Chasing Cassandra Page 11

  “He’s an orphan. He lives with a gang of children and a man they call Uncle Batty.”

  “You’re aware of this, and yet you allow him to go back?”

  “He’s better off there than in a workhouse or orphanage.”

  She nodded, looking perturbed.

  Tom decided to change the subject. “How has your Season gone so far?”

  Cassandra smoothed her expression, following his lead. “I miss the sun,” she said lightly. “I’ve been keeping the hours of a hedgehog. Dinners never start before nine o’clock in the evening, receptions never before ten, and dances routinely begin at eleven. Then I go home at dawn, sleep for most of the day and wake up all muddled.”

  “Have you set your sights on anyone?”

  Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “They’re all the same. Just like last year.”

  Tom tried to feel badly about that. But he couldn’t help feeling a primal pang of relief, his heartbeat settling into a satisfied rhythm … Still mine … still mine.

  They returned to the clinic with the parcel from Winterborne’s. A nurse showed him into a white tiled room with a shower bath, a steel-clad bathtub and sink, steel tables and supply cabinets, and a drain in the floor. The acrid bite of disinfectant hung in the air, along with the unmistakable scents of borax and carbolic soap. Bazzle was leaning over a sink in the corner, while Garrett rinsed his head with a spray nozzle and rubber hose attached to the faucet.

  “I’ve doused Bazzle’s scalp with a chemical solution,” Garrett said, blotting the child’s head with a towel. “I’ll need help cutting his hair: I’m afraid it’s not one of my skills.”

  “I can do it,” Cassandra volunteered.

  Garrett nodded toward a supply cabinet. “Smocks, aprons and rubber gloves are over there. Use any of the scissors from the tray, but be careful: they’re all extremely sharp.”

  “How short do you want the hair?”

  “About an inch in length should do.”

  Bazzle’s plaintive voice came from the towel. “I don’t want noffin’ cut orf.”

  “I know this isn’t a pleasant process,” Garrett told the boy apologetically, “but you’ve been very well-behaved, and that helps things go much faster.” She lifted Bazzle onto a metal stool, while Cassandra donned a long white apron.

  As Cassandra approached Bazzle and saw his features scrunched in worry, she smiled and reached out to gently push some matted locks back from his forehead. “I’ll be very careful,” she promised. “Would you like to hear a song while I cut your hair? There’s one my sister Pandora and I wrote, called Pig in the House.”

  Looking intrigued, Bazzle nodded.

  Cassandra launched into a sublimely ridiculous song about the antics of two sisters trying to hide their pet pig from the farmer, the butcher, the cook, and a local squire who was especially fond of bacon. While she sang, she moved around Bazzle’s head, snipping off long locks and dropping them into a pail Garrett held for her.

  Bazzle listened as if spellbound, occasionally chortling at the silly lyrics. As soon as the song was finished, he demanded another, and sat still while Cassandra continued with My Dog Thinks He’s a Chicken, followed by Why Frogs are Slimy and Toads are Dry.

  Had Tom been capable of falling in love, he would have right there and then, as he watched Lady Cassandra Ravenel serenade a ragamuffin while cutting his hair. She was so capable and clever and adorable, it made his chest ache with a hot pressure that threatened to fracture something.

  “She has a marvelous way with children,” Garrett murmured to him at one point, clearly delighted by the situation.

  She had a way with everyone. Especially him. He’d never been besotted like this.

  It was intolerable.

  After Cassandra had finished combing and trimming Bazzle’s hair, she stood back to view the results critically. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” Garrett exclaimed.

  “Good God,” Tom said. “There was a boy beneath all that wool.”

  The mass of snarled, straggly locks had been cropped to reveal a nicely shaped head, a skinny neck, and a pair of small ears. Bazzle’s eyes looked twice as large now that they weren’t peering out through thick wads of hair.

  Bazzle heaved a world-weary sigh. “Wots next?” he asked.

  “The shower-bath,” Garrett replied. “I’ll help you wash.”

