Chasing Cassandra Page 12

  If she wanted love, therefore, she would have to be patient, calm, and kind. She would have to let it find her in its own way and time.

  Since Love is a greased pig wasn’t a particularly dignified motto, she decided the Latin translation was more elegant: Amor est uncta porcus.

  “WHAT ABOUT MR. SEDGWICK?” Cassandra asked Lady Berwick sotto voce, at the last dance in October. The lavish and crowded event, given to mark the coming out of the Duke of Queensberry’s niece, Miss Percy, was held at a grand house in Mayfair.

  “I’m afraid his credentials are lacking,” the older woman replied. “It would not do to encourage his attentions.”

  “But at least he’s dancing,” Cassandra protested in a whisper. “Hardly any of the other eligible men are.”

  “It’s a disgrace,” Lady Berwick said grimly. “I intend to speak to the other London hostesses about these scoundrels, and ensure they are denied invitations from now on.”

  Lately it had become the habit of fashionable bachelors to loiter in the doorways and corners, putting on superior airs and declining to dance. Instead, they headed for the supper room as soon as the doors were opened, indulged themselves with fine food and wine, then proceeded to another ball or soirée and did the same thing over again. Meanwhile, there were rows of girls who had no one to dance with other than married gentlemen or boys.

  “Arrogant peacocks,” Cassandra said wryly, her gaze traveling over the clusters of privileged young males. A particularly handsome specimen, slim and golden-haired, lounged near an arrangement of potted palms. He had an air of swaggering even while standing still. As he glanced at a group of disconsolate wallflowers in the corner, his lips quirked with amused disdain.

  Lady Berwick recaptured her attention. “I was told Mr. Huntingdon will attend tonight. When he arrives, you must ingratiate yourself further with him. He’s due to inherit an earldom from his uncle, who is gravely ill and will not last the year.”

  Cassandra frowned. She’d met Mr. Huntington on two previous occasions, and he’d struck her as pleasant but slow-witted. “I’m afraid he won’t do for me, ma’am.”

  “Won’t do? The earldom was created by Queen Mary in 1565. One would be hard-pressed to find a more ancient dignity. Do you object to being the mistress of a glorious country estate? To belonging in the very best social circles?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Then what is the problem?”

  “He’s stodgy and dull. It’s no fun talking to him—”

  “One has friends for conversations, not husbands.”

  “—and that chinstrap beard is dreadful. A man should either shave or grow a proper beard. Anything in between looks accidental.”

  Lady Berwick looked stern. “A girl in her second Season cannot afford to be particular, Cassandra.”

  Cassandra sighed and nodded, wondering when the supper room would be opened.

  Following her gaze, Lady Berwick said quietly, “No dashing off to fill your plate when they ring the bell. I can see the beginnings of a bulge on your upper back, at the top of your corset. You may indulge your appetite after you are wed, but not before.”

  Shamed, Cassandra wanted to protest that she was hardly a glutton. It was just that Pandora was no longer there to keep her busy, and it was difficult to shed pounds while attending endless rounds of dinners and soirées, and having to sleep all day. If only she’d looked at her back view before leaving the house that night. Was there really a bulge?

  Her mind went blank as she saw a tall, dark form enter the ballroom. It was Tom Severin, escorting a slender dark-haired woman, whose arm was firmly tucked in his. Cassandra had a sinking, sick feeling in her stomach. She’d never seen Tom at one of these events before, and she could only assume he was courting the woman.

  “Oh, there’s Mr. Severin,” she said casually, while poisonous jealousy flooded her. “Who is he with?”

  Lady Berwick glanced at the couple. “Miss Adelia Howard. One of Lord Beaumont’s daughters. The family’s financial difficulties must be dire indeed, if they’re willing to sacrifice her to a social nobody.”

  Cassandra stopped breathing for a moment. “Are they engaged to marry?” she managed to ask.

  “Not yet, as far as I’m aware. No announcements have been made, nor banns posted. If he’s escorting her publicly, however, it won’t be long in coming.”

