Fortune's Lady (29 page)

“But I
did
! I left a message with my aunt to send to you. Colin was in such a rush, there wasn't time for anything but a quick note. Aunt Beth said she'd send it to you by messenger.”

“She lied. I almost had to drag it out of her.” Literally, he recalled.

“I knew I should've left the note with Clara. Do you know, Philip, I truly think Aunt Beth hates me.”

He saw the bewildered look clouding her eyes and took her in his arms, gazing over her head at the dark, silent pasture. “I'm glad you wrote to me, Cass. I couldn't stand the thought of you going off with him. Until I got to Ladymere, I didn't even know it was a house party; I thought it was only you and Wade.”

She smiled, savoring the notion that for a little while he might have been jealous. Suddenly her smile faded and she pulled away. “Philip! Oh, my lord, I can't believe I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“But we were never alone, and you were so drunk, and then afterward we—we were doing something else, and I didn't think of it. I feel like such an idiot—”

“What, Cass? What?”

“What Wade told me! Philip, he admitted everything!”

He took her by the arm and led her to the chair under the eaves. Putting her in it, he made her slow down and tell him all that Wade had said. Afterward he questioned her, patiently and thoroughly, until he knew the conversation by heart and there was nothing more to learn. Then he made her tell him everything that had happened over the weekend, moment by moment. He felt a prickly fear when she described nearly being caught searching Wade's study.

“Should I have told you sooner? I know I should have, but what could you have done, really? Written Quinn a letter, I suppose, but—”

“It's all right, love, don't worry about it. It's a fascinating piece of news, but there's nothing to be done immediately. When we're back in London will be soon enough to tell Oliver.” He sat on the arm of her chair, bracing one hand against the back. “So it's to happen in November. Interesting. That coincides with the opening of Parliament. November fifth this year, I think.”

“Does the king do it? Open Parliament, I mean.”

“Yes, it's a ceremony. Every year the Members of the Commons are summoned before the throne in the House of Lords to hear the king's speech. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod knocks at the door to call us; to show our independence, it's part of the ritual to pretend not to hear him knock the first time.”

They were silent, thinking.

“I don't think you should see Wade again,” he said after a moment.

She looked up. “I don't see how I can stop. It's more important now than ever that I stay in contact with him. Now that he's finally taken me into his confidence, he'll tell me much, much more.” Riordan said nothing, but his resolute expression didn't change. “You know, Philip, he's really not interested in me as a lover,” she told him softly.

He laughed, incredulous. “My naive young wife, why would you think that?”

“Because we're not compatible.”

“What does that mean?”

“We like different things.”

“How do you know? You were never lovers.”

“No. But—he likes—he wants to—”

She was embarrassed, and a sudden, sickening thought occurred to him. He lifted her hand, which had been resting on his knee, and held it. “Did Wade hurt you, Cass?”

She hesitated. “Yes. Once. It wasn't really too bad.”

His fingers tightened reflexively. “Tell me.”

She told.

He stood and put his hands behind his head, staring blindly at the night sky. He swore foully. “I remember that night. I
saw
him. I thought you were—” He broke off, cursing himself now.

Cass rose and put a light hand on the small of his back. “I should've told you before, perhaps. But we were both so angry with each other, and then I didn't think you'd care anyway. But it's over now.”

He whirled around. “Did you really think I wouldn't care?” he demanded fiercely. “Did you, Cass?”

“Yes!” she cried, stung by his anger. “You were vile to me in those days, in case you don't remember! And I'd done nothing except what you wanted me to do, what Quinn was paying me for, and you treated me like some—prostitute!” Mortified, she felt tears spring to her eyes. She tried to turn away, but he held her shoulders and made her face him.

“Everything you say is true, I can't deny it.”

