4
Cassandra stared at Whittaker, her mouth too dry for her tongue to form words, her limbs too stiff for movement. Not that she could go anywhere. The room was a trap. Whittaker stood between her and the door. Honore stood in the doorway. A host of people ranged behind her, and the window offered a twenty-foot drop to a cobblestone yard.
The yard sounded like a good prospect. Broken, her legs would not look much worse. But then she had thought her broken heart could not feel much worse either.
She found her voice. “You lied to me.” No expression, just a flat statement. “I was told you weren’t going to be at Whittaker Hall.”
“I am not. I am staying in Manchester to learn more of spinning machines and things until . . . until . . .” He took a step closer to her, his eyes nearly black, not deep brown in the dimly lit room—dark and bleak. “Cassandra,” he said in a murmur meant for her ears alone, “did you think I could stay away from you?”
She gripped the edge of the stand that served as a dressing table and set her jaw. “You have managed to for a month. You’ve managed to stay away from your family for a month. I should not think I would be any more difficult to dismiss. Probably less, considering I am now—” She could not bring herself to say it, admit aloud that she was now grotesque and lame. She looked down at the cane propped against the stand.
His gaze followed hers. Behind him, the others watched in silence as though expecting a climactic ending to some Elizabethan drama.
“I gave my pledge to you, Cassandra,” Whittaker began. “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
The Shakespeare quote broke her paralysis. She picked up the nearest object at hand and threw it. Unfortunately, it was her cane. Unfortunately, she never was good at throwing anything in a straight line. Unfortunately, the stick with its silver handle sailed right past Whittaker and smacked against the door frame a fraction of an inch from Honore’s head. She shrieked and jumped back, bumping into Beau, who dropped a cup of coffee that splattered Barbara’s gown. She began to scold.
In the tumult, Cassandra swung around, lunged for the bed and its sturdy posts, and wrapped her arms around one as though someone were trying to haul her away. “Out.” She whispered the word, certain no one could hear above the hubbub.
Whittaker ignored her. He took advantage of the chaos in the parlor to draw closer to her, close enough to rest one hand on her shoulder and the other against her cheek. She caught his scent of outdoor freshness like an herb garden after a light rain—thyme, rosemary, perhaps a hint of mint. Her nostrils flared, wanting more of that familiar aroma. Her insides frothed up like syllabub. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to turn her head and kiss his palm, not to look at him up close and in daylight. Not much light came through the drawn curtain, but it was bright enough with him facing the window for her to pick out every detail of his face—the hint of gold in his brown eyes, the hint of a dimple in his right cheek as he smiled, the miniscule gap between his front teeth. Details that haunted her dreams.
She dug her nails into the bedpost to stop herself from brushing an errant wave of hair off his brow, bit her tongue to stop herself from telling him he needed to have his hair cut. She sought for the courage to drive him away with the repulsiveness of her scars. She could lift up her skirt and unfasten a garter to let her stocking fall, and he would run as fast as he had the night of the accident when everyone thought she would die. But she could not even glance at the marks herself, had a maid rub the salves from the physicians into them so she did not have to see what had happened to her once smooth, white skin.
She turned her face away from Whittaker, drew back from his touch. “God doesn’t want us together. He—we—I am going to your home because your mother invited me and I was promised you would not be there. It means nothing. The engagement is over.”
“Because you were injured? Don’t be silly, my dear. I promised to stay with you forever—”
“Not before God, you did not. You are under no obligation. My father will not sue you for breach of promise. I will not declare you are not a gentleman. Everyone will understand.”
“Everyone except for me.” He moved so he could look into her face. “Cassandra, do you not understand—”
“Yes, I understand.” She enunciated each word through clenched teeth. “I understand that you are a gentleman and your word is your word regardless of what you’ll have for a wife.”
“Cassandra.” Father had come into the parlor. “This is most improper for Whittaker to be in your chamber.”
“I did not invite him in here. Honore let him in, and we are well chaperoned.” She gestured toward her sister, Beau, and Barbara. Mama was somewhere in the parlor.
Whittaker turned toward Father, though he held his ground. “I needed to talk to her and she has been refusing me for a month.”
“No,” Father said, nudging Honore out of the doorway, “I have had you refused.”
Whittaker paled. “But sir, why?”
“Cassandra is correct.” Father stepped into the bedchamber and out of the doorway, leaving a clear path to the parlor door and the exit of the inn. “The fire that scarred my daughter was your fault, and I’d rather she not wed you.”
“I never said—” Cassandra broke off. She could not contradict her father in front of Whittaker, or at all. Disobeying God had brought bad enough consequences, and He was merciful.
“You are allowing her to come to my home, though.” Whittaker sounded and looked a bit like a small boy confused about a promised treat being denied him despite his good behavior. “Surely you knew I might be there.”
“I knew no such thing. I was assured you would not be.” Father glanced toward Beau. “Lady Bainbridge, Lady Whittaker, and I have other interests, and Cassandra needed a healthful place to fully recover. Whittaker Hall is precisely that place.” Father crossed his arms over his chest. “Now go about the business I know you have.”
