A Flight of Fancy (23 page)

Miss Irving would make a far better countess. She was not the sort to make calls of mercy and would dispatch someone who was with the appropriate largess. Perhaps Cassandra should promote an alliance between Regina Irving and Whittaker.

The notion made her smile, a smile that froze on her lips as the door to the inn opened and Geoffrey Giles, Earl of Whittaker, stepped into the arc of lantern light.

He could not see her in the darkness beyond the light, but a servant had said he saw her slip out the herb garden door, and he heard a sharp intake of breath not a dozen feet away.

“Cassandra?” He spoke her name softly, not wanting to disturb the peace of the garden after the din inside.

“I am here.” She sounded resigned.

He strode forward and dropped onto the wall beside her. “You should not be out here alone.”

“I most certainly should not be out here alone with you.” Despite her words, she did not rise. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared straight ahead. “What do you want?”

You, my love. Only you.

“When you slipped out a back door,” he said aloud, “I thought you might have found an outside exit and did not want you in the night alone.”

“I am perfectly safe alone.”

“No female is safer alone. Except . . . I have to tell you myself. You are safer alone than with me.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Surely not.”

“Have you ever been harmed when in anyone else’s company?”

“No, but . . .”

He pressed on. “My carriage was attacked in London. I was shot deliberately by someone who should have known not to fire on me, and someone tainted your balloon formula with gunpowder when I was with you and had announced I would be.”

Her hands dropped to her lap, and she half-turned to face him, her face a pale blur in the radius of lantern light beams and starlight. “No one told me you were shot deliberately.”

“I was concussed and you were ill. I have scarcely had the opportunity since.” He laid a hand against her cheek in the hope she would continue to look up at him with her beautiful dark eyes. “I told one of the soldiers who I was during the assault on my mill, but he still fired at me. The blow to my head did more damage than his pistol, but he aimed at me. At me.”

“Why?” The single word emerged as a croaking whisper. “You need your hair cut, but even with it so long you scarcely resemble
one of the—” She stopped and drew back. “You were dressed like one of them at the balloon launching. The rioters, that is, not a gentleman. Surely the soldier just did not believe you.”

“That is what Major Crawford says. Perhaps I would believe that without the gunpowder in your formula.”

“And now you think the attack on your carriage”—her right hand dropped to her thigh, and she began to rub the silk of the gown flowing over her knees—“was deliberate?”

The faint strains of music drifted from the inn. Dancing had resumed. Cassandra could take her time absorbing what he had told her. No one would miss her and probably not him either. “Why, Geoffrey? Why would someone want to harm you?”

“That depends on who.”

The urge to tell her about the blackmail, the Luddites, the dangerous game he played, burned on his tongue. He could talk through his suspicions with her, gain advice, another view. But the more she knew, the more he placed her in danger. He should not even be at the assembly amongst people who might recognize him later. He should leave now, slip away into the dark, and stay away from Whittaker Hall and Cassandra and any chance of bringing her further harm.

“I can’t say, but I must go.” He slid his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up. “I should not have come, but I had to take a moment alone with you to say goodbye.”

Her lower lip quivered. “Where are you going?”

“I cannot say.”

But that quivering lip, so full, so soft, so kissable, lightened his heart despite what potentially faced him.

“So—” She swallowed. “So you finally accept the ending of our betrothal?”

“Only until this matter is done with.”

She drew away from him, composed, stiff. “Even afterward, my lord.”

“I was Geoffrey moments ago.”

“A slip of the tongue. Go now.”

“Cassandra.” His chest ached. “The ending of our betrothal was not my choice. You know that. Before all this happened, with a word from you I would have carried you over the border for a Scottish wedding. When this is over, I still wish to do so.”

She shook her head. “I cannot. It was wrong. We were wrong. We made promises, and we broke them every time we were alone together. We pushed God out of our lives because He was an inconvenient reminder of our bad behavior.”

“I know.” He could scarcely speak from a chest too tight for breath. “I am still trying to work out how we can repair that damage.”

“We cannot.” She stood, glowering down at him, her hands on her hips. “I am scarred for life. Do you understand that? Hideously scarred. My legs are so ugly now, my mother and sisters fainted when they first saw them. Even Lydia was sick.”

She may as well have punched him in the solar plexus or worse. Physical blows would have held less pain than her words.

Inadequate though it was, he said, “I knew about the ankle.”

“Yes, and my left calf and right thigh and both knees.” She rubbed at her thigh again as though it pained her, and her voice grew husky and thick. “I am a monster no man will ever want in his bed. And you talk about putting the past behind us? You are a fool.” A sob escaped her. “A fool if you think I can ever forget and believe I am forgiven for my sins of wanting you too much, when the reminder haunts me every day.”

19

Whittaker’s face paled so fast the color change showed in the dimness of starlight. He swallowed audibly and reached his hands out to Cassandra. “My dear, I did not know . . . I did not realize . . . I am so sorry for your pain and—and—” He sighed as though bearing a heavy burden.

Cassandra strove to lighten it for him. “You need say nothing. I sent word the betrothal was off the instant I was conscious enough to realize what I would look like in the future—a freak. A monster.”

“Cassandra, no.”

“No? You have no idea what my legs look like and you will never find out. I could not bear it if you—” Her voice broke on a sob. She swallowed it down and pressed on. “If you turned from me in disgust. A man with your passion will want a wife you—you want to look upon. Like in Song of Sol—”

She clapped her hand to her mouth. She was not supposed to have read that book of the Bible. It had been carefully removed from every volume of Scripture in the house. But she had simply bought her own Bible to find out what had been so neatly excised from the holy Word of God.

