The Unofficial Suitor (3 page)

“Oh, my, it’s a feisty one we’ve caught here. Let’s have a look at what’cher hiding under your cloak.”

Her hood was jerked off and she opened her mouth to scream, but thick fingers twisted in her hair and forced her head backward until she stopped struggling and stood quietly, her neck bent so far she was afraid if she moved it would snap.

The man holding Cassie started dragging her toward the stables, telling her in explicit words she only halfway understood just what he intended to do to her once he got her there. She was tensing her body to make one last effort to escape if he even momentarily slackened his grip when she caught a glimpse of a green and gold coach standing in the stable yard.

“I presume my brother the earl is now in residence?” She somehow managed to croak the words out and was released so abruptly she almost fell. Regaining her balance more easily than her dignity, she turned to face her attacker.

Only her brother could have hired such a man as a groom. Mere inches taller than her own five feet, he was squat and broad and resembled nothing so much as a toad. An honest traveler, meeting him upon the road, would doubtless mistake him for a highwayman, in spite of his ill-fitting livery.

The humble, subservient manner he now adopted was spoiled by the hostility that still radiated from his cold eyes.

“I asked you a question,” she snapped out, trying to make her voice sound haughty and hoping the cloak hid the fact that she was trembling all over from reaction to the near rape.

“Yes’m, m’lady. The Earl of Blackstone is in residence if you can call it that.” His lip curled slightly, and he made no attempt to hide his contempt for the decaying manor house that stood behind her.

She knew she should not let his insolent manner go by without correction, but she was willing to wait for another day before risking a direct confrontation since she was not at all sure how long invoking her brother’s name would protect her. Nor was she at all certain just how much control her brother had over his minion, who would have seemed more at home in a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe than in this forgotten corner of Cornwall.

“See to my horse,” she snapped out curtly. By exercising her total willpower, she was able to retreat in a dignified manner, when all she really wanted to do was run as fast as she could away from her attacker. It was a relief when she slid through the French doors into the library and knew she was hidden from his view.

Her relief was short-lived, however, as it took her only a moment to realize something was amiss there, too—the room was warm.

Her immediate awareness of the fire in the normally unused fireplace gave her a second’s warning, enabling her to school her expression and react calmly to the voice that came out of the shadows beside her.

“Ah, my dear sweet sister, I presume. Yes, the resemblance to your mother, God rest her dear departed soul, is even more pronounced, now that you have ... uh ... developed, shall we say? And I must say also that I am so glad you came to find me, my dear, before I was forced to the trouble of having you fetched. Indeed, I have been wondering about the strange household you keep here. So far, you are the first living, breathing inhabitant of this pile of damp stones that we have set eyes on since we arrived here. If we had not found these doors open, we might still be waiting on the stoop. Have you given all your servants the same day off by some miscalculation?”

Geoffrey was still the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life. In face and form he resembled their father, who had always been held to be a fine figure of a man, but Geoffrey’s light brown hair and hazel eyes came from his mother, the earl’s first wife.

She, on the other hand, had her midnight hair and deep blue eyes from their father, but in all other respects was the spitting image of her mother, an accredited beauty who had reigned supreme in London society before becoming the second wife of the Earl of Blackstone.

“The servants left years ago, when you neglected to pay them.” Cassie clenched her hands to keep them from trembling.

“One is scarcely aware of the seasons coming and going when one is in London,” he said lazily. “Let me see, how long has it been since I was last here?”

“Father died seven years ago in May.”

Her brother had not even made a pretense of mourning, but had left for London the day after the funeral, never writing or returning until now.

“So long? My, my, I fear I have neglected you and our dear sister shamelessly.” Abruptly, his manner became brusque. “But what is past is past, and we must look to the future. I find I have suddenly developed a tremendous interest, nay, a preoccupation with your well-being. Chloe!” he bellowed suddenly, striding over to the ruins of a once-elegant sofa, which still boasted three legs and undoubtedly at least one or two unbroken springs.