  “Wot?” The boy looked outraged by the suggestion. “Ye can’t ’elp me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Yer a girl!” He shot an indignant glance at Tom. “I’d never let a girl see me tallywag.”

  “I’m a doctor, Bazzle,” Garrett said gently, “not a girl.”

  “She ’as bubbies,” Bazzle told Tom, with the impatience of someone having to explain an obvious fact. “That makes ’er a girl.”

  Tom struggled to hold back a grin as he saw Garrett’s expression. “I’ll help him,” he said, and stripped off his coat.

  “I’ll start the water,” Garrett said, and went to the other side of the room.

  After removing his waistcoat, Tom looked for a place to set his clothes.

  “Give them to me,” Cassandra said, coming forward.

  “Thank you.” He handed the garments to her, and began to unknot his necktie. “Wait—take this too.”

  Cassandra’s eyes widened as he began on his shirt cuffs. “How much more clothing do you plan to remove?” she asked uneasily.

  Tom grinned, not missing the quick, interested flick of her gaze over him. “I’m only rolling up my sleeves.” He paused, his hands going to the top button of his collar. “Although if you insist—”

  “No,” she said quickly, blushing at his teasing. “That’s quite enough.”

  A warm mist had started to spread through the room, sweating the white tiles. Cassandra’s skin was turning luminous from the humid air. Little wisps of hair at her forehead had drawn up into delicate curls he longed to play with.

  Instead, he turned his attention to Bazzle, who wore the expression of a prisoner confronting the gallows. “Go undress behind that curtain, Bazzle.”

  Reluctantly the boy went to stand just inside the rubber-lined curtain, and began to remove his clothing piece by piece. Following Garrett’s instructions, Tom took each ragged garment and dropped it into a lidded pail partially filled with carbolic solution.

  Bazzle’s pale, spindly body was startling in its frailty. Tom registered the sight with a stab of some unfamiliar feeling … guilt? … concern? … As the boy stepped into the falling water, Tom pulled the circular curtain completely closed.

  The boy’s exclamation echoed in the tiled room. “Blarm me, it is like rain!”

  Tom took a bath brush from Garrett, rubbed the bristles into a cake of soap, and handed it through the curtain opening. “Start scrubbing your little carcass with this. I’ll do the places you can’t reach.”

  After a moment, Bazzle’s worried voice came from behind the curtain. “Me skin’s comin’ orf.”

  “It’s not skin,” Tom said. “Keep washing.”

  Not ten seconds had passed before Bazzle said, “I’m done now.”

  “You’ve barely begun,” Tom replied in exasperation. As Bazzle tried to climb out of the shower bath, he herded him back inside and took up the brush. “You’re filthy, Bazzle. You need to be scrubbed, if not descaled.”

  “I’ll be dirty again ter-morrer,” the boy protested, spluttering and staring up at him miserably.

  “Yes, you’ve said that before. But a man keeps himself clean, Bazzle.” Tom clamped his hand on a slippery, bony shoulder and scrubbed the child’s back in gentle but steady circles. “First, because it’s good for your health. Second, it’s a mercy to those who have to be in your proximity. Third, ladies don’t like it when you look and smell like last year’s corpse. I know you don’t care about that now, but someday—confound it, Bazzle, hold still.” Exasperated, Tom called through the curtain, “Cassandra, do you know a washing song?”
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br />   Instantly she began one called Some Ducks Don’t Like Puddles. To Tom’s relief, Bazzle subsided.

  After scrubbing and rinsing the child three times, Tom washed his hair with borax shampoo paste until the dark locks were squeaky clean. By the time they were done, Tom’s entire front was wet, and his own hair was dripping. He wrapped Bazzle’s now pink and white body in a length of dry toweling, picked him up, and carried him to the stool.

  “I feel as if I’ve just wrestled a barrel of monkeys,” Tom said, breathing with exertion.

  Garrett laughed as she used a towel to dry Bazzle’s hair. “Well done, Mr. Severin.”

  “What about me?” Bazzle protested. “I was the monkey!”

  “Well done, you,” Garrett told him. “Now, you must be patient just a bit longer, while I run a nit comb through your hair.”

