by Louise Allen
The rest of the party was assembled in the dining room by the time Cassandra and her new chaperone entered. Colette Vernet had proved to be a friendly companion and an excellent dresser of hair. Despite her drab dress, Cassandra was pleased with the shining curls Colette had teased from her crop, and the Frenchwoman had brought her own rice powder to cover the bruise on Cassandra’s cheek.
All eyes turned to them as they entered. Cassandra thought she glimpsed relief on Nicholas’s face at her modest demeanour while the touring party stared with frank curiosity that turned to indifference at the sight of two uninteresting females.
‘My ward, Miss Jones. Ca– Catherine, Mr Bulstrode and Mr George Bulstrode and their families.’
Cassandra bobbed a neat curtsey, then took the seat next to Nicholas, Colette at her side.
‘You are most indulgent to bring your ward with you, my lord,’ the elder Mrs Bulstrode observed archly. ‘My two darling daughters, Phoebe and Ariadne, pleaded with their dear Papa to permit them to accompany us, but Mr Bulstrode would not countenance it. Would you, Mr Bulstrode?’
‘Certainly not.’ Her spouse broke off from stuffing roast goose into his mouth to nod in agreement. ‘I don’t spend good guineas for them to attend Miss Simpkin’s Academy in Bath so they can fritter their time on continental travel. No way to catch a good husband that, is it, my lord?’
Faced with a direct question, Nicholas was forced to participate in a conversation he clearly found distasteful. ‘I am afraid I have no opinion on the matter, Mr Bulstrode. I am delivering my ward to the care of her great aunt in Nice and that is the sum total of my experience of the rearing of young ladies.’
Cassandra could hardly contain her laughter. How Nicholas managed to convey such total boredom and a complete distaste for the subject without being openly offensive fascinated her. She could well believe all the stories she had heard of the arrogant Earl of Lydford.
The Bulstrodes appeared oblivious to the snub. They ignored Cassandra and her companion completely, except to request them to pass the buttered crayfish or the mustard, and addressed all their remarks to poor Nicholas.
Cassandra knew she had to avoid his eye or they would both set off laughing. But all desire to giggle left her when, to her utter astonishment, she heard her own name mentioned.
‘Of course, my lord, you have been out of the country and will not be aware of the latest on-dit in Society. Poor Lord Offley has set off such a hue and cry after his young bride-to-be, who has vanished from her home. Why, he believes Miss Weston to be abducted, so sudden was her disappearance.’ The younger Mrs Bulstrode was positively quivering in her over-trimmed gown with the excitement of the tale.
‘And he must be correct,’ her sister-in-law chimed in, ‘for what young girl would flee from such a distinguished connexion?’
Cassandra felt the colour rise up her throat and her heart began to thud uncomfortably. Not for a moment had she expected anyone to make her flight public, let alone Lord Offley. But, of course, when she thought about it, she could understand why. Her father might live cut off from Society, but he hoarded every penny and was known to be a warm man. Lord Offley, as profligate with his money as with his morals, would want Cassandra, and her dowry, back.
‘Why, we have shocked dear Miss Jones,’ Mrs Bulstrode senior said patronisingly, after a glance at her flushed cheeks. ‘I am sorry, my dear, but such sad stories should be told, for they hold a moral for young girls.’
‘In what way, since you hold Miss Weston to have been abducted, sir? If that were the case, it could not be her fault and the story holds no moral,’ Cassandra remarked coldly. ‘Or do you suggest she had connived in her own abduction? If that were so, I am sure the tale is not fit for my ears.’
Nicholas tapped her warningly on the ankle with the toe of his shoe, but Cassandra was enjoying the look of outrage on Mrs Bulstrode’s florid features. The older woman was not to be so easily snubbed, however. Ignoring Cassandra, she turned to Nicholas. ‘I believe Miss Weston is a connexion of yours, is she not, my lord? This sad news must be a terrible shock for you.’
