Miss Weston's Masquerade (20 page)

Cassandra watched him leave and became aware that hers was not the only gaze that followed the tall figure. Lucy Hartley’s concentration falter momentarily before she smiled at her partner and danced on.

Well, that was one consolation. Nicholas might, for some reason Cassandra didn’t understand, be out of charity with her, but he had paid her more attention than he had any of the other young ladies present.

She recognised a small flame of hope and ruthlessly suppressed it. Nicholas was not for her, she had to resign herself to that. But, enjoy the company of other men as she might, it was Nicholas she loved and wanted, and always would.

‘May I escort you to supper?’ Lord Stewart was at her side.

‘Yes, please.’ Cassandra rewarded him with a smile and allowed herself to be led away. A breaking heart was no excuse for bad manners, she told herself firmly.

The next morning, searching for her locket, Cassandra came across the jewelled snake necklace coiled at the bottom of a drawer. She stared at it, suddenly cold, remembering Venice, remembering how close she had come to betraying both herself and her love for Nicholas.

It was too dangerous to keep, both for itself and for the memories it evoked. And if she found a respectable jeweller and sold it, she would have a little money of her own for emergencies. Cassandra slipped the jewel into her reticule and went downstairs thoughtfully.

She had the breakfast room to herself. Godmama, as usual, was partaking of chocolate and sweet rolls in her room and Miss Fox, according to the butler, had gone out for a walk.

‘And Lord Lydford?’ Cassandra enquired casually, toying with a little thin ham.

‘He was up early this morning, Miss. He went out about eight o'clock, intending to ride.’

The butler bowed himself out. Left alone, Cassandra regarded the breakfast table. The ham was excellent. She helped herself to another slice and buttered some bread then sipped her coffee and contemplated Nicholas’s puzzling behaviour. What had put him so out of sorts? He had acted like an elder brother, and a particularly proprietorial one at that.

She was still musing when the door opened and the object of her thoughts strode in, banging it shut behind him. He was looking pale and fatigued and thoroughly out of temper at finding the breakfast room occupied.

‘Coffee, Nicholas?’ Cassandra enquired sweetly.

‘Thank you.’ He jerked the chair opposite her away from the table and slouched in it, long booted legs thrust out.

‘Have you had a nice ride?’ Now she had him alone, perhaps she could provoke him into revealing what was wrong.

‘Not particularly,’ Nicholas was obviously disinclined for conversation. He took the proffered cup and unfolded a newspaper with an irritable snap.

‘I didn't realise you read German,’ Cassandra remarked, peering across at the heavy Gothic script.

‘I don’t. I was merely trying to indicate – tactfully, I thought – that I would prefer to eat my breakfast in peace and quiet.’

‘Well, have some ham, then,’ she suggested helpfully. ‘You know you’re always irritable in the morning until you’ve had something to eat.’

There was a deadly silence while Nicholas lowered the paper and regarded her with hard green eyes. ‘I suggest you watch your tongue, Cassandra. My mood early in the morning should be quite outside your experience – do not forget our acquaintance is supposed to be of a week’s duration. Mama can scheme to her heart’s content, but it will all come to nothing if you cannot curb your tongue.’

Cassandra counted up to ten in Greek beneath her breath, very slowly. ‘It is excellent ham,’ she said out loud.

‘Damn the ham!’ he exploded, jumping up from the chair, which fell back on the polished boards with a clatter.

‘
Nicholas
.’ Cassandra assumed an expression of outrage. ‘You should not use such language in front of me, it is most improper.’ She knew she was goading him, but here he could not threaten to send her packing back to her father, or put her over his knee as he had in Venice.

‘Why, I must congratulate Mama on the transformation she has wrought,’ he said slowly, his face hardening as he eyed her slim figure in the demure sprigged muslin gown. ‘No-one would recognise Cass the valet now, or a certain young lady in a Paris bedroom.’

