thinking, obviously. Ah, well. She knew better now. About a lot of things.
Including how much information to impart to someone she didn’t, really, know all that well.
‘When I was sixteen years old,’ she therefore told Rosalind, cutting right to the heart of the matter, ‘I eloped with a soldier.’
‘No!’
Far from being outraged, Rosalind looked positively enthralled.
‘’Andsome, was he? ’Andsome as that Colonel?’
‘No,’ said Cassandra at once. She’d never met anyone who could hold a candle to Colonel Fairfax. Not even considering the changes the years had wrought in him. He’d been taller than most of the men at the dance, so that he literally stood head and shoulders above them all. And he’d also had an air of self-containment about him, so that he’d seemed far more dignified than the rest of the laughing, sweating, roistering crowd.
Tonight, he’d looked like a pared-down version of himself. As though he’d been ill and was still recovering. Although the biggest change had been in his eyes. Or, at least, in the way they’d looked at her. No longer with kindness and understanding, but with a cold, implacable hostility. Like two chips of ice. She gave an involuntary shiver.
‘A good kisser?’
What? She’d never kissed the Colonel, or come anywhere near it. Oh, but Rosalind was still harping on Guy. ‘He only ever kissed me once or twice, to be honest,’ Cassandra explained. ‘And only on the cheek, or the hand…’
‘Then why on earth did you elope with him? Was it money?’ She frowned. ‘Nah, because you don’t have any. Or you wouldn’t be taking Pa’s wages to introduce me about to titled people.’
Cassandra flinched. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the blunt way Rosalind spoke about money, nor did she appreciate the reminder that she was being paid to be her friend.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t about money.’
‘Forbidden love, then? Ooh, how exciting! I never knew you had it in you. You always looks so prim and proper.’
‘Well, if I am a bit prim nowadays,’ said Cassandra defensively, ‘it is because I learned my lesson back then. Guy was trying to rescue me from an unhappy home, as a matter of fact. My mother, who was a widow, was deceived into marrying a horrible, horrible man who made my life an utter…hell.’ She shivered as she recalled those dark days. Darker than anything that had happened since. ‘And Guy, well, he was my friend’s brother, or, to be completely accurate he was only one of them, she had several. They lived in the neighbourhood where we went to live when my mother remarried. At least, some of the time. You see, Lady Agatha’s father was an earl, who had several properties dotted all over the country. When they came to stay, they were the principal family in the area, which made it hard for my stepfather to refuse to let them in when they came calling. Even though he wouldn’t allow Mama or me to pay any social calls in return.’
‘What? That’s…that’s…’
‘Mean, yes. And when, one day, things had become particularly unbearable and Guy saw how things were, he, well, was overcome by a fit of chivalry, I think. Said he couldn’t bear to leave me and begged me to run away with him. He promised that we’d get married. That his regiment was going abroad soon, but that as an officer’s wife, I could go with him. He made,’ she said sourly, ‘living in a billet in a war-torn country sound terrifically exciting—’
‘I’ll say!’
‘But the reality was anything but. When we got to Portsmouth, Colonel Fairfax—’
‘The one who just called you a siren?’
‘Yes. He…he really shouted at Guy. Said he’d ruined me because we were both under age and that I couldn’t get married without my guardian’s permission, and the permission of his commanding officer, as well.’
‘He was your Guy’s commanding officer?’
‘Yes. And he ordered Guy to send me back to my family. But Guy couldn’t, because he’d spent every penny he had getting us that far.’ Guy had been all chivalry and no sense, she reflected sadly. Insisting on separate rooms when they’d had to stop overnight on their journey, to preserve her virtue. Hiring a chaise he could ill afford rather than mounting her on horseback where she’d be exposed to the elements…
‘In the end, it was the Colonel himself who provided the fare home. And arranged for one of the other soldier’s wives, one who didn’t get picked to go with the regiment, to act as my chaperon, because,’ she explained, seeing Rosalind’s puzzled frown, ‘only a certain number of the common soldier’s wives are allowed to travel abroad and they draw lots to see who can go. And I was that grateful to him,’ she said, running her hands up and down her arms again, in agitation. ‘I thought he was sorting out the awful mess Guy had made of rescuing me, was being kind, when all the time…’
‘He was rescuing Guy from your clutches,’ said Rosalind, with a giggle.
‘It isn’t funny,’ retorted Cassandra, recalling the way she’d felt when he, her hero, had said he thought her neck was pretty. It had taken a moment or two to realise he wasn’t paying her a compliment. A few more insults before she’d seen that all these years, he’d been blaming her for the mess Guy had led her into and thinking she was some sort of siren who lured unsuspecting men to their doom.
‘Why are you giggling?’
‘That Colonel. Thinking that anyone would need rescuing from your clutches. At that age! And you not even knowing as much as that you were too young to obtain a special licence…’
‘We were so silly. The pair of us. If I hadn’t been so desperate to escape my stepfather, and of course in those days I thought marriage was the only way a girl could escape…’ She shook her head. ‘Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. I was desperate and I did trust in a foolish boy, and ended up ruined.’
‘Ooh.’ Rosalind sidled a bit closer and leaned in. ‘What was it like? Being ruined?’
‘Cold and uncomfortable.’
Rosalind frowned. ‘Cold? Didn’t he…you know…snuggle up when he was doing it?’
‘Doing it? Oh!’ Cassandra suddenly saw that they’d been talking at cross-purposes. ‘No, I thought I told you, we never did…that.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘It wasn’t him, or anything he did that made me cold and uncomfortable. He was always a perfect gentleman. It was after. When I got home again. That was the worst bit. My stepfather refused to take me back. Said I was a…well, I don’t want to repeat any of the names he called me.’ She shuddered, recalling the look of glee on his face when he’d said that her behaviour obliged him to wash his hands of her. That from now on she was dead to him and to her mother, and to her brother. That she must never return and not a penny would she ever have from either of them.
‘Betty and I had no money left and nowhere to go.’
‘Betty?’
‘The soldier’s wife I told you about. The one who came with me, to lend me respectability on the journey.