Whittaker jerked back as though he had been caught stealing trinkets from the batter for a Christmas pudding. “Sir, I’d rather not—” He stopped at a hard glance from Father.
Cassandra stared from Father to Whittaker and back again. What business could Whittaker have that Father would know about? Other than the usual business attached to an estate and the mills Whittaker had inherited from an uncle—horror of horrors, an uncle in trade when one was the earl of Whittaker. She had liked the title Mr. Geoffrey Giles better until the Luddite disturbances in the past year. Those had made her glad Whittaker was the earl, removed from the danger other than ensuring his own looms remained safe—though they hadn’t.
Whittaker did not look in danger at that moment either, except for the danger of being embarrassed by Father in front of her and the others once again encircling the doorway, Mama included this time. Whittaker was, after all, no more than three and twenty, a younger son never intended for the role his brother’s premature death had landed upon his shoulders. He looked as though more than the mantle of title, rank, and those responsibilities lay over him. He was too well-bred for his shoulders to slump, but they twitched as though beneath a lash, and his chin lacked its usual firm line.
“I had to know for myself,” he murmured. “If this is what Cassandra wants, I will be on my way.”
“It is,” Cassandra said.
She managed to look him straight in the eye as she said it. She managed to give him a half-smile. She did not manage a curtsy, nor to stop a single tear from slipping out of the corner of her eye.
Whittaker seemed not to notice the tear. He focused his attention on Father. “Sir—”
“Whether she wants it or not,” Father said, “I will not have you wed her for her dowry, and if you go against my will, I will withhold it as I did with Lydia when she married Charles Gale.”
Everyone except for Beau gasped.
Whittaker glared at Father. “So you have broken your word to me?”
“For my daughter’s sake, yes.”
&n
bsp; “I do not see how—” Honore began.
Mama pressed a finger to her lips to silence her youngest daughter.
Cassandra thought she would be sick. Guilt and shame already shredded her heart. She suffered because of her behavior but had engaged in the behavior because she believed this man loved her. Yet there he stood quibbling with Father over his word and dowry agreements. She may as well be a haunch of venison at the butcher’s stall.
She turned away from the men, away from the man she thought loved her despite her penchant for Greek poets and aeronautics, her spectacles and her tendency to forget to pin up her hair properly. She believed she served him well in letting him go, not making him obligated to wed a disfigured bride. And he argued with Father about her seven-thousand-pound dowry, a respectable but not exceptional sum. The damage to his mills must have been worse than he told her. Or Whittaker Hall wasn’t prospering. Or her dowry had been the attraction all along for a younger son, as he was when they met. The physical attraction and dowry outweighed her shortcomings—shortcomings he had been trying to change for months.
She was going to be sick, but not in front of Whittaker. She watched him in the tiny mirror over the dressing table. He glanced her way, appeared as though he might take a step in her direction, then spun on his heel and strode from the room, pausing only long enough for the others to step aside and to give the ladies a brief, slight bow and Beau a nod. Then the outer door closed with an exaggeratedly soft click, and he was gone.
“Well then.” Cassandra forced a broad smile across her lips. “Do you all have any more surprises in store for me?”
“He wanted to see you again,” Honore burst out. “He asked me to let him know our plans, if you were going to go up to Whittaker Hall, so I wrote to him.”
“You wrote a gentleman?” Mama pressed one hand to her bosom. “Honore, did I not raise you better than that?”
“He is”—Honore glanced around—“was nearly family. I see nothing improper . . .” She sighed. “I thought I was helping.”
“We do not need your interference, Honore,” Father said. “Cassandra needs time to heal and regain her strength, not be importuned by a money-grubbing, immor—”
Father could not condemn Whittaker as being immoral without condemning his daughter too. Cassandra knew she deserved the accusation. She had gone against far too much of what she had been taught.
“Where is our supper?” Father demanded.
Barbara hastened to hunt down the inn servants and food. Mama retreated to a chair by the fire while Beau fetched a shawl, a book, and her needlework basket for her. Honore stood in the bedchamber doorway with her lower lip protruding and her eyes downcast.
Father turned to Cassandra. “Until the accident, I did not realize how easily you could be led into temptation, nor that Whittaker would do so. Apparently a few things were kept from me in the past.”
“Father, he did not lead me—”
“Therefore, I think under the circumstances,” he plunged on as though she hadn’t spoken, “you are better off finding someone of a less . . . volatile temperament for your husband.”
“No man,” Cassandra said in a voice whose steadiness surprised even her, “of any temperament will want me now. I would prefer to concentrate on my studies and perhaps find a genteel teaching post one day.”
“None of my daughters will earn their living.” Father’s dark whiskers stood out against his pale skin at such a notion. “That Lydia earned money by selling her pictures was disgraceful enough. But at least she was a soldier’s widow and no one knew it was her paintings. But for you to teach? Out of the question. You might end up with a daughter of another peer for a student and my colleagues will believe I cast you out. Unthinkable. We will find you a husband of a less . . . passionate and more spiritual nature.”
