Impetuous

by Candace Camp

  Cassandra stumbled back, catching her heel on her skirt and falling heavily against the wall of the well. Pain slammed through her back, stunning her, and for an instant she felt herself weakening, as though she might pass out. Sarah raised the pistol high and slammed it down. Cassandra was able to turn her head only a fraction of an inch, evading it, and the handle slammed into the well. Sarah let out a cry of frustration and dropped the pistol. She grabbed Cassandra tightly around the neck and began to squeeze. Cassandra struggled against her, already weakened by the blow to her back. She could not get any air. She clawed in vain at the other woman’s hands.

  Suddenly there were noises, a voice shouting, and in the next instant Philip ran up behind Sarah, his face contorted with fear and anger. Clasping his hands together, he swung them down hard on the back of Sarah’s head. Her hands loosened around Cassandra’s neck, and she swayed on her feet.

  Philip slammed his clenched fists down again, and Sarah crumpled to the ground.

  He shoved her aside impatiently, grabbing Cassandra and pulling her into his arms. “Cassandra! Oh, God, don’t tell me I’m too late. Cassandra, please, say something, look at me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, rocking, babbling frantically. “My love, my love, please don’t die. You can’t leave me. Damn it, Cassandra, say something.” Cassandra could hear the tears in his voice.

  She made a croaking noise. He peered down into her face. “What? Are you all right?”

  Cassandra nodded. “I think so.” Her voice came out in a whisper.

  “Thank God!” He clutched her to him again. “I was so worried. I saw you talking to Sarah, and there was something odd about it, so I stopped and watched, but I still couldn’t understand what troubled me. Then, as you were walking out of the garden, I saw her wave the gun. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought I couldn’t get out of the house and across to you in time.”

  He rained kisses all over her face and head, telling her again and again how glad he was. “Why did she do it, Cassandra? Why did Sarah attack you?”

  “Because she was in love with you.” Cassandra smiled up at him, feeling better by leaps and bounds.

  “In love with me!” he repeated in astonishment. “But how—I never—”

  “I know. It hurts to love and not be loved in return.”

  He nodded, cuddling her to him. “But how could she think— I could never love her. You are the only woman I love. The only woman I could ever love.”

  A thrill ran through Cassandra, so hard and sizzling that she thought she would have collapsed had Philip not been holding her up. “Do you?” she asked, gazing up at him. “Do you love me?”

  He looked astounded. “Of course I do. Why do you think I asked you to marry me?”

  “Because Aunt Ardis found us in a compromising position.”

  Philip snorted. “As if I cared for that. I was already determined to marry you. You know that. I knew I loved you when I took you down to the gazebo. We would not have gone, else.”

  Cassandra swallowed. “Oh, Philip!” She flung her arms around his neck. “I love you, too.”

  “It’s about time you admitted it. I was beginning to think I would have to wait until we were married to hear you say so.”

  He bent and kissed her.

  “Well, I promise you that you won’t have to wait again to hear it.” Cassandra threw her arms around his neck. “In fact, I fully intend to say it at least ten times a day. I love you.” She punctuated the words with a kiss. “I love you. I love you.”

  Philip laughed and wrapped his arms around her. With a contented sigh, Cassandra melted against him. She realized that now she had truly found the treasure she had been seeking.

  EPILOGUE

  “IT IS ABSOLUTELY beautiful.” Cassandra gazed up at the walls of Chesilworth from where she sat in the garden, and a smile curved her lips.

  Philip had insisted on restoring the old mansion himself, telling Cassandra that it was his wedding present to her. Now, a year and a half after their wedding, most of the renovations were complete. There was still scaffolding all over the west wing, where the damage was so drastic that it would take more than a year to fully repair. But the roof had been replaced, and the old dilapidated carpets and threadbare draperies had been ripped out and replaced with new ones. New paint gleamed on the interior walls, except where wallpaper was hung. Stairs had been repaired, and squeaking floorboards had been replaced. The fireplaces had been fixed so that they no longer smoked, and the vast kitchen had been brought up to date.