  “I will donate an extra thousand pounds to the charitable cause of your choice,” Tom told Garrett, “if you’ll brush his teeth as well.”

  “Done.”

  Tom turned away and ran his hands through his hair, and shook his head like a wet dog.

  “Wait,” he heard Cassandra say, amusement shimmering in her voice. She hurried over to him with some fresh dry toweling.

  “Thank you.” Tom took a towel and rubbed it roughly over his hair.

  “My goodness, you’re nearly as wet as Bazzle.” Cassandra used another towel to dab at his face and throat. Smiling, she reached up to smooth the damp chaos of his hair with her fingers.

  Tom stood still while she fussed over him. Part of him wanted to bask in the little attentions, which felt almost … wifely. But the ache in his chest had worsened, and his body was steaming in the wet clothes, and he began to feel not altogether civilized. He glanced over her head at Garrett, who faced away from them, meticulously combing Bazzle’s hair.

  His gaze returned to Cassandra’s face, which would haunt him to the last minute of life. He had collected every smile of hers, every kiss, to hoard like a treasure chest of jewels. These few seconds with her were all he had, or would ever have.

  Swiftly he bent and pressed his mouth to hers, gentle but urgent. There was no time for patience.

  Her breath caught. Her lips parted tentatively.

  He kissed her for all the midnights and mornings they would never share. He kissed her with a tenderness he would never be able to express in words, and felt her response in his blood, as if her sweetness had sunk into his marrow. His mouth pulled softly at hers, taking one last fervent taste … then slid away.

  The skin of her cheeks was damp and sweet, as if she’d just come in from the rain. He brushed her closed eyelids with his lips, the surfaces fragile and silky, the sweeps of her eyelashes like feather dusters.

  Blindly he let go of her and turned away, pacing aimlessly until he saw his coat and waistcoat draped over a steel table. He dressed without a word, and struggled to regain his self-discipline.

  As the passionate longing cooled, it hardened into bitterness.

  He’d been taken apart by her and reassembled differently. Outwardly, everything seemed to work well enough, but he wasn’t the same inside. Only time would tell the ways in which she’d changed him. But he was fairly certain he wasn’t the better for it.

  He forced his mind back to what it should be focusing on: Business. Recalling he had a meeting to attend that afternoon—and would first have to go home to change into dry clothes—he glanced at his pocket watch and frowned. “My time is short,” he told Garrett brusquely. “Can you comb any faster?”

  “Ask me that again,” Garrett replied equably, “and this comb will soon be lodged in a place it wasn’t meant to go.”

  Bazzle snickered, evidently gathering her meaning.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Tom wandered around the room. He didn’t spare a glance at Cassandra.

  “I suppose I should be going now,” he heard her say uncertainly.

  “You’ve been an angel,” Garrett told her. “Shall we try again for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Yes, let’s.” Cassandra went to Bazzle, who was still perched on the stool. She smiled into his face, which was nearly level with hers. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Bazzle. You’re a good boy, and a handsome one, too.”

  “Good-bye,” Bazzle whispered, staring at her with huge, dark eyes.

  “I’ll see you out,” Tom said gruffly.

  Cassandra was quiet until they had left the tiled room and closed the door. “Tom,” she ventured as they headed to the reception area, “what are you going to do about Bazzle?”

  “I’m going to send him home to St. Giles,” Tom replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “If you send him back, he’ll soon become as infested as before.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked curtly.

  “Take him in as a ward, perhaps.”

  “There are thousands of children out there, in his situation or worse. How many bloody orphans do you think I should take in?”

  “Just one. Just Bazzle.”

  “Why don’t you take him?”

  “I’m in no position to do so. I don’t yet have my own household, nor will I have access to my dowry until I marry. You have the means and ability to help him, and you and he are—” Cassandra broke off, evidently thinking better of what she’d been about to say.

  But Tom knew. And he became more offended with each passing moment. He stopped with her in the hallway, just before they reached the front waiting area. “Would you make the same suggestion to one of your upper-class suitors?” he asked brusquely.

