Faint mockery laced her voice as she leaned back, forcing Wyatt to release her or caress her shoulder. “I fear you just left Duncan behind. He won’t be home until morning, and I can promise you he won’t be in a humor to hear of my shortcomings. But you’re certainly welcome to try. I might sell tickets of admission.”
“You really are an undisciplined brat, aren’t you?” he asked, removing his hand to the safety of his cane.
“And you really are a stuffy old stick. That makes us even.”
Thomas could scarcely believe his eyes or ears as he watched the dignified earl and the golden miss rip up at each other as if they were cat and dog. What was worse, they did it with such control that he couldn’t be at all certain that he could believe a word they said, particularly when they looked at each other as they were doing now. It ought to be daggers they were drawing, but instead, Thomas felt decidedly de trop.
That was an irrational thought. He was feeling a little fuzzy from the strong ale. Merrick was the last one to be accused of molesting a lady. The fellow didn’t even keep a mistress. He had mockingly been called St. Wyatt behind his back for years for his views on the weaker sex. Not only did he hold the radical notion that women were not meant to be used by men except for bearing their children within the confines of marriage, he included all women in that notion, not just ladies.
As the landau rattled to a halt before the lady’s residence, Thomas lifted the curtains. He had every intention of continuing the lady’s acquaintance despite her insult. She looked like she needed a friend, and Merrick obviously didn’t mean to be one. He frowned at the sight of another closed carriage waiting across the street, but he didn’t speak up. Perhaps it was the habit of the neighborhood to come and go at all hours.
Thomas gallantly took the lady’s hand, murmured all the polite phrases he knew, but remained behind as Merrick escorted her to the door. He didn’t want to know what was between those two. His head was already aching just thinking about it.
When the earl returned to the carriage, Thomas commented idly, “I say, Wyatt, ain’t that Rupert’s carriage across the street? I thought he had enough barrels of gold to live in a more fashionable district.”
Merrick glanced out the window to the carriage and cursed. He leapt out of the carriage again.
A woman’s scream echoed from inside the house, and hastily, Thomas scrambled after Merrick.
~*~
Inside, Cassandra swiped her arm over her mouth to wash away the disgusting moistness of the baronet’s lips on hers. Rupert had caught her unprepared. Viciously, she trod on his toe, but her cloth slippers went unnoticed against his leather boots. Holding her tight, he nuzzled her neck, and she nearly lost her supper in revulsion.
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.
Chapter 3
“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.”
“How enchanting!” She laughed brittlely. “Shall I demand that you accompany me for two turns around the park this afternoon? I daresay all heads will turn at the sight of two such gallant gentlemen escorting a mere girl about. ’Twould be most exciting indeed.”
“I’ll gladly escort you to the park every afternoon, Cass,” Bertie offered exuberantly. “You’d make a deuced fine sight on any gentleman’s arm.”
Merrick frowned at his thick-headed friend. It was patently obvious to him that Lady Cassandra had been roasting them for their good intentions, but then, Bertie didn’t know the full extent of her desperate straits or deceptive tongue.
“Since we understand your mother is quite ill and unable to escort you to the proper functions, we thought it might be appropriate if Bertie’s sister takes you under her wing. She has been wedded this year or more and would make a suitable chaperone. And she has already proclaimed herself thoroughly tired of her family’s all-male company. She would be delighted with a little feminine companionship.”
“How very considerate of you, my lord,” Cassandra said with mischief in her eyes. “You have thought of everything. She’s Lady Cunningham now, is she not? I’m sure we’ll get on swimmingly. I can teach her to play cards and swear, and Bertie and all his young brothers can escort me about town, and Lord Cunningham can cut Duncan every time he comes looking for me. Sounds great fun, does it not?”
The horror in Bertie’s eyes made her giggle. “I’m sorry, Bertie.” She laughed as he tried to stutter some reply. “I should not roast you that way. Your offer is very generous, but I must stay with Mama. I really have done nothing to merit your generosity.”
Dash of Enchantment Page 3