Miss Weston's Masquerade

Madame continued to talk as she straightened the bedclothes. ‘I will never understand Englishmen. How could he have been so blind? You would not have deceived a Frenchman for one moment.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’ Cassandra swallowed the soup hungrily, it seemed days since she had eaten.

‘You have slept the clock round. Now eat, and sleep again. Tomorrow, perhaps, you may get up.’

‘But I need to talk to Nicholas.’ All Cassandra could think of was the expression on his face as he realised just how she had deceived him. What would he do? Such impropriety would not be countenanced by polite society. Even the reputation of the Earl of Lydford would be damaged by such a scandal and no mother of a marriageable daughter would have him in the house again. Godmama would never forgive her if she prevented Nicholas from making a suitable marriage, as surely he soon must.

‘Not in your room. It would be most improper for the Earl to visit you here. Besides, he, too, is resting. He came close to losing his own life in rescuing you.’

So it had been Nicholas who had dragged her from the water, and brought her back from the edge of death. She found she was rubbing her wrist where his strong fingers had marked her. ‘And the others? Our boatmen?’

‘They are all safe, thank God.’ Madame crossed herself. ‘Even the one whose fall caused the accident will live, although he has a broken leg. Now rest again, that is enough talk for now.’

Cassandra was too weak to argue, even if Madame’s autocratic manner had permitted it. ‘Yes, Madame,’ she said obediently, her eyes closing even as she spoke.

When Nicholas found her the next day, Cassandra was sitting quietly on a settle by the fire in the back parlour. In the high-necked grey gown Madame had found for her and with her cropped hair, she looked like a novice nun, he thought. Her face was porcelain-pale except for a livid bruise running from cheekbone to jawline on one side and she was flexing stiff fingers painfully in her lap. Her wrists were encircled with the marks of his fingers.

‘Cassie,’ he said quietly.

Cassandra jumped, then bit her lip with pain at the sudden movement. Nicholas took one step towards her, thinking only to comfort her, then stopped, recalling just who she was. He sat down abruptly in the wing chair on the other side of the fire.

‘We have to talk.’ He looked not at her but down at his clasped hands.

‘I know, Nicholas. I’m sorry. I was headstrong and foolish and I should never have allowed you to go on believing I was so young. But I knew you would not have brought me with you if you knew the truth.’ He looked up and saw her shudder. ‘But the thought Lord Offley… He kissed me, you know. He has wet lips. I couldn’t face it. I would rather have died than remain.’

‘You almost did,’ he said harshly, looking back at his bruised, cut hands.

‘Madame told me it was you who saved me.’ Still he could not look at her. ‘Thank you for saving my life, risking your own for me. I am truly sorry.’

‘You are sorry?’ The words burst from him, his bitter control snapping. ‘I should never have taken you on that boat. You were frightened and I ignored it.’ The anger burned inside. ‘This has been a sorry escapade.’ He got to his feet and thumped the mantelpiece with his clenched fist. ‘I must have been mad that day in London.’

‘But you weren’t to know my true age,’ Cassandra protested. ‘It was I who let you go on believing I was fifteen.’

‘Just how old are you, Cassandra?’ he demanded and saw her flinch at the harshness of his tone. He was standing over her, too close, and she had to look up to meet his scrutiny.

‘Eighteen,’ she confessed quietly.

‘Oh, Cassie.’ He took her chin between his fingers, turned her face from side to side as he studied it. ‘Of all the stupid things to do.’ There was a heavy silence, then he sighed and released her. ‘What a damn fool I’ve been. I think I must have known all the time, I just didn’t want to see it. For heaven’s sake, I nearly kissed you in Lyons.’

‘You did kiss me in Paris,’ she said miserably.

‘You do not have to remind me. Hell, Cassandra, you are a woman, however little experience you may have of Society and the world. You must realise…’ How to explain what he did not understand himself when it came to her?

‘Are you telling me I cannot trust you?’ she whispered.

‘Yes. No.’ He spun away, pacing the room in frustration at inability to explain to her. ‘That night in Paris I had been drinking, you had made me angry – and then to see you looking like that… I didn’t stop to think. I reacted.’ He struggled to find the words to explain. ‘Our Society keeps unmarried girls and men apart for a reason. Sometimes our natures overrule both sense and honour.’

He saw her throat move as Cassandra swallowed. ‘What you are trying to say is that if it happened in Paris, it could happen again if we are thrown together in such intimacy. You are saying that you must send me back,’ she stated bleakly. ‘That you have no alternative.’

‘I only wish I could send you back,’ he said bitterly. ‘Don’t think I haven’t considered it.’ He tried smiling but he doubted it was very reassuring. ‘But I could not consign you to Offley’s tender mercies, not and live with myself afterwards. Nor can I send you directly to my mother. From here you would have to travel back to Lyons, then across the Alps into Switzerland and on to Vienna, and that is too perilous a journey even with a reliable escort.

‘No, I have weighed all this since yesterday and you must continue to travel with me, but as my ward, under my protection. It is no further to Vienna through Italy than to retrace our steps.

‘Madame will find you a wardrobe of discreet clothes such as you are wearing now and we must hope you can pass as a schoolgirl. I will engage a maid.’ He broke off and looked at her. ‘It will seem unconventional, but we are on the Continent: and foreigners think all the English are mad, anyway. We must just avoid the company of our own countrymen.’

‘But Nicholas, you will be sacrificing so much, missing so much of the Grand Tour if we have to avoid everywhere where English tourists will be,’ she protested. So like Cassie. He could strangle her half of the time – the half when he wasn’t wanting to kiss her senseless – but she was always worrying about him.

He shrugged. ‘So be it. I doubt I’ll have a decent night’s sleep until I can deliver you safe to my mother, never mind an appetite for art galleries and antiquities.’ He doubted he’d ever have a decent night’s sleep with her so close, regardless of where they were. Now the guilt of feeling desire for the girl he had believed her to be was gone his body ached with need.