Whittaker flashed a grin at her. “Of course you found a way to read it. It is beautiful.”

“And I am not.” Cassandra blinked back tears. “Not even my dowry is worth a wife who will disgust you and likely lead you into the sin of adultery because you cannot bear to look at me, let alone touch me. And you need a legitimate heir.”

“In what low esteem you hold me.” His tone held a note of bitterness. “But I suppose I deserve that. I took advantage of your sweetness.”

“No advantage taken. I was always willing. Too willing.” She pressed her hands to her face to stop the tears trying to course down her cheeks. “I invited your advances. We were to be wed. I justified it as all right. But now, since the accident, I feel shame and guilt like I will never be clean, and those scars are a constant reminder of our sin.”

“But Cassandra, my dear one, do you not understand? The fire could have happened regardless.” An ache cracked in his voice. “Others were burned that night too. The crowd was mad, crazed over too few lights for celebration and full of too much free spirits. It had nothing to do with our behavior.”

“Which still does not justify it.”

“No, but—”

“When I am near you, I do not think with my head. I think of things I should not as an unmarried lady, as a lady who professes to be a Christian.”

“Then marry me when I’m done with my . . . work.”

“Whenever you are done with whatever work you are risking your life over, I will still be scarred.”

“That matters not a whit to me. I love you.”

“Easy to say now when you have not seen anything so grotesque.” She pushed the palms of her hands toward him to ward him off, though he had not taken a step or so much as raised his hand to reach out to her. “I am not willing to take the risk. Now
if you will excuse me, I should look in on the dancing to ensure that my sister is conducting herself with proper decorum.” She turned away with more a stagger than a graceful whirl of her flounced skirt and headed back toward the inn.

“Cassandra,” he called after her, “wait.”

She kept going.

He fell into step behind her on the narrow and mercifully short path to the door. “You still love me, do you not?”

She stiffened and did not answer. Alas, he already knew it. Her words, her actions, had given it away.

Of course she still loved him. If she did not, she would seize the opportunity to be a countess and the lady of the manor with a man she had also considered her friend for nearly two years. If she did not love him, him turning from her with revulsion would not matter. But she was worth nothing to him. He would not only get a wife he could not bear to make the mother of his heirs, he would not, according to his own claim of Father’s words, receive the dowry his estate needed.

She opened the door and, without glancing back at him, said, “Miss Irving is beautiful, rich, and charming when she needs to be.”

“I have no interest in Miss Irving.” He sounded as though he spoke between gritted teeth. “I have no interest in riches or another estate to manage—”

“But think of the fine Indian cotton her father could provide for you. So much softer than the American stuff.”

“And no interest in muslin cotton. Cassandra—” He did stop her in the middle of the passageway then, his hand gentle but firm on her shoulder. “What must I do to prove I speak the truth about my love for you?”

Had they been at Whittaker Hall, she might have acted boldly
and lifted up her gown, petticoat, and shift to show him the shiny, puckered flesh of her legs. That was all she needed to do to prove she spoke the truth—that he would run for comfort elsewhere. Rather now, before they wed, than after.

But since they were at a public inn in a servant passageway, she simply shrugged and dislodged his hand from her shoulder. “You should never buy a pig in a poke, my lord,” she admonished him, then slipped through the nearest doorway. It led her through a coffee room, where two elderly gentlemen discussed the local member of Parliament in disparaging accents. Hastily she continued through to the assembly room and out to the inn yard. A line of trees across the road promised shelter and darkness. She tucked herself into the shadows and buried her face in her shawl to muffle her sobs and smother her exclamations.

“God, how could You let this happen to me? What happened to forgiveness?”

“Miss Bainbridge?” Someone spoke her name in soft, tentative accents.

She caught her breath in mid-sob. Her head shot up. “Mr. Sorrells?”

“Yes, I was leaving and saw you come here and was afraid you might be ill. Forgive me for the intrusion.” The barrier of the hedgerow she had hidden behind rustled. “May I do anything to help?”

“No, but thank you.” She held her breath, waiting for him to go away.

He did not. He pushed through the hedge and joined her in the tiny clearing beyond. “I thought you might be able to use this.” He pressed a white linen square into her hand.

“Thank you.” She lifted it to her nose. The smell of linseed
tickled her nostrils, and she managed a small chuckle. “Interesting cologne, sir.”

“Not pleasant compared to your scent of lemons.”

“Mr. Sorrells?” Cassandra blinked at the shadowy figure before her. “You are surely not flirting with me.”

“A little to make you laugh.” He patted her hand. “The pain goes away, you know. At least, I know. I lost someone I loved once too.”

“You did? I mean, that is, I am so sorry.”

She shriveled with embarrassment. She called him friend and never talked of anything with him but matters pertaining to ballooning, rather like he was nothing more than a master of hounds, rounding up balloons instead of dogs. But he was no servant. He was a gentleman of modest but independent means, welcome enough in Society.

“She ran off to Canada with a soldier. Their ship sank on the crossing.”

“How horrible for you.”

At least she bore the comfort of knowing Whittaker lived and was well . . . for the moment. He played some dangerous game he would not discuss, a game that might get him killed.

Her dislike of herself in that moment had nothing to do with her scars and everything to do with the ugliness in her heart.

20

Whittaker returned to the shepherd’s hut, to the major waiting for him.

“You have been overly long.” Crawford had helped himself to tea.

“I am here now.” Whittaker would not make excuses to the major of first going home to repair Cassandra’s bellpull. The man might hold the upper hand in what he knew of Mama’s past, but Whittaker outranked him socially and preserved that petty power as his sole defense—for now.