Courtland laughed aloud. "And where did you hear that saying?"
She lifted her head, smiled at him. "Spencer? Chance? I don't remember. Do you think I'm useless, Courtland? That I'm nothing but a useless child?"
He looked down at her, saw the nervousness behind her smile, and shook his head. "No, sweetings, I don't. Now, just to prove me right, I'm going to tell you that Ainsley's gone out on the
Respite
because we saw sails out in the Channel."
"Papa? He's gone aboard ship?
Papa?
" She stepped away from Courtland, raising her hands, as if to stop Courtland from saying anything else until she'd digested this unbelievable information. "Um…all right. Who else is with him?"
"Jacko's on the
Spectre.
The rest of them— they're somewhere. I'm in charge here."
She nodded her head several times. "All right," she said again, her breathing quick, and shallow. "And the women? They're all with Elly and the children? Yes, of course they are, so I'm not really needed there. Tell me what to do, Courtland, and I'll do it."
He knew she was serious, and that he'd damned well better give her a serious job of work to do. "Sheila Whiting's up on the roof, watching the land approach to Becket Hall. But she's the only one up there, and it's dark, and it's raining."
"Then that's what I'll do. My case is down here in the storeroom with the others, and I've got clothing and shoes in it, so there's no need to take time to go back to my bedchamber if I can just run up the backstairs to the roof," Cassandra said, lifting her hands to the back of her neck, trying to unclasp the ruby necklace. "Here, help me with this, and with the buttons on my gown. I can be changed and up on the roof with Sheila in a few minutes. I'll take a slicker from the hooks in the kitchen-way, so I don't drown up there."
She turned her back to him as she lifted her hair out of the way. "Court? Don't just stand there. Help me."
Well, she hadn't dissolved into a pool of tears, he'd give her that. But now she wanted him to— oh, hell.
"Turn your back toward the candles, Cassandra," he said, and then worked the catch on the necklace, placed it on the altar, sparing only a moment to realize that now something else of Isabella's was there.
Then he got to work on the buttons, at least two dozen small silk-covered buttons that must have been designed by some imp of the devil to confound a man's thick and, at the moment, clumsy fingers. "Hold still, Callie," he ordered, trying to undo the buttons and at the same time not touch her skin.
"It would be better if you worked from the top down, Court," she told him as she stripped off her bracelet and earbobs. "Once you have most of them open I can just slip out of the gown. It's Morgan's, and even with her maid altering it this afternoon, it's a little bit big."
He did as she said, leaving the buttons at her waist and beginning with those at the top of the gown. He would have realized his own error, eventually, he supposed. Or perhaps he'd just been prolonging the inevitable, for each button he set free of its mooring revealed more of Cassandra's white skin, the delicate bones of her spine. Her back was bare now, almost to her waist, golden in the candlelight.
He stopped what he was doing.
"What do you have on beneath this gown?"
She was still holding her hair up off her shoulders, her head bent. "Nothing. You don't wear anything beneath a gown like this, Courtland. Morgan told me there's no way to hide straps and things, so you just put it on and— Court?"
"I…I'm still here," he said, blowing out a breath as he realized exactly what Cassandra meant. "So, you've got a good hold on the front of the gown?"
Cassandra looked at him over her shoulder. "Yes, I'm holding tight, I promise." Then she sort of
wriggled
inside the gown. "Two more buttons should do it, I think."
"It'd damn well better," he grumbled, and undid two buttons, no more, and then quickly turned his back. "Can you get it off now?"
She didn't answer him.
"Callie? I said, can you get it off now?"
Her answer was to toss the gown over his head, and he slowly pulled it down over his face as he heard her laugh, followed by the sound of her slippered feet running toward the storeroom.
He stood there, slowly counting to one hundred, planning to give her no more time before he left her where she was, and considering what the Devil thought Hell might be like, since he was fairly sure he was already living in it.
"Ready," Cassandra said from behind him. "Courtland? Are you just going to stand there, holding on to that gown?"
She stepped in front of him, taking the gown and folding it in half, placing it over a nearby chair. "It'll be fine here. Morgan doesn't want it back in any case."
Courtland nodded, looking at her, dressed now in a plain round gown that, he felt fairly certain, was still her only covering save the soon-to-be ruined white satin slippers. How in bloody hell could he look at her, looking so circumspect to others, knowing what lay, or didn't lay, beneath that modest gray material?
"If you're ready?"
"I am," she said, but didn't move toward the stairs. "Court? Are you afraid? I'm afraid. Is it all right, to be afraid?"
He smiled ruefully. "Afraid? Callie, I'm terrified."
She tipped her head to one side, as if considering his words, and then— looking anything but a child— she smiled at him, lifted her skirts slightly, and ran up the stairs.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CALLIE SAT WITH HER back against a chimney pot, her legs drawn up tight against her chest, shivering.
The night had been long, cold and constantly wet, but otherwise uneventful. She'd divided her time watching the land approach to Becket Hall with Sheila Whiting, and then crossing the roof parapet to strain her eyes looking out over the dark Channel, wondering if she wanted to see lights somewhere, or if that light might be the flare of cannon, signaling possible disaster.
And, she was ashamed to realize, at some point she had given in to the cold and wet and sat herself down out of the worst of the rain and fallen asleep. She'd awakened all at once, relieved to see that Sheila was still patrolling the roof, as indefatigable as ever, and scrambled to her feet.
"How long was I sleeping?" she asked the woman, rubbing at her arms, wishing her teeth would please stop chattering. "I can't believe I fell asleep."
"Ten minutes, no more," Sheila said. "Didn't need you anyways, you know. Got the men below, all of them watchin', too. I was pretty much up here to ring the alarm bell, 'cause I'd probably see 'em first. I've got real good eyes."
