The Trouble with Cassandra, page 26
Ned grabbed his walking stick. Not that he meant to strike her with it, but he needed to put some sort of barrier between them, especially since by now he could hardly get out of the chair without making some sort of unwanted contact with her.
“It’s been so long, my lord,” she whispered. “I never enjoyed it with my husband, but I’ve always enjoyed my son’s friends.”
“Good, because I’ve never been your son’s friend.” Holding the stick between them, his other hand on the arm of the chair for leverage, Ned struggled to stand up, but Lady Whidbey swiftly wrested the stick out of his grasp and used it to push him back into the arm of the chair with enough force to send him toppling over the side to the floor.
“It just so happens that contrary to what you told him, I am acquainted with the truth,” she snarled.
His next-to-last thought before she hit him over the head was that at least he wasn’t stuck in one of her pointy potted plants this time, especially in his bare arse.
That led to his very last thought, just before the blow fell, that he wore nothing under his banyan.
Chapter Eighteen
Earlier that evening...
“IT’S NOT RIGHT, WHAT she keeps doing,” Cassandra told the others, after Lady Pilkington insisted that her daughter had a headache so blazing that she couldn’t possibly make it upstairs on her own. “You’d think after failing to entrap some poor, unsuspecting wretch time and again that she would give up and let nature take its course.”
“Who do you suppose will be the lucky wretch this time?” asked Georgiana.
“Considering she decided her daughter was stricken shortly after Whidbey arrived, I would have to say that he’s the wretch. Then again, he’s a wretch no matter what and Miss Pilkington deserves better.” Cassandra set down her teacup. “Do pardon me, ladies. I mean to bring an end to this at once.”
“But are you quite sure about this, Mrs. Frey?” asked Georgiana’s grandmother, the dowager Countess of Whitbourne. “It could be Miss Pilkington really does have such a dreadful headache, that her mother must go up with her merely to ensure she does not stumble into the wrong bedchamber.”
Georgiana sipped her tea. “Grandmama, I’m surprised at you. I thought you knew all the gossip about everyone.”
“Well, if I do, I would certainly never admit it.”
Cassandra excused herself from the drawing room and ventured into the dark front hall. She still couldn’t believe that Whidbey had dared to show up here with his mother and sister to beg accommodations for the night, when they had to know bloody well she was here with Ned. The fact that neither Lady Whidbey nor Lady Lenore would come to the drawing room signaled to Cassandra that they had no desire to see her, either—or that Lenore, in particular, was still in a state of humiliation after having tea thrown on her from a bourdaloue the other night. Either way, Cassandra would have to be on her guard—and Ned, too.
If only there was a way to warn him? She tiptoed over to the dining room door, and already she could hear Whidbey within, arguing with Ned. No warning would be necessary.
“And therein lies your other weakness, Kirtland,” Whidbey was saying. “You trust too much. It got you into trouble with her before, and it will again. She was forced into an unwanted marriage because you called everyone else’s attention to it in a most clumsy manner. Indeed, one might say it’s not that she’s a widow or was once another man’s mistress that’s the trouble with her. No, my craven fellow, the trouble with Cassandra is you. One might say you’re the one who made her what she is.”
She stared at the closed door, thunderstruck by her former lover’s words. The trouble with Cassandra all these years was...Ned?
“All the more reason I should make her my wife.”
Cassandra smiled, heartened by Ned’s proclamation of his intentions.
She couldn’t help listening to the rest. Whidbey was clearly trying to provoke Ned, and still had some absurd idea that in the end, Cassandra would come crawling back to him. Just as patent was his attempt to sow seeds of doubt in Ned’s mind—exactly as Lenore had tried to do with Cassandra the other night. It seemed they had no reason for keeping her and Ned apart save for whatever Whidbey expected to reap from his wager in that betting book.
The door clicked and she backed away, but not toward the staircase or drawing room, since anyone opening the dining room door would have immediately noticed either one of those. Ned emerged from the dining room and crossed the front hall to the drawing room.
