Fortune's Lady (33 page)

Cass lost all color. She didn't know she'd stood up until she found herself on the other side of the room. “That's ridiculous,” she got out, trying to laugh. “I don't believe you.”

“I'm so sorry. But it's true, I swear it.”

She pressed her hands to her midriff against rising nausea. “It isn't true. It's a lie.”

Quinn was beside her, leaning toward her solicitously, seeming afraid to touch her. “I'm so terribly sorry.”

“It's a lie!” She couldn't get past that, couldn't make her lips form any other words.

“The man who married you wasn't the tollkeeper, you see—wasn't a resident of the village. Philip's friend Wallace found him and paid him to do it. He was a peddler, passing through on his way to Carlisle. The marriage wasn't legal. My dear—!” He caught her before she slid to the floor and supported her in his arms, depositing her gently in the windowseat.

“I'm all right.” She strained to sit up straight but kept slumping over against the wall. He held her ice-cold hands and chafed them. “It can't be true,” she said weakly, “it mustn't be.”

But even as she spoke there was a small, insistent voice inside that said it was. And she had always known it. Philip
wouldn't
have married her. The reason it had seemed like such a miracle was because it wasn't real. She remembered him shaking Wally's hand beside the bridge over the pond. He'd looked grateful, she recalled. Of course he hadn't married her. Of course.

“But we signed a paper!” she remembered suddenly. She wanted to throw off the heavy, dangerous fatalism that was engulfing her. “It would be proof.”

Quinn shook his head in sympathy. “It won't mean anything. If it still exists.”

Cass pulled her hands away and rose, refusing his help. She made her way to the garden door and leaned against it heavily. She was in too much pain to cry. She watched two squirrels in the locust tree chasing each other in circles. The late afternoon sun sent lovely angling shadows across the ivy on the high stone wall. She felt as if she were a prisoner who had been having a beautiful dream; Quinn had awakened her and her eyes were wide open now on the four walls of her cell.

Suddenly she whirled around and faced him. “It
can't
be true. I will not believe it. What could he imagine he would tell people afterward? That it was all a
joke
? It's despicable—he wouldn't do it!”

Quinn brought his folded hands to his chin and stared at her somberly. “I doubt he thought it through very carefully. Philip is a strongly sensual man. I've known him to go to great lengths to gratify his desires. But you're right, this passes all bounds. I imagine he thought you'd accept money and go away when it was over. I'm deeply ashamed of him, my dear. Deeply ashamed.”

“You're saying he pretended to marry me so he could sleep with me?”

“I'm sure he has some true feelings for you—”

“And he expects to give me
money
! So that I'll go—” At last she choked on the words and couldn't speak again. Her emotions were in turmoil, veering back and forth between outrage and disbelief. “But I have nowhere to go,” she whispered to herself.

Quinn heard. “Your aunt—?”

“No, that's not possible now.” Then she was defiant again. “I don't believe you! Mr. Quinn, you're only telling me this so I'll go to Wade!”

He looked away as if embarrassed. “In a way you're right. If I didn't need you so desperately, I would never have intruded into Philip's private business. But I do. You're the only one who can help now, Cassandra. Wade is dedicated to overthrowing this monarchy. If your word were all we needed, we could stop now, but it isn't. He's very wealthy and he's the son of an earl. We must catch him all but in the act. And we can't do it without you.” He went to her and took her hands again in what seemed a kindly grasp. “I know what a blow this is to you. If I'd known what would happen I'd never have introduced you to Philip in the beginning. You probably don't believe that, but it's true. But now it's too late, and I have no choice but to ask you to continue. For the king. For your country. To help put right the wrong your father tried to do.”

“Wasn't his death enough?” Her heart was breaking; she could barely speak.

“I'm afraid not. I'm asking you to give more.”

“And if I won't?”

He squeezed her icy fingers. “Then I lose. But so do you, I think. Cassandra, my poor child, he's not your husband.”

She extricated her hands and stepped away from him. “I must speak to him.”

“Yes, of course. But may I ask one favor?”

She shook her head unconsciously, but said, “What is it?”

