by Julia Donner
Cassandra answered for her tactless aunt, soothing the ruffled giant with a languid smile. “Please, sir, disregard her, I pray. You must know that my aunt positively dotes on her choleric disposition. The short of it is that I rarely dance and never cared for it at all. I do hope you’ll forgive this perversity.”
Under her coaxing smile, he melted like a blob of butter under the summer sun. Around a vacuous grin, he suggested, “Perhaps you merely lacked an adept partner, Miss Seyton.”
Cassandra glanced at Freddy and Sir Harry. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that is the exact source of my problem.”
“Liar!” Lady Duncan said.
“Oh, Aunt Jane, can you not—for just this one instance—behave like all the other chaperones?”
Lady Duncan ignored that quelling remark and happily trampled Cassandra’s visual plea by providing an explanation. “The gel danced through her slippers the first weeks of her come-out. She was an astounding success but always most particular in her choice of admirers.”
Cassandra blushed, recalling she’d met Ravenswold the day she went out driving with Peppleton, scarcely an example of the sort of gentleman she could admire. She wished her aunt would stop talking and suddenly realized that Lady Duncan, who usually said little, had been talking nonstop.
“Cassandra’s father spoiled her quite appallingly in allowing her a say in the matter of choosing a husband. My beautiful sister can’t carry a thought through to its end. Edward is quite handsome, like Florinda, but I doubt there was ever a completely formed thought between them. Cassandra often lived with us at Loch Earn when she wasn’t at school. She was all for dancing up North. Reels and country dances. Wore the limbs off the Highland lads and that’s no easy endeavor! In town, she refuses to set foot on the dance floor. Might as well be in mourning. She’d rather be out in the glens, scaring a year’s growth out of the crofters on that mad hunter Duncan can no longer ride.”
Cassandra felt obliged to defend one of her favorite mounts. “Excuse me, Aunt Duncan, but Cockerel is not mad, merely spirited.”
“What fustian, niece! The beast is half monster, but will she listen to me? Off she must go on that vicious stallion. Her riding shocks the eyes out of my guests, I tell you! And then she will not stop but proceeds to humiliate the gentlemen with the guns.”
“A good aim, has she?” Ravenswold politely asked.
Lady Duncan leaned slightly forward in her chair, as if to impart a dreadful secret. “Distressingly excellent. Unfeeling, provoking gel! Cassandra, how often have I told you that it is unnatural for a female to stalk out the best deer, tickle for fish and bag the fattest grouse? I must concede that it puts food on the table.”
Ravenswold saved her from a continuation of the humiliating list of her social inadequacies. She feared that the gleam in his eye came from suppressed laughter but was ready to accept help from any quarter to silence her aunt. A bolt of pleasure speared through her when he directed his full attention her way.
“Miss Seyton?”
It took a moment to find her voice. “Yes, my lord?”
“Since you are not inclined to dance, and quite obviously prefer pastoral pursuits, you must kindly oblige me by accepting my second request.”
He then looked away from Cassandra and smiled down into her aunt’s crafty gaze. “Will you have mercy on this poor petitioner, ma’am? I find myself eager to resurrect old family ties and would certainly find comfort in your recollections of my mother. Would you and your niece honor me with your presence at Ravencourt?”
Lady Duncan answered before her niece had the chance to decline, and Cassandra’s lips were parting to do just that.
“La, how felicitous of you, Ravenswold!” Lady Duncan almost shouted, doubly satisfied knowing that every ear strained to hear and no doubt envied what they heard. “I’m certain a visit to Ravencourt would prove all that is delightful and most refreshing. Only this morning at breakfast Cassandra complained of ennui. She detests town life, you must know.”
Lady Duncan snapped open her fan and coyly spoke over that instrument of the social artifices she recently claimed to despise. She attempted a trill of girlish laughter, but it came out sounding more like a rusty gurgle.
“What a dear, thoughtful man you are, Ravenswold! But certainement. We shall be delighted to join you.”
Startled, Cassandra stared down at her aunt. She couldn’t have been more surprised if her aunt had just sprouted another head. The perennially dour Lady Duncan flirtatious? Out of sheer incredulity Cassandra was unable to comment on or disprove of anything else her aunt had to say.