She might have called out to him, except she was still waiting for Lady Pilkington to come back downstairs, and she didn’t want Ned or any other man going up there in the meantime only to blunder into the matchmaking mama’s trap. She didn’t want to draw Whidbey’s attention, either, for he was just about the last person on earth she ever wanted to see again.
Keeping to the shadows, she gingerly crept over to the staircase, taking great care not to stumble into anything. The Duchess of Bradbury had once told her of how she’d knocked over an empty suit of armor while skulking around a dark front hall in a vain attempt to avoid being caught by her future husband. Cassandra slipped into the darkest corner nearest the staircase and out of sight of the drawing room, just in time to hear Lady Pilkington come downstairs.
Cassandra waited till Lady Pilkington entered the drawing room, then made a lurch toward the staircase, only to reel back into the shadows as Ned bade the ladies goodnight and headed upstairs. Cassandra was about to call out to him when the dining room door opened again and the rest of the men filed out and across the hall to the drawing room. She didn’t see Whidbey among them. Was he still in the dining room?
Even as she asked that silent question, Lord Carswell, as if he sensed it, offered a reply of sorts. “Let us hope Whidbey goes straight upstairs after he’s done supping in there. I’d rather not see him again this evening.”
Into the drawing room they went, and the door closed behind them. All was silent save for Ned’s distinctive footsteps, interspersed with the tap of his walking stick, fading away upstairs, followed by the closing of his bedchamber door.
She could join him now. But first, she needed to rescue Pippa Pilkington. She picked up a candle from the table near the foot of the staircase and hastened upstairs.
He’d mentioned his bedchamber was closest to the staircase, but she heard no sound from within—meaning he must not have found Pippa in his bed. That was a relief! She started checking all of the other bedchambers in that wing, softly calling out for Pippa, but never receiving an answer. She tiptoed into each one, holding her candle aloft as she checked one bed after another, but Pippa wasn’t in any of them. Cassandra peered behind curtains and into wardrobes and even under beds, but Pippa was nowhere in sight.
Cassandra was in the correct wing—wasn’t she?
Or was it possible Pippa really did have a headache and was actually in her own assigned bed for a change?
After wasting a great deal of time at this, Cassandra decided she might as well steal into Ned’s bedchamber for the night. She turned to go back down the long passageway, only to stop short at the sight of another flickering candle flame at the far end. It looked like Lady Whidbey going into the bedchamber closest to the staircase, in which case, Ned’s bedchamber had to be on the other side of the staircase in the opposite wing. He must have been confused about which wing he was in.
Cassandra scurried past what she’d previously believed was Ned’s room—all was silent behind the closed door—and crossed the landing into the opposite wing, where the first door on her right was ajar and lit within. Ned! He was waiting for her! She was about to call his name when the door suddenly swung open wider and she gasped. Even the flame of her candle shuddered.
“Cassie! I thought I heard someone out here. So good to see you right outside my door.”
Her heart jumped into her throat only to crash down into her stomach at the sight of not Ned, but Whidbey. Why Whidbey? Why now? And where was Ned?
“I’m just passing through to my own room,” she said quickly, and continued scurrying down the hallway.
He fell into step beside her. “Then allow me to escort you.”
“I don’t need an escort. I know how to find my room.”
“So do I. ’Twill do no good to try and lose me, Cassie.”
“What do you want, my lord?”
“You do have my permission now to call me Edward, if you like.”
In barnyards across Britain, pigs were sprouting wings. “That’s a pity, since I’d like to call you other things. Again, I ask—what do you want?”
He lowered his voice to a familiar whisper that used to do strange, fluttery things to her insides, but no more. “Give me one more night in your bed, Cassie.”
She shook her head.
“Just one more night,” he pleaded, still whispering. “That’s all, Cassie, one last night before we go our separate ways for good.”
She continued shaking her head. “I could have sworn we did that in London, when you quite rightly evicted me.”