“Then why were you so cold?” She had to swallow down the painful lump in her throat. “I couldn't understand it, because you'd been so nice to me before, but as soon as Wade came—”

“Don't you really know, Cass? I was jealous. I was sure you were Wade's lover and it made me furious. I'm so sorry. I hated myself for hurting you. I couldn't seem to stop.” It was the closest he'd come to admitting how much he cared for her, and it frightened him. He lifted her chin. “But you've already forgiven me for misjudging you, remember? Think how cruel it would be to take it back now.”

His forefinger traced the gentle outline of her lips, and she sent him a trembly smile. “I had forgiven; I just hadn't forgotten. Now I've done both.”

He pulled her close. “Oh, sweet Cass, I don't deserve you.”

“Perhaps you don't—because now I remember what we were doing when I forgave you. I think you're a smooth manipulator, Mr. Riordan.”

“Indeed I am. Watch how smoothly I manipulate you into the bedroom, Mrs. Riordan.”

“That's no test,” she scoffed. She stood on tiptoe. He bent his head and she sank her teeth softly into his earlobe, a trick he'd taught her. “A real test is when you make me do something I'm not already longing to do.” And she took his hand and led him into the bedroom.

“I love this room.” Cass pulled the sheet up to cover herself and looked around. In truth, after more than fourteen hours inside it, she was just beginning to see the room. The open windows were covered in some gauzy homespun material that allowed light and privacy at the same time. The walls were white-washed, the roof thatched. Bright rugs covered the smooth wood floor. “Best of all I like this bed. It's so out of place—a brocade canopy in the middle of all this rusticity.”

“Is that really what you like best about the bed?” Riordan asked in some consternation. He handed her her half-drunk glass of wine from the night table.

She took a judicious sip. “Maybe not entirely. The sheets are nice, too. And the colors in this coverlet—yeow!” Wine splashed on her fingers and stained the coverlet in question as Riordan made a grab for her under the sheet. She was ticklish under her arms, he'd recently discovered, particularly the right arm, and now it was one of his favorite points of attack. She was flat on her back, laughing and shrieking, holding the glass high in the air. His head dipped abruptly and he lapped at the tiny puddle of wine in the hollow of her throat. Her laughter turned to a contented hum, and he felt the delicate vibrations through his tongue.

“I thought you weren't supposed to be drinking wine,” she murmured against his hair.

“I can if it touches your skin first. That purifies it.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. Presently she asked, “Were you a—a serious drinker before, a—”

“A drunk? I suppose I was. At any rate, I certainly drank a great deal.”

“What would happen if you drank the rest of the wine in this glass right now?”

He thought. “I have no idea. Given that, I think it's best that I don't.”

“I've often wondered what happened that made you give it up,” she said diffidently, asking but not asking.

He was quiet for a long time. At the moment she decided he wasn't going to answer, he rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head. “It's not a very pretty story, Cass, but I'll tell you if you like.”

She turned toward him, leaning on her elbow. “Only if you want to.”

He smiled faintly and stared at the ceiling. Only if he wanted to. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was explain to Cass what a colossal mess he'd made of the first twenty-seven years of his life. Where should he begin? Last year? Ten years ago? Twenty?

“I didn't have what you would call a happy childhood. Not that that forgives or explains anything, but I thought you would want to have the whole sordid picture.”

She recognized the dry, half-amused tone of his voice but wasn't fooled by it. “Tell me what it was like,” she said quietly.

“Our house was in Cornwall—still is, though I haven't seen it in years. My father inherited a great deal of wealth, so much that, try as he might, he hasn't spent it all even yet. I hardly ever saw him; when I did, he was usually drunk and abusive. My mother wasn't much in evidence either, but when she was she always seemed to be with a man who wasn't my father. I remember when I was six or seven, I was playing outside and I went into the little summer house we had on the grounds. She was there with a man, Lord somebody or other. I had no idea what they were doing, I just knew it was something I wasn't supposed to see.”

