Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (26 page)

He did not lift his head, but only continued
to concentrate on some figures he was feeding into her solar
calculator. It really blew her mind how he had mastered the
calculator, even the memory buttons, which still gave her fits. Of
course, it shouldn’t have surprised her, for Marcus could do
anything.

Well, almost anything. Obviously he still
hadn’t learned how to apologize. He hadn’t come to her room last
night—not that she had really expected him to, but he had also been
absent from the breakfast room this morning. She and a decidedly
nervous Perry had spent a desultory half hour pushing eggs and ham
(or, in Perry’s case, eggs and kippers) around their plates, eating
little and talking about everything except one Reginald Hawtrey and
Cassandra’s engagement to go driving with him in the park today at
three.

And then Perry had gone, mumbling something
about looking in at Tatt’s. “Not that my blunt runs to setting up
m’own stable, of course,” he explained, “but just for the fun of
watching all the gamesters settling up by selling their
horseflesh.” She was left to wander the mansion alone, wondering
whether she had it in her to wait it out, to let Marcus make the
first move.

Five minutes earlier she’d had her answer. In
this particular battle of wills she had decided to be the loser.
She hadn’t dwelled on that for long, as she preferred to believe
that of the two of them, she was being a grown-up about the
thing.

“Hey, Marcus—your hair is on fire,” she said
after a few moments of strained silence.

He looked up at her, his eyebrows raised as
if to say that yes, he had heard her, but no, he didn’t plan to
speak to her. Then he returned to his figures, punching in numbers
from a list he had scribbled on a piece of paper.

“You know, Marcus, if this was April 1992 and
America, I could understand it, because your income taxes would be
due. I don’t have to pay any this year, so I filed early. Got eight
hundred and fifty big ones back. I should have put it in the bank,
but I blew it on a round-trip plane ticket to London. Nov there was
money wasted, wasn’t it?
Marcus!
Talk to me, damn it!”

Marcus hit the total button, frowned, wrote
the figure at the bottom of the page, snapped the plastic cover
over the calculator, folded his hands in front of him on the desk,
and looked up at her, his expression bland. “I had hoped, taking
into account normal calendar changes, and figuring in the vagaries
of February, I could come up with a formula that would show that,
given the difference of one hundred and eighty years, May
thirty-first and March twelfth might actually be the same day, but
they are not. Ah well, it was only a theory. Were you speaking to
me, Miss Kelley? Strange, I should have thought you’d be upstairs,
primping for your drive with Reginald Hawtrey.”

Cassandra looked at him in amazement,
dismissing his ramblings about dates—none of that was important at
the moment. “I don’t believe it. You’re
jealous!
”

He averted his eyes, then pushed back his
chair and stood. Turning his back on her, he stared out the window
at the mews. “Don’t be more ignorant than you can help, Cassandra,”
he said cuttingly, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his
back. “I am only concerned about the consequences. Hawtrey is all
but promised to Susannah Winterson, a considerable heiress who,
like you, is not known for her willingness to ‘share.’ Driving out
in public with you will jeopardize his chances with the girl. His
insufferable aunt and known benefactor is in on this business, I
know it. I just can’t figure out what her motive is.” He whirled
about to face her, narrowing his dark eyes. “Why is the woman so
interested in you?”

Cassandra pulled a face, shrugging. “She
likes me? Some people do, you know.”

“Hardly. Lady Blakewell doesn’t
like
anybody. She only uses them to better her own position. Besides,
the woman barely knows you. There has been something havey-cavey
about this business from the very beginning.”

“The Reverend Mr. Austin?” Cassandra asked
rhetorically as Marcus stepped out from behind the desk and began
to pace up and down. Hopping down from the desk, she leaned against
it with her hands folded at her waist. She loved the way he moved,
softly, sleekly, soundlessly, like a panther. And he was, too,
jealous. She wouldn’t tease him about it—but he was. “He was with
her that first day at Hyde Park, and again at her house that night,
grilling me.”

The marquess stopped, to look at her as if he
were seeing her for the first time. “You’re wearing a riding habit.
I thought Hawtrey said he was taking you for a drive.”

“He sent a note this morning, saying he’d
rather we went riding. I told you I could ride, not that you’ve
ever taken me up on it.” She grabbed a bit of material on each side
of the divided skirt and whirled about in a circle. “Isn’t it
terrific? I just love Regency fashions.”

