Patricia Rice (36 page)

He couldn’t reach her in time. He glared accusingly at the American;
then, too weak to stand, he lowered himself to one knee beside Cassandra’s
fallen brother. As he feared, Cassandra vanished. Silently, he cried futile
protests.
Not now
! Not when he couldn’t
go after her.

Bertie tore off Merrick’s coat while the American tended
Duncan. Wyatt tried to concentrate on what needed to be done, but in his head, he
could see only Cassandra’s shock. A sticky warmth ran down his side, and even
the pain couldn’t distract him. It hurt like all the hinges of hell, but
Cassandra was gone. Somehow, he had to go after her. He tried to struggle to
his feet, but Bertie pressed him down.

“I have a ship that can carry you out of here tonight,” the
American was telling Duncan. “You’ll live, but I’ll not recommend remaining
here until the hue and cry of the cad’s death blows over. If word of your
cowardice gets out, you’ll be cut from society. Here, hold this cloth in place
while I open the brandy.”

Groggy from pain, held down by strong hands, Merrick heard
this offer in amazement. The older man calmly bent to give Duncan a swig from
his flask, before applying the strong spirits to Duncan’s thigh beneath his
torn breeches.

Rupert’s gun must have misfired to shoot Duncan so low,
particularly with his unexpected fall. The more amazing thing was that the
American now meant to pin Rupert’s death on Duncan, who had done no more than wing
his opponent.

Duncan, too, seemed to find this grossly unfair. “Wait a
minute! I ain’t going nowhere! You killed him. My sister’s a widow now. She’ll
need me. Bigad, you killed him in cold blood! You’ll be the one going to
Newgate.”

“I don’t think so. I merely acted to prevent murder. Lord
Merrick, I apologize for being a little slow on the draw. Age has a habit of
slowing the reflexes,” the American said. “On the other hand, Lord Eddings, you
behaved with despicable dishonor. Even if the law does not come after you, you
are certain to be held in contempt. I recommend a long journey for many years
to come.”

“With Rupert’s wealth in my hands, I can withstand contempt.”
Duncan winced and uttered a groan as the brandy soaked his wound.

From out of the darkness Jacob appeared bearing a lantern
and accompanying a portly gentleman with a familiar physician’s satchel. The
cloaked figure behind him blended into the shadows and scarcely drew notice.

“You’ll not get a bloody shilling out of the bastard unless
you’ve got his signature on a piece of paper,” Jacob announced. “The whole lot
goes to his wife. I already made certain of that.”

Duncan didn’t bother to look at the lanky valet. “Cass won’t
know how to handle it. As her only male relative, I’ll be appointed trustee, so
don’t set your bloody sights too high, lackey.”

The American surrendered his place to the physician. Gazing
down at the haughty marquess, he replied with contempt, “As her father, I
rather think I’ll object to that.”

Jacob’s reply covered the hasty intake of breath behind him.
“That ain’t to the point. Lady Cass ain’t his widow. My sister is. They were
wedded when she was but ten-and-six, and she’s got the lines and the child to
prove it.”

With a bellow of rage, Merrick shook off his caretakers and
lurched toward Jacob, his fist balled in a deadly knot. “You bastard! You let
Cass go through hell and didn’t tell her...”

His side ripped in half as he swung, and Jacob easily dodged
the blow, catching him by the arm to keep him from falling and handing him
gently back to Bertie and Thomas.

“Wasn’t anything I could do about it, my lord. I didn’t know
the lady until she was wedded. And afterward, there weren’t no sense in saying
anything. She was determined not to marry you, to keep her brother from picking
you clean. I’d only cause her more trouble by saying the marriage wasn’t
legal-like. My sister and her boy were living in the streets when I came home
from the war. There wasn’t no one else but me to see to their welfare. I did it
the best I could. I had those pistols ready, thinking to use them the first
opportunity. The mark would have gone wide had Lord Eddings not turned and
slipped when he did. I would have called him out myself, but who would take
notice of a batman? I’ll make it up to the lady in any way I can.”

Jacob turned to apologize to Cassandra, but the cloaked
figure in the shadows had already disappeared.

