Patricia Rice (38 page)

Walking to the window overlooking the park, she stared out
at the dusky landscape. The moon was trying to rise just over the hill. The
silhouettes of trees tossed restlessly in the breeze, and Cassandra
contemplated rushing out to join them. The pain inside her needed some release.

Dropping the curtain, she turned back to face the bed. She
had lost Wyatt that night as certainly as if he had died. She had humiliated
him by interfering where she wasn’t wanted. She had lost her temper and her
courage and behaved like a wicked child. And then she had run away.

She had done what little she could before running away. She
knew nothing of nursing wounds. So she had found a physician to do what she
couldn’t.

It had been such a nightmare. She had wanted to run and cry
and have Wyatt take her in his arms, but he hadn’t even known she was there, or
even seemed to care. She’d been useless and could have only brought him more
problems. He hadn’t seemed in much pain. A dying man wouldn’t rise up and try
to kill Jacob.

And she couldn’t face the fact that a man had died because
of her, even if Rupert had deserved to die.

Then, discovering that the distinguished man directing the
proceedings was her father... Well, that had been the finish of what remained
of her equilibrium. Her own
father
had stood there and pulled the trigger that killed her husband. Or her false
husband. She still couldn’t sort out the right and wrong of it.

Her father hadn’t seemed a violent man. Her marriage had
seemed
very real. She could no longer
believe her own senses. These last weeks her father had tried hard to be kind
to her. Her mother evidently still idolized him. But he had killed Rupert.

Restless, Cassandra couldn’t climb into her empty bed, but
sought the comfort of the small fire smoldering in the grate. Pulling her bare
feet under her, she curled up in a chair and stared at the dying embers. From
all she’d heard, Rupert had been a worse bastard than she had ever imagined.

Jacob’s sister and nephew would still be starving on the
streets if Rupert hadn’t died. And Rupert would have haunted her the rest of
her life had he lived. She knew that, but it was difficult to accept the
concept of death. She couldn’t even mourn a man she had thought her husband.
Did that make her evil?

She wished Wyatt were here to explain these things. She knew
she wasn’t the sort to think things through and make sense of them. That night,
she would gladly have killed Rupert herself and considered the consequences
later. But once a man lay sprawled on the ground, his life’s blood seeping out
of him, it was too late to consider consequences.

Leaning her head back against the chair, she tried to
imagine how her father had felt when he had seen Rupert shoot one man and aim
at another. He must have known then what kind of husband she had been given to.
He had done the same thing she would have done in his place. She knew now where
she had inherited her impulsiveness.

Her hand spread across the slight swelling of her abdomen.
Would Merrick’s child be the same way?

If he wanted the child, he couldn’t cast her off too easily.
Merrick couldn’t be so cruel as to separate her from her child.

That gave her a toehold of sorts. Did she have what it took
to break through that barrier and make him accept her?

~*~

The day of Jacob and Lotta’s wedding began with a steady
drizzle, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the happy couple. Cassandra stood
up with Lotta, and Bertie was impressed in Merrick’s place as Jacob’s best man.
The company was an interesting assemblage of Merrick servants and townspeople.
Even Jacob’s sister, the new widow, and her son were there to bless the
proceedings and to add spice to the gossip that flowed like fine wine through
the congregation.

Afterward, much to the dowager’s horror, Cassandra invited
the assemblage to a gala reception at the mansion. As the clouds cleared away,
fiddlers played on the lawn, lanterns were lit, and ale kegs were breached. The
village might have been deprived of viewing the earl’s marriage to his new
countess, but this celebration substituted rather better, since everyone could
take part. Cassandra viewed the crowd with proud success as Jacob led Lotta
onto the lawn to begin the dancing.

Arriving unnoticed in the confusion, Wyatt signaled the
footman who opened the door to silence and watched the gaiety from the
conservatory. Still clutching the extravagantly expensive bundle of French lace
he had searched all of London to locate, he studied on the festivity. He sought
and found Cassandra and hungrily drank in the sight he had dreamed of these
many weeks.

