Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (25 page)

“Oh, Reggie, you’re so droll!” Lady Blakewell
exclaimed, rapping his forearm with her closed fan, a move that
earned her a fleeting look of utter hostility from her nephew
before his quick smile drew attention away from what Cassandra was
sure was a thinly veiled hatred of the older woman.

Anxious not to get involved in a family
fight, which might end with her being left to find her own way
home, heaven only knew how, Cassandra quickly agreed to the
proposed drive in the park, then slipped her hand through Mr.
Hawtrey’s arm to be led to Byron’s side.

“Hawtrey?” Byron asked, looking pained once
the introductions were completed. “Didn’t I decline your invitation
to dine last week? Scrope,” he said, turning to his friend, who had
been introduced as Scrope Davies, a smallish man whose even good
looks paled beside the flamboyant beauty of Byron’s fallen-god
features, “surely we declined, didn’t we? I shouldn’t hope I was so
in my cups that I accepted.”

Scrope hid a smile behind his hand, then
grinned broadly as he saw Cassandra’s quick understanding of
Byron’s insult. “So, Hawtrey here says our friend Marcus has
misplaced you,” he said, stepping forward to bow over her hand.
“Well, Marcus’s loss can only be seen as our gain, Miss Kelley. We
must speak of America, for I am endlessly interested in such
things.”

“Looking for another hidey hole if your
creditors become too much for you, Scrope?” Byron said teasingly.
“What would you do in America, old friend, with all those wild
Indians about? I for one prefer the continent. I have even thought
of traveling to Greece again one day.”

“Greece?” Cassandra racked her brain. Byron’s
words had set off alarm bells in her head. Then she remembered.
Lord Byron was to leave England under a cloud of scandal in a few
years, contract malaria while fighting in some war in Greece, and
die there. “Don’t do it, my lord,” she blurted without thinking.
“Especially Missolonghi. Whatever you do, stay away from
Missolonghi!”

Lord Byron, who had been affecting an air of
bored indifference, looked at Cassandra with some intensity.
“Missolonghi? I don’t believe I have ever heard the name, much less
entertained the thought of traveling to such a place. But to be so
impassioned, Miss Kelley? Why, it’s almost as if you had looked
into my future, and discovered tragedy.”

Now she’d done it! Open mouth, insert foot.
Why, sometimes it seemed as if the only time she opened her mouth
was to change feet. Oh, yes, Marcus was going to be
ecstatic.
She took a small backward step, planning her
escape—the hell with figuring out how she’d get back to Grosvenor
Square without Lady Blakewell. “It’s nothing, my lord,” Cassandra
stammered. “Honestly. I—
um
—I just sometimes get
these—
um
—these
feelings.
Yes, that’s it—feelings.
They never amount to anything.”

Lady Blakewell’s jowls were quivering as she
leaned across Cassandra, speaking directly to her nephew, all but
drooling in her excitement. “
Feelings,
Reggie. Did you hear
that? The girl gets
feelings.
Didn’t I tell you that the
Reverend Mr. Austin said she was strange? That she spoke in
tongues, saying words unknown in any language?” She turned to
Cassandra, her eyes gleaming. “You’re Irish, Miss Kelley. My
mother’s dresser was Irish, and she had the second sight. She could
find lost jewelry, tell us when it was coming on to rain—all that
sort of thing. You’re fey, aren’t you? The Reverend Mr. Austin,
fool that he is, thinks you’re possessed of the devil. But you’re
not. You have the second sight. You might even be able to tell the
future.”

“Aunt, please,” Reginald interrupted, his
tone deadly.

“Foretell the future?” Lord Byron laughed,
and Scrope Davies laughed along with him. “Well, that settles it,
dear man,” he said. “I shall not dare set foot in
Missolonghi—wherever it is. I shall just have to stay here,
sponging on my dear friend Scrope—and harassing the public with my
poor scribblings.”

“Miss Kelley!”

Cassandra flinched, then whirled about to see
Marcus descending on their small group, that telltale tic working
in his left cheek. And what was he so angry about?
She
hadn’t gone off and left
him.

