Chasing Cassandra

by Kleypas, Lisa

  “My family—” she began apologetically.

  “Yes. I know why they’re concerned.” His hand smoothed over her back, up and down the length of her spine. “My work is important to me,” he said. “I need the challenge, or I’d go mad from boredom. But it’s not all-consuming. As soon as I’d achieved what I’d set out to do, there was nothing left to prove. It all started to seem like more of the same. Nothing has been exciting or satisfying for years. With you, though, everything is new. All I want is to be with you.”

  “Even so,” Cassandra said, “there will always be many voices clamoring for your attention.”

  He drew back enough to look at her. “Yours is the one I’ll heed first. Always.”

  She smiled slightly. “Perhaps we should put that in the contract.”

  Taking the remark seriously, Tom reached inside his coat and extracted a pencil. He bent to the table, writing something on the sheet of parchment in front of them and finishing with a decisive period.

  As he turned back to her, Cassandra stood on her toes to kiss him. He claimed his reward immediately, fitting his mouth to hers and taking a long, ardent taste. Her head swam, and she welcomed the exploration of his tongue. He savored and consumed her, with a kiss more aggressive than any he’d given her before. It made her knees weak and turned her bones fluid. Her body listed toward his and was instantly gathered into the hard urgency of his embrace. Desire curled through her in hot tendrils that insinuated themselves in deep, private places. Her throat caught on a whimper of protest as his mouth lifted from hers.

  “We’d better start negotiating,” he said raggedly. “The first issue is how much time you’ll want to spend with me.”

  “All of it,” Cassandra said, and sought his lips again.

  Tom chuckled. “I would. I … oh, you’re so sweet … no, I’m … God. It’s time to stop. Really.” He crushed his mouth against her hair to avoid her kisses. “You’re about to be deflowered in the library.”

  “Didn’t that already happen?” she asked, and felt the shape of his smile.

  “No,” he whispered, “you’re still a virgin. Albeit slightly more experienced than two days ago.” He brought his mouth closer to her ear. “Did you like what I did?”

  She nodded, her face turning so hot that she could feel her cheeks throb. “I wanted more.”

  “I’d like to give you more. As soon as possible.” Tom released her with a roughcast sigh. He seated her, and instead of taking the chair on the opposite side of the table, he occupied the one beside her. Picking up the metal propelling pencil, he used his thumb to push down the top, which clicked as it let out some of the graphite lead inside. “I’ll record the points of agreement as we go along, if you’ll write the final draft in ink.”

  Cassandra watched as he made a few notes on the page in small, neatly formed print. “What interesting penmanship.”

  “Drafting font,” he said. “Engineers and draftsmen are taught to write like this, to make technical drawings and specifications easy to read.”

  “Who sent you to engineering classes?”

  “My employer at the tramway company, Mr. Chambers Paxton.”

  “That was kind of him.”

  “His motives weren’t selfless,” Tom said dryly. “My skills were put to use designing and building engines for him. But he was a good man.” He paused, his gaze turning distant. “He changed my life.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “I was twelve, working as a train boy. Every week, Mr. Paxton rode the eight twenty-five express from London to Manchester and back again. He hired me, and took me in to live with him and his family. Five daughters, no boys.”

  Cassandra listened carefully, sensing the wealth of important details tucked between the simple statements. “How long did you live with the family?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Mr. Paxton must have seemed like a father to you.”

  Tom nodded, examining the mechanism of the metal pencil. Click. He pushed some of the lead back in.

  “Will you invite him to the wedding?” Cassandra asked.

  His opaque gaze angled up to hers. “He passed away two years ago. Disease of the kidneys, so I heard.”

  “You heard …” Cassandra repeated, perplexed.

  Click. Click. “We fell out of communication,” Tom said casually. “I’d worn out my welcome with the Paxton family.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she invited gently.

  “Not now. Later.”

  Something in his pleasant manner made Cassandra feel shut out. Pushed away. As he neatened the stack of writing paper, he looked so solitary that she instinctively reached out to rest her hand on his shoulder.

