The Pursuit Of Marriage (19 page)

“I wish I had known of your feelings. I never would have invited Miss Bellingham, and I never would have allowed Reggie to invite whoever this Lord Perfect turns out to be. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t know how I felt about Lord Berkley until recently. Miss Bellingham’s presence will simply make the next few days far more interesting, and perhaps even something of a challenge. I have always enjoyed a challenge.”

“This party is becoming more of a challenge than I anticipated,” Gwen murmured.

“Just feed your guests well and often, and all will be fine. As for the rest of it, it shall play itself out.”

Cassie smiled wickedly. “In one way or another.”

“I must say you’re looking exceptionally lovely this afternoon, Lady Pennington.” A familiar voice sounded behind them.

Cassie’s breath caught. This would be the first time she’d seen Lord Berkley—Reggie—since she’d realized how she truly felt about him. She adopted her brightest smile and turned toward him.

“Flattery, Reggie, as always, will get you whatever you want.” Gwen laughed and extended her hand. Berkley took her hand and brushed his lips across it. “With you, Gwen, it’s not merely flattery but the truth.”

Gwen withdrew her hand and cast Cassie a knowing smile. “He’s far and away too charming for his own good. Or for ours.”

“So I have heard.” Cassie held out her hand.

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “The rumors of my charm are greatly exaggerated.” His gaze locked with hers. “I’m delighted to see you again, Miss Effington.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Cassie said and pulled her hand from his, at a loss for words for the first time in her life.

“I met your sister on the path, and she told me where to find the two of you.” He turned to Gwen. “You didn’t tell me your cousins would be here.”

“I was probably hoping they could not attend,” Gwen said under her breath. Reggie grinned and leaned toward Cassie. “Gwen’s family is not especially close.”

“One cannot choose one’s relations as one can one’s friends.” She flashed Cassie a resigned smile.

“Still, I am determined to improve our relationship. Adrian is not a bad sort, really, and I’m sure Constance has any number of good qualities. I’ve simply yet to find them.”

Reggie laughed. “The ladies were returning to the house, and Marcus’s mother asked that I request your return as well, to greet my mother and any other new arrivals.”

“Of course.” Gwen frowned. “I do apologize, Cassie. I had hoped to finish showing you the gardens myself.”

“I should be happy to take over for you, Gwen,” Reggie said quickly. “I grew up playing games with Marcus on these very paths. I daresay I know the intricacies of the Holcroft gardens as well as anyone.”

“No doubt.” Gwen smiled at Cassie in a confidential manner. “What he knows is the best spots to play games involving armies and military campaigns. I understand great portions of the gardens had to be replanted every year when he and Marcus were boys, a direct result of the enthusiasm of their sport.”

Reggie shrugged. “Losses are bound to occur when one re-creates the conquests of Alexander the Great or the legions of Rome amid the rosebushes. It’s the nature of battle. Even the sturdiest blossom cannot stand up to the forces of boyhood military might.”

Cassie laughed. “I recall the very same casualties among my own family’s gardens in my youth. My brothers and cousins were always destroying some planting that a poor, put-upon gardener had slaved over. I must confess, my sister and I did a fair amount of damage ourselves.” She favored Reggie with a brilliant smile. “I should quite like to see where you played as a child.”

“Excellent.” Gwen’s gaze slipped from Cassie to Reggie and back. “Then I shall see you both back at the hall later.” Gwen smiled, turned, and hurried back down the path.

“She’s very nice, isn’t she?” Cassie watched the other woman’s retreat.

“You can’t tell by looking at her, but she has a great deal of strength.” Admiration sounded in his voice.

“She said something about being poor and working as a governess.”

“When her father died, she was told she was penniless. Her father’s title and estate went to her cousin.”

“Lord Townsend?”

Reggie nodded. “She did not wish to be a poor relation in her own home so she made the rather disastrous decision to make her own way in life and took a position as a governess in America. Apparently, it did not suit her. It was a good five years, I believe, until she learned she had an inheritance after all, returned to England, and shortly thereafter married Marcus.”

“I see,” Cassie murmured.

“Gwen literally grew up in a school for girls. Her teachers were more family to her than her true relations. Her efforts to forge some kind of relationship now with her cousins strike me as most telling. A sign, I think, of just how far Gwen has come in her life.” He smiled and gestured at the walk way.

“Shall we?”

They strolled along in an amicable silence for a few minutes, but Cassie’s mind churned. “She’s been very lucky, hasn’t she?”

“In that all has ultimately turned out well,” he nodded, “yes, she has.”

“It must be dreadful to have everything, family, position, and wealth, and have it all taken away because of the laws of heredity.”

He cast her a sharp glance. “I would think so.”

She stopped and drew her brows together. “What happens to women like that, Lord Berkley? Women who were raised to take a particular place in the world but then, through no fault of their own, have everything they’ve always counted on, always expected, taken away because of the death of a father?”

“I don’t know.” He studied her curiously. “I confess I’ve never given the question much consideration.”

“You should,” she said firmly. “We all should. It’s neither fair nor right that we bring up young women like Gwen, or myself for that matter, with certain expectations in life, which can be brutally yanked away because the laws of inheritance do not provide for them. What are their options in life, my lord?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “they could marry.”

She snorted in disdain. “It’s not as easy as that and you well know it. This whole pursuit of marriage cannot be accomplished with a simple decision to wed. From what I’ve seen, a bad marriage to the wrong spouse is worse than no marriage at all. And quite frankly, when a young woman is left penniless, in dire straits, unless she is an exceptional beauty with enough funding remaining to present herself properly, making a good match is impossible. So what else could she possibly do?”

