Cupid's Mistake (Cupid Regency Romance) Read Free Page A

speak to her, my dear," he said reasonably.
    " No, no! About her forwardness! Her lack of discretion!"
    " What is this, my girl? Have you been seeing some man clandestinely?" He turned to Cassandra, his voice stern.
    " Heavens, John!"
    " Oh, no, Papa!"
    " Well, what is it, then?" Sir John said impatiently.
    " She is so . . . so impetuous in her speech!" Lady Hathaway said.
    " And—?"
    " Papa, I have taken in another climbing boy," Cassandra confessed. She looked at him earnestly and told him of her encounter with the chimney sweep. 'Truly, I could not ignore his plight!"
    Sir John 's brow creased as he bent his powerful brain to the question. "Of course, you could not!" he said at last, and smiled proudly at his daughter. "That's my good girl!"
    " But what of her reputation? Do you really think a well-connected gentleman would wish to marry a young woman who spends all her money on such things? It is not as if Cassandra's dowry were a fortune, after all!" Lady Hathaway protested.
    Both husband and daughter looked at her with clear incomprehension.
    Lady Hathaway let loose a sigh that was almost a moan of despair. How was she to tame Cassandra's impulses when Sir John agreed with her? There were a number of reformers amongst the ton, but they were people with a great deal of money and could afford such things. If it came to anyone's ears that Cassandra spent her allowance on climbing boys as if she considered them her sole responsibility, she would not only be seen as an eccentric but possibly a liability. Who would wish to marry a girl who would no doubt insist on bringing her charity cases along with her? Face, figure, and a good dowry would be as nothing compared with the burden of the climbing boys. It would be worse than marrying a young woman with a poverty- stricken family. Certainly it would be seen as a drain on the estate and the future of one's own family.
    " Oh, heavens!" Lady Hathaway said, irritated. "You may do as you like, Cassandra, with your charity cases. But don't speak of them, if you please. It is not considered . . . polite conversation." Inspiration suddenly struck her and she smiled triumphantly. "Indeed, it would seem much like boasting of one's virtues, and you cannot think that would be at all becoming!"
    Cassandra blushed and stared at her mother in consternation. "Oh, no! I would never, never wish to puff myself off in that manner!"
    " See that you do not, then," Lady Hathaway said sternly. She sighed in relief. Thank goodness! It was one less thing to worry about in company. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and rose from her chair. "We will need to be at the musicale in the next hour. Do go up and ready yourselves for it—hurry! And don't forget your quill, husband, for you will come wandering down again and lose yourself for at least a half hour looking for it."
    An hour later her irritation faded completely when she gazed at her eldest child. Cassandra 's green eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and her lips were parted with eagerness. And nothing could have been more demure or ladylike than her demeanor upon entering Mrs. Bostitch's house. Lady Hathaway bit her lower lip anxiously. Perhaps this time all would go well. Cassandra's bluntness and scholarship were only known at home, around and about Tunbridge Wells, and not yet in London. Surely, she had talked stringently enough with Cassandra so that she would guard her tongue and not speak with such alarming forthrightness. But Lady Hathaway remembered how her daughter had reprimanded Lady Amberley and could not dismiss her uneasiness. Well, Cassandra had not precisely reprimanded —perhaps "corrected" was the more accurate word. Lady Hathaway winced. "Corrected" was no better.
    But there had been sympathetic looks from some of the other ladies. Perhaps the display of Cassandra 's warmth of heart and sense of Christian charity for Miss Matchett had found favor with a few of the ladies who were Lady Amber- ley's equals. Who, after