‘One of my mother’s numerous godchildren, I believe,’ he said in tones of utter boredom. ‘A scrubby child given to masquerades when I last saw her. The Dowager has always been more generous than wise in her patronage. Catherine, my child, if you have finished that Rhenish cream, I suggest you retire.’ He turned to Mrs Bulstrode. ‘She is not yet out, you know,’ he remarked, by way of explanation for such an early dismissal.
Cassandra was glad to escape the overheated atmosphere and the ugly curiosity of the Bulstrodes. In her room she thanked Colette, who promised to attend her in the morning, but once the Frenchwoman had gone, she felt too agitated to undress and get into bed. Instead she curled up in the window seat and rested her hot face against the cool green glass. In the moonlight, the dark Rhône slid silently past, its smooth surface giving no hint of the murderous currents beneath.
Those odious women. The thought of vulgar persons like that gossiping, bandying her name about, was revolting. It had never occurred to her for one moment that news of her flight would reach more than her immediate and restricted circle. She had believed no-one would care, no-one would find her of any interest.
Cassandra had known she should feel guilty for embroiling Nicholas in her escape, but she had not, for overriding all other emotions was the thought that she would still be with him, for days, weeks to come. He was arrogant and dangerously disturbing, but he also laughed with her, shared with her and looked after her. For the first time in her life, she had a friend, a companion.
Her life before she had run away had been desperately lonely. No doubt, when she reached Vienna, Godmama would introduce her to girls of her own age who would become friends, but for the moment there was only Nicholas to fill that gap.
But now what was she going to do? If the story of her flight was all over London he would be cast as an abductor after her dowry, or a wicked seducer or something equally horrible. And what would Godmama say when she heard? The thought made her go hot and cold all over. The thought of waiting until the morning to talk to Nicholas was insupportable. She must see him now, find out if he would still take her with him in the face of this scandal.
When she reached his room, it was empty so she perched uneasily on the end of the bed until she heard his footsteps on the polished boards of the passage.
Almost as soon as he closed the door behind him, she flung herself into his arms, held on to as much of him as she could wrap her arms around and gasped out her misery and her fears and an incoherent apology. The candle Nicholas was holding guttered and snuffed with the draught she created, leaving them clinging together in the darkness.
‘Cassandra.’ He began trying to free himself from the arms that encircled him, but then the extent of her unhappiness and humiliation must have reached him and he said no more, but held her close until she ran out of words.
His arms around her felt strong and sure, his body a rock of certainty to cling to. Gently he stroked her hair from her crown to the nape and instinctively Cassandra snuggled closer.
‘You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ he said, but his voice was gentle.
‘Those horrible people, Nicholas. Talking about me. Everyone knows. What am I going to do? What are we going to do if anyone discovers I am with you?’
‘Pay them no heed and they’ll find another scandal next week,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Frankly, you aren’t known, so there is really nothing to hold Society’s interest and no-one likes Offley.’
Cassandra tipped her head back to look at him. In the moonlight his face was a white mask, but it seemed to her his breathing was not as regular as it had been.
‘Cassie… you must go now. And stop worrying.’
‘Not yet, we must talk about what to do, Nicholas,’ Cassandra insisted.
‘Not now and not here.’ Nicholas freed himself from her embrace and gave her a little shake. ‘Cassie, this isn’t proper and
it isn’t wise.’
‘Oh, I know what you said, but I trust you, Nicholas…’
He looked down at her. ‘Stop it, Cassie. I am not made of stone. Be a good girl and go to your room.’
‘Stop treating me like a child when you know I am not,’ she said vehemently. ‘You’ve seen I’m not fifteen. Why won’t you discuss this with me? You just keep saying Cassie, do this, Cassie, do that, don’t worry, it’ll be all right. But it won’t be all right, will it?’
‘If you don’t get out now and go to your room it will never be all right,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘What if someone finds you here? Do you want to be ruined?’
‘But I am ruined in the eyes of Society, anyway. I’ve been travelling with you day and night for more than two weeks. What has changed? I need to talk to you, Nicholas…’ She reached out her hands to him again, but he caught her wrists, holding her away from him.
‘I tried to warn you in Paris you were playing with fire. There is a lot of difference between being ruined in name and in fact. You are not such an innocent, you understand what I am saying to you. Get out of this room now.’