By the time he had elbowed his way through
the crowd, he seemed to have regained his good humor. Bowing a
welcome to Lord Byron and Scrope Davies, he turned to thank Lady
Blakewell and her nephew for taking such good care of his errant
“ward.” Cassandra, a smile likewise plastered to her face, leaned
close to him and, while nodding agreement to his statements,
gritted out from between clenched teeth, “Marcus—get me the
hell
out of here.
Now.
”

“Good as it has been to see you,” the
marquess, still not looking at Cassandra, went on smoothly after
Lord Byron good-naturedly needled him about misplacing his house
guest, “I’m afraid we’ll have to be leaving now. I’ve sent Perry on
ahead with my Miss Haskins to secure the carriage. Good night.”

Mr. Hawtrey, his quizzing glass stuck to his
eye for a third time, effectively stopped Marcus in his tracks,
saying, “Good night, Miss Kelley. And remember your promise. I
shall not sleep a wink in anticipation of our drive tomorrow—at
three?”

Cassandra avoided Marcus’s eyes,
concentrating on refolding her fan. Not that he’d kill her here.
There were too many witnesses. But she knew she wouldn’t give two
cents for her chances once they were safely back in the
carriage.

“Miss Kelley has agreed to drive out with
you, Hawtrey?” Marcus inquired, his fingers digging into the soft
skin just above her elbow. “I don’t know if that is
convenient.”

Lord Byron threw back his head and laughed.
He laughed a lot, Cassandra thought, for a man who had such tragedy
lurking in his future. “Oh, Marcus, how utterly gothic of you. You
sound like a hen with one chick, afraid to let her out of your
sight. Or are you fearful of poachers?”

Goaded, Marcus reacted like any man.
“Nonsense, George. I was merely reviewing Miss Kelley’s hectic
schedule. This is her first Season, you know.”

Lord Byron nudged his friend Davies. “What do
you think, Scrope? Is Marcus putting it on too thick and rare?
Anyone would think Hawtrey here was a dangerous criminal.” He
leaned forward, to peer at the dandy. “What say you, Hawtrey? Are
you dangerous?”

“Dangerous? Oh, your lordship, if that isn’t
above everything silly!” Lady Blakewell trilled, using her fan on
Lord Byron’s arm. The move brought a look of intelligent cunning to
his lordship’s eyes that Cassandra would not appreciate having
directed her way, for she had just remembered that Byron slept with
a loaded pistol under his pillow. “My Reggie is a saint,” the older
woman continued, “and all know it. Why, he has agreed to introduce
Miss Kelley to all the best people. Isn’t that correct, Miss
Kelley?”

Cassandra’s smile, she knew, was sickly to
the point of expiration. “Well, he did say
something
—but, I
don’t know...” she trailed off weakly, looking up at Marcus, who
was looking down at her with something very close to disgust in his
dark eyes. Wait a minute! He was
disgusted
with her? Oh,
really?
Did he think she was going to go into her “Harriette
Wilson mode” or something and jump good old Reggie’s bones? Or did
he just think she was too stupid to carry off a simple carriage
ride through the park? Well, she’d show him!

“Actually,” she said, brightening, and hoping
Marcus choked on his overprotective instincts, “now that I think
about it, I should be most pleased to ride in the park with you
tomorrow, Mr. Hawtrey. Heaven knows I could use the fresh air.”

“Then it’s settled!” Lady Blakewell leaned
forward, kissing the air beside Cassandra’s cheek, and a moment
later Marcus had extracted his “ward” from the group and was
steering her into the flow of people heading toward the next room,
his hand once more a vise on her elbow.

Cassandra took refuge in speech, hoping to
prolong the inevitable. “Did you see that, Marcus? Lord Byron!
Me—Cassandra Kelley, talking to Lord Byron! God, I never thought I
could be a groupie, but that guy has really got something. I mean,
he just
oozes
sexiness—kind of like Jim Morrison of The
Doors. No wonder Caro Lamb went crazy over him. ‘She walks in
beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies—’ Oh,
could that man write poetry! Marcus, do you think I’ll be seeing
him again? I’d just love to talk to him about—”

Marcus sliced her a look that convinced her
that it might be wise if she shut up—immediately. “Let me take a
wild guess here, Marcus—Byron hasn’t written that yet, has he?”

“How utterly remarkable,” Marcus countered,
pushing past an elderly couple to reach the head of the stairs. “At
last, and eons too late, the woman
thinks.
How could you
have let yourself become separated from Aunt Cornelia? A
dog
knows how to heel, Cassandra. I should be grateful that you have at
last shown at least a slight awareness of the difficulties you
could have landed in this evening, if only I could decide which
would be the lesser of two evils—having you found out for a time
traveler, or having to extricate you from one of Hawtrey’s
orgies.”

