Miss Weston's Masquerade (4 page)

Cassandra knew when she was beaten. ‘Thank you, Nicholas.’ She gestured to the jug. ‘Your water will be cooling.’

Her capitulation appeared to surprise him. With a slight shrug, he moved the screen round the dressing table and disappeared behind it. Cassandra dithered in the centre of the room. She had begun to feel more comfortable in the valet-master role and now Nicholas had turned it on its head by treating her as a girl, if not a lady.

However, it seemed now the question of the bed was settled, he had no further qualms. A shirt came sailing over the top of the screen followed by a crumpled neckcloth. ‘Pass me a clean shirt, please.’

Cassandra handed one round the screen and busied herself with brushing down the dark blue coat and cream kerseymere breeches. ‘Which waistcoat do you want? The sage green or the white?’

‘Green. Can you pass me my, er…’ For once Nicholas seemed at a loss.

Silently Cassandra handed the unmentionable nether garments round the screen. It was a good thing he couldn’t see the smile on her face.
Honestly, does he think me such an innocent? Who does he think sews on my father’s buttons?

By the time Nicholas emerged, smoothing down his cuffs, Cassandra had her face under control. She had polished his quizzing glass and found a fine cambric handkerchief. ‘Cologne, my lord?’

‘Naturally.’ He wasn't rising to the bait, although Cassandra saw his mouth twitch briefly, as if in amusement. ‘Now, for your supper, go down to the kitchen and bring something back up here. I don’t want you eating in the inn, it would be hazardous as well as unseemly.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Cassandra said demurely.

‘Cassandra…’

‘Yes, my lord?’

He paused at the door, a tall, lean figure in the severe evening dress, the candlelight honing his features into an unfamiliar austerity. ‘Go to bed early like a good girl, we’ve a long journey tomorrow. And stop calling me
my lord
, you are beginning to sound like Peacock.’

The door shut behind him with a distinct click. As sounding like the butler had been Cassandra’s aim, she was rather pleased with the rebuke. Nicholas was inclined to treat her like a child and, while that had its advantages, it was beginning to gall her for some reason. Teasing him, very gently, was the only way she could assert her character without alarming him with her femininity.

She began to tidy the room, gathering up discarded clothing and straightening the dressing table, her mind on this man who had unexpectedly taken control of her life.

Revealing her true age would not matter once they were on the other side of the Channel; Nicholas would hardly abandon her on the road to Paris. And yet… Cassandra paused, her arms full of the opulent folds of his dressing gown. Something told her that he would not be pleased when he discovered how she had deceived him, fooled him into thinking she was a only a young girl.

But that was still days away, now she was starving. She would see what the kitchen had to offer.

The cook had been too busy in her steamy kitchen to pay much heed to one undersized valet and Cassandra secured a plate of mutton stew and bread and a mug of ale without drawing attention to herself. But trying to find the back stair in the gloom of the labyrinthine corridors of the
Ship
was another matter.

Through there? No, perhaps this way… No, it was another wrong turning. Light streamed through a door which stood ajar in front of her and through the gap came the chink of glass, the scrape of cutlery and the sound of voices.

Her curiosity got the better of her and she went closer. By dint of flattening herself against the wall, Cassandra found she could see a wedge of the dining-room. It was warm, full of light and bustle and infinitely more enticing than the prospect of her own room. Besides, the plate of stew was cooling fast. Quietly she moved a stool closer to the door, perched on it and began to eat.

The room was crowded with diners of the Quality. Cassandra chewed absently, her eyes and mind full of the shifting colours of the women’s gowns, the richness of the men’s attire. She wanted to be there, part of it. Her father had denied her the chance to join even the provincial social life that Ware had to offer. If dinner in a Dover inn was this glamorous, how much more wonderful was Paris going to be?

She was almost lost in a reverie of elegant gowns and charming men when the party sitting nearest her door rose to reveal Nicholas and Lady Broome sitting alone at a table. Of Sir George, there was no sign.

Cassandra gasped as her eyes took in Lady Broome’s gown, cut so low it scarcely contained the full swell of her breasts. What fabric was showing was silver gauze over deep rose silk. Her dark hair was cropped dashingly short in the latest mode, its only adornment a silver filet threaded through with its loose ends fluttering at her cheek.

It was only then that Cassandra really noticed her companion. Nicholas was lifting his glass to toast her, a lazy smile curving his lips as their eyes met and held. Lady Broome leaned towards him to touch her glass to his. The two dark heads almost touched before Nicholas leaned back, still holding the look.

Cassandra drew in her breath with a sharp hiss. This was a very different Nicholas to the safe elder brother who had teased and bullied her all day. Not, of course, that she wanted him to look at her like that… even at this distance it brought the hairs up on her arms.