“I see,” Marcus said, that telltale tic
beginning in his left cheek so that she knew he was just dying to
forbid her to see Hawtrey. “I should have realized sooner. My
apologies, Cassandra. It is only that we don’t have a sidesaddle in
the stables anymore, not since Georgina left.”

Cassandra winced. ‘‘A sidesaddle? Oh, God,
Marcus, I don’t know how to use a sidesaddle. I wouldn’t even know
how to get on one! What am I going to do?”

Marcus had been busying himself getting them
each a glass of wine from the drinks table. He handed a glass to
Cassandra and leaned against the desk beside her, his eyes
twinkling. “Are you asking my advice, Cassandra? How novel. A pity
you didn’t think to do that last night, before accepting Hawtrey’s
invitation.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you? You’re just
loving it,” Cassandra snapped, taking a sip of the wine.

“If by that you mean, am I enjoying your
predicament, then yes, my love, I do find myself to be marginally
amused, although it doesn’t make up for the night I’ve had. I
thought we were dealing with more important issues than a childish
effort on your part to make me jealous—as if anyone could be
jealous of Reggie Hawtrey.”

Cassandra slammed the glass on the desktop
and glared at the marquess. “How many times must I tell you that it
wasn’t my fault? I got separated from Aunt Cornelia, Marcus, and
Lady Blakewell promised to take me home. The rest—well, the rest
just happened. Besides, you were the one who wanted me out in
public, remember, as part of your damned ‘experiments.’”

“Those experiments have not been a part of my
agenda for some weeks, Cassandra, and I wished for you to be
presented only so that I could gauge your reactions to the people
you met, and perhaps learn from you. But now we have discovered the
reason for your presence in my time. I thought we would concentrate
on trying to save me from whoever or whatever appears to want to
put a nasty period to my existence on the last day of May.
I—foolishly, perhaps—believed that you would now wish to
concentrate on a plan to save Spencer Perceval, as a prelude to
changing my not-too-distant future. But if you would rather spend
your time riding about the city with Reginald Hawtrey, far be it
from me to—”

“Oh, Marcus, how I adore you!” Cassandra
exploded, throwing herself at him so that they nearly tumbled to
the floor. Her arms around his neck, she showered his face with
quick kisses, loving him more now that he had shown her that he was
not always the perfect marquess, the genius she had imagined him.
He was as human as any man. He was jealous. And, bless his arrogant
heart, he loved her!

It didn’t take him long to begin to return
her kisses. Their lips were locked together as he slipped his arms
around her waist, crushing her against him. All the love, all the
passion, all the longing they had felt only two nights before and
missed so much when it was absent last night flooded to the
surface. Within moments Marcus had slipped an arm beneath
Cassandra’s knees and lifted her, their mouths still fused, and
carried her to a nearby wide couch.

He put her down gently and then sat beside
her. His smile brought tears to her eyes as he said, “I’ve been an
idiot, darling. Please forgive me. It’s just that I was so anxious
when I saw Corny and you weren’t with her. I went charging from
room to room like a mad animal—pushing straight past Prinny, who
must think I’m trying to avoid him because I haven’t found any
treasure in the White Tower. I feared the worst, I feared that you
were terrified to be on your own. And then—”

She lifted a hand to stroke his smooth cheek.
“And then you found me, and I was chatting happily with Lord Byron
and looking as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Actually, Marcus,
now that I look at it from your position, I’m surprised you didn’t
leave me to find my own way home. Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.”

He began fumbling with the small covered
buttons at the neck of her riding habit. “We could waste precious
moments discussing who is to blame, my sweet, but I prefer to spend
our time engaging in other, more appealing, pursuits. God,
Cassandra, how lonely I’ve been without you. I didn’t sleep a wink
all night.”

“Me neither,” Cassandra admitted, her grammar
slipping as the heat of Marcus’s body reached her through the
fabric of her gown and inflamed her senses. “And the last thing I
want to do this afternoon is to go riding, or driving, or whatever,
with Reggie Hawtrey. I don’t want to waste a moment of our time
together, Marcus. Marcus?”

