Patricia Rice (37 page)

“If that wound opens again, the inflammation will flare up
all over, and he is too weak to fight it any longer. Just the act of going down
the stairs could kill him until the infection is gone.” The physician jerked on
his gloves, picked up his bag, and gave a curt nod to the Scheffings. Without a
further reprimand to the fuming earl, he strode out.

“Devil take it, Bertie, I might as well be dead as to lie
here and let Cass get away! Help me, damn you. I have to find out why she doesn’t
answer my letters.” Wyatt struggled to tip himself out of bed without moving
the muscles over his ribs. He had no grand desire to reopen the wound and be
set back another two weeks or end up in a grave, but he could not bear to do
nothing.

Bertie sent his younger brother a look, and they converged
as one upon the bed, pushing the protesting earl back to the pillows and
holding him there.

“You’re a damned fine fellow and all that, Merrick, but you
ain’t worth a shilling to no one in your casket. Now, what’s this about Cass?
Why ain’t she here, anyway? What happened to that fellow who went after her?
Claimed he was her father, didn’t he? ’Fess up, old boy, and we’ll do your
walking for you.”

Wyatt groaned and leaned against the pillows. He couldn’t
claim illness to avoid these questions any longer, not if he wanted to get up.
But he’d be damned if he could answer any of them coherently.

“She’s in Sussex with her mother.” He thought rapidly,
trying to remember the scraps of identity thrown around that fateful night and
to arrange them in some respectable lie.

“Wyandott’s an old friend of her father’s. He thought it
better to get her away after what she went through that night.” He wanted to
mention the child, his fears for Cassandra’s health, but he realized he had no
right to. “I’ve not told her I’ve been ill. I didn’t want her to worry, what
with Duncan and all...” He allowed his voice to trail off vaguely.

The Scheffing brothers nodded understanding. Under the
direction of the American, Duncan had been bandaged up and hauled off
protesting to a ship waiting in the Thames. His health and whereabouts wouldn’t
be known for months. That was more than enough for a gentle female to worry
over. The fact that Merrick had been injured and Rupert killed would be
sufficient to send any lady to her bed.

“She’ll be right as rain soon enough. You ain’t got to worry
over Cass. Her name ain’t even been mentioned at the club, so you don’t need to
fret yourself over that either. Didn’t nothing get out that we didn’t want to.”

Bertie settled comfortably in a wing chair beside the bed
and propped his new Hessians against the bedcovers. “That valet or batman or
whatever he is of yours did a bang-up job of explaining the dust-up. Somehow,
everybody’s thinking Duncan challenged Rupert over wedding his sister without
getting shed of his first wife. Your reputation stands you in good stead. You
come out the hero for chasing Rupert off the continent and marrying Cassandra
posthaste, without a word of the merry dance she led you. So you ain’t got
nothing to do but lie there and rest and get better.”

And worry if his child would ever have a name or if it would
be born across an ocean or if he would ever see her again, Wyatt amended
gloomily. His boredom with the dull routine of his life had led him to seek a
little magic, but the damned enchantress was too unpredictable to know whether
he had become toad or prince.

Before Bertie could sneak out thinking he was asleep, Wyatt
spoke aloud. “Go get her, Bertie. Take her back to Merrick. I don’t care how
you do it, but pry her away from that damned arrogant American and bring her
back where she belongs.”

Scheffing looked startled, then amused by this flight of
fancy in his practical friend. Thinking the fever was returning, he agreed
wholeheartedly. “Of course, old boy. Didn’t that Jacob of yours mention wedding
his Lotta? We’ll all go down and see the happy couple joined. It would be
better could you wait to travel with us, but we’ll tell you all about it later.”

Wyatt nodded in uneasy relief. He trusted Bertie. He wished
to hell he could trust Cass. The image of her laughing eyes, sunset hair, and
lithe figure taunted his senses, but the cloaked shadow in men’s tights haunted
his thoughts. Witch or woman? Would he ever know?