Cassandra gasped, the flush rising hectically to her face. How could he remind her of that? She was half on her feet when he rounded the table and sat on the edge, so close she was forced to sit down again. He seemed to tower over her. ‘That wasn’t fair,’ she said in a voice that shook, and not only with indignation.

‘If you want me to forget those weeks we spent together, Cassandra, you must stop invoking the memories,’ he said, in a voice that still retained the hard edge of anger. ‘Now you want to be treated like a young lady. You want insipid compliments and well-turned phrases. You want nice safe flirtations and gestures from your pack of young admirers. Like this.’

He picked up her hand in his. Her fingers felt suddenly cold against the enveloping warmth of his, still slightly roughened from the reins. He bent his head and brushed the briefest of touches across her knuckles, then surrendered her hand with a flourish.

‘Well, Miss Weston? Will that suffice? It will have to, won’t it? One step out of line, one indication of your impetuous nature, and the carefully woven illusion is shattered.’

‘Oh, no, my lord,’ Cassandra countered furiously. ‘Lord Stewart, to take but one example, is considerably more ardent in his attentions. And, I may say, he is considerably more gallant than you. He says my natural high spirits are charming.’

‘Stewart will never make you a declaration,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It is known he is hanging out for a wife with good connexions.’

‘I know that; I am not as gullible as you seem to think. Don’t forget, Nicholas, I have just spent seven weeks in the company of just such another gentleman. But Lord Stewart is witty and he is fun to be with, two qualities you are singularly lacking this morning.’

She stood up, galvanised by irritation and found herself standing so close to him her face was almost touching his neckcloth. The familiar scent of him, his warmth, filled her nostrils and seemed to take all power of movement from her.

The room was very still, the only sounds were of Nicholas’s breathing, and the steady tick of the clock echoing her own heartbeat. Cassandra stood, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around him, bury her face in his chest and never let him go.

Nicholas did not move, and slowly she raised her head to look at him. He was regarding her steadily with hooded eyes, the trace of a smile touching his lips. ‘It is very unfair, Cassandra,’ he said softly, ‘but well-bred young ladies can’t expect to have fun.’

He kissed her then, before she had a chance to move her face away. The kiss echoed his voice, cool and sardonic, devoid of emotion or passion, but none the less thorough for that.

Cassandra jerked away angrily, face aflame. ‘How dare you? I did nothing to warrant such behaviour from you – and you have the effrontery to warn me against Lord Stewart…’ She stuttered to a halt, lost for words.

Nicholas stood up, quite calmly. ‘But that is my point, Cassandra. Lord Stewart is exactly like me and if you behave as recklessly with him, you may expect the same response, but considerably less discretion.’

Cassandra swung away from him, trying to hide the tears that welled in her eyes. Goading him had worked only too well and he was saying things she didn’t want to hear, things that hurt because she loved him

‘Oh, damn it, Cassie, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ There was an exasperated tenderness in his voice that made her heart thump. ‘Come here.’ Nicholas pulled her into the comfort of his arms, in an embrace so different from what had just passed between them, he could have been a different man.

‘I’m not crying,’ she protested unconvincingly.

‘Then you obviously have something in your eye,’ he said, humouring her. ‘Have you a handkerchief?’

He was already reaching for her reticule as she stammered, ‘No!’

Nicholas pulled the protruding corner of white linen. With horrible inevitability, the snake necklace uncoiled itself and lay gleaming in a shaft of sunlight. Her sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the room as he stooped and picked up the jewel, letting it run between his fingers.

‘How did you…’ he began slowly, then as he looked at her betraying face, realisation dawned. ‘It was
you
. You connived with that wh– ’ He bit back the word, his fingers white on the metal coils. ‘Why, Cassandra? To get back at me because I had been angry with you? It must have seemed very amusing to humiliate me.’

‘I didn't mean to,’ she began.

‘To let it go so far?’ he queried dangerously. ‘I am quite sure you didn’t. I hadn’t thought you would be so spiteful.’ He looked at her through narrowed eyes, angry recollection blazing in their depths. ‘Nor would I have suspected you capable of such seductive wiles.’