  It was beautiful outside, as well. A full-time staff of gardeners, under the watchful eye of old Chumley, had pulled weeds, trimmed hedges and planted flowers until the gardens were prettier than Cassandra could ever remember them. Even the maze in the back had been restored.

  She turned with a smile toward the man who sat in the chair beside her. “Thank you for doing so much for Chesilworth.”

  Philip shrugged off the thanks. “They have done an excellent job with the place. I think we shall find it quite pleasant to spend part of the year here.”

  It was another kindness on Philip’s part. As lovely as Chesilworth was becoming, it was not his home, and Cassandra knew that his offer for the family to spend part of each year there was for Olivia’s and the boys’ sakes, especially Crispin. He did not want them to have to grow up entirely cut off from their home just because he had taken them in.

  “It is lovely,” Joanna piped up, and Cassandra turned to stare at her cousin, who sat on the other side of the small wrought-iron garden table. “I never could understand what you saw in the moldering old place, but now it’s actually quite attractive,” she added, sounding more like herself.

  Joanna was lovely today, as always, in a gown of pale pink that set off her porcelain beauty. Her fiancé, a quiet man given to stuttering when he talked, looked at her with admiration. His name was Anthony Gordon, and his father was a Scottish peer whose title Anthony would one day inherit. Cassandra found him a trifle boring and even dim at times, but his admiration of Joanna was obvious, and he seemed content to sit and listen to her self-centered babble for hours, murmuring only an occasional, “Yes, dear.”

  He was an acquaintance of Philip’s, and Philip himself had introduced the two of them at his and Cassandra’s wedding. When Cassandra had mildly teased him about his matchmaking efforts, he had said, “I suspected he would be perfect for Joanna—not too bright, quiet, an admirer of beautiful things—and, best of all, his family seat is far away in Scotland, which means that we shall have the pleasure of your cousin’s company only rarely.”

  It was Joanna’s wedding that had brought Philip and Cassandra and all their family to Chesilworth this week. Even Violet had come with them, though the elder Lady Neville had declined, citing old age as an excuse to stay at Haverly House. Privately, she told Cassandra, who was becoming more and more a favorite of hers, that she was sure that Joanna Moulton’s wedding would be an insipid bore.

  “Cassandra!” Crispin and Hart called to her from the other side of the garden, then waved and dashed off around the corner of the house, engaged in some boyish pursuit. It seemed to Cassandra that they had each grown at least two inches this past year. Soon, she knew, they would be sprouting up to the height of full-grown men. It was a thought that brought a curious pang of both pleasure and pain. In just another year they would go off to Eton. Cassandra was afraid that she would feel like a mother hen without her chicks.

  At the thought, she glanced over to the shady bower where Georgette and Olivia were sitting on a blanket, playing with the baby, tickling his stomach and listening to his delighted laughter while his rosy-cheeked nurse looked on. Cassandra and Philip’s son was five months old now and a constant delight to his parents and everyone else in the family. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he was a healthy, chubby baby possessed of
a sunny disposition.

  Of all those who spoiled him, perhaps the worst were his two young aunts, Georgette and Olivia. They were bent over him now, the dark head and the blond one close together. Their instantaneous friendship had only grown closer in the last year and a half. Though Georgette would be due to make her debut this next season, she was insisting upon waiting until the next year so that she and Olivia could make their coming out at the same time. Since both girls seemed to grow more lovely every day, Cassandra suspected that they would take the polite world by storm.

  Philip reached over and touched her arm. “Would you care to take a stroll with me in the garden, Lady Neville?”

  Cassandra smiled. “Indeed, I would, Sir Philip.”

  She took his hand and rose to her feet, picking up the lacy blue parasol beside her, which matched perfectly the blue of her dress. She was dressed, as always, in a simple dress of excellent cut. Dressing well was still new enough to her that it sometimes surprised her to see herself in her mirror. Both Lady Nevilles had supervised a massive infusion of new clothes into her wardrobe from the time she and Philip first became engaged. Violet had taken her on marathon buying sprees to London, and Cassandra had been amazed by the languid woman’s stamina and energy when it came to selecting and purchasing clothes.

