The Conquest of Lady Cassandra (28 page)

Ambury drew her into his embrace. “Come now, it was not that bad.”

“Only because he was kind. He did not have to be, and I could not count on it. As it is, I know his acceptance is only resignation when facing a
fait accompli
.”

“I do not care why he accepts, as long as he does.” He gave her a kiss. “Clever, lovely, and high spirits. What he said was true. I could have done much worse.”

It was a sweet thing to say. His embrace and kiss evoked echoes of the previous night’s mood. The warmth woke the delicate emotional tethers that had formed, as if they were living things that had slept with dawn’s rise but waited for a nudge to be active again.

She found her back pressed against the wall and her face cradled in his hands. He kissed again, differently. Deeply.

“Thank you for staying with me, so I did not face it alone,” she said.

“We are in this together. This evening we will ride in the park and let the world see us that way. The announcement will be in the papers tomorrow, but word is spreading already.”

“What will we do until we ride out?”

The way his body pressed hers said he had an answer to that. The next kiss was not very passionate, however. More apologetic.

“I know how I would like to pass the time. Unfortunately, you have one other visit to make today, and my company will not be tolerated on this one.”

“Another visit? To whom?”

“My mother.”

“I
can see that I am going to have to do all of this myself for the next half year or so,” Kendale muttered as he snapped his riding crop lazily against his outstretched legs.

“Not that long,” Southwaite said. He poured Yates more brandy, but did not even offer it to Kendale. Kendale would be on his horse for hours soon, and never drank when on a mission anyway.

“No more than five months, I would guess,” Yates said.

“He is deliberately provoking you, Kendale. Forgive his high spirits. We both are grateful that you will make the ride to the coast that this letter demands.”

“I would not want to have you abandon your wives so soon. Hell, who knows what dire things might happen if you were denied the pleasures of marriage for three or four days.” Kendale rarely used a sarcastic tone when he mocked. The result was it often sounded like he was serious. Yates enjoyed pretending he was more often than not.

“Among the dangers is insanity,” Yates said. “I read a
scientific paper on it. A groom parted too soon from his bride might go mad from the lack of release.”

Kendale scowled at him. “That makes no sense. If a man could go insane from lack of release, catholic priests, university dons, armies at war, the entire naval service, and half the husbands married over three years would all be lunatics.”

“One would think so, but it appears we grooms are special. The paper explained how the lack of release following the free assumption of enjoying said release was what could lead to insanity. The evidence of this truth is all around us. How often have we seen a man who, when thrown over by his mistress, turns mad? He threatens, he weeps, he stays drunk for days while he writes bad poetry and considers doing himself in.” Yates sipped his brandy. “I hope you did not believe it was a broken heart causing that, Kendale, instead of something as vulgar as the anticipation of sexual frustration.”

Kendale’s gaze narrowed on him. Yates maintained his serious and innocent pose.

“He is taking advantage of your common sense, Kendale. Again,” Southwaite said. “Neither Ambury nor I have any excuse for sending you to the coast instead of going ourselves, except our desire to—well, indulge our desire.”

“It seems to me that you have both been doing that long enough to want a few days away. Don’t correct me, Ambury. If you were any other man and she any other woman, perhaps your claims of innocence would have been believed. Both of you knew they would not be, so do not blame me for my assumptions.”

“Then accept as my excuse my obligation to pursue a greater duty, so you do not leave thinking that I shirk that which takes you away.”

“Ah, it is not pleasure that binds you here, but the need for an heir. How convenient for you that greater duty still requires you to bed your new wife.”

“I referred to my need to go down to Elmswood. I have some work to do there that has been delayed by recent
events. I also need to introduce my wife to the people there.” It would be all the honeymoon Cassandra would have too. Between his father’s health and the dangers of war, they would not be taking any lengthy journeys abroad, even within England.

“I will end this conversation as I started it, by noting that it will all fall to me for many months from the sounds of it.” He stood and buttoned his coat. “While I am in Kent, I will make it clear that none of us is to be called unless the watchers have good cause. The letter you received sounded panicked, Southwaite. Considering the high alarm of the country, it is to be expected, but I grow weary of riding all that way for nothing. My ass should not suffer for our watchers’ poor judgment.”

“Do as you think best, of course,” Southwaite said.

It was unnecessary to say, since Kendale always did what he thought was best, even if the rest of them thought another course of action would be better.

“I hope he can calm them down,” Southwaite said after Kendale left. He pawed over some letters stacked on the table. “Some of the watchers are seeing ghost ships due to looking too hard into the night. I spend hours each day writing back, pointing out that their breathless reports, in fact, include nothing of note.”

“Considering recent events, the network we put into place is inadequate. It is time for the government to do something official, and permanent.”

“I believe that will happen soon. Do you remember that series of towers that we proposed last year? Coastal defenses, staffed by the war office, so that the watching is systematic and the southeast coast is more secure?”

“I thought that plan had died.”

“It was resurrected in early summer. The war office has been working on a list of locations. It appears they will move soon.”

“That is good to know.”

“I would have told you sooner, but you have been busy conquering Lady Cassandra and getting caught at it.”

“I did not enjoy any conquest, as I told you.”

“Allow me to believe you did. The idea that you found yourself obligated to marry a woman whom you did not even seduce is too dispiriting.”

“The realization that she has now been redeemed and can be your wife’s friend should raise your spirits enough. As for the rest that might dampen your delight, Kendale saw the situation clearly enough to host the wedding and stand witness. If he can accommodate this match, you should be able to.”

Southwaite settled into the chair that Kendale had vacated and stretched out his booted legs much as Kendale had. “You entered this house this afternoon looking like a man drunk on new pleasure, so right now it appears this marriage suits you well enough, and that is what matters.”

