Jim’s mother had every right to blame her! She had dragged Jim into something that wasn’t his affair, and Jim had died of it. It was something she was going to have to live with the rest of her life.
When, in early February 1750, Mistress Effingham suffered a stroke, and died, her assistant and next in command, Mistress Peterson, felt herself unequal to the task of running the school. She simply bundled up everybody, bag and baggage, and sent them home.
And so it was that on February 8, Cassandra Keynes found herself once again entering London in a coach, this time through driving snow. And even though she would never forget what had happened the last time, when the buildings of the city rose up before her, half-seen through the snow, she could not but feel her spirits rise too.
Of a sudden, as the coach negotiated the snowy cobbles, it gave a lurch. Cassandra thought later that she had almost felt the horses stagger. Simultaneously there was a muffled rumble that seemed to come from somewhere below. At this point the coach s window flaps were hastily snatched back, letting in not only a shower of snowflakes but also the sight of a nearby chimney toppling and crashing down into the street below.
“It’s an earthquake!” shrilled the elderly lady from beneath her thick dark velvet French hood. "It’s a judgment on us!” She glared about her at the coach’s other occupants— sinners all, she had no doubt—and found them as upset as herself, for earthquakes were popularly believed to be the firm hand of God shaking up sinners and bringing down their houses upon their evil heads.
Atop the coach, the earthquake had even rattled the driver. "Everybody all right?” he roared down.
There had been only that single rippling motion, the earth had settled down, and Cassandra was feeling that someone should call back, "You shook us up worse all the way along the road!” when she realized that the elderly woman was pointing a shaking finger at her.
"I’ve no doubt you’re a young harlot with sins aplenty,” she accused. "Young girl like you, traveling alone!”
"I’m a schoolgirl, returning home because the school’s headmistress has died and the school disbanded!” was Cassandra’s stiff reply.
"Here, here,” muttered someone testily. "We re all frightened, but let’s not have words. We all know London’s a sinful city that’s been shaken before—no need to blame one of us for it!”
The elderly lady subsided, but her gaze on Cassandra was still suspicious. And stayed that way through the mild aftershock that shook them before they reached the warmth of the coaching inn.
Perhaps, Cassandra thought uneasily, she deserved that look. For had she not led a man to his death outside London? And now on her return to the city she was greeted by an earthquake!
It was a great relief to her to hear the gentlemen talking in the common room of the coaching inn where she went to drink hot chocolate before again venturing out into the weather. Their conversation was all about the earthquake. Above somebody’s excited cry that her sister’s chimney had been brought down by it—and why should it strike her sister, who had always led a blameless life?—Cassandra could hear three well-dressed gentlemen at the next table trying to explain the quake as caused by something in nature.
"I tell you it will turn out to be this electricity in the air that has just been discovered,” said one sagely, toying with his wine.
"And do not forget that just before the ground shook, the air pressure was quite low,” chimed in one of his companions.
"Nonsense!” The third man struck the table with his fist. “ ’Tis the near proximity of the planet Jupiter.” He downed his ale as if that settled the matter.
Cassandra was fascinated. So there were those who felt that earthquakes had a natural cause! And why not? When frost split open a boulder in winter and sent it rolling down the mountainside, no one suggested that Cod was punishing sinners, even if the roof of some unfortunate cottage was caved in by the stone!
With more confidence she finished her hot chocolate, called a hackney coach, and headed for Grosvenor Square and the confrontation with her father that she dreaded.
She found he was not at home. Yates let her in and gloomily told her that the master was out on one of his wild-goose chases for young Phoebe, who had been reported seen in Oxford. Cassandra was surprised that her sister had been able to elude her father all this time.
"She hops about like a flea,” was Yates’ aggrieved explanation.
So Cassandra would be mistress of the house—at least until her father came home. And after that? She winced. She would not consider what might happen then.
Cassandra’s bags had not even been brought up before the heavy iron knocker sounded.
“That will be the fellow who’s called here every day for a week,” predicted Yates, heading for the door.
Curious, Cassandra waited with one foot poised on the stair.
