The Conquest of Lady Cassandra

by Madeline Hunter

  “I do not know if she owns it. She does live here. She certainly is the queen here.”

  Marielle greeted Cassandra with a kiss, then appraised Ambury while Cassandra introduced them. “You are alone?” she asked. “The other one is not with you?”

  “She means Kendale,” Cassandra said. “He had taken to following her around town some months ago. She noticed at once. Didn’t you, Marielle?”

  “I am heartened to hear that my friend had the good sense to admire your beauty, although he should not have followed you like that.”

  “It was not l’amour. He thought I was a spy.” The pitches of her accent made the statement charming.

  Ambury turned on his own charm. “And are you one?”

  “Since you are his friend, I will let you wonder too. It amuses me.” She half turned, and stretched out an elegant finger. “You aunt is back there, Cassandra. She is most industrious, and enjoys sitting with Madame Chardin. They gossip about dead friends.”

  Cassandra spied Aunt Sophie. She wore a white cap that covered her crown, and an apron over her floral-patterned dress. The woman next to her said something, and Sophie threw back her head and laughed.

  Ambury joined her as she walked between the tables in that direction.

  Aunt Sophie looked up in surprise when they reached her. She said something to her companion in French, then smiled. “You are just in time for the most delicious story about Mademoiselle O’Murphy and that infamous painting Boucher did of her. Madame says the king insisted that all his women rouge their bottoms and that explains that rosy hue in the center of her derriere in the picture. And here I always assumed it was Boucher’s lack of good taste.”

  “Damnation,” Ambury whispered. “We forgot the rouge.”

  Cassandra stepped on his boot toe, hard. “Aunt Sophie, we would like to talk to you and explain what is afoot on your behalf.”

  “Of course. Marielle will not mind if we seek privacy in the kitchen, I am sure.” She spoke to Madame Chardin, then stood and led the way out of the chamber. “Such a lovely child that O’Murphy girl was. Madame Chardin says that she survived it all, shrewd little Irish minx that she was.”

  The kitchen afforded some privacy. Cassandra sat with Sophie at the rustic table. Ambury stood.

  Cassandra explained Ambury’s petition to Chancery, and the other efforts on her behalf. “Ambury has let a house,” Cassandra finished. “As soon as we move there, we will bring you to live with us. Until then—”

  “Until then, it would be better if you came to my family’s home,” Ambury said.

  Cassandra frowned at him. That was not what she had planned at all.

  “I would prefer to remain here,” Sophie said. “I have been safe, and I am not intruding.”

  Ambury looked at her very directly. “Would staying there discomfort you?”

  “Not at all. I merely prefer being here.”

  Silence descended. Sophie and Ambury had eyes only for each other. Not the friendliest eyes either.

  “Aunt Sophie, about the diamond earrings,” Cassandra began, dreading the accusation she was about to imply. “You said that you bought them at a pawnbroker, but were very vague. I need you to tell us exactly how you came to possess them.”

  Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but Ambury interrupted again. “They were a gift, were they not? From a member of my family.”

  Confused, Cassandra looked from her husband to her aunt and back again.

  Aunt Sophie gave Ambury a good examination, taking his measure in all ways. “Yes, now that you remind me, they were a gift.”

  “They were?” Cassandra blurted. “From whom?”

  “It would be a betrayal of trust for me to say.”

  Ambury did not appear surprised by that answer. Cassandra could barely contain her astonishment.

  “It was not the only gift,” Ambury said. “I believe there was some property as well.”

  Sophie hesitated but gave up with a sigh. “There was. Some is in trust, and I receive the income from the rents. Then there is my house—”

  “Your house?” Cassandra exclaimed. “You have had that for years. Forever. I thought my father bought that for you.”

  Sophie reached over and patted her face. “Be calm, dear. Your father gave me money instead. I chose to use it to travel once I had the house and the rents, along with the portion from my mother, to ensure my keep.” She turned to Ambury. “So you have discovered that your family was generous to me. You should not bother yourself with such old business. As Cassandra says, it was forever ago.”