She wore her glorious hair pinned up and wound in primrose
ribbons that accented fiery hues and spun in tantalizing whirls around her face
and throat. Her gown was all that was proper, but the gauzy material filling
her neckline could not conceal the womanly curves beneath.

Eagerly he sought the changes the child she carried would
make, but the distance and the growing dark were too great. Still, he watched
as she threw back her head in laughter, kissed Jacob on the cheek, and lifted a
mug in toast to the new couple. She was alive and well and here. He could
scarcely ask for more.

When he saw Thomas approach and beg her for a dance, Wyatt’s
eyes narrowed jealously, and he started for the door. To his surprise,
Cassandra laughed and shook her head and linked her arm with the boy’s and led
him to one of the village girls standing wistfully on the edges of the crowd.
Wyatt felt so proud of her that he near burst with the pleasure, and his hand
halted on the door latch.

He was weary from the reckless pace he’d made to get here as
soon as the physician had released him for travel. He was covered with the
filth of the road, and he knew he looked more ghost than human. It wouldn’t do
to terrify them all by his appearance. Bertie had assured him they didn’t know
he had been ill. Cassandra seemed content for the moment. Before he destroyed
everyone’s joy, he would prepare himself.

Sending commands for a bath, Wyatt climbed the stairs to his
chambers. He had made some decisions in these weeks. For one thing, he knew he
wasn’t made for a life of deceit and trickery. Perhaps honesty had its boring
moments, but it didn’t end up in duels and death. Cassandra would just have to
learn to endure his propriety, and the first step toward that was to make an
honest woman of her.

He expected a vociferous argument. She would rail and shout
and throw things at him. He wasn’t in any condition to throw her over his
shoulder and carry her to the nearest preacher with the special license
crackling in his pocket. But he would prevail. He had to.

The invitation and her father’s permission rested in the
same pocket with the license. The only document missing was Cassandra’s
consent. She had never answered his letters. He hadn’t heard one word in reply
to his passionate pleas. He knew he had hurt her. He knew the duel had probably
been as fatal to Cass’s capricious emotions as it had been for Rupert, but he
still couldn’t believe she would deny the child she carried a name. Now that
the world knew her marriage to Rupert was null, it was even more imperative
that she be legally bound to him, for the child’s sake.

Mulling over Cassandra’s odd behavior, Wyatt undressed and
soaked in the bath. He knew little about women. He could not compare Cass’s
behavior to many examples and try to determine why she hadn’t answered his
letters. Her father had said she was so blue-deviled that he feared for her
health, yet she had seemed right enough a few minutes ago.

Wyatt stepped out of the bath and dried himself off. He
would rest for a while, until everyone had gone home. Then he would seek Cass
out and demand explanations. He reached for his dressing gown.

Below, a footman whispered to a maid, who reported to the kitchen
staff, who carried the tale outside with trays of meat pies and pitchers of
lemonade. Within the half-hour the tale had reached Cassandra’s ears.
Forgetting her surroundings, she dropped her glass, lifted her skirts, and ran
for the nearest door.

Having just heard the word themselves, the newlyweds
exchanged glances and grinned.

“I wager she boxes his ears roundly.” Jacob set his mug
aside and slipped his arm around his new wife’s enticingly plump waist.

Lotta gave him a scornful look. “And I say they’ll be in
their bed before we reach ours.”

Jacob leered. “I can find a way to prevent that.”

As he lifted her squealing into his arms and started for the
beribboned carriage waiting for them, their guests laughed and waved and opened
a path for them.

“Wyatt, how could you? Why did you do it?”

The chamber door slammed open, rattling a rather ancient
Chinese vase on the mantel. Wyatt jerked awake in the gloom of his chambers. He
didn’t need a lamp to see the glowing incandescence of Cassandra as she flew
into the room like an angry phantom or fairy. Gingerly he sat up.

“How could you set up such a treacherous scheme? He could
have killed you! I’ll never forgive you. Never! You’re an odious, odious man! I
thought I could trust you. I thought you would be reasonable and proper and I
would never have to worry about such absurdities again. Must I begin worrying
about carrying a fatherless child too? I hate you for doing this to me, Wyatt
Mannering! How could you?”