“And would Rowan Keynes have returned from his trip by now?’’ inquired a courteous voice with a distinct Scottish burr.
“Not yet, sir.” Yates was about to close the door in the caller’s face when Cassandra said, “Wait. Ask the gentleman to come in, Yates.”
Looking surprised, Yates held open the door, and a heavyset graying man stamped the snow off his boots and came into the hall. The candlelight flickered on pink cheeks, bright eyes, and a very merry smile.
“Your servant, lass.” He swept her such a lighthearted bow that she judged him to have been a rake in his youth.
“It’s very cold out,” said Cassandra. “Won’t you have a cup of tea—or something stronger—before you venture back into the snow?”
The caller would. While she drank tea and he sipped brandy, she learned that he was Robert Dunlawton, a Lowland Scot from the Cheviot Hills, and that his business with her father was that, having learned that Rowan Keynes was in effect an absentee landlord, he was desirous of purchasing Aldershot Grange.
“Oh, you can ask him, but he won’t sell,” said Cassandra confidently.
“And why not?” asked the smiling gentleman she was already calling “Robbie.”
“Because long ago he promised that Aldershot Grange would be my dowry because I loved it so, while Phoebe should have her dowry in money because she didn’t like it there and was always pining for city life. ”
“D’ye mind if I ask him?”
“No, of course not.” Indeed, if Aldershot Grange was not to be hers, she could think of no nicer owner than the man who sat facing her. She said as much.
Across from her Robbie Dunlawton’s eyes kindled. “Since you’ve just arrived, I take it you did not know that Lady Merryfield’s ball is being held tonight despite the snow?”
“No, I didn’t know. Cassandra was visibly disappointed, because Lady Merryfield was one of the few people she had met on a previous visit to London and she felt sure she would have been invited. She told Robbie that, sounding crestfallen.
“No need for regrets, lass,” he told her staunchly. “Lady Merryfield is one of the few people I know in London too, and she’s invited me to her ball this night. Dash upstairs, lass, and change to a ball gown—I’d be honored to squire you.”
And why should she not? There was no one here to gainsay her! A smile of such brilliance broke over her face that the Scot was dazzled by it. She set down her teacup and rose.
“Pour yourself another drink—I’ll be right down,” she told him, and blew him a kiss from the door.
The Scot chuckled.
He stopped chuckling when his lady came down the stairs. Her chaste white velvet ball gown—indeed it was the only ball gown she owned—had been bought in Cambridge so that Jim might squire her to a ball being given by one of his sisters to announce her betrothal. But on the very night she was to wear it, Cassandra had mysteriously slipped on the top step of the school’s main stairway and cascaded down the entire flight. She was never to know that Phoebe, bored and annoyed at not being included in the party, had surreptitiously smeared the top step with butter—and even as her gleaming dark eyes watc
hed Cassandra’s fall, was leaning down quickly to mop up the evidence with her kerchief. With Phoebe’s bright gaze upon her, Cassandra had landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Her high heel had caught in her dress and torn it. The rip was mended, but not the sprained ankle that had accompanied it. Cassandra had missed the ball and lain in bed for a week. But Phoebe had not missed the ball. She had asked Cassandra breathlessly if Jim might not squire her instead, and Cassandra had sent down word asking him please to do so. The dress had never been worn.
But now at last she was wearing it—and to a far more glamorous occasion than the betrothal party in Cambridge. She had struggled into the gown without help, and realized at once that the tier on tier of tiny white lace ruffles with which the Cambridge dressmaker had filled up what should have been a low-cut neckline, “for modesty’s sake,” was a mistake. A pair of scissors ruthlessly applied took instant care of that and left Cassandra with a dazzlingly low-cut gown. The bodice was too tight—Cassandra was anxious about that, and quite breathless as she struggled with the hooks in the back—but a little push to her breasts brought their temptingly rounded tops above the neckline and gave her a little more room to breathe.
