The Conquest of Lady Cassandra (18 page)

Cassandra wondered if she would still wish it in the morning, when she had slept off the pleasure and thought about Ambury and all the parts of their recent meetings.

“How was the party?” Aunt Sophie asked.

“You were missed. I wish you had come.”

“And Gerald? Did he behave himself?”

Cassandra gritted her teeth against the resurgence of anger and worry that her brother’s name evoked. “He and I spoke for a while. The others probably thought we had a pleasant chat and that all is forgiven between us.”

“But all is not, from your tone.”

“Gerald is Gerald, isn’t he?” Only she would ever know just how much Gerald had been Gerald tonight.

“If word spreads that all is forgiven, you will know,” Sophie said. “You will receive invitations from the hostesses who have not sent them these last years. You must let me know if you do.”

Cassandra stood. She bent and kissed her aunt on her crown. “You should sleep, and I should as well.”

“Try not to dream of him all night,” Sophie said with a little laugh.

Cassandra decided she would not let Ambury invade her dreams at all. Aunt Sophie had reminded her of exactly what that passion in the reception hall had been—not even the beginnings of a romantic liaison, but merely impulsive pleasure between two people who did not obey the rules.

T
wo mornings later, the damp that had settled on Hyde Park during the night refused to lift. London’s famous fog still hung low, even at eleven o’clock, when Yates rode his horse beside Southwaite and Kendale to meet two other gentlemen who had come up from the coast for a few days.

A citizens’ militia drilled beside the Serpentine, its red uniforms blazing through the gray light. It had become impossible to visit the park these last weeks without some group or other preparing for the huge invasion that never came. The trouble in Ireland had only doubled the efforts.

Yates did not think such an invasion likely. It carried too much risk, and the French had extended this war in so many directions that such an effort would involve resources he did not think they could muster. That he considered it unlikely to happen did not mean he thought the preparations should not take place, however. Logic said they would not be needed, but one never knew if the enemy would be logical.

His companions rode in silence, perhaps thinking as he
did of the larger issues affecting their world. They were meeting men who brought a report from the network of watchers they had organized on the coast. That probably explained Kendale’s seriousness. He scrutinized the citizens’ troupe as they passed, his military eye assessing their formation.

Southwaite’s sobriety was less expected.

Suddenly Kendale stopped his horse. “I cannot do it, Southwaite. I know you asked me to pretend nothing had changed, but it is a lie, and I’ll be damned if I am such an actor as to pull it off.”

Yates turned his horse at the outburst.

Southwaite stopped too. “No good will come from this. A friend knows when to keep silent.”

“It seems to me that a friend speaks plainly, so that unspoken resentments do not fester,” Yates offered.

Southwaite closed his eyes in strained forbearance. “How philosophical of you, Ambury. No doubt my wife would agree, since she also prefers plain speaking. Unfortunately, Kendale’s plainness is more plain than even hers, and the sort of plainness to create more trouble than clarity.”

Yates did not disagree, but thought saying that in front of Kendale was more plain than warranted.

Kendale’s face hardened. “So I am just to let it all pass, because it is convenient to your purposes and his pleasure?”

Yates tried to lighten what had suddenly become a sharp conversation. “Whoever this friend is, you should let it pass if it is a small thing. If it might harm the friendship, speaking up may be the better course.”

Southwaite lowered his lids. “Far be it from me to attempt to argue against such sage advice from a man who is adept at maintaining his amiability even when perhaps he ought not.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that there are times to be friendly and amiable, and times to be restrained and discreet.”

Confused, Yates looked from one to the other. They both looked back. For a while, they all just exchanged gazes. The knowing ones that passed between Kendale and Southwaite gave Yates his first suspicion of what was amiss.

Kendale looked away and raked his hair with his fingers. “Damnation, it is bad enough that she is being invited to dine in Southwaite’s home.”

