Several of the letters were already flapping in the breeze, having been wrenched loose by sharp twigs as Cassie climbed the tree. It was starting to rain and the drizzle made both the banner and Cassie’s clothes hang limply, but she was determined—absolutely determined—to give Viscount Quinlan such a disgust of her that he would turn his carriage about immediately and drive back to London. She could take no risks that Anthony and John and this high-handed nobleman would determine her fate between them. It was her intention to remain unwed until she was twenty-five and the mistress of her own fortune. And that was that, as far as marriage and Cassie Ward were concerned.
Of course, Anthony had presented the matter in terms of a choice: Viscount Quinlan had been invited to the house party to meet Cassie and to see whether the two of them would suit. He was a former soldier like Anthony, and therefore no doubt deemed a suitable match. There was no duress involved. Yet Cassie felt her situation keenly. With no close family of her own, she knew that she was a burden on her cousins and that they would be happy to see her safely wed and settled. And sometimes, in her most private moments, Cassie would admit to herself that she felt a certain yearning for a home and family of her own. But she had always been courted for her money and Lord Quinlan was no different. He was a fortune hunter and Cassie detested men of that stamp.
Cassie peered out of the tree to see whether the Viscount’s carriage was approaching. She had heard on the best authority that he was due to arrive at the house party that very afternoon, but the precise timings were vague. She might be stuck up the tree for a number of hours and already her limbs were chilled and aching. It was late summer now and the leaves were starting to turn copper and gold. The wind was increasing as a thunderstorm rolled in from the Downs and the grasses were bending along the track that led from the hamlet of Lynd to the estate of Lyndhurst Chase. Cassie shivered in the breeze.
A single horseman was approaching along the track now. Cassie shrank back against the trunk of the tree as she tried to judge whether or not this was her quarry. The indications were contradictory. It was easy to see that the horse was a prime piece of bloodstock. They had bred horses at Lyndhurst Chase for centuries and Cassie had an eye for these things. On the other hand, the gentleman had no groom accompanying him and no luggage. Perhaps this was the Viscount and he had chosen to ride whilst his carriage followed behind. Cassie held on to a stout branch with one hand and leaned forward, the better to see the gentleman’s face.
The horseman reined in a mere twenty yards from where she sat, removed his hat and shook the rainwater from the brim. Cassie stared hard. She could see that he was young—much younger than she had anticipated her suitor to be—with dark hair and broad shoulders, and he sat the horse with innate skill and ease, his hands light on the reins. There was something about the contained strength and elegance of him that made her insides quiver unexpectedly. Her hands quivered too. Her fingers slipped against the rough bark and she made a convulsive grasp for the branch, scoring her fingers. The leaves rustled. The gentleman looked up and directly at her.
Now that she could see him properly Cassie was obliged to admit that he was rather handsome. She had not been able to gather much reliable intelligence about Viscount Quinlan, but the meagre reports suggested that he was at least thirty if he was a day, dissolute and prone to wearing vests, although Cassie thought that these two must surely be mutually exclusive, for what woman in her right mind would wish to be seduced by a man in a vest? This gentleman logically could not be the Viscount, for he was far too young and good-looking to be a degenerate.
She looked at him thoughtfully. He had slanting, watchful eyes, but there was a hint of humour in the hard lines of his face, as though he smiled often. He was not smiling now, however. His gaze was narrowed on her with acute assessment. Cassie found it so disconcerting to be the focus of his interest that her throat dried and a ripple of heat washed right through her, despite the inclement weather.
Abruptly she remembered why she was there and decided that she could not take the risk on this not being Viscount Quinlan. She brandished the banner. ‘Truth and Liberty!’ The words came out as a croak rather than the radical rallying cry she had intended. She was not even sure that the gentleman had heard her. He was looking at the banner now with his head tilted to one side.
‘Bead to feed the hungry?’ he queried.
Cassie glanced at the wilting banner and rubbed the rain out of her eyes. ‘Bread!’ she said crossly. ‘Bread to feed the hungry!’
‘Ah.’ The gentleman nodded. ‘That makes more sense. I confess I was a little puzzled by the missing letter.’
