Patricia Rice (2 page)

Not wishing to question the morals or character of a female
he had not known since her childhood, he acted out of the gallantry of a
gentleman toward a lady. Merrick proceeded across the crowded ballroom,
gesturing toward Scheffing to follow.

They met at the entrance. Catherine did not look at all
pleased to be dragged around like a puppet on a string, but the earl had already
decided time was of the essence and ignored the signs of an impending set-down.
That was one of the advantages of being affianced to a woman he had known all
his life. He knew her every mood, and experienced none of the uncertainties of
gauging her reaction as he must with any other woman.

“I am forced to rescue a lady in distress, Bertie.
Catherine, I hate to take you away before you have a chance to enjoy yourself,
but I feel obligated to escort Cassandra home. You know what Duncan is...” He
let his voice trail off. They were all acquainted with the new Marquess of
Eddings and his indiscretions.

“And I know what Cassandra is,” Catherine snapped. “How do
you think she has managed all these years without you? Don’t make a cake of
yourself, Wyatt. I have no intention of leaving early. She will find her own
way home.”

Merrick stiffened. “She is just a young girl. I could not
live with my conscience should anything happen to her because I neglected my
duty. Scheffing, perhaps if you would look after Catherine, I will be back
shortly.”

“You know how Merrick is about duty, Cathy. You knew he was
a high stickler when you accepted his suit,” Bertie murmured apologetically.

Merrick did not listen to the lady’s reply as he pushed
toward the staircase. Perhaps had he been a foot shorter he would have been
less noticeable and his progress more impeded by the crowd. As it was, people
hastily opened a path.

He reached the foyer in good time, but he didn’t trust his
prey to dawdle. After casting a glance upward to assure himself she was not on
the stairs, he stepped out onto the high stone steps and glanced down at the
carriage drive.

He saw a slim figure in lined pelisse and hood hurrying
away. Throwing a curt order to a footman, Merrick strode after her. One
advantage to having damned long legs was that very few people could out stride
him. Though Cassandra was of above average height, she was hampered by narrow
skirts and thin slippers.

He caught her arm and swung her around with less gentleness
than he normally would accord a lady. “I will see you home,” he announced,
marching her back toward the house.

Cassandra stared at the earl in astonishment. She remembered
Wyatt Mannering as a quiet man who seldom raised his voice even when giving a
scold to a rambunctious child.

She had taken that quiet politeness as a sign of weakness.
The strength of the hand compelling her into his carriage told a different
story.

“This is not necessary, my lord,” she protested.

“It is entirely necessary for my peace of mind, Cassandra.
Now, get in or I will carry you in.”

She was well acquainted with harsh commands. Her father and
brother had often spoken to her in just such tones. The difference was that
they never carried through on their threats. She feared the Earl of Merrick
would not be as lenient. She climbed into the carriage.

Once inside, she oohed in delight at all the modern
conveniences revealed by the lamplight. The velvet squabs, cushioned by
springs, sank as she sat down. Behind the matching curtains, clear glass
allowed her to gaze out upon the street. Beside each seat a vase held a single
carnation, and she lifted one and tucked it into her hair. She reached up and
found the lamp-wick knob and dimmed the light, then turned it up brighter.

Merrick sat with arms crossed in the seat beside her,
watching her with amusement.

“You should have let me find a hackney, Merrick. Catherine
will not speak to you for a week. I’m scarcely worth the trouble.”

He gave her a starched look. “A hackney? In the middle of
the night? Have you completely lost your wits?”

“Oh, no.” She turned a smile on him again. “I do it all the
time. My only problem tonight was that I had no coin to pay the fare. It’s
devilishly difficult to carry coins in a ball gown, particularly one as daring
as this. Any extra weight and... whoop!” She made a laughing gesture to
indicate the effect on her daring décolletage.

Merrick rolled his eyes heavenward and made a muffled noise
of assent.

Cassandra surveyed his pained expression. “I should not have
said that. Duncan said you were a high stickler, but I didn’t imagine he meant
humorless. Forgive me, I’ll not offend your sensibilities again. It was most
kind of you to see me home.”