“Chloe!” he thundered again, whacking a pile of scarlet satin and orange feathers that was crumpled there. “Bestir yourself, you lazy slut. I’ve a job for you.”

Slowly the red heap sat up and straightened and adjusted itself until Cassie could see it was a well-padded woman with hair as orange as her feathers, and cheeks as impossibly red as her dress.

“Give me a moment or two, guv, to get me wits about me, and then we can oblige.”

“None of that now, you’ve work to do.” He grabbed her hand and jerked her to her feet. “See that?” He pointed to Cassie, who still stood by the window. “Take that upstairs, clean it up, and put a decent dress on it. I want to see what I have to work with, but I find my senses so revolted by the stink of the stables and that depressing rag it’s wearing, that I am quite unable to think straight.”

There was such an improbable aspect about everything that had happened since she had slid off Dobbin’s back, thought Cassie as she was half dragged up the stairs, that she might be excused for wondering if she were still on horseback plodding along toward home, her mind totally involved in a daydream that now had more similarity to a nightmare than to her usual fantasies.

The tub of water was still steaming slightly, and Cassie knew the unexpected visitors could not have arrived much before herself. Apparently Seffie and Ellen had had enough warning to hide, as there did not seem to be any sounds of hysteria in the background.

“So, you’re his lordship’s sister.” Chloe undid the strings of Cassie’s cloak with one quick tug.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” Cassie backed away, fending off the other woman’s hands. “I can undress myself.”

Without even losing her smile, Chloe slapped Cassie hard across the face. “Now then, ducks, I’m not too good at explaining things, so let’s hope you catch on real quick. Your brother told me to clean you up and make you presentable, and I always do what he tells me to do, and that way things go along nice and smooth. So you don’t get to decide whether I give you a bath or not, you just get to decide how you wants it to be—hard or easy—and if you make things hard for me, I can make things real unpleasant for you, don’t think I can’t.”

Her cheek stinging from the impact, Cassie stared at the woman, too stunned to respond.

When Chloe reached out again and started undoing the buttons on Cassie’s dress, the younger girl stood quietly, staring straight ahead, her teeth clenched so tightly her jaw hurt.

“I’m not so bad as a lady’s maid if I do say so myself. I had me a job once, as abigail to a rich lady. She thought I had real talent, too, especially with her hair.” While Chloe talked, her fingers fairly flew, stripping off Cassie’s dress. “But then madame found me in the master’s bed playing tickle and squeeze, and I was out on the street, although not for long. The master had me settled snug in my own cozy little house before the week was out, he did.”

She finished stripping Cassie to the skin, and no amount of pretending on Cassie’s part could lessen her embarrassment at finding herself naked in front of another person. Not even her sister had ever seen her without her shift, at least not since they had been very small girls together. As quickly as possible she stepped into the metal tub and sat down, grateful for the meager covering offered by the water.

Chloe poured a dipperful of water over Cassie’s head and began rubbing her hair vigorously with soap. “I found the gentlemen much easier to please than the ladies, so I gave up my aspirations to become a dresser.”

“So, you prefer to be mistress of a man like my brother, rather than to do honest work?” Cassie was rewarded for her impertinence with a vicious yank on her hair.

She glared at the other woman while the bath water continued to cool slowly in the tub.

Finally Chloe spoke again. “I prefer being an honest whore to being a dishonest hypocrite like many a fine lady.” She smiled at Cassie with patently false good humor. “You do know what a whore is, don’t you, ducks? It’s a woman what sells herself to a man.” Then she threw back her head and howled with laughter.

When the bath was finally over, Cassie was relieved to be left to the task of drying herself while the red-haired woman looked through her wardrobe. “Three dresses? This is the extent of the clothes we have to choose from—three dresses? One black, one brown, and heaven knows what color that rag on the floor is intended to be. And all three of them long-sleeved with buttons up to the neck—what are you, a nun?”