“Become a governess as Gwen did?” A hopeful note sounded in his voice.

“Some of us are not suited to dealing with children.” She shook her head and started back down the path, talking more to herself than to him. “It seems to me we do a grave disservice to the young ladies of the English aristocracy. They grow up knowing how to make a perfect curtsey and be a perfect wife, but should their very survival be at stake, they, we, are helpless.” She squared her shoulders. “Someone should do something.”

“You have gone into business of a sort,” he said casually. “And judging by the amount you charge, you are succeeding admirably.”

“Yes, but I am not in need of a place to live or food for sustenance or anything of that nature. And quite frankly, my clientele hires me as much for who I am as what I do. If I were not an Effington, I daresay my work would not be as in demand as it is.”

“But you are very talented.”

“Nonetheless, I am under few illusions as to why I have had the success I have. No, as well as I have done, I do not have the skills necessary to survive on my own. Without my family and my name.”

“I suspect, Miss Effington, you could do nearly anything you set your mind to.”

She cast him a reluctant smile. “Gwen was right. You are exceptionally charming.”

He shrugged in a modest manner. “I do my best.”

She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, ignored his vague look of surprise, and they continued to wind their way amid the rosebushes and boxwoods. It never failed to amaze her how quickly he put her at ease, regardless of how on edge she might be at first. The mere fact that she was nervous at all was amazing as well. No man had ever made her the least bit unsure of herself. Until now.

“I imagine you practice a great deal, Lord Berkley.”

“Not at all.” He wagged his brows wickedly. “It’s a gift.”

She laughed.

“And I think it’s past time you called me Reggie, or Reginald, if you’d rather, but as much as I am not overly fond of Reggie, I do prefer it to Reginald. When I am called Reginald it is inevitably by someone who is about to chastise me for some matter, usually deserved. And, alas, I am a Reggie sort of man, don’t you think?”

She nodded in a sober manner. “Most definitely.”

“Excellent. But only if, of course, we are truly friends.”

“Oh, we are most certainly friends, my lord—Reggie.” She adopted a lighthearted tone. “And as my friend, you should call me Cassandra or Cassie.” She flashed him a fast grin. “I am routinely chastised by both names.”

“I like Cassandra. It suits you.” He gazed down at her. “If I recall, Cassandra was a Greek prophetess. And wasn’t she cursed by Apollo never to be believed?”

Cassie nodded. “She rejected his advances.” She gazed up at him innocently. “I’ve been told it means

‘the confuser of men’ in Greek.”

“Then I was right, it does suit you.”

“Are you confused, Reggie?”

“My dear Cassandra, I have been confused since the moment I met you.”

“Why?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” His gaze searched hers. “Which is the very definition of confused.”

She rested her hand on his cheek. “Did I hurt you terribly when I slapped you?”

He placed his hand over hers. His tone was solemn, but amusement twinkled in his eye. “Yes.”

She laughed. “I did not.”

“You did wound me deeply, but not here.” He moved her hand to his chest. She could feel the beat of his heart through the fabric of his clothes. “Here.”

“This is most improper.” She rested her other hand on his chest. Her own heart sped up.

“Indeed it is.” His gaze narrowed. “What are you up to, Cassandra, confuser of men?”

“Are you confused now, Reggie?” Her voice was low and sultry, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was her own.

“Indeed I am.”

She wet her lips in a manner she knew was most inviting. “Good.”

His arms slipped around her. “Are you like your namesake? Would you resist the advances of Apollo?”

“Certainly of Apollo. I believe he was most—”

“Infamous?” He raised a brow.

She swallowed hard. “One can never trust a god with an infamous reputation.”

“And what of a mere mortal?”

“I don’t…I must admit I too am a bit confused.” Her gaze met his. “And I have a confession to make. Once again I fear I am wrong.”

“You?” He chuckled. “About what?”

She drew a deep breath and stared into his gray eyes. “About my conviction that we do not suit.”

“Oh?” He pulled her closer and brushed his lips against hers. “And what makes you think that you were wrong?”

“You,” her lips whispered against his.

He hesitated as if deciding whether to continue or set her aside. She held her breath. He groaned slightly, the very essence of surrender, then crushed his lips to hers. She slid her arms around his neck and reveled in the feel of his mouth on hers. Her body molded against his in a most improper and remarkably exciting way. His kiss was ravenous and insistent, and she was as famished as he. She opened her mouth to his and greeted him with a yearning she had never known before. Their breaths, their very souls met and mingled and mated. She tightened her grip around his neck, and he held her close and kissed her again and again until she could feel the blood pulsing against her veins and his own pounding against her. His name echoed in her head over and over like a refrain caught in her mind or her heart. Her toes curled in her slippers and she wanted to cling to him like this forever. Wanted him to make her his, here and now, regardless of the consequences. Wanted him to lead her down the intriguing path to scandal, whatever that might entail. Wanted…everything. Abruptly he pulled away. “Cassandra.”

“Reggie,” she sighed and pulled his lips back to hers.

“Cassandra,” he said firmly and unwrapped himself from her embrace. She stared in disbelief and a fair amount of frustration. “What?”

A discreet cough sounded behind her. Chagrin showed on Reggie’s face, and his gaze slipped past her. Cassie’s heart dropped to her stomach, and she cringed.

She gazed up at Reggie. “Do please tell me we are still alone.”

“I should very much like to.” He cast her a look of regret that eased her dismay somewhat, then glanced past her. “It’s a beautiful day for a walk in the garden, don’t you think, Marcus?”

“Oh, indeed I do.” Amusement rang in Lord Pennington’s voice. “I like nothing better than a walk in the garden myself. On a beautiful day like today. With a beautiful companion.”