Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,110
world. However, other considerations make me willing to offer an alternative. I will consign the whole matter to oblivion on two conditions. First, you will never see the Duke of Ashmont again. You will break off with him immediately and irrevocably. I strongly recommend you decide upon a change of scenery and return to your grandparents for a few years. That would be best for everybody.”
She paused, waiting for a response.
Cassandra regarded her unblinkingly. “You said two conditions.”
The lady’s gaze shifted upward toward the windows. Hyacinth looked down on them from the window seat of their sitting room. Lady Bartham met her gaze briefly, then returned to Cassandra.
“Second, Miss Hyacinth will break it off with Humphrey.”
“So far as I know, there is nothing to break off.”
“Don’t try to play with me, Miss Pomfret. You will find yourself outmatched. How much longer do you imagine I will allow you to make me your dupe?”
“Is that how you view it?”
“I know what I interrupted at Cremorne House. But you and the duke conspired to twist plain fact into falsehood, to make me look ridiculous. To be sure, I do not hold you entirely to blame. He’s corrupted your mind. If you suppose he will make you happy, you are sadly deluded. He had all in train to leave London—”
“Taking your son with him.”
“Humphrey is a grown man, and yes, I had rather he wasted his allowance at races than become entangled with your family. If your sister throws him off, in no uncertain terms, working with your father will lose its allure.”
“I see.” Cassandra did not see. Not very well, at any rate. She was fighting shock, bewilderment, grief, rage, despair, and other emotions, too many to count or name.
You’re in control, she told herself.
She wasn’t. She was at sea, drowning. She’d thought her greatest concern was her father’s rejecting Ashmont. She’d concentrated on how best to bring Papa round. She’d assumed that her anxiety about last night was groundless, as Ashmont had assured her.
. . . they’re not going to know about last night. How could they?
Somehow, somebody had found out and given this spiteful woman details obtained in only one way. The informer had been on the spot, and she and Ashmont had failed to notice.
“And the one who told you this?” she said. “Will that person be silenced as well?”
“You needn’t be anxious,” Lady Bartham said. “If I say the information is to be buried, it will be buried. You’re not the only one with shameful secrets. However, if I say it’s to be broadcast, it will be, and this time there will be no turning the tables or devising schemes to trick and deceive and manipulate.”
“All this,” Cassandra said, “because you did not like the way matters turned out. The pain you’ll give others is of no consideration.”
Her parents . . . All that Cassandra had imagined before, about Putney and about being caught behind the curtain would come true, but on a massive scale, infinitely worse. What she’d done this time went well beyond those improprieties. She might as well have been caught in the act.
She’d visited a man’s house. She’d worn men’s clothes. She’d been seen kissing a famous libertine. That alone was sufficient to make her soiled goods.
She didn’t care what the world said about her. But she wasn’t the one who’d pay for what she’d done. It was her parents and her sister, first and foremost, who’d bear the burden of shame, which they in no way deserved.
Nobody’s fault but Cassandra’s. One impulsive act. That was all it took to ruin everything.
“Do not delude yourself that marrying Ashmont will wipe the slate clean,” the countess went on. “If, that is, he’ll have you, now he’s had you already. He’ll continue as he’s always done, but you’ll be an outcast, unwelcome at Court, unwelcome everywhere. It would be as though he’d married a courtesan or a divorcee. You’ll have less influence than you do now.”
Cassandra knew of such cases. Lord Holland and his divorced wife had had to make their own society, and those who visited them at Holland House were almost exclusively men of similar political leanings.
“You’ll be shunned and despised,” Lady Bartham went on. “Even your little club of radicals won’t want you. Your shame will taint them.”
For women who wanted to go about their good works quietly, notoriety like this would make Cassandra a liability.
“And what do you think will become of your children?” Lady Bartham laughed. “And as to children—you dare