A Flight of Fancy (15 page)

But if he was wrong, she could die.

He trudged to the nearest chair and barely managed to wait to sit until Miss Honore had found her own seat closer to the fire. “I will not change my mind about surgery for Cass—Miss Bainbridge,” he began. “She—”

“No, no.” Miss Honore waved her hand as though erasing his words from a slate. “I am so grateful to you for that. I was going to tell her or suggest you tell her, but then I saw you two in there, and . . . well, do not tell her, or she will marry you out of gratitude.”

Whittaker raised a hand and shoved his unkempt hair behind his right ear. “I beg your pardon? Miss Honore, I do apologize, but you are making little sense to me.”

“Oh no, and I must start learning to put words together to make sense if I am to write a Gothic novel.”

“Y-yes, I expect you will.”

About that moment seemed like a good time for the visitors to arrive.

“So I shall start over by saying that I think the two of you are quite, quite in love with one another.”

“Indeed.”

Not a crunch of wheels on gravel or the beat of horses’ hooves, alas.

Miss Honore giggled. “There you go acting like an old earl again. But look me in the eye and tell me you are not quite, quite in love with Cassandra.”

He glanced at the door, willing the knocker to sound.

“I knew it.” Miss Honore clapped her hands. “When she called you a swine, I knew she still loved you too.”

“Then I give up hope of ever understanding her.”

“Perhaps, but I can help.” Miss Honore leaned toward him so far her knees practically touched his.

They appeared to be having an intimate cose together, and he barely resisted the urge to push his chair back a few inches, because it would then scrape on the floor and make an obvious racket. Besides, if she could help him understand Cassandra, he should give her a listen.

“If she learns you saved her . . . um . . . from surgery, then you ask her again to marry you, she will say yes out of gratitude, not because she thinks it is right,” Miss Honore continued. “I am not certain why she thinks the two of you should not wed—well, that is not quite true. I do know of one reason.” She pressed her hand to her lips as though to stem her flow of words, and her bright eyes clouded.

Whittaker resisted the urge to squirm like a schoolboy before a headmaster after some infraction of school rules. Not that he had ever broken school rules. He had been one of those most revolting of youths—at least to his peers—one who rarely stepped out of the straight and narrow. Then he met Cassandra . . .

Heaviness settled in his middle like a load of lead shot. “What is it, Miss Honore?”

“It matters not.” She shook her head. “At least it does not if you love her, and she you. And besides, something troubles her. I truly do not know what all is wrong, but I want to help fix it. She is so unhappy, unlike when she was about to marry you.”

He could not, would not dare to hope. Miss Honore was a silly romantic child, for all her eighteen or nineteen years.

“She has been ill. That makes anyone unhappy,” he said.

“Yes, but—oh, just trust what I say.” She moved back in her chair. “She thinks all she wants is to work on balloons and Greek and such nonsense, and that Father will let her take her dowry and live on that if she doesn’t marry you or anyone else. So you must convince her that is not what she wants. At least, that it is not
all
she wants.”

At last he caught the crunch of wheels on the gravel drive, and he prepared to rise, realizing he was not dressed for callers and should exit the hall at once. “I believe my failure at that is why we are having this tête-à-tête—my failure to convince her she wants more than balloons and Greek. And now I should—”

“Wait a moment.” Miss Honore gave him a pleading glance. “I have taken too long to say what I wish to say, like Mr. Richardson does in his novels. Lady Whittaker gave me one to read, and it was dreadfully dull. But about Cassandra . . .” She worried her lower lip, deepening its already natural pink.

Full and ripe like Cassandra’s.

He compressed his own lips and rose. “I am not ready to receive callers, Miss Honore, and I believe some have arrived. Shall we continue this later?”

“One more moment.” She grasped his right arm and followed him toward his wing of the house. “You see, I was thinking you should pretend you do not wish to wed her. I mean, it does seem like it might be true after she called you a swine.”

Especially when he deserved it.

“I cannot pretend what I do not feel, Miss Honore. Now, if you please . . .”

Someone began to pound the knocker with more vigor than necessary.

“I think we should make her jealous,” Miss Honore announced.

“We?” That stopped Whittaker in his tracks. He halted with his hand outstretched toward the door handle and stared down at the lovely young lady clinging to his arm. “Are you saying you and me?”

She stuck out her lower lip in a pout so exaggerated it had to be pretense. “I should be put off by your shock, my lord. Why ever not me? I have a fine dowry. I am passably pretty—”

“You are beautiful, and you know it too well, I think.”

“And Cassandra thinks she is ugly.”

“Which is why she needs her spectacles.” His heart twisted, and he extricated his arm from Miss Honore’s hold. “Perhaps that would work. Cassandra loves nothing more than a challenge. But it won’t work if she doesn’t want matters to change between us.”

“But I think they would change if she thinks someone else—oh, that knocker.”

It had pounded again. Whittaker feared he would have to answer, but a parlor maid in a neat chintz gown and frilled cap all but ran from the servants’ door tucked beneath the great staircase and raced for the front door.

“It will have the opposite effect, I am certain.” Whittaker opened the portal to his wing. “And even if it were worth the risk, I will not, as I believe you imply, set sister against sister, even to win Cassandra back.”

“But if we could find—Lady Whittaker.” Miss Honore stepped back to allow Mama to bustle through the opening.

“Geoffrey, do go don a coat if you are going to be down here,” she said. “You look positively undressed.”

“I believe I will stay in my room while you entertain guests. The notion of donning a coat does not appeal to me.”

“But they will be here for days,” Mama protested.

