The Unofficial Suitor (5 page)

She passed room after empty room on her way—rooms that once had served a purpose, rooms now stripped to the bare walls to feed her brother’s voracious appetite. And soon she herself would be a living sacrifice to his insatiable greed.

Finally reaching the abandoned schoolroom, Cassie tapped gently on the panel that concealed the priest’s hole. “Everything is all right, Seffie. It is safe to come out now.”

The panel slid open the merest crack—only far enough for the people hiding inside to be sure it was she, and that she was alone, but upon ascertaining this, her sister emerged and threw herself into Cassie’s arms.

“Oh, it was awful. Some strangers came and pounded on the door, and then they broke into the house. They have been wandering around through all the rooms. We heard their footsteps. It is indeed fortunate you did not return earlier, for you would of a certainty have fallen into their clutches.”

There was little point in relating to her sister and her stepmother what had passed between Geoffrey and herself. Ellen was totally ineffectual in any situation that called for positive action, and she had raised Seffie to be equally ineffectual. So instead, Cassie forced a smile and tried to keep her voice cheerful, hoping her step-mother would not notice anything was wrong.

“It was no strangers, my dears, but rather Geoffrey, come home to see us at last.”

“Geoffrey? Here?” Ellen’s dubious tone of voice was an indication that she had not entirely forgotten the spiteful ways by which her step-son had indicated his disapproval of his father’s third wife.

“Yes, he has come to take us back to London so I may have a Season.”

“London—he has come to take us to London for the Season?” There were tears forming in Ellen’s eyes. “We are saved, Seffie. Saints be praised, we are saved.” She took a dainty handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped her face.

“Where is the dear boy? I must thank him myself. He has come to rescue us from this desolate place. And to think I have so misjudged him all these years.” She hurried to the door.

“There is no need to rush. He has gone to the Red Goose for the night and will be back tomorrow, or so he says.”

“Oh, of course, of course, to be sure. One could not expect him to manage on such meager hospitality as we can offer him here. London! Just think of it, Cassie—you will have a Season. Oh, how I have racked my brains to try to come up with a way for you to be presented, and now, like a messenger from heaven, Geoffrey has come to offer you your chance. Oh, my, did he say when we would be leaving? Are we going with him or by post? Has he rented a house for the Season?”

Any unrealistic expectation Cassie might have had that Ellen would make a push to help her escape from the untenable position her brother had put her in was dashed by her step-mother’s obvious readiness to forgive Geoffrey anything, so long as he was willing to take them back to London and away from Cornwall, which Ellen had always stigmatized as being a barbaric place, totally unfit for civilized people.

Cassie finally escaped from the fluttering excitement of her step-mother and went to find the one person she knew she could count on to be on her side. Wrapping herself in her cloak but not bothering to light a lantern, she resolutely made her way out of the house and back to the stables, the moon providing her with all the illumination she required to pick her way across the paving stones.

She was a little afraid that Digory might have gone out on another smuggling run, but was reassured to find him rubbing down Dobbin, who was placidly chewing his ration of oats.

“Digory, my brother has come back.”

“So I noticed. His groom was sniffing around the stables this evening like a blooming exciseman.”

“He did not find your room?” Involuntarily she glanced at the rough wall that Digory had built across the end of the stable years ago. It looked no different from any of the other walls, but concealed behind it was a room that, although not large, was adequate to meet his needs.

“It would take a sharper eye than his to notice the discrepancy between the outside of the building and the inside. But on the other hand, it was indeed our good fortune that there were no kegs of brandy under the straw for him to find.”

“Oh, I had not thought of that. He might have notified the preventatives.”

“More likely he would have merely helped himself to a keg or two. But as chance would have it, there was nothing for him to find in the stable but Dobbin, so you needn’t get upset about what trouble there might have been.”

“That is not precisely why I am upset.” She had not realized it would be so hard to ask Digory for anything. They’d had a private agreement for years, that Digory could use their stables as his headquarters, and in return he would supply them with meat for their table, but this was the first time she had attempted to alter what had been essentially a business relationship between them. “I was wondering if I might perhaps ask you ... a favor?”

“I cannot promise anything until I know the nature of the favor, but you may feel free to ask, and I will do what I think best.”

Her relief was overwhelming since she did not doubt for a minute that he would be able to think of some way to thwart Geoffrey’s plans. Never did she anticipate that having heard what Geoffrey had in mind for her, Digory would think it best for her to go to London and try her utmost to make a reasonable match.

“But he is only forcing me to do this in anticipation of the funds he expects to wring from my future husband. He sees me as the means of settling his debts.”

“For whatever reason, ‘tis the best opportunity that is likely to come your way for you to catch yourself a respectable husband.”

“But I do not want a husband. I do not want to get married. I have never wanted to get married.” She truly did not, but how could she get a man to understand that a woman might prefer to remain single?

“Then what do you want? How do you plan to support yourself if not by taking a husband? And how do you intend to find a husband if you refuse to go to London? What marriage prospects do you have, living here as isolated as you are?”

“I do not know,” she admitted, feeling physically ill at the mere thought of a husband. “I just want things to go along as they are until something—”

“Until what?” Digory interrupted her. “Until your stepmother dies, and even her meager jointure is cut off?”

“How can you talk so casually about Ellen dying?”

He ignored her remark and continued his attack. “By then you will probably be middle-aged and beyond the point of being able to attract a man.”

“I will not need anyone to support me if I get a job.”

“And if the streets were paved with gold, we would all be rich. Just what job do you think you can do?”

She considered for a moment. “I know how to manage a household. I could become a housekeeper.”