Cassie frowned. She was feeling quite confused herself. It did not seem right that this gentleman should be calmly sitting discussing spelling with her when she had intended to frighten him with her outrageous radical politics. She had been told for so long that radical politics were outrageous that it had never occurred to her that not everyone would react in the same way. She tried again.
‘Justice to punish crimes!’ she shouted.
The gentleman smiled. His eyes held a wicked glint now and Cassie gulped to see it. He seemed in no way discomposed by her behaviour. In fact, he seemed positively fascinated by her. There was a very particular light in his eyes as they rested on her and it made her stomach patter and her toes curl just to see it.
‘A very laudable sentiment,’ the gentleman approved. ‘I am entirely in favour of justice to punish crimes.’
‘Are you Viscount Quinlan?’ Cassie demanded, abandoning her limited attempts at finesse and getting straight to the point.
‘Are you going to come down from that tree?’ the gentleman countered, the glint in his blue eyes now looking remarkably like a challenge.
Cassie trembled slightly. She had the oddest feeling that were she to climb down she would end fair and square in his arms and that somehow, that was the appropriate place to be. She looked at him for a long, loaded moment.
So this is the one…
A shiver of sensual awareness crept along her skin, turning her hot and cold at the same time and scattering her senses to all points of the compass. She was too flustered to move or even speak.
‘Well?’ the gentleman prompted, his smile deepening.
Cassie trembled again. The banner flapped in a sudden gust of wind. The tree creaked, its branches shifting, and Cassie’s hand slipped against the trunk. She made a grab for something firm to hang on to, but her fingers raked the air. She tumbled down on to the track, the banner wrapped wetly about her in a flurry of green and red. Her last memory was of the gentleman’s highly bred mount snorting in panic and its flailing hooves coming down towards her as she hit her head hard and slipped inexorably away into darkness.
Peter Quinlan was accustomed to women throwing themselves at his feet. His lack of fortune had never been much of a deterrent to those bored ladies of the ton who had taken a fancy to him. After all, they had not wanted to marry him, only to amuse themselves. There had been the occasional young lady who had fancied herself a Viscountess, but Peter had never entertained the idea of marriage with any of them.
On this occasion, however, he was obliged to acquit the young lady of any ulterior motive. He instinctively started forward as she fell out of the tree and Hector, taking fright, turned so sharply that he pirouetted as though he were in a circus.
‘Hell and the devil!’ Peter wrenched on the reins and the horse’s hooves thudded into the soft clay mud of the track a mere two inches from the girl’s head.
Peter leaped from the saddle, soothed Hector with a few soft words and a stroke of the nose and abandoned him in somewhat cavalier fashion to go down on his knees on the track beside the girl’s unmoving figure.
She was lying on her side in the mud, the gaudy banner tangled in the skirts of her green-velvet riding habit. Her hat had come off and her thick, dark hair was escaping its somewhat inexpertly applied pins and half-covered her face. The riding habit, soaked by the rain, clung to her
figure like a second skin.
Peter stripped off his gloves and brushed back the strands of hair from her face. It was thick, silky and a dark copper brown, and it curled confidingly about his fingers. Her skin was soft, coloured the pink and russet of an apple. She looked to be no more than one and twenty and she was extremely pretty. He suspected that this was none other than Miss Cassandra Ward, whose name appeared on the special licence even now in his wallet. Miss Ward, the radical old maid whom his father had warned him might be no better than a fashionable impure. To Peter’s relatively experienced eyes she looked extremely virginal. He felt astonished. He felt awed. And then—fatally for his financial ambitions—he felt guilty.
Cassie was breathing gently but regularly. Peter sent up a silent prayer of thanks. He unwrapped the radical banner from about her and, after a moment’s thought, stuffed it down a rabbit hole in the bank by the side of the road. He lifted her gently in his arms. For a small woman she felt surprisingly resilient. She was not heavy, but she was no lightweight either. He hoped it was a sign of sturdy good health.
