Patricia Rice (30 page)

Lady Merrick refused to admit the truth of that. “You cannot
mix meadowsweet with roses,” she remonstrated. “It is vulgar.”

Cassandra’s smile brightened. Meadowsweet. Now she knew what
to call the white flowers. “I like the mix.” Defiantly she set the vase in the
center of the Adam mantel.

Not having yet learned the danger signal of Cassandra’s
smile, the countess blundered on. “You have no talent for that sort of thing. I
have supervised the flower gardens for decades. I ought to know.”

The challenge was flung, and Cassandra rose to accept it. “The
gardens are cold and formal and not at all as I would like. I think I shall ask
Wyatt if I might have a corner to do as I wish.”

As the dowager turned purple, Cassandra donned a radiant
smile and swept out, signaling a footman to fetch the smelling salts. At least
once a day she succeeded in sending the dowager into the vapors. The sport was growing
tedious.

Restless, she retired to her chamber to change into a riding
habit. Despite her outrageous threats, she had not attempted to interfere in
the day-to-day operations of the household. She felt an outsider, an impostor,
and she did not assert what little authority she possessed.

Lotta had reported that the servants were whispering among
themselves about the hastiness of the marriage. They had little knowledge of
the legality of annulments, but sensitive feelers for scandal. She knew better
than to upset the apple cart when it stood on such precarious grounds.

The brilliant blue riding habit Wyatt had ordered for her
made her happy as Lotta helped her to don it. The long train of the skirt swept
elegantly about her feet, and the tailored jacket made her feel like a countess
even if she were not.

Cassandra admired the lovely fragility of the Queen Anne
furniture, the white eyelet and lace of the bed hangings, and the splashes of
pale green on pillows and carpets that created this chamber next to Wyatt’s.
She had made few changes, liking the room just as it was. Wyatt had insisted
that she needed a room of her own to escape the activity of the household. She
had not understood his insistence at first, but she did now. This was her
haven. No one could intrude unless invited, even Wyatt.

Not that he needed any invitation. She smiled at the memory
of last night when he had swept her from the piano bench and carried her
daringly into the elegant state bedchamber and made love to her on the
gold-embroidered tapestry that covered the not-to-be-touched gilded bed. She
had slept in his arms every night of this week. The nights were the happiest of
her life.

The days presented a problem. Cassandra pulled on her riding
gloves and started down the stairs. Problems had a way of taking care of
themselves after a while. Right now, all she needed was fresh air.

Wyatt had insisted that a groom accompany her whenever she
went out. She knew he feared she would crack her head on another branch, but it
was a dreadful nuisance to be followed all about. Still, he had been so
thoughtful about everything else, she could afford to make this one concession.

The bars of the trap he had caught her in seemed remarkably flexible.
She did as she pleased, went where she pleased. She didn’t know how long Wyatt
would remain so complacent, but perhaps if they didn’t go about much in
society, she could learn to live this way. But could Wyatt?

It was another of those things that nagged at her
conscience. Turning her mount to the apple orchard, Cassandra kicked her heels
and drove the thought out of her head.

In the orchard, she surprised a handful of village urchins
seeking the young green apples among the branches. The few children on the
ground squealed and ran away as she approached. With amusement, she noted the
others pretended to blend in with the leaves. They weren’t terribly successful.

The groom offered to pull the “little beggars” down, but
Cassandra shook her head. Riding up under the branch where the smallest hid,
she called up to her. “Those apples will make you sick. You’ll have to wait
until they’re ripe. I know where there’s a lovely cherry tree. Why don’t we go
see if the cherries are ripe yet? Then we can have Cook make us some pies.”

The child looked terrified and clung to the branches, but a
bigger boy leaned down from a higher roost and gave her a suspicious glance. “Who
are you?”

“Lady Merrick,” she answered without a qualm. “And these are
my trees. I used to climb them when I was your age, but I waited until the
apples were red. Bring your friends, and I’ll show you the cherries. I’ve grown
too big to climb up in the branches anymore.”

