Patricia Rice Read Free

had no coin to pay the fare. It’s
devilishly difficult to carry coins in a ball gown, particularly one as daring
as this. Any extra weight and... whoop!” She made a laughing gesture to
indicate the effect on her daring décolletage.
    Merrick rolled his eyes heavenward and made a muffled noise
of assent.
    Cassandra surveyed his pained expression. “I should not have
said that. Duncan said you were a high stickler, but I didn’t imagine he meant
humorless. Forgive me, I’ll not offend your sensibilities again. It was most
kind of you to see me home.”
    She settled back against the velvet cushions with dignity,
primly crossing her hands on her lap and fixing her gaze on the empty seat. The
carnation slipped from her hair and slid down her cheek.
    Wyatt rescued it. “I am not entirely humorless, but someone
needs to teach you proper behavior with gentlemen with whom you are scarcely
acquainted.” He laid the carnation over her hands.
    “Fustian. I daresay I know you as well as Catherine does.
You just won’t admit that someone you think is a mere child can know anything.
You’ve grown toplofty, Merrick, puffed up with your own consequence. I can mind
my manners when I choose. I just didn’t think it necessary between neighbors.”
    The carriage halted before the narrow Georgian town house of
the Marquess of Eddings. It was in a less fashionable district on the wrong
side of St. James’s, and many of its neighbors had been converted to flats.
    “We have scarcely been neighbors for a number of years, Lady
Cassandra, and you were much too young to know me even then. Duncan and I are
barely on speaking terms, but if I find you taking off on your own again, I
will be forced to report your behavior to him. Now, come, it’s time you went
inside.” He stepped down from the carriage and held out a hand to her.
    Arching her wrist to rest her hand upon his, lifting her
chin, sweeping up her skirts and pelisse, Cassandra descended with all the
grace and dignity she could summon. She cast him a scathing glance as he
offered his arm to see her inside.
    “You had better return to Roxbury’s with all due haste, my
lord, or your fiancée will teach you the truth of her name. I bid you farewell.”
Without waiting for any servant to open the door, she threw it open and marched
in, slamming it shut in his face.
    Cass considered the earl’s assistance well paid with her
warning. Lady Cat hid claws inside her velvet gloves.

Chapter 2
    The thick stench of cigars and the smoking table lamp did
not irritate Cassandra’s nose so much as the sharp odor of spirits as her
brother poured another glass of port. She forced the frown from her face as she
bent over Duncan’s shoulder to better examine his hand of cards. The numbers
were a blur to her in this light, but she had learned the placement of the
symbols at an early age. He was losing, and this hand would not turn the odds.
    She scratched a warning against his coat, but he ignored
her, as he was increasingly wont to do these days. He had some illusion that
his recklessness served him better than her cheating. She shrugged and wandered
to the curtain partitioning his alcove from the main room of the gambling hell.
    She was no stranger to these rooms. Early on her father had
conceived the notion that she was his good-luck charm. It had only been the
card tables at home at first, but as the marquess’s luck away from home had
dwindled, he had insisted on bringing her along to his more important games. In
time, that had become every game he played.
    Realizing that her father’s fortunes at the table determined
the mood of the entire household, Cassandra had efficiently learned the ways to
ensure a happy outcome.
    She had not considered what she did cheating so much as love
and filial duty. If her father won, her mother didn’t cry. After a while, she
also realized that if her father won, the servants didn’t quit, she might have
meat instead of cheese for dinner, and the bottle of