Miss Weston's Masquerade

Cassandra jumped to her feet, sending the plate of rolls spinning to the floor. ‘I am not going back. Never. He mustn’t know I am here.’

‘You’ve run away?’ All the amusement was gone from his face. ‘This is not some prank hatched in the schoolroom, then? Hell’s teeth, have you no concern for your reputation?’ He must have read the answer in her face for, after a moment, he got to his feet and began to pace, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dressing gown. ‘You really could not have chosen a more inconvenient time to quarrel with your father, you know.’

‘It is more than a quarrel,’ Cassandra protested.

She realised the Earl was not taking any notice of her, his brow furrowed in thought. Eventually he announced, ‘If you stay here with Mrs Mitchell, the housekeeper, and write to your father, then no harm will be done. With the family away no-one of consequence will visit us here. You must stay in your room, of course, until your father comes to take you home.’

‘I will not go home.’ Cassandra grasped one brocade sleeve, the heavy silk creasing in her grip. ‘If you try and make me, I will throw myself in the Thames.’

There was a short silence while he freed her fingers from his sleeve and smoothed out the rich fabric. ‘What melodrama are you playing out?’ His voice, and face, were cold. ‘You ridiculous child, you are not between the pages of some novel.’

‘Papa does not permit me to read novels,’ Cassandra said stiffly. ‘I am not a child, pray do not treat me as one. Oh, if only Godmama were here, I cannot expect you to understand, you are a man.’

‘That I cannot deny,’ he said drily, apparently recovering some of his humour. ‘Sit down and tell me the story from the beginning.’ The clock on the mantel

chimed ten. ‘But without embroidery. I am in no mood for a melodrama. Time is pressing, we must resolve this before I leave London.’

‘I doubt you can help me.’ Everything was falling apart. ‘Only Godmama could do that.’

She broke off as the valet slipped into the room with an apologetic murmur. ‘The luggage my lord?’

‘Take the dressing case, the rest can wait for a few minutes. Only a few.’

He was obviously impatient to be gone. She could either give up or try telling him everything. ‘My father insists I marry Lord Offley.’

‘Lord Offley?’ He sounded every bit as outraged as she could have hoped. ‘That disgusting rake? Why, he must be three times your age. Besides, he’s no fit husband for any decent woman, let alone a young girl of your upbringing. Are you sure you have the name right? I cannot believe your father would have anything in common with such a man.’

‘Nor has he. Father has not left home this last decade since Mama died, except for a few visits to the London booksellers. In Hatchard’s last year, he chanced to meet this widow, Lord Offley’s sister, and now he is besotted with her.’

‘Bella Mainwaring?’ The Earl grimaced. ‘Bella Mainwaring and your father? She has been on the catch for a complaisant husband these last six years, but I cannot imagine a man of your father’s, er, habits being attracted to such as she.’

‘Please do not attempt to be polite about Papa’s character,’ Cassandra interjected bitterly. ‘He is a mean, reclusive, tyrannical, selfish…’

‘Quite.’ The Earl’s mouth quirked. ‘Although I doubt a dutiful daughter should say so.’

‘Since my mother died I have been his companion, I have kept house for him on a pittance. I have been loyal and dutiful and obedient.’ And very, very lonely, she thought. ‘And now he wants to marry this woman. He is infatuated with her. But she will not countenance it while I am still in the house. She knows I see her for what she is, a fortune-seeking predator, who will have my father in his grave as swiftly as she saw her first two husbands into theirs.’

He made no attempt to disagree with her assessment, instead sat down again, leaned back in his chair and regarded her critically. ‘You are well-born and no doubt well dowered. You are young, but not impossibly so. And presumably, when correctly dressed, passably presentable. Why does he not permit you to have a Season next year and find an eligible husband you can accept?’

Cassandra chose to ignore his unflattering description of her looks and prospects. ‘The Season costs money and requires planning. He will spend neither time nor money on me, although I am his only child.’ She knew she was sounding bitter, but she was beyond caring. ‘Yesterday at luncheon, he told me if I did not agree to marry Lord Offley, I would be shut in my room until I acquiesced, however long that took.’ She shuddered. ‘Have you met Lord Offley? He has a wet mouth, and he keeps wanting to touch…’

The Earl’s mobile mouth was drawn into a thin line of distaste. ‘I know him only too well, although he is not of my circle. Your instincts about him are quite correct and there are tales I could not possibly tell an innocent girl.’ He got to his feet and walked to the window, pulling back one of the drapes to stare out over the Square.

Cassandra could not read his mood, but she felt reassured by his anger on her behalf. When she was eight years old he had come to visit with his mother. He had rescued her kitten from a tree and she had thought him the most wonderful youth in the world. Now, regarding his broad shoulders, she felt the same security she had experienced when he had swung down from the tall oak clutching the terrified cat.

‘My lord,’ she began as the silence stretched on.

‘Nicholas, call me Nicholas,’ he said absently. ‘ My mother is your godmother so that makes us almost cousins or something very like. Let me think…’ Distantly there was a crash and the sound of splintering wood.

‘What the devil?’ Nicholas strode across the room and wrenched open the chamber door, Cassandra at his heels. Leaning over the landing balustrade, they had a bird’s-eye view of the hall below. Franklin, the valet, was flat on his back on the marble floor, one leg twisted beneath him with Peacock directing two footmen to lift a valise from his body. Shirts cascaded from the split leather and neck cloths fluttered on the splintered ends of the banisters.

Chapter Two

‘Is he all right?’ Nicholas called down.

The butler looked up. ‘I think not, my lord. He is unconscious and I fear his right leg is broken.’

‘Send for the surgeon and get Mrs Mitchell.’