“You were there because you still hoped I would come back to you. And I did, Cassie. Please stop shaking your head.”
She did because it was starting to hurt, and he did, after all, say please. “I’m sorry, my lord, but it’s over between us.”
“You’re sorry, you say? Then you must regret detaching yourself from me. You needn’t, Cassie. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and I—I—well, I love you.”
The newly-winged pigs took flight. “You always said love was nonsense. My mother even agreed. What changed?”
“What difference does it make? I finally said the words. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“Pray, when did you start?”
“Cassie, one night. Just one night, and I give you my word—”
She snorted.
“—that I will call off the duel with Kirtland. He doesn’t even have to apologize.”
She still clung to hope that Ned had no intention of showing up in any event for Whidbey’s idiotic duel, but just in time it occurred to her how she might dodge out of this. She tilted her head to one side and batted her lashes once. Twice would be overkill in this case.
In her softest, most dulcet voice, she asked, “Do you really mean it...Ed-Edward?” She thought the uncertain little stammer there was a nice, endearing touch.
He donned his most earnest expression, which he usually reserved for his mother, not that it ever really worked. “I do, Cassie. I mean it with all my heart. Just give me one night to show you how much I need you and want you. I’m so much wiser now than I was a few years ago. I know more things. I know just how to pleasure you. I know where to find...it...now.”
The pigs soared above the clouds to the moon. “Oh, do you?”
“I promise. You won’t have to—you know—anymore. Though you know how much I always enjoyed watching you. Still, I’ll wager Kirtland has no clue.”
She saw no point in correcting the record on that. “But how did you ever learn?”
“Well, you know, a man always has needs.” He looked a little sheepish now—another expression he usually reserved for his mother that never really worked, either. “I didn’t know if you were ever coming back to England, and—well, you know—Cyprians and maidservants.”
“Like Jenny? Whatever happened to her, by the way? I was hoping she would come with me when I left London.”
“Who? Oh, your maid. Well, she must’ve changed her mind because she ran away sometime after you left. I guess she never found you, eh?”
Cassandra could only hope Jenny kept the card Ned gave her, and found safety at Frampton House, especially if she was increasing.
Whidbey tentatively reached for her hand, cocking his head to one side. “Now come. One night, Cassie?”
She pursed her lips, as if trying to make a decision about this. “Well, since you say you’ve found...it...let us see if it’s true. And you promise to call off the duel?”
He bent his knees as if going into a crouch. Or maybe they were really buckling at the prospect of having his lascivious way with a deliciously nude Cassandra. Just in time he uncocked his head before he started drooling from the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, my Cass. Once you’re stark naked beneath me, and you have every inch of me deep in your sweet cunny, I will promise you that and more. Anything you want. But all I want is you. All I’ve ever wanted is you. And I will do anything for it.”
“Then allow me to lead the way to my bedchamber.” Candlestick in hand, she continued to the end of the hallway, Whidbey panting behind her like a slobbery hound with his tongue hanging out and knuckles all but dragging along the floor.
She reached the door ahead of him and pretended to have trouble with it. “I think it’s jammed,” she muttered, stepping back to let him have a try. She set the candle on a nearby table and hitched up her skirts to flee as Whidbey opened the door easily, but to her surprise, the room was already lit.
Then Ned was already here, waiting for her? Dear God. What would he say when—but Whidbey was already advancing into the chamber ahead of her. He suddenly yowled and cursed as he swayed to one side, swiping his hands over his face. “Bloody hell! Piss! Who—”
“Oh no!” cried a familiar female voice from behind the door. “Edward! What are you doing here? I meant to throw this in that Frey creature’s face!”
Cassandra pushed the door open wider to reveal an exceedingly mortified Lady Lenore, dripping bourdaloue in hand.
“Let me guess,” Cassandra snapped at her former bosom bow. “That wasn’t really tea you meant to toss in my face, was it, Lenore?”
