Spirited Brides

by Amanda McCabe

  Mr. Morland laughed and brushed some imaginary dust from the sleeve of his pink coat. “I must say, Paul, she did not look exactly ecstatic to see you. She didn’t run right into your arms, or anything like that. In fact, I thought she was going to faint there for a moment.”

  Mr. Bates frowned. He had noticed that, as well. “She was just surprised, that is all. She was hardly expecting me, now, was she? She was overcome by the emotion of it.” That had to be it, he assured himself. The silly gel had been giddy over him ever since they first met. She was ripe for falling into his arms—for handing over what he wanted.

  He conveniently forgot the fact that she had turned down his ardent proposal on the docks in Jamaica and had gotten on the ship without a backward glance. It had just been shock, he thought, and perhaps a belief that he, the most sought-after bachelor of the West Indies, could not possibly be interested in her. She was small and dark, and the whole island knew she was a strange one. Look at her friendship with that native woman!

  But now he would have to make her believe he was attracted to her. His future depended on it.

  “She has agreed to see me this evening before supper,” he said.

  “Indeed?” his cousin drawled. “And what are you going to do? Clasp her in your arms, declare undying devotion? Beg her to elope with you? Say that you will die without her in your life?”

  “I will ask her calmly to sell me the land at first. That would be the most sensible thing. And if that does not work . . . I will do whatever will be necessary.” Why, he wondered, did upper-class girls have to be such a lot of trouble, anyway?

  Mr. Morland shook his head mockingly. “Not your usual style of wooing at all. Usually you just snatch onto a woman and shout ‘Brace yourself, m’dear.’ ” He had a hearty laugh at his own joke.

  Mr. Bates scowled at him. “Well, that’s not going to work with this particular female, now is it?”

  Mr. Morland slowly sobered. “No. Not if you want to keep your plantation.”

  “That is the whole reason for this ridiculous excursion! She must agree to give me that land of hers. One way or another.”

  There was a sudden, sharp rustling in the hedges. Mr. Bates jumped up, looking frantically around. “Who is there?” he shouted. “Show yourself!”

  But everything was silent; the only sound was the distant rush of the sea.

  “Cousin,” Mr. Morland said. “You are growing paranoid. This is not good at all.”

  “I am not paranoid,” he murmured, sitting slowly back down on the bench. Yet he could not quite let go of the feeling that someone was watching him.

  This whole place gave him the shivers and had ever since they first walked in the front door. There was just something not quite right about it.

  The sooner he had Miss Richards’ land and possibly her person, and they could leave, the better.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What do you suppose he wants, then?” Antoinette asked, helping Cassie dress her hair before supper, as Cassie was too nervous to do it herself.

  “I have no idea.” Cassie was just as puzzled as she had been when she first walked into the drawing room and saw Mr. Bates. She could think of no reason at all for him to come visit her, even if he was in England to see his grandfather. She had thought they said everything there was to say that day at the docks.

  It was true that she had been rather good friends with his sister, and he had occasionally flirted with her, in a halfhearted way. His behavior had sometimes been flattering, but there was always something she could not quite like about him. Something evasive and odd.

  That something seemed even stronger now than it had then.

  For one moment, when she had first seen him, she had let herself indulge in the dream that he had come to declare his love for her, marry her, and take her back to her old life in Jamaica. Was that not what she had wanted ever since she came to England? To go back to Jamaica?

  But now she found that that was no longer what she wanted at all. Her life there had been a good one, but it was behind her now.

  And, even if it were not, she could not bear the thought of marrying a man like Mr. Bates. Not when she now knew the truth of what a man could be—honest, caring, strong without making others weak, intelligent, and willing to change when situations warranted.

  Someone like Phillip.

  Phillip, who had seen her in the corridor having her hand kissed by Mr. Bates. And just when things were going so well between them!

  She would just have to talk to him, make him understand who Mr. Bates was. But not just yet. First she had to talk to Mr. Bates, and she only had enough strength for one thing at a time.