He closed his eyes. “She was bare-breasted, her skirts up around her knees, straddling his lap. When she saw me she screamed. I ran. I just kept running and running—and nothing was ever said about it. Nothing at all. But she was so cold, and after that I saw even less of her. She treated me as if I were someone she barely knew—a neighbor's child. For years I thought it was my fault, something I'd done.”

Cass knew his effort to sound matter-of-fact was hard-won. She squeezed her eyes shut, certain that if she cried he would stop.

“As for the others, my brother was a lout who liked beating me black and bloody better than anything else, and my sisters simply ignored me, as if I didn't exist—just absolute contempt.”

“You were the youngest?”

“Yes.” He put his hand in her hair and absently massaged her scalp. “I took to torturing my nannies, and later my tutors, as a way to get attention. I learned that the more trouble I caused the more people looked at me, really saw me. Of course, I was always having to escalate the mischief, to outdo myself. I think my family actually began to be afraid of me. That was exhilarating, in a way. But it made the isolation worse.”

His voice changed and she looked up. “Then Oliver came. I was nine, so he must've been about thirty. But he seemed older, like some Old Testament prophet. Everything changed when he came. He wasn't shy in dealing out punishment, but that wasn't the way he controlled me. I'd had a hundred thrashings before I was eight; they meant nothing. Oliver gave me something no one ever had, and I guess it was self-respect. I know that sounds trite.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“He told me there was something fine in me, and I believed him. Probably because I was in awe of him and he seemed like the kind of man who only spoke profound truths. He said it was a horrible accident of birth that had set me down in the middle of a hive of Philistines—that was the way he talked—and I simply had to bide my time. He taught me my family wasn't worth so much pain. He said they were beneath me, that I was destined for higher things, and I had to wait out my sentence with them like an indentured servant. I know now that was claptrap, but at the time it was like gospel, a piece of good news that answered all the questions and made everything fit.”

He rubbed his face with his hands and spoke through his fingers. “He established a daily routine, and that felt new and wonderful to me. Everything had been so chaotic before. I went from a hooligan to a model boy in about a month. All to please my tutor. To bring a smile to that thin, saintly face was like watching the sun come out. I lived for it. And of course I made him into my father. That was inevitable.”

“And then?” she asked when he stopped.

“And then…” He went back to staring at the ceiling. “And then he went away. I walked into his room one day to show him a sonnet I'd written in Greek. He was packing.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. ‘Going on a trip'?” I said. He'd gone to London before, sometimes for as long as a week. I always hated it when he left; I got ready for the bad news. ‘No, Philip, I'm going away for good. I'm leaving tomorrow.' He said other things—he would miss me, he would write—but I couldn't hear any of it. I walked out without saying a word.”

Cass put her lips on his forearm and stayed that way.

“I hid all night in the park, listening to the servants calling me, watching their lanterns through the trees. In the morning a coach pulled up in front of the house and Oliver came out, carrying his bags. I'd been waiting for him. I ran at him with a stick, a huge stick, high over my head. I could have killed him if I'd tried. Instead I smashed the bags out of his hands and then I started beating on the carriage wheels. The horses were terrified, rearing. A couple of footmen grabbed me, then the coachman, the butler. I wouldn't let go of the stick. They got me on the ground, and I was cursing and screaming and crying. When Oliver tried to speak, I only screamed louder. I didn't stop until the coach was out of sight.”

Cass's arm stole around his waist but she kept her face buried against his side. Hot, scalding tears stung her throat; she wanted to weep for the child whose idol had first taught him to despise his family and then abandoned him to it. She felt his perspiration under her arm and heard his quick breathing, and knew he was reliving that day.

“There were a few letters from him after that,” he resumed after a long time. “I never answered them and they soon stopped. I went back to my old ways with a vengeance, to spite him for leaving me. I wanted to forget every lesson he'd ever taught me about moderation and civility and restraint. Only now my vices were much more sophisticated. I'd tell you what they were, but I wouldn't want to shock your tender sensibilities.”