  “I appreciate your tolerating my questions, so there are no ambiguities to the estate. As you say, it was forever ago, and there is no reason to pursue it further.”

  Cassandra itched to pursue it a lot further. She thought she would burst from the questions galloping through her head.

  Ambury finally sat down. He smiled at Aunt Sophie. Suddenly, he oozed charm.

  “I have reason to think that Barrowmore will make another try for you. It is wise to accept Highburton’s house as sanctuary. I know that my mother will welcome you.”

  “Do you now? Gerald has become an insolent bother. I should tell his father about him, so he can be put in his place.”

  Cassandra glanced askance at Ambury. She took her aunt’s hand. “Gerald is the earl now, Aunt Sophie. Father cannot help you. Only Ambury can.”

  Sophie’s gaze sharpened on Ambury. “You are not really giving me a choice about where I live now, are you?”

  “Not if you want my protection.”

  Sophie made a little sniff of resentment. “Then I must obey, since I am in need of someone’s protection after all these years. I will collect my belongings, such as they are, and trust your word that Elinor will not find me an embarrassment or a burden.”

  “Do not go and pack quite yet. There is one other thing that we need to talk about before we leave the privacy of this chamber,” he said.

  “More? What else is there to settle?”

  “I need to ask you about your other jewels.”

  “Who? Why?” Cassandra stammered after Aunt Sophie left to collect her things.

  “My grandfather,” Ambury said. “And the usual why.”

  “No.” She struggled to keep a giggle from punctuating her astonishment. She did not succeed, and received a very Highburton glance when it emerged. “Forgive me. It is just—refreshing. Don’t you think so?” Another giggle bubbled. She almost choked keeping it in. “Do you not find some satisfaction in knowing that you did not fall so far from the tree after all?”

  He shrugged. “Some, I suppose.”

  She pursed her mouth and looked down her nose. “Oh, yes, the Earls of Highburton, bulwarks of moral rectitude and examples for us all.” She grinned. “Oh, my, this is rich.”

  Rather severe blue eyes scolded her.

  “Not that I would ever tell anyone,” she said. “I can keep family secrets as well as the next person. This one is safe with me.” She stretched over and kissed him. “Just as I am sure my aunt’s revelations about the jewels are safe with you, Ambury.”

  “Are you blackmailing me, Cassandra?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Because I will not have it.”

  “Of course not.”

  “The two revelations are not equal. And her jewels, the ones she admits to borrowing, must go back.”

  “I agree. Anything borrowed should be returned eventually. I will turn them over to you at once.”

  They strolled out to the reception hall. French chatter drifted from the dining room. Up above somewhere, Aunt Sophie packed her valise.

  “For all my joking, I am a little sad to learn about your grandfather.”

  “Oddly enough, I am too. It changes my memories of him. Not badly, but it is a change all the same.”

  Her touch of melancholy had nothing to do with memories. Ambury’s grandfather was nothing more than a reputation to her.

  Aunt Sophie came down the stairs
. A young woman followed, carrying the valise that she handed to Ambury.

  Sophie’s face showed no expression. Her eyes held that distant, filmy look that worried Cassandra. The talk of forever ago must have sent her thoughts there quite thoroughly while she was upstairs.

  Ambury noticed. He offered his arm and spoke gently. “Let us go now, Sophie.”

  She appeared confused. She looked at him, however, and calmed. “You are sure that Elinor does not mind?”

  “I am sure.”

  Sophie stepped forward. “She has always been the most generous woman I ever had the honor to know.”

  Chapter 24

  His mother did receive Sophie, with open arms. The warm greeting seemed to pull Sophie back from wherever her mind had wandered. The two women banished Ambury and Cassandra and closed the door to the library so they could talk privately. About forever ago, perhaps.