“I explained
that.
Damn me if you want, but when I weigh old loyalties and insults against Emma’s happiness, there will be only one possible decision.”

“He is not married and has no new loyalties to make him forget the old ones,” Kendale snarled.

Yates realized that he was the unknown friend at the heart of this dispute, mostly because Kendale poked his finger in his direction.

“What are you talking about? I have not been disloyal to you.”

“Not
me
.”

Southwaite held up a hand, telling Kendale to say nothing more. He then turned to Yates. “You were seen.”

They were talking about Cassandra, of course, but now the reason for all the silence and knowing glances made sense.

“Seen?” He feigned an innocence he did not feel.

“On the terrace, by some. That you left in her wake was noted by others. That you arrived together has now taken on new meaning,” Southwaite said.

“You were also seen leaving her damned house in the middle of the damned night,” Kendale added.

Hell. The first bits could be explained away. But if he had been seen leaving…

He searched his memory. The vague sounds of a carriage rolling down the street while he strode from Cassandra’s house seemed to emerge. He could not be sure. The only thing he truly remembered about that forced retreat was savage, blinding sexual frustration.

“Seen by whom?”

“Does it matter whom?” Kendale asked.

“Hell, yes, it matters.”

Kendale turned to Southwaite. “You and your
gossip does not make something a fact
. I told you it was true. He is fucking that woman.”

Yates allowed his irritation to show in the stare he gave Kendale. “First, you are not to speak of her in that manner. Ever. Second, as it happens, that is not true. I swear it as a gentleman. I have not had Lady Cassandra Vernham.”

That took the wind out of Kendale’s sails, fast. His expression fell. “I apologize. I should have known you would not—that is, you were a better friend of Lakewood than I was, so it goes without saying that you would never take up with her.”

Southwaite’s expression turned carefully bland. A sidelong glance at Yates said one friend was not nearly as convinced about intentions, even if he accepted the baldly stated claim of lack of success.

“My loyalty to Lakewood does not extend to condemning a woman for something I do not know for certain she did,” Yates said. “I raise that as a matter apart from your accusations about two nights ago.”

Kendale appeared suspicious again. “Now you are making excuses for her.”

“I am saying I do not know for certain over whom that duel was fought, and it has been wrong to blame her without knowing. Since Southwaite here has received her, and is allowing his wife and sister to be her friends, it is time to admit that any suspicions about that duel are only that, and not firmly grounded in anything except our dim knowledge of the women in Lakewood’s life.”

“You
are
making excuses for her.”

“What he is saying is true. I have come to the same place in my head,” Southwaite said. “I was Kenwood’s second.
He never gave me the name of the woman he challenged Penthurst over.”

Kendale’s expression indicated he did not like having this other front open unexpectedly in his little war. “There was only one woman for him. Unlike Ambury here, who has liaisons by the dozen, Lakewood loved once and he loved forever.”

It was an astonishingly romantic view of Lakewood—or any man, when you got down to it. It sounded startling coming from Kendale who, Yates would have sworn, did not have the slightest experience with love, and who had always displayed evidence of a very cynical view of romance.

He felt guilty questioning the illusion. “None of us really know that, is all I am saying. Six years is a very long time to pine for any woman, let alone wait to die for her.”

Nothing more was said for several minutes. Then they fell in next to each other and continued on their way. Up ahead, two figures emerged out of the mist, riding their own horses. One man hailed them, and the two groups began converging.

“None of us really knows that duel
wasn’t
over her either,” Kendale said, getting in the last word just before they reached the others.

Yates could not disagree, much as he wanted to.

C
assandra did not wake the next morning sorry that Aunt Sophie had interrupted her and Ambury. Instead, she faced the dawn breathless with astonishment at her own rashness, and spent the day itemizing just how foolish she had been.

This was the man questioning the earrings, after all. The man who had no doubt bought those earrings to gift them to a woman far more important to him than she was.

