"Your
coat is deplorable," Cassandra insisted with a graceful toss of her head.
"And your whiskers nearly burned my cheek raw when you kissed me!"
He
rubbed at the offending stubble with one long-fingered hand. "I should
hope these will be a minor irritation, since I doubt I'll be tempted to kiss my
present!"
Cassandra
choked, sputtering. "Y—you could make yourself presentable for me. A
gentleman... Well, I— Papa!" Her garbled scoldings vanished in a vexed
cry. "What on earth have you done now!" Accusation was edged with
worry.
Aidan
frowned, confused. "I don't have the slightest idea."
"Your
eye! Don't even attempt to tell me you ran into a stable door again, for I
shan't believe it! Tell me you haven't been indulging in fisticuffs at that
awful boxing salon again!"
"I
haven't even been to London!" He raised his fingers sheepishly to the
place Stasia had bruised him and groped for a plausible lie. "When I was
riding out of the city, I was set upon by... by a pair of brigands who tried to
relieve me of my purse."
"Brigands?
Oh, Papa!"
"Yes,
there must have been four big, burly fellows." Aidan paced to the window
overlooking the castle drive, warming to his story.
"I
thought you said 'a pair.'"
"Well,
I was much confused. It was dark, and after all, I'd taken the devil of a blow
to my head. I..." Aidan paused, nearly sighing aloud in relief as a
reprieve came in an unexpected form—that of a coach rumbling toward the castle.
"It
seems as if I will have to regale you of my adventure some other time," he
said, tugging at Cassandra's curls. "My gift seems to be coming up the
drive."
"Wh—what?"
"The
coach!" Aidan said with diabolical glee. "I'll beat you to the
door!"
With
a squawk, Cass started to dart out ahead of him. Aidan caught a handful of her
dressing gown, reeling her in. "Cassandra Victorine Kane, you are still in
your nightgown. A young lady shouldn't parade in front of the servants
en
dishabille."
"I
won't if you'll wait for me! Papa! Papa, no!"
Aidan
had never been able to resist teasing her. He raced down the stairs, making a
deafening racket, while he heard Cassandra scrambling to get dressed. He had no
intention of spoiling her surprise, of course, fully planning to wait for her
in the grand entry to Rathcannon. But at that instant the door flew open,
revealing the face of Rathcannon's coachman, Sean O'Day, the burly Irishman
looking as distraught as if he had just set fire to the stables. Ashen faced,
he railed at the footman, Calvy Sipes.
"Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph, you won't believe what Miss Cass has done. The master is
going to flay the hide off every one of us, and I vow I'll hand him the knife
to do it with!"
Aidan
stepped into the coachman's line of vision, and Sean looked as if he was about
to be judged at the seat of Lucifer himself. "Come now, man, don't be so
hard on the girl!" Aidan soothed. "I promise not to resort to
violence unless I'm severely provoked."
O'Day's
wild eyes slashed to Aidan, his big hands clutching at the front of his
travel-dusty livery. "Sir... oh, sir," he mourned, "I was hopin'
you weren't here yet. That there'd be time to fix things somehow. But we
wouldn't be able to right this in a hundred years! You have to believe me, sir,
I had no idea what Miss Cass was about or she couldn't 'a dragged me off to
Dublin bound with chains! But if I hadn't gone, what would have become of
her?
Didn't know what the divil to do once I had her... didn't dare to tell
her..."
"Tell
who
what?"
O'Day
blinked, looking even more dazed. "Why, the lady, sir! There she was,
standin' at the dock plain as the wart on Cadagon's nose, with a letter in her
hand and her thinking you wrote it. But I knew the truth the minute I saw
it."
O'Day's
rattling was stirring up the dregs of gin in Aidan's head, starting a painful
throb in the base of his skull. "You're blathering like a half-wit!"
Aidan bit out. "Just tell me what mischief the girl has kicked up, and
we'll sort it out somehow. You're acting as if she committed murder, for God's
sake!"