She settled back against the velvet cushions with dignity,
primly crossing her hands on her lap and fixing her gaze on the empty seat. The
carnation slipped from her hair and slid down her cheek.

Wyatt rescued it. “I am not entirely humorless, but someone
needs to teach you proper behavior with gentlemen with whom you are scarcely
acquainted.” He laid the carnation over her hands.

“Fustian. I daresay I know you as well as Catherine does.
You just won’t admit that someone you think is a mere child can know anything.
You’ve grown toplofty, Merrick, puffed up with your own consequence. I can mind
my manners when I choose. I just didn’t think it necessary between neighbors.”

The carriage halted before the narrow Georgian town house of
the Marquess of Eddings. It was in a less fashionable district on the wrong
side of St. James’s, and many of its neighbors had been converted to flats.

“We have scarcely been neighbors for a number of years, Lady
Cassandra, and you were much too young to know me even then. Duncan and I are
barely on speaking terms, but if I find you taking off on your own again, I
will be forced to report your behavior to him. Now, come, it’s time you went
inside.” He stepped down from the carriage and held out a hand to her.

Arching her wrist to rest her hand upon his, lifting her
chin, sweeping up her skirts and pelisse, Cassandra descended with all the
grace and dignity she could summon. She cast him a scathing glance as he
offered his arm to see her inside.

“You had better return to Roxbury’s with all due haste, my
lord, or your fiancée will teach you the truth of her name. I bid you farewell.”
Without waiting for any servant to open the door, she threw it open and marched
in, slamming it shut in his face.

Cass considered the earl’s assistance well paid with her
warning. Lady Cat hid claws inside her velvet gloves.

The thick stench of cigars and the smoking table lamp did
not irritate Cassandra’s nose so much as the sharp odor of spirits as her
brother poured another glass of port. She forced the frown from her face as she
bent over Duncan’s shoulder to better examine his hand of cards. The numbers
were a blur to her in this light, but she had learned the placement of the
symbols at an early age. He was losing, and this hand would not turn the odds.

She scratched a warning against his coat, but he ignored
her, as he was increasingly wont to do these days. He had some illusion that
his recklessness served him better than her cheating. She shrugged and wandered
to the curtain partitioning his alcove from the main room of the gambling hell.

She was no stranger to these rooms. Early on her father had
conceived the notion that she was his good-luck charm. It had only been the
card tables at home at first, but as the marquess’s luck away from home had
dwindled, he had insisted on bringing her along to his more important games. In
time, that had become every game he played.

Realizing that her father’s fortunes at the table determined
the mood of the entire household, Cassandra had efficiently learned the ways to
ensure a happy outcome.

She had not considered what she did cheating so much as love
and filial duty. If her father won, her mother didn’t cry. After a while, she
also realized that if her father won, the servants didn’t quit, she might have
meat instead of cheese for dinner, and the bottle of port in the cabinet didn’t
dwindle as fast, all excellent reasons to develop her talents.

Now that she was eighteen and more aware of society’s
strictures, she knew what she was doing was wrong. The quick glance at another
player’s hand, the warning signal indicating the wrong card to be played, the
sudden smile to tip off a right card, all the innocuous strategies she had
learned over the years would be considered cheating in the eyes of men like the
Earl of Merrick. When her father had died last year, she had thought they’d
ended. Duncan had disabused her of the notion.

Not wishing to entertain dismal thoughts of her brother’s
selfish pursuits, Cassandra contemplated the room outside the alcove. Most of
the men were familiar to her, though few were of the class of gentlemen.
Occasionally a band of young swells would invade, or a lone gambler bent on
destruction like her brother, but this particular den of iniquity had an
unsavory reputation.

She generally moved with impunity through these hells,
protected by her father’s rank and reputation and a certain camaraderie of
acquaintance. Lately she had become less sure of herself. Gamblers were always
inclined to testiness when losing or overt jocularity when winning, but their
treatment of her had changed of late. Whereas before they might have tweaked
her hair or cuffed her ear, now they tended to pull her onto their laps or give
her sloppy kisses or worse. She laughed it off as she always had, but she no
longer laughed inside. Had she given herself time to think of it, she would
have been afraid.

