Snowbound With The Baronet (12 page)

She made a determined effort not to let her smile falter as she pictured Brandon surrounded by a bevy of fawning ladies eager to make a conquest of him.

Miss Calvert appeared flattered by the compliment but her cousin’s lip curled in a sneer. “I much prefer quality over quantity. If I am able to secure the sincere regard of one lady, I would rather have that than empty flirtations with half-a-dozen.”

Though he spoke as if it were a general remark, Cassandra felt his contempt aimed directly at her. Clearly he believed she had felt nothing more for him than an empty flirtation. She had no right to take offense for that was precisely the impression she had sought to convey when she rejected his proposal. The sweet relief she’d experienced when Brandon assured her he did not hate her suddenly turned sour. No doubt he had meant she was not even worthy of his hatred.

Lady Cassandra wished him luck in finding a wife, even after he had held her in his arms and confessed one of the most painful secrets of his past? Could there be any clearer indication that she did not want him to get any foolish ideas that she cared for him?

She might not wish any harm to come to him. She might regret the possibility that her rejection had driven him to war. That did not mean she had developed tender feelings toward him... only a guilty conscience.

In response to his remark about preferring quality of romantic attention over quantity, Cassandra replied. “If the ladies possess sufficient sense and taste, I have no doubt at least one will lose her heart to you.”

Was she patronizing him now—trying to reassure him that even though she had not been willing to wed him, others might be?

Brandon gave a self-deprecating shrug to show that he was not a child who needed to be coddled. “Perhaps they will have higher standards than you suppose. They may wonder why I remain a bachelor at my present age. They may suspect I am concealing some secret defect that would make me a thoroughly unsuitable husband.”

His rebuff ignited a flash of indignation in her dark eyes. But Brandon glimpsed an unaccountable sparkle in them as well. “A woman who suspects you of
concealing
anything must not know you at all, Sir Brandon. Your insistence on strict truthfulness is the trait of yours I recall most clearly. I believe it is far more likely that no lady can hope to meet your high standards in that regard.”

Was she mocking his values now? “I do not believe my standards are unreasonably high. I simply speak the truth and expect others to do likewise. It is an ideal everyone praises but few practice.”

During their give and take, Imogene had looked as if she wanted to get a word in, but had not been able to. Now she settled back with her arms crossed to wait for their discussion to run its course.

“Everything cannot always be neatly divided between truth and falsehood.” A flush rose in Lady Cassandra’s cheeks and the lively sparkle in her eyes intensified.

Brandon wished he did not find the combination so very attractive. It gave the lady an unfair advantage in their debate.

“Of course it can,” he insisted. “A statement may be true or not. If it is not, then it must be a falsehood. I do not believe it is too much to expect the truth.”

His words provoked a subtle flinch, which Brandon noted with grim satisfaction. Lady Cassandra must realize their discussion was not as impersonal as it might sound. She was trying to justify her past behavior, which he could not help but condemn.

“Of course it is not unreasonable to prefer the truth.” She leaned toward him as she spoke, which made Brandon realize he was leaning toward her as well. “I am only saying there are some things more important that the truth can damage with its sharp edges.”

“What sorts of things?” He meant his question to sound doubtful, but instead it emerged curious and engaged.

“The feelings of others for one,” Cassandra responded without hesitation. “Some of the most disagreeable people pride themselves on saying hurtful things because they are true.”

“Whom do you mean?” Was she referring to him? Brandon could not decide whether he ought to be indignant or ashamed.

“My Aunt Augusta is a prime example,” Lady Cassandra replied. “The moment she sets eyes on me, I know she will say I look every year of my age, and that I have gotten dreadfully thin of late.”

“Nonsense!” The irate denial rose to Brandon’s lips before he could stop it. “You scarcely seem to have aged a year since I saw you last and your slenderness is most becoming.”

