"You,
above anyone, should know better than to heed idle gossip," Richard said,
returning to the table. "I have provided Norah with a husband; as her
brother I could do nothing less." He trailed one fingertip along a
gold-embossed leaf bedecking the book's binding.
Cirlot
splashed more brandy into his crystal goblet. "Just show Millhaven the
book and be done with your infernal gloating."
Richard
extended the volume to Millhaven. The drunken nobleman snatched it from him and
scanned the lines penned on the page. Millhaven's face went still with awe.
"A
thousand pounds, Farnsworth!" Millhaven exclaimed with stunned
fascination. "I'll pay you a thousand pounds if you carry these wagers to
the bitter end."
"Oh,
I shall see them to the end, I assure you," Richard said evenly. "And
when I do, I will achieve what I have desired for so long: Sir Aidan Kane's
destruction."
* * * * *
There
was nothing like a wedding to give a man indigestion. Even attending a ceremony
in which another man put his neck in the matrimonial noose had always been
enough to make Aidan lose his appetite for a week. And the threat of a
prospective bride under his own roof was positively nausea-inspiring.
He
sat at the head of the long table in Rathcannon's dining chamber, the candles
guttering in the sconces, the remains of his solitary dinner long since swept
away. Time could more easily be measured by the number of times the glass of
Madeira in Aidan's hand had needed to be refilled than by the ticking of the
clock on the mantle.
The
celebratory birthday meal had—predictably—been a disaster. Wan and tragic as
any beleaguered heroine upon a London stage, Cassandra had dragged herself to
the table long enough to see if Miss Linton had come to dinner. When informed
that the lady had begged to be excused, Cass had drooped back out of the room.
Aidan hadn't had the energy to stop her.
Cassandra
had spent the entire rest of the evening fortressed up in her tower chamber,
waiting, no doubt, for the sound of her father's step on the stone stairs so
that she could enact a truly spectacular bout of theatrics.
But
Aidan wouldn't have dared that chamber tonight if every cutthroat in Ireland
had been charging at his heels. No, Aidan thought, slinging back another fiery
gulp of the liquor. There was no way in hell he was giving his daughter a
chance to incite him to madness. A madness that could all too easily end at an
altar with him trussed up as a human sacrifice.
Aidan
grimaced. If he'd stayed in Dublin, right now he'd be sampling the charms of
the beautiful if temperamental Stasia. He would be playing at hazard or faro or
piquet with a convivial tableful of men whose most dastardly intention toward
him might be a simple sword thrust over a bad throw of the dice, or a swift,
merciful pistol shot through some insignificant part of his anatomy.
He
could be barreling down the road in a curricle race, grazing the wheels of
passersby and listening to their curses with great relish. But no. Here he sat,
his daughter in high dudgeon and some woman he'd never seen before setting up housekeeping
for the night in the room adjoining his bedchamber.
Well,
she wouldn't be inhabiting the chamber for long, by Triton's beard. He'd sent a
rider off to make arrangements to hurtle Miss Dora—or was it Laura?—Lytton off
to London post haste. By this time tomorrow night, the Englishwoman would be on
her way, and he could set himself to important matters, like finding something
to distract his daughter from her disappointment. Perhaps a new gown or a
trinket, or that lovely little mare Adam Dunne was breaking over at Ballylaire.
If Aidan could just convince him to part with it...
Damn,
he was doing it again! Rewarding the rebellious chit for her mischief! How many
times had Mrs. Brindle warned him that such a practice would only make the girl
incorrigible. He'd brushed off the admonition as he had so many others. But
now, confronted with the coil Cassandra's headstrong ways had embroiled him in,
Aidan couldn't help but wonder if the Old Battle Axe was right.
Aidan's
jaw clenched. Maybe it was time to take the girl in hand. Teach Cassandra some
discipline. Oh, yes, and Aidan Kane would be such a perfect one to preach
propriety to his daughter! The very notion made his head ache. Far better for
him to light out for Dublin, maybe even London, and leave the taming of
Cassandra to Mrs. Brindle. She needed a woman's touch, and the only women Aidan
consorted with were of an ilk totally unsuitable to be held up as models for a
proper young miss.
I
don't want a wife, Cassandra.
Aidan's words echoed in his mind, and he
could see his daughter's face, determined and yet vulnerable, suddenly so
infernally young.
I
do want a mother!
Cassandra
had cried.
Someone to teach me so many things....
"Papa?"
For
a heartbeat, Aidan thought that the soft query was just one more whisper of his
own imagination. He angled a glance over his shoulder, to see Cassandra framed
in the doorway. A cozy wrapper with tiny bluebirds wreathed about the collar
flowed to the tops of her insteps. Her pale-gilt hair was tangled, and her eyes
had that heavy look Aidan knew was the result of a bout of tears. Her fingers
plucked at a ribbon tied about whatever she clutched in her hand.
She
hovered in the doorway for long seconds, looking uncertain, more than a little
lost, as if wondering what kind of reception he would give her.
A
wiser man might have remembered his sense of caution and steeled himself
against her. Instead, Aidan opened up his arms.
Cassandra
ran and flung herself into them, and Aidan cuddled her close, as he had when
she had been barely an armful of ruffles and hair ribbons.
"Papa,
I'm sorry you didn't like the surprise. I truly thought that once you thought
about it, you'd come to like her."
Aidan
stroked the girl's hair. "I'm certain you had the best of intentions,
sweeting. But you can't just go about arranging other people's lives to suit
you."
Cassandra
sniffed, and Aidan rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief. Grasping her chin
gently between two fingers, he turned her face up to his, dabbing at her cheeks
as he had when she was small. A forlorn sob shuddered through her.
"I
know, Papa. I know it sounds childish, but I wanted her for me. I kept thinking
and thinking, and I couldn't get it out of my mind."