  She reached for the carved ebony comb that had been her mother’s, and placed it carefully in the low, braided twist of her hair Antoinette had finished. “Do I look all right?”

  “All right for what?” Antoinette asked, peering in the mirror to straighten her own lavender-colored turban. “For running into Mr. Bates’ arms and accepting his oh-so-romantic declarations?”

  Cassie laughed. “Hardly! I am just praying he makes no declarations whatsoever tonight. I want to find out why he is here and send him on his way as soon as possible.”

  “On his way—alone?”

  “Of course alone! What do you think, that I want to go with him? What fustian!”

  Antoinette shrugged. “He would take you back to Jamaica.”

  “Nothing would be worth being married to him. His hands are cold, and his eyes are—are empty.”

  “Just be careful, Cassie dear,” Antoinette said, bending down to give her a quick, reassuring hug. “Are you certain you don’t want me to come with you?”

  Cassie shook her head, clinging to her friend. “I will only speak with him for a few minutes, and we will be in the drawing room, with the butler within calling distance.”

  “Very well. I will let you go down alone for a little while, but then I am going to come stand outside the drawing room door until I see him leave.”

  Cassie laughed. “My dear friend! What would I do without you?” She stood up, and straightened the folds of her emerald-green satin gown. “This will not take long at all, I am sure.”

  Soon after Cassie left her chamber, Louisa, Lady Lettice, Angelo, and Sir Belvedere appeared there, finding Antoinette alone, trying to read a book and biding her time until she could hurry downstairs.

  “Where is Cassie?” Louisa asked.

  “She has gone to meet with Mr. Bates,” Antoinette answered.

  “Oh, no! She cannot be alone with that dreadful man,” Sir Belvedere cried. He paced the length of the floor, his armor rattling even more than usual in his agitation.

  Lady Lettice said nothing, but twisted one long strand of pearls around her finger nervously.

  “I agree that he is truly dreadful,” Antoinette said. “But they are hardly alone with all the servants around.” Not alone at all, she silently reassured herself.

  “Nonetheless, it is not good,” said Louisa. “We do not like that man at all.”

  “He is after Miss Richards’ land!” Angelo cried. “Bad, bad man! Angelo hates him.”

  “Her land?” Antoinette said, puzzled. “She has no—oh, you mean the land she still owns in Jamaica?”

  “That must be it. Land in England could scarcely do a planter in Jamaica any good,” said Louisa.

  Antoinette shook her head. “But it is not a great amount. Cassie sold most of her father’s plantation to a new family there. She kept only a plot big enough for a house and a small garden, in case she ever wanted to go back. Of course, it does border Mr. Bates’ land.”

  “Then that is it!” Sir Belvedere said. “He wants to marry her to expand his holdings.”

  “But his own plantation is huge,” said Antoinette. “Why would he go to so much trouble for Cassie’s piece of land?”

  “Greed, my dear lady,” Sir Belvedere answered. “Some men will do anything out of greed.”

  “He is certainly gree
dy enough,” Antoinette agreed. “And the sort of man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. But what should we do?”

  “Just wait,” Lady Lettice advised. “Perhaps after Cassandra turns him down he will leave quietly, and we will not have to worry about him anymore.”

  “What if he does not go away?” Louisa murmured.

  “Then, Louisa, he will be the one to worry about us.”

  “So who is this Mr. Bates, Mother?” Phillip asked. It was growing darker in the library; he really should have been thinking of going upstairs to change for supper. But all he could keep replaying in his mind was the image of Cassandra standing in the foyer having her hand kissed by some strange man.

  A man who was tall, broad, and sun-browned. A man who looked as if he had never spent an hour bent over dusty books in his life. A man who appeared to know her very well.

  “He says he knew Miss Richards in Jamaica,” his mother said, fussing about with some of the ornaments on the fireplace mantel. She had ostensibly come in to tell him it was nearing time for supper, but as usual she could not resist changing his arrangements about. “He told us he was in England to see his grandfather, and wanted to see Miss Richards before he returned home.”