Lady Duncan continued to babble and coo like a girl out of the schoolroom. “We are only in town over some trivial family business, if you must know. Some stupid gel is to be presented, and I required a new dresser—of the first style, naturally, and that can only be had in London.”
Quick to agree, he also ignored this evening’s discordant choice of colors. “Indeed, ma’am.”
“When do you expect us at Ravencourt?”
He shared a smug, conspiratorial glance with Lady Duncan. “I depart in the morning.”
“But the mill on Friday,” Freddy sputtered.
Ravenswold grinned down at Lady Duncan before trampling his friend’s dismay. “I’m persuaded that you’re capable of witnessing a boxing match without my assistance, Freddy. Lady Duncan, would you care to travel with me on the morrow?”
“La, sir, we are not planning to fall on your doorstep so precipitately!” She punctuated her laughing rejection with a sharp rap on his wrist with her fan.
Cassandra didn’t care for Ravenswold’s satisfied expression when he reached for Lady Duncan’s gloved hand. He bowed over it. “Should you decide to join me this moment at Ravencourt, I could not be more delighted.”
Lady Duncan batted almost nonexistent eyelashes. “My dear boy, you must know that we ladies are not suited to such unseemly haste! Shall we say…in a sennight?”
“I impatiently await your most excellent company, ma’am.”
“As do I, dear sir. And Cassandra, you may now close your mouth. Gaping is so unattractive.”
Ravenswold smoothly turned to his bewildered friends, who had watched, mute and mystified, throughout the entire exchange. “Close your mouths, gentlemen. Lady Duncan deems gaping unattractive, and I concur. I beg to take your leave, Lady Duncan. I am your most humble servant. A great pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Miss Seyton. I shall look forward to your company in the near future. Good evening to you, gentlemen. It seems that I won’t be joining you for cards.”
Ravenswold strode away before any of them could say another word. His friends hastily excused themselves and scurried after him.
Cassandra watched the back of Ravenswold’s head disappear and smelled a trap. She became certain of it, when her aunt said, “I’ve grown quite bored with this assembly. We have made our appearance, and now I should like to leave. There is much to do before we join Ravenswold. An excellent gentleman, is he not, my midget?”
Cassandra pretended not to care. She gathered up Lady Duncan’s shawl and trailed after her aunt’s wide wake through the company. She did smile a little, knowing that she had a card or two of her own up her sleeve to trump her aunt’s matchmaking scheme. No gentleman of Ravenswold’s position and obviously strait-laced temperament would marry a woman who dressed in men’s clothes and took shots at strangers in dark alleys. Her inappropriateness spared her from the mortification of revealing all. One of her dreadful secrets had become a treasured weapon.
Chapter 15
After a good deal of pushing and prodding, Lady Duncan succeeded in browbeating Cassandra around to her way of thinking, but only as far as the visit to Ravencourt. Cassandra ignored all talk of Ravenswold as a suitor and recoiled from the thought of his reaction after telling him her secrets. Her conscience would not allow her to marry without revealing all.
Throughout the days prior to leaving London, she and her aunt did more
arguing than they’d ever done. “Aunt Jane, you promised that I wouldn’t have to attend any more social functions after attending Lady Wethermore’s soirée and then you accept an invitation to Ravencourt.”
Lady Duncan said, “No, I promised that you wouldn’t have to attend any London social engagements. Ravencourt is situated in Berkshire.”
Cassandra stuck her nose in the air. “I might decide to remain in London.”
Lady Duncan responded to that with a snort of amusement, knowing that wherever she went, Cassandra had no choice but to follow.
Under her breath, Cassandra vowed, “I might have to go with you to Ravencourt but I can always stay in my room.”
Her aunt said nothing to that, which left Cassandra wary and unsettled.
Seven days after the Wethermore soirée, a disgruntled Cassandra got, as she described it—pitchforked—into a traveling chaise. They set out for Berkshire early with their maids, a newly hired dresser, a coachman, two grooms, a footman, postillions, an extra coach for the staff and a mountain of luggage.