  Yates went looking for Cassandra after he consulted with Prebles about the Chancery petition. He found her in her bedchamber, gazing out the window, looking a little lost, much as Sophie had in the carriage. For all her stillness, he sensed turmoil in her.

  He embraced her from behind and kissed her shoulder. “What is making you so thoughtful?”

  She shrugged. “Many things. Too many revelations, perhaps. I am not happy to learn that my aunt did take some of those jewels, for one thing. I do not think they were all misunderstandings, the way she claimed.”

  “I think most probably were.” It was the sort of lie one says to someone who does not need to know the whole truth. The type one says to a person one cares about. “You said that learning about my grandfather made you sad too. Why?”

  A rueful smile curved her mouth. “I realized that I had started counting on your becoming more like prior Highburtons, in one way. I thought…” She turned and kissed him. “It is not important.”

  He sat in the blue chair and pulled her onto his lap. “You thought what?”

  She toyed with his cravat for a few moments. “I thought that with all that righteousness in your blood that I stood a fair chance of eventually not sharing my husband with mistresses.”

  “But that is not important?”

  “It was only a vague supposition regarding your blood. It would certainly be fair if you grew more like them that way. You have told me I can never have lovers.”

  “You think we should be equal in virtue or adultery, in other words. An understandable view, I suppose, but a radical one.”

  “I expect it is unlikely now that we know your inheritance does not include the inclination to be that virtuous.”

  He had no idea if it were likely or not. Nor was it clear whether it really mattered to her. He rather hoped it did, he realized. “So all of your heavy thinking was on my inherited inclinations regarding marital virtue?”

  “I was trying to sort out many things. For example, as best I understand, my brother has been very cruel for very little gain. My aunt may have had income from a property, but it was not much. Not enough to justify what he tried to do with her.”

  “He planned there to be more income from that property.” He told her about the defense towers and how Gerald had been working to get that land on the list of properties. “If he had control of her, he would control the land and the money it paid. The trustee would not have stood against him, as long as your aunt was being cared for.”

  “How much more?”

  “Hundreds a year, at least.”

  “He is heartless if he tried to imprison her to control even several hundred. And his behavior to me—so much anger and…and hatred…yes, hatred—years of it, and for no reason at all other than his own arrogance and pride. There is something very sad about it. Surely a person needs good cause to become so unkind. He was not always like this.” She wiped her eyes. “I miss the boy I knew as a child, Ambury. It is as if when I was not looking, my brother disappeared and another person took his place.”

  He fished out his handkerchief and gave it to her. “When did he change?”

  “When he inherited. I did not realize the fullness of it until…” She dabbed at her eyes.

  “Until when?”

  “Do not ask,” she said softly.

  “Until that business with Lakewood?”

  “We are not to speak of it, you said. That was a wise decision, I have come to see.”

  “Not so wise. You once said no one knows what happened now, except you. I would like to know too.”

  She shook her head. “You will blame me for tainting his memory, just as you always blamed me for tainting his reputation. I can brave out almost anything, darling, but not your disapproval, I have learned.”

  He did not believe that she wanted to protect herself from that disapproval. She wanted to protect him from having those memories tainted. It touched him that she would refuse to defend her own behavior in order to preserve those for him.

  He embraced her fully, and she laid her head on his shoulder. “I still want to know. Tell me now.”

  She did not speak for so long that he thought she never would. Then she sniffed again. “As I told you, it was no accident, that day. The boat, our absence alone together, the compromising situation was all planned.”

  He remembered her claiming that after the party, and his reaction. He swallowed his irritation this time. He had pressed her for all of it and should wait to hear it.

  “I saw nothing wrong with that little boat,” she said. “In the woods, he seemed incapable of finding our way. I would point out how to go, and he would insist we do otherwise. It was a farce, but at the time, I only congratulated myself for not having accepted the proposal of such a fool. Only when we staggered out of those woods, finally, and my brother and mother and the others on that picnic met us, did I realize the cost of his stupidity.”