They seemed to accept that ingenuous statement. With whoops
and laughter they tumbled from the trees and ran in the direction that
Cassandra led them. Judging by the pained look on the groom’s face, Wyatt would
raise an unholy ruckus when he discovered what she’d done, but it was time she
tested the bars of her cage. If he didn’t understand that she had no concept of
property rights by now, he never would.

By the time the afternoon ended, the entire household
understood that the new regime had a wholly different vision of propriety than
the old. The head gardener nearly fainted at the sight of a horde of little
urchins scavenging his prized cherry trees. The cook, a more prosaic lady with
children of her own, merely shook her head in bemusement as the kitchen filled
with dirty gremlins carrying pails of ripe and unripe cherries.

The new countess herself looked disheveled and windblown as
she led the grubby crew through the enormous kitchens to a basin, where she
ordered small hands to be washed. She failed to mention faces, and
juice-smeared mouths grinned when she had to fetch a rag and wipe them herself.

The commotion inevitably reached the ears of the dowager,
who promptly sought her son in his study. Wyatt lifted his brows at his mother’s
incoherent tirade, and shrugging, followed her through the corridors to the
kitchens he seldom saw.

As the dowager glared at the scene, Wyatt halted in the
doorway to absorb the magnificence of this chaos. He beamed at the sight of his
brilliant sun goddess with flour dotting her nose and cherry juice smeared
across her cheek. The neat pile of tresses he had noted with approval at the
breakfast table now hung in tattered wisps about her face and throat, and
occasionally she brushed at them, accounting for the interesting pattern of
food across her face.

She sang some foolish song he greatly suspected she had
invented on the spot, since it involved cherries and cherry pies, but the
children chanted the refrain with delight. His brows lifted even higher at the
sight of a half-dozen village urchins patting at rounds of dough and covering
themselves and half the kitchen in flour. His pulse palpitated at the thought
of the tantrums the temperamental staff had thrown in the past, but they were
laughing and singing and nudging each other while pretending he wasn’t there.

He didn’t have to be told that his cherry trees had been
stripped, that the cherry jam he so enjoyed would be in short supply this year,
and that the cherry tarts meant for his table would be filling the bellies of
these urchins. He ought to raise a fearful scold or Cassandra would think she
was entitled to turn his household into an uproar at every whim and fancy.

But as he watched her flute the pie crust, using the pudgy
little fingers of the smallest tot, he could not bear to interrupt. He could
not remember the last time he had seen a child run riot through the household,
nor heard the sound of joyous laughter. He was just realizing what his orderly
life had been missing.

His mother continued to glare at him, but Wyatt had a notion
that a silly grin was spreading across his face.

“Wyatt! Do not stand there like a blithering idiot! We’ll
have no dinner tonight if this continues. Make them stop this commotion at
once!”

The dowager’s voice carried. Cassandra glanced up and her
lips curved in a genuine smile of delight, illuminating the entire kitchen. The
children instantly silenced in awe at sight of the grand earl himself.

“I’m not certain I’ve quite got that melody.” Wyatt advanced
into the now quiet kitchen, humming. “How did it go? ‘Cherries, lovely
cherries, sweeter than sugar in the summertime’?” He sang the refrain he had
heard earlier.

Cassandra’s smile grew even brighter as she joined him. The
children laughed when she plopped a fat fruit into the earl’s mouth before he
could finish the song, and juice dribbled down his chin before he could swallow
it.

When Wyatt wreaked revenge by kissing Cassandra’s cheek with
his juicy mouth, the dowager gave a squeak of fury and departed in a huff. No
one noticed or cared.

The fact that his dinners weren’t served on time, that his
mother suffered the megrims daily, and that the neighbors stared at him as if
he were gone mad did not diminish Wyatt’s enjoyment of Cassandra’s vibrant
presence. She had the gardeners in a snit, the grooms in shock, and the kitchen
in song.

Lotta and Jacob had appointed themselves lady’s maid and
valet respectively, and upon occasion usurped the duties of head housekeeper
and butler, causing these worthies to threaten to give notice. Merrick heard
their complaints and referred them to Cassandra, who cajoled them with promises
he didn’t care to investigate. He rather suspected that the wages of his staff
were about to double, and he would be supporting them all into doddering old
age, but he was too happy to care.