  Cassandra opened her parasol and propped it on her shoulder, then took her husband’s arm, and they strolled in a leisurely manner through the garden.

  “Have you heard anything about Miss Yorke?” Cassandra asked after a moment.

  “Yes. Miss Emmings writes that she is doing much better.”

  Neither Cassandra nor Philip had had the heart to have Miss Yorke arrested and tried for her crimes. When she had come to, she had been a sobbing, incoherent wreck. Philip had placed her in a home close to the seashore, where a kind, firm woman by the name of Emmings cared for several individuals whose minds were no longer functioning properly and whose families could not bear to send them to a place like Bedlam.

  Under Miss Emmings’s care, Sarah had improved and even helped Miss Emmings work with the other patients in artistic endeavors and schoolroom matters. Of course, Miss Emmings said that Sarah also still told people that she was Sir Philip Neville’s secret wife, but at least she no longer exhibited any sort of violent behavior, and her life seemed to be as happy as one could hope for.

  “You know,” Cassandra said, “I was just thinking. I don’t believe that things could be any more perfect.”

  “I’m glad.” Philip took the hand curled around his arm and raised it to his lips. “Certainly you have made my life perfect.”

  “Only you would say so—being pursued and threatened by thieves, having a whole family of children put in your care, being burdened with an old, decaying house.”

  “And having more fun than most men have in a lifetime,” he added to her list. “Hunting for secret maps and buried treasure, having children around to make me laugh, being handed a project to keep me entertained, having a handsome and intelligent baby with a smile like an angel…most of all, being given the most beautiful and intelligent of women for a wife. I think that I have had the best of the bargain.”

  Cassandra smiled.

  “My only problem is getting you to myself. It seems that there are always people around.”

  They had left the garden and were now strolling across the green yard. “Where are we going?” Cassandra asked.

  “I thought that we might explore the reconstructed maze.”

  Cassandra lifted her brows. “I’m not sure that I remember how to get out of it anymore. We could be trapped in there for hours, and no one would be able to find us.”

  Philip bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. “My dear, that is exactly what I had in mind.”

  Cassandra laughed and lifted her skirts above her ankles. “What are we waiting for, then?” she asked and took off at a run for the maze, with Philip right behind her.

  * * * * *

  If you loved this book, you won’t want to miss the latest historical romance by Candace Camp, Her Scandalous Pursuit. Keep reading for a preview!

  CHAPTER 1

  Thisbe thought the lecture at Covington Institute would be informative. She didn’t expect it to change her life.

  A few minutes after the talk began, there was an odd tingle at the nape of her neck, and she turned her head to look back. A young man stood in the doorway of the crowded lecture hall, his eyes on her. He quickly looked away, and Thisbe swiveled back to face the lecturer. All week, she had looked forward to this lecture, but now she had trouble focusing on the speaker’s words. Her mind was too occupied with the man in the doorway.

  Being a woman working in a man’s world, she was accustomed to being the object of others’ gazes—from leers to astonished gazes to baleful glares at her audacity—and she usually ignored them. But this man… She wasn’t sure why he was so different from everyone else, but he intrigued her.

  There had been an odd burst of awareness in her chest that she had never felt before. It wasn’t recognition; she was positive she’d never seen the man before in her life. Nor was it like the vague pervasive sense she felt for her twin, Theo. It was more a rush of excitement and discovery, similar to the uprush of anticipation when an experiment was unfolding. But this time, mingled with the anticipation was a sense of certainty, though she had no idea what she was certain of.

  She started to glance back again, but just then he slid into the seat beside her. He had his head down and didn’t look at her, just sat down took out a small pad and stubby pencil and began to scribble. Amazingly, the peculiar feeling in her grew and warmed as she watched him. What was it about this man that made her feel this way?

