Seducing an Angel (24 page)

She was going to fight boldly back.

Tomorrow she was going to find a lawyer who would be willing to take on her case despite her near-poverty. With Stephen’s money she was going to pay him a small retainer, with a promise of the rest of his fee when he had got justice for her. According to both her marriage contract and Nigel’s will, she was entitled to have received a lump sum payment from his personal fortune and a monthly pension from the estate. She was also supposed to have retained all the jewelry that had been given her since her marriage. It was her
personal property
. She was to have had use of the dower house too and the town house here in London for the rest of her natural life, unless she married again. She had no interest in the dower house, but the London house would have been worth having this spring.

Bruce had told her she might have her freedom but nothing else. The implication had been that if she did not accept his ultimatum, everything would be lost to her, even her freedom. Even, perhaps, her life.

And she had believed him.

It was absurd!

If he had believed that her guilt in his father’s death could be
proved, he would have had her arrested without further ado. He would not have suggested making any deal with her.

He could prove no such thing because there
was
no proof.

She had known all this before. Why, then, did it seem like a blazing revelation today?

She was going to go after her money and her jewelry and even the town house. Any decent lawyer would surely be able to get all three for her with very little trouble. Both a marriage contract and a will were legally binding documents. He would not be risking much by taking her small retainer and waiting for the rest of his fee.

She closed her eyes and could feel the world spinning—with her on it. She was
alive
. And Stephen’s warm, relaxed hand was in her own, their fingers loosely laced.

If only the world could be made to slow on its axis. If only this moment could be prolonged. If she wanted, she was well aware—if she
chose
—she could fall in love with him. Deeply. Head over ears. Irrevocably.

She did not so choose. She was taking joy out of this single afternoon. She was borrowing some of his light. The light that was within herself was so very dim. Just a short while ago, if asked, she would have said that it had been extinguished altogether. But it had not. He had rekindled it in her. He was all light. Or so it seemed.

She had nothing nearly as powerful or precious to offer in return and so she would not cling to him. She would let him go as soon as she was able.

She had spoken the truth a little while ago, though. She
would
remember him. Always. She would not literally have a medallion made to wear about her neck, of course. But she would not need one. She believed she would always be able to close her eyes and see him—and hear him and feel the warm clasp of his hand. She would remember the subtle musk of his cologne.

As soon as she had her money and jewels, she would return all of
his
money—with thanks. And all ties between them would be
severed, all debts paid, all dependence on one side and obligation on the other at an end.

Their relationship—if that was an appropriate word for what was between them—would be somehow healed. And it would end.

He would remember her—
if
he remembered—with respect and perhaps a little fond nostalgia.

She lifted her head slightly and looked down the slope to the left. In the far distance she could see two figures, and she was almost sure they were coming this way. She was almost certain too that they were Alice and Mr. Golding. And, goodness, Alice would go for Stephen’s head with her reticule if she saw them stretched out on the blanket like this, hand in hand, her hair all loose about her shoulders.

It would be grossly unfair.

Cassandra chuckled, nevertheless, at the mental image she had conjured, and she turned her head toward Stephen and squeezed his hand.

“I think,” she said, “it is time to sit up and make ourselves respectable again. Not that
you
are looking disreputable, but I need to put my hair up. Will you give it a quick brush for me?”

He smiled sleepily at her.

“I believe I almost nodded off,” he said.

She laughed. “I believe you almost did.”

She sat up, found the brush in her reticule, handed it to him, and turned half away from him, pulling her hairpins closer as she did so.

He drew the brush with a firm stroke through the full length of her hair on the left side. He moved the brush a little farther to the right and did it again. Within a minute the whole mass of her hair was smooth and crackling, and her scalp was tingling.

“You do that awfully well,” she said, gathering her hair at the neck and twisting it into a knot before stabbing pins into it to stop it from falling down again. She drew on her bonnet.

“Cassandra,” he said, “was your husband Belinda’s father?”

Her hands paused on the ribbons.

“No,” she said.

“The present Paget, then?” he asked. “The son?”

“No,” she said again, tying a bow to one side of her chin.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I have wondered.”

“It was not rape,” she said. “I believe Mary really loved … the father.”

She waited for him to ask more questions, but he did not do so.

She sighed.

“Nigel had three sons,” she said. “Bruce is the eldest, and then there are Oscar and William. Oscar has been in the army for years. I have met him only two or three times, none recently. He did not come home for his father’s funeral. William has always been a wanderer. He was in America for several years. Then, four years ago, he came home for a few months before going to Canada with a fur trader. Belinda was born seven months after he left. Mary claims that he did not know about her when he went away. I like to believe her. I have always been fond of him, though he certainly does have his faults.”

“Paget did not dismiss her?” he asked.

“Nigel?” she said. “No. He left the management of the household to me. I did not tell him that Mary’s child was his granddaughter. Indeed, I believe he was unaware that there
was
a child in the servants’ quarters.”

Until the end.

“Bruce dismissed her, though, when he came to live at Carmel,” she said. “She had nowhere to go, no family members who were wiling to take her in. She was in a desperate case. It was no particular kindness to bring her and Belinda to town with me, but at least we all had one another. Alice too. And Roger.”

Alice and Mr. Golding were quite distinguishable now. Cassandra raised an arm to wave.

“William Belmont is still in Canada?” Stephen asked.

“I do not know,” she said. “I ought not even to have told you all this. It was not my secret to tell, was it? But I will add that Mary is not loose of morals. I believe she really loved William. No, I am sure she
loves
him. And waits for him.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“I stand in judgment on no one, Cass,” he said. “Me of all people.”

