by Mary Balogh
He did not raise his voice.
“You will not talk at all in my home, Paget,” he said, “except with my permission. And you will not use language that is offensive to the ears of ladies even when that permission is granted.”
His knuckles were pressing lightly but deliberately against the man’s windpipe so that his face turned slightly purple.
“Ladies?” Paget said. “The only female I see before me, Merton, is no lady.”
Stephen’s frayed temper snapped. He slammed Paget back against the wall two feet behind him, his hand still at the man’s throat. His free hand, closed into a fist, was poised at shoulder height.
Paget’s hat tipped to an impossible angle and tumbled to the floor.
“Perhaps,” Stephen said, “my ears have deceived me, Paget. But assuming they have not, I will hear your apology.”
“Apology be damned,” Wesley Young’s voice said from just behind Stephen’s shoulder, quaking with fury. “Let me at him, Merton. No one talks to my sister that way and gets away with it.”
“You had better apologize, Paget,” Elliott’s cool voice said from the other side, “and then do as Lady Paget has suggested. There are guests expected here soon, and no one wants them to find you with a bloodied nose. Least of all you, I would imagine. Take your discussion to a private room. Lady Paget’s brother and her betrothed will be happy to accompany you, I am sure.”
“I do apologize for my language to the ladies in the room,” Paget said from between his teeth, and Stephen was obliged to lower his fist and release his hold on the man’s clothing though his meaning had been insolently clear. The apology did not include Cassandra.
Paget straightened his cloak and turned his glare on her.
“In a different time and place,” he said, “you would have been burned at the stake as a witch long ago, woman, before you could do any real harm. I would have enjoyed watching and stoking the fire.”
Stephen’s fist bounced his head off the wall, and blood spurted from his nose.
“Bravo, Stephen,” Vanessa said.
Paget drew a handkerchief from a pocket somewhere inside his cloak and dabbed at his nose before glancing at the scarlet blood.
“I suppose, Merton,” he said, “she has persuaded you and every other man in London—and even some of the ladies—that she did not murder my father in cold blood. And I suppose she has you convinced that the same thing will not happen to you when she has tired of you and wants to be free to find herself a new victim. And I suppose you fully support her outrageous claim to my father’s money and all the jewels he lavished upon her before she shot him through the heart? She is the very devil, but she is clever.”
“No, don’t, Stephen,” Margaret said. “Don’t hit him again. Violence brings a moment’s satisfaction but no real solution to any problem.”
A woman’s logic.
“No, don’t, Wes,” Cassandra said.
Stephen did not take his eyes off Paget’s face.
“And I suppose,” he said, his voice soft, “you have persuaded yourself through a lifetime of self-deception that your father was not an intermittent drinker and a vicious abuser when he had been drinking? I suppose you think that violence perpetrated against women is not strictly speaking violence if it is against a wife. Wives must be disciplined and husbands have a legal right to administer that discipline. Even when that violence causes a woman to lose the child she is carrying.”
“Oh, Stephen,” Katherine said, her voice high-pitched and half strangled.
“My father very rarely drank,” Paget said, looking about him with fury and contempt. “He drank far less often than most men. I will not have his memory besmirched by the lies this woman has told you, Merton. When he did drink, he could be rough, it is true, but only when the person concerned deserved punishment. This woman had every man in the neighborhood fawning over her. There is no knowing what she—”
“And your mother too?” Stephen asked softly. “Was your mother as deserving of punishment? Even the last one?”
He was overreaching himself. He was angry and had not given himself time to consider his words.
But Paget had blanched. He mopped up a few more trickles of blood from his reddened nose.
“What has she told you of my mother?” he asked.
“Even if Cassie killed Paget,” Wesley Young said, “I would support her. I would applaud her. That bastard deserved to die. And I will apologize to the ladies, but I will not withdraw the word. However, she did not kill him.”
“What has she told you of my mother?” Paget asked again, just as if Young had not spoken.
“Only what rumor whispered,” Stephen said with a sigh. “We all know how unreliable rumor can be. But what my betrothed suffered for nine years at the hands of her husband, your father, is not rumor. And what is more, Paget, you know it. And you know that if she killed him, she did so to save her own life or the life of someone else endangered by his violence. You probably even know that she did not kill him. But it has been convenient to you to pretend that you do believe it and that at any time you can have her arrested and punished for the crime. You have been enriched by the belief and by the way you have bullied her into believing in your power.”
“My mother died when she fell from her horse,” Paget said. “She tried to jump a fence that was too high for her.”
Stephen nodded. Time was marching onward. What time was it?
“Bruce,” Cassandra said, and Stephen turned his head to look at her. “If you have anything else to say to me, you must come and talk to me tomorrow. I live on Portman Street.”
“I know,” Paget said. “I just came from there.”