He pulled her down the stairs and out onto
the flagway, where a worried-looking Perry was standing beside the
open carriage door, her evening cloak folded over his arm.

“Orgies?” Cassandra asked as Perry laid the
cloak over her shoulders and bustled her up the two steps to the
carriage. “That wimp? You have got to be kidding. I’d have given
you odds he was gay.”

Perry, his cheeks flushed, collapsed on the
seat next to her. “Gay? Who’s gay, Marcus? I didn’t think anybody
looked best pleased to be here tonight. What a sad crush. Sorry we
lost you, Cassie.”

“What happened?” Aunt Cornelia asked from the
opposite seat. She directed her question to Marcus, who was sitting
as still as a statue, glaring at Cassandra through the darkness.
“Did the gel disgrace us? I tell you now as I told you before,
Marcus, she was there one moment and gone the next. I had
absolutely nothing to do with it. It wasn’t my idea to bring her,
remember. I wash my hands of the whole business.”

“Well, thanks a heap, Pontius,” Cassandra was
stung into retorting. “Marcus,” she continued, pointing at the
marquess, “before you start on me again, I want to say something
here, okay? I think you’re overreacting.”

“Really?”

“Yes,
really
,” she countered, becoming
more and more incensed by his coldness. Was this the same man who
had held her in his arms last night, loving her? The same man she
had given herself to, body and soul? The man whose uncertain fate
had become more important to her than her own dilemma? This same
man—who was now acting as if she had just committed a capital
crime? “I only agreed to go out driving with Reginald Hawtrey, not
marry the guy.”

Peregrine groaned. “Hawtrey? Marry Reggie
Hawtrey? Oh, good grief, Cousin Cassie, what would you want with a
fellow like him? Not that he doesn’t move in the best circles,
because he does, thanks to his aunt, who dotes on him. But Reggie
Hawtrey? No. No, I won’t allow it. Not
my
cousin.”

“Perry,” Cassandra reminded him as the
carriage stopped outside the mansion in Grosvenor Square, “I am
not
your cousin.”

“And it’s a good thing, too,” Peregrine said
with some satisfaction as he helped her down the steps once more
and onto the flagway, “because no cousin of mine would be so
addlebrained as to set her cap at Reggie Hawtrey. Not a nice man,
Cassie, not a nice man at all.”

“Marcus,” Cassandra said, abandoning
Peregrine and lifting her skirts to run after the marquess, who was
escorting his aunt into the foyer, “can’t we talk about this? Okay,
so things didn’t go too well tonight. I didn’t even get to see
Prinny—but it wasn’t the disaster you’re trying to paint it either.
I made one little slip, but there wasn’t any real harm done. Lady
Blakewell just thinks I can see the future—something about having
the second sight because I’m Irish. It’s no big deal. Hell, Lady
Blakewell doesn’t have both oars in the water—anybody can tell
that.”

Aunt Cornelia turned to look at Cassandra,
then sighed and headed for the staircase as if she didn’t have the
energy to explain how foolish Cassandra’s statements were.

“Marcus?” While Cassandra had been watching
Aunt Cornelia, the marquess had relieved himself of his cloak and
was now heading for his study, with Peregrine not five steps behind
him. She pushed past the hovering Goodfellow and took several steps
toward the hallway, then stopped. “Marcus—listen to me!”

He turned, slowly, deliberately, skewering
her with his dark gaze. “Fascinated as I am by the sound of your
voice, Miss Kelley, I believe we have said all that can be said
this evening. It is after two, and I suggest that you concentrate
on getting a good night’s rest if you wish to look your best for
Mr. Hawtrey tomorrow. Good night.”

And then he was gone, Perry with him, and she
and Goodfellow were alone in the foyer. She smiled at the butler,
who had never seemed to be as friendly and supportive as beloved
family retainers always were in Wilmont Publishing’s Mayfair
Regency romances. She beat a hasty retreat to her bedchamber,
wondering why she had always thought “conflict” was a necessary
ingredient in romance novels. Didn’t anybody ever get to the
“happily ever after” without having a monkey wrench thrown into the
works somewhere around the sixth chapter?

Obviously not.

“G
ood morning, my
lord. Sleep well, I hope
—not,
” Cassandra said, striding into
the study, her arms swinging, and then perched on the edge of the
Marquess’s desk. She knew he hated it when she did that.