Her attention caught on the appearance of a tall man at the
door. The way he walked seemed familiar, although his beaver hat and long cloak
disguised him from this distance. He wielded the walking stick in his hand more
like a weapon than an ornament, and he wended his way through the smoky, stale
fog with less than assurance. His stiff reaction to someone’s jostling brought
sudden recognition, and Cassandra smiled. Here was entertainment for the
evening, indeed.

Duncan scarcely noticed as she slipped through the curtains
into the room beyond. The emerald velvet of the gown she wore tonight was less
daring than her primrose ball gown, but in these surroundings it caused heads to
turn. Any hand daring to reach for her met with her iciest stare.

Fortunately, none were daring this night. A prizefight
outside the city had drawn the crowds away, leaving only the most inveterate
card and dice players at the tables. Even so, Cassandra could hear the comments
on the fight and its potential outcome from every corner of the room. These
were diehard gamblers willing to bet on every activity in the country,
including the date of their grandmother’s death if necessary.

She lifted a hand to one of Duncan’s friends calling to her
for advice as to which way to place his bet. She rotated her wrist in a gesture
of a wheel to indicate her preference for “Millstone” Wright. A hoot of
disbelief rose from onlookers who favored his opponent, but a number of wagers
were hastily laid on the basis of the lady’s suggestion.

The odds went up against Millstone’s opponent. Cassandra
smiled and looked toward the fat man tending the ale keg. He made an approving
gesture with thumb and forefinger. The wager Duncan had made earlier just went
up another point in his favor. He had assured her Millstone was a certain
loser.

Without any seeming effort on her part, she floated to a
halt just behind the out-of-place gentleman in top hat and cloak. “Looking for
someone, my lord?” she whispered suggestively.

Lord Merrick swung around and lift an eyebrow in disbelief. “Cassandra?
What the d...” He stopped and rephrased. “What are you doing here?”

“I think the question is more of your presence than mine, my
lord. As you can see, you’re the stranger here, not I.” She lifted another hand
in greeting at a salute from the nearest table.

Apparently horrified at finding her rubbing shoulders with
the rakes and scoundrels of this dismal gambling hell, where no lady was wont
to go, Merrick stumbled over a reply. “I’m looking for the younger brother of a
friend of mine. I had promised to look out for him this evening, but the young
devil... lad slipped away. You wouldn’t happen to know Bertie’s youngest
brother, Thomas, would you? I should think he was just about your age.”

He looked uncomfortable, Cassandra observed with amusement.
He had finally remembered to remove his hat in her presence, and he kept
darting scandalized glances at the men accosting her with overfamiliarity. He
rigidly kept his own gaze from falling lower than her face, which made her very
aware of her new, more mature figure. None of the men she was familiar with
made her pleasantly aware that she was a woman, but this courtly gentleman did.
She tried a provocative smile and was gratified to notice he colored but didn’t
look away.

“I don’t know any young gentlemen my age, my lord. They can
scarcely be expected to occupy places such as this, can they? But if he’s here,
I daresay I know where to find him. Come with me.”

Delighted at being able to show off her superior knowledge,
Cassandra led him to a corner not easily observed from the door. A round table
of rickety construction held a foursome of players. Drink rings stained the
cheap wood. The players took little notice of their moist mugs, although they
were promptly refilled by a slatternly barmaid as soon as they were emptied.

“I don’t suppose the young blond fellow with his back to us
would be the one you seek?”

Distracted from his observance of creamy round breasts
barely disguised beneath a high-waisted bodice, Merrick had to force his gaze
to where she pointed.

He didn’t have to look closely to identify the youngest
Scheffing. All the males of the family were built like young bulls. It was a
pity their dispositions weren’t more like the animals they resembled.
Suspicion, stubbornness, and anger would serve them better in this city than
their amiable and generous natures.