by Lily Maxton
Cassandra was sitting at Mr. Earlywine’s desk, in a study that was small and clean, with a bookshelf stacked neatly across from her. The older man paced with an open book clutched tightly in his unsteady hands.
“Mrs. Davis?”
She realized her quill was halted in midair. This had happened to her once or twice before. She would be engaged in a translation, her own copy of the book open on the desk next to her so she could follow along, deep in the cadences of the German language, and then…she’d start to think about something else.
When a flake of snow had landed on the outside of the window and glimmered before it vanished, she’d remembered her snowball fight with Henry.
When she’d come across a Goethe reference in the translation they were working on, she’d think of the beautiful, sensual poem Henry had read to her, and the way he’d looked as he’d read it, as beautiful and sensual as the words themselves.
When Mr. Earlywine had translated a piece of fiction that mentioned a kiss…well…her mind and her body had positively rioted.
Stupid mind.
Stupid memories.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Did she want to lose her new job because she couldn’t stop reliving the past?
She shook her head to clear it. “Forgive me.”
Mr. Earlywine only smiled kindly. He pulled a pocket watch from his trousers. “No, forgive me, Mrs. Davis. I’ve worked you for hours with no break. Anyone would be woolgathering by now.”
She returned his kind smile and wished she could focus on her work with all her heart, wished she could give it all of her attention. It would just take time, she told herself. One didn’t simply fall out of love as quickly as all that. It wasn’t the same as falling in.
“Shall we continue?” she asked.
He glanced down at the book. “I think we have enough for today.”
Dread settled low in her stomach, but she nodded and stowed away her quill and stacked the parchment neatly. The evenings, with nothing to distract her, and Marcus’s worried gaze on her face, were always the worst part of her days.
When she entered Marcus’s small townhouse and found him waiting for her, standing at the corner of the dining room table, she nearly turned and walked right back out.
But his head shot up at the movement in the doorway, and it was too late. “Cass,” he said, using the name he’d called her by as a child because Cassandra was too much for him to pronounce. “We need to talk. Will you sit?”
She folded her arms in front of her. Marcus had been a delicate boy with light brown curls and blue eyes and a round face, but now he’d grown into his features. His face had hardened and strengthened. He was no longer a child, she, no longer the adult.
She glanced around the dining room, her gaze sliding across the deep yellow-gold walls to rest on a landscape painting above the fireplace. The painting depicted the rolling, lush hills of the midlands. It reminded her of Blakewood Hall.
Everything reminded her of Blakewood Hall.
She sat next to Marcus, who took the chair at the head of the table. “What is it?”
“What are you doing here, Cass?”
Her spine stiffened, a jolt of hurt went through her. “If you don’t want me here, you only need to say it. I understand you’re a bachelor and—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I’m happy to have you here, and I’ve told you before, you don’t need to work.”
“I don’t want to be a burden to you,” she said. She knew any of her siblings would take her in, but they all had their own lives and now all of them but Marcus had their own families. And that was only a matter of time. She didn’t want any of them to strain their modest means by caring for their older sister.
“You wouldn’t be a burden,” he said, meeting her eyes. “But that is not the issue. You’ve been here a fortnight and you still haven’t told me why you left Blakewood Hall.”
She lifted a shoulder and smiled weakly. “It was time for a change.”
“That was your worst attempt at lying yet,” Marcus said, relentless. “I should very much like to know why you always look like a startled rabbit when I mention Lord Riverton.”
She froze, only realizing too late she probably looked just like the startled rabbit he’d described. Her brother lifted his eyebrows.
“Cad,” she muttered.
“Did something happen between you?”
A wry laugh escaped her. Something happened. Yes, that was exactly it. And yet, it still didn’t begin to encompass the yearning, the desire, the want…the fear.
“If it did,” she began, “what would you think of me?”
Marcus looked startled. “Why should I think anything of you?”
“Because I am a housekeeper—was a housekeeper—who had a…a dalliance with her highborn employer.”
“Well,” Marcus began, a slight pink tinge in his cheeks. “My first instinct is to rush out and defend your honor. But you’re not a virginal debutante. You’re a widow, and I can’t imagine you’re the first widow to embark on a…dalliance.” He looked as if he wanted to swallow the word whole.
“With her employer?” she prodded. “A lord?”
“That’s neither here nor there, unless someone was harmed by your relationship?”
She shook her head, but that wasn’t the full truth, was it? Someone had been harmed by their relationship—she had been. And she rather thought Henry had been, too.
“What if I fell in love with him?” Her voice snagged.
Marcus sat up straight. “Did you? With Lord Riverton?” Even Marcus, who wasn’t much of a gossip, had heard of Lord Riverton’s reputation. The marquess was spoken of in London as a commanding, fearful creature. Cold, heartless, untouchable.
But he wasn’t. Oh, he certainly wasn’t.
She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat.
Marcus got over his shock quickly enough as he contemplated the situation. “And he doesn’t return your feelings?”
