Snowbound With The Baronet (16 page)

How could he believe her capable of committing such a grooming atrocity? Cassandra bridled. But Brandon’s slack gape and the recollection of his cousin’s scarecrow appearance made it nearly impossible to keep from laughing.

Somehow, she managed to master her mirth.

Shaking her head vigorously, she held up her hand, palm toward him. “On my honor, I had nothing to do with it.”

Her assurance did not lessen his confusion. “But... you were going to help her get dressed.”

“So I would have if she’d let me. I asked several times but she was determined to do it herself. Perhaps if you speak to her, she might reconsider.”

“Why did she refuse your help?”

Though Cassandra had expected this question, it wiped the grin of amusement from her face. “Your cousin guessed that you and I once had a closer acquaintance than we admitted to. She accused me of breaking your heart. After that she wanted nothing more to do with me. I must say I admire her loyalty if not her hair.”

Her quip provoked a faint grin from Brandon, but his expressive blue eyes held no hint of amusement.

With tension bristling between them, she had nothing to lose. The least she could gain from their remaining time together was the answers to some important questions. Those answers might help her truly make peace with the past.

“Was your cousin correct?” she demanded, knowing Brandon would have no choice but to answer truthfully. “Did I break your heart?”

His eyes widened as if she had shoved the barrel of a loaded pistol into his ribs. But after a moment’s hesitation, he replied in a self-deprecating tone. “In the young, that organ is particularly fragile, but time is a great healer.”

What had she hoped he would say? Cassandra scarcely knew. Of course she did not want the burden of knowing she had hurt him do deeply. Especially now that she’d begun to suspect her motives for rejecting him might not have been as unselfish as she’d once believed. Yet it pained her to hear him speak of his feelings in that off-hand manner, as if they had been nothing more than a youthful whim he’d outgrown.

Before she could decide how to reply, Brandon spoke again. “It seems I owe you an apology—more than one, in fact.”

The abrupt shift in his manner caught her off-guard. “Do you? What for?”

“For suspecting you would deliberately make my cousin appear ridiculous.” There could be no denying his sincerity. “I should have known you would never stoop to such vengeful behavior.”

“So you should.” Cassandra refused to let him off too easily. “But I accept your apology. I hope you will be able to accept mine.”

Brandon’s brow furrowed. Was it possible he did not know what she wanted to apologize for?

Just then, heavy footsteps and loud voices approached from the kitchen. The stagecoach driver and guard strode into the parlor.

Grateful as she was that they had found shelter in the Martins’ snug cottage, at that moment Cassandra wished she and Brandon were the only inhabitants of a large mansion. Perhaps then they could finish a conversation without being interrupted.

When they spied Cassandra and Brandon, the two men froze. “Pardon the intrusion Sir... and Miss. Now that the snow has stopped, we need to check the state of the roads to figure how soon we can be on our way again.”

“No need to apologize.” Cassandra moved out of their path so the men could reach the entry hall, where their coats and cloaks hung. “Do you suppose we shall get back on the road today?”

It would be better if she did not linger here, common sense informed her like a pedantic governess. She and Brandon had taken the opportunity to revisit the past and discuss her reasons for refusing his marriage proposal. Now he was on his way to propose to someone else, so there was nothing more to be said.

Nothing? Her heart rebelled. What about the fact that she still cared for him? For years she had tried to convince herself otherwise, but the past two days had shown her those feelings were not dead, only slumbering. The slightest encouragement had roused them awake again. Brandon’s revelation about his family had made her feel she knew him better than ever. His experiences in the army had made him more mature and self-reliant, qualities she found potently attractive.

“I cannot swear to it, Miss.” The coach driver’s gravelly voice intruded upon Cassandra’s thoughts. “But I hope we shall be able to get under way in the next few hours. With luck we should reach Bath before the day is out.”

“I hope so,” Cassandra heard herself reply, though her heart protested it was a lie. “My friend and I can be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice whenever you are ready to go.”

“Very good, Miss.” The two men made their way past Cassandra and Brandon, their eyes politely averted as if they might be intruding on an intimate moment.