~*~

Cassandra didn’t have time to run and hide when Bertie and
company exploded into her secluded life. She was in the foyer, garbed for her
walk, when the knock came. Before she could flee, Lotta raced in to grab her
hands, Jacob towered over her dressed to the nines in a gentleman’s coat and
trousers, and Bertie and Thomas were beaming and making polite noises to her
parents.

Her parents. It seemed a very odd notion, but as Cassandra
watched the two of them while Lotta chattered, she could see that her mother
and the American were very much a pair, even after all these years. From scraps
of conversation, she knew Wyandott was a widower now, and her mother’s cheeks
held the first flush of color she had seen in them in years. Each day her
mother was up and about more, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the
American’s affectionate badgering had much to do with it.

As she watched them now, Cassandra felt a painful ache. Merrick
had been by turns tender and withdrawn. His cold authority could wither the
flowers in a bouquet, and she knew that part of him was more natural to the
life he had lived before she entered it.

The gentle man who loved music and touched her with both
passion and reverence was a late arrival and could disappear with a brush of
wind. Perhaps he had already disappeared. The events of these last weeks were
more than enough to drive any rational man into flight. But still she longed
for the same love her father expressed to her mother as they whispered between
them. She grew jealous of the unspoken words in their gazes when they looked
upon each other.

Unwilling to watch, she pulled on her gloves and continued
out the door as if guests hadn’t arrived. Lotta and Jacob exchanged looks. Still
dressed in their traveling clothes, they hurried out after her. Bertie and
Thomas did the same.

“And we’re to be married in the church with flowers and
everything,” Lotta chattered as if their conversation hadn’t been abruptly aborted
by Cass’s departure. “We don’t know where we’ll be staying as yet. There’s so
many lawyers and solicitors and all and Jacob’s sister is still in shock and
can’t decide nothing for herself, so we’ll wait to see what happens. But, Cass,
you’ve got to promise to stand up with me or I’ll be scared to death up there
in front of a whole church. I ain’t been inside a church...” She took a deep
breath and tried to remember when.

Thomas took advantage of the pause to add his eager
messages. “And Christa’s had her baby! She and Cunningham are acting perfect
asses, as if theirs was the first heir ever born, but Christa insists you and
Merrick must grace the christening. She says the place is much too dull without
another woman to talk to, and she’s waiting impatiently for your return.
Actually, she just wants to show off the squalling brat, but he is handsome in
his own way. You will return with us, won’t you, Cass? Merrick said you might.”

The energy swirling around her buffeted all her senses,
jerking her this way and that. Caught up in the excitement of their plans,
carried away on their eager friendliness, Cassandra was instantly jarred to the
ground by the sound of Merrick’s name. She stared into four happy, familiar
faces awaiting her answer, and before the clouds of despair had time to descend
again, she heard herself inexplicably saying, “Of course.”

“And Lord Merrick said we might stay in the cottage until
we decide where to go. Just like gentry, imagine that, Cass! I can’t believe it
myself. I keep pinching myself, waiting to wake up.”

That effectively closed the option of returning to the
cottage, Cassandra decided as the carriage lumbered closer to Kent. She
wondered if Wyatt had intentionally created this obstacle or if he had just
magnanimously offered the little cottage to Lotta and Jacob out of some
misplaced gratitude for their interference.

She couldn’t intrude her presence on the happy couple. They
would feel as if they had to serve her as before. Now her only choices were the
ruins at Eddings and Merrick’s home. And without Lotta and Jacob, she couldn’t
face those haunting ruins.

“Well, I’ve quite decided your father had to be one of the
Scheffings, so you
are
gentry, Lotta.
Just stick your nose in the air with the best of them and no one will know the
difference.”

Alighting from Wyatt’s carriage in front of the sprawling
Merrick mansion for all the world as if she were the reigning countess,
Cassandra swept up the stairs on Bertie’s arm, greeted the smiling butler with
charm, and encountered Lady Merrick in the front hall.

“Where is Wyatt?” Lady Merrick looked startled that her son
hadn’t stepped out of the carriage and strained to see around them.

“You don’t know?” Cassandra asked in surprise.