"It's
you
who might be tempted to murder, Sir Aidan, when you see what lurks
out there!" O'Day waved one hand toward the open door, as if some
horrendous monster lurked beyond, waiting to devour them.
Fists
on hips, Aidan stalked to the threshold, glaring out at the scene before him.
Slivers of light drove beneath his burning eyelids, and he swore, rubbing his
fingers impatiently across his suddenly blurry gaze.
He
didn't have the slightest idea what he expected to see as the mist cleared from
his vision—the hounds of hell tied to the coach wheels, a tribe of gypsies
setting up camp on the front lawn, or the horsemen of the Apocalypse kicking up
their hooves in an effort to separate old Cadagon's few remaining teeth from
his gums.
However,
one thing Aidan didn't expect to see was a footman unloading a spanking new
trunk, while a lone woman stood beside the coach, looking on.
Aidan
took in wide brown eyes, dusky curls peeking out about a heart-shaped face that
looked rather pale under the shelter of a bonnet brim. A rich blue pelisse that
should have seemed the height of fashion and elegance flowed about her slender
figure, but instead of setting her charms off to advantage, the garment made
the woman look, for all the world, like a child caught dressing up in her
mother's finery.
Even
the object caught in her arms seemed designed to accentuate that impression,
for she was holding onto a child's doll with white-knuckled fingers.
Yet
when she looked up at him, there was something about her—that stiff-necked
English propriety, that sense of control—that had always set his teeth on edge.
His face twisted into a black scowl as he stalked down the stairs.
"What
the blazes is going on here! The coachman's raving like a cursed
Bedlamite!"
The
woman raised those melting-dark eyes to his, and Aidan was stunned as they were
transformed into a rare loveliness by her nervous smile. "He's been acting
quite strange since the moment I met him. As if there is some sort of—of
confusion. If you could just take me to your master, I'm certain it can all be
untangled."
"My
master?" Aidan echoed.
"Yes.
I'm looking for Sir Aidan Kane, of Rathcannon Castle. If you could... find him
for me?"
He
eyed her warily. "What the devil do you want him for?"
Color
flooded her cheeks. "It's a personal matter, rather difficult to explain.
But I can assure you, he's expecting me."
"The
devil he is! I mean, the devil I am. I'm Kane."
The
revelation seemed to cast her into dismay, and Aidan was excruciatingly aware
that he looked like absolute hell. The sensation irritated him beyond belief.
"Who
the blazes are you?" He cursed himself, unable to keep his hand from
creeping up in an instinctive effort to straighten his tousled hair.
"I'm
Norah Linton." She looked at him as if the name should explain everything.
But Aidan just watched her, tension coiling at the back of his neck.
"I—I
answered your letter of advertisement," she stammered out. "The one
you intended to place in the
London Times."
Aidan
folded his arms over his chest in challenge. "I never entered any
advertisement."
Disbelief
streaked across features that were far too waiflike for beauty. "But of
course you did. I have your letter right here in my reticule, and you... you
arranged my passage from England—"
"I
didn't arrange a damn thing!"
At
that moment, a whirlwind of tumbled curls and sweet muslin frock bolted out the
door, Cassandra still fastening the buttons at her throat.
"Miss
Linton!" Cassandra cried, rushing up to the woman, beaming. "I'm
Cassandra. It's so wonderful to meet you at last!"
The
Englishwoman looked astonished.
"Cassandra...
but I thought—thought..." A flush stained her cheeks. She looked down at
the plaything in her hand.
"You
thought I was younger, didn't you?" Cassandra trilled, her smiling gaze
fixing on the little lady rigged out in primrose-hued satin. "Did you
bring this for me?"
Aidan
gaped as his daughter—of late so determined to guard her dignity—reached out to
accept the toy then stroked the doll's tiny feathered bonnet. "It's
adorable! I shall save it for when I have a little sis... ahem!" She
dissolved into a fit of theatrical coughing.