He freed her wrists and turned from her, one hand clenched on the carved bedpost. In the sudden stillness of the room his breathing was ragged.
Cassandra could not pretend she did not understand him, not any more. He had obviously been attracted to her in Paris, and in Lyons, but had fought against it because he believed her so young. Now he had seen with his own eyes that she was a woman. Cassandra burned with the memory of his eyes on her body, an uneasy sensation of embarrassment mixed with a tingling pleasure. Desire.
And with it came realisation. Nicholas was a passionate. experienced man, used to the company of women as experienced and willing as Lady Broome.
With her trustfulness and in their enforced intimacy, she was putting an intolerable strain on him. And suddenly, staring at his wide shoulders, the crisp curl of dark hair at his nape, the strong hand gripping the bedpost, she realised she didn’t care, she wanted him to feel like that about her.
Five minutes ago she had been in his arms, held close to him, and she yearned to be there again. With a shiver, she remembered the heat of his mouth on hers in Paris, the strength of his arms as he held her on the river bank.
‘Nicholas,’ she began, then broke off, uncertain of what she meant to say.
‘Damn it, Cassandra,’ he ground out without turning. ‘Will you get out of here?’
‘But I…’ she stammered.
‘Go.’ He gestured abruptly with his hand and she turned and fled, banging the door behind her.
‘Then I can go back to being a boy?’ Cassandra started to sit down on the low stone parapet of the bridge, remembered her skirts and checked the movement.
Nicholas gazed past her to the edge of the river where an old woman was collecting driftwood. ‘I think it would be as well.’ His tone was studiedly neutral, as it had been since the rather stilted breakfast they had shared that morning.
A little devil prompted her to ask, ‘Why?’
The question was rewarded by a sharp glance from Nicholas’s green eyes. ‘People such as the Bulstrodes are in no position to know whether I have a ward or not, but the ton most certainly are. If a whisper of your presence gets back to those who know me then the coincidence of my mother’s missing goddaughter and a mysterious young woman travelling with me would be too marked to overlook.’
‘Yes, Nicholas,’ Cassandra agreed demurely. ‘That is a very good reason.’
And it was. But she knew the real reason as well as he did. Nicholas did not want the constant reminder of her femininity. Dressed as a boy and with the formality of the master-servant relationship restored, it would be easier to pretend she was simply young Cassie again.
In the cold light of day she realised what a narrow escape they had had last night from something they would have both bitterly regretted. She had only Nicholas’s self-control to thank for that.
‘Will we be moving on today?’ she asked, gathering up her skirts to cross the cobbled bridge. ‘I haven’t any boy’s clothes.’
‘The apothecary’s wife is buying some. I asked her this morning while I was making arrangements for the carriage.’
‘And the rest of the luggage?’ Cassandra rested her palms on the bridge parapet and watched the treacherous sucking water below that had so nearly taken her life.
‘We can buy everything we need in Orange, according to Madame. Stop looking at the river, Cassie, dwelling on the accident will not help you recover from it.’
She shivered and decided he was right. Her restless sleep the night before had been full of swirling green water overlying the image of Nicholas’s face and the remembered sensation of someone touching her skin with cold lips. He had kissed her when he had dragged her from the water.
Raising her eyes from the surface to the water’s edge, she watched a group of urchins chasing minnows in a muddy pool, shrieking with laughter. ‘The river is not all bad,’ she remarked with a smile, which froze on her lips at the appearance of the Bulstrode family party strolling along the far bank.
The Mesdames Bulstrode were a startling vision, the elder in lilac, the younger in an argumentative shade of puce. Both were having trouble controlling overlarge poke bonnets in the strong morning breeze.
‘Oh, yes, Cousin Nicholas,’ Cassandra remarked in a high, clear tone. ‘You are so right in observing that the state of the deserving poor in this country is much worse than that of our own. Good morning, Mrs Bulstrode.’ She dropped a neat curtsey. ‘The Earl and I were discussing the condition of the lower orders in these parts. The absence of a benevolent landowning class must be much to blame.’
