by C. N. Bird
“My lady,” he bowed his head slightly.
“Lord Sefdom, I apologise for my forward manner but I just had to see that it was you. I am Lady Cassandra Strong.”
“The young lady who alerted my father as to my whereabouts?” She felt the colour creeping up her cheeks.
“Yes, my lord.”
She looked up into his face. His eye was swelling and his lip was bleeding. Bruises were forming on his cheek and forehead. He inspected is knuckles and grimaced. She wanted to grimace at his face. That handsome visage currently red and swelling.
“I am afraid I am struggling to fit in with the aristocracy again. If I am honest, I do not remember my parents or anyone else from the Ton. An earl would never normally fight for the honour of a scullery maid but I worked with the working class for a year and I know how difficult it is for them. Girls are accosted all the time. But if they become ruined they can find no work and no husband. Some end up in terrible circumstances. Oh but, I should not be talking of such things with a lady. I do apologise.”
“No, it is fine. I do not easily succumb to fits of the vapours. I may not know much of life as a servant, but I can imagine. You were so brave to accost that man. But now you are bruised and bleeding. You cannot go home in such a state. My home is nearby. We shall sneak you in the servants’ entrance and get you cleaned up.”
“No, please, do not trouble yourself.”
“Please, Ben. I mean… Lord Sefdom.”
“Call me Ben… please.”
“My lord, it is not proper.”
“Were we not friends before I lost my memory?”
“Yes, but it is still improper.”
He nodded his acquiescence. “As you wish, Lady Cassandra.”
Did he think her churlish? He had always called her Cassy but she had been a young girl when they had last met. She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He was terribly handsome. It seemed to make her belly churn with something akin to anticipation. She bit her lip as she gestured to the path which led out of Hyde Park. Her maid followed a few feet behind and Ben—Lord Sefdom—offered her his sleeve. She placed her gloved hand on his arm and walk silently beside him.
“The weather is warm for April. Would you not agree, my Lord?”
She was aware of his studying her before answering.
“Polite, ambiguous and non-confrontational. The perfect topic for the Ton. Would you not prefer to know how I came to be back in England or how I survived nearly drowning off the coast of the Peninsula, my lady?”
He was teasing her. Another flutter in her stomach and a curious ache between her legs. She looked away in confusion.
“My Lord, I grieved very much when you were lost. I had harboured silly ideas that maybe… well it matters not. The fancies of a young girl… a young woman by the time you went missing… are stuff and nonsense. It is very difficult to come to terms with you being a gentleman who is unknown to me. I should not be walking with you when we have not been introduced.”
“I thought we wrote to each other. I believe that qualifies as an introduction.”
It was the reason she had been brazen enough to approach him. She couldn’t deny it. She moved her shoulders in a small non-committal shrug and he chuckled. As they hurried along the pavement, Cassy’s mind churned. This was lunacy. She was walking down the street with a man she hardly knew… in the middle of Mayfair, no less. He tugged on her arm and she jerked head up just in time to hear the shout from a carriage driver and feel the slight breeze ruffle her muslin dress.
“I apologise if I was rough,” said Ben. “You were not paying attention.”
“Oh no! It was my fault. Thank you for saving me.” She looked up into his green eyes. They sparkled with merriment and his features seemed to have relaxed somewhat. The bruising however was coming out now and his eye was darkening ominously. He had smeared the blood from his nose over his cheek and his cut lip looked fat and oozed slightly. “We must get you cleaned up.” She hurried across the street and took a sharp right turn down a side street before leading him along a short lane. The numbers were painted on the gates and when she arrived at number twenty-four she opened it quickly and slipped inside. A maid who was standing in the garden, a basket in one hand and a faraway look in her eye, turned and squealed. She had obviously been taking a moment before going back into the hubbub of the kitchen.
“Oh, my lady, you gave me a fright and….oh my!”
Cassy lifted her finger to her lips and smiled reassuringly.