The hamlet of Lynd was a mere hundred yards back down the road. Looping Hector’s reins over his arm, Peter strode along the track, mud streaking his riding breeches and the rain running in rivulets down his face. Cassie turned her head against his shoulder and snuggled closer to him with a pleasurable little murmur. Peter looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, the lashes wet and spiky against her cheek. Her generous mouth was tilted up in a faint smile. Whatever she was dreaming of must be very enjoyable indeed.
Peter’s imaginings were also extremely enjoyable but highly improper. The soft pressure of her body in his arms was impossible to ignore. Her skirts had ridden up to reveal a pair of very slender ankles. Her petticoats foamed over his arm as he carried her. Peter bent his head so that his lips brushed the softness of her cheek. A fierce desire twisted within him. Her mouth was so lush and full, and so close to his own. He ought not to be thinking about kissing a lady when she had sustained a blow to the head and was unconscious in his arms, but…
Hector snorted wetly in his ear.
‘Thank you, Hector,’ Peter said, his ardour abruptly dampened. ‘I needed that.’
The village of Lynd looked deserted and the inn, appropriately named the Angel’s Arms, was closed and shuttered. Peter freed one hand to bang energetically on the door and a few moments later was relieved to hear the shuffling approach of one of the inn servants. As the door swung open he realised that this stocky individual with forearms like corded barrels was in fact the landlord himself. The man took one look at the recumbent figure of the girl and started forward.
‘Miss Cassandra! What have you done to her, sir?’
Peter was not remotely surprised to receive the confirmation that the young lady in his arms was his intended bride. He was an intelligent man and the radical banner had rather given the game away. He was more offended to be unjustly accused.
‘I have rescued Miss Ward from an accident on the road,’ he snapped. ‘Be so good as to stable my horse and then fetch a doctor to attend to the lady. And pray send to Lyndhurst Chase and call the landlady and show me to the parlour.’
The innkeeper appeared confused at this barrage of orders. ‘Beg pardon, but what do you wish me to do first, your honour? I am on my own here, for my wife is visiting her sister over Barrington way and the groom is on an errand to Watchstone and—’
Peter cut short the explanations. ‘Then pray stable my horse. I will find the parlour on my own. And when the horse is safely stowed, fetch the doctor.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ the landlord said, having expertly sized up Peter’s horse, appearance and attitude and adjusted his mode of address accordingly.
The inn was small and Peter had no difficulty in finding his way to the one tiny parlour. A fire was lit against the dampness of the day and the room was almost overpoweringly warm. He laid Cassie down on an ancient lumpy red sofa, which was clearly somewhat of a luxury for a country inn, placed a cushion under her head and eased his cramped arms with a sigh of relief. He would need to open a window or both of them would start to steam as their clothes dried out.
The landlord came in as he was pushing against the window frame, which stubbornly refused to move.
‘It’s stuck, my lord,’ the landlord said helpfully. ‘The rain blows off the Downs this time of year and the wood swells.’
‘So I see,’ Peter said. He went swiftly back to Cassie’s side, taking her hand in his. She was breathing regularly and her face was regaining its pink colour, but she did not stir. Her fingers slid between his and she tightened her grip on his hand. Peter felt a disconcerting tug of concern and tenderness deep inside.
‘The doctor?’ he asked abruptly, over his shoulder.
‘Yes, my lord.’ The landlord rubbed the palms of his hands nervously against his trousers. ‘I sent one of the village lads, my lord. He goes direct to the Chase once he has found Dr Nightingale.’ He looked dubiously at Cassie’s prone body. ‘You’ll be wanting hot water, my lord, and something restorative for the young lady. Took a tumble, did she?’
Peter glanced at him. ‘She fell from a tree,’ he said.
‘Ah.’ The landlord looked unsurprised, as though Miss Ward falling out of trees was a common occurrence in the vicinity of Lynd. Peter suspected that it probably was. The landlord was still weighing him up, his shrewd blue eyes fixed upon him, clearly uncomfortable about something.
‘I’m thinking you’ll be staying at the Chase for Major Lyndhurst’s house party, my lord?’ he said.
‘That is correct,’ Peter agreed.