“It’s piss!” Whidbey yelled, making the same panicked gestures as his sister when a similar, albeit more innocuous fate befell her at the Upper Assembly Rooms the other evening.
Thinking this could not have happened to two more deserving people, Cassandra took advantage of the ensuing tumult to make her escape. She only wished she knew where to find Ned, for she could have sworn his bedchamber was the one where she’d glimpsed Lady Whidbey going in.
There was only one way to find out. She dashed down the hallway and across the landing to the room in question, and rapped sharply on the door.
Whoever was in there responded with a long, loud, bloodcurdling scream. Cassandra threw open the door, but kept back. For all she knew, someone else was being attacked with the contents of a bourdaloue. What in God’s name had she started with that? The screaming, meanwhile, continued as those who were still downstairs stormed up the staircase.
“Pippa!” Lady Pilkington could be heard wailing from the stairs. “Pippa!”
As the others reached the top of the staircase, Cassandra ventured into the bedchamber and cried out at the shocking tableau displayed before her.
Ned was sprawled on the floor, his banyan wide open, while Lady Whidbey clutched her dressing gown around her and continued screaming bloody murder.
This looked very bad, but it had to be a dreadful misunderstanding. Cassandra crouched down next to him and swiftly closed his banyan. He blinked rapidly, looking dazed. “Ned, are you all right? What happened?”
He slowly sat up, rubbing the top of his head and peering at Cassandra as if he didn’t know who she—“Cass?”
Then he did know, thank heavens. Cassandra heaved a sigh of relief as she twined her arms around him and let him lean into her shoulder. Meanwhile, most of the house party crowded into the hallway just outside the open door, with Lady Pilkington pushing her way to the front.
“Pippa!” she called out again. “Where’s my Pippa?”
“She’s not here,” Cassandra said, as she glared up at the hysterical Lady Whidbey. “Stop, my lady! It’s over, whatever it was. What happened?”
“Can’t any of you see for yourselves what happened? Kirtland tried to—tried to—well, he’s such a dolt that he must have mistaken me for someone else, maybe you, Mrs. Frey, or maybe my daughter, or—”
“Or maybe my own daughter!” Lady Pilkington cried. “My Pippa often sleepwalks when she spends the night in a strange place.”
“How or why did you even get in here?” Georgiana asked Lady Whidbey.
“I wished a word with my son. I understood that his bedchamber was the one closest to the staircase.”
“If so, it would have been in the opposite wing, and not this one,” said Anthony. “So you—”
“You mean this isn’t Whidbey’s bedchamber?” cut in Lady Pilkington, aghast.
“—you came into this chamber and then what?” Anthony finished asking Lady Whidbey.
“Well, I suppose Kirtland seemed to think I was a maidservant or some other female he could take advantage of,” said Lady Whidbey, and Cassandra wondered if she knew that she was describing the tendencies of her own son. “But I managed to seize his walking stick and hit him over the head with it,” she added with a hint of pride and triumph in her voice.
“At which point, instead of making your escape, you chose to just stand there and scream until a proper crowd gathered,” Cassandra said.
“It just now happened,” Lady Whidbey retorted. “Are you suggesting that I’m shamming all of this when it should be obvious to everyone here what has happened? Why, not even Kirtland would dare impugn my word.”
Cassandra turned to Ned, who was already struggling to his feet, but he waved her away. “Just hand me my walking stick,” he said curtly.
“But—”
“I can stand up on my own. God knows I’ve had to do it before, and usually in situations not unlike this one, as everyone here knows, including you.”
His sharp words stung. “But—”
“Let everyone think what they like,” he said. “Though I suppose this means another challenge from Whidbey. You might open the bed curtains for me.”
With an aching heart, Cassandra yanked aside the bed curtains and gasped in astonishment as Lady Pilkington screamed, “Pippa!”
“Well!” Lady Whidbey exclaimed. “All of you can see this for yourselves. Perhaps it’s just as well I came in here by mistake. Kirtland has clearly compromised Miss Pilkington!”
