Patricia Rice (9 page)

“Do not look so gloomy, Mama. I am quite fine. The cloud of
disgrace will soon pass over after I am wedded.”

Faded eyes that once were blue settled searchingly on her
daughter’s face. “You are happy with the idea, then? You are so very young, but
I thought you wiser than I. Do you know something that I don’t?”

That was an odd tack to take over a daughter’s impending
marriage. Duncan must have been saying reprehensible things behind her back.
Cassandra tried to smile her mother’s doubts away. “Don’t you think he’ll make
a good husband, Mama? I thought you would be pleased. He has asked, hasn’t he?
He said he would.” She tried to hide the note of anxiety in her voice. Surely a
man like Wyatt wouldn’t have second thoughts and turn tail.

“But I thought... He is so much older than you, more
worldly.” Lady Howard lifted her gaze to her aunt’s disapproving expression. “Did
the visit not turn out well? Why are you back so soon? I had hoped... Cassandra
was so set on...”

Cassandra was accustomed to her mother’s unfinished
sentences, but she did not like the sound of these. Perhaps Merrick had not
mentioned the reason for his sudden proposal.

Aunt Matilda was not so silent. She gave Cassandra a
scornful glance. “Your daughter behaved as any Howard would and got herself
sent home in disgrace. I trust the young man has offered for her as he said?
Otherwise, we must find somewhere to send her. She cannot show her face in
London again.”

Cassandra bit back her irritation. Her mother was nearly
white. Had Aunt Matilda no sense at all? “It’s quite all right, Mama. Merrick
will give me his name and there will be no scandal. We really did nothing
wrong. It was an accident. But you know he is the perfect gentleman. He will be
a fine husband and I shall be a proper countess.”

Lady Howard appeared even more faint. “Merrick? Merrick has
offered for you? But you are to marry Rupert anyway?”

“Of course not. Why would I marry Rupert? He has clammy
hands.” Anxiety took a deeper hold, and Cassandra hurriedly asked, “Wyatt has
offered, hasn’t he? He said he would. He’s a gentleman. He must.”

“It is your marriage to Rupert that Duncan has just shown me
in the papers, Cassie. Surely you knew? Even Duncan would not marry you off
without telling you the bridegroom’s name.”

Her mother seemed to be seeking some reassurance Cassandra
could not give her. She stared at the dowager marchioness with incomprehension.
Duncan would not. He could not. Surely Merrick...?

Without another word, Cassandra rose from the bed and
woodenly stalked toward the door. She would take a red-hot poker to Duncan’s
head. She would find a butcher knife and run it through his invisible heart.

She caught him on the way out for the evening. The marquess’s
valet glanced up in surprise and stepped away from the final straightening of
Duncan’s immaculate cravat. The valet discreetly retired from the battleground.

Duncan gathered up his gold-knobbed walking stick and beaver
hat. “Threw you out, did they?” He began to button his last glove.

“Did Merrick offer for me? Did he, Duncan? Don’t lie. I know
he did. He’s a gentleman, a fact you’ll never understand. I know he offered.”

Duncan lifted one dark eyebrow. “Haven’t you outgrown these
childish tantrums yet? Yes, he offered, but he didn’t offer enough. Rupert is
agreeable despite the scandal. He was on his way to obtain a special license
the last I saw of him. He thought an extensive wedding trip might be called for
to let the scandal die down. Very considerate of him, I thought.”

Cassandra picked up the elaborate snuffbox on the table and
launched it at her brother’s dispassionately handsome face. “No! A thousand
times no! Did you hear me, Duncan? No! I’ll not marry that smug bastard! I’ll
run away with Merrick before I’ll let that toad near me. You can’t make me,
Duncan!”

A hairbrush and a deck of cards followed the snuffbox. The
brush sent Duncan’s hat flying, and the cards slithered and slid about his feet
as he stalked her. She heaved a century-old carved night table in his path and
grabbed wildly for a weapon, any weapon at all.

She burned her hands on a lighted oil lamp, but she lifted
its crystal shade and flung it wildly. It smashed into shards on the floor
after bouncing harmlessly off Duncan’s broad chest. The crash had to have been
heard by the entire household, but no one entered to intervene. No one ever
had.

“You’re wasting your energy and mine, Cass. You know very
well I can make you. Now, stop shattering the furniture before you give Mother
a spasm.”