“I did not kill your father,” she said. “I cannot prove that I did not, and you cannot prove that I did. His death was ruled a tragic accident, and so it was. I have no wish to intrude further upon your life. I have no wish at all to live at the dower house or even in the town house. I want merely what is mine so that I can live my own life and never see you or trouble you ever again. You might as well give in to my lawyer’s very reasonable demands. You can have no defense against them.”
His temper was up again. He pointed a finger at her and drew breath to speak. But someone else had appeared in the doorway. For one horrible moment Stephen thought it was an early guest, though not so very early at that. But it was William Belmont.
“Lord,” he said, his eyes passing over the people gathered just inside the doors. “I got home half an hour ago and Mary told me you had called, Bruce—and that she had told you that Cassie was here. Mary usually has a bit more sense than to give away information like that, especially when you are the one who gave her the boot a month ago. You have a bloody nose, I see. Courtesy of Merton, I suppose? Or of Young?”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Paget said, his brows snapping together.
“Well, I have something to say to you,” Belmont said, looking about again. “And since it looks as if you did not do the sensible thing and ask to speak privately to Cassie when you got here, then I have something to say to everyone present.”
“No, don’t, William,” Cassandra said.
“But I will,” he said. “He was my father, Cassie, as well as your husband. He was Bruce’s father too, and he ought to know the truth. So ought everyone who is preparing to welcome you into their family as Merton’s bride. Cassie did not shoot our father, Bruce. Neither did I, though I was there, you know, and got my hand on his wrist to wrestle the gun from him. He had started to cuff Mary around because I had told him earlier in the day, before he started drinking, that I had married her and that Belinda was mine. Cassie and then Miss Haytor had been drawn by Mary’s screams, and then I came into the house and was drawn by his raised voice coming from the library. He had his pistol pointed at Cassie. But when I went for him and tried to take the gun, he turned it quite deliberately and pointed it at his own heart and pulled the trigger.”
“Liar!” Paget cried. “That is a filthy li
e.”
“Miss Haytor had already told the same story before I came here a few days ago and gave my identical version,” Belmont said. “And if you think I would be prepared to tell that story against my own father, Bruce, in order to protect my stepmother, then you know nothing about family loyalties. Or about nightmares. He killed himself while in a drunken rage. And if we are wise, we will acquiesce in the official verdict of accidental death and treat Cassie with the proper respect due our father’s widow.”
Paget’s head had dropped, and his eyes had closed.
“We are perilously close to the beginning of the ball,” Stephen said quietly. “The earliest guests will be here within a quarter of an hour, I daresay. Paget, let one of my brothers-in-law show you to a guest room, where you may bathe your nose and straighten your clothes. It does not matter if you are not dressed quite as you would if you had planned to attend a ball. Stay and attend this one anyway. And smile and look glad for Cassandra. Tell anyone who looks willing to listen that the accidental death of your father was tragic but that you are happy to see your stepmother moving on with her life. Tell them it is what your father would have wanted.”
“Are you insane?” Paget asked viciously.
But Con had moved up on one side of him and Monty on the other, and both were smiling.
“You chose a good moment to arrive in London,” Monty said.
“I daresay,” Con said, clasping a hand on his shoulder, “Lady Paget wrote to you to announce her betrothal and beg for your blessing, did she, Paget, and you did even better than she asked and came in person. You even rode nonstop, did you, in order to arrive in time for the ball?”
“And got here just in time,” Monty said with a grin, “though you did not have a moment to spare to change into your ball clothes. It is an affecting story. The ladies will all be in tears if they get wind of it.”
“We had better think of an explanation for the nose, though,” Con said as they led him from the room between the two of them. “It ought not to be hard. A man meets with all sorts of accidents when he is in a hurry to wish his stepmother well in her new marriage.”
Stephen reached out and took Cassandra’s hand in his. She was looking very pale, and her hand was cold. He smiled at her and looked at William Belmont.
“You will stay too?” he asked. He had asked before, but Belmont had refused, since Mary was quite adamant in her refusal to attend such a grand affair, even if she was Mrs. William Belmont and sister-in-law of Lord Paget.
“Not me,” Belmont said. “I am going home for my dinner, which was ready half an hour ago. Bruce adored our mother, you know, but he would never see the truth. He was afraid of it, I expect. He spent most of his adult years as far away from Carmel as he could get. As I did too, of course. I ought to have done more for you than I ever did, Cassie. I am sorry for it now, though apologies are cheap, aren’t they?”
And he turned and was gone.
Stephen lowered his head to look into Cassandra’s face.
“All right?” he said.
She nodded. Her hand was beginning to warm in his.
“Such melodrama,” she said. “Oh, Stephen, I am so sorry. You must be cursing the day your eyes first alit on me in the park.”
He smiled slowly at her and kissed her briefly on the lips, though he was aware of his family close by, all buzzing in reaction to what had just happened.
“I bless the day,” he said.
She merely sighed.
“Stephen,” Meg said briskly, “it is time the receiving line was formed. Your guests are going to start arriving at any moment.”
Stephen grinned about him.
“And a man gets to celebrate his betrothal only once,” he said.