When his mother caught him singing one of Cassandra’s
nonsense songs as he threw the morning’s post upon the fire, the dowager held
her hand to her heart and stared at him as if he had truly taken leave of his
senses.

“What has come over you, Wyatt?” she demanded when she
gained her breath. “You go about as if you were a heedless child. You cannot
discard letters as if they are of no importance. You have
always
answered your correspondence. What has she done to you?”

Wyatt flipped another invitation into the growing pyre as he
considered his mother’s question. True, he was being irresponsible by ignoring
his social obligations. And she was right, he was behaving like a child,
singing silly songs and dreaming silly dreams and generally enjoying himself
rather than facing the consequences of what he had done.

But as he considered what he had done, a happy grin formed.
He had found a woman who made him want to sing. He had started a child after
all these lonely years of craving one. He had kidnapped a wife, bedded a
goddess, and eradicated the desperate loneliness of these cold halls. He knew
very well what Cassandra had done to him. “She made me love her, Mother.
Astonishing, wouldn’t you say?”

And singing to himself, the elegant and proper Earl of
Merrick went in search of his hoyden mistress.

~*~

“Wyatt, you must stop her at once!”

Wyatt choked and nearly strangled on his cravat as the
bedroom door slammed open. Jacob efficiently removed the mangled linen but
remained out of the line of fire as the earl swung around to face his furious
wife.

“Normal people knock before they enter,” he said. It was
obvious Cassandra had not even begun to dress for dinner, and he had invited
the Scheffings tonight.

Irate, she shoved a tumbling lock of hair from her face. “Your
mother has ordered all my flower arrangements thrown out before the guests
arrive. You know I have not come to you with complaints before, but I will not
have this! I have worked so hard to make these rooms look lived in, and she is
ordering it all thrown out! I will not have it, Wyatt!”

He thought she might follow this tirade by stamping her
foot, but she apparently checked the impulse to do so. Stormy blue eyes awaited
his reaction, and Wyatt held out his hand for his cravat. He had known
Cassandra and his mother would never get on. He was aware of the many
altercations that had taken place this past week and more. He knew of only one
solution to end them, but he hated to make that decision unless forced.

“Can we not have this argument later, Cass?” He lifted his
chin and tried to arrange the folds of linen into some respectability, but he
was unaccustomed to having an audience. “The Scheffings will arrive shortly.”

Cassandra came across the room and brushed his fingers aside,
assembling the linen with nimble fingers. “Did you not have a valet before
Jacob arrived?” she inquired.

“Mother dismissed him for insubordination.” Wyatt grinned at
the fierce look on her face. “I gave him good references and found him a new
position, so don’t look at me like that. You will just have to learn that she
is accustomed to having things her own way.”

Cassandra patted the linen in place and turned to Jacob. “You
are not dismissed unless I say you are, Jacob, is that understood?”

Wyatt caught her by the back of the neck. “Have I nothing to
say in the matter?”

Crossly she walked away from his hold. “No. If your mother
told you to dismiss him, you would. You are much too nice. I shall go
downstairs and tell her I’ll set fire to her bed hangings one night when she’s
asleep if she touches one petal of those flowers.”

She stormed out. When Jacob turned a fearful look to see how
his employer was taking this tantrum, he stared in wonder as the earl’s
shoulders shook in mirth.

Catching the servant’s eyes, Wyatt refused to stifle a
disgraceful grin. “I daresay she would, wouldn’t she? Does anyone know how the
old manse burned down?”

Jacob looked properly horrified but held his tongue. If
anyone knew the answer to that question, it would be Lotta.

Merrick noted the flowers were still standing when he
arrived downstairs to greet his guests. Cassandra had an eye for color, but the
arrangements reflected her rather capricious habits. Wildflowers mingled with
cultivated roses and shrubbery to form airy but far-from-formal bouquets. The
petals from one shrub were already making a snowfall on the polished foyer
table. At one time, he would have ordered it removed. Now he rather approved of
the splash of color.