But that was ridiculous, of course.

“What about you, Sir Brandon?” Cassandra strove to keep her tone crisp and impersonal. “You and your cousin must be anxious to join that house party we have heard so much about.”

“Imogene will be eager to continue our journey as soon as possible, of course.” Though Brandon did not refer to his own wishes, Cassandra assumed they must be the same as his cousin’s. “But there is still the matter of our broken wheel. Even if the carriage can be dug out and a local blacksmith can repair it, I doubt we will be able to leave today. Besides, Mrs. Martin has invited us to stay for their Twelfth Night celebrations. After all her kindness, I cannot disappoint her.”

“Twelfth Night, of course.” Cassandra could imagine her great-aunt fuming if she and Mrs. Davis failed to arrive in time. By contrast, she pictured the Martins’ kitchen table heaped with food while everyone talked and laughed as they feasted.

Even if Sir Brandon Calvert meant to marry someone else, Cassandra could not resist the desire for one more evening of his company—an evening untainted by silent recrimination or expectations. It would be an opportunity to replace the poignant memory of their last encounter with a more agreeable one that she would be happy to revisit in the years ahead.

Of all the days of Christmas, Twelfth Night was traditionally the merriest.

Brandon reflected on that while he and Cassandra made stilted conversation and the coach driver and guard donned their wraps to venture outside.

Twelfth Night was an occasion for feasting and exchanging gifts. It was a time for singing and dancing, for drinking punch and eating rich, lavishly decorated cakes. For as long as he could remember, his parents had hosted a grand ball on Twelfth Night, which was famed for its festivity.

For that one evening, the silent tension in their household had been replaced with music, conversation and laughter. His parents put on such a convincing show of domestic harmony that even he was tempted to believe it. Twelfth Night had been one day of the year when his parents appeared to love both their sons equally. Though he knew it was all a ruse for the benefit of their guests, Brandon had still enjoyed the celebration and look forward to it for the rest of the year.

If he could spend
this
Twelfth Night in the company of Lady Cassandra Whitney, Brandon reckoned it would eclipse all those past celebrations.

But did he deserve such a boon after the way he’d treated her?

All these years he’d thought ill of her, in a fruitless effort to purge her from his heart. Yet when she’d revealed her reason for refusing him, he had not even tried to understand her motives. Instead, he’d taken offence and lashed out at her. Then when Imogene appeared looking like a dog’s breakfast, he had immediately concluded Cassandra must be to blame.

What made him so quick to suspect her of deceit and so reluctant to trust her? Could it be a tainted inheritance from his mother? If it was, could he make a conscious effort to change his attitude? Or would it always be warped, like wood exposed to the damp?

Brandon cast frequent disapproving glances at the coach driver and guard. Had they forgotten how to dress themselves? They were certainly taking their time about it. He feared Cassandra might remember some chore she must do for Mrs. Martin and rush away. To his relief, she lingered until the two men headed off.

When they threw open the door, an icy draft whipped down the hallway. Brandon shivered. The future seemed to skulk outside the Martins’ cottage—cold, stark and empty—waiting to claim him.

The instant the door swung shut, he and Cassandra spoke at once.

“There is something I would like to say.”

“One more thing, if I may?”

Their words clashed in the air making them both break off in thin, nervous laughter.

“Do go on,” Cassandra bid him.

Brandon shook his head. “Ladies, first.”

“Very well.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I owe you an apology. No doubt I owe you a great deal more than that, but it is all I have to offer.”

“You have much more to offer.” Brandon lowered his voice to a caressing murmur. What would he give for any of the delights that were in her power to bestow? At that moment he would have bartered everything he possessed for a single kiss. But would that be enough?

He hoped she might ask him to explain his cryptic remark, but she did not. Did she guess his meaning but shrink from hearing it in plainer language?

“Perhaps you are right,” she continued as if he had not spoken. “Perhaps I should have told you of my father’s intentions and allowed you to decide whether you still wished to marry me. If you had, I could still have refused your proposal, but at least you would have known the true reason why. You would have had no cause to think my decision reflected ill upon you—that you were somehow lacking. Nothing could have been further from the truth.”