“At least I am not a... a ...” She could not bring herself to use the word the other woman had used. “A fallen woman!” she finally blurted out. Even before the other woman reached out and gave her an expert pinch on the arm, Cassie knew that retaliation was sure to be swift and unpleasant, but she had reached the point that she no longer cared.

“Appears like you’ll have to wear a dress of mine.” Chloe abandoned her attempt to find even one slightly suitable garment hiding itself somehow in the darkest corner of the wardrobe, and started digging around in the bandbox that Cassie had not even noticed on her bed. “Yes, this will do.” Chloe pulled out a piece of shimmery blue fabric, so beautiful that Cassie could scarcely hold back an expression of delight.

Any pleasure she might have had at wearing a dress made out of fabric the likes of which she had never seen was destroyed, however, when she slipped it over her head.

“It’s a good thing fitted waistlines are not in style these days, or as skinny as you are, we could never adjust a dress of mine to fit the likes of you.” Chloe grabbed a handful of the extra material at the waist of the dress and pulled it tighter. “Although you’re well enough endowed up front where it counts. Yes, indeed, I do think your brother’s going to be in a proper good mood when he sees you in this dress.”

Cassie stared at her reflection in the mirror. “Well, think again, because my brother is not going to see me in this dress. I would kill myself before I would allow anyone, even a relative, to see me wearing a garment that makes a mockery of all that is decent and respectable.”

All of her brother’s servants must have trained under the same master, because Chloe yanked viciously on Cassie’s hair until she collapsed backward onto a small stool. A great many pinches on the arm later and she stood once more in front of her mirror while Chloe efficiently pinned up several inches at the bottom of the gown.

As fogged as it was, with the silver peeling off the back in great patches, the mirror still reflected back a tantalizing image of a beautiful young woman, standing straight and slender like a shimmering blue flame, her hair arranged elaborately on top of her head, with one long ebony curl artfully escaping to emphasize the pure whiteness of her neck and shoulders.

Unfortunately, the dress was cut so low in front that Cassie was afraid to take a deep breath for fear she would pop right out. “I refuse to wear this dress one step outside my room,” she said in the voice she reserved for telling her sister and her step-mother that she was done listening to any arguments. When she spoke with such authority, they knew it was pointless even to try to change her mind.

Chloe evidently did not recognize the futility of continuing to present her case. Finishing her task, she stood up and, hands on her hips, glared down at Cassie.

“Will you stop arguing! Talking back to me has earned you an arm that’s black and blue and still you won’t be reasonable. Well, this is the last warning you’re going to get from me. If you’re stupid enough to cross your brother, then you’ll really rue the day you were born, and I guarantee, if you make him come fetch you, then don’t be surprised if he drags you down the stairs backward by your hair.”

Doing her best not to pay any heed to the woman’s threats, Cassie remained standing where she was, staring at the image of herself in the mirror, an image she could not in any way relate to the person she knew herself to be. She might have been staring at a total stranger, so alien did she appear. Nor could she take pleasure in the way the blue fabric shimmered when she moved, because of the horrible expanse of—of chest that was displayed.

In the end it was not Chloe’s warning that induced her to overcome her reluctance to leave her room, but the memory of her brother’s petty cruelties when they were children that caused her to decide it would indeed be folly to provoke him into a needless display of temper.

The shawl she found to drape around her neck was also a factor in her decision to do as she had been told, and it was actually only a few minutes after Chloe’s descent that Cassie found herself entering the library, which was now brightly lit with dozens of candles in the wall sconces. It would appear, in fact, that every candle in the house had been brought into this one room, in an extravagant waste unparalleled since the days of her father’s entertaining.

Staring at her brother from a few feet away, Cassie realized she had been wrong to think him still as handsome as ever. In the better light now available she could see the marks of dissipation that were already quite evident on his face, and she was willing to wager that not too many years in the future only a memory of his good looks would remain.

“So, Geoffrey, what brings you home at last? Come on a repairing lease? Or hiding from your creditors?” Her voice was light and mocking, her resolve not to antagonize him forgotten.