“It is alright. Lord Sefdom just needs help to clean up. He got himself into a scuffle with a ruffian over a scullery maid.”
“Now see here. I had no nefarious intentions…” Good grief, his voice was loud.
“Shh! Come in quickly.
Chapter Three
Ben sat on a stool on the kitchen table as Cassy none too gently tended to his wounds. He had dreamt about a woman who looked just like her. Had it been Lady Cassandra Strong? Had his dreams been trying to remind him of who he really was?
He felt comfortable in the large, dark kitchen, surrounded by the smell of baking bread, the clang of pots and the whispered conversations of the maids. The cook surreptitiously watched the young lord and lady as Cassy dipped a clean rag in water and pressed it against his eye.
God’s teeth, he should not be sitting in this position, his thighs apart and her standing primly between them. Every time he looked down, he could see the steady rise and fall of her ample bosom, made even more ample by the empire waistline and stays that she wore. The thin muslin gown did nothing to quash the heat of her and he felt himself harden in his breeches, despite the pain in his eye caused by her inept nursing skills.
Did every young gentleman on the Ton lust after the ladies in such a manner? Her rose petal lips pursed slightly as she studied him. That did not help matters. Any decent fellow would, at worst, be imagining kissing those lips. In his fevered imagination, that delicate mouth was wrapped around…
“Yes, well,” he said, jumping to his feet and causing her to step back in alarm. “I thank you for everything but I must be on my way.” Damn, the girl. Why could she not have worn a fischu?
“Lord Sefdom!” Was she breathless? Was she discomfited by his closeness? His palms itched to close around her breasts. He flexed his fingers and side-stepped her. “Of course. I should ask the cook at Apringdon House for a steak to put on your eye if I were you. It will bring down the swelling.” He nodded curtly. He knew of some other swelling he would prefer not to be present. He clasped his hands in front of his breeches.
“Please God, tell me it is not true.” A woman’s voice, which came from behind the kitchen door, rang through the room.
“Her ladyship,” whispered the cook and the maids lined up. Ben turned towards the entrance to the kitchen, as did Cassy. The butler entered first and held the door open as an older woman in a dark blue gown and an older version of Cassy’s face swept regally in.
“Cassy!” she admonished. “What the devil are you doing? You have been seen sneaking around the lane with a gentleman in tow. And I see it is true.”
She waved her hand in Ben’s general direction as he bowed low.
“I am sorry, Mama, but Lord Sefdom was injured and I was trying to help him. I…” She had known what she was doing was careless at best.
“Lord Sefdom? The Duke of Aprigdon’s son?” He mother lifted her lorgnette up to her eyes and studied him. Her mouth crinkled in distaste as she took at his bruises and burst lip. “What on earth were you doing, young lady? Do you give no thought to your reputation? How could you have grown up in an aristocratic family and not known how to behave? You are ruined, Cassandra. Absolutely ruined.”
What had he done? He should have known. It was his place to protect a young lady in his company—but sneaking around the back doors of houses of the aristocracy was now second nature to him. He kept forgetting that he was one of them now.
“Oh, Mama, you did bring me up to know b
etter. I am so sorry.” Cassy’s eyes were wide with dismay and her soft, pink bottom lip trembled ever so slightly. “I was not thinking. I was just so glad that Ben…Lord Sefdom is still alive, that propriety deserted me.”
“Well then, it seems you have just chosen your husband, Cassandra,” she said, before drawing in a deep, disapproving breath. “At least he has a title and money. You had better leave by the front door young man. And if you do not marry my daughter…”
“Your ladyship, I…” Well at least he knew Cassy aroused him. In fact she was a rare beauty. That was something. She seemed kind, if a little flighty.
“You will marry my daughter.” The countess’s tone brooked no argument, so he kept quiet. He had compromised her daughter and the least he could do was set things right—even if it did mean he had to marry someone he did not know. But then, young ladies had to do that all the time if they had no dowry of which to speak. “The Earl will visit you and your father tomorrow morning with his lawyer to draw up contracts. I see no reason not to allow you a month long engagement.” She gave him one last hard stare before she turned and swept out of the room just as regally as she had entered. “Come, Cassy!”