He lowered his hand and turned his head to smile at the approaching couple.

Alice and Mr. Golding strolled all the way to the Pen Ponds and about them before making their way back to the picnic site at the same leisurely pace. They talked for a long time about books, and then they reminisced a bit about shared experiences when they had both taught the Young children, even though that span of time had been all too short. He surprised Alice then by talking of his wife of eight years, who had died three years ago.

It had not occurred to her that perhaps he had been married—that perhaps he still was.

It saddened and then rather amused her to realize that he had not carried a torch for her all these years. For, of course, she had not carried one for him either. She had known him briefly, had fallen violently in love with him because she had been a lonely girl with almost no chance to meet young men, had mourned him for perhaps a year after he left, and had then more or less forgotten him—until she met him again two days ago.

He was still a good-looking man in a thin, bookish sort of way. He was still good company. And oh, it felt very good indeed to have a man conversing exclusively with
her
for all of an hour. And to be walking with her arm drawn through his. If she was not very careful indeed, she would fall in love with him all over again—and how foolish
that
would be at her age.

Then he asked about Cassie, and she realized that he did not
know
.

“It must have been distressing,” he said, “for Lady Paget to lose her husband at so young an age. Was she very fond of him?”

Alice hesitated. It was not for
her
to answer that question either way. Though if what he assumed had been true, of course, she would quite readily agree with him without feeling that she was breaking some confidence. She could answer noncommittally, but it was possible, even probable, that he
would
hear the rumors one of these days, and then he would think that she had not trusted him.

“He was an abuser of the worst order,” she said. “Any fondness she felt for him when she married him quickly died.”

“Oh, goodness me,” he said. “Miss Haytor, how dreadful! There is no man more despicable, I believe, than a wife-beater. He is the worst kind of bully.”

She could have left it at that.

“He died violently,” she said. “Some say that Cassie did it. Indeed, I believe she is notorious here in town, where the story is that she is an axe murderer.”

“Miss Haytor!” He stopped abruptly and dropped her arm in order to turn to look at her with shocked, dismayed eyes. “It cannot possibly be true!”

“He was shot,” she said, “with his own pistol.”

“By …?” he asked, his dark eyebrows arced up into his forehead. “By Lady Paget?”

“No,” she said. And when he continued to stare at her, not moving, “It could have been me.”

“Could have?” he said.

“I hated him enough,” she said. “I never thought it possible that I could hate anyone with any degree of intensity, but I hated him. A thousand times I thought of leaving to seek employment elsewhere, but a thousand times I remembered that my dear Cassie did
not have the same freedom to leave and that I was almost all she had to comfort her. I could have done it, Mr. Golding. I could have killed him. He had beaten her terribly any number of times, and he was at it again that night. Yes, I could have done it. I could have taken that gun in my own hands and … shot him.”

“But you did not?” He was almost whispering.

“I might have done it,” she said stubbornly. “Perhaps I did. But I would be a fool to confess because there is no proof of who did it.
Anyone
would be a fool to confess. He deserved to die.”

And so much for a possibly rekindled romance, she thought as he took off his spectacles, withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and proceeded to polish them without looking at them at all. It was just a shame that there was still quite a distance to go to the picnic site. The poor man must wonder what he had walked into. He must be desperate to get away. She looked steadily and defiantly into his eyes as he put his spectacles back on and looked back at her, a frown creasing his brow.

“Lady Paget might have been forced to endure many, many more years of such violence,” he said, “if someone had not stopped Lord Paget by killing him. I cannot condone killing, Miss Haytor, but neither can I condone violence against women. Especially against a wife, who has been given into a man’s keeping so that he might love and cherish her and protect her from all harm. This is one of those situations in which rules, whether legal or moral, cannot satisfactorily decide an issue. I cannot congratulate Lord Paget’s killer, but neither can I condemn him—or her. If you did it out of love for Lady Paget, then I honor you, Miss Haytor. But I do not think you did it at all.”

And without further ado, he offered his arm again, she took it, and they resumed their walk back to the picnic site.

They must have been gone forever, Alice thought, peering ahead and being quite unable at first to see two seated figures where she expected to see them on the slope. But the next time she looked,
there they were, seated side by side, the picnic basket off to one side of them.

She was feeling surprisingly hungry.

She was also feeling oddly elated. He would not condemn her if she had done it. But he did not believe she had.

And he believed women—wives—were to be loved and cherished and protected.

During tea Stephen amused himself with thoughts of what his friends would think if they knew he was sitting here now in Richmond Park, sharing a picnic tea with the infamous Lady Paget and her companion and a politician’s secretary. It was
not
what anyone would expect of the Earl of Merton. Indeed, there would be a number of people looking for him at Lady Castleford’s garden party this afternoon.

Yet he was enjoying himself enormously. The tea Golding had brought with him, presumably prepared by a caterer, was delicious. But picnic fare was always more appetizing than any other, he had found.

It struck him too, and also with some amusement, that if he had not inherited his title so unexpectedly,
he
would quite possibly be someone’s secretary by now and proud of the fact.

Everyone seemed to be sharing his enjoyment. The conversation was lively, and they all did their share of laughing. Even Miss Haytor, whose cheeks were flushed and whose eyes were bright. She looked decidedly handsome, and had seemed to have shed a year of age for every hour of the afternoon.

Cassandra herself seemed to have lost years along with her companion. She usually looked all of her twenty-eight years. Today she looked several years younger.

It was still early when they finished eating.

“I suppose,” Golding said, “I ought not to have suggested such
an early hour for leaving Lady Paget’s. There is still much remaining of the warmest part of the day. It seems a shame to leave so soon.”