“By right now, you imply it may not when the experience ceases to be new and inebriating.”

“I expect that is true of most marriages.”

Not his, of course. Southwaite’s confidence that his love match would never fail to suit him did not require expression. He gazed at his brandy for a spell but eventually turned his eyes toward Yates.

“Have you talked to her about Lakewood?”

“There isn’t anything to say.”

“Isn’t there? Penthurst’s upcoming trial has caused me to think about that duel quite frequently of late. I wonder if I assumed too much. I wonder if Lakewood intended for me to.”

Yates did not like to think of that ugly, snowy day when Southwaite informed him and Kendale that Lakewood had just died. “As his second, surely your understanding was as sound as anyone’s.”

“He said Penthurst had insulted a lady. The love of his life, he said. Like you, I assumed that meant Cassandra
Vernham, but now…” He shrugged. “He had to be a fool to challenge Penthurst. Had he succeeded in killing a duke…”

“He probably did not intend to kill. Most duels do not end that way these days.”

“Oh, he intended to kill. That was clear when we all met. Lakewood demanded the ultimate satisfaction. Even so, Penthurst, I am sure now, as I relive it often in my head, aimed high, for his shoulder, but Lakewood stepped into his own shot at just the wrong time.” He shook his head sadly. “Hell of a thing. I suppose we will have more answers soon enough, when Penthurst goes before the lords. I will probably be called to give testimony. Hence my renewed efforts to sort out just what I saw and just what Lakewood said.”

“Perhaps you think about it too much. It was what it was.”

“You are more sure than I am about what it was. I would expect you to grab the ambiguity, now that you are married to her.”

“I have decided she cannot be blamed for men killing each other.”

“You are better than I am, if you can leave it at that.”

Yates was not sure he was better at all. He had broached the topic in his head a few times, most recently last night, when, sated with her scent and softness, he had debated if clearing the air about Lakewood might be best. That old friend had become a ghost of late, a spirit that entered his mind carrying all those ambiguities like a long chain. He had told Cassandra they would not speak of it, but he wondered if the ghost would ever rest if they did not.

Now that he is dead, no one knows what really happened except me
. That was what she had said. Wondering what she referred to had become yet one more link in that chain. A big one.

“I will be leaving town for two weeks,” he said as he stood to take his leave. “I was not lying about having some business to address in the south.”

“Your bride should be glad to escape town for a while.”

“The news of our marriage has made drawing rooms more interesting of late, and a long line of ladies has called on her to satisfy their curiosity, so she is indeed looking forward to this little journey.”

“I was thinking more in terms of escaping your mother.”

“That is going better than hoped, but it is possible she may be glad for a holiday from that as well.”

As he rode home, he considered that fortune had smiled on him regarding that last relationship. For once, his mother had decided to ignore any failings she saw. There had been no rows or awkwardness at Cassandra’s first meeting with his mother, nor any since. Nor great warmth either, of course.

Their first week of marriage had progressed well. It was still new, but the comfortable familiarity forming spoke well for the years ahead. He should be more contented than he was.

He blamed himself for the irritations he experienced sometimes. They almost always afflicted him when he bumped into the hedgerows planted with his own words, when he had told her they would not speak of her past in general, and Lakewood in particular.

He had assumed that leaving all of that in the past would be best for the future. He might have been wrong.

C
assandra could tell that something was on Ambury’s mind. His lovemaking was more aloof than normal. That he spoke little in the aftermath did not surprise her. That she could sense an internal distraction in him did.

She expected him to leave and devote himself to whatever occupied his head. He did not. Instead, he laid there beside her while the candles gutted and the room darkened. His right arm remained across her body, and his hand held her hip in an awkwardly possessive gesture, while his brain went wherever it might. She tried to sleep so she might not be too
tired for the carriage ride down to Highburton’s county seat in the morning.

“What was his name?”

Her eyes opened in surprise. She had not guessed he had been doing all that thinking about
her
.

“I am not going to tell you. You said we would not speak of it and already you have done so twice now.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“Change it again.”

“I do not like the idea that I might meet him, and that he knows he had your love and I do not know he was the one who did.”

“You will not meet him. He was not born to your circles. He is not with the kind of regiment that finds itself at your parties.”

“I still want to know his name.”

She sat up and pulled the sheet around her. He was little more than a collection of dark forms in the night, but she saw him clearly in her head. Saw the handsome face and the hard mouth unsoftened by one of his frequent smiles. Saw the taut muscles of the naked body that marriage gave her a right to admire now.

“I do not believe you will be any happier knowing his name, or anything about such things. I
do
know the names of some of your former lovers, and the knowing brings me no comfort. I would rather be ignorant.”

“That is different. You are mine now.”

Heavens, but men had such strange minds. Worse, they could be so annoying when they said things and did not hear what else their words meant.
You are mine
. He saw it going only one way, as most men did. He possessed her, but she did not possess him.
That is different
. In his mind, it
was
different, and the whole male world agreed.

“Yes, I am yours. Can you not be content with that? It is not as if you really care who he was or what I felt for him. I doubt you even resent that you were not the first. The truth
is, you like having a wife that you can treat like a mistress instead of a virginal girl. You like that I am bold enough and worldly enough for more sophisticated pleasure. It is why you wanted me.”

He looked at her through the dark, then sat up and reached for his robe. “Perhaps you know my mind better than I do, Cassandra. You certainly see the benefits of the marriage to me more clearly than I had. I will do as you suggest and enjoy my good fortune in the ways you recommend.”

C
assandra loved her bedchamber at Elmswood Manor. An abundance of windows let in beautiful northern light that filtered through trees until it assumed a cool, silvery cast. As a result, it was always dawn in the chamber, and restful and quiet.