‘Thank you.’ He jerked the chair opposite her away from the table and slouched in it, long booted legs thrust out.
‘Have you had a nice ride?’ Now she had him alone, perhaps she could provoke him into revealing what was wrong.
‘Not particularly,’ Nicholas was obviously disinclined for conversation. He took the proffered cup and unfolded a newspaper with an irritable snap.
‘I didn’t realise you read German,’ Cassandra remarked, peering across at the heavy Gothic script.
‘I don’t. I was merely trying to indicate – tactfully, I thought – that I would prefer to eat my breakfast in peace and quiet.’
‘Well, have some ham, then,’ she suggested helpfully. ‘You know you’re always irritable in the morning until you’ve had something to eat.’
There was a deadly silence while Nicholas lowered the paper and regarded her with hard green eyes. ‘I suggest you watch your tongue, Cassandra. My mood early in the morning should be quite outside your experience – do not forget our acquaintance is supposed to be of a week’s duration. Mama can scheme to her heart’s content, but it will all come to nothing if you cannot curb your tongue.’
Cassandra counted up to ten in Greek beneath her breath, very slowly. ‘It is excellent ham,’ she said out loud.
‘Damn the ham!’ he exploded, jumping up from the chair, which fell back on the polished boards with a clatter.
‘Nicholas.’ Cassandra assumed an expression of outrage. ‘You should not use such language in front of me, it is most improper.’ She knew she was goading him, but here he could not threaten to send her packing back to her father, or put her over his knee as he had in Venice.
‘Why, I must congratulate Mama on the transformation she has wrought,’ he said slowly, his face hardening as he eyed her slim figure in the demure sprigged muslin gown. ‘No-one would recognise Cass the valet now, or a certain young lady in a Paris bedroom.’
Chapter Twenty
Cassandra gasped, the flush rising hectically to her face. How could he remind her of that? She was half on her feet when he rounded the table and sat on the edge, so close she was forced to sit down again. He seemed to tower over her. ‘That wasn’t fair,’ she said in a voice that shook, and not only with indignation.
‘If you want me to forget those weeks we spent together, Cassandra, you must stop invoking the memories,’ he said, in a voice that still retained the hard edge of anger. ‘Now you want to be treated like a young lady. You want insipid compliments and well-turned phrases. You want nice safe flirtations and gestures from your pack of young admirers. Like this.’
He picked up her hand in his. Her fingers felt suddenly cold against the enveloping warmth of his, still slightly roughened from the reins. He bent his head and brushed the briefest of touches across her knuckles, then surrendered her hand with a flourish.
‘Well, Miss Weston? Will that suffice? It will have to, won’t it? One step out of line, one indication of your impetuous nature, and the carefully woven illusion is shattered.’
‘Oh, no, my lord,’ Cassandra countered furiously. ‘Lord Stewart, to take but one example, is considerably more ardent in his attentions. And, I may say, he is considerably more gallant than you. He says my natural high spirits are charming.’
‘Stewart will never make you a declaration,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It is known he is hanging out for a wife with good connexions.’
‘I know that; I am not as gullible as you seem to think. Don’t forget, Nicholas, I have just spent seven weeks in the company of just such another gentleman. But Lord Stewart is witty and he is fun to be with, two qualities you are singularly lacking this morning.’
She stood up, galvanised by irritation and found herself standing so close to him her face was almost touching his neckcloth. The familiar scent of him, his warmth, filled her nostrils and seemed to take all power of movement from her.
The room was very still, the only sounds were of Nicholas’s breathing, and the steady tick of the clock echoing her own heartbeat. Cassandra stood, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around him, bury her face in his chest and never let him go.
Nicholas did not move, and slowly she raised her head to look at him. He was regarding her steadily with hooded eyes, the trace of a smile touching his lips. ‘It is very unfair, Cassandra,’ he said softly, ‘but well-bred young ladies can’t expect to have fun.’
He kissed her then, before she had a chance to move her face away. The kiss echoed his voice, cool and sardonic, devoid of emotion or passion, but none the less thorough for that.
Cassandra jerked away angrily, face aflame. ‘How dare you? I did nothing to warrant such behaviour from you – and you have the effrontery to warn me against Lord Stewart…’ She stuttered to a halt, lost for words.
Nicholas stood up, quite calmly. ‘But that is my point, Cassandra. Lord Stewart is exactly like me and if you behave as recklessly with him, you may expect the same response, but considerably less discretion.’
Cassandra swung away from him, trying to hide the tears that welled in her eyes. Goading him had worked only too well and he was saying things she didn’t want to hear, things that hurt because she loved him
‘Oh, damn it, Cassie, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ There was an exasperated tenderness in his voice that made her heart thump. ‘Come here.’ Nicholas pulled her into the comfort of his arms, in an embrace so different from what had just passed between them, he could have been a different man.
‘I’m not crying,’ she protested unconvincingly.
‘Then you obviously have something in your eye,’ he said, humouring her. ‘Have you a handkerchief?’
He was already reaching for her reticule as she stammered, ‘No!’