Arrangements had been made for one stop during the forty-eight mile journey. Lady Duncan had designs to reach Ravencourt well before sunset. Cassandra assumed her aunt also had plans to have her married off before the dinner bell.
Lulled by the sway of the chaise, Lady Duncan dozed in the forward seat surrounded and propped up by numerous pillows arranged at strategic points on the plush purple velvet squabs. Flying ahead in the lead, they didn’t suffer from the dust the servants had to contend with in the carriages that followed.
Rain broke out over their heads an hour after leaving the outskirts of London, settling the dust problem and sending Cassandra into a fit of the dismals. She ignored the flutter of her heart when the gates to Ravencourt came into view.
When the park leading up to the house ended, Cassandra leaned close to the window to view the grounds. Unmolested buttercups carpeted the open land after breaking through the trees. Then came immaculately attended lawns, recently scythed and rolled. The sharp, green scent of freshly cut grass filled the air.
Gardens bloomed with seasonal flowers bordered by a trimmed hedge that suggested the delightful expectation of a topiary or maze. The glass panes of the succession houses twinkled in shafts of sunlight beaming through puffy, low-hanging clouds. Golden light fell on the sprawling house on top of the gently rising hill.
Ravencourt bore no signs of previous inhabitants sinking to the destructive habit of altering the house to fit the styles of their own times. The massive three-winged house remained staunchly Elizabethan, standing austere and imposing, lacking only two elements to make her whole; the ravens that died out sixty years before and—Cassandra grimly reminded herself—a wife.
By the time the chaise rolled onto the recently raked gravel drive, Cassandra grudgingly admitted that Ravenswold kept a tidy ship. Have to give him credit for that much, she grumbled to herself, and nudged her aunt awake.
Lady Duncan awoke with a snort, sat up and blinked. “What? Arrived so soon?”
“Soon? You’ve slept through the entire journey ever since luncheon and snored throughout. It was altogether rude and tiresome, Aunt Jane. You’ve driven me to melancholia.”
“You dote on being blue-deviled,” Lady Duncan scoffed, satisfied when Cassandra made a face. “Furthermore, you love the role of martyr in the name of pride.”
“What nonsense, Aunt Jane.”
“Then why do you insist on wearing a cap and those wretched old clothes? I wouldn’t allow my scullery girl to be seen in that rag.”
“This carriage dress is quite my favorite.”
Cassandra went on alert when her aunt shrugged off Cassandra’s attempt to aggravate her. Lady Duncan inhaled a deep breath of rain-fragrant air and contentedly wobbled her head.
“Have you looked out on the park, midget? From what I can see, Ravencourt stands unchanged. You are in for a most splendid treat! This is a marvelous establishment. And do look. Half of the staff must be out to greet us. How charming! They’re all polished up like a military review and waiting for you to inspect them.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised they’d be waiting. I sent Lawlers ahead to apprise them of the fact. I’m sure I should’ve told the postillion to sound the horns, but I doubted they could be heard above your snores.”
“Do shut up, Cassy dear, and behave obligingly for once in your life.”
Cassandra smirked. “I will, if you will.”
Lady Duncan only laughed. Nothing could have made her aunt more delighted than to have been invited to one of the first houses in the land where she could present her niece to one of the most sought after peers in the realm. Lady Duncan poked her homely head out of the lowered chaise window and waved her handkerchief.
“Ravenswold! Heigh-ho, we’ve arrived!”
Mortified, Cassandra hissed at her aunt. “Must you act the ninny just to spite me?”
“La, child. I’m at the enviable age and position of acting any which way I please. Ah, yes, here we are!”
The chaise rolled to a gentle stop. Ravenswold stepped forward as a footman opened the chaise door and let down the steps. Always correct, Ravenswold spoke words of welcome to Lady Duncan before turning to Cassandra, who scanned Ravencourt’s impressive dimensions. It was the largest Elizabethan house she’d ever seen, not so much in rooms, but there was something about its height and breadth. She abruptly turned when she felt a presence coming nearer and once again felt discomfited by the earl’s stature.