Catching sight of the cloak’s movement, Wyatt staggered
toward the path she must have taken, but the American halted him.

“Let me go after her. If I am any judge, you have caused her
enough pain as it is.”

Merrick clamped his hand to his side and grimaced. “You don’t
know the half of it, sir. She’s carrying my child. I’ll have her back if I must
turn the world sideways, but right now, I’d just see her safe. She’s not well,
and traveling isn’t good for her.”

Wyandott’s wide jaw set in a fierce frown. “You’ll pay for
this. You damned aristocrats...” He cursed and hastened down the path Cassandra
had taken.

Swaying on his feet, Merrick watched him go. He had lost
her. His mind told him that, but his heart just wouldn’t believe.

Wesley Wyandott concealed his concern as he gazed upon the
drooping figure of his youngest daughter on the carriage seat across from him.
She had come without protest when he had caught up with her, but he was
beginning to suspect that her lack of speech now was unnatural. The fiery
creature who had earlier turned a room full of experienced men into chaos,
challenged her husband to a duel, and chastised her lover in no uncertain terms
could not be the same person as this weary creature.

He studied the unhealthy pallor of her cheeks and remembered
Merrick’s words. Mentally he calculated the years since he had been here last,
deciding she could be no more than nineteen, wondering that a girl of that age
could behave as she had in these last hours.

He knew the British considered his homeland less than
civilized, but even in the States his other daughters retired to dim salons and
couches and were treated as delicate porcelain after they announced they were
expecting. And his other daughters were well into their twenties and thirties
and long married with husbands and servants to wait on them.

How on earth had it come about that his youngest and
frailest daughter, the one brought up in the lap of the oldest aristocracy in
civilization, could be pregnant and unmarried and garbed in outlandish
stockings and little more while entertaining a table of all-male card players?

It staggered the mind, but comparing her sunset hair,
flashing eyes, and fiery temper to his memory of his younger self, Wyandott had
to reflect that she came by it naturally. She should have been a male, but he
had to admit he was glad she was not.

“You will make Lord Merrick a good wife,” her father announced.

Long gilt-edged lashes lifted, but the murky color beneath
revealed none of the flash and fire of earlier. The lashes returned to ivory
cheeks again, and the carriage fell into silence once more, except for the
jerking creak of ropes and leather.

“The wound was not deep. He will be fine in a few weeks. I
don’t know how things are done over here, but I should think a quiet wedding in
the country would be suitable.”

This time, the lashes didn’t even lift. Wyandott had the
urge to shake her, but reasoning that the travel made her ill, as Merrick
claimed, he kept his tongue. There would be time enough in the future to learn
more of this daughter he had never known he had.

The next few weeks proved him wrong. Merrick’s driver
returned them to the estate in Sussex, but even their ecstatic reception by
Cassandra’s mother did not return the life to Cass’s eyes.

Scarcely acknowledging this reunion of lovers torn apart
long ago, Cassandra drifted up the stairs to the bedchamber she had once shared
with Merrick.

She continued to drift, unsmiling, through the days that
followed. Questions met with silence. Angry pleas met with the turning of a
cold shoulder. Only simple requests elicited any response, and that was only by
silent action.

Elizabeth’s nails bit into her palms as she watched this
pale ghost of her daughter through the front window. Cassandra had taken to
daily walks along the coast, staring for hours at the sea, and Elizabeth could
not help but consider this a dangerous sign. Desperately she turned to the man also
staring at the waif on the cliffs.

“You must
do
something, Wesley. Write to Merrick. Tell him he must come. He will marry her,
won’t he? He hasn’t set her aside?”

“Of course he hasn’t. If I am any judge, he will do his
duty. He’s aware of his obligations. I daresay the scandal of the duel is
enormous, and he must deal with that. I shouldn’t think he would be able to
travel for a while, either. I’ll write and see how he fares.”

Even to himself this sounded like cold reassurance. Words
like “duty” and “obligation” were not ones a nineteen-year-old girl would care
to hear. But Merrick was older, a man of the world. He had not taken a
well-bred young lady to bed without expecting to pay the price. Except, at the
time, he had thought her married.