  Cassandra appeared bewildered. “Would I … you mean … to take in a child as a ward? Yes, I—”

  “No, not a child. This child. This skinny, flea-bitten, illiterate child with a cockney accent. Would you ask Lord Foxhall to take him in and raise him?”

  Taken aback by the question, and the signs of his temper, she blinked rapidly. “What does Lord Foxhall have to do with this?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The answer is no,” Tom said tautly, “you wouldn’t. But you suggested it to me. Why?”

  “You and Bazzle have similar backgrounds.” She stared at him in confusion. “You’re in a position to understand and help him more than anyone else could. I thought you would have sympathy for him.”

  “Sympathy’s not one of my feelings,” Tom snapped. “And I have a name, damn it. It’s not a noble name, but I’m not a bastard, and I was never filthy. Regardless of what you think, Bazzle and I aren’t cut from the same cloth.”

  Cassandra digested that in the pause that followed, and her brows rushed down as she seemed to reach a conclusion. “You do have some things in common with Bazzle,” she said quietly. “I think he must remind you of things you’d rather not think about, and it makes you uncomfortable. But none of that has anything to do with me. Don’t try to make me out to be some kind of snob. I’ve never said you weren’t good enough for me—Heaven knows I’ve never thought it! The circumstances of your birth, or mine, are not the problem. This is the problem.” Glaring at him, she smacked her hand on the center of his chest and kept it there. “Your heart is frozen because you want it to be. It’s safer for you that way, never to let anyone in. So be it.” She drew her hand away. “I intend to find someone I can be happy with. As for poor little Bazzle … he needs more than your occasional off-hand kindness. He needs a home. Since I can’t give him one, I’ll have to leave his fate to your conscience.”

  She strode away from him, toward the footman waiting near the doorway.

  And later that day, Tom—who had no conscience—sent the boy back to St. Giles.

  Chapter 11

  ALTHOUGH THE AUTUMN SOCIAL calendar didn’t offer events of the same magnitude as the Season proper, there was still a lively array of dinners and parties attended by gentlemen about town. Lady Berwick had set out a strategy of starting early, so Cassandra was able to meet the most promising new bachelors while many of the ot
her girls were still at their families’ estates during autumn shooting.

  The Season seemed very different this year, now that Pandora was no longer taking part. Without her twin’s companionship and impish humor, the constant rounds of dinners, soirees and balls had already begun to feel like drudgery to Cassandra. When she said as much to Devon and Kathleen, they had been understanding and sympathetic.

  “This process of husband hunting seems unnatural to me,” Devon had commented. “You’re thrown into proximity with a limited selection of men, and chaperoned too closely to allow for any genuine interactions. Then after a fixed period of time, you’re expected to choose one of them as a partner for life.”

  Kathleen had poured more tea with undue concentration. “The process has its pitfalls,” she had agreed, her expression pensive.

  Cassandra had known exactly what Kathleen was thinking about.

  It seemed a lifetime ago that Kathleen had married Cassandra’s brother, Theo, following a whirlwind courtship. Tragically, Theo had died in a riding accident a few days after the wedding. In that short amount of time, however, Kathleen had discovered there was another side to the charming young man who’d courted her so gallantly during the Season. A volatile and abusive side.

  Devon had leaned over to press a nuzzling kiss among the soft red curls of his wife’s coiffure. “No one in this family will ever be left to the mercy of someone who doesn’t treat them well,” he said quietly. “I’d fight to the death for every last one of you.”

  Kathleen had turned her face to smile at him tenderly, her fingers coming up to stroke his lean cheek. “I know you would, darling.”

  Privately Cassandra had wondered if she would ever find a man who’d be willing to sacrifice himself for her. Not that she would ever want him to, of course. But something in her longed to be loved and needed that intensely.

  The problem was, she had started to feel a tiny bit desperate. And desperation might eventually cause her to chase after love as if she were participating in the greased pig race at the county fair.

  “There’s only one sure way to catch a greased pig,” West had once commented. “Give him a reason to come to you.”