“Don't tell him it was I who told you.”

“Why?”

“Because it would put an end to our friendship. Philip means the world to me, Cassandra—I love him as though he were my own son. I believe he feels the same about me. We're so different, he and I, and yet we love each other. And we need each other.”

Tears began to drift down her cheeks in helpless waves. “Why did you leave him, then?” she demanded thickly. “Why did you go away and leave him to his family?”

“I was summoned by the king, I had no choice! Do you think it didn't hurt me to leave him? I—” He turned away. “No, of course not. I'm the cold, impersonal spy, aren't I? I have no feelings, the sight of a sobbing, heartbroken boy means nothing to me—” He stopped again.

“I'm sorry,” she ventured, holding her hot cheeks and dashing the tears away. “Forgive me, I don't know what to think, what to believe. I can't talk anymore.”

“Wait! Please. Speak to Philip, do what you have to do. But know that Colin Wade's threat to the sovereign is very real. It's our responsibility now to set aside personal feelings if we can, no matter how strong or painful they are, and try to act in the best interests of our country. That's all I'm asking. Will you help?”

Standing in the doorway, pale and distraught, she answered, “I don't know.”

On her way upstairs, she heard men's voices coming from the drawing room. Philip's was strong and sure and persuasive, and the sound of it sent a dart of agony through her. She reached his room— their room—and went to his case, still unpacked, on the bed. Where was the paper they'd signed, their marriage certificate? She'd seen him pack it the morning they'd left Gretna Green. It must be here. “It won't mean anything,
if it still exists
,” Quinn had said.

It wasn't there. That fact fell into her head like a stone dropping down a bottomless cavern, sailing soundlessly through darkness. The marriage certificate wasn't there.

She sat down in a chair next to the bureau and clasped her hands on her knees. A maid entered presently. “Shall I unpack for you, ma'am?”

Cass stared at her a full ten seconds before her words sank in. She shook her head, staring intently. The girl went away, bewildered.

There was no marriage certificate. Riordan had shaken hands with Wally gratefully. And then she remembered the letter. He'd called their marriage a “stunt,” and thanked Wally for “pulling it off.” But the tollkeeper, Mr. Bean, had seemed so experienced, so knowing. “Whichever's whitest is the ones gettin' spliced, nine times outa ten.” A peddler, Quinn said. Wally had paid him.

She thought of the way Riordan had laughed at her the night she told him he'd have to marry her if he wanted her. Then he'd gone to Claudia. She hunched her shoulders in despair, seeing them the way they'd looked this afternoon in the jewelry shop. So handsome. So devoted. And she'd thought they'd only kissed in friendship; after a little while she hadn't even been upset.

She stood up, hugging herself. It was all true, then. She looked around the room. “You can change anything you want,” Riordan had said. She went to the fitted washstand between the windows. Pink tea roses made a delicate pattern on the fine china of the basin. A faint scent of lavender wafted up from the fresh water inside the pitcher. She lifted the heavy bowl with both hands, her arm muscles flexing from the weight. Brought it up to chest height. Shoved it down and away, watching it shatter into watery fragments on the polished wood floor.

She went to the bed and picked up her purse. The little maid who'd come before stood gaping and motionless in the doorway, drawn by the sound of smashed porcelain; she had to push her aside to get out of the room. She went downstairs and out the front door without stopping.

“Miss—Mrs.—” Walker called after her tentatively.

She turned, standing on the sidewalk. “Tell Mr. Riordan good-bye, John.”

“Yes, ma'am. Where are you going?” he thought to ask. “That is, if you—”

“I'm going to Beekman Place, to Mr. Wade's. I'll send for the rest of my things tomorrow.” She watched his mouth drop open before she started up the street at a brisk pace. At the corner, she turned right and disappeared.

Quinn stood in the library window, watching her out of sight. His clasped hands hid the front of his face. He seemed to be praying.

