drawing room of Mr. DeWitt’s Birmingham townhouse, waiting for the groom to show up to his own wedding. Papa chatted with the vicar, all the while flapping the special license that he had cajoled from the archbishop. The drawing room had the stale air of disuse, and an out-of-time clock persistently ticked away the last minutes of her spinsterhood. Finally, her groom blew in like a gale, and Papa had barely performed the introductions when Mr. DeWitt turned to the vicar, clapped his hands once, and said, “Let’s get on with it, then. I don’t have all day.”
And later, oh good heavens, later. She had waited then too, huddled under blankets in the dark, for him to do what had to be done to complete the marriage. “Let’s make this as quick and painless as possible,” he said when he came to her bedroom—not exactly what a virgin wanted to hear from her groom on their wedding night. She squeezed her eyes tight shut throughout. His hands were gentle and warm and not unpleasant, and several times he told her to relax and she almost did, but then the act itself…
It wasn’t painless, but it was mercifully quick, and she breathed through it while he stilled and cursed. When he got out of bed, she lay motionless and didn’t look at him, not even when he spoke: “I doubt you enjoyed that very much,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t enjoy it either. It’s best this way.” She didn’t ask what he meant; she wanted him only to leave, which he did, and he had already gone out when she rose the next morning, and she and Papa went straight back to Sunne Park and she never saw him again.
They had not gone much further when Arabella clutched Cassandra’s elbow and steered them in another direction, saying, “Let us veer away now.”
“Who are we running from?” Cassandra asked.
“I am running from nobody. You are choosing to avoid an encounter with Lady Bolderwood. No, don’t look now.”
Somehow, Cassandra kept moving, on limbs so light they might have floated away.
“I am right in assuming you don’t wish to meet Lady Bolderwood?” Arabella asked.
“I suppose I cannot avoid it, but thank you, I should rather not do so today.”
Nevertheless, Cassandra could not resist glancing at the Viscountess Bolderwood, the woman who had stolen her life. She saw a pale lady in an elaborate yellow outfit that showed off her small, well-shaped figure to great advantage.
“She is pretty,” she ventured.
“She has the kind of face that seems pretty, until you look closely and realize she is nothing of the sort.”
“And very fashionable.”
“Lord and Lady Bolderwood do run with the fashionable crowd,” Arabella said. “Whether they can afford to is another matter. I hear they are living off the gaming tables now and their debts mount daily.”
Malicious glee danced through her. She tried to quell it but, well, the woman had eloped with Cassandra’s betrothed while Cassandra was still in mourning for her brother.
“I shall not gossip about her,” she said resolutely.
Arabella was unchastened. “We must be allowed to discuss other people’s failings. How else are we to reconcile ourselves to our own? And come now, Cassandra, we both know you are not nearly as good as you pretend. Are you not a little glad that the woman who made off with your former betrothed is suffering some hardship?”
“Even better that Harry is suffering. Lord Bolderwood, I mean,” Cassandra confessed. “I blame him for being stolen more than I blame her for stealing him.”
“When you do end up meeting them, be sure to mention your husband’s great wealth.”
“How vulgar!”
“But how entertaining.” Arabella threw her a wicked look and then smiled at someone over her shoulder. “Oh look, there is the Duke of Dammerton, with the lovely Miss Seaton. I hear he is courting her, and her family is reluctant because of his divorce. There, my dear, is precisely the conversation you need.”
It was a good ten years since Cassandra had last seen Leopold Halton, now the sixth Duke of Dammerton, who used to be a regular visitor to her neighbors, the Bells. In those years, he had inherited a dukedom, grown bigger, and chalked up a scandalous marriage and divorce, but he still wore the same air of distraction covering a sharp mind.
“How do you do, Lady Hardbury,” His Grace said to Arabella, with a gracious nod that she deigned to return. “And Miss Cassandra—I mean, Mrs. DeWitt.” He offered a sleepy half-smile.