"You
know this woman?" Aidan interrupted, pinning his daughter with a glare.
What he saw made his stomach knot. "Cassandra, what is this? Some sort of
crazed joke?"
"Joke?"
What little color had stained the woman's cheeks drained away. "You can't
mean you had no—no idea...."
"It's
not a joke, Papa," Cassandra said breezily, linking her arm through that
of the stunned Englishwoman. "Miss Linton is the present I told you
about."
"My
present?" Aidan choked out, casting a wild glance from his daughter to the
woman standing in his carriage circle. "What the devil is she supposed to
be? A maid servant? A governess?"
"Don't
be ridiculous, Papa." Cassandra gave a fluttery laugh. "You don't
need a governess."
"You
drag some strange woman from God knows where, and tell me she's my goddamn present,
and then say
I'm
being ridiculous?" He sucked in a deep breath,
battling for inner balance. He knew damn well he shouldn't ask the question
Cassandra was so obviously anticipating, but he couldn't help himself.
"If
I don't need a governess, what in the blazes
do
I need?"
The
girl who was the mirror image of Delia raised her chin with a pure Kane
recklessness that always presaged disaster.
"What
you need is a
wife."
"A
wife?"
Aidan bellowed, feeling as if the earth had split beneath
him. Anger flooded through him. He couldn't move. Didn't dare. Because if he
did, he'd be tempted to thrash his daughter for the first time in his life.
Aidan
let fly a string of oaths. The coachman dove for cover. The sturdy footman who
had unloaded the trunk tried to hide behind the lead horse in the coach's
traces.
The
Englishwoman looked as if Aidan had snatched O'Day's whip from the coach seat
and lashed it about her head and shoulders.
Only
Cassandra stood her ground, her face twisting in a formidable scowl.
"Papa, if you'll just stop and think for a moment, you'll see that it's
the most perfect gift in the world."
"Why
not snap a foxtrap to my leg and call
that
my present? Better still,
shove my boot through the stirrup and have Hazard drag me a dozen miles! A
wife? My God, Cass—"
"Stop
it right now!" she hissed between clenched teeth. "You're going to
ruin everything!"
"There's
nothing to ruin!" he snapped. "I need a wife like I need a cup of
hemlock, Cassandra! There is
no way in hell
that I'm marrying
anyone.
Especially some brainless female so desperate she'd marry a man she'd never
set eyes on before! By God's blood, she must be mad!"
"You're
right, of course." The woman's voice startled Aidan, and he wheeled to
glare at her. Something about her reminded him of a wildflower crushed beneath
a careless bootheel. Those dark eyes were bleak in a pale face, and in them he
could see just how much hopefulness she had packed up along with her polished
trunk and her flower-decked bonnet. But it was the set of her shoulders that
tightened the cinch of tension about Aidan's chest. For they were squared
beneath the blue pelisse with the air of someone who had withstood withering
blows before.
Why
the devil did that make Aidan feel like the most vile tyrant who'd ever
breathed? He was just an innocent bystander. Cassandra was nothing but a
reckless girl. But Norah Linton was a grown woman who should have some notion
that this whole scheme was insane!
"It
was rash of me to come here," she admitted, sounding so reasonable that
Aidan wanted to wring her neck. "And it was wrong of your daughter to—to
concoct such a drastic scheme without telling you. But there's no need to rage
at the child. She made a simple mistake."
"There's
nothing simple about this disaster! There never is when Cass is involved! I'll
have to find some way to get you back to wherever you came from."
"It's
not a disaster unless you make it one!" Tears quivered just beneath the
stubborn tones of Cassandra's voice. "Papa, you should read her letters,
they're so kind. She's lonely just as you are and wants someone to love. She
didn't say it in exactly those words, but I know—"
"Please,"
the woman interrupted, a little desperately. "I know you didn't mean any
harm, but it's obvious this has been a mistake. There's no need to—to make it
worse by repeating what was in those letters."