His observations were perfectly true, yet Brandon wished he had kept them to himself. Would Lady Cassandra assume he was trying to flatter her? He could not repent his words altogether, though. They brought a winsome, teasing smile to her face that made him catch his breath.

“You see? There is another difficulty.” Her tone reminded Brandon of the way they had bantered with one another when they were first becoming acquainted. “Who would be telling the truth, you or my aunt? You might both believe what you say but a disinterested observer might see that neither of you is altogether correct.”

“I am disinterested,” he insisted. But when Cassandra fixed him with a doubtful look, he was forced to admit, “Perhaps not entirely. But what I said is true just the same.”

Imogene appeared to be resting her eyes.

“I know you believe so,” Cassandra conceded, “but Aunt Augusta would claim the same thing. Can two such different opinions both be true or neither? The matter is not as straightforward as you might like to believe.”

She had a valid point, loathe as Brandon was to admit it.

He tried to salvage his position. “Perhaps when it comes to opinion, but not facts. Surely you can agree it is wrong to knowingly misrepresent them.”

That
made Cassandra squirm a little. Or perhaps she found the window seat uncomfortable with three of them squeezed in so tightly. Brandon glanced toward his cousin. Imogene’s features had gone slack and her head lolled to one side. Her breath came in soft, rhythmic gusts.

He looked back at Cassandra, who gave a rueful grimace. Then the two of them chuckled softly.

“I fear our discourse was too tiresome for your poor cousin to abide.” Cassandra glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed, but the rest of the party appeared engrossed in their own conversations.

“It was not tiresome.” Brandon could not suppress a guilty grin, even though it contradicted his earnest declaration. “We were discussing a question of great moral significance about which we hold strong, opposing views. What could be more stimulating?”

Stimulating
—how well that word described his debate with Cassandra. Though parts of their exchange had reminded him how painfully she’d once trodden on his heart, it had also forced him to recall the pleasure he’d found in her company.

Caution and painful experience warned him to not draw too close to the woman who might still possess the power to make him suffer. But he chose to ignore them. He and Cassandra were presently chaperoned by more than half-a-dozen people. How much trouble could he get into with a little conversation?

“What indeed?” The lady replied, turning her gaze fully upon him.

Suddenly a great many provocative possibilities flashed through Brandon’s mind, the most urgent of which was kissing her ripe, inviting lips. If they had been alone at that moment, he was not certain he could have resisted the temptation.

Perhaps Cassandra recognized how thoroughly she had thrown him off guard and sought to exploit the opportunity. “Last evening you suggested we try to forget the past and behave like new acquaintances. Would that not be a deception of sorts?”

“Um... er...” Brandon tugged at his neck linen. Uncomfortable as her question made him, he had to concede it might be true.

“In any case, I find I cannot do what you ask.” She sounded apologetic but he could hardly blame her. He had not been able to do what he’d suggested either.

“This meeting between us was unlooked-for.” She lowered her voice, forcing him to lean closer to hear her over the other conversations in the room.

“But perhaps it is an opportunity I should not neglect.”

An opportunity for what? Brandon’s eyebrows shot up in a silent question.

“To tell you how sorry I am for any injury I caused you when I refused your kind offer four years ago. I do not expect you to forgive me but I want to make certain you understand it was no fault of yours that prompted my answer. Any lady would be fortunate to secure you as a husband.”

Brandon knew he must make some reply but he feared anything he said at the moment would sound ridiculous.

Her words revived bitter memories he’d worked hard to bury. He recalled the sweet urgency that had compelled him to seek a private word with Cassandra Whitney. Once again he tasted the intoxicating hope that she would ensure his happiness by agreeing to share a future with him. In spite of his dark doubts about marriage, his feelings for Cassandra had filled him with naïve optimism that their union could be different.

He’d gone down on his knees like a besotted supplicant and offered her his heart. For an instant he thought he’d glimpsed an answering glimmer of tenderness in her eyes. But that must have been a wishful delusion. She had immediately turned haughty and aloof, an ice maiden without an ember of warmth or soft emotion within her.

