Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,113
be taken unawares,” she told Ashmont. “The thought is unbearable. I’m not ashamed of what I did. I don’t regret it. I’m only sorry on their account, and Hyacinth’s. They’ve done nothing to deserve this. It isn’t their fault, but they’ll be blamed and they’ll suffer. The least I can do is prepare them.”
“Does your sister know?”
She closed her eyes briefly, remembering the expression on her sister’s face when Cassandra told her. A series of expressions. Disbelief. Concern. Indignation.
“She knew what it signified for her,” Cassandra said. “But what does that extraordinary girl do? There I am, so overset I can scarcely speak, and she puts her arms about me and says, ‘That dreadful woman! She’s wrong, you know. She’s made it out to be uglier than it is. That’s what she does. You must step back, the way you do, and pretend she’s a troublesome horse, snapping and biting for reasons you don’t understand yet. But you will, and when you do, you’ll find a way.’”
“Miss Hyacinth ain’t wrong,” Keeffe said.
Cassandra looked at him.
“You know it well as I do. There’s some horses as has been let to get too vicious or made to be so from being handled bad. Some of ’em get beyond what anybody can do for ’em. They get to a point where you can’t get through to ’em, no matter what. But most of ’em got reasons, ’n’ you can work it out of ’em.”
“You know that woman’s reasons,” Ashmont said. “She told you. She didn’t want your father to have any hold over Morris Tertius. She doesn’t want him near your sister—near any of you, it seems. A grudge, you said.”
Cassandra remembered Hyacinth saying something about an old rivalry between Mama and Lady Bartham. To do with Papa. “An old one, apparently.”
“All the more reason to enlighten them,” Ashmont said. “If this scheme doesn’t work, she’ll try another.”
“Yes, they need to know. I’m only concerned that Papa will try to kill you.”
“And who could blame him?”
“I, for one. Youngish dukes in possession of all their teeth and passable good looks are in short supply.”
Cassandra’s parents arrived at deGriffith House within minutes of each other.
Naturally, Tilbrook would inform them who awaited them.
By the time the parents entered the drawing room, Humphrey Morris trailing in their wake, thunderclouds were already forming over Lord deGriffith’s brow.
“If we’re being met by a delegation, I must conclude that an Incident has occurred,” said Papa. “Since you form part of the delegation, duke, the reasoning man must deduce that the Incident is of no small proportions.”
“Maybe I’d better go,” Humphrey Morris said. “Family council and all that.”
“On no account,” Hyacinth said. “I see no reason for you to be excluded.”
Lord deGriffith looked at her. “Not you, child. Surely, this hasn’t to do with you.” He said it in the manner of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, with his dying words, Et tu, Brute?
“It does, unfortunately,” Cassandra said. “But I’m the cause. Mama, please sit down.”
“Yes, do, my dear,” Papa said. “We had better conduct this conversation in my study. Cassandra. Duke.”
They followed obediently into his study. But before he could close the door, Lady deGriffith, Hyacinth, and an obviously reluctant Humphrey Morris entered.
The thunderclouds thickened. “Did I not say Cassandra and the duke?”
“You cannot expect us to sit in the drawing room, on tenterhooks,” Mama said.
“Why not? This is hardly the first occasion when I’ve withdrawn to speak to one of the children or a visitor.”
“My dear, here is the Duke of Ashmont, and here is Cassandra, and neither of them glowing with happiness as I had expected, given certain hints I received earlier today. Here is Hyacinth, wishing Mr. Morris to remain. Naturally, something has occurred, clearly not of a pleasant nature. A council seems to be in order. A family council. I am your helpmeet. I shall help.”
With that, Mama took the chair nearest his desk.
Everybody else remained standing, like a lot of criminals at the magistrate’s court.
The judge did not sit, but stood behind the fortress of his desk, like one preparing to withstand an assault.
As well he might. After all, here was Cassandra, and here was Ashmont, two outrageous persons. If they weren’t glowing with happiness, as Mama said, something outrageously bad had occurred.
Cassandra approached the desk and held out Lady Bartham’s note. “Lady Bartham gave me this a short time ago.”
The lady’s third son started at this, and flushed, but said nothing. The look he sent Hyacinth might have meant a thousand words or nothing at