Cassy was biting her lips as tears filled her eyes. Dash it all. Had she her heart set on some other suitor? Did she hate him for putting her in this situation?
Everything was happening so damned fast. First his father fetching him from Lady Bovington-Smythe’s, the reunion with his mother. He had spent that morning in a tailor’s and was wearing his one new coat that the man had managed to make in two days. He pushed a hand through his curls and followed. He had made such a mess of things.
“The butler will see you out,” Lady Craigbeck said.
“No, wait, Mama. May I have a moment with Lord Sefdom in the parlour? I will leave the door open.” The lady of the house hesitated. “It is not likely that my reputation can be any more tarnished, is it?”
“I suppose not. I will be in the drawing room when you are finished.
They entered the light blue decorated room at the back of the house. On a cold winter night, Ben could imagine a big fire roaring in the grate and Cassy curled up on a large leather chair, her feet tucked under her, reading a book. Now she moved over to a chaise and sat upright, her hands on her lap and looked up at him. He watched the lump move down her throat as she swallowed hard before speaking.
“I am sorry. I should have thought it through. I did not want your father to see you in such a state. The last thing I ever wanted was to trap a gentleman into marrying me.” She took in a quavering breath and tried to compose herself.
“Cassy…may I call you Cassy?” She nodded her head and he handed her his handkerchief. She looked down and lightly ran her finger over the embroidered initials. “It is my father’s. I do not have any of my own yet.” She nodded. “I believe most young ladies these days would prefer love matches and I wish things could be different. Your father could fight a duel in your honour but it would make no difference to the gossips. It would merely fuel them. I cannot see a way out.”
Cassy stood and walked to the window, gazing out into the small garden. She looked wistful and lost, and his heart ached at the thought of what she was going through because he could not keep his fists to himself.
“We wrote to each other for three and a half years. We shared secrets and dreams and our hopes for the future. At my come out ball, all I wanted was for you to be there, to dance with me. After the patronesses at Almack’s permitted me to waltz, it was you with whom I longed to waltz. And then came the terrible news that you were drowned and presumed dead. And I grieved your loss. If I am honest, I know not whether I grieved for you or for the perfect gentleman that I had created in my head who wrote such beautiful letters.” She looked at him then and her features hardened slightly. “You have a lot of dreams to live up to, Benedict Mallory, but if you are half the person I corresponded with for all those years, then it will not be a hard task to love you.
He wanted to go to her—to hold her—to reassure her. But if he was honest, he had no idea who the man in the letters was. Could he live up to it?
He bowed. “Thank you. I hope you will receive me tomorrow morning when, after I have seen your father I might visit with you and ask for your hand.”
“That would be…pleasant indeed.” She curtseyed and he took his leave, feeling as though he had just been knocked down by a coach and six.
Chapter Four
The days had passed in whirl and Cassy had not been given a moment to consider her new circumstances. She liked Lord Sefdom and she had certainly loved the young man who had been feared drowned. But she knew he was unsettled and uncomfortable with his newfound role as a duke’s son. She desperately wanted to help him and show him the ways of the Ton—not that she had done a particularly good job of that when she had sneaked him in the back door of her father’s townhouse and effectively ruined herself.
Ben had turned up the day after, looking grim and determined—and terribly handsome in his dark green coat, gold-flecked waistcoat, buff breeches and top boots. The bruising on his partially closed eye and cut lip did nothing to detract from his good looks.
He had knelt on one knee, asked her to marry him and when she had said yes, he had stood and lifted her hand to his lips. He had barely grazed her skin with his lips before he had stood upright and suggested she call for tea.
