Patricia Rice (4 page)

Her brother kept very little in the way of servants, and
those few were in all probability sleeping off drunken stupors in the distant
basement. She was quite effectively alone in this trap laid for her. She
struggled and tried to use her knee as she’d learned to do, but the gown’s
fabric was trapped by his tight hold.

Just as Rupert crudely seized her breast, the door crashed
open.

Far from appearing the gallant white knight, Merrick gazed
upon her with disgust as he discovered her wrapped in Rupert’s arms. She was
nearly of a height with the baronet, and her hand in Rupert’s hair must have
the appearance of a lover’s caress in his eyes. Trapped by a strong arm,
Cassandra strained to escape, but the resulting position pulled her velvet gown
taut over her breasts. Realizing how she must appear, she struggled to right
herself, but Rupert brazenly kept his fist closed over her breast.

As Thomas tumbled in, Merrick pulled himself erect, offered a
look of disdain, and growled, “Let us go, Thomas. I fear we are intruding.”

Cassandra’s furious cry brought him to a halt.

“Damn you, Wyatt, help me!” Cassandra dug her nails deeper
into Rupert’s neck in an attempt to pry loose from his embrace.

Merrick’s expression immediately transformed to dangerous. “I
believe the lady protests your embrace, Rupert. I would recommend releasing
her.”

The baronet’s breath reeked of spirits as he deliberately
manipulated Cassandra’s breast. “She’s promised to me. She can protest all she
wants, but I have her brother’s permission to make her mine. She just needs a
little taming, that’s all.”

Cassandra ripped at Rupert’s hair, yanking his head closer
until she could grab his nose between her teeth. She bit hard until he yelled
and practically dropped her.

Merrick caught her before she fell, and she grasped his
waistcoat and shuddered against his chest as the baronet wailed and searched
for a handkerchief.

~*~

One of them was trembling like a leaf, and Wyatt wasn’t at
all certain that it wasn’t himself. Irrational rage washed over him for the
first time since childhood. He hadn’t been this furious in years, but this was
none of his affair. He had no right to interfere—as much as he desired to plant
a facer in the middle of the rake’s already injured nose.

He’d wanted to laugh aloud at Cass’s means of retaliation,
but her trembling warned she was more terrified than she’d appeared. He couldn’t
release her to strike even if he wished to do so.

“Thomas, would you show the gentleman out?” Merrick asked
coldly. The baronet could very well be in the right of it. Cassandra needed a
strong hand taken to her, but a fist wasn’t what he had in mind.

Rupert was in no state to offer a fight against the brute
strength of the younger Scheffing. He left reluctantly under escort. Young
Thomas followed him out and closed the door after him.

Left alone in the darkened hall, Merrick instantly set the
lady in his arms at a proper distance, although he continued to steady her
until she wiped at her eye and offered a wavery smile.

“I apologize for cursing you, my lord. My brother’s
practical jokes sometimes fail to strike me with their humor.”

She was lying, he was certain, but he pressed the topic. “Then
you are not betrothed to him? I should think your brother would have to call
him out for such behavior.”

Cassandra took a deep breath and smiled a little brighter. “Oh,
yes, well, I suppose I am promised to him for now, but in a week or so he will
grow tired of my sharp tongue and Duncan will pay him back his markers and he
will be gone like all the others. Sometimes it’s an amusing game and most of
the gentlemen play it properly. I fear Sir Rupert really believed it when
Duncan said he would sell me to him. Would you like to buy me next, my lord? I’m
certain after tonight he could use a little extra cash. Just don’t expect to
get it all back when I bite your nose.”

She laughed, a brittle laugh that did not sound as if it
belonged to one so young. Well acquainted with the drunken madness of the
Howard family, Merrick couldn’t separate truth from lie. Every word she said
could be true, but whether it was a game, indeed, or a cruel farce instead, he
couldn’t say. Cassandra had proved herself every bit as much a liar as the rest
of the family.

“You would have some difficulty reaching my nose to bite it,
my lady,” he responded gravely. “If you are alone here, perhaps I ought to take
you to stay with young Thomas’ parents. You are less likely to be the victim of
practical jokes there.”