Cassandra went deadly still. Her mother was all she had
left. She lived in dread of the terrible attacks that left the invalid blue and
gasping for air. She had promised time and again to curb her temper, but she
was justified in her fury this time.

“Touch one hair on my head, Duncan, and I will scream the
house down. Aunt Matilda is still here. You’ll never inherit a cent from her if
she knows you beat me.”

“I’m not likely to inherit more than loathing from the
stiff-necked old biddy in any case. I haven’t time to beat you, Cass. I’m
meeting Rupert so I can begin collecting your settlement. I’ll leave you to
him. I daresay he’ll know how to settle your childish tantrums.”

He caught Cassandra’s wrist in his gloved grip as she
reached for his box of pistols. “Merrick isn’t man enough to beat you and bed
you until you’re biddable. Rupert is. I’d suggest you learn to curb your temper
in this next week, Cass. I’ll not come to your rescue if your new husband feels
called upon to make you mind. My sympathies are entirely with him.”

Duncan didn’t attempt to hide the threat in his voice. He
never had. Her father had beat her on more than one occasion, but he’d never
allowed Duncan to touch her. But once the marquess was dead, Duncan had no
barrier to his behavior.

“I won’t, Duncan,” she whispered as the pain of his grip
twisted her arm backward. “You can’t make me marry him. Let me marry Merrick.
Then you will be rid of me.”

“I would have, if he’d offered enough. It would have served
you right to marry such a milk-livered man. But he’s too clutch-fisted to waste
his coins on the likes of you, Cassie. Go order up your bride clothes, little
sister. Saturday is your wedding day.”

Cassandra blanched. Less than a week. She had to find Merrick
and make him elope with her.

As if reading her thoughts, Duncan smiled and released her
hand. “Don’t even think it, Cass. I need only tell Merrick who your real father
is, and he’ll cut you cold. You wouldn’t want our dirty linen aired in public,
would you, now? Or should I say, our mother’s dirty linen?”

He donned his hat, leaving Cassandra staring white-faced and
cold at the portrait of the late marquess over Duncan’s mantel: the devilish
black-haired marquess who had given his name to a changeling red-haired child
like Cassandra.

She shivered and slid into a hunched ball at the bottom of
the closed door. No one could save her but herself, as usual.

Merrick lifted the beautiful hand-blown crystal goblet to
the fire’s light and admired the flash of gold and diamonds created by the
contents. The heady liquor left burning trails along his palate, and he savored
the fire.

He had almost possessed just such a fire of his own. He
could still taste the passionate liquor of Cassandra’s mouth, still feel the
fire of red-gold silk against his palms. One brief moment to last a lifetime.

Sighing, he took another deep draft of the expensive brandy.
He was well on his way to being solidly in his cups, but a man had a right to
an occasional lapse from sobriety. The wedding night of his intended bride was
one of them.

“Never saw a lovelier bride, Wyatt. Never did, old boy. Wasn’t
she splendid?” Bertie asked. “All that shimmery gauze, and hair like fire.
Rupert don’t deserve her. Not our Cass. She’s a wild one, but young. What
happened, Wyatt? How did she get away?”

Wyatt wished Bertie to hell, but then he would be drinking
alone, and he’d sworn he would never drink alone. He lifted the glass for
another sip, but it was empty. Staring at the goblet for a moment, Wyatt shook
his head to clear the fog.

“She wasn’t ours, Bertie. Never was. She’s a Howard. Was a
Howard. Not country folk like us. They’re off to Paris on their wedding trip, I
hear. Would you have thought to take her to Paris? I never would. They were
just fighting battles over there a few months ago. We’re getting old and dull,
my friend. We need to settle down and set up nurseries, not chase the wind. She
was a vision, you say?”

“Aye, a vision. Floated down the aisle. Funny thing, that,”
Bertie mused, as if just discovering it. “She didn’t take Eddings’ arm, just
walked at his side, proud as any princess. Rupert caught a rare one there.
Scarcely fair, practically stealing her from the nursery. What was that talk
about you and her at Hampton Court?”

