Lewis directed the driver to the mews behind the house. But even going in the servants’ entrance did them no good.
The butler met them on the first-floor landing, somewhat out of breath. One of the servants must have scuttled off to inform him of their arrival, and he’d dashed up the front stairs as they crept up the back.
“Sir John wants you both in the library.” The man was too proud of his place to show the surprise he must have felt at Jack’s appearance, and too well-trained to apologize for the message he delivered. But a softening of his tone and pucker of concern around the eyes said what his words did not.
Jack didn’t notice. “The devil fly away with you, Wimbley, and with him. I wager Mama’s there too, ain’t she?”
Lewis grabbed Jack’s arm and pulled him toward the main staircase. “You’re out of line, Jack. Come on.”
“Oh hell, it’s Saint Lewis again. Tsk tsk, you mustn’t swear at the servants.” Jack’s sanctified whine mimicked a campaigner for social justice. “Okay, let’s go. No point in putting it off. You didn’t tell them where I was, did you?”
“How can you ask? Of course not.”
Jack muttered something that might have been “Thanks.”
It was a very short interview. Jack shambled into the library ahead of Lewis. He’d been given no time to do more than run his fingers through his hair on the way downstairs, and that had done more harm than good. Particularly with the bruise developing on his jaw where Lewis had hit him, he looked as if he’d spent the night boxing the watch, not curled up in an actress’s bed.
Lady Wedbury surveyed her son from head to toe and back again. Her brows drew together, her chin lifted, her nostrils tightened.
“John Horatio Wedbury. Have you taken leave of your senses? How dare you come in here like that.”
Lewis couldn’t see Jack’s face, but his posture was an insult, his voice held only contempt. “I had every intention of washing up, dear Mother, but you and Papa were too eager to bite my head off.”
“I had no notion you’d spent the night in a byre. You will—”
“You’ll take the opportunity now,” said Sir John, averting his lady’s threatened rant. Lewis had seldom heard him so severe. “I expect to see you here again within the hour, clean and dressed like a civilized man—and prepared to pretend, at least, a suitable respect for your mother!”
Jack bowed low, exaggerating his insincerity. “Sir. Madam. My apologies for sullying your royal presence.” He backed his way to the door, bowing and scraping all the way, reached behind him to find the handle, and let himself out.
What an absurdity! Taken leave of his senses, indeed. Stunned, the three remaining gaped at each other. There was nothing to say. Lewis shook his head and turned to go.
“Lewis!” Sir John’s peremptory command stopped him. “Where did you find him? After this appalling display, we’re entitled to know.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I promised him.”
“You might have promised Jack. That,” said Lady Wedbury, pointing at the door, “is not Jack.”
Jack’s shout penetrated from his bedchamber to the corridor as Lewis retreated to his own room. “Ow! Be careful, you clumsy oaf!” Poor Robert.
Barely within the hour allotted, Lewis heard Jack leave his room for a second round with his parents—and he heard him return. His footsteps pounded up to Lewis’s door and he burst in with a red face and a mulish set to his mouth.
As though nothing had gone awry with their friendship, Jack told Lewis all about the scene in the library at high volume, accompanied by grand gestures that were not his style at all. With the servants already packing for the return to Yorkshire, Jack refused to go.
No doubt the Wedburys would feel happier about cutting the leading-strings if Jack had stayed within his allowance while in London, come home before dawn, drunk fine brandy instead of Blue Ruin, and most of all, remained the same person he’d always been. But he was of age. He had a right to make that decision.
And Lewis had a right to make his. It did not include spending the whole summer in London. Tomorrow he would go to Bristol and satisfy himself as to Miss Spain’s welfare. Then he was going home.
Cassie should have felt the same. Yet when Lewis found her in the morning room and told her about his own plans and Jack’s, she flew up into the boughs. “If that isn’t the outside of enough! I have more reason to stay than Jack does.”
“Lord, Cassie. Only a fool would forego a summer in Yorkshire to stay in this cesspit.”
She stopped pacing to stand in front of him, hands on her hips, chin thrust forward. She barely reached his cravat pin. “I guess I’m a fool, then.”
Lowering her gaze, she stroked the lapels of his coat as one might soothe an aggravated cat. Was she blushing? “Don’t you think if Jack is going to stay, we should all stay? He might get into real trouble, and there would be no one here to take care of things.”
“What are you up to, Cassie? Why do I have this feeling Jack is not your only motivation?”
“Well…” She took his arm and pulled him farther away from the door and any possible eavesdroppers.
“Neil—that’s Captain Fuller—was at the ball last night. He wants us to get married, Lewis.”
“Ah.” Lewis’s voice came out flat. “Your air of intrigue makes it all sound very exciting. Am I right to assume he has not spoken to your father?”
“Not yet, no. He’s…” She deflated and dropped onto the sofa. “He’s afraid Mama and Papa will be against the match.”
Lewis took her hand and gave it a pat. “You can’t expect them to be in alt over marrying you to a soldier with no assets but his commission. It’s not quite what they had in mind.”