  Tom stiffened at the unexpected touch. Cassandra began to draw her hand back, but he caught it swiftly. He drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

  She realized he was doing his best to share his past with her, yielding his privacy and his secrets … but it would take time. He wasn’t accustomed to making himself vulnerable to anyone, for any reason.

  Not long ago, she’d seen a comedy at Drury Lane, featuring a character who had fitted the door of his house with a ridiculous variety of locks, latches, and bolts that went all the way from the top to the bottom. Any time someone new entered the scene, it necessitated a laborious process of searching through keys and painstakingly unfastening the entire row. The resulting frustrations of all the characters had put the audience in stitches.

  What if Tom’s heart wasn’t frozen after all? What if it were merely guarded … so guarded that it had become a prison?

  If so, it would take time and patience to help him find his way out. And love.

  Yes. She would let herself love him … not as a martyr, but as an optimist.

  Chapter 20

  Negotiations

  10:00 A.M.

  “SO FAR, THIS HAS been much easier than I expected,” Cassandra said, straightening an accumulating stack of pages with headings, sections, and subsections. “I’m beginning to think you weren’t nearly as intolerable at the bargaining table as Cousin Devon said you were.”

  “No, I was,” Tom said ruefully. “If I had it to do over, I would handle the situation far differently.”

  “You would? Why?”

  Tom looked down at the page before him, using the pencil to scrawl absently in the margins. Cassandra had already noticed his habit of drawing shapes and scribbles while mulling something over: gears, wheels, arrows, railway tracks, tiny diagrams of mechanical objects with no discernible purpose. “I’ve always been competitive,” he admitted. “Too focused on winning to care about collateral damage. It didn’t occur to me that while I was treating it as a game, Trenear was fighting for his tenant families.”

  “No harm was done,” Cassandra said prosaically. “You didn’t succeed in taking the mineral rights.”

  “Not for lack of trying.” The mechanical pencil connected a pair of curving parallel lines with little cross marks, turning them into railroad tracks. “I’m grateful Trenear chose not to hold it against me. He made me aware there are more important things than winning—which is a lesson I needed to learn.”

  Resting her chin on her hand, Cassandra reached out to touch one of the little drawings in the margin. “Why do you do that?” she asked.

  Tom followed her gaze down to the page. His abashed grin was uncharacteristically boyish, and it gave her a pang of delight. “Sorry. It helps me to think.”

  “Don’t apologize. I like your quirks.”

  “You won’t like all of them,” he warned. “Trust me on that.”

  11:00 A.M.

  “I CAN’T ABIDE CLUTTER,” TOM said. “That includes long dusty curtains, and china figurines, and those little tablemats with holes in them—”

  “Doilies?”

  “Yes, those. And fringe trimming. I hate fringe.”

  Cassandra blinked as she saw him write, 7D: No doilies or fringe.

  “Wait,” she said. “No fring
e at all? Not even on lampshades? Or pillows?”

  “Especially not pillows.”

  Cassandra rested her crossed arms on the table and gave him a mildly exasperated glance. “Was there an accident involving fringe? Why do you hate it?”

  “It’s ugly and waggly. It dangles like caterpillar legs.”

  Her brows lowered. “I reserve the right to wear fringe trim on my hats or clothing. It happens to be fashionable this year.”

  “Can we exclude it from nightwear and robes? I’d rather not have it touching me.” Faced with her baffled annoyance, Tom looked down at the paper somewhat sheepishly. “Some quirks can’t be overcome.”

  11:30 A.M.

  “BUT EVERYONE LIKES DOGS,” Cassandra protested.

  “I don’t dislike dogs. I just don’t want one in my house.”

  “Our house.” She braced her elbows on the table and massaged her temples. “I’ve always had dogs. Pandora and I couldn’t have survived our childhood without Napoleon and Josephine. If cleanliness is what worries you, I’ll make certain the dog is bathed often, and accidents will be disposed of right away.”

