opposition.
“Understood, sir. And speaking of daughters, I wonder if you would be so good as to allow me another few minutes of your time.”
“Duke, you have already taxed my patience beyond human bearing.”
“Understood. But this can’t wait.”
The Duke of Ashmont took his leave, looking pale and ill.
Still, gentlemen often looked that way after a private conference with Papa, Cassandra told herself. This didn’t quiet her unreasonable conscience.
The elders held a council, from which Cassandra and Hyacinth were excluded.
Some eternity later, Aunt Julia and Lord Frederick left, and Papa summoned Cassandra to his study.
“As well as the family discussion, I’ve spoken to your aunt privately,” he said. “I’ve spoken to Lord Frederick privately. It infuriates me to have spent valuable time on this nonsense, all on account of a discontented woman who likes to make as many lives as miserable as possible. I shall be late to tonight’s session, and who knows what they’ll get up to in my absence.”
Her father rarely missed a Parliamentary session, even the noontime, petition-filled ones.
“I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble,” Cassandra said. She ought to be sorry about the kiss but she wasn’t, and she couldn’t stop feeling the whole business was completely unfair. Now, though, was not the time to vindicate the rights of woman.
He gave an impatient wave of his hand. “Yes, well, stolen kisses. Fact of life. Girls are not always the paragons we expect them to be, and perhaps our expectations are unreasonable. I should not have minded quite so much if it hadn’t been Ashmont.”
“Yes, Papa. I know.”
“We can expect satirical prints.” He closed his eyes and sighed. Then, clearly not liking what he saw in his mind’s eye, he opened them and regarded her with a sort of resignation. “Ashmont is a favorite of the satirists. Even the late King, who seemed to break records in that unenviable category, has lost place to him.”
The caricaturists had mercilessly mocked King George IV for nearly all his adult life. The number of satirical prints must number in the tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands.
Cassandra had no trouble imagining what they’d make of the Curtain Scene.
“Still, the duke has acquitted himself better than I should have supposed, and your scheme has merit. I’ve agreed to the . . . pretense. Furthermore, he’s devised a scheme of his own, also not without merit.”
Cassandra did not faint. She never fainted.
She didn’t cry, “No! No! Not one of Ashmont’s ideas!”
She kept her driving face on and held her tongue while her father went on, “He will escort you to the theater tomorrow night. Your aunt will chaperon. We shall consider that the first stage of the campaign. With any luck, it should prove sufficient, or nearly, and this nonsense will be done with swiftly. Now, if you’d be so good as to send your sister in to me.”
“Papa, I hope you will not punish her further because of my mistake—”
“Child, I hope I need not remind you who is head of this family.”
She went out of the study and did as she was told, though she apologized to her sister for whatever additional calamity was about to befall her.
Exile back to Hertfordshire, very likely.
Not a quarter hour later, Hyacinth came running into the library, where Cassandra was trying to distract herself with Mary Wollstonecraft’s book.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, Cassandra! The most wonderful thing! I told you! I told you!”
Cassandra set the book down. “Wonderful? Told me?”
Hyacinth bent and hugged her, making wreckage of the pelerine Ashmont had taken so much pains to smooth.
“He’s done it!” her sister cried. “The duke’s persuaded Papa to set aside the rule. It’s only for a night, Papa says, and then ‘we’ll see what we shall see.’ But, oh, I’m to go with you to the theater tomorrow night. And we’re to see The Long Finn. Pirates!”
On Saturday afternoon, Lady Bartham paid a visit to her dear friend Lady deGriffith.
She was all apologies for having been the one to discover the pair, but it was better by far that it was a friend who made the discovery, for she could be trusted never to breathe a word.
In fact, since yesterday the alleged friend had breathed a word to half her acquaintance, and the news had already been brought to the attention of London’s largest print sellers.
She’d long awaited such an opportunity. She’d been a member of the audience when Cassandra Pomfret had made Mr. Owsley—Lady Bartham’s current protégé—look ridiculous, and thus the countess by association. That she’d stumbled so