Bertie hastily intruded. “There’s still business in London
for him to see to. There’s solicitors crawling up the walls, what with Eddings’
hasty departure and this business with Jacob’s sister and all. You know how he
is, a finger in every pie. He promises to be back soon enough.”

“I should certainly hope so. MacGregor is entirely out of
line. It is time he is brought down a peg or two. I shall write and tell Wyatt
he must be home at once.” The dowager scarcely gave Cassandra a second glance
as she started to retreat.

Cassandra had once determined that Merrick’s mother must be
conquered if she were ever to win his affections. Now was her opportunity. In
dulcet tones, she sent her challenge zinging after the dowager’s broad back. “You
may also write and tell him his wife requests fabric samples for the draperies
in the second salon. Those abominations are coming down.”

The air should have exploded with the tensions colliding in the
hall as Lady Merrick swung to confront her. Cassandra was certain lightning
would strike for naming herself what she was not. She waited for the storm to
break, but the dowager merely glared and said, “Tell him yourself.”

She was needed here. Cassandra grinned and kissed a frozen
Bertie’s cheek. “It’s good to be home again.”

Perhaps a challenge had been what the doctor ordered.

~*~

“Open the draperies, James,” Cassandra said as she held a
measuring stick to the far wall and guessed at the measurements.

“Close the draperies, James,” Lady Merrick commanded as she
swept into the room a moment later.

The harassed footman pulled the rod back toward the center
of the window.

Cassandra looked up in annoyance. “Madam, I require the
light to work. If you won’t do this, then I needs must. Has MacGregor come in
yet? I need to talk with him about my fields.”

Lady Merrick gestured for the draperies to be opened again.
The footman sighed and pulled the heavy brocade open, spilling in the
late-morning sunlight.

“Indeed, you ought to speak with MacGregor. He and those
feebleminded field hands of yours have taken it into their heads to practice
some kind of experimental harvesting. You will no doubt lose half your crop, or
what those men don’t steal. Someone must keep watch over them every minute.”

“Well, I cannot be in two places at one time. If you will
not order these draperies replaced, I must. And that means the entire room must
be refurbished. Just look at the discoloration where that painting has been
removed.”

Lady Merrick glared at the bright square on the wall, then
back at Cass balancing precariously on a chair arm to reach the top of the
window. “Order the servants to do it. That’s what they’re here for. I’ll have
the carriage brought around, and I’ll show you what I mean about those fields.”

Cassandra nearly toppled from her perch. She turned and
stared at the dowager and found the footman staring too. Such condescension
from the haughty woman was unheard of. Hastily, she scrambled down and handed
her pad to the startled James. “Here, find someone to help you. Mrs. Marlow
might be able to write the dimensions if you’ll measure.”

Lady Merrick nodded imperiously and sailed off to seek her
bonnet. Catching her breath, Cassandra hurried to do the same. A fluttering in
her stomach bespoke her nervousness, but she ignored it. Winning Wyatt’s mother
would be half the battle. He couldn’t put her out if his mother approved her as
his wife.

Later that night, after spending a day of inspecting the
crops and arguing over the best methods of handling them, Cassandra retired to
the lovely ivory-and-green room that Wyatt had assigned to her. She cast a
longing gaze to the connecting door to Wyatt’s chamber after her maid left her
alone.

It had been weeks since they shared a bed. They had not been
apart that long all summer. Would she ever be allowed to enter that chamber
again, or had he finally realized how thoroughly unsuitable she was to be his
countess?

Misery welled up in her, overwhelming her as it had those
first weeks since the duel. She should never have run away. She should have
stayed by Wyatt’s side, nursed him to health, helped him deal with Duncan and
Jacob and Rupert’s estate and all. She had only herself to blame that he had
developed a disgust of her and refused ever to see her again.

She didn’t know why she had run away. It had all happened so
quickly, so horrifyingly. And then her father had been there, coaxing her to
leave.
Her father.

The feelings of helplessness were terrifyingly new. There
had been times in the past when she wished Duncan dead, but when she had seen
him fall, it had been much, much worse than she had thought possible. To have
it followed by Wyatt’s cry of pain... She shuddered, refusing to think of that
terrible anguish.