Cassandra tried to suppress a shiver. "You've already said that, Sheila, at least half a dozen times. And I've told you a half a dozen times that Courtland sent me up here."
"Humph! Probably to keep you out of the way."
"You know, Sheila, that's just plain mean," Cassandra told her, stepping closer to the woman. "I'm not a child anymore. I was given a job of work to do, and I did it."
"With your eyes closed," Sheila pointed out, grinning. "Didn't even see the sloops slippin' back into the harbor, did you?"
Cassandra turned her back and walked away, knowing the woman was right. She had fallen asleep. Her intentions had been so good. How could she have allowed herself to fall asleep? They were right, they were all right. She was still a child.
"I'm going back downstairs," she told Sheila. "I'll send someone up here to relieve you."
"No need. My mam's got our little Jacob and our Jane Anne with her, gone all the way to Appledore with some of the others, so I can stay up here anytime anyone wants me to stay up here. My eyes are that good. And I don't get sleepy."
"All right, that's it," Cassandra said, turning around and heading toward Sheila once more, not stopping until she was less than a foot away from the other woman. "You don't like me, do you, Sheila? Why don't you like me?"
The older woman sneered down at her. "We're all supposed to be the
crew,
that's what Mr. Ainsley says. Everybody just as good as the next one, that's what Mr. Ainsley says. All except for you, Cassandra Becket. The fairy princess, that's who you are. Just doin' what you want, flittin' around, ridin' your horse, takin' long walks on the shore with your nose in the air, Court tellin' us to leave you alone, you're still a
child.
Well, I seen the way you look at him, the way you chase him, tease him. Child, is it? You're nothin' but a— "
"Sheila!"
Cassandra turned around at the sound of Courtland's voice, and saw him striding across the roof, fire all but spitting from his eyes. "Court, no. It's all right. Sheila and I were just— "
"Go downstairs, Cassandra," he ordered without looking at her, because he was looking straight at Sheila Whiting, who was doing her best to disappear inside her hooded rain slicker.
For a moment, Cassandra was going to obey him. But only for a moment.
"No, Court, I'm not going anywhere until I decide to go somewhere. Sheila didn't say anything that's not true. So I…I want to thank her. Yes, that's what I want to do. Thank you, Sheila," she said sincerely, looking at the woman. "I promise to do better in the future, and not just…just walk on the shore with my nose in the air."
"Oh, for the love of God," Courtland muttered, grabbing her by the arm. "Come on, you're half-drowned, and shaking like a cat in a wet sack. Sheila, someone will relieve you in a few minutes."
"Let go of my arm," Cassandra said once they were back inside the house, poised at the head of the steep stairway. "Even this
child
knows how to make her way down the steps unaided."
"She shouldn't have said that to you," Courtland told her once they'd reached the landing to the second floor and the concealed doorway that led out into the long hallways to the bedchambers. "Ainsley is the head of this household, and you're his daughter."
Cassandra slipped out of the slicker, and immediately shivered again, because the slicker hadn't been enough to keep her from being soaked to the skin, to the bone. "Is that what you tell them, Court? That I shouldn't have to do anything save be Papa's daughter? That's…that's
insulting.
And what's worse, I
allowed
it to happen. Little Cassandra, wandering about here, mooning over Courtland like some…some insipid
child!
"
"Callie, don't do this," Courtland said, reaching for her, but she put out her hands, pushed him away.
"No! No more, Court, no more. Isabella's daughter, the Cap'n's daughter. Poor little orphaned baby, her mama dying, her papa hiding himself away for years, mourning the woman he loved. Be kind to her, be gentle with her…treat her like a child. And, Lord knows, don't give her anything
important
to do. I am
not
a child anymore, Court, and I refuse to be treated like one."
He shook his head. "I don't know, Cassandra. At the moment you're acting as though you belong back in the nursery. Now, listen to me. Go change those wet clothes and get into a warm bed while we— "
Without thought, of either the action or the consequences, Cassandra slapped him, hard, across the face.
"Oh, God, Court, I'm sorry. I— "
He held his hand to his cheek, shook his head slowly. "No, you've no need to be sorry. I've been slapped before in an effort to bring me to my senses, remind me of my duty to the family. Only, the last time, it was your mother who did me that favor. And I shouldn't be giving you orders as if you're still a child.
Please,
go get yourself out of those wet clothes, Cassandra, and only go to bed if you want to go to bed. Your father probably will want to see you, in any case, explain what happened here last night."
"You tell me first," Cassandra said, her palm tingling, for she had slapped him with all her might. Slapped him, yes, but she would not run. She'd apologized, and now she would stand her ground. That's what a grown-up would do. "Those ships. Whose were they?"
"We can't be certain," Courtland told her, folding her slicker over his arm and then leading the way into the hallway and carefully shutting the concealed door so that the long mirror on it blended with the rest of the hallway. "By the time our ships got out there they were on the run. Your father chased after them all night, but never spotted them again. No moon, no stars— and a very large Channel to hide in. Not smugglers, that's fairly certain, because they'd be heavily laden with goods from either France or here, and not able to maneuver as well as these ships did. Whoever was in charge of those ships knew what he was about."
"So we're going to think they were Beales's ships?"
"We are," Courtland said, "because that's the prudent thing to do. Beales himself, possibly, and with the ships there for only one reason— to reconnoiter this area. If they hadn't already decided they'd found the right place on the Marsh coast, they know it now that we've gone out after them, not that we could have allowed them to come sailing in here without going out to challenge them. This all could be over in a matter of days, Cassandra. Will you promise me that you'll wait that long before you and I…" He sighed. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I."