Her hair she could do little about, so she simply combed out its gleaming length and swept it upward, twining in it a cheap necklace of white brilliants she had bought at a fair in Cambridge—in the candlelight they would look like diamonds! She could not make it all stay up, so she let a single lock of it dangle down over one white and almost bare shoulder.
Despite the fact that the velvet was somewhat crushed and the entire gown smelled strongly of lavender, having been laid away so long, her color was high, her emerald eyes sparkling, and the entire effect was such, as she swept down the main stairway with her huge skirts billowing out behind her, that the Scot drew in his breath sharply.
“You’re a vision,” he said, his voice a bit husky.
“Oh, I do thank you.” Cassandra’s mind was occupied by other, more important things. “Robbie, would you mind—I don’t think I got my top hook fastened properly. ”
She turned her lovely back. Robbie’s strong hands trembled ever so slightly as he fastened the top hook, and again when he bent down to affix the tall pattens, really a kind of platform shoe almost six inches tall, to her white kid dancing slippers. He rose with the scent of lavender wafting through his lungs and gazed down in wonder on this sixteen-year-old beauty who seemed to have changed from charming child to dazzling woman right before his eyes.
“I will go find us a hackney coach,” he announced, reaching for his hat.
“Nonsense. Yates will take us in our own coach,” said Cassandra recklessly. In for a penny, in for a pound! “Yates!” she called. “I desire the coach to be brought round. Robbie and I are attending Lady Merryfields ball!”
Yates gave her a disapproving look and seemed about to refuse.
“Otherwise we must call a hackney,” said Robbie Dunlawton softly.
Perhaps something in the Scot's level gaze decided Yates. He brought the family coach round and it proved much more comfortable than a hackney, as Cassandra pointed out, with deep wine velvet cushions and big fur lap robes to wrap around their legs.
The ball was in full swing when they arrived, the sturdy Scot and the scintillating young girl. Lady Merryfield, who before she had married a viscount had been plain Jane Lane, had once smiled very kindly upon dashing and sinister Rowan Keynes. Now a tolerant and gracious hostess whose cosmopolitan affairs were great events of the London season, she welcomed them both warmly.
“But you ve grown up!” she cried, standing back to look at Cassandra. “Lord, it makes me feel old! How nice of you to bring her, Robbie. I had no idea she was in town. You must lead me out for a measure while one of these eager young blades leads out Cassandra.” She indicated with a negligent sweep of her arm the five young men who had appeared magically from nowhere at sight of the beautiful blonde in white velvet.
At this command from his hostess, Robbie had no choice but to relinquish Cassandra to the pack. He led stout, bubbly Lady Merryfield out upon the floor.
Cassandra found herself suddenly surrounded by what seemed a sea of smiling masculine faces, all clamoring to lead her out.
“I really have never learned to dance properly,” she admitted, blushing.
Not a man there who wouldn't be honored to teach her!
That night the “beautiful blonde in white velvet,” as the article about Lady Merryfield s ball in the Gazette called her, took London by storm. Another paper called her
“The Fair Maid of Cumberland. Her dance card was filled up instantly. People crowded around to meet her. She met so many people that she couldn’t remember their names. She was invited everywhere.
Only one flaw marred the evening. A dark lady in wine velvet, whose beauty, though great, was a little frayed around the edges, stopped and stared at sight of her, then asked to be presented.
“So you are Rowan’s daughter,” she murmured with a measuring glance. “You look nothing like your father.
“I am said to resemble my mother.”
“So indeed you do. Were it not for your coloring, I would have thought you to be Charlotte. I am told you arrived with the earthquake. Tell me, did you bring it with you?”
There was a little chill in the air at that remark, and Cassandra stiffened. But Robbie, standing nearby, eased the tension with a shout of laughter. “If sixteen-year-old lassies are bringing earthquakes to London, I fear mature matrons such as yourself may bring us a tidal wave!”
Katherine Talybont—she was now Lady Scopes, wife of an obscure West Country knight—bit her lip at being called a “mature matron,” but she managed a thin smile, for the company was joining Robbie in good-natured laughter.