  Trying to calm herself, Cassandra nodded. “Mr. Severin’s not a nobody,” she dared to say. “He’s a very important man.”

  “Among his kind,” Lady Berwick allowed. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed the couple, who had joined a group of guests in conversation. “Socially ill-matched though he and Miss Howard are, one can’t deny they’re a striking pair.”

  They were, Cassandra thought miserably. Both tall, slim and dark-haired, wearing identical expressions of cool reserve.

  Tom flexed his shoulders, as if against a sudden tightness, and glanced around the room. He caught sight of Cassandra and stared at her, seemingly riveted, until she looked away. She clenched her trembling hands in her lap, and tried to think of an excuse to leave the dance early. It had been a week since she’d encountered him at Garrett Gibson’s clinic, and she’d been melancholy and frustrated ever since. No, she couldn’t leave—that would be cowardly, and it might make the evening easier for him, which she wasn’t about to do. She would stay and ignore him, and give every appearance of having a wonderful time.

  Across the room, the young golden-haired man was fiddling with his left cuff. It appeared to have come loose beneath his jacket sleeve, and he couldn’t fasten it. The cuff link was either broken or missing. She watched him discreetly, her attention diverted by his small dilemma.

  On impulse, she decided to do something about it. “Ma’am,” she whispered to Lady Berwick, “I have to visit the necessary.”

  “I will accompany you—” the older woman began, but paused at the approach of a pair of longtime friends. “Oh, here are Mrs. Hayes and Lady Falmouth.”

  “I’ll be quick,” Cassandra assured her, and slipped away before Lady Berwick could reply.

  She left through one of the open arches and went along a side hallway, before stealing back into the ballroom behind the screen of potted palms. Reaching into the concealed pocket of her dress, she took out a tiny wooden needle case. She’d carried it ever since a dance last year, when a nearsighted old gentleman had stepped on the hem of her skirts and torn a ruffle.

  After extracting a safety pin, she screwed on the top of the needle case and returned it to her pocket. Drawing close behind the golden-haired bachelor, she said quietly, “Don’t turn around. Put your left hand behind your back.”

  The man went very still.

  Cassandra waited with great interest to see what he would do. A smile crossed her face as he obeyed slowly. Brushing aside a few palm fronds, she grasped the edges of the loose cuff and lined up the empty cuff link holes.

  The man turned his head to the side to murmur, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m pinning your cuff so it doesn’t flap around your wrist. Not that you deserve my help. Hold still.” Deftly she opened the safety pin and speared it through a pinch of fabric.

  “Why do you say I don’t deserve help?” she heard him ask.

  Cassandra replied in a dry tone. “It may have something to do with the way you and the other bachelors stand about preening. Why attend a ball if you’re not going to dance with anyone?”

  “I was waiting to find someone worth asking.”

  Annoyed, she informed him, “Every girl in this room is worth asking. You and the other young men weren’t invited to please yourselves, you’re here to serve as dance partners.”

  “Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Dance with me.”

  Cassandra let out a nonplussed laugh. “With a man who thinks so highly of himself? No, thank you.” She closed the safety pin and tugged his coat sleeve down to conceal it.

  “Who are you?”
he asked. When she didn’t reply, he begged, “Please dance with me.”

  She took a moment to consider it. “First, dance with some of those girls in the corner. Then you may ask me.”

  “But they’re wallflowers.”

  “It’s not nice to call them that.”

  “But that’s what they are.”

  “Very well,” Cassandra said briskly. “Good-bye.”

  “No, wait.” A long pause. “How many of them must I dance with?”

  “I’ll let you know when it’s been enough. Also, don’t be condescending when you ask them. Be charming, if at all possible.”

  “I am charming,” he protested. “You have the wrong impression of me.”

  “We’ll see.” Cassandra began to draw back, but he turned to catch her by the wrist.

  He nudged a palm leaf to the side, his breath catching as they came face-to-face.