“You have not the faintest clue as to how to run a house. All you know is how to survive on next to nothing, which would be of little help to you in directing servants. Besides which, unless you found an establishment consisting solely of females, you would be seduced within a sennight.”

“Then I shall be a smuggler. I know how to sail a boat. You taught me yourself.” She eyed her companion with disfavor as he leaned against the broad side of the horse and shook with silent laughter.

“I took you sailing a few times when you were fourteen,” he finally managed to say. “Not quite the same thing as teaching you to sail. You could not begin to handle a boat on your own; there simply is not enough of you.”

“I am bigger now than I was then. Indeed, I have grown immensely since then.”

“Aye, you have grown all right,” he looked at her with open approval, “but you are not an inch taller today than you were then.”

She crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest, annoyed that everyone seemed to have decided that the best topic for discussion today was how far she stuck out in front.

“I thought you, of all people, would be willing to help me.”

“I, of all people? What makes you think I, of all people, should want to help you?”

“Because I have always thought that you are really ... that I am your ...” She started over again. “I have thought for years that you are probably my ...” She looked to him for help, but he waited impassively for her to say it. “When you are clean-shaven and all dressed up in your fancy clothes, you look so much like the portrait of my father taken when he was a young man, that I just assumed ... that you are my brother,” she finished in a rush.

His glance was shuttered, and she could not read his thoughts. “So you have figured that out, have you? Well, it has never been any secret who my father was.”

“I thought, perhaps, that with the relationship between us—”

He interrupted before she could go on. “I am afraid you have been laboring under a misapprehension. Although I will admit to having found our association beneficial, it has been as much to your advantage as it has to mine. But in truth, the fact of the matter remains that I feel no more responsibility toward you than I do toward any of the other numerous progeny of our illustrious parent.”

“Other?” Cassie looked at him in bewilderment, which changed to shock as he went on.

“Surely you do not think your father limited his activities to my mother, do you? I assure you, he did his best to scatter his seed far and wide. Were I to feel responsible for all my brothers and sisters, I would be supporting half the countryside.” At her shocked reaction, he relented a little. “I exaggerate, my dear. Actually, I doubt if there are more than a dozen or so bastards in the immediate neighborhood who can properly call the late earl papa.”

“A dozen?”

“Or thereabouts. Interesting, is it not, that he only managed to have three legitimate children, and it took him three wives to accomplish even that much?”

The humor of the situation escaped Cassie since she now realized she could expect no favors from Digory, at least none based on their relationship. And she had nothing else to offer to induce him to come to her aid.

Unable to think what to do, she remained silent, until finally he said quietly, “It is not such a bad future your brother has lined up for you. You really have no choice, you must realize, but to marry to advantage. You will come to like the married state well enough, I am sure, and it will also put you in a position to help your sister find a husband of her own when the time comes. Have you considered your obligation to provide for her?”

“Of course I have considered her. I told you what Geoffrey threatened to do if I did not cooperate. Do you think I would even consider going to London if not to save her from Geoffrey?”

“The best protection you can give her is to marry a husband willing to let your sister and your step-mother live with you. Then in a few years, you will be in a position to sponsor her come-out.”

“And suppose my husband is someone like Geoffrey?”

“Then marry him and put poison in his soup. If you do it right, you can end up a rich widow while you are still young enough to buy yourself the husband you want.”

“But I do not want a husband. Men are all beasts.” She turned and ran out of the stable, leaving a very thoughtful “beast” behind.

Picking up the currycomb from where he had dropped it in the straw, he began once more to groom the old horse.

He had not been telling the truth when he had told Cassie he did not care what plans her brother made for her. He cared very much. On the other hand, he had not been lying when he said he felt nothing for his other assorted half-brothers and half-sisters. For the most part they were a common lot, although none of the others quite reached the depths of depravity that Geoffrey had managed to sink to.

Cassie alone had always been special to him, partly because of her courage and intelligence, but also because of her capacity to care for other people. In that way she had reminded him of her mother, whom he had twice had occasion to meet before she had died, and whom he had never forgotten. She had been a lady in the truest sense of the word, and along with the kind of beauty that could stop a man dead in his tracks, she had also passed on to her daughter a degree of courage and compassion that were a rare combination.

From a discreet distance he had watched Cassie growing up, in some inexplicable way proud to be related to her, but he had not actually gotten involved in her life until the old earl had died and he had heard rumors to the effect that the new earl had run off to London, abandoning Cassie to her own resources, her step-mother being more of an encumbrance than a help.

In a moment of sentimentality, he had stepped into her life and had taken upon himself the responsibility of seeing to it that she had sufficient food to eat and that she did not suffer the usual fate of a young girl alone in the world with no male protector.

His bargain with her to use the stables in return for providing her with meat for her table had served its purpose, and she had arrived at a marriageable age with her innocence intact, and without realizing that she could ride safely around the neighborhood only because the word was out that anyone bothering her in any way would have to answer to him.

Unfortunately, having successfully managed things so far, he had found himself at a standstill for the last two years. He had been trying ever since she turned eighteen to figure out some way to find Cassie a suitable husband, and while he would not have thought to approach Geoffrey on the subject, he could not but think it was providential that the wayward earl had appeared so opportunely on the scene.

Cassie might think she would be happier living alone, but Digory had no doubt that once she got to London she would like it well enough, just as he had no doubt that with the proper husband she would adjust quickly to the married state.

On the other hand, despite Cassie’s earlier self-confidence that she could tackle any job, she was, in fact, remarkably young and inexperienced in the ways of men, and Geoffrey seemed quite prepared to marry her off to an old lecher, provided said lecher’s purse strings were adequate for Geoffrey to hang on.