Your Grace, that is not true! I mean, yes, I’m sure he did leap at the chance to get his hands on what money should have come to me, because he is that sort of man. But he didn’t have to make up any scandal about me. I did run away with a soldier, you know, and I did return home unmarried…’
The Duchess held up her hand to stop her saying anything further. ‘I am glad that you are being so frank with me. But you cannot restore your reputation if you go round blurting out the truth to all and sundry.’
Cassandra’s heart gave a little lurch. Could it be possible? Could she really slough off the cloud of disgrace she could always feel hanging over her head, even when everyone was polite to her face these days? Could she find a place in polite society again? Become respectable once more?
But at what cost? ‘I won’t tell lies to try to persuade people I am something I am not,’ she said firmly.
‘There will be no need,’ said the Duchess after a pause. ‘From what you have just said, it sounds as if your so-called scandal was little more than a brief escapade, which could have been brushed over if your mother had not married such a monster.’
‘Well, yes, but…’ she clasped her hands at her waist as another barrier to the Duchess’s scheme sprang to mind ‘…am I not too old to make a come-out?’
‘Not at all. You cannot be more than twenty years of age?’
‘I am three and twenty.’
‘You look much younger. Besides, there are plenty of men who do not want a bride right out of the schoolroom. Someone more mature, with a bit of sense. And you are so pretty that I am sure there will be someone who is willing to overlook all that other business,’ she said, waving her hand to dismiss Cassandra’s Fatal Error as though it was no more than a bothersome fly.
‘But… I’m not at all sure I wish to marry,’ said Cassandra with a guilty look at her aunts, whose views on marriage she had begun to absorb. ‘I am very happy here.’
‘I am sure you are,’ said the Duchess soothingly. ‘And if you don’t find a husband and wish to come back here after your Season, why, of course you may. But there’s more to having a Season than catching a husband. There are all the balls and parties, and picnics and shopping, and visiting the theatre, and galleries and exhibitions. I vow and declare you deserve to enjoy all that has been so long denied you—through, I’m sure, no fault of your own.’
‘That’s true, Cassandra,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘And even though we both turned our backs on society, at least we had the luxury of choosing to do so.’
‘You see?’ The Duchess turned to Cassandra with a smile of triumph. ‘Your aunts would love you to be able to find a husband, if that would make you happy, even if it wasn’t for them,’ she declared with a candour that was slightly shocking.
‘And even if your experiences have put you off men altogether, that is no reason not to come to London with me. Wouldn’t you like to go to balls and see the sights, Cassy darling?’
Cassy twisted the hands she still held clasped at her waist. Because not five minutes earlier, she had been wishing for just that very thing. And to be honest, if she could find a man like her real papa, a man who’d been kind and jolly from what she could remember of him, then she wouldn’t mind marrying, either. For one thing it would mean she wouldn’t have to work for her living any longer. And for another, she might have children. Adorable little chubby babies, who’d grow into people who would love her.
‘You know,’ pointed out Aunt Eunice, gruffly, just as Cassy had begun to get a real pang of longing to feel a warm little bundle in her arms, while another pair of youthful arms hugged her knees, ‘it wouldn’t do you any harm to go up to Town just to see the latest fashions being worn.’
‘And visit some of the silk warehouses and see what’s on offer,’ said Aunt Cordelia.
‘There, you see? These dear ladies are in agreement. Even if you cannot find a husband, there are plenty of other useful things you can do in town. And we shall have such fun,’ said the Duchess, clapping her dainty little hands in delight. ‘Oh, I knew this was going to answer.’
‘Well,’ said Cassandra, wondering why she was bothering to argue when everyone in the room, including her, thought that a trip to London was just what she needed. ‘It is very good of you, Your Grace…’
‘Oh, don’t start off calling me that. I am your godmother and it will be of the utmost importance to remind everyone of that fact. So you had better get into the habit of calling me Godmama right away. And as for being good,’ she added with a rather mischievous grin, ‘that is not altogether true. Since you have been honest with me, my dear, it is only fair that I return the favour by being completely honest with you.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You see, although it is true that, for a while, at one point in our lives, your mother and I were great friends, that is not the only reason I have offered to bring you out.’ She tilted her head to one side, setting her golden ringlets dancing, and smiled in what Cassandra thought of as a positively coaxing manner.
‘It is my stepson,’ she said, her smile fading. ‘He has practically ordered me to leave Town and go to live in the Dower House. Which I shall never do! I have such horrid memories of my years at Theakstone Court that I vowed never to set foot anywhere on the estate ever again. But when I told him so, he said I would have no choice if he were to turn off all the London servants. Well…’ she leaned back as both aunts gasped in outrage ‘…that was all he knew! For the moment I warned the staff of his threats, they all swore they would stay on without wages, if necessary. Isn’t that loyal of them? The dears. Which meant that of course I could not abandon them, either. And so I started cudgelling my brains for a solution which would mean that we could all stay on in Grosvenor Square. Which,’ she said, holding out her hand to Cassandra in a way that looked like an appeal for help, ‘is where you come in…’
Colonel Nathaniel Fairfax stood for a moment just inside the doorway of the ballroom, scouting the terrain. Dance floor directly ahead, full of couples performing complicated manoeuvres at the trot. To his right, a dowagers’ bench, fully occupied by well-fed matrons. Beyond them, a trio of fiddlers sawing away industriously. There were two exits, he noted, apart from the doorway in which he was standing. One led to a refreshment room, to judge from the tables he could spy through the crowds gathered there, and the other led to the outside. A terrace, probably. Most houses of this size had them.
There was a sort of corridor between the terrace door and the dance floor, formed by a set of pillars, and several strategically placed urns stuffed with foliage behind which sharpshooters could crouch, should they wish to prevent uninvited guests getting in through any set of doors.
Not that he was expecting to encounter sharpshooters in a ballroom. Though he was scouting the terrain for something potentially far more dangerous.
A woman.
She wasn’t one of the ladies cavorting about the dance floor. Only a couple of them had dark hair, but neither of them were anywhere near as pretty as he recalled her being.
She was not on the dowagers’ bench. Not unless she’d aged a couple of decades and put on several stone in weight during the six years since he’d last clapped eyes on her.
Was