"Get
what out of your mind, sweeting?"
"That
the worst thing in the whole world was to be all alone."
"I'm
not going to leave you alone." His own voice was unsteady, and he reached
out a hand to cup her cheek.
"But
what would happen to me if—if you died?" The tremulous question struck
Aidan with the force of a Celtic broadsword.
"How
did you get such a crazed notion in your head? There's nothing to concern
yourself—"
"You
could get sick, Papa. There could be an accident. I'd have no one."
"Despite
my advanced age, I'm scarcely at death's door. I'm not planning to die for a
very long time." He touched the tip of her nose with his finger. "The
angels wouldn't have me, and the devil would be afraid I'd take over his
domain."
"It's
not funny, Papa. My mother didn't plan to die either. It just...
happened."
Happened?
No, Aidan thought with a flood of bitterness, it hadn't just
happened.
Delia
Kane had put herself into danger on purpose, not giving a damn what the
consequences would be as long as she could get revenge on the husband she
hated. When the carriage had overturned, she'd had no one to blame but herself.
She'd been reckless and foolhardy, courting disaster the way she had wooed
countless lovers.
Aidan
froze at the thought of revelations he didn't want to face. Truths about
himself that were sobering.
Wasn't
that what he did every time he rode away from Rathcannon? Dash himself into a
hundred different situations where the mere flick of a sword blade, the blast
of a pistol barrel, the wild charge of horse or curricle could send him
catapulting into hell?
He'd
made certain Cassandra would be cared for in the event of his death. His
solicitors had enough money in trust to allow her to live in the luxury she was
accustomed to. But as to who would protect her, shelter her...
love
her...
he hadn't dealt with that. It was too painful. But it was obvious from the
expression on Cassandra's face that she had thought about it enough for the
both of them.
"Oh,
Princess..." Aidan stroked her cheek, aching for her.
She
was peering up at him through tear-spiked lashes, contrite, chastened, in a way
that made Aidan suspect he'd do anything to see her smile.
"Papa,
I'm sorry that I didn't warn you before Miss Linton arrived." A tiny
crease appeared between soft blond brows. "I know it was... was probably a
silly idea. But if you didn't want to marry anyone else, I guess I hoped you
wouldn't mind very much if I asked you to marry her. Her letters were so
wonderful. So..." She pulled the beribboned bundle from where it had been
half hidden by the folds of her wrapper. "I brought them to you. I
thought— thought you might want to read—" Her voice caught. "Never
mind. I love you, Papa. I'm sorry I ruined your birthday."
With
that she slipped from his arms and started toward the door, leaving the bundle
of letters in his lap.
"Cass,"
Aidan called after her. She paused and looked over her shoulder, her lips
trembling.
"You
know, you could pull the whole castle down on my head, and I would still think
you were the most wonderful creature ever born. I would do anything in my power
to make you happy, Princess."
"Would
you, Papa?" It was the softest of questions, the most moving of pleas.
Aidan
turned toward the stone-carved fireplace and stared into the flames. He was
dead certain he would walk through fire for his beloved daughter.
The
question was, did he have the courage—no, the stark insanity—to risk a far more
dangerous hell? To repeat to another woman the wedding vows he had exchanged
with Delia so many years before? Vows that had sent them both upon their
separate paths down to perdition?
Blast
it, that was too much to ask of him. Too much even for Cassandra.
Papa,
I don't want to be alone....
His
daughter's words wisped back to him, curling deep into his soul where his own
most painful secrets lay, shattering him more deeply than any other words could
have.
They
pulsed there inside him as the night wore on, tugging at him the way Cass's
tiny fingers had when she was small, insistent, compelling, the only thing that
could move Sir Aidan Kane's jaded heart.
Twice
he nearly threw the bundle of letters into the fire. When he finally pulled the
ribbon free, and the first pages fell into his hands, he cursed himself for a
fool.
I
understand the pain of searching for a kindred spirit, needing someone to
banish the loneliness. I have often felt the same. Ghosts of the past can be a
horrible burden, yet so can a future without children, a home, a husband.
Perhaps, as you said, we can find a way to heal each other.
As
he
had said? Aidan's cheeks flamed, a sick churning in his stomach.
Pain? Loneliness? Goddamn kindred spirits?
Sweet
Jesus, what had Cassandra written to this woman, that Norah Linton would send
such a reply? What ridiculous caricature had Cass painted of him? Some hero
spun of her fairy stories? Some Galahad or noble knight-errant? Even more
alarming, what had she told this Englishwoman about the past, and the ghosts
that still stalked Rathcannon?
Aidan
ran his fingers through his hair, fighting back a stab of panic. He was getting
himself in a blather over nothing. The girl could not know of Aidan's secret
hauntings. Cassandra had no way of discovering the truth of what had happened
the night her mother died. He had made certain of that, because he'd suspected
from the first that such knowledge would destroy her.
No.
It was far more likely Cassandra had been overdramatizing matters in the
letter, playing things out like some melodrama upon a stage, the way she had
every trial she'd faced from the first blot on her copybook to a tumble from
her horse.
And
heaven knew, the girl had inherited her ancestors' gift of persuasion. The gift
that had made enemies raise their portcullises in battle could hardly have
faltered at such a simple task as luring some lonely woman to journey to Ireland.
Especially
when the method of convincing the woman to take such an insane risk was by
making her intended bridegroom sound like a wounded hero, tormented,
despairing. What the devil was it with women that they should be obsessed from
the cradle with healing such a man?
Aidan
grimaced. He had long since quit trying to understand that suicidal feminine
impulse and had merely enjoyed the benefits of such tender passions in the beds
of the women who hoped to tame his demons. Demons he had joyfully embraced so
many years before.