  She could see only his profile and that not well, given the way he was hunched over his notes, but what she could see appealed to her. He was young, maybe a bit older than she. His hair was thick and dark brown, a little too long and shaggy; it looked as if he’d hacked it off himself. What color were his eyes? She wished she could get a better look at him. He was tall and slender, his long legs taking up all the space between the rows. His fingers, too, were long and mobile, moving swiftly across the paper. The sight of them tugged at her midsection.

  She faced to the lecturer again, not wanting her neighbor to catch her studying him. She had apparently missed a good deal, for the man was now talking about atomic numbers. She returned to taking notes, though not with the speed or volume of the man next to her. No doubt that swiftness contributed to the fact that his handwriting was largely illegible. How did he ever read what he’d written down?

  Strangely, the rest of the lecture seemed to be interminably slow yet came to an end far too soon. Throughout it, Thisbe was acutely aware of the man beside her. She could feel the heat of his body and smell his scent, a faint blend of man and cologne. That, too, caused that little pull deep inside her.

  He neither turned to her nor spoke, but from the corner of her eye, she caught him looking at her time and again, his glances brief and almost furtive. Was he shy? That seemed possible, though it was a quality she was somewhat unfamiliar with, given the nature of her family. Or perhaps he was appalled by the presence of a woman at a scientific society’s meeting.

  Thisbe turned her head, watching him, so that the next time he glanced at her, he met her gaze. His eyes widened a little, and pink blossomed along his cheekbones before he jerked his eyes back to his note-taking. Yes, that was it; he was shy. And his eyes were a warm, chocolate brown. A lovely color.

  There was applause around her, and Thisbe realized the lecture had ended. Belatedly, she clapped and stood up, as everyone around them was doing. Her neighbor also popped to his feet, dropping his pad and pencil in the process, and he bent to retrieve them. His pencil rolled over toward Thisbe, stopped by the hem of her skirt. He picked up the pad and stood up, glancing back down at the pencil. He shifted a little and stuck the pad back into his pocket, s
ending another longing look at the pencil.

  He would have to speak to her now. Thisbe waited, tucking her own pad and pencil back into her reticule. The applause had stopped, and all around them people were turning to leave. The man shuffled his feet, then started to move away. Obviously, it would be up to her if she wanted to talk to him.

  “Sir!” She picked up the pencil. He was walking away. “Sir.” Thisbe followed, reaching out to touch his arm.

  He whipped back around so quickly that she almost ran into him. “Oh. Ma’am. Miss. I—um…”

  “I believe this is yours,” Thisbe went on, holding out his pencil. His face was very nice, too, and those deep brown eyes were surrounded by a thick fringe of black lashes.

  “Oh!” Red began to stain his cheeks again. “I—um, thank you.” He took the pencil from her, his fingertips brushing her skin, which sent a tingle all through her. He dropped the pencil into his pocket, but continued to stand there, looking at her. “I—uh, it was a very nice talk, wasn’t it?”

  Thisbe knew a flash of triumph. He wanted to talk to her, as well. But clearly, she would have to carry the burden of finding a topic. “Yes. The Covington Institute often has interesting lectures. Mrs. Isabelle Durant gave a very nice talk on botany last month. Of course, not all the discussions are scientific.”

  “Mrs. Durant?” He looked surprised.

  “Yes. She’s been an avid collector and illustrator of wildflowers for some time. She’s published several books.”

  “Oh. I see. I’m sorry…botany is not a field I’m especially familiar with. I’m afraid I’ve never, um, heard of her.”

  “Few have, unfortunately. Her work is largely ignored by her fellow scientists because she’s a woman. The Covington Institute is quite forward-thinking.” She smiled. “Women can belong to it, speak at it, and attend its lectures. That’s why I come here so often.” Thisbe didn’t add that Covington was her mother’s maiden name and her mother had endowed the institution to further the goal of female education. She had found over the years that it was better not to bring up her family. No one ever acted the same after they learned Thisbe was the daughter of a duke. Especially a duke with a reputation for oddity.