"Do
you mean to tell me that you set up a correspondence with Miss Linton?"
Aidan roared.
"I
didn't.
You
did. I said everything I knew you would say if you dared let
your true feelings out."
The
notion of a fifteen-year-old girl whose head was stuffed with romantic nonsense
penning a letter in Aidan's name made his head spin. He hadn't blushed since he
was sixteen and his father had taken him 'round to his current light o' love to
rid his son of the troublesome burden of virginity. But as Aidan looked from
his daughter to Norah Linton, hot blood surged into his cheeks.
"My
true feelings?" he said through gritted teeth. "Let me make this very
clear, Cassandra:
I
do not want a wife."
Cassandra
cast Norah Linton a pleading glance. "He rode all night," she
attempted to explain. "He doesn't have the slightest idea what he's
saying. If you would pardon us for a moment."
"Devil
burn it!" Aidan protested. "I know exactly what I'm—"
Cass
grasped Aidan's hand, dragging him off behind the carved griffin bearing the
Gilpatricks' heraldic device.
"You
may not want a wife," Cassandra raged at him in scathing undertones,
"but I
do
want a mother!"
Aidan
reeled at her impassioned words. "Cass..." He tried to gentle his
voice, but it was roughened by her pain. A secret pain he had never suspected.
An empty place he thought she'd long since forgotten.
"Don't
you see, Papa? When I go to London, I want to be like everyone else." Her
words sliced deep into Aidan's soul, exposing stark impossibilities.
You're
not like everyone else. You never can be.
He
winced, remembering that adolescent desperation to fit in with the hordes of
young people who would descend upon London with their dreams in their hands,
ready to discover their futures.
But
she was continuing, so earnestly it broke his heart. "Papa, I want a
mother who will help me pick out gowns and explain so many things I don't
understand."
Aidan
felt as if she'd ripped away something indescribably precious. Something he
hadn't even noticed was slipping through his fingers. "You've always said
you can tell me anything."
She
caught his hands, squeezed them, hard. "Papa, I love you more than anyone
in the whole world. But you're a man! You can't tell me about things like—like
when to let a beau kiss my hand, or how to be certain that I'm in love."
"I
can
tell you that I'll thrash the daylights out of any whelp who dares
come near you." Aidan closed his eyes against the image of his proud
little Cass suffering through her first heartache. Because even with her
beauty, her wit, her courage, Aidan knew the odds were high that she'd suffer
more than one disappointment. Romantic youths were quick to abandon their
infatuations with "ineligibles" when they were confronted with the
harsh reality of the haute ton's disapproval. And there was no doubt that those
interfering snobs who had nothing better with which to occupy their minds than
gossip and ridicule would have a veritable feast of scandal to feed on when it
came to Cass.
He
sucked in a steadying breath, groping for the right words, as he had so many
times in the past. "Cass, we'll figure out how to deal with all that when
the time comes, just the way we always have before," he said, stroking
back one tangled silver-blond tress. "I understand that you feel the loss
of your mother." Aidan looked down at the ringlet that clung to his
finger, knowing that the one thing he had learned in his marriage to Delia was
that it was possible to grieve for something you never really had. "The
one thing I'm certain of is that dragging Miss Linton into our lives isn't
going to change the ache you feel."
"Why
not?" Cassandra's lashes were wet with tears, her eyes shining with
belligerence. Belligerence, all the more heart-wrenching because Aidan could
see beneath it her absolute faith that he wouldn't fail her, that he would deny
her nothing.
"Papa,
I want a mother more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. And soon it
will be too late. I'll be grown up. From the time I first came to Rathcannon,
I've watched the Cadagons with their babies and Mrs. O'Day with her little
ones. And I would have traded all my pretty things if just once I could run to
my own mother when I was sad, or sorry, or hurt."
Aidan
winced at the memory of how many scraped knees and bumped elbows he'd soothed.
But there had been far more bumps and bruises that he hadn't been at Rathcannon
to heal. He'd done his best to make certain Cassandra was surrounded with
people who adored her: Mrs. Brindle, the Cadagons, the O'Days, everyone from
the head butler to the lowliest stableboy.
He'd
told himself it didn't matter that no one carried the official title of Mother.
In fact, if he was brutally honest, he'd thought Cassandra well rid of Delia,
since the woman had possessed about as much maternal instinct as the stone
griffin. But the lack of a mother had obviously mattered to Cassandra. Just one
more bruised place in her spirit she'd kept hidden from him.
He
looked from his daughter, now holding that ridiculous doll, to the woman who
still stood silhouetted against the side of the coach, ash-pale, agonizingly
quiet.
Was
it possible that this stranger could give Cassandra something he could not? A
confidante to initiate Cass into the rites of becoming a woman? A protector if
her father should fail her?
"No,
damn it," Aidan muttered more to himself than the hopeful girl standing
beside him. "Hellfire and damnation, I would be mad to even consider...
Cassandra, for the love of God, girl! Think!"
"I
have
been thinking! Thinking and thinking until my head ached!"
"That's
enough! God's teeth, Cass! You're acting like a spoiled child!" Aidan
snapped. If only she had been. Instead, she was facing him with the aura of a
most determined young woman.
"If
you don't marry her, I'll never forgive you for taking this chance away from
me!" Cassandra said, her eyes shimmering with tears she was fighting not
to shed. Never." She wheeled as the first tear fell and ran up the stairs.
Aidan
swore. When had his daughter—his willful, strong, adorable little Cass—become
prey to those wild, hysterical vapors the fair sex seemed given to? When he'd
left her last, she'd seemed so blasted rational, reasonable... asking him such
sweet questions: Are you happy, Papa? Do you ever get lonely, Papa? This visit,
were she to query him, the question would be
Do you mind if I ruin your
life, Papa?
