eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Cassandra had to admit that it seemed unlikely, given the fact that her aunt’s room was on the other side of Joanna’s.
At that moment Joanna’s door was wrenched open, and Joanna cried out in a carrying whisper, “Hush! It’s too early! He’s not here yet!”
Aunt Ardis’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her daughter in horror. All up and down the hall, doors were opening and heads were popping out, their expressions variously sleepy, irritated or avid, and some all three.
“I say, what’s going on?” Colonel Rivington, across the hall from Joanna’s room, called out. “What is all this commotion?”
“Uh.” Aunt Ardis’s mouth opened and closed like that of a landed fish.
“I’m so sorry.” Joanna smiled sweetly at the man. “Please forgive my mother. She was, uh, she was just...”
“Worried!” Aunt Ardis found her voice. “That’s it. I was worried. I heard Joanna crying out in her sleep. She must have been having a bad dream.”
“Yes,” Joanna agreed quickly. “A nightmare. I was having a nightmare.”
Cassandra eased the door shut and turned toward Sir Philip, frowning in puzzlement. “How odd. Why are they—” She stopped short at the forbidding expression on his face. “What is it?”
“I understand now.” His words were short and clipped, his mouth thinned with distaste. “I was surprised when Miss Moulton threw herself at me this afternoon. Before that she had been acting like the usual coy, flirtatious maiden. Then suddenly she turned into a brazen woman of the world.” He remembered his faint surprise as she had “accidentally” brushed against him three times this afternoon in the conservatory and the seductive looks she had sent him, the long, promising kiss behind a palm tree as she slipped the note into his hand.
“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
“Your cousin’s scheme. Your aunt’s. She wrote me that note asking me to come to her room tonight at midnight. She gave every indication of welcoming quite dishonorable attentions. And her mother was primed to come barging in after I was in the room, rousing everyone on the floor with her loud comments.”
Cassandra stared. “You mean, she lured you up to her room so that her mother could catch you in a compromising position with her? But why? Why would she want to destroy her reputation like that?”
A faint smile flickered across Neville’s face. Her lack of comprehension of her relatives’ scheme spoke volumes about her own honest character. “My dear girl, I doubt very much that she cared about her reputation being shredded, as long as it brought her wealth and an old name. Her reputation would not have been ruined, in any case, since she and I would immediately have become engaged.”
Cassandra gasped. “You mean—they wanted to force you into marrying Joanna? I can’t believe it!” But she could; it took only a moment’s reflection to bring her around. Why else would her aunt have been pounding on Joanna’s door so loudly and virtually shouting, except to bring out several interested observers? Why else would her aunt, usually early to bed, still have been up at midnight—and still wearing her corset, her hair done up? She was expecting everyone to look at her, and she had been unable to bring herself to be in true deshabille.
“That’s why I was so groggy...” Cassandra murmured. “Aunt Ardis must have put some of her laudanum in my drink tonight. I should have known she was up to something when she came in here with that warm milk to help me sleep. She knows how lightly I sleep and the difficulty I often have going to bed. She wanted me deep in slumber so I wouldn’t investigate any noise I heard—like you slipping into Joanna’s room.”
“No doubt you’re right. It is merely my good luck that Miss Moulton’s handwriting is so illegible, or you would have found yourself forced into cousinship with me.”
“Oh.” Cassandra raised her hands to her burning cheeks. She wasn’t sure whether she was more humiliated or furious. How could her aunt and cousin have acted in such a despicable way? Somehow the thought of Joanna trying to tie this man to her for life made Cassandra long to slap her cousin. “I am so ashamed. Sir Philip, I apologize for my family. I cannot imagine what made them do such a thing.”
“I have found that the lure of money often causes people to act in a bizarre fashion.”
“That is no excuse for—for such a lack of principles. I am sorry, so dreadfully sorry.” Her eyes shone with angry, embarrassed tears. “You must think we are awful.”
He smiled and took her hand, gallantly bowing over it and brushing the back of her hand with his lips. “My dear lady, I do not think you are awful at all. Indeed, you almost restore my faith in humanity.”
The touch of his lips on her skin sent an unaccustomed thrill through Cassandra, reminding her of the fevered, pulse-racing condition in which she had awakened. That odd melting-wax sensation deep in her abdomen had still not completely gone away. Cassandra swallowed and turned away.
“I, ah, I shall see if everyone has gone back inside.” She opened the door a crack and looked out. When she saw no one, she stuck her head out the door and peered up and down the hall.
She turned back to Sir Philip. “There is no one out there now.”
He nodded. “Then I shall take my leave of you.” He smiled, sketching her another elegant bow. “Thank you for a most interesting evening, Miss Moulton.”
“Oh, I’m—” Cassandra stopped. Now was not the time to go into an explanation that her name was not Moulton. “I’m just sorry for what my cousin and aunt did.”
“And I apologize for...my most ungentlemanly behavior.”
Cassandra felt another blush beginning to rise in her cheeks. She turned away and made another check out the door, then stepped aside for Sir Philip to pass. She closed the door behind him and waited a few tense moments for the sounds of voices that would indicate that he had been caught. There was nothing. Again she ventured a peek out and saw that the hall was empty. Sir Philip had gone.
She closed the door and leaned against it, letting out a sigh. Oh, God! Why had this had to happen? Tonight, of all nights, and with Sir Philip Neville, of all people?
Cassandra made her way over to her bed and sat down heavily. She had schemed so hard to get her aunt to take her along on this visit when she had heard that Sir Philip was going to be here. It had taken numerous careful, subtle hints about the difficulty of chaperoning an active young girl like Joanna on the sort of outdoors amusements that one tended to go on at large house parties, painting a picture of liveliness that was guaranteed not to appeal to Aunt Ardis’s sluggish nature. Concealing any desire on her own part to attend such a function, she had worked her aunt around to realizing that the ideal solution would be to take Cassandra along to chaperon Joanna on the activities Aunt Ardis found too taxing. Reluctantly, Cassandra had let herself be persuaded.
It had been, she thought, a superb performance on her part, especially given the fact that her decisive, straightforward nature did not run naturally toward subterfuge. And now her effort was in all likelihood wasted. How could she even face Sir Philip again, knowing what Joanna had tried to do to him? And knowing, too, in what an intimate situation he had met Cassandra herself?
Heat flooded her just at the memory of the things she had dreamed—the deep, passionate