“It’s a Guards commission! It’s not like he’s penniless!” She gripped his wrist and peered up at him. “Do you know, Lewis? Have they said anything to you?”
“No. In any case, what’s the rush? He can take some leave, come up to Yorkshire for a visit later on. No reason you need to—”
“You don’t understand, Lewis. It might be months before he could get away. I can’t survive months without him.”
“Gracious me. When did things get so serious?” Had Jack absorbed so much of his attention that he’d had none left for Cassie? However badly he felt about that, it did not change his judgment that Yorkshire was the best place for all of them.
“No! If Jack doesn’t have to go, I won’t go either!” Cassie’s words fizzed in the still air of the library. Like an electric storm rolling down from the moors, a force a blind man could feel, exhilarating and frightening.
“Cassandra Marie Wedbury,” said her mother, her face an ominous shade of purple. “Would you repeat what you just said? My hearing must be failing.” Lewis glanced at Sir John, sitting stunned in his desk chair.
“Good lord, Cass,” Jack snarled, jumping down from his awkward perch on the library ladder. “What do you think you could possibly do for me? Get in my way, that’s all. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you!” He charged out of the room.
All eyes swiveled to Cassie, on trial in the center of the room. She herself had called this family council, but it had not gone the way she’d hoped. Lewis could have told her it would not.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she used both hands to swipe at them. “I never cry.”
Sir John surged to his feet and angled around the desk, but Lewis was already beside her, an arm around her shoulders. She turned to him, sobbing against his coat.
Her father took hold of one damp hand. “He didn’t mean that, Cass. You know Jack’s not quite…”
Lady Wedbury cut through the platitudes. Her voice shook. “Cassandra, these Cheltenham tragedies are extremely unbecoming. If you can’t control yourself, go upstairs until you can. You may take your meals in your room.”
“She has some reason,” Lewis told her. Reasons he could not tell. First Anna, now Cassie. Too many damned secrets.
Cassie pulled out her little embroidered handkerchief and blew her nose. Then she drew herself up tall and proud. “Neil wants to marry me, Mama!”
Lady Wedbury tottered to the nearest chair and fell into it.
Sir John dropped Cassie’s hand and wandered toward the door, for all the world like a sleepwalker. He stopped at the little table that stood just inside the room bearing a pair of decanters and an assortment of glassware. He poured some brandy and drained it, coughed, and filled the glass again. This time he took it to his wife.
She gaped up at him, her expression blank. Then she focused on the glass and put it to her lips, sipping once, and then again.
Cassie stepped closer to her parents, planting her hands on her hips in battle stance. “For pity’s sake! We’ve been driving or walking or dancing together every day he can get away. He comes by the house for no reason at all. Why should you be shocked at the idea?”
“How is it,” said Sir John, “that you know his intentions, yet I do not?”
Cassie tsked. “Oh, Papa. Don’t be so stuffy. Maybe it was different when you were courting Mama, but modern couples talk to each other. He’s going to see you, but you’ve been preoccupied with Jack.”
Sir John turned to Lewis. “You don’t seem surprised. How long have you known about this?”
“Perhaps an hour, sir.”
“Humph. What do you think about it, lad?”
Cassie’s hands formed into fists. “What does he have to say to anything? Lewis isn’t—”
He touched her shoulder. She stopped, thank heavens. His insides had twisted in a tightening spiral of tension. Yet he did have some support to lend her.
“She’s right that my thoughts have precious little bearing. It caught me unawares, just as it did you, sir. Cassie, married? It seems impossible.” She would no longer be his playmate and confidante. “But for what it’s worth, I like Fuller. I can’t speak to his finances, though he always has enough for his needs. He seems a steady sort of fellow with a good head on his shoulders.”
“We all like him,” grumbled Lady Wedbury, as though she resented him for it. Her brandy glass sat empty on the table beside her. “But we did not spend all this money on a Season in town in order to marry you to some fortune hunter, Cassandra!”
Lewis almost groaned aloud as Cassie fired up again. “He’s not, Mama! How can you say such a thing? He has investments. He has expectations. And there’s his commission in the Guards, they don’t come cheap. Papa, surely you don’t think he’s a fortune hunter?”
Lewis was skeptical. He believed Fuller’s fondness for Cassie was genuine, but as to the rest of it…
“I will investigate all that, Cass,” said Sir John. “Send him to me when—”
“He told me, Papa! He’s a gentleman, he would not lie to me.”
“I trust not, my dear. If he’s—”
Cassie uttered a wail of frustration. “Oh, this is the outside of enough! After all Neil has done for me, for Lewis, even for Jack, who can’t speak a civil word to him. You’d prefer I marry Gideon, I suppose! He’s been sniffing around me like a…”
“Cassandra!” Lady Wedbury jumped to her feet. “Have you forgotten all standards of conduct? Yes, Gideon is a very eligible parti. We used to discuss the match, we and the Aubreys.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mama, but I will never marry a reptile like Gideon Aubrey!”
From the middle of the room, Lewis felt the gust of wind as the door slammed shut behind her.