  At this close distance, she saw that he was no older than she was. He had hazel eyes and a complexion as smooth as biscuit porcelain, except for a few speckles of recently healed acne on his forehead. The handsome face beneath the perfectly trimmed waves of blond hair was that of someone who had yet to experience hardship or loss. Someone with the assurance that all his mistakes would be smoothed over before he ever had to face the consequences.

  “God,” he breathed. “You’re beautiful.”

  Cassandra gave him a reproving glance. “Unhand me, please,” she said mildly.

  He let go of her immediately. “I saw you across the room earlier—I was planning to introduce myself.”

  “Thank goodness,” she said. “I was on tenterhooks, wondering if you would.”

  As he heard the delicate note of sarcasm in her voice, a dumbfounded expression crossed his face. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  It took all Cassandra’s force of will to hold back a laugh. “I’m afraid not. But everyone else here thinks you’re a man who talks to potted plants.” She turned and strode away.

  As soon as she reached Lady Berwick’s side, she was promptly approached by Mr. Huntingdon, who had secured the next place on her dance card. Fixing a cheerful smile on her face, Cassandra accompanied him to the main floor. They danced to a Chopin waltz, and then she was claimed by the next gentleman on her dance card, and the next. She went from one pair of arms to another, laughing and flirting.

  It was nothing short of grueling.

  She was aware of Tom’s presence the entire time. And all the while, she was painfully aware that none of this was remotely comparable to that evening in the Clare winter garden, when Tom had waltzed her through shadows and moonlight as if on midnight wings. She’d never experienced that kind of ease, almost a rapture of movement, before or since. Her body still remembered the touch of his hands, so capable and gentle, guiding her without push or pull. So effortless.

  She was trying so hard to feel something, anything, for any of these nice, eligible men. But she couldn’t.

  It was all his fault.

  When she finally reached a blank space on her dance card, Cassandra turned down further invitations, pleading temporary fatigue. She returned to Lady Berwick’s side for a moment’s respite. As she fanned her hot face and neck, she saw that her chaperone’s attention was focused on someone in the midst of the crowd.

  “Who are you looking at, ma’am?” she asked.

  “I’ve been observing Lord Lambert,” Lady Berwick replied. “One of the bachelors I complained about earlier.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “The fair-haired gentleman who just finished a waltz with shy little Miss Conran. I wonder what inspired him to ask her.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  The older woman sent her a sardonic glance. “Could it be something you said to him while standing behind the palms?”

  Cassandra’s eyes widened, and a guilty blush swept over her face.

  Lady Berwick looked slightly smug. “I may be old, child, but I’m not blind. You went in the opposite direction of the privy.”

  “I only offered to pin the loose cuff on his sleeve,” Cassandra explained hastily. “His cuff link was missing.”

  “Far too bold,” her chaperone pronounced. One steel-colored brow arched. “What did you say to him?”

  Cassandra related the conversation, and to her relief, Lady Berwick seemed amused rather than disapproving.

  “He’s coming this way now,” the older woman said. “I will overlook your little fishing expedition, as it seems to have done the trick.”

  Cassandra ducked her head to hide a grin. “It wasn’t a fishing expedition. I was merely curious about him,” she admitted.

  “As the heir to the Marquis of Ripon, Lord Lambert is highly eligible. The family is well-connected and respectable, and their ancestral estate boasts one of the best grouse moors in England. They’re under pressure of debt, as everyone in good society is these days, and therefore the marquis would be gratified for his son to marry a girl with a dowry such as yours.”

  “Lord Lambert is younger than I would prefer,” Cassandra said.

  “That isn’t necessarily a detraction. For women in our position, the only important choice in life we’re allowed to make is what man will govern us. It’s easier to maintain the upper hand with a young husband than one who is already set in his ways.”

  “Ma’am, forgive me, but that’s a dreadful way of putting it.”

  Lady Berwick smiled with a touch of grim amusement. “The truth usually is dreadful.” She seemed to want to say more, but at that moment Lambert reached them and introduced himself with a smart bow.

  “Roland, Lord Lambert, at your service.”