Cassandra clasped her arms over her bosom, and met his gaze
with a deceptive smile. “How very thoughtful of you, sir, but I assure you it
is not necessary. My mother is asleep just up the stairs. I shall lock the door
behind you and go smear jam on my brother’s sheets. It was kind of you to see
me home. I hope I was not too rude.”

Merrick thought perhaps the polite, formal statements she
summoned from some long-ago training were the true lies, but he had lived too
many years by the rules of society. She had formally dismissed him. He sketched
a brief bow.

“Very well, my lady. I must offer you my gratitude for
saving my young friend from his foolishness. If I may, I will call on you and
your mother on the morrow to better express my appreciation and to be certain
you suffered no harm from this evening.”

Cassandra’s smile was growing strained. “Of course, my lord.
Good night.”

She watched anxiously as he closed the door behind him; then
she bolted it thoroughly. She trembled with disgust and the brink of hysteria,
but she would not give in to them. She would not. Someone in the family had to
stand strong.

Raising her chin, she gazed up the stairs to where her
mother lay. She could do it. She could defeat Duncan. It was just a matter of
planning.

“I won’t have it, Duncan, I won’t, I won’t!” Cassandra
slammed the iron poker into the stand so hard the entire heavy ring of
instruments threatened to tilt and fall. For a brief moment she contemplated
taking one of the brutal pieces to her brother’s thick skull.

The Marquess of Eddings sat with one thigh propped on the
edge of his desk and his arms crossed over his chest. He was a powerfully built
man with leg muscles that bulged his tight buff pantaloons and shoulders that
strained at the faultless tailoring of his navy broadcloth coat. A permanent
sneer marked the elegant cut of his aristocratic features, and the puffiness
about his eyes gave evidence of more than one night’s dissipation.

“You have no choice in the matter, dear girl. I can no
longer afford your elegant wardrobe with no return on my investment. Rupert is
willing to overlook your lack of dowry and your nasty choice of family, not to
mention your bad temper. How many of the
ton
are willing to do the same?”

Cassandra drew herself up and shot him a scathing glare. “It
is not my lack of dowry that presents the problem. We have name and title
enough for the worst of them. It is your rakish behavior that brings me to
this. It is your pockets that Rupert will plump if you have your way. I am
willing to help gain the funds we need, but you aren’t willing to listen.”

Duncan laughed. “Don’t fool yourself, little sister. You are
far too clever to believe that. You have the tongue of a shrew and the temper
of a viper. Your behavior at the very few places we are invited has been
inexcusable to an extreme. It won’t take long for word to circulate of your
presence in the city’s most notorious gaming hells, should you try to attach
anyone of respectability. How long do you think it will take for tolerance of
our noble name and title turn to cutting you dead for your wantonness?”

“I am not wanton! You are the libertine, throwing me into
the arms of your disgusting friends. I will not go gambling with you anymore.
You never pay attention to my warnings anyway. Take me to respectable places
and let me find someone decent, if I have become such a burden to your
finances.”

Duncan stood up and started for the door. “You’ll not find
anyone with Rupert’s wealth willing to take you. Sorry, old girl, but the deed
is done. You’ll find he’s not so bad when he sets you up in that elegant house
of his and dresses you in silks and furs. You can look for someone decent after
you give him his heir.”

Cassandra slammed a book after his departing back, but it
merely bounced off the door as it closed. She would not wed that lecherous
fiend. She would not! What could he do if she refused to say the vows?

She didn’t want to think about it. She knew her brother well
enough to realize he would be prepared for that eventuality. Rape, drugs, and
Gretna Green were not beyond him.

It wasn’t that her brother didn’t love her, she told herself
as she started toward her mother’s bedroom. It was that he didn’t know what
love was. Duncan had inherited his disgusting weaknesses from his father along
with the title and the estate and the empty coffers. The Howards had been
drunkards for generations. The only father-son relationship they knew was over
a table and a bottle of wine.

Cassandra didn’t fool herself into thinking she was
untainted. Had she been a male and introduced to her father’s society, she
would undoubtedly have turned out the same way. Her sex and her mother had been
her saving graces. Ladies weren’t supposed to drink, and her mother had warned
her of the dangers of strong spirits. Too bad she had not been more of an
influence on Duncan.