That was it; everything about Ravenswold was large, his house and even his servants were all taller than average.
“Welcome, Miss Seyton.”
“Thank you, my lord. It’s all so very impressive. Ravencourt quite lives up to its vaunted reputation,” she replied, extending her hand.
She intended to cordially shake his, but a hot look came into his hazel eyes. He stared down at her, still grasping her hand in his own.
Instead of bowing over her hand, his next gesture proved as blatant as throwing down a gauntlet. He kissed her fingers, as if she were a married lady or his lover. What impudence, she thought, as the heat of his fingers and lips burned through her mended glove. And while Aunt Jane’s back is turned!
Cassandra tugged free and didn’t care whether she appeared polite. The faraway call of a horse interrupted the set-down she readied to spout. She turned to the sound.
Ravenswold said, “The stables are on the other side of the house and can’t be seen from here. Would you care to ride with me tomorrow morning, Miss Cassandra?”
Drat the man, why would he not stop pestering? Her heart wouldn’t stop its wild pounding from that annoying kiss on the back of her hand. Why did he have to grow so tall and intimidating and compelling? She must avoid being alone with him. Riding with him was out of the question, not even to be considered.
She squared her shoulders. “No, I thank you kindly, my lord. I’m afraid you would find the hour at which I prefer to ride decidedly too early. I’m inspired by the light before dawn. Irregular hours in town, to be sure, but I thrive on the privacy and find the air at that time of morning invigorating.”
It didn’t escape her notice that he considered her set-down amusing, and she couldn’t think why. Miffed, she pretended an interest in the topiary.
“As you wish, Miss Seyton. Please feel free to make use of my stable in any way you might feel inclined. Farnsby is head groom. You’ll find him accommodating and knowledgeable. Now, shall we go indoors before your aunt takes a chill? The air is quite damp and cool for this time of year. We’ve been having some heavy weather. Fortunately, it has moved off. You’ve brought the sun with you.”
He gave each of the ladies an arm. They climbed the steps under the portico, and he asked Cassandra as they went up, “Have you always preferred dawn for riding? Or is it merely to have the park all to yourself and indulge in a gallop? Mind your step here, Lady Duncan. Nettlechope, would you take Lady Duncan’s parasol?”
The
butler accepted the parasol with a dignified lack of concern. An extremely tall, spare man, Nettlechope’s advanced age and willowy frame made him appear frail. His daunting expression softened when he spoke or looked upon his master.
Cassandra answered Ravenswold’s previous question while they stood in the echoing vastness of the introductory hall. She thought it odd that her aunt, whose habit was to dominate all conversations, was saying so little.
“It has always been my preference to ride at that time. In town, it serves a double purpose. Townsfolk never arise before eleven. The park is quite often empty before eight. And I can get to the breakfast table before Aunt Duncan. That way, I can irritate her by stealing all the cream buns.”
His hazel eyes lit up with a roguish glint. The contrast of his usual austerity and the ability to hide a wicked streak startled her. She had to force herself not to be pulled into that mischievous gleam.
It took even more concentration to keep from being drawn closer to his persuasive presence when he lowered his head to deliver a whispered conspiracy. “I’ll let Cook know your favorites. I’m particularly fond of cream buns myself. Perhaps between the two of us, we can steal a march on your aunt.”
Cassandra swallowed, tried to smile and forced herself to step back. The earl seemed not to notice her discomfort. He casually glanced around the hall, noting that the servants were filing up the steps with Lady Duncan’s entourage and baggage. Mrs. Gliddens, the housekeeper, and a footman stood by the staircase, while Nettlechope sorted out the small army of combined staffs.
Reassured that all was in order, Ravenswold turned back to Cassandra. “I believe that we have a mutual friend who also prefers the early morning hours for riding.”
Panic closed her throat. Did he know about her friendship with Asterly or was his comment merely a coincidence? She struggled to hide her alarm. He hesitated to glance at the smile she tried to form with lips too stiff to move.
When she said nothing, he continued. “I expect you and your aunt would enjoy a rest before dinner, which has been set back half an hour. Mrs. Gliddens will show you to your rooms.”