This was the person responsible for withholding the
money that would allow her to run away with Aunt Sophie. She had assumed the month’s delay in settling the sale of the earrings would not matter. She had been wrong.

Nor had he absolved her about Lakewood. Even as he kissed her, that question had remained open. He might have wondered over the years about the oddities of that story of compromise, but when he lured her into pleasure, he had not yet accepted the truth of it.

I want you
, he had said at Mrs. Burton’s. It was not special that he wanted her. Men were quick to lust over women, and she was accustomed to being wanted in that way. So was he, she guessed.

All of these discouraging thoughts turned over in her mind a hundred times. They left her with no excuse and no way to pretty up what had happened. She had behaved just as wildly as all those rumors said she did. Except for Aunt Sophie’s timely interference, she would have finally deserved the worst of the gossip.

Two days after the party, still ruminating over that passion and trying hard to convince herself she had not even enjoyed it much, she made her way to the Strand. It was past time to see if she could find the pawnbroker from whom Sophie said she had bought the earrings.

The broker would surely recognize such fine jewelry from the drawing she had brought. He would certainly remember from whom he obtained such distinctive items, even though it had been years ago. No doubt it had been a member of a good family whose integrity was unquestioned. She would hand Ambury all of that information, and he would finally hand her the money. She and Aunt Sophie would be gone by week’s end.

That was her plan, at least.

Three hours later, she had been directed to four different pawnbrokers whose establishments might be described as a few doors off the Strand. None had a blue door, but doors can get painted different colors over time. The first three
proprietors could not help her at all. The fourth one looked at her drawing a long time, raising her hopes.

“Did you have them?” she asked. “It would have been years ago.”

He shook his head. He still wore his dark hair in a queue, but the better part of his head was bald. His dark eyes reminded her of a hawk.

She pointed to her drawing. “That is a diamond. You may have thought it was paste.”

“I know the difference. I’d not been surviving all this time if I didn’.”

“You appear to recognize them.”

“Not recognize as such. I’ve never seen them.” He handed her the drawing. “You are not the first to ask after them, is all. I’ve had earbobs much like this described to me recently, so your drawing took me by some surprise.”

He returned to weighing the silver spoon that had been on his scale when she entered. She tucked the drawing back into her reticule. “Who else asked about them?”

He stacked some weights to balance the spoon. “Would be indiscreet for me to say. My profession requires secrecy. If I gossiped about who walks through my door, soon no one with real valuables would again.”

“I thought this person only asked you questions.”

“True. Just as you did. Should I tell the world you came here with that drawing and asked questions?” He must have seen her dislike of that notion, because he smiled and dropped another tiny weight on the tray. “Anyway, I don’t know who he was. A gentleman, though.”

“An old gentleman?”

He thought over the question, then shrugged. “Not old. No gray yet. And no—” he patted his bald pate.

“Was he—”

He held up a hand. “It is all I know and more than I should have said. You will have to pardon me now, unless you have something you want to pawn.”

She swallowed her curiosity, but it was hard not to press him for more.
Was he handsome as sin? Did he come in a fine coach with a matched pair of white horses? Were his eyes more blue than the best sapphires? Could his smile charm the skin off a snake?

The pawnbroker was not going to tell her anything else. She left to meet Emma as they had arranged, sure she knew the answers to her questions anyway. Ambury was not waiting for her to learn the earrings’ history. He was seeking it on his own.

E
mma opened the storage chamber at Fairbourne’s auction house to reveal two dozen paintings stacked against the wall.

“My brother has acquitted himself very well in one duty to this business,” she said. “He is proving very adept at spending considerable time at places where people with rarities are apt to gather. My father’s name and reputation are having him received in ways most men in trade would never be, and he is enjoying it to the fullest.”

“Is he proving skilled at the rest of that part of the trade?” Cassandra asked. “Are these paintings consigned to Fairbourne’s now, through his efforts?”