next. Leave it to me. Will arrange with Lady Charles for chaperonage.
A
Drawing Room of deGriffith House
Tuesday 2 July
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Julia?” Papa said. “Ashmont is not admitted anywhere. Even the King won’t have him.”
“Really, Henry, I’ve been living in Surrey, not Siberia,” Aunt Julia said. “I know as much as everybody else does. Not three weeks ago, when he came to the house, I hauled him over the coals. The fact remains, he is a duke, and he seems to be taken with Cassandra.”
“Taken with her? Since when?”
“Well, you know, dear, Lady Bartham did imply as much,” Mama said. “She claimed he lingered at our stall for quite some time, flirting with Cassandra.”
Papa raised his eyebrows at Cassandra.
She shrugged. “It didn’t seem like flirting to me, but then, I’m no expert.”
“Why else bring a dirty street child to meet her?” Aunt Julia said. “It’s the sort of thing little boys do. They bring dead spiders or mice or other disgusting objects to girls they fancy. They pull their hair. Even grown men use ridicule and insults to express affection for each other. Or fights. As to fighting, I’m told he took exception to somebody’s slighting remark about her.”
Not a word was a lie. The Duke of Ashmont did seem to be taken with Cassandra, for reasons as unfathomable as they were, surely, ephemeral. He had invited combat—though he did that at the slightest provocation. All the same, she felt deeply uncomfortable, and wished she had taken more time to think about Keeffe’s suggestion for a substitute.
Alice would have done well enough, but she’d had to go out of Town again, which left Cassandra grinding her teeth over yet another aspect of her life that Ashmont had damaged. Not only could she not travel as freely as she’d done before, but she couldn’t keep her promises to ladies who relied upon her and who’d helped make her time in London feel worthwhile.
It had seemed only fair that the man who’d caused the trouble should be summoned from wherever he was amusing himself and be obliged to put matters right. Now she suspected she’d been precipitate, and made one more error of judgment. Adding to her discomfort was the small, nagging voice telling her she wasn’t entirely unlike him in this regard.
I’m outrageous. You’re outrageous.
She didn’t squirm, but it wanted all her practice in self-control not to.
“He’ll fight about anything,” Papa said. “I won’t have that profligate near my daughter.”
“I should have thought Cassandra was up to his weight.”
“I daresay, in the right circumstances, she could knock him down,” Papa said. “I should have thought that’s what she’d prefer.”
He returned to Cassandra. “Well, what have you to say for yourself? Will you try to persuade me that you are taken with—what do they call him?—Luscious Lucius, the gorgeous libertine?”
“It seems I must find a husband, if I don’t want Hyacinth to spend her life as a spinster.”
“If you think throwing that reckless blockhead in my face will make me change my mind about Hyacinth, I advise you to think again.”
“I’d much rather throw somebody else in your face, Papa, but the Duke of Ashmont seems to be the only gentleman who doesn’t run in the other direction when he sees me.”
“That is a gross exaggeration of the situation,” Papa said. “If you would only go out to the parties and stop playing the virago, you might have scores of admirers.”
“Be that as it may, Ashmont has applied to me,” Aunt Julia said. “Cassandra has agreed to his driving her out to her meeting. I shall accompany them. About three miles to the Stadium and three back here. That’s time enough to discover whether she finds his company disagreeable. If so, that will be the end of it. If she finds him tolerable, we shall see what we shall see. When word gets out, it’s more than possible that his fearlessness will stir the competitive spirit of other gentlemen.”
Papa considered, his gaze moving from Aunt Julia to Cassandra to Mama. “Very well,” he said. “But if I detect the smallest whiff of impropriety, I will kill him.”
“Of that I have no doubt, Papa,” Cassandra said. “And everybody will declare upon oath that it was an accident, even if you shoot him in the head at Crockford’s hazard table in front of forty witnesses.”
Friday 5 July
The Duke of Ashmont arrived at deGriffith House in a gleaming black hooded cabriolet, with the requisite very large black stallion and very small groom,