Absently, she took a sip of ale. Lady Broome was speaking now, her rippling laugh cutting across the hubbub of the room to reach Cassandra in her dark corner. She had obviously put a question to Nicholas who was shaking his head, a look of regret on his face. His fingers caressed the delicate filigree of silver ribbon by her cheek as his lips moved with soft words.

‘Silly goose,’ Cassandra muttered, unsure which of them she was referring to. Couldn’t he see how blatantly Lady Broome was flirting, playing with him? Of course he could, and he was enjoying every moment of it.

When Cassandra regained the bedchamber, she still felt nettled and vaguely disappointed in Nicholas for being so easily beguiled. She unbuttoned her waistcoat and took a deep breath. Male clothing gave considerable freedom, but it pinched in unexpected places. She sat on the bed and peeled off her stockings, then realised she had no nightgown to put on. She held Nicholas’s up against herself, but it was far too long. She padded barefoot across the boards to a valise and tugged out a shirt. Pulled over her head it brushed the top of her knees, not quite seemly, but then she had little alternative.

The bed was high and deep with an old-fashioned feather mattress which closed round her as she climbed in. Cassandra looked guiltily at the truckle bed, then hardened her heart. Nicholas had ordered her to take this bed, and after all
he
had enjoyed
his
evening. He hadn’t had to sit in the dark eating greasy stew while other people dined and flirted.

She snuggled down into the pillows, stretched her aching legs and waited for sleep to overtake her. But, despite all that had happened over the past twenty four hours and her lack of rest the night before, her eyes refused to close.

She supposed she ought to be worrying about what her father would be doing. Somehow she doubted he would have gone to the expense of hiring a Bow Street Runner to pursue her. Now she was out of the house, Bella Mainwaring would agree to marry him and, provided Cassandra’s flight caused no local scandal, he probably wouldn’t care if he never saw her again. Cassandra knew she was undutiful to be thinking like this, but their relationship had never been characterised by affection and she had long since given up hope of him changing.

No, what was keeping her awake was the enigma of Nicholas. Enough lingered of her old hero worship to make her trust him implicitly, but she could not deceive herself that he had taken her with him for any other reason than his own convenience, and his desire to avoid delay. But the Earl of Lydford was used to getting his own way under all circumstances and Cassandra had a sinking feeling that with her in tow, and with no experienced valet to smooth their path, things were not going to go with the ease which he had come to expect. This was hardly likely to improve his uncertain temper.

Not that he was out of temper this evening, far from it. Cassandra replayed the scene in the dining room, Lady Broome’s curls bent close to his dark head as she fluttered both fan and eyelashes. She remembered Nicholas’s gaze lingering on the vivacious face and creamy throat displayed before him.

Cassandra let her mind drift into fantasies of how she would look in evening gowns of silk and gauze adorned with feathers and jewels, set off with kid gloves and fragile slippers. In clothes like that, no gentleman would call her
brat
or think her a child.

She had just reached this gratifying conclusion when the door opened cautiously and Nicholas slipped in, his hand cupped round the flame of his candle. ‘Asleep, infant?’ he whispered, flattening Cassandra’s fantasy most effectively.

‘No,’ she said baldly.

‘Why not? Did you get some supper?’ He was keeping his distance from the big bed. In the flickering candlelight his face was underlit, expressionless, the face of a stranger.

‘Mutton stew.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ He turned towards the screen.

‘Is it? I would rather have had guinea fowl and Dover sole and claret.’

‘You must have hung around the kitchen a long time. Wasn’t that rather tempting fate?’ He shrugged off his coat.

‘It wasn’t in the kitchen,’ Cassandra began, then realised she was getting onto dangerous ground.

‘Where then?’ Nicholas turned and faced her. ‘Have you been prowling around the inn?’

‘I saw you in the dining room with that woman,’ she snapped.

Nicholas sauntered over to the bed and looked down at her. In the semi-darkness his shirt was very white, his face inscrutable. He seemed to loom above her.

Cassandra scrambled up against the pillows, clutching the quilt to her throat. The silence stretched on, then he said slowly, ‘There are moments, brat, when you seem a lot older than your tender years. Goodnight.’

Cassandra held her breath until he had dragged the screen right across, cutting her off from the rest of the bed chamber. There was a clatter as he tossed his shoes into a corner and rustlings as he shed his clothes, then the truckle bed creaked and the light was blown out.

She found it impossible to give herself up to sleep. She had never shared a bedroom with anyone, let alone a man. There were several minutes of creaking and tossing while Nicholas adjusted his long frame to the narrow bed, then the only sound in the room was his breathing, regular and slow.

Her last thought as she finally drifted off was that innocent though this night was, she was now, in the eyes of Society, ruined beyond redemption. The surprising thing was, somehow she didn’t care.

‘Nicholas.’ Cassie tugged his sleeve as he stood in the stern surveying the port of Dover as it receded slowly into the early morning mist. ‘That sailor says that with this breeze we’re only going to be five hours reaching France.’