“Father.” Cassandra looked down at the forget-me-not sprig muslin skirt over a petticoat of the softest white, over a chemise of delicate lawn and knitted silk stockings, too expensive and fine for travel wear, but the sole material that did not irritate her still-tender scars. “Be honest with yourself and me, please, sir. You know no man will want me now. Whittaker came because he felt obligated and, of course, because of the dowry.”
She got out the words without a hint of a quiver in her voice.
“And breach of contract,” Honore added.
“I’d never make such a public spectacle of my daughter,” Father gave forth with all the pompousness of which he was capable—a great deal. Then he deflated like a balloon that had lost its air and touched Cassandra’s cheek with a rare moment of tender affection. “I am afraid you are right, my dear. I hold him in high regard for keeping his word under the circumstances, as your dowry is not exceptional. But if not for him, the circumstances would not exist; therefore, I have given him his marching orders. He wasn’t to have come here tonight.” He glanced at Honore. “You stop interfering, missy.”
“But I think he loves her,” Honore protested. “And I know she loves him. If they will—”
“He was happy enough to leave once he knew Father did not approve of the match anymore.” For fear she might sound unattractively bitter, Cassandra kept her tone even. “After all, the Luddite riots have surely hurt him financially, and my dowry must come in quite convenient right now with the one factory of his smashed to bits.”
“Quite,” Father said. “And not one of you will be wed for your dowry alone. I expect your husbands to treat you with love and honor regardless of income. Whittaker has shown you neither by his own admission. I’ve already informed him if the two of you marry without my permission, as you are certainly old enough to do, I am under no obligation to pay him a farthing.”
But she was just as guilty, or more so. Except Whittaker had walked out fast enough when he learned no money would be forthcoming. So he found her physically attractive—or had before her accident—and now with the scars and no money, he was happy to go on his way. Well, she had been schooling herself for this moment, planning for it. She was free for the most part. Father would come around soon enough, perhaps give her the dowry. She could do a great deal of good for the science of aeronautics with seven thousand pounds.
But first she must prove to him and everyone else that she was not wife material. Surely God had called her to something different, something without passion but using her intellect. Intellect was surely a gift. The other . . . well, that had led her into nothing but pain and suffering.
5
When he was nothing more than the Honorable Mr. Geoffrey Giles, Lord Whittaker wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with Cassandra Bainbridge. Newly graduated from Cambridge, he had learned that his mother’s brother, embarrassingly having been in trade, had died and left his silk stocking and cotton cloth weaving business to Geoffrey. “The only member of the family with good sense enough to run them into profit instead of the ground,” Uncle Hern had written into his last will and testament.
Whittaker knew nothing about mills. He was supposed to go into the church or perhaps the military, as the younger son of a family with more history than prosperity, certainly nothing in the way of property or money to spare for the younger son. What he did know, however, was how to learn. He’d been an excellent student at university, enjoying his studies for the most part, and felt himself more suited to the church than soldiery or the diplomatic corps. But he was two and twenty at the time and could not be ordained for another two years, so he decided to see if he could make a go of the mills until then.
With this in mind, he plunged out of a spring rain and into an Oxford Street bookshop in search of something to explain ledgers and something talking about looms. Instead, he ran straight into a young woman with her arms loaded down with a stack of volumes that surely weighed as much as she. The books scattered. Her heavy, dark hair tumbled from beneath her hat and onto her shoulders, and thus the Honorable Mr. Geoffrey Giles met and began his courtship of Miss Cassandra Bainbridge. Three months later, he ask
ed her to marry him. A week after that, his older brother went riding after a heavy rain, tried to jump a stream with a muddy bank, and landed head down in the water, his neck broken against a rock.
Mere the Honorable Mr. Geoffrey Giles became the ninth earl of Whittaker at two and twenty, and the wedding to Cassandra was postponed for a year, then called off, then set for the end of August, and now . . .
Much to his dislike for the pall of pipe and cheroot smoke and yeasty stench of ale surrounding him, Whittaker sat in the inn’s taproom, trying to relax on a hard wooden banquette beside Lord Bainbridge and two men in scarlet regimentals with officer insignia on their shoulders.
“You are in a unique position to help us, my lord,” said Major Gabriel Crawford, a man of perhaps thirty with an Etonian accent, probably a scion of one of England’s “great” families. “You were most helpful last spring when the uprisings were at their worst. You can be even more helpful now.”
“I have an estate to run.” Whittaker tried to use logic on the men.
“You have a capable steward,” Bainbridge pointed out. “I saw to that.”
“Yes, my lord, you were quite helpful.” Whittaker sighed, now suspecting his lordship had been a bit too helpful in that area. The steward rarely consulted Whittaker regarding anything, yet the land prospered. At least it brought in more income than it had under his father and then his brother’s management. So he let the man do his job. “I would, however, like to be home now.”
“That is out of the question.” A white line formed around Bainbridge’s mouth.
He did not, he would not, say it in front of the officers, but Whittaker knew why—Cassandra was there. Mama had sent the invitation, knowing that Whittaker Hall was a day’s travel from the new home of Cassandra’s sister, before she learned from him that Cassandra insisted she could no longer marry him.
Laurie Alice Eakes - [Daughters of Bainbridge House 02] Page 4