  That drew a grimace from him. “I don’t want there to be accidents in the first place. Besides, you’ll have more than enough to keep you busy—you won’t have time for a pet.”

  “I need a dog.”

  Tom held the propelling pencil between his first and second fingers, and flipped it back and forth to make the ends tap on the table. “Let’s look at this logically—you don’t really need a dog. You’re not a shepherd or a rat catcher. Household dogs serve no useful purpose.”

  “They fetch things,” Cassandra pointed out.

  “You’ll have an entire staff of servants to fetch anything you want.”

  “I want a companion who’ll go on walks with me, and sit on my lap while I pet him.”

  “You’ll have me for that.”

  Cassandra pointed to the contract. “Dog,” she insisted. “I’m afraid it’s nonnegotiable.”

  Tom’s hand closed around the pencil. Click. Click. “What about fish?” he suggested. “They’re soothing. They don’t ruin carpets.”

  “One can’t pet a fish.”

  A long silence passed. Tom scowled as he read the determination on her face. “This is a major concession on my part, Cassandra. If I give in on this point, I’ll want a proportionately large something-or-other in return.”

  “I gave in on fringe,” she protested.

  “The dog will be your companion, not mine. I don’t want to be bothered by it.”

  “You’ll hardly know it’s there.”

  Tom snorted in disbelief and adjusted the lead in the mechanical pencil. He touched the pencil to the paper and paused. “Damn it,” he muttered.

  Cassandra pretended not to hear.

  “Wife will acquire no more than one domestic canine companion,” Tom said grimly as he wrote. “A: Not to exceed twelve inches in height at the withers, chosen from a list of acceptable breeds to be determined later. B: Canine companion will sleep in designated areas at night, and C:”—his voice turned stern—“Will under no circumstances be allowed on beds or upholstered furniture.”

  “What about ottomans?”

  The tip of the graphite pencil lead snapped and flew off the table with a ping.

  Cassandra interpreted that as a no.

  12:00 P.M.

  “… YOU’LL HAVE TO WAKE up early if you want to breakfast with me,” Tom said. “Most of your kind stay awake half the night at balls and parties, and never arise before noon.”

  “My kind?” Cassandra repeated, her brows lifting.

  “I arrive at the office no later than half past eight. Working London keeps different hours than aristocratic London.”

  “I’ll awaken as early as necessary,” Cassandra said.

  “You may not find it worth the effort.”

  “Why? Are you grumpy in the morning?”

  “No, but I wake up on the go. I don’t like to linger over breakfast.”

  “You must not be doing it right. Lingering is lovely. I do it all the time.” She stretched her arms and shoulders, and arched her sore upper back, her breasts lifting with the motion.

  Tom stared at her, mesmerized. “I might stay just to watch you linger.”

  1:00 P.M.

  “WHAT ABOUT SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS?”

  Cassandra felt her stomach flip, not unpleasantly, and her face began to warm. “Perhaps we should have our own rooms, and you could visit?”

  “Certainly.” Tom fiddled with the pencil. “I’ll want to visit fairly often.”

  She glanced at the empty doorway before turning her attention back to him. “How often?”

  Tom set down the pencil and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “In the past, I’ve gone for long periods of time without … hang it, what’s the polite word for it?”

  “I don’t think there is a polite one.”

  “During a drought, so to speak, I’ve always focused my energy on work. But when it’s available … that is … when I’ve found the right woman … I tend to be …” Tom paused, mentally riffling through various words. “… demanding. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  That provoked a wry grin. Tom lowered his head briefly, then slanted a look up at her. A flicker of firelight caught in his green eye and made it gleam like a cat’s. “What I’m trying to say is, I expect I’ll be keeping you busy every night, for a while.”

  Cassandra nodded, coloring deeply. “It’s the husband’s right, after all.”