Her chest tightened. Henry had never said he’d loved her, but she suspected he wouldn’t recognize the emotion right away, even if he felt it. She didn’t know what else would cause him to propose to a woman who was, by his own admission, so far beneath him. “I… Yes. He said we should marry. An absurd suggestion, obviously, which he would have sorely regretted if I’d taken him up on it.” At least, that was what she kept telling herself. She couldn’t predict what Henry would come to regret. She couldn’t even decide if he’d meant what he said—maybe his perspective had changed, and those awful words at the end had just been a knee-jerk reaction.
She would never know unless she gave him a chance.
But that was far easier said than done.
“A marquess wants to marry you? Then why in the world did you leave him?”
Marcus, her dear, annoying brother, had a way of cutting straight to the problem.
“I— He—” she fumbled, then took a deep breath. “I’ve worked as his housekeeper for years. Before that, I did the work of a servant for our family. I’m not meant for his world. They’ll see what I am—they’ll see right through me. They’ll never accept me as one of their own.”
And wasn’t that all she’d wanted after Robert was gone—a simple life where she belonged?
Her brother took her hand in his. “You’ve always put your own desires behind ours, even as children. Now you’re letting your desires—your happiness—be dictated by how some aristocrats who don’t even know you think you should behave. My God, Cass! For once in your life, be selfish!” He smiled gently. “Does Lord Riverton make you happy?”
She curled her fingers into a fist in her lap. Her voice, when she spoke, was strained by the pressure that crushed her chest when she thought about Henry. “He’s challenging and frustrating and sometimes he doesn’t act like a gentleman at all,” she said bluntly. “But he believes in my intelligence, and he respects me enough never to mince the truth. And he makes me feel beautiful.” She looked down at the polished
surface of the oak table. “I feel alive with him.”
Gloriously, painfully alive. It wasn’t a matter of simple happiness. It was more than happiness—it was the feeling of having the entire world at her fingertips, the highs and the lows, pure joy and deepest sorrow, hope and fear.
Being with Henry was…possibility.
It wasn’t always safe or comfortable. He pushed her to be more than she’d thought she could be. He pushed her to feel emotions she’d been closed off to for so long. And other emotions she wasn’t entirely sure she’d even experienced before. Being with Robert had been easy. Henry would never be easy.
And it wasn’t just a matter of him to consider. It was everything he represented, the life he lived. If they married, she would be entering that life—one she’d never imagined for herself, one she’d never even wanted. She was thirty-two years old—entirely too old to feel like a fish out of water.
Here she was, safe in her brother’s home, working at a position she enjoyed, with nothing to frighten her, nothing to challenge her. Safe and secure.
She should be happy.
She propped her elbows on the table and let her head fall into her open hands. Her shoulders began to shake uncontrollably.
“Cassandra?” Marcus said worriedly.
She heard the parquet floor creak as he stood. He rested his hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up and looked into his face, his expression turned startled.
Because she wasn’t crying as he’d thought, she was laughing.
“Oh, Marcus, I love you. And I truly appreciate all you’ve done. So please don’t take this as an insult.”
He tilted his head. “What?”
“I am so dreadfully bored.”
She began to laugh again, rueful mirth twisting inside her, and a smile cracked her brother’s expression. “I take it you’ll be returning to Blakewood Hall?”
She glanced out the sash window to the street beyond. It was turning dark—the short days of winter were fully upon them now. She’d have to wait until morning to leave, and she would need to tell Mr. Earlywine. Hopefully, he would allow her a day or two of leave, because she truly didn’t want to give up her new position.
But then she remembered her argument with Henry the day she’d left. Would he even want her to come back?
Her laughter quickly died away.
She didn’t know the answer to that. Didn’t know if she could break through the anger that might be directed toward her.
But she would try.
Lord help her, she had to try.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Why are you doing this?” Margaret asked Henry.
It was late at night, and they were in the library at his townhouse. Henry was sitting in a winged armchair facing the fireplace, tilting an open book to catch the light. His sister was pacing in front of him, her hair glinting in the candlelight from the crystal wall sconces.
She had traveled with him to London, stubbornly refusing to let him go by himself. He thanked God for small favors, though—at least she didn’t have Miss Haversham in tow.
When she’d heard rumors at a ball that night that Henry was going to duel the next morning, she’d left the ball to demand answers.
He shut the book and set it on his lap. “You will not change my mind.”
“River, what if you are killed? What, then?” She appeared genuinely distressed.
“Then I am killed,” he said.
Funny, all the things that had meant so much to him before—marrying, carrying on the Eldridge line, not dying alone—didn’t seem to mean a thing now. Without Cassandra he was alone. But at least if he died in the duel, alone and childless, he’d be dying for something that felt right. There was something to be said for choosing your own fate.
“River!” she exclaimed.
“I spoke with my solicitor yesterday and changed my will.”
“Your will?” she exclaimed. “I don’t care—”
“Blakewood Hall will be sold and my wealth divided. A third will go to you and another third to my child.”