His sisters proceeded to hug both him and Cassandra.
“You will have children with Stephen,” he heard Vanessa whisper to Cassandra while they were in each other’s arms. “They will never make up for the ones you lost, but they will warm your heart. I promise you they will. Oh, I do promise.”
21
HOW could she possibly stand in a receiving line, all things considered, Cassandra wondered over the next hour, smiling and greeting large numbers of guests and thanking them for their good wishes on her engagement?
But she did it.
How could she possibly dance all the rest of the evening, smiling all the while, and how could she possibly converse and laugh between sets just as if this really were the happiest evening of her life and she had not a care in the world?
But she did it.
She even almost enjoyed herself.
She did enjoy herself apart from the needling twinge of guilt over the fact that she was deceiving everyone. Except Stephen, of course. And his sisters. And she guessed that they had told their husbands.
It felt like a wonderfully celebratory occasion, and the ballroom was the loveliest she had ever seen, and Stephen looked happy and more handsome than ever. He looked as he ought to look at his betrothal ball, she thought rather wistfully.
Perhaps she did too.
They danced the opening set together.
“He stayed,” Stephen said while they waited for the music to begin. “Are you surprised?”
Bruce had indeed come to the ball. He was even dressed appropriately He really had just arrived in London, it seemed. His bags had still been outside Merton House in his traveling carriage. He had gone to Portman Street and then here without first stopping at a hotel.
“Appearances were always important to Bruce,” she said. “He stayed away from home for years, I believe in the hope of distancing his reputation from Nigel’s if scandal should ever break—as it did not until after his death. He probably sent me away at least partly in the hope of distancing himself from the rumors beginning to circulate about me. Perhaps tonight he has realized his mistake. Perhaps he has understood that his best hope for lasting respectability is to stick staunchly by the official verdict on his father’s death. And he can do that best by standing by me and making it appear as if he came to London to give his blessing on my betrothal to you. Poor Bruce.”
He smiled at her, and then smiled about at his guests. It was the opening set of their betrothal ball, and of course most eyes were upon them.
Oh, it almost seemed real, Cassandra thought as the music began and they moved off into an energetic and intricate country dance. Within moments they were both laughing.
During the evening Cassandra danced with all three of Stephen’s brothers-in-law as well as with her own brother. She danced with Mr. Golding, who had come with Alice, and with Mr. Huxtable.
“It would seem, Lady Paget,” that last gentleman said as they danced, “that everyone has misjudged you. And I believe everyone is beginning to realize it, especially with Paget smiling benignly on you with every step you take. A pity about his nose, but one really ought to be careful to move it out of the path of a carriage door when a sudden gust of wind is slamming it shut.”
“Anyone who believes that,” she said, laughing, “is probably still expecting to see me swing an axe about my head before this is all over.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“Before what is all over?” he asked. “The ball? One hopes it is not something else to which you refer, Lady Paget. My young cousin is cheerful by nature, but I do not believe I have seen him this happy before now.”
“And you believe,” she said, “that I can make him happy?”
“It would seem rather obvious that you can,” he said.
“I am forgiven, then,” she asked him, “for colliding with him at Margaret’s ball?”
“I will forgive you,” he said, “on your wedding day. After the wedding.”
“I shall look forward with renewed eagerness, then,” she said, laughing again, “to my wedding, Mr. Huxtable.”
“You may also call me Con,” he said, “after your wedding.”
He was a man difficult to decipher. Did he like her or did he not? Did he like Stephen, or did he no
t?
She danced the supper dance with Bruce. He asked her and she could hardly say no. But it was hard not to feel bitter over all the dreadful things he had said to her before banishing her from Carmel, over the terror she had felt while traveling here with her small entourage of refugees with no idea how she was going to care for them or herself, over the ghastly rumors he had done nothing to quell and perhaps much to spread, over the way he had come here this evening, heedless of who might hear his righteous tirade. It was pure good fortune that he had arrived when he had and not an hour later.
The one satisfaction for her was his reddened, slightly swollen nose.
How splendid Stephen had looked …
But she ought not to find satisfaction in any form of violence. She had, though, and she still did. For once in her life someone had actually fought for her rather than against her. She knew just what a fist to the nose felt like.
“You must know, Cassandra,” Bruce said stiffly as he led her onto the floor, “that I have never liked you. You were an opportunist fortune hunter when you married my father. You had not a feather to fly with after growing up with that worthless father of yours. You thought to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life, and you almost did. The jewels my father bought you are worth a fortune, as I am sure you know. But you paid for your scheming ways. You got what you deserved. I doubt you will with Merton. He is altogether a weakling and a milksop. You have chosen more wisely this time. However, if William is to be believed—and I daresay he is—you did not kill my father, and so I am doing my utmost tonight to dispel the rumors that followed you here apparently with a vengeance. I will be happy to dispel them. I will be happy to see you marry Merton. I will be happy to have you off my back, to be able to forget about you, and perhaps—if I am very fortunate—never to see you again.”