The front door opened to allow the entrance of a blast of frosty wind, on which was borne two children, a pale young man, and a lady with hair the color of garnets beneath the brim of her yellow straw hat. She flashed Whittaker a brilliant smile from a lush mouth and a glance from eyes that appeared dark in the shadowing brim and poorly lit hall. Beside him, Miss Honore caught her breath, then giggled.

Whittaker’s jaw hardened and he gazed down at his mother. “Who are these people?”

“Your cousins, my dear.” She flicked a glare at the lady. “I am afraid I do not know who she is.” Which did not stop her from gliding forward, holding out her hands to the newcomers. “Welcome to Whittaker Hall. You must excuse his lordship. He suffered an accident the other night, and one of our other guests is unwell. Nothing serious that you must fear catching, but we have been a bit at sixes and sevens.”

“And it will not stop,” Miss Honore murmured.

Whittaker wondered if he might be safer going back to spying for Crawford. Between Miss Honore’s preposterous plan to flirt with him to make Cassandra jealous, his wish to return to Cassandra’s side and at the least apologize for his unkind remark earlier, and his head, which had decided to throb and swim, he thought life amidst the odorous sheep suddenly sounded peaceful, calm, undemanding.

He could at least retreat to his room until he could arrange a chaperone for another visit to Cassandra.

For the second time, he opened the door to the family wing.

“So you must forgive his state of dishabille,” Mama was saying. “Do be polite, Geoffrey, and bid good day to your guests.”

But they were not his guests. He should have listened when Mama explained about why his young cousins had come to call. No, to stay for a visit.

Slowly he removed his hand from the latch and strode forward with as much vigor as he could manage, though his arm added an ache to his head’s difficulties, and the nearest chair looked far more inviting to him than the red-haired beauty poised with one gloved hand resting on the shoulder of the younger of the two boys. A gloved hand above which shimmered a bracelet heavy with small but brilliant sapphires.

Beautiful and possessed of fine jewels she could afford to wear while traveling.

“This is your cousin Laurence,” Mama said, indicating the elder boy, a pasty, gangly youth of about twelve years. “And this is William.” The younger boy bowed, then opened his mouth and started to speak, but the female’s hand visibly tightened and he shut his lips again. “Their tutor, Mr. Caldwell, and—” Mama faced the young female. “I am sorry that I do not know you.”

“I am Regina Irving.” The woman—definitely not a girl—spoke in a low, throaty voice. “Cousin to the boys on their mother’s side. She has decided to stay and help nurse Mr. Giles and sent me along to help with the boys, as I have been living with them since my own parents returned to India last year.”

“Oh, of course.” Mama’s smile grew natural, bright, and her eyes sparkled. “You are most, most welcome.”

Of course she was. Even Whittaker now knew who this female
was, the unmarried daughter of his uncle’s brother-in-law, who had made a fortune with the East India Company. Unmarried and the only child of a wealthy man. No wonder Mama grew happy when she learned the lady’s identity. If matters did not work themselves out between him and Cassandra, he could make a suit for Miss Irving, though she was at the least five and twenty. Between Miss Honore’s and Mama’s schemes, he would never manage to restore his betrothal to Cassandra.

And then Major Crawford sauntered into the Hall behind the newcomers, a scarlet-coated reminder of Whittaker’s other obligations to spare the family honor.

13

For the second time in an hour, Cassandra tugged at the bell rope. For the second time, no one responded. While the sound of children’s voices rang across the barren garden and light faded from the sky, she awaited someone to help her dress and bring her supper. Yet not even Honore returned to their rooms. Heavy doors and thick stone walls masked any noise from the rest of the house. Short-staffed or not, guests or not, someone should have come.

Someone should have come if something were not terribly wrong. Suddenly she found herself on her feet and at the bedchamber door without giving a thought to her cane. Then she realized she could not go out to the great hall or to the family wing in her dressing gown. They might have guests.

Of course. They did have guests. Those two boys in the garden must be the offspring of some callers who had distracted everyone from remembering Cassandra. That was all. Nothing was wrong with Whittaker.

Relief left her weak and leaning against the wall for support. She could think about her empty stomach now. If she wanted food, she would have to find it herself.

Unable to dress unaided, she drew a shawl on over her dressing
gown for a bit more modesty and headed for the orangery. An orange or two would do for the moment, and if she set the pot of tea left for her close to the fire, she could heat it. Someone would come eventually, Honore if no one else. Still, leaving her alone for so long after such vigilance over the past few days seemed rather peculiar.

Her soft slippers whispering on the flagstones, she descended the steps to the orangery door and lifted the latch. The door swung inward without a sound, the hinges well-oiled. The sharp tang of lemon and orange and the freshness of wet earth greeted her nose.

And the rumble of male voices greeted her ears.

They sounded like two dogs growling at one another, the volume low, the words indistinct, but the feelings clear. These were two men not in the least happy with one another, perhaps ready to snap and lash out. She should return to her room, but the scent of the oranges increased her hunger. She eased the door open farther and edged her head around the frame to see if perhaps she could reach one of the trees, snatch an orange, and retreat without the men noticing her presence.

No such good fortune. The instant she stepped into the glasshouse, she caught the flash of a red coat and the glint of brazier light on pale hair, as Major Crawford stood with his back to her. Facing her, looking straight at her, his uninjured arm bent a bit at the elbow with the hand fisted against his upper thigh, was her erstwhile fiancé.

“I am not mistaken,” Whittaker told the major in a low, hard voice so as not to be overheard by the boys and their tutor on the other end of the orangery. “One of your men shot me.”

“An accident, I assure you.” Major Crawford kept his voice low also, but his stance was relaxed, one shoulder propped against a decorative screen. “The fellow didn’t recognize you until it was too late, I’m afraid. He has been reprimanded, I assure you of that too.”