Robbie took Cassandra swiftly away. Only he saw the menacing expression in Katherine’s eyes as they followed the departing Cassandra, and it gave him a deep feeling of unease.
The Talybonts had never accepted their widowed daughter-in-law. Katherine had been forced at last, by mounting debts, into marriage with Sir Wilfred Scopes, who could afford to bring her to London but once a year—and then briefly. All this she laid at Rowan’s door. His younger daughter had come to grief—it gave Katherine great satisfaction to hear that he had spent months searching the countryside for Phoebe. But now this older daughter with the dazzling good looks inherited from Charlotte was threatening to eclipse all the “Incomparables” of the season—as the London papers dubbed leading debutantes.
Perhaps Cassandra could be brought down as well.
A frightening smile crossed Katherine’s handsome features. All she needed was an opportunity. . . .
Meanwhile, Cassandra asked Robbie in a troubled voice, “Do you think sinners bring earthquakes?”
“Not a bit of it,” was his firm response. “I think the earth shakes us about when it chooses, and neither God nor man is likely to do much about it!”
This cynical observation was interrupted by a large lady in a plum gown almost covered with yards of blond lace, who bustled up in the company of Lady Merryfield and introduced herself as Lady Stanhope. Robbie drifted away.
Lady Stanhope, who had five daughters yet to be brought out and whose eldest. Mavis, was currently being overlooked by London’s best beaux, descended upon Cassandra with a flurry of motherly clucks. What, her school had closed and she’d journeyed to London alone? And was now without a chaperon on Grosvenor Square? Why, that would never do! Cassandra must come and stay with her, Mavis would love the company! And Cassandra must bring that nice man, the Scotsman who had brought her, along—he wasn’t married, was he? Men with wives back home made such tiresome guests. So dreadful that nice people should be reduced to staying at inns during the London season!
Cassandra looked at Lady Merryfield, who nodded imperceptibly, and promptly said she’d be delighted. Indeed she hadn’t looked forward to staying in lonely Grosvenor Square with only servants for company. Yates was promptly dis
patched to collect her luggage and bring it to Lady Stanhope’s.
Robbie was glad to accept too. He’d been a widower these ten years past and his two strapping sons had both died upon the sea. He wanted a pleasant place to retire and raise sheep—or so he had told himself. Now, with this sixteen-year-old pale gold butterfly fluttering into his life, he wasn’t so sure what he wanted.
After the ball, Yates, frowning as he maneuvered the coach horses through the icy snow-covered streets to Lady Stanhope’s residence in Chelsea, was astonished to hear
Robbie’s baritone voice serenading Cassandra with Scottish Lowland songs as the coach wheels crunched over the snow.
The next morning it stopped snowing and Lady Stanhope took Cassandra and her eldest daughter. Mavis, shopping. Having learned that Cassandra had not been shopping for more than a year, she bought her a complete morning outfit and one for afternoon—and charged both, along with a few little items for herself, to Rowan Keynes. “Your father will thank me for it, my dear,” she told Cassandra airily. Cassandra, starved for pretty clothes and good times, did not object. Rowan had never been aught but extravagant. If he tolerated her presence at all, he would wish her to be well-gowned.
Robbie met them and took them to tea. It was obvious that Lady Stanhope, herself a widow, had her eye on Robbie. Her laughter trilled at every word he spoke.
Amused, Cassandra cast a quick glance at Mavis, homely and rather silent. Mavis repressed a smile but her pale eyes sparkled. It made the girls into instant friends and they left arm in arm, with Robbie gallantly bringing up the rear alongside Lady Stanhope.
Life at Lady Stanhope’s for Cassandra—and for Mavis, now that Cassandra had arrived—was a round of parties. On the second night Tony Dunn turned up at a rout and tried to monopolize Cassandra. At first she flinched away from him, for he brought back memories of Cambridge and Jim. But Tony was quick to dispel that. He told her cheerfully that she and Jim would never have made a match, they weren’t suited, Jim was too stodgy for her, she needed a man like himself! He struck a posture that made her laugh, and laughing made her feel better. About Jim. About everything.
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