“You have been a most amusing companion, sir.” The memory of her heartless rejection returned to smite Brandon. “But surely you cannot be serious about proposing. If I led you to believe my feelings for you were more than they are, I beg your pardon. But I simply cannot marry you.”

Every word from her bewitching lips had mocked his foolish hopes in the face of all his experience to the contrary. Later he’d tried to make peace with her rejection. He told himself it was better she had turned him down rather than accepting his proposal for the wrong reasons. That would have doomed them to repeat his parents’ mistakes.

His attempt to rationalize away his heartbreak had not been as successful as he wished, but it was better than nothing.

“Any
other
lady, you mean,” he muttered when he’d recovered his voice. Inwardly he cringed at his tone, which betrayed far too much about unhealed wounds.

“
Any
lady,” Cassandra repeated with a mixture of defiance and regret. “I have no doubt you would have been a far better husband than I deserved. My only consolation is that I left you free to find the kind of wife who is worthy of you.”

Did she mean that? Brandon could not reconcile the unfeeling girl of his memories with the sweetly contrite lady before him.

“I cannot blame you if you do not believe me,” she continued. “I was a thoughtless, selfish child and I treated you very badly. If it is any consolation, I have come to regret my actions most bitterly. I would repent them even more if my refusal drove you into the army and prevented you from finding a wife.”

Brandon opened his mouth to deny it, in part because he did not want to make her feel worse and also because it made him sound so insufferably pathetic. But before he could summon the words to soothe her conscience and salve his pride, he realized they would not be true. How could he lie to her after his self-righteous lecture about the vital importance of telling the truth?

“You need not fret about that. As I told you earlier, my actions are my own responsibility. If I was foolish enough to react so excessively, it is not your fault.” The notion stung him in a sensitive place that had already been chafed by the revival of painful memories. The only way to ease his discomfort was to vent it outward. “Besides, it was not your
refusal
that grieved me but rather the way you encouraged me to believe you cared for me in the first place.”

That
was
the worst part. Over the years Brandon told himself so whenever old memories rose too close to the surface. He had not resented Cassandra for breaking his heart. He had resented her for tricking him into giving it to her in the first place. And he despised himself even more for being so gullible when he had every reason to be on his guard.

“Quibble all you wish,” he concluded, “I do not believe you can justify that deception.”

Brandon expected his accusation to provoke a look of shame or regret from her. Perhaps anger with him for shining a harsh light upon the wrong she’d done him. He was not prepared for a gaze of mute suffering, as if
she
were the one whose heart had been broken by her refusal to wed him.

He had long prided himself on his ability to tell when someone was trying to deceive him. In that moment, he knew without a doubt Cassandra was not.

“You
did
care for me?” he whispered, as if fearful of waking some large, predatory creature.

Her head jerked up and down in the most reluctant admission. Part of Brandon wanted to doubt her, but he could not.

Did he dare ask the question that cried out in his mind and his heart? If Cassandra had cared for him, what could have made her refuse his proposal?

W
HAT HAD POSSESSED
her to confess her true feelings to Brandon Calvert after four long years? That question throbbed in Cassandra’s mind as she watched a bewildering variety of emotions flicker in his candid blue eyes.

The other conversations around them seemed to fade, as if coming from a much farther distance. The thunder of her heartbeat nearly drowned them out.

Had she dared to tell Brandon the truth at last because she’d assumed he would not believe her? If so, it was a grave miscalculation. She had given him ample cause to doubt her. But the new closer connection they had formed during the past two days seemed to have given him clearer insight into her motives and emotions. She glimpsed a brief flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, but other reactions swiftly overpowered it.

Now that he knew the truth, Cassandra feared he would not rest until he had uncovered all her secrets. What would happen then?

“I do not understand.” Brandon shook his head, his features contracted like those of a young scholar trying to work out a difficult sum. “If that is true, then why...?”