And now she stood in the receiving line outside his father’s ballroom, smiling and curtseying to most of the Ton. Cassy could not help but wonder how many had just turned up to see Lord Sefdom and to decide for himself if it really was the young man who had been presumed drowned off the coast of the peninsula. That vexed her. He was not an animal in a cage. She looked up at him as he bowed to the Dowager Duchess of Wainsborough. She doubted the woman could see the tension that emanated from him as he behaved with impeccable manners, but Cassy knew.
He was so easy to read. His mask, the mask that all the Ton had perfected, was not quite impenetrable yet. But one had to know him. And if truth be told, what she had learned of him in the past few days, he was not so unlike the Ben who had been her friend during that house party when she was sixteen.
“I believe most of the guests have arrived,” declared his mother. “The dancing is about to begin. Come along. We must mingle.”
Cassy placed her gloved hand on Ben’s sleeve, which he had proffered. Had she thought he looked handsome when he proposed, he looked even more so now. His silk breeches set off his dark blue coat perfectly and the flutter in her belly that was becoming so familiar when she was in his company made itself known.
“May I have the first dance, my lady?” Ben asked.
“No one can hear us. Please call me by my given name,” she said. It was so vexing to have him constantly being so proper, even when out of earshot of others.
“I am sorry. May I have the first dance, Cassandra.”
“Cassy,” she hissed. “Only my mother calls me Cassandra and even then only when I have done something wrong. I do not want a marriage where my husband calls me ‘Countess,’ even in private.”
“I apologise again. I am still unsure sometimes as to protocol.” Now she felt bad—and churlish. She blinked slowly, pasted a bright smile on her face so no one would suspect all was not well, and turned to him.
“No, please, this is not your fault. I am to blame. I forget sometimes that you are still learning.” He smiled and his eyes sparkled in merriment for a moment then he seemed to sober.
“Cassy, please dance with me. I am not completely sure of the steps and I would prefer my first dance in public to be with someone who understands my predicament.”
“Oh I see.” She looked around. “The first dance is a set of country dances. They are really quite simple. Look, Agnes…I mean Miss Bovington-Smythe is lining up and she has Lord Jamieson as her partner. He is a nice, kind gentleman. Between the three of us, we can keep you right.”
He nodded and led her to the dance floor.
***
Ben watched Cassy, who stood a few feet away, surrounded by a number of giggling young ladies. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparked in amusement and she licked her lips as if trying to stop herself from saying something she should not.
He was standing among a group of young gentlemen, many to whom he had been reintroduced at White’s. They were discussing a pair of matched greys that Freddie had seen at Tattersall’s. The merits of the horses were being expounded. But Ben was only half listening.
His gaze roved from the silver slippers peeking out from beneath her pink dress, up the silk of her gown, her delicate gloved hands, the roundness of her bosom, lifted up by her stays to make it more prominent. God, how he wanted to see them in all their naked glory. Diamonds adorned her regal neck and her dark hair was swept up into an intricate coiffure that Ben couldn’t imagine the number of hairpins that would have been requited to keep it in place. He wanted to take each pin and drop it on the floor as her hair fell down over her shoulders.
“Sefdom! Sefdom!” He shook his head and returned his attention back to his friends. “Stop staring at her,” muttered Lord Jamieson “You look far too obvious. People will talk.”
“But I am marrying her.”
“Yes but…you still have to convey an air of fashionable ennui.”
“But she is beautiful.”
“Maybe so. And you can tell her that when you take her for a stroll along the balcony later. But for now, it’s the supper dance and you must waltz with her.”
He was grateful to Jamieson. Since they had met on the dance floor an hour previously, he seemed to have taken him under his wing and was coaching him through the many pitfalls of the Ton. Between him and Cassy, Ben might just make it through the evening unscathed.
He nodded to Jamieson then approached his bride to be. Her smile was radiant as she accepted his proffered sleeve.
“Do you know how to waltz?” she whispered.
“My mother has been at great pains to teach me. Apparently I am a natural.” He whirled her into his arms and she took half a step back.