  He would. “Oh, just happened to be in the neighborhood, eh?”

  “I suppose. He seems quite fond of Miss Richards.” She gave him a meaningful glance. “I would not be surprised if he was here to ask her to marry him.” Then, her point seemingly made, she ceased moving the ornaments and walked to the door. “Supper will be soon, dear. Don’t stay here too much longer with your books.”

  “I won’t, Mother,” he answered.

  As the door shut behind her, he looked back down at the book that lay open beneath his hand. His mother had been repeating that admonition to him for as long as he could remember. “Don’t stay up reading too long, Phillip.” Even as a child, he had found a new and engrossing world in books, one that was difficult to tear himself away from. It had been the only world he needed.

  Until now.

  Cassandra had shown him a whole world outside the library, one that was full of color and mystery and light. It was not always neat and rational; it was sometimes messy and unexplainable, and very, very exciting. When he was with her, he felt like anything at all could be possible. He wanted to spend so much more time with her, to learn everything there was to know about her.

  And, miracle of miracles, she had seemed to enjoy his company, too.

  Until now.

  Now there was a man from her home, a home he knew she missed, here to try to reclaim her for that past life.

  Phillip laid his hand flat on the crackling pages of the book. Was he back to living only in books, without her color and vividness in his life?

  Or could he find it within himself to fight for her?

  Mr. Bates was waiting when Cassie slipped into the drawing room. There was a fire in the grate, but the maids had not yet been in to light the candles, so there were shadows lurking in the corners of the room. Mr. Bates almost seemed to be one of them, a large mass in evening clothes outlined by the fire.

  “So here you are!” he said with a jovial grin. “I was beginning to think our talk was going to have to take place another time.”

  Cassie was not put at her ease. His smile seemed too—too forced. She cautiously came farther into the room and sat down on the edge of a chair. “You came so far to see me. The least I could do is meet with you as soon as I could.”

  “And I am so happy you did.” He sat down in the chair beside hers, and Cassie sensed that he would have taken her hand, but she kept them firmly clasped in her lap. “But I did not come all that far. I was already in England, you know, to see my grandfather.”

  “But he is in London, is he not? That is a great distance from here.”

  “No distance is too great to see you, Miss Richards. Weren’t we good friends in Jamaica?”

  Cassie would never have gone so far as to say that. “Well, I . . .” she began.

  He interrupted her by suddenly clasping at the arm of her chair. His rough fingers brushed against the bare skin above her glove and below her short, puffed sleeve, and she drew away from him.

  “Of course we were!” he said heartily. “Almost betrothed, some would have said.”

  No one had ever said that, as far as Cassie knew. “We didn’t know each other that well,” she managed to say past the growing lump of trepidation in her throat.

  “You know I was always fond of you,” he said, leaning closer. “That is why I felt I could come to you and ask you something.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “I need to ask you to sell me your land in Jamaica.”

  Cassie, who had just opened her mouth to refuse a proposal of marriage, looked at him sharply. “My land?”

  “Yes. It would be so convenient for me to have it, seeing that it borders my own plantation, and you seem quite settled here.”

  She almost laughed in profound relief. He did not want her—he wanted her land!

  But once the relief had passed, questions popped up in her mind. Her land was not very great; it seemed almost as strange that he would come this far to buy it as it had for him to propose to her.

  She looked away from him, into the light of the fire. It made sense to sell it to him, certainly. She had no need of it. But something very strong held her back.

  That land was her last link to her father. She did not want to let it go to a man who unsettled and alarmed her in such a way.

  She turned back to Mr. Bates. He still smiled amiably, but there was such desperation in his eyes. Desperation, and—and something she could not name, but that frightened her.

  “I will think about your offer,” she said carefully. “But I must tell you I have no plans to sell that land. Not to anyone.”