Cassandra felt the fiery blush rising as she recalled just how willingly her body had answered his. His face changed, hardened.

‘What a fool I’ve been, worrying about your chastity all those weeks, when you knew full well how to rouse a man. Where did you practice, Miss Weston?’ he sneered. ‘With your father’s ploughboys? Or the stable boy who was so willing to lend you his clothes?’

If he had struck her, the shock could not have been greater. She expected, deserved, his anger but his contempt burned like acid. Yet how could she tell him that her responses had been instinctive, driven by her love for him? He would think it a lie, a subterfuge to extricate herself.

‘Still no excuses? No convenient story to account for it? No, I suppose even your fertile imagination baulks at explaining this away.’ The necklace swung from his fingers, mocking her.

‘Nicholas…I…’

‘No more, Cassandra,’ he said icily.

The necklace moved in the sunlight, stabbing her eyes. ‘Here.’ He held it out. ‘Take your whore’s device. You can always sell it. Or you may have need of it again.’ He smiled humourlessly at her. ‘Why, I almost find it in me to feel sorry for Lord Stewart.’

Cassandra snatched it from his hand and ran from the room. Her heart thudded and she felt sick with the force of Nicholas's attack. Yet she could not cry.

Fortunately, no one was about. She needed fresh air, to get away from these enclosed, silent rooms, the corrosion of Nicholas’s contempt. On an impulse, she tugged the bell-pull in her room and summoned her maid.

Five minutes later, in bonnet and pelisse, Maria dutifully at her heels, Cassandra was strolling heedlessly down one of the wide promenades, in company with a throng of fashionably dressed people. She soon found herself in the Prat, which Godmama had mentioned to her as being an unexceptionable place to walk.

As she walked, she brooded on Nicholas’s reaction. She could not blame him for his anger, nor for the conclusions he had drawn from her behaviour. At that moment, if the pavements of the Prat had opened and swallowed her, she would have been grateful for it. But she had to think about it, she would have to face him again, behave as if nothing had happened, knowing that every time he looked at her, he would recall her body quivering against his.

With her maid silent beside her, Cassandra walked on, deep in thought. After a while, Lucia’s words at that first meeting in Venice returned to her, Lucia saying that, if Nicholas had been indifferent, he wouldn’t become so angry with her. Anyone would have condemned her for her behaviour, she condemned herself, but would someone who was uncaring have reacted so bitterly, have thrown such wild and wounding accusations at her?

And if he cared for her, that explained his actions last night, and his bad temper this morning. He was jealous of the attention shown her by other men. The thought was so startling that Cassandra halted in her tracks, causing Maria to trip over the edge of her pelisse.

When she thought of him with other women it made her feel hurt and angry and thoroughly unreasonable. Could it be that seeing Cassandra as the centre of attention, especially from his friend Stewart, was arousing jealousy in Nicholas? But he couldn’t be in love with her, or surely he would have said something.

Cassandra wandered on, her frown of concentration making her look fierce enough to discourage the young bucks, who were out to ogle the passing young ladies.

Perhaps he hadn’t realised how he felt. In novels, so she had heard, men were notoriously slow in recognising a dawning
tendresse
for the heroine. Well, if he hadn’t realised, she would make him. There was no point in flirting with the younger men, Nicholas had already dismissed them as puppies. But Lord Stewart was different. His mild attentions last night had already roused Nicholas to a display of bad temper and if she really tried to attach Stewart, there was no knowing what he would do.

Cassandra had a momentary qualm about toying with Lord Stewart’s affections, then concluded that if he were dangling after a well-connected wife she was hardly likely to break his heart. She turned on her heel and began to walk home. If challenged now, all Nicholas would admit to was a brotherly desire to keep her out of the clutches of a well-known
roué
. It was up to her to make him see things differently.

