

The malicious gleam in the widow’s eyes was fuel enough to kindle
Cassandra’s ire. With equal spite she replied, “I am so sorry to have missed
him, my lady, but it is you I have come to visit. I have been meaning to this
age, but you have been busy and I had no wish to intrude. Since Wyatt isn’t
here, we should enjoy a good long
tête-à-tête
.”
She deliberately used the earl’s given name to watch his mother blanch.

Shocked to the toes by this blatant untruth garbed in social
flattery, Lady Merrick hesitated. Cassandra took advantage by stepping into the
foyer, her chin held high and a false smile upon her lips, much as she’d
approached the world since the age of twelve and truth.

She studied the cold formality of the interior, the lack of
any welcoming flowers, the polished tiles without so much as a rug to warm them,
and her determination intensified.

“It is so good of you to see me, Lady Merrick.” She mouthed
the words she had heard uttered in some earlier time. She longed to head for
the music room, but no melodic tones drifted from that direction. Now that she
was here, she meant to stay until she and Merrick had this straightened out.

“I really cannot visit. There is so much for me to do,” the
countess protested, but Cassandra proceeded down the hall without her.

“Merrick tells me you are bored, my lady.” Cassandra espied
a fire in the room on her left and turned toward it. “That seems hard to
believe when there is so much to be done with this house.” She hid her triumph
as she spotted the countess’s tea tray with a steaming pot waiting.

Accepting Cassandra’s challenge, the countess returned
regally to her chair. “I cannot imagine how you received that impression,
child. There is scarce time to be bored on an estate the size of Merrick. I am
constantly busy. Sometimes I must take time to breathe. That is what I was
doing before you arrived. I insisted that I have one night a week to myself,
and Wyatt graciously agreed.”

When the countess made no effort to offer tea to her guest,
Cassandra signaled the footman to fetch her a cup. She had not grown up in the
house of a marquess and learned nothing. Perhaps a properly coached young lady
did not order other people’s servants about, but she had no timidity in doing
so. Half the battle in winning Merrick’s affections lay here, and she was about
to dig in her heels and fight.

“I am certain Wyatt is a most considerate son. He has been
kind in offering me the use of his music room. He is very fond of music, is he
not?”

The servant arrived with the cup, and the countess
ungraciously poured a splash and handed the china to her uninvited guest. “He
is good at whatever he does. However, he is much too busy to continue
entertaining you. He has been neglecting his other estates by lingering here
overlong this spring. It would not surprise me if he left shortly to tour his
other holdings.”

“I do believe he has a steward and a man of business who are
capable of managing those lands without his constant attention,” Cassandra
replied demurely over her teacup. “Perhaps he should turn his attention to
renovating the interiors here. If I am not mistaken, there is a serious water
stain on the brocade of that drapery.” She indicated a window to their right.

The countess drew herself up in a flurry of ruffled
feathers. “Wyatt has better things to do than consider the furnishings, and so
have I. When we have the time to turn our attention to it, we will hire an
architect to make the necessary changes.”

“You would do better to hire a housekeeper,” Cassandra said
wryly. “What this house needs is someone to love it.”

“How dare you!” Finally outraged, the countess set her cup
down with a bang that should have cracked the flowered china beneath.

Before she could speak further, a masculine voice in the
hall warned that the master had returned.

Cassandra schooled her expression to neutral as Merrick
entered the room. His hair was wind-tousled, and the fresh scent of the coming
storm carried with him. He was so strikingly handsome in his informal tweed
habit with only a twisted length of linen at his throat that Cassandra almost
had to look away to fight down the pain. That same man had held her in improper
embrace just the night before.

Merrick bowed to the ladies, sent a questioning glance to
Cassandra, and formally addressed his mother. “I see you are entertaining. Am I
intruding?”

“No, you are not. Lady Cassandra was just about to leave.
You may summon James to see her out. I have some things to discuss with you.”

Cassandra remained smilingly where she was. “I am in no
hurry, my lord. Perhaps you would permit me some time with your pianoforte
while you and your charming mother have your discussion.”

Cassandra’s politeness disguised a powder keg, and Merrick
hastily stomped the burning fuse. “Of course, my lady, I will be with you
directly.” He signaled the servant hovering in the doorway. “James, see Lady
Cassandra to the music room.”

Merrick watched in admiration as Cassandra rose, and swept
off in a trail of lilac scent. She seemed paler somehow, but the fire in her
eyes was unmistakable. He was about to receive a bear-garden jaw from one woman
and a sharp set-down from another. He was rather eager for the second.

“I will not have that wanton female in my house, do you
understand me?” The countess’s tirade began as soon as the door closed behind
their guest.

“It’s my house, Mother. I will entertain whom I wish.”
Merrick waited wearily for the next wave of venom. They had had this argument
in varying forms for weeks.

“She has insulted me! You cannot allow that to go unavenged.”

Amusement quirked a corner of his mouth. “I shall challenge
her to a duel. What weapons do you suppose she will choose?”

“Wyatt, do not treat this lightly! She has scandalized all
society, exiled her husband, nearly destroyed that poor Scheffing boy, and now
she is after you. Do not let her do this to us! Put her out at once and forbid
her the door.”

“Actually, Mother, Cass quite had me once and set me free.
Had she not married Rupert, she would be Lady Merrick now. I do think you owe
her an apology. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I must see what she needs. Cassandra
seldom goes visiting without reason.” His dry tone left no room for argument.
His mother’s shrieks for a maid and smelling salts left him untouched.

He could hear the hesitant tinkle of the pianoforte as
Cassandra sought the notes to “Greensleeves.” Even her inexpert fingering had
the power to recall the night of the musicale. In some odd way, they were
closer to each other in this room than they were in each other’s arms.

That realization made his palms sweat and his heart catch in
his throat as he opened the door. He didn’t know what was happening to him, but
he was certain it was some form of madness. Perhaps the Howard insanity was
contagious.

A strand of red-gold hair curled about the nape of Cassandra’s
slender neck as she bent over the keys. The branch of candles lit the knot of
hair pinned at the top of her head. She appeared so fragile sitting there, yet
Merrick knew her to be stronger than any other female he knew. In some ways—perhaps
not all.

She looked up as he approached, and shifted to give him room
on the bench. His fingers automatically found the chords she had been
attempting, and the notes emerged without thought.

She didn’t sing, only watched avidly as his hands moved
across the keyboard. He switched to a more complicated piece that he had been
trying to teach her to appreciate, but recognized his error at once.

“Sing, just for a little while,” he murmured, switching to a
lullaby. He didn’t want what he had done to spoil what they had in here.

A lullaby was a child’s song, simple and without the
complicated emotions of others. Cassandra sang it obediently, with practiced
ease, but it wasn’t the same as “Greensleeves.”

With crashing chords Wyatt switched to a boisterous tune
requiring both their voices. Cassandra’s sweet melody sought that plateau of
mutual understanding they had found before, almost reaching it, but not quite.

He knew what was missing but he wouldn’t give in to it. He
found a faster song, one that required all their attention and usually ended in
laughter when one or the other tripped over a note and lost pace. They sang it
with perfection this night, and it wasn’t the same.