  “No,” he said immediately. “As I said before, your body is your own. You’ve no obligation to lie with me, if you don’t want. Not ever. That’s why I agreed with the idea of separate rooms. But I would ask something of you …” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  A succession of emotions crossed his features … self-mockery … chagrin … uncertainty. “That whenever you’re angry or annoyed with me … you won’t use silence as a weapon. I can’t abide it. I’d choose any other punishment.”

  “I would never do that,” Cassandra said gravely.

  “I didn’t think so. But I’d like to put it in the contract, if I may.”

  Cassandra studied him for a moment. The hint of vulnerability she saw just now … this was something new. She liked it very much.

  Silently she extended her hand for the propelling pencil, and Tom gave it to her. She wrote, Wife will never give husband the cold shoulder, and impulsively drew a little picture beside it.

  Tom’s thick lashes lowered as he looked at the page. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “My shoulder. There’s my collarbone, and there’s my neck.”

  “I thought it was a bird smashing into a building.” He smiled at her pretend frown and retrieved the mechanical pencil. “Your shoulder isn’t nearly so angular,” he said, drawing a smooth curve. “The muscle at the top gives it a beautiful slope … like this. And the line of your collarbone is long and straight … tipping upward here … like the edge of a butterfly’s wing.”

  Cassandra admired the drawing. With just a few expressive strokes, he had captured an accurate likeness of her shoulder and throat, and the soft line of her neck leading up to her jaw. “Are you an artist, on top of everything else?” she asked.

  “No.” His smiling eyes met hers. “But I’ve dreamed of you in that blue dress every night since we danced in the winter garden.”

  Moved, Cassandra leaned close to kiss him.

  The pencil dropped to the table, rolled, and fell to the carpet.

  Time ceased its spinning, the draft of minutes broken, the world itself forgotten. Tom pulled her into his lap, and she curled her arms around his neck the way she wanted to wrap her body around him. To her delight, he let her take the lead, leaning back as she experimented with kisses, dragging her lips across his, then fastening tight and ravening slowly. She loved the silky-wet warmth of his mouth … the way his body flexed and tightened beneath her … the quie
t pleasure sounds he couldn’t quite hold back. He took his hands from her and gripped the arms of the chair so tightly, it was a wonder the wood didn’t crack.

  “Cassandra,” he muttered, panting. “I can’t … do this anymore.”

  She lowered her forehead to his, her fingers sliding through the thick black layers of his hair. “One more kiss?”

  Tom’s face was flushed, his eyes dilated. “Not even one.”

  “Ahem.” The sound of someone clearing his throat at the doorway caused them both to start. West stood at the threshold, one shoulder braced against the doorjamb. His expression wasn’t disapproving, only bemused and a bit wry. “I came to ask how the negotiations were going.”

  Tom gave a savage groan and turned his face against Cassandra’s throat.

  Although Cassandra was pink with embarrassment, she sent West a glance of suppressed mischief. “We’re making progress,” she told him.

  West’s brows lifted slightly. “Although I seem to have caught the two of you in a compromising position, my moral pedestal is, alas, too short to give me a clear view of who’s doing what to whom. Therefore, I’ll spare you the sanctimonious finger wagging.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said in a muffled voice, uncomfortably adjusting Cassandra on his lap.

  “Phoebe and I are departing for Essex within the hour,” West continued. “I’ll bid you farewell on her behalf as well as mine. And Tom—” He waited until Tom turned his head with a glance of baleful inquiry. “I apologize,” West continued simply. “It occurs to me I’ve been hypocritical: My past is far more tarnished than yours. God knows you never disgraced yourself in public as I did on a regular basis. You’re a good friend, and you came here with an honorable proposition. I’m damned if I have the right to judge your fitness as a potential husband. If Cassandra decides she wants you, you’ll both have my full support.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said again, this time sounding as if he meant it.

  “One more thing,” West continued. “Ransom just sent word that Lord Lambert was found and detained in Northumberland.”

  Cassandra felt a new tension in Tom’s body. He sat up straighter, his gaze focusing on West. “Is he still there?”