‘Thank heaven for that,’ he remarked absently, then focused sharply on his charge’s eager face. ‘And what the devil are you about, talking to common sailors?’ Lord, this was a nightmare, having to look out for an innocent at every turn.

Cassie blinked at his vehemence. ‘He’s a very nice man, and his wife lives in Dover with their three small sons and they all want to be sailors, too…’ She broke off and studied his set expression. ‘I know why you're so mumpish, you’re feeling seasick.’

‘And you, I suppose, are not?’ He could not doubt it, looking at Cassie’s shining eyes and wind-blown hair. She was licking the salt from her lips with relish and the sea breeze had whipped colour into her cheeks.

‘Not in the slightest, I wish we could sail all day.’ She looked closely at him again. ‘If you are feeling unwell, you must not go below. It is too close and full of people being sick. The smell is disgusting.’

‘Thank you for your advice and that entirely unwelcome detail,’ Nicholas said stiffly. ‘There is nothing amiss with me save the effects of trying to sleep in a bed a foot shorter than I am.’ He buttoned his greatcoat firmly to the neck and set off to stride up and down in the small deck space not occupied by roped piles of barrels and boxes destined for the Continent.

Cassandra fell into step beside him. ‘The sailor told me that if I was feeling seasick there was this amazing cure. You need a nice piece of fat bacon, apparently. Then you tie it on a long thread, swallow it down and jiggle the thread up and down.’

Every meal he had eaten since last Wednesday seemed to gather in his throat, begging to go upwards. Pride saved him. He was
not
going to be observed by Cassie hanging over the rail, casting up his accounts. ‘I will walk, you go and find a sheltered corner and stay out of trouble,’ he said as soon as he trusted himself to speak. She grinned, every inch the cheeky boy, and made for a nook by the main mast leaving him to his lonely dignity.

Cassandra smiled to herself and settled on a barrel in a sheltered corner to watch the sailors coiling the maze of ropes cast off when the ship left port. Well, she had offered to sleep in the truckle bed, so he had only himself to blame.

One of the deckhands stopped beside her. ‘You’re faring better than your master, lad.’ He winked. ‘Having trouble with his breakfast, is he?’

Cassandra felt a prick of guilt at discussing Nicholas with this sailor. She had never seen Nicholas other than in complete command of himself and now it seemed her idol had, if not feet, then one toe of clay. ‘He is perfectly all right,’ she said stiffly.

Her nest among the barrels was snug and yet afforded her an uninterrupted vista of the grey Channel waters widening behind them as England slowly receded into the haze. She had expected the sea to be a great lonely expanse, but it was not. In the brightening morning light, coastal scows paralleled the shore and the fishing fleet was returning to harbour accompanied by a wheeling cloud of gulls clamouring raucously for scraps. And, in elegant contrast, a sleek private yacht, its sails snowy, glided past headed for Newhaven.

She was so absorbed it was some time before she realised Nicholas was standing at her shoulder. ‘Enjoying yourself, brat?’ he asked softly.

‘You startled me.’ Cassandra’s heart thumped unaccountably in her chest, then she glared at him indignantly as he ruffled her hair with a careless hand.

He was smiling, the colour once more back in his cheeks. ‘Aren’t you afraid of all this deep, cold water? I presume you cannot swim? What will you do if you fall in?’

‘You’d save me,’ Cassandra said confidently. Her hero seemed himself once more. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Much, it just needed fresh air.’

All too quickly for Cassandra the coast of France filled the horizon, the cliffs dipping down to long sandy beaches. The huddled roofs of the small port of Calais grew steadily closer, then unaccountably the boat hove to and dropped anchor. Nicholas hailed a passing crewman.

‘You there! What's going on? Why are we not entering harbour?’

‘Can’t, sir. It’s low water. See, boats are coming out already to take you and your baggage off. Cost you a guinea, sir.’

‘A guinea?’ Cassandra’s housewifely instincts revolted. ‘But we’ve already paid to cross, why must we pay again?’

‘Quiet, Cass, don’t draw attention to yourself,’ Nicholas ordered. ‘These rogues have the upper hand. If we want to land on French soil, we must pay French prices.’

They hung over the rail together, watching as the swarm of flat-bottomed rowing boats hove up. They were crewed by men and boys wearing rags no better than beggars, their feet in wooden sabots.

There was a chaotic period while negotiations took place to secure a boat for each party, then they and their luggage were roughly loaded. Cassandra was dangled dizzily over the edge of the packet boat by her wrists before being seized by the men in the craft below and dropped among the bags. She noticed a momentary look of concern on Nicholas’s face as she was manhandled, then relief as the crew seemed to sense nothing amiss.

On the quayside their luggage was seized and carried away by a gang of brawny females, their skirts kilted up to show bare, muscular calves.