She flew up and down the room like a vengeful wraith, her
primrose ribbons bouncing and swirling against the darkness. Wyatt stared after
her in bemusement, trying to make sense of her complaint. But for the first
time in his life he truly listened, and what he heard and what she said seemed
strangely at odds.

To his shock, as she ranted and raved, Wyatt realized that
he was hearing what she didn’t say more clearly than what she shouted.

In growing wonderment he listened as she shouted, “You could
have been killed!” and he heard, “You terrified me!”

“How could you leave me to do such a thing?” became “I
needed you beside me in this.” Wyatt shook his head as the words “I hate you”
thundered through the air again. Cass had never hated anyone in her life. His
eyes widened.

A
man
might have
said, “Sorry about the dust-up, old boy. We missed you.” He wouldn’t bury the
language in a deluge of emotions and histrionics.

That’s where women had led him astray all these years. He
wasn’t supposed to listen to the words, but the feelings behind them. Extremely
odd, but the discovery delighted him.

Wyatt had to admit that saying “We missed you” or “I was
worried” didn’t have quite the same emotional impact as this fiery explosion.
With fascination, he listened as Cassandra berated him with growing tears in
her voice. He wasn’t quite certain he was awake, after all. This was the stuff
of dreams.

“I don’t mind when you go all stiff and proper. And I try
not to intrude when you’re thinking and ignoring me. And I really do want to be
just as you want. But when you do this...” Cassandra threw her arms up in a
bewailing gesture, her voice choking on sobs.

“I thought he’d killed you! And it would have been all my
fault, and I could never live with myself, and I don’t know how you could
expect me to go on living like that. I’ll not do it, Wyatt! I won’t. Living
with Duncan was horrible enough, but I knew I could live without him if he went
too far. I’ll go to America with my father. I know you don’t care about my
feelings. I’m just tired of feeling guilty. All my life—”

The shock was beginning to wear off. Merrick rose from the
bed, and before she could launch another attack, he trapped her in his arms. It
was a bit like capturing a whirlwind, particularly since he was still weak from
his illness. She wiggled and squirmed and protested and ducked her head out of
his reach, but he held firm, pulling her close and running his hands up and
down her back until the tension began to flow out of her and she was sobbing
against his shoulder.

“Hush, Cass. I’m alive and you’re here and there is no
reason to feel guilty about anything. You’ll have to learn that what I do is my
choice, not yours. I made a mistake. I may make many mistakes in the years to
come, but they’ll be my mistakes, not yours. Your feeling guilty will not make
me feel better. You may admit to as many errors as you wish, Cass, and I shall
never blame you for them. You may be as beautiful as a goddess, but I certainly
don’t expect you to behave as one. All I want from you is to say you will stay
with me.”

Cassandra looked up with tears wetting her lashes, but Wyatt
didn’t give her time for reply. He had been waiting for weeks to have her back
in his arms again. Perhaps she hadn’t exactly come to him with the words he
wanted to hear, but he didn’t need the words when he heard the emotions.

She was a chaotic mixture of grace and beauty and the
fierceness of an elemental storm, but she needed him. He heard the melody of
her desire behind the crashing fugues of her anger. Wyatt bent and silenced her
protests with a kiss.

Such a kiss! Cassandra’s mouth clung to Wyatt’s as if
parched and offered sweet water. She parted her lips eagerly to give him
entrance, and her tongue twined with his in hungry desperation. She buried her
fingers in the velvet folds of his robe and stood on her toes to press closer
into his enveloping embrace. The masculine scent of his whiskered jaw filled
her senses. She closed her eyes and threw her head back and melted in sweet
ecstasy as his lips softened and caressed.

She shuddered as his hands found the ties to her bodice and
shredded the fragile tucker until his flesh held hers. The magic of just that
touch transferred fury into passion. Hands shaking with the desperation of her
need, Cassandra slid her fingers beneath Wyatt’s robe and clung to his muscular
shoulders while he bent to taste the curves he had uncovered.