‘Well, they are all Papists, and they murdered their rightful masters in the Revolution, so what can they expect?’ the older woman announced sweepingly, before turning her attention to Nicholas.
He, however, was too experienced in the ways of social climbers to be trapped by the Bulstrodes into a lengthy exchange. ‘You are so right, Madam,’ he agreed, straight-faced. ‘I wonder why that did not occur to us. Come Cas… Catherine, the wind is getting quite keen.’ He raised his hat to the Bulstrodes and shepherded a demure Cassandra back towards the inn.
‘You baggage,’ he accused, as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘Benevolent landowning class, indeed. Where did you learn to spout such nonsense?’
‘The vicar’s wife talks like that all the time. I did it rather well, I think,’ she congratulated herself.
‘You do like to sail close to the wind, don’t you, Cassie?’ he remarked drily. ‘Now stay upstairs until the carriage is ready. I doubt my constitution will stand any more encounters between you and the Bulstrodes.’
How and when Cassandra would transform herself from demure young lady to valet had exercised them both. It would not do to risk encountering the sharp eyes of the older Mrs Bulstrode with Cassandra in boy’s guise but Nicholas cravenly refused point-blank to risk the icy disapproval of Madame Aubrac by enlisting her aid. Nor could Cassandra change in an inn along the way or the postillions would gossip.
Eventually she hurried out to the carriage while the horses were being hitched up, drew the blinds and scrambled out of the dress and into her shirt and breeches. She was just tying her second garter when Nicholas joined her.
She was perfectly decently clad but, for some reason, she felt exposed in her shirt sleeves and stockinged feet. Hastily she pulled on the waistcoat and coat, fastened the buttons tight, jammed on her shoes and began to fiddle with her neckcloth. She knew she was mangling it, but Nicholas made no move to help her as he would have done two days before. He seemed as conscious as she of the changed condition between them.
Chapter Eleven
By the second day, as they neared Aix en Provence, it seemed the illusion of the clothes had worked, the truth about her age was forgotten and they were at ease with each other again.
Aix lived up to Cassandra’s expectations of what a ‘p
roper’ foreign city should be. There were wide, clean avenues of lime trees, fountains on every corner and gracious squares where the inhabitants took the air in the evening.
To her delight, it was warm enough to sit out after dusk and in the larger squares enterprising restaurant owners had set tables under the plane trees for couples to watch the promenaders while sipping wine and nibbling almond biscuits.
Cassandra had acquired a very decent suit of black superfine, and with her best linen and polished shoes, looked respectable enough to sit with Nicholas pretending to be his courier.
‘You are causing much interest amongst the young ladies,’ she teased slyly. As the respectable family groups strolled past, several of the pretty daughters on their fathers’ arms were sliding interested looks under demure lashes to where they were sitting.
Nicholas snorted. ‘It’s not me,’ he teased back. ‘I think the little redhead has taken a fancy to you. Take care, Cass, I don’t want outraged fathers banging at our door.’
Cassandra burst into laughter, choking on her wine until Nicholas threatened to slap her on the back. ‘It’s good,’ she finally managed to say. ‘If I can deceive those girls, I can deceive anyone.’ Greatly daring, she added, ‘I do believe you’re jealous of my success, Nicholas.’
‘Impudent whelp.’ Nicholas aimed a cuff at her ear. ‘I would have you know that respectable bourgeoises hold no fascination for me.’
No, she thought, taken unaware by a sudden stab of jealousy. It isn’t inexperienced, unsophisticated, chaperoned girls he wanted, it is the older, knowing, society women who attract Nicholas. Preferably those safely married to complaisant husbands.
Cassandra gave herself a little shake and picked up the Gentleman’s Guide. ‘It says here that Aix will please us more than any city we have seen in France.’
‘If you’re going to start quoting the guidebook, it’s time you were in bed. Come on, brat, you’ve broken enough hearts for one evening.’
From Aix, they turned due east and took the winding road through St Maximin and Brignoles. High ground covered with a scrub of lavender and wild thyme rose sharply on either side, fragrant and baking under the hot sun.