The Trouble with Cassandra by Karen Lingefelt

Author:Karen Lingefelt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karen Lingefelt
Published: 2022-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

ONLY AFTER HE CLOSED the door behind him did it dawn on Ned that he didn’t have his walking stick. He’d stashed it under the bed, thinking he wouldn’t have to use it again this night.

But he wasn’t about to go back in there for it. He could manage without it. He crept his way downstairs, pausing as he heard a door open and close upstairs. Was Cassandra coming after him out of fear he might yet abandon her in retaliation for that long-ago night?

He hoped not. He didn’t need any more chaotic scenes tonight. With the exception of that night, he’d had more chaos in the past twenty-four hours than in all the twenty-eight years of his life—and it already seemed more than enough for anyone’s lifetime.

Yet he’d never felt more alive in all his life than when he was in her presence. Hope spurted in his chest as he gazed upward, waiting for the sound of her voice, the incredible sight of her.

Instead, all he heard was a loud, heavy thumping, as if something had just been thrown to the floor upstairs, and then silence. Ned could only surmise that Saxby’s servants were still hauling baggage around.

He headed for the dining room, only to stop outside the door as he heard voices within, and then he remembered that Saxby would be supping with his wife, sister, and brother-in-law about now. And, of course, they were discussing the astounding “news” that the Earl of Kirtland was somehow wedded to the Widow Frey.

“Maybe they’re not really married,” Lady Cressida was saying. “Maybe they’re only pretending so they can share a chamber here.”

“Cressida!” her mother exclaimed. “Where do you come up with such notions?”

“Mama, I am married now. That permits me to speak of something besides the weather.”

“Not in such a place as this. Terence,” she now addressed her son. “Do you really believe they’re married?”

“Kirtland dallies with a different widow every time he goes to Bath. I daresay this is no different, though I do not care either way. And neither should you. Or Cressida, though I can’t help thinking that even with his clubfoot, Kirtland would have been a better prospect for her. He’s heir to a marquisate, and unlike Wendell, he isn’t always drunk or dished. Too bad he didn’t come to our house party two years ago, not that it would have made much difference with all the other earls there. Out of all the eligible bachelors in attendance, my sister had to get into a compromising position with—” Cutlery clattered against crockery, “—Benjamin Wendell, poor relation to the earls of Ellsworth and Thorndale.”

“Indeed,” his mother concurred. “Why, oh why didn’t Lady Pilkington plant her daughter in his bed?”

“I’m grateful she didn’t,” Saxby growled.

“Do you mean you’d rather see him married to Cressy than to Pippa?”

“What difference does it make now, Mother? He is married to Cressy.”

“But I was in love with him,” said Cressida. Ned did not miss the past tense. By now it was apparent that Wendell was not supping with them, being too foxed.

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