  His smile faded, replaced by a puzzled scowl. “You are refusing to sell me the land?”

  “I said I would think about it . . .” she began, but her words became a squeak when he suddenly grabbed her arm.

  “You also said you have no plans to sell!” he growled. “You were never going to hear me out at all. Just like a woman—stubborn and two-faced! You don’t even need that land. You are just keeping it to spite me.”

  “Let go of me!” Cassie cried, pulling at her arm.

  She managed to yank away from him, but part of her sleeve came off with a loud tear. It echoed in the room, and the door was thrown open.

  Phillip stood there, tall and still. He frowned as he took in the scene before him, the firelight glinting like the flames of Hades on his dark hair.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he said in a frighteningly calm voice.

  Cassie gave a small cry and leaped off her chair to run toward him. Never had she been so glad to see anyone in all her life!

  He caught her in his arms, and she held tightly to him, trembling and wordless. Usually she felt so confident, so safe in her world; all that had fled before the anger she saw in Mr. Bates’ eyes.

  But now her world was slowly righting itself as she held onto Phillip.

  He looked calmly at Mr. Bates over the top of her head. “I ought to call you out, sir, for frightening a guest in my own home,” he said quietly. “As it is, I ask you to leave at once.”

  Mr. Bates stood up, his polite mask sliding back into place to conceal that quick flash of fury. “You must be Lord Royce.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, Lord Royce, Miss Richards and I were just having a bit of a chat about old times in Jamaica. She became rather emotional, as women are wont to do.” He gave a jovial between-us-men smile. “You know how women can be. Especially women as—imaginative as Miss Richards. I certainly meant no offense.”

  “That is not . . .” Cassie began.

  Phillip hushed her with a gentle hand on her hair. “I ask you once more to leave my house. I will not ask again.”

  Mr. Bates drew himself up with a frown and stalked past them to the door. “You will be
sorry,” he said. Cassie was not sure if he meant her, or Phillip, or the entire world.

  As Mr. Bates pushed into the foyer, he nearly knocked Antoinette to the floor. Without even acknowledging her presence, he continued up the staircase.

  Antoinette glared at his back, then came on into the drawing room. “Cassie!” she cried. “What has happened? Did that beast hurt you?”

  Cassie shook her head mutely. Her voice seemed to have deserted her in the unsettling proceedings.

  “I think she is more scared than hurt,” Phillip said. “Miss Duvall, would you be so kind as to ask the butler and some of the footmen to make certain Mr. Bates and his cousin leave the castle immediately?”

  Antoinette nodded. “Yes, of course! Right away.” She patted Cassie’s arm once soothingly and hurried away to find the servants.

  Phillip led Cassie back to the fire and made her sit down. Then he knelt down beside her, holding her cold hands in his. “Do you feel up to telling me what happened, Cassandra?” he asked gently.

  “I am not sure,” she answered. “It all happened so very quickly.”

  A muscle ticked along Phillip’s jaw. “He attacked you?”

  “Not attacked exactly. He grabbed my arm. But I had been feeling so very uncomfortable with him, that when he did that I—I screamed.”

  “You were very surprised to see him here, then,” he said, more as a statement than a question. “He was not an invited caller.”

  Cassie studied him quizzically. Could that possibly be a small note of jealousy in his voice? That made her feel slightly better, even in the midst of all her confusion and fear. Things could not possibly be all bad if Phillip cared enough to be jealous.

  She longed to throw her arms around him and swear to him that he should never need to feel jealous of anyone. That there was no one in the world who could possibly compare to him.

  Instead, she just nodded her head and said, “Very surprised indeed. He has never written to me since I have been in England. I have heard from his sister, but she has only mentioned him in passing. She did not even say her brother was coming here.” Cassie paused to take a deep, steadying breath. “I confess I was a bit glad to see him when first he arrived. He was a familiar face from home. But I soon realized that something was amiss. He wants to buy my land in Jamaica. Very badly.”