One moment he had been holding her. One
moment he had been deftly opening the buttons of her jacket,
exposing her breasts. One moment she had been willingly responding
to his urgency, not caring that yet again the door was not locked.
Let Perry walk in on them. Let Corny and Goodfellow and the whole
damn household walk in on them—let them sell tickets if they wanted
to. Marcus was loving her, and she was loving him back, But now—now
he was gone. Gone from her; gone from the wide couch, and standing
above her, looking down at her, so that she shivered and began
nervously rebuttoning her jacket, feeling as if a bucket of cold
water had just been poured on her raging desires. “Marcus? What’s
wrong now? If you’re worried about someone walking in on us—”

He shook his head and ran a hand through his
dark hair. “No, it’s nothing like that, although I certainly should
have taken such a possibility into account. My mind ceases to
function clearly whenever you’re near. It’s Hawtrey, Cassandra. I
think you have to see him today.”

Cassandra swung her feet to the floor and
glared up at him as she finished rebuttoning her jacket. “You’ve
got to be kidding.” When he didn’t answer she frowned, biting her
bottom lip. “You’re not kidding. You really think Lady Blakewell
suspects something? Marcus, the woman isn’t that smart.”

Marcus lifted his wineglass from the desk and
drained its contents. “No, my darling, she’s not. However, as
someone we both know very well said to me recently, she knows just
enough to be dangerous. If you cancel your appointment with her
nephew at the last moment, it will seem to her as if we are
attempting to conceal something. We have enough to keep us busy for
the next six weeks without looking over our shoulders to see what
Lady Blakewell is doing. Much as I dislike saying this, you must
keep your appointment with Reginald Hawtrey at three.”

~ ~ ~

Cassandra sat on the bench seat of Reginald
Hawtrey’s high-perch phaeton and held on for dear life as they
entered Hyde Park. “Is he anybody?” she asked, daring to lift one
hand to point at a well-dressed man standing quite alone just
inside the gate, his expression announcing that he was totally
bored watching the procession of carriages, curricles, phaetons,
and showy horseflesh on parade.

Hawtrey, who was having a bit of difficulty
handling his high-strung pair of snow-white geldings (he certainly
wasn’t the whip Marcus was), took a moment to follow the direction
of Cassandra’s discreetly pointed finger, “Brummell? Only to
himself, my dear Miss Kelley, only to himself. Especially now that
he doesn’t have our Prince Regent so deeply in his pocket anymore.
I
am much more the thing, you know.”

As the phaeton moved away Cassandra looked
back to see the famous Beau Brummell and, giving in to impulse,
smiled broadly and waved at him. And the Beau, bless him, waved
back! Cassandra’s smile wavered, for she knew the Beau’s history
well. After this first falling out with Prinny, the Beau remained
in London until 1816 when, plagued by debts, and without the
protection of the Regent, he was forced to flee to Calais. Two
dozen years later the man who had brought hygiene, wit, and elegant
fashion to the world died, slovenly and insane, in a French
asylum—a broken man, betrayed by all he’d helped and
entertained.

Cassandra turned back to Hawtrey, hiding a
sneer as she looked at the man who had dared to look down his nose
at one of her heroes. Hawtrey, dressed in a puce morning coat, his
waistcoat of canary yellow, his high shirt points digging into his
earlobes, was a cartoon figure whose reputation would not outlive
him, while Beau Brummell’s name still meant fashion in 1992. “You’d
have loved polyester, Mr. Hawtrey,” she said, hanging on tightly to
the seat once more as the horses took exception to a passing
coach.

“Polly Ester? I don’t believe I’ve heard of
the lady, Miss Kelley.” Hawtrey shrugged, the even dozen capes of
his bottle-green driving coat all but obscuring his chin. “But no
matter. If I have not heard of Miss Ester, she is nothing. Ah, but
here comes someone I do know, although I should not say so, should
I? Such a lovely woman, the widow Carruthers, although she is
looking faintly down pin these days, as she has been without male
companionship these past weeks.”

You slimy bastard,
Cassandra thought,
following the direction of Hawtrey’s unsubtle pointing finger, to
see an open carriage drawing, near from the other direction. The
woman inside the carriage was stylishly dressed in a pink
confection with a straw hat tied beneath her chin. She was about
thirty years of age, had blond hair and blue eyes, and was
startlingly beautiful. Cassandra hated her on sight.