  Roland. It suited him perfectly, a name for a fairy-tale prince or an intrepid knight on a quest. He was a few inches taller than she, his build slim and taut. Despite the practiced bow and the confidence of his posture, there was something a bit puppyish about the way he looked at her, an expectation of reward after having successfully performed a trick.

  After Lady Berwick had introduced Cassandra, and pleasantries were exchanged, Lambert asked, “May I have the pleasure of the next dance?”

  Cassandra hesitated before responding.

  The appalling truth was, she didn’t especially care whether she danced with him or not. Why was it so difficult to work up any interest in this young man and his fresh-from-a-bandbox handsomeness? Maybe it was the air of entitlement that clung to him like strong cologne. Maybe it was the sense that it didn’t matter whether she ended up with Lambert, or Huntingdon and his chinstrap beard, or any of the other bachelors here. None of them stirred her. Certainly none of them struck her as someone she would like to be governed by.

  But the flash of uncertainty in Lambert’s hazel eyes caused her to soften. Be fair to him, she told herself. Be kind and give him a chance.

  Smiling with as much warmth as she could manufacture, she placed a light hand on his arm. “I would love to,” she said, and let him lead her toward the center of the room.

  “I did my penance,” Lord Lambert remarked. “In fact, I chose the plainest girls in the row to dance with.”

  “How nice for them,” Cassandra replied, and winced inwardly as she heard how waspish that sounded. “I’m sorry,” she said before he could reply. “I’m not usually so sharp-tongued.”

  “It’s all right,” Lambert assured her immediately. “I would expect it of a woman who looks like you.”

  She blinked in surprise. “What?”

  “I meant that as a compliment,” he said in a rush. “That is … when a woman is as beautiful as you … there’s no need for you to be …”

  “Pleasant? Polite?”

  His lips parted in dismay, a flush rising in his fair complexion.

  Cassandra shook her head and laughed suddenly. “Are we going to dance, my lord, or simply stand here insulting each other?”

  Lambert looked relieved. “We should dance,” he said, and drew her into a waltz.

  “LOOK AT THAT,” one of the gentleme
n in Tom’s group marveled. “A golden couple.” Tom followed his gaze to the center of the ballroom, where Cassandra waltzed with an exceptionally handsome blond man. Even without knowing who the man was, Tom had no doubt he was of noble birth. He looked like the result of generations of selective breeding, producing more refinement and quality until finally the ideal specimen had been achieved.

  “Lambert and Lady Cassandra,” someone else in the group, Mr. George Russell, commented. Dryly he added, “The pairing is too perfect. They ought never to be separated.”

  Tom looked at him alertly, recognizing the name. Lambert’s father was the Marquis of Ripon, one of the more corrupt dealmakers in the House of Lords, with heavy investments in the railway business.

  “The lady is selective, however,” Russell continued. “Five proposals last season, as I heard, and she turned them all down flat. Lambert may have no better luck.”

  “A belle like that may be as selective as she pleases,” someone else said.

  Adelia spoke then, her voice like musical notes flagged with razors. “She’s what you all want,” she laughingly accused the gentlemen in the group. “Men may profess their yearning to find a modest and sensible girl to marry. But none of you can resist chasing after a golden-haired flirt with a well-endowed figure, all dimples and giggles—without giving a passing thought to how empty-headed she might be.”

  “Guilty as charged,” one of the men admitted, and they all chuckled.

  “She’s not empty-headed,” Tom said, unable to keep silent.

  Adelia gave him a piercing glance, her smile firmly fixed. “I forgot—you’re acquainted with the family. Don’t say Lady Cassandra is a secret intellectual? An unacknowledged genius of our modern times?”

  Another round of chuckles, this time more subdued.

  “She’s highly intelligent,” Tom replied coolly, “and quick-witted. She’s also extraordinarily kind. I’ve never heard her speak ill of anyone.”

  Adelia flushed at the subtle rebuke. “Perhaps you should court her,” she said lightly. “If you think she’d have you.”

  “Let’s give her credit for more discernment than that,” Tom said, and the group laughed.