He
would be willing to promise her the moon if it would make her dry her eyes. But
marriage?
Bind himself until death to a woman?
He
shifted his gaze to where the woman stood—what the blazes was her name? Lyndon?
Mitton? Something as unremarkable as her face. The name Linton finally came to
his mind.
Still,
he could hardly leave her standing out here. He walked toward her, his arms
folded across his chest. Why did she suddenly look fragile? Forlorn?
"Well,
I suppose there's nothing to do but take you inside," he allowed
grudgingly. "I can hardly leave you standing in the carriage circle until
I figure out what to do with you."
"I
am not your responsibility, sir," she said in that frosty way Englishwomen
had that had always tempted Aidan to try to melt them. "I'm certain there
must be an inn nearby."
"There
is. Fifteen miles away. But the only way you are going to get there, madam, is
to walk, and it's a damn sight too far for you to try it."
There
was just enough fire under that icy voice of hers to taunt him. "Sir
Aidan, you have made it absolutely clear what you think of me. If you think I
would consider inconveniencing you any further after you've bellowed at me,
humiliated me, and maligned everything from my intelligence to my appearance,
you are much mistaken."
She
was making him feel like a bastard. It infuriated him. Mainly because she was
right.
Aidan
set his teeth. "Madam," he said very carefully, aware of a bevy of servants
who had heard the ruckus and gathered to peep out the door. "I think we've
both made fools of ourselves long enough for one morning, don't you? If you
don't march yourself up to that castle right now, I am going to throw you over
my shoulder like a common tavern wench and haul you inside myself."
Her
eyes widened, and she took a step backward. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Wouldn't
I? I rode all night half drunk in an effort to get here from Dublin. I've got a
daughter who has some demented notion that she wants you for her mother. And
whether I want to deal with you or not, the truth is that my daughter's
mischief is what brought you here in the first place, so I
am
responsible
for you. At least as responsible as a man can be for a scatter-brained..."
He bit down on the words, cutting them off, battling for control of his badly
frayed temper. "In other words, Miss Linton," he said carefully,
"it's not even nine o'clock in the morning, and already it's been one of
the worst goddamn days of my life. To top the whole thing off, it's supposed to
be my birthday." It sounded ridiculous, even to Aidan's own ears.
"I'll
offer you my felicitations when I leave this disaster behind." Nothing she
could have said would have made him feel more the fool.
"Don't
worry, madam," Aidan said. "No one is in a greater hurry to hasten
your departure than I am. But until then, we'll just have to limp along as best
we can." He signaled the footman. "Put the lady's trunk in the Blue
Room."
He
saw the footman's jaw drop open.
"Is
there some problem, Sipes?" Aidan shot the youth such a glare the boy
flushed scarlet.
"Of
course not, sir. It's just that no one has stayed there since—since, well...
I'm certain it's not prepared for occupancy."
"Then
prepare it."
"Aye,
sir. I'll make certain Rose does so right away, sir." The footman heaved
up the trunk.
"Is
there something amiss about the room?" Norah asked, unease flickering in
her dark eyes. "I'd not want to inconvenience anyone."
"You're
a damn sight too late to be worrying about that," Aidan grumbled. "As
for the chamber assigned to you, it's perfect." Aidan flashed her a
diabolical smile, possessed by an unholy need to unnerve her. "It belonged
to the last Lady Kane—a fitting place for you, since you were so eager to take
her place. If I should change my mind, and become tempted to matrimony, I
figure it would be best if I were within easy reach of you so I can sample what
you've offered so prettily."
It
was a damnable thing to say, but Aidan believed he would have said far worse to
assure that he dashed the last of any romantic notions this woman had woven
about her mysterious bridegroom.
The
woman's face went scarlet. "I cannot imagine anything that would induce me
to marry you now. And unless you want your other eye blackened, you had better
not attempt to sample anything."
Aidan
reached up his fingers to touch the bruise he'd all but forgotten and fought
not to heave an audible sigh of relief. "Perhaps my birthday can be
salvaged after all. Sipes will show you to your room." He watched Norah
disappear through the door through which a tearful Cassandra had fled, and it
seemed as if an eternity had passed in that brief time since he'd charged out
into the sunlight, laughing with his daughter.
Barely
a heartbeat later, here he was, with Cassandra crying her eyes out and a woman
he'd never seen before taking up residence in the Blue Room.
Perhaps
he had acted like a bastard, thrusting the Linton woman into the chamber
adjoining his own. And yet, it seemed the perfect location for this "bride"
Cassandra had dredged up for him.
Every
time he looked at the Englishwoman he would remember the nights Delia had
hurled out her contempt of Rathcannon—the servants, the castle, and everything
Irish. Most especially Aidan himself.
Surely,
if he ensconced the woman in the middle of such relentless reminders of his
disastrous first marriage, even Cassandra couldn't tempt him to slip his neck
into the matrimonial noose again.
Could
she?
His
gaze flicked to the door where the Englishwoman had disappeared, and Aidan
battled a sudden urge to race after her and haul her back outside. To stuff the
woman back into the coach and send her careening off to God knew where—
anywhere, away from him.
The
man who hadn't quailed from charging hordes of Napoleon Bonaparte's Frenchmen
swallowed hard, reaching up a hand to wipe away the beads of sweat suddenly
dampening his brow.
There
was only one thing to do, Aidan resolved: He would have to get that woman away
from Rathcannon as soon as possible.
* * * * *
Norah
trudged in the wake of the footman, her stomach churning with hopelessness, the
sick, wrenching futility of it all. She had failed, miserably. Completely.
She'd made a total fool of herself before this hard-eyed Irishman she'd dared
to weave dreams about for such a brief and precious time.