The landlord blew out his lips. ‘Ah. But you’ll not be Viscount Quinlan?’
Peter frowned. ‘Why not?’
The landlord looked him over. ‘They said he was an older man.’
‘I see,’ Peter said. ‘The hot water and brandy for Miss Ward?’
‘Dangerous, these London folk.’ The landlord looked disapproving. ‘Not sure about these house parties, neither. Opportunity for dancing and gambling and hunting, and not always of the sporting variety neither…Heard Quinlan was an ageing roué who drinks like a fish and suffers the gout. Couldn’t leave you alone with Miss Ward if you were the Viscount. Quite unsuitable.’
Peter briefly considered attempting to defend his reputation and that of all other denizens of the capital, and then decided that the landlord would never leave him alone with Cassie if he did.
‘You may see that I do not fit that description at all,’ he said. ‘You may safely leave Miss Ward with me. I assure you she will come to no harm.’
The landlord looked suitably grateful. ‘Very good, my lord.’
He went out and Peter straightened up, sitting on the edge of the sofa beside Cassie. He was concerned that she should discard her damp riding habit, for there was a grave danger of her developing a chill if she lay there in wet clothes. It was damnably awkward that the landlady was absent. He could hardly start to undress a lady himself. Even he had some sense of decency.
His fingers strayed to the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons at Cassie’s throat. Her collar was high and tight and Peter thought that she would breathe more easily if it were undone. He slid the first four or five buttons from their fastenings, turned back her collar and exposed the slender whiteness of her throat. Her skin smelled faintly and sweetly of lime blossom and cool, fresh air. Peter stared at the impossibly fragile line of her jaw and the curve of her neck.
His gaze dropped lower. The material of the riding habit strained over Cassie’s breasts, covering her like a lover’s touch. Peter wanted to peel away the layers of damp material that clung to her and explore the nakedness beneath. The idea was so cool and tempting, yet so heated and exciting that it transfixed him.
One copper-coloured curl nestled in the curve of her throat. Peter’s gaze slid down the line of shining mother-of-pearl buttons to the hollow between her breasts. There was a delicate gold chain about her neck that disappeared beneath the ne
ckline of her chemise, slender links of filigree against the paleness of her skin. Peter’s fingers idly traced the line of it to where it vanished beneath the crisp white of her petticoat. The chain felt warm. So did Cassie. So did Peter, who was also aware that his riding breeches were becoming very tight and it was not from the shrinking effects of the rain on the leather.
Cassie turned her head and rubbed her cheek gently against his sleeve. Molten desire pierced Peter at the trusting touch. He got to his feet with a muffled curse. What was he doing, taking advantage of an unconscious woman in an isolated inn? Not just any woman, either, but his promised wife to whom he had not even been formally introduced. Did that make it better or worse that he wanted to ravish her? He was not sure. What was certain, though, was that he was a scoundrel to be thinking in this way. Far from being an experienced woman of the world, Miss Ward was a complete innocent, and he was harbouring thoughts of her that were impure in the extreme.
Peter strode across to the window and stared blindly out of the steamy panes. He had not counted on feeling an immediate, strong attraction to his bride. He had thought to make a rich match out of necessity, not desire. This made matters decidedly complicated.
The door opened to admit the landlord with a creaking wooden trolley. A bowl of water balanced on the top of it lurched with each step. On the lower shelf was a bottle of repellent black liquid, a glass, a clean white cloth and, Peter was glad to see, a brimming tankard of ale.
‘Blackberry cordial, my lord,’ the landlord said, happily oblivious to Peter’s evident discomfort. ‘My wife swears by it—says it is sovereign against the chill.’
Peter dampened the cloth in the warm water and gently wiped the smears of mud from Cassie’s face, then, taking the glass of cordial, he raised Cassie’s head from the cushions and tilted it to her lips. After a few seconds her lashes fluttered, she opened her eyes and she looked directly at him. Peter’s heart contracted with an unfamiliar emotion. She had brown eyes lightened with flecks of gold and green like the sun on autumn leaves and they were so wide and honest they seemed to see into his soul.
A Regency Invitation to the House Party of the Season Page 2