T
HE BRANDY LIT A
trail of fire in the back of her throat and set off a small conflagration in her stomach, but Cass welcomed the burning numbness that followed. She had to pull herself together. Halfway through her teary story, she'd realized the Cass Merlin that Wade knew wouldn't care a fig whether her marriage was legitimate or not, except as it affected her access to Riordan's money. She'd be angry, maybe humiliated, but not hurt. Certainly her heart wouldn't be shattered.

She rose from the red brocade sofa in Wade's overstuffed, opulently furnished drawing room and began to pace in front of the unlit fireplace. “That bastard!” she cried. She was doing it for his benefit, but she found it wasn't that difficult after all to simulate fury. “He tricked me, Colin, and I'm going to make him pay!”

Wade crossed his yellow-stockinged legs and sat back against a satin pillow, smiling up at her lazily. “He is a bastard, but we've always known that, haven't we, darling? And as much as you're going to hate it, I really think you should go back to him.”

“Go
back
! I wouldn't give him the satisfaction, the slimy son of a—” She bit her lip; cursing wasn't really her style.

He chuckled softly. “Then how else are you going to make him pay? Besides, I need you in his house to find out things.”

“What things?”

He wagged a finger at her. “Ah, ah, not yet; I told you I'm not ready to let you in on my plan.”

Cass fought down an urge to scream. This was unbearable. Quinn wanted her to spy on Wade, Wade wanted her to spy on Riordan, and she was stuck, like a fly on a pin, precisely in the middle.

“Look on the bright side, my love. He'll have to give you lots and lots of money now to keep you quiet. It's no worse than being his mistress, and you get the added bonus of respectability. For a little while, anyway.”

She tried to look as if this had cheered her. “Yes, but—I'd hoped to stay here with you for a few days, then look for a room somewhere. I'm just so angry with him, Colin.”

“Find a room somewhere? Have you got money, then?”

“Yes, I've—” She stopped, remembering she couldn't tell him the source of her funds—Oliver Quinn. “I have a little, from my father. Not much.”

“Really? I thought it was all confiscated.”

“It was. He—gave it to me before he was arrested. Oh, Colin, can't I stay here? I wouldn't be in your way. You'd hardly even know I was here, I promise.”

He watched her another moment, then unwrapped his legs and got up from the couch in his slow, drowsy way. He smiled in a manner she'd come to recognize and dread. “Do you really want to, Cass? Because if you did come, I'd want you in my way. I'd want it very much.”

She started to say that perhaps he was right, perhaps she ought to leave after all, when he took her hands and drew them behind her back, holding them with one of his. With his other he pulled her chin up. She was repulsed by his wet lips and the predatory gleam in his reddish-brown eyes. It took all her self-control not to flinch when he kissed her. Then his hand drifted down and he began to squeeze her breasts, not quite hard enough to hurt but more than enough to frighten.

From somewhere in the house came a terrific pounding noise. Cass jerked her head away and stared in horror at the door to the hallway. She tried to pull free from Wade's strange embrace but he held her still, a tiny anticipatory smile on his lips.

Footsteps sounded. Riordan strode through the door and stopped, the butler dancing in distress around him.

“I beg your pardon, sir, I couldn't stop him—he wouldn't give his name and he refused to—”

“It's all right, Martin. Leave us. Well, Riordan, the very man we were speaking of. Won't you come in? I can offer you sherry or—”

“Let go of my wife or I'll kill you.” Riordan's voice was chillingly matter-of-fact, but his face was a mask of black fury. Cass felt no fear, but Wade affected a laugh and dropped his arms quickly. Riordan held out a hand, his eyes never leaving Wade's. “Let's go, Cass.”

She didn't move. “Go to hell.”

He came closer. Wade put his hands in his pockets and took a noncombative step back. Cass remained motionless, arms at her sides. She watched Riordan's eyes shift from dark blue to black and felt a tiny ripple of danger.

“You can leave here on your feet or slung over my shoulder. It doesn't matter to me.”

She tried a disdainful smile, but her trembling lips spoiled the effect. “I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not going with you. I'm staying here.” She hoped he couldn't tell her knees were knocking against each other as she lifted her chin in defiance.

“Cassandra.” Wade spoke quietly, reasonably. “I really think it would be better if you went.”