Letting her in on that situation had been an exceedingly awkward conversation, but he’d thought if the worst happened during the duel, Margaret should at least know she had a niece or nephew running about.
She frowned at him. “And the rest? Mama?”
“No,” he said, smiling wryly. “Father will provide sufficiently for her.”
Margaret sucked in a breath. “Oh,” she said on an exhale. “How stupid of me.”
“Indeed.” She understood him, perhaps better than he’d thought.
“Do you think,” she said slowly, “that Mrs. Davis will be happy that you went off and got yourself killed, once she has your money?”
He stared at the book in his lap. It was the Goethe he’d read to Cassandra. No, he didn’t think she’d be happy about that. But he also didn’t think she would mourn him as she’d mourned her husband.
At the moment, he was glad for that. If he thought what he was about to do would hurt her, he didn’t think he’d have the will to go through with it.
“She would move on,” he said, failing to keep the bleakness from his voice.
“Henry…”
His lips tilted. It was the first time in forever that Margaret had called him by his real name instead of her nickname for him. But if he was killed, his sister would move on soon enough, too. They might care for each other in their way, but they weren’t truly close. Which caused more of a bittersweet ache than he would have thought.
“It’s late, Margaret. You should try to get a little sleep.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her lips pursed. Then she shook her head and strode from the room without another word.
He sat there alone with Goethe, waiting for the dawn.
Chapter Forty-Five
Someone was hammering at the front door. Cassandra cracked her eyes open, sitting up in bed when she saw the hazy light of sunrise outside. For a moment, she thought she was in her small bedchamber at Blakewood Hall. But no, she was in London, in an extra bedchamber at her brother’s townhouse.
She grabbed her dressing robe from the wardrobe, tying it as she left the room. She crept through dusky shadows, stopping at the top of the stairway that led down to the entrance hall.
“Mr. Morris? Are you home?” a female voice sounded from beyond the door.
Marcus reply was husky from sleep. “What in the world is this about? It’s not even light out yet.”
“Is Mrs. Davis here?”
Cassandra’s eyes widened. Good lord. She knew that voice. Before she could stop and think, she was rushing down the stairs, her hand sliding down the balustrade as she went.
The scene she stumbled upon was one she never would have imagined. Framed in the doorway, facing her brother, was Lady Margaret. The woman’s pale face turned toward her when she came to a stop at the bottom stair.
“What are you doing in London?” Cassandra asked, astonished.
Was Henry in London? Was— Oh, God. Her heartbeat faltered. Was this about Henry?
Cassandra grabbed Lady Margaret by the shoulders before the woman had a chance to speak. “What is it?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch. “What’s wrong?”
“Henry came here not long after you left,” Lady Margaret said, stumbling over her words. “Lord Appleby said something insulting about you, and now they’re going to duel! You’re the only one who can stop this madness.”
A blank horror grew inside Cassandra.
Lady Margaret reached into her reticule and produced a letter from Mr. Earlywine that Cassandra must have left in her room at Blakewood Hall. “I’d found this earlier. When River told me about the duel, I went straight to Mr. Earlywine’s house to ask where you were staying.”
Cassandra barely heard the woman’s words—she was already rushing past her into the waiting carriage.
“Cass!” Her brother rushed out after her. “Wait!”
She waved him off from her seat
in the carriage. “No. I’m going.”
“I know,” he said, handing over his greatcoat. “Take this, at least. You’re not even dressed.”
“Thank you,” she whispered as he stepped back and helped Lady Margaret up.
Lady Margaret snapped an order at the coachmen and they were off, rambling down streets that were only beginning to awaken with merchants going to their shops, past street vendors preparing their wares, and finally, into Mayfair, where all was still quiet.
As death.
“How do you know where they are?” Cassandra asked hoarsely.
“His valet,” Lady Margaret said. “Henry wouldn’t tell me.”
Cassandra nodded, more grateful to Mr. Perkins than she’d ever been before. “I shouldn’t have left,” she said. “This is my fault.”
Lady Margaret leaned forward to grasp her hand. “It will be all right,” she said. But the smile she offered was tremulous, and her tone far from certain.
Cassandra tried not to let that uncertainty seep into her soul.
She would reach Henry before the duel started. She would stop him.
She couldn’t let the other horrific possibility enter her mind.
Chapter Forty-Six
Henry and Appleby turned their backs on one another and marched, counting the steps.
One, two—
The surgeon stood by, and their seconds—Appleby’s second was his uncle, the Duke of Manchester, while Henry’s was Perkins, his valet, which wasn’t done at all, but Henry didn’t really care anymore about what was or wasn’t done. The seconds had tried to get Henry and Appleby to call the duel off, but Appleby stubbornly refused to apologize for what he’d done, and even if he had, it wouldn’t matter to Henry. The man needed to be punished. So, the seconds had loaded the dueling pistols—Perkins had done well for Henry, as Henry had only shown him how to load a pistol the day before.