A servant in shabby livery hastened up the stairs before she
had time to enter her mother’s chamber. Cassandra raised her eyebrows at the
man’s appearance after an absence of several days, but his message prevented
questioning.

“There’s two gents below to see you, m’lady.” He tugged his forelock
respectfully, remembering his modicum of training.

“Gentlemen? To see me? Or Lord Eddings?” Any callers at all
were highly unusual. Her mother had been an invalid for years, and her brother’s
friends weren’t of the type apt to make formal calls. Cassandra could safely
say she had no friends. She had never been formally introduced to society, and
her childhood playmates had been left behind in Kent.

“You, m’lady,” the servant insisted.

Curious, Cassandra followed the footman downstairs. Surely
Rupert had not already recovered from his night’s excesses and come with a
friend to claim her. Besides, the footman had said they were gentlemen. Even an
untrained servant was discerning enough to recognize Rupert was no such thing.

When she entered the front salon she was conscious of the
unaired mustiness of the room. The draperies had been drawn against the fading
effects of occasional sunlight, and it was doubtful if they had been aired or
cleaned in decades. She felt her breath catch in embarrassment as she
recognized the two immaculately proper gentlemen on the graying carpet.

“Lord Merrick, Mr. Scheffing, it is a pleasure.” She curtsied,
determined not to appear as shabby in manners as the room was in appearance.
Duncan’s scathing remarks on her behavior still rankled.

“Cass, you needn’t stand on propriety with old friends,” the
elder Scheffing exclaimed, stepping forward to take her hand. “We’ve known you
since you were in leading strings.”

Cassandra threw a look over Bertie’s shoulder to the stern,
proud man behind him. That wasn’t what Merrick had said. She gave the earl’s
unsmiling visage a triumphant look and turned her smile to his friend. “But I
am supposed to be a proper lady now, sir. Won’t you have a seat? Let me open
these draperies so we have some light.”

She glided across the room to tug at the immense height of
ancient brocade. The handful of fabric shattered and engulfed her in a cloud of
dust.

A large, competent hand reached over her shoulder to lift
the heavy material and drape it over a mahogany serpentine bureau that had not
been sold because of a sword gash in its side. Cassandra stepped warily aside
as Merrick lifted another panel and draped it over the lion-clawed chair on the
window’s other side.

“Let there be light.” With a flourish, he produced a gilt
side chair built to accommodate hoops and panniers and gestured for Cassandra
to sit in the gray light produced by the filthy window.

Thoroughly embarrassed but determined not to be, she settled
her pale muslin skirt about her as if it were silk and lifted her hand to
indicate the nearby chairs for her guests. “I recommend these seats, gentlemen.
The wood is sturdy and not so infested with dust as the upholstered ones.”

The sarcasm wasn’t polite, but both gentlemen agreeably
pulled chairs forward to sit before her.

“I am not accustomed to gentlemen callers, my lord, sir.
What does one talk about on such occasions?”

~*~

The brilliant smile was almost painful to see, Merrick
decided as he admired the fire ignited in her hair by the few dismal rays of
sun. The state of this room verified her honesty. His reaction wasn’t one of sympathy
but a decided urge to throttle her brother.

“You know full well why we came, Cass,” Scheffing said. “I
had to offer you my thanks for pulling Thomas out of the briars last night. He’s
new to town and not up to all the rigs. He learned a lesson he’s not apt to
forget anytime soon. He would be here himself to tell you, but he’s still
suffering from a sore head and a stiff set-down from our parent.”

Cassandra’s smile faltered. “I hope he will not hold me in contempt
for the circumstances. Norton is an old friend of my father’s. I fear I know
his tricks well.”

Merrick had not been able to keep the circumstances of their
encounter entirely from Bertie, and he hastened to soothe her fears. “We have
said nothing of it to anyone else. We’re all acquainted with the marquess’s
habits. Thomas is eager to further your acquaintance and will most likely do so
once he is permitted out of the house again. We thought there might be some way
of showing our appreciation.”