Cassandra’s dark eyes flashed with passionate sincerity that called forth his old feelings for her.

Brandon shook his head. “You were trying to protect me from the most powerful source of misery you had ever encountered. You knew how contrary I could be. I might have insisted on going ahead with the marriage and it might have ruined me.”

It galled him to admit the possibility, even if it was true.

“We can never know what might have happened,” Cassandra replied. “But I deprived you of a choice you should have been given. At the time, I thought I was protecting you. In the years after, I repeated that excuse over and over until I made myself believe it. Now I fear my motives may have been more selfish than I wished to think.”

“Selfish?” Brandon echoed in a doubtful tone. “In what way?”

Cassandra’s whole being radiated reluctance to speak of it. “I wonder now if I was ashamed to expose the unsavory side of my father’s character and my family’s precarious circumstances. I wonder if my pride could not bear to have you reject me once you learned the truth.”

They might not be noble motives, but they were ones with which Brandon could sympathize.

Her head bowed in shame, Cassandra glanced up at him through her fringe of black lashes. That look seemed to ask more than she could ever put into words. It made him long to plumb the depths of her mysterious dark gaze, so he could explore all her hidden feelings.

“You had good reason to be angry with me when I told you the truth at last,” she murmured. “I told you before how much I regretted refusing you, but I regret misleading you even more. Can you ever forgive me for that?”

He reached out and gently clasped her hands. “My dearest Cassandra, there is nothing to forgive. At least, nothing on your part. I was unduly harsh with you earlier, when I ought to have been grateful—or at the very least understanding. My only defense is that your revelation took me by surprise. It made me imagine the life we might have had together if you’d told me the truth four years ago. The truth is you may have saved me from a different future than the one I foresaw.”

The air between them seemed to shimmer as Brandon had sometimes seen it do on the hottest days of the Spanish summer. Unleashed, it might have the power to melt every flake of snow between here and Bath.

The last thing Brandon wanted was for that blessed snow to disappear. “I should have thanked you instead of judging and berating you. Is it too late to do that now or have I lost my chance?”

His pulse and breath both seemed to stop as he awaited Cassandra’s answer.

“I want to believe there are always second chances,” she replied in hesitant whisper.

She
wanted
to believe? That was a long way from certainty, but Brandon was willing to risk it. “In that case, thank you for trying to protect me four years ago. And thank you for telling me the truth today. I know it cannot have been easy.”

“Then you do forgive me?” She sounded overwhelmed by the possibility.

Brandon felt overwhelmed too, by so many complicated emotions. “I thought that went without saying. But perhaps it does need to be said. Indeed, I do forgive you.”

Speaking those words seemed to lift a heavy burden from his heart. He wished he had not held onto it for so long. “I beg
your
pardon for my earlier ingratitude.”

The glow in Cassandra’s eyes spoke volumes more than her breathless whisper. “Granted.”

The brevity of her reply scarcely mattered when it came from such lips as hers. They reminded Brandon of ripe raspberries—full, soft and red. He reckoned they would be even sweeter to nibble. They seemed to call to his, making his lips tingle to kiss her.

But too many considerations held him back.

Good sense told him it was too soon. They had only just met again after a long separation and a parting fraught with ill feeling. Discretion warned that this was the wrong place. With so many people crammed into a small cottage, it was a wonder no one had intruded upon them in the past few minutes. The last thing he wanted was to compromise Cassandra’s reputation and perhaps force them both into a situation for which they were not ready.

Brandon’s sense of fairness weighed in too. Though he had made no formal commitment to Isabella Reynolds, he believed she guessed his intentions and would be expecting a proposal during the house party. He owed it to both ladies to end his connection with Miss Reynolds before kissing another woman. Last of all, but by no means least important, was the urgent whisper of caution. Cassandra might have rejected him for the kindest of reasons in the world, but it had devastated him nonetheless. Did he dare trust his heart to a woman who had proved herself capable of destroying it?