Merrick ignored these wanderings, chasing after thoughts of
his own. “You think you know women, and then you find you don’t know them at all.
Take Catherine, f’rinstance. Known her all our lives. Like a sister. Not hard
to look at, just a country girl more our style, practically on the shelf, if
the truth be told.” Merrick poured another drink as he repeated Cassandra’s
outrageous remark. “Think she’d be happy to be wedded, set up a nursery, have
an establishment of her own. But more I think of it, Cass was right. She was
like a cat ready to pounce. Once she had me in the bag, whoosh, off she’d go,
haring into town.”

Bertie gave an inelegant belch and reached for the decanter.
“Mixing the old metaphors, old boy. Cat can’t hare.”

“Cat can’t wed,” Merrick answered inanely.

“Yes, she can, too. She’d have you back in a trice if you’d
like. Go ask her, see if she won’t.” Bertie sipped contentedly at the expensive
French liquor.

“And Cass, there’s another one.” Merrick went on with his
train of thought as if his friend hadn’t spoken. “To see her in that gambling
hell, you’d think her up to all the rigs. Then you look at her trailing around
the company like a stray cat, and you know she just ain’t been brought up
right, damn her unholy father to hell.”

“
I
don’t know
nothing of the sort.
You’re
the one
that said that,” Bertie reminded him callously.

“And then it turns out she’s just looking for a meal ticket,
and the richer man won. I just can’t fathom that.” Merrick shook his head again
in confusion, but the fog was thicker. He took another drink before continuing.
“I thought to myself, now here’s a maiden in distress. Why else would she take
to the likes of me? And then I see that announcement and think, old Duncan’s up
to his tricks again, but I’ll rescue the lady. But she doesn’t want to be
rescued. Can you figure that? She sits there, just as cool and calm as you
please, smiling like she’s just discovered the sun, and saying it was all a
misunderstanding, thank you very much.”

Wyatt ran a hand through his hair, still not grasping the
scene. “
Misunderstanding
, by Jove!
She locks herself in the room with me, causes the scandal of the decade, and it’s
all a misunderstanding! Now, I ask you, Bertie, is that anything your sister
would have done at ten-and-eight? It don’t make good sense.”

“Better off without her, old boy. She’d run you in circles.
Rupert’s the right one for the likes of that. Shame, though. Sure was a
fetching little thing.”

“Mother was right about one thing,” Merrick said gloomily,
stretching his long legs out toward the fire. “Never marry a pretty woman. They
have no heart or soul and think only of themselves.”

“Cat ain’t pretty and she’s got the heart of a shrew. What
say we round up a few others and make a night of it? Wine, women, and song,
that’s what we need.”

Wine, women, and song. Merrick stared at the fire while the
words danced in his head. For one instant he had possessed all three in one
lovely package.

With a sudden twist of his wrist, he flung the lovely
shimmering goblet and its fiery contents into the flames.

~*~

In a far different corner of the city, a cadaverously tall
man glanced gloomily around the rag-patched walls of a room housing a frail
woman of nearly half his size and a small boy who hid behind his mother’s
skirts. The boy stared at the newcomer with fear and curiosity. Into this tiny
space between four walls was squeezed a pallet for sleeping, a broken-legged
table, and a single chair of dubious integrity. The man remained standing
rather than take a seat as urged.

“You can’t let him do it!” Despite her frail stature, the
woman’s plea was vehement. “It’s unholy, that’s what it is! You have to stop
him.”

The man shrugged with an even more gloomy expression. “Not
likely. Too late for that. She’s bound to be just another of them what deserves
a comeuppance. It’s not her we’re to worry about. It’s a nasty cough you have,
Lucinda. It’s you we’ve got to take care of. Use those coins I brought to get
you and the boy out of here, somewhere in the country where it’s healthy. I’ll
take care of the dastard when the time comes. We’ll just have to be patient,
that’s all.”

“You didn’t used to be like this,” the woman cried. “You’ve
grown hard, Jake. What if it were me he wedded today? Would you do nothing?”

Despair briefly filled the tall man’s eyes as he gazed upon his
once lovely sister in rags. But condemnation replaced despair. “I’d kill him,
but it’s not worth my neck to do the same for his noble bride. I’ll take care
of you, Lucy. Just be patient.”

~*~

“I heard a story today I didn’t like at all.” Drunkenly,
the Marquess of Eddings pinned his new brother-in-law between wall and mantel
as the noisy wedding reception swirled around them. Being the larger of the
two, Duncan had no difficulty in keeping his audience captive.