Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,28
Unwrapped the paper. And caught her breath.
“Oh, my,” Hyacinth said. “Not a naughty print, then.”
Cassandra didn’t speak because she couldn’t. Her throat was tight.
What Ashmont had sent was a small, expensively framed, exquisite oil painting of a man on a horse. In the lower right corner was inscribed “Amphion.” On the lower left, with the artist’s name and the date, was “T. H. Keeffe.” It had been painted not a month before he was trampled at Newmarket. This was the horse he’d loved more than any other.
She sat down, the painting in her shaky hands. She stared at it.
“For Keeffe,” Hyacinth said. She laid a hand on Cassandra’s shoulder.
“If this were somebody else’s gift,” Cassandra said tightly, “I’d be touched by his sensitivity and compassion. But Ashmont has neither. He’s merely paying, as he always does. Generously, as he always does.”
“He wants forgiveness,” Hyacinth said.
“He’s a charmer,” Cassandra said. “He charmed Lady Olympia out of her wits, I don’t doubt, else she’d never have consented to marry him. She came to her senses in the nick of time.”
“That’s as may be, but this seems kindly meant. To think of Keeffe in this way. Why, who’d look so carefully for the perfect gift for a servant? The duke put thought into this. And care. You must give him a little credit, Cassandra.”
Cassandra laughed. “As little as possible. But Keeffe will be pleased, I expect, and the duke is welcome to turn him up as sweet as he likes.”
Tuesday night
Drawing room of deGriffith House
“But Lady Bartham’s daughters will be there on Thursday,” Mama cried. “One always puts the prettiest girls at the front of the stall.”
On Wednesday would begin the Grand Fancy Fair and Bazaar for the Benefit of the Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress. To be held at the Hanover Square Rooms, the event would continue through Saturday. Thanks to plots and intrigues Machiavelli’s prince would have envied, Mama had secured a stall in which the art and needlework of the ladies of the family would be offered for sale.
As the Court Journal had reported, the Queen meant to attend, and “Several members of the Royal Family will also be present, as well as the whole of the principal Nobility and the Foreign Ambassadors and their ladies.”
“You are more than pretty enough,” Papa said.
“We’ll do for the first day, when the Queen is to appear, and the crush will be dreadful, I don’t doubt,” Mama said. “But nobody wants to see nothing but mothers and grandmothers. We must have Hyacinth on Thursday, when Lady Bartham’s daughters will be there. We cannot change all our arrangements at the last minute. This is for charity!”
“As much for competition among women as charity, I think,” Papa said, taking up the paper he’d been reading when the dispute began. “I made a rule.”
Cassandra looked up from her embroidery. Hyacinth was pink with excitement, longing to attend, deluded creature that she was. She’d never been to a grand fancy fair before, only village fêtes and the like.
Mama was close to tears.
“As I recall, Papa,” Cassandra said, “you said, ‘No dinners, dejeuners, fêtes champêtres, balls, routs, picnics, water parties, plays, ballet, opera.’ Your rule did not mention fancy fairs or any charitable events. In fact, you recommended charity as a proper occupation for me.”
Once more her father put down his paper. A deadly silence ensued while he regarded her from under his eyebrows, a gaze known to terrify junior MPs. “Will you split hairs with me, child?”
“I should never attempt such a thing,” Cassandra said. “I merely pointed out a deprivation you’d overlooked.”
She turned to her sister, who sat, hands tightly folded, looking from her to each of their parents. “Mama wants you at the fair because all you need do is stand there to sell every last article in the stall, and at exorbitant prices. If you are not present, Lady Bartham will crow and lord it over Mama in an unbearable fashion. This is because, having two young, unwed, and attractive daughters on display, Lady Bartham will make more money.”
Mama moaned. “Oh, my dear, it is all too true.”
“But only think,” Cassandra told her sister. “You’d be trapped in a hot hall with a seething mass of people. These sorts of things are like Smithfield on market day—and in summer, I daresay the smell is much the same. No, no, you’ve no idea what a gift Papa has given you. You’re far better off at home, as I’m sure Mama wishes she could