  “I asked to hear this, but I will not have you insult him,” he said, fighting the anger her story stoked. He did not know yet if he was furious at her or for her, which only made it worse. “He was not a stupid man.”

  “No, he was not. I was the stupid one, for thinking I could reject his proposal and have it end there.”

  “He would not do what you are saying, Cassandra. He would not trap a woman so dishonorably. You misunderstood.”

  She sat up and looked into his eyes. “I misunderstood nothing. That afternoon, he came to me to propose again, to do the right thing. I put him off, but an hour later I went looking for my brother, to tell him that I agreed. They were together in my brother’s study, and I heard them laughing about it. Lakewood was regaling my brother with all the missteps. How the hole bored in the wood did not unseal, so he had to use his oars to get water in the boat. How the sun kept coming out and he had to ignore my suggestions we follow it west. It was a great joke to both of them. I decided right then that I would be damned before I would be tricked into having a man I did not want.”

  “Well, you almost managed that, didn’t you? Being damned.” The words were out before he knew it, spewing from the chaos of reactions he had to this story. He was not entirely the man you knew him to be, Penthurst had said. Damn Penthurst and damn Lakewood.

  She flushed as if he had slapped her face. “Should I have spared myself by revealing the whole plot? Would the truth of his dishonor have been preferable to vague speculations about it? Or do you think that even knowing what I knew I should have accepted his proposal of obligation? Oh, dear. You do, don’t you? You believe that despite it all I should have married him and redeemed him and myself and learned to forget what he was.” She pushed away and tried to scramble off his lap. “Well, I didn’t, and I am glad even if you are not.”

  He grabbed her waist before she got away. He held her firmly while she squirmed. “Damnation, of course I am glad you did not marry him. If you had, he would still be alive and you would not have married me. It is hellish to think of that, and just as hellish to know I am glad it all happened as it did. How do you think that makes me feel?” He took a deep breath and forced control on
himself. “He was my oldest friend, Cassandra.”

  She stopped fighting him. “I am sorry, Ambury. Sorry that it is hellish for you, and sorry that I told you. I knew it was not wise. You should not have insisted.”

  “It needed saying. I was tired of having that day forever unexplained.” He held her while their emotions calmed. Then he just held her because he wanted to. He tried to picture what she described and fit it on the man he had known. Lakewood’s adoring love of Cassandra had been out of character, that was undeniable. And he had a calculating side to him that could be unpleasant.

  Even acknowledging those truths created some guilt.

  “Why do you think they did it?” he asked a good half hour later.

  “It was money for Lakewood. I overheard that too. Talk of the settlement. For my brother—that is what I contemplated when you joined me. A man behaving dishonorably to enrich himself makes some sense. Doing it to marry off a sister seems strange, does it not?”

  He set her on her feet and stood. “I will turn my mind to it and see if a less strange answer comes to me. Now we must dress for dinner, so we can welcome your aunt to her stay here.”

  An hour later, he entered Cassandra’s dressing room. The day’s drama seemed long ago as soon as he saw how exquisite she appeared in an ivory dinner dress that fell softly over her curves. He offered his arm to escort her down.

  “You are your aunt’s heir, are you not?” he asked on the stairs. “Perhaps Gerald wanted to control you just as he controlled her. You have noted that he demanded you marry a man of his choosing. Perhaps what he really wanted was to make sure you married a man with whom he had an understanding about that inheritance. He would arrange the marriage, and your husband would share the income.”

  “I suppose. Only that brings us full circle to my dismay. All of that trouble for a few hundred a year! Gerald needs an avocation even more than I had thought, if it is true.”

  After dinner, the ladies left Yates to his port. Since his father was too ill to come down to dine, he drank alone and turned over Cassandra’s description of that day six years ago.