That afternoon, she sat in the Blue Salon with her godmother, writing out the gold-edged invitations, while Lady Lydford reviewed the prospective guests for the ball she intended to give in honour of her goddaughter’s come-out.

‘I suppose I must invite Regina Cooper and that bracket-faced daughter of hers.’ She paused. ‘I always wished for a daughter, my dear. I am enjoying this.’

Cassandra smiled at her. ‘I fear I am very expensive, Godmama.’

‘Fiddlesticks, child. I love the excuse to spend money on clothes, and I am enjoying your company. Your mind is as sharp as your mother’s, and I have missed my dearest friend.’ She gave herself a little shake. ‘I shall be getting sentimental, and we must press on with this list. A week is short notice, but I doubt if we will be short of company.’

The pile of invitations grew steadily. Cassandra had just paused to sharpen the point of her quill when the butler announced, ‘Miss Hartley, Miss Lucy Hartley, my lady.’

‘Charlotte, Lucy, what a pleasure. You will stay for tea? Hector, the tea tray in twenty minutes.’

‘We have come with a note from Mama and to thank you for the party last night,’ Charlotte said. ‘Are you sure we are not interrupting, Lady Lydford?’

‘Not at all, sit down, both of you, and I will tell you my plans for Cassandra’s coming-out ball.’

The ladies were cosily involved in a discussion of the relative merits of a string ensemble or a military band for the music, when the butler reappeared with the tea tray and the announcement, ‘Lord Stewart, my lady.’

Even Miss Hartley, newly affianced, paused to pat a curl into place. Lord Stewart entered with his customary ease, despite the handicap of two large bouquets, which he presented to his hostess and Cassandra.

‘With thanks for an enchanting evening, ma’am,’ he swept a bow to the Dowager. ‘And the enchanting company,’ he added, with a warm glance at Cassandra.

She accepted the flowers with thanks, not entirely unaware of the envy she was arousing in Miss Lucy’s breast. Lord Stewart cut a magnificent figure with his slim, blond elegance and the faint military air which still hung about him, although he had resigned his commission the previous year.

As he sat down beside her, crossing one elegantly booted leg over the other, Cassandra reflected that if one’s heart wasn’t given to an infuriating, green-eyed, bad tempered Earl, one could very easily fall under the spell of this man.

He soon had them in a ripple of laughter with his amusing description of the antics of his eccentric Austrian valet. He had just accepted a second cup of tea when he saw a small ink spot on Cassandra’s hand and broke off to tease her about the dangers of working too hard.

It could not have been better contrived, Cassandra reflected afterwards. Lord Stewart had taken her hand to examine the mark, just as Nicholas came into the Blue Salon. Lord Stewart retained her hand while he nodded amiably to his friend, but Cassandra laughingly withdrew her fingers.

‘Tea, Nicholas?’ his mother asked, as he took the seat between the two Misses Hartley.

Really, there couldn’t be a better opportunity to put her plan into operation, Cassandra thought, turning with a brilliant smile to Lord Stewart. ‘Do you ride much in Vienna, my lord?’

Five minutes later, while she was laughingly accepting his offer to take her riding and to lend her a horse, she risked a glance under her lashes at Nicholas. Charlotte Hartley was deep in discussion of bride clothes with Lady Lydford, leaving Miss Lucy to Nicholas’s undivided attention. Charming in peach muslin, which showed off to perfection her rounded figure and delicately flushed complexion, she was all attention as Nicholas chatted easily to her.

He was showing no interest whatsoever in Lord Stewart’s attentions to Cassandra, and swallowing her chagrin, she had to admit Miss Lucy was enough to distract any man. And, of course, he must have known her in London.

It would be easier if she could dislike the young woman, but Lucy’s good nature and bright intelligence had endeared her to Cassandra very quickly. She saw Lady Lydford watching the couple with an indulgent smile touching her lips, and her heart sank. Lucy Hartley, well-bred, well-behaved and exceedingly well-dowered, was every mama’s dream for her son.