That was no excuse. Wyandott fired off a letter that
afternoon, demanding to know Merrick’s intentions. He also included a brief
description of Cassandra’s withdrawal to spur her lover along.

The creamy vellum with the earl’s frank appeared in the next
post, addressed to Cassandra. She took the folded missive from her father’s
hand and drifted up the stairs with it. She held it a while longer as she
stared at the spiky writing on the outside as if she could hear the contents
without seeing the words. Then ever so gently she laid the thick package in the
center of her small writing desk, then left it unopened.

A second letter arrived a week later. When Cassandra
returned from taking it upstairs and once more headed for her silent walk along
the coast, her father took the liberty of invading her empty chamber. There, in
quiet companionship with the first, lay the second letter, still unopened.

He swore. He cursed. He contemplated ripping both letters
open to scan the contents, but just the idea of tearing into those perfectly
arranged elegant packages seemed to shatter the brittle silence of the darkened
room.

Out on the cliff, Cassandra found her favorite perch
overlooking the ocean’s hypnotic undulations. The sea gulls’ cries seemed
piercingly lonely, and she felt content in their company. The wind lifted her
hair from her face, since she made no attempt to conceal it with bonnet or hat.
Freckles had begun to frame the bridge of her nose, but she had little concern
for her appearance.

The weather was growing cooler now. She supposed it must be
mid-September. As she often did when she considered the lateness of the season,
she raised her hand to the curving plane of her abdomen. She felt nothing
there, no sign of the life within, and she removed her hand, disappointed.
There ought to be something, some signal to indicate the truth. What if Wyatt
were wrong? What if she did not carry his child?

She didn’t know whether she would be relieved or not. She
didn’t know if Wyatt would be relieved or not.

So she sat there waiting for some sign from beyond to tell
her what to do.

~*~

“Dashitall! I cannot lie here a moment longer.” Merrick
threw the sheaf of papers in his hands to the floor as the physician examined
his side and shook his head. He winced as probing fingers found the infection, shooting
fiery spirals of pain through his chest.

“If you do not lie here a week longer until the inflammation
goes away, you will be lying forever in a cold grave,” the young physician
informed him sternly.

“By Jove, man, if you only knew...” Merrick leaned back
against the pillows piled at the head of his bed, closed his eyes, and groaned.
The pain in his side was as nothing to the pain of the words on those pages
cluttering the floor. The blasted American was threatening to take Cassandra
away. What in hell was the matter with her? Why didn’t she answer his letters?

He knew the answer to that. With Cassandra, words were
useless. Only actions counted. And he was laid up here in bed with a damned
physician telling him it would be a week or more before he could even rise from
the mattress. He gritted his teeth and cursed a particularly vivid phrase.

“I haven’t heard that one before.” The physician finished
taping the fresh bandage in place, despite the invective blaspheming the
ancestry of all physicians and dogs. “A man as inventive as you should be able
to write a book of curses in a week. It will keep you occupied.”

“I’d be better occupied tarring and feathering the drunken
sot who leeched me and left me to fester like a two-week-old pox. I’ll carve
his eyeballs out of his head so he can never mistreat some other poor
unfortunate again.”

The doctor, who had heard all this before, began to pack his
bag. “You would do better to use your influence to improve licensing laws.
Write letters to your peers describing the quacks allowed to roam the streets
under the questionable title of doctor. Medicine is a science. It is time
society recognized it as such.”

Merrick growled something incomprehensible. The sound of
footsteps pounding up the stairs caught his attention, however, and he waited
impatiently for the door to open. At the sight of Bertie’s fair head, he
grimaced with relief and began to maneuver himself from the bed.

“It’s about time you got here, bigawd!” Merrick shouted. “This
devil has threatened the servants into disobedience, Jacob’s deserted me, and I’m
too damned helpless to find a shirt. Find me some clothes, Bertie. I have to
get out of here.”

Thomas followed his brother in and the brothers turned to
the young physician they had brought to the house a week ago. They awaited his
reply with a respect bordering on religious fervor.