Her name is ruined,

But her heart is untouched!

Having saved Cassandra Furnival from scandal once before, it shouldn’t have surprised Colonel Nathaniel Fairfax that she was now attempting to lay siege to the ton’s eligible bachelors! Determined to thwart her plans, he’s as astounded by her defiance as by her beauty. But nothing shocks the jaded soldier more than discovering her innocence. Restoring her reputation is set to bring about the scandal of the season!

ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice award from Cataromance. For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk, or you can find her on Facebook at facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK.

Also by Annie Burrows

A Mistress for Major Bartlett

The Captain’s Christmas Bride

In Bed with the Duke

Once Upon a Regency Christmas

The Debutante’s Daring Proposal

A Duke in Need of a Wife

A Marquess, a Miss and a Mystery

Brides for Bachelors miniseries

The Major Meets His Match

The Marquess Tames His Bride

The Captain Claims His Lady

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Scandal of the Season

Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90122-6

THE SCANDAL OF THE SEASON

© 2020 Annie Burrows

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Oliver James.

Although I don’t think Mummy and Daddy

will let you read this until you are eighteen!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Cassandra pressed her nose right up to the window pane as the carriage containing Miss Henley of Henley Hall went lurching past the front gate.

‘You can come away from the window now,’ said Aunt Eunice, from the cutting table where she was working. ‘She’s gone.’

Along with all the beautiful clothes Cassandra and her aunts had spent the last few months, often late into the night, creating.

Would Miss Henley wear the white muslin with the periwinkle ribbons and spangled overdress, with which Cassandra had fallen half in love, to a ball? Or, once she reached London, would she discard it in favour of something created by a fashionable town modiste? The way she’d so easily discarded Cassandra the minute she could, apparently. Miss Henley hadn’t even leaned out of the window to wave as she’d gone past just now, the way Cassandra would have done had she been in the coach, and Miss Henley the one whose fingers had developed calluses as she’d sat up till all hours, making sure everything was finished on time.

A heavy, invisible cloak seemed to settle over Cassandra’s shoulders as she thought of how much effort she’d put into making each and every garment that comprised Miss Henley’s wardrobe for her Season. She’d wanted them all to be perfect, because of the way Miss Henley had stood up to her mother, who’d wanted her to take her custom to a more reputable dressmaker with a shop in Exeter.

‘I want nobody but my dear, dear friend, Miss Furnival,’ she’d said, ‘to make the clothes I’m going to wear in town. Because every time I put on something she has made for me, I will feel as if she is with me in spirit and then I shall feel less alone.’

The statement had touched something so deep inside Cassandra, she hadn’t quite known how to deal with the feeling.

‘You won’t be alone,’ Lady Henley, her mother, had said tartly enough to dispel it. ‘I shall be with you. And so will your papa.’

‘Yes, but I shan’t have any friends my own age,’ Miss Henley had objected, with a pout. ‘And everyone will be so…sophisticated and they are bound to make me feel like a mere country miss, and…’

Her big blue eyes had swum with tears. And Lady Henley had promptly capitulated.

‘I suppose at least it will save us a deal of expense,’ she’d said, looking round the front parlour of the cottage where Cassandra’s aunts carried on their business. ‘Which will please your papa. And we shan’t have the fatigue of travelling up to Exeter whenever you need a fitting, either. Very well, my puss. You may have your way.’

‘Spoiled madam,’ Aunt Cordelia had muttered. After the Henleys had left, of course.

‘Still, it is a big order,’ the ever-practical Aunt Eunice had pointed out. ‘And at least Sir Barnabas will pay promptly.’

‘That is the one advantage of having a vicar with evangelical tendencies,’ Aunt Cordelia had replied. ‘He would rain down fire and brimstone on anyone who brought hardship on any of his flock by neglecting to pay what they owe.’

‘Especially two spinster ladies of genteel birth, who have fallen on such hard times that they are forced to earn their living by the needle,’ Aunt Eunice had said, her tongue most decidedly in her cheek.

Cassandra felt her lower lip wobble as Miss Henley’s coach swept round the bend in the lane, taking it briefly out of sight. Would its youngest occupant ever really think of her when she was driving round the park in a curricle tooled by some handsome young buck? Or when some dashing blade was rowing her down the river to a grassy bank where dozens of dazzling young people would be gathering to take a picnic?

Probably not, she reflected, heaving a sigh.

‘I’m just going to watch,’ she said with a sniff, in belated answer to Aunt Eunice’s comment about getting back to work, ‘until they’ve gone over the bridge.’ It might take her a while to shake off this fit of the dismals and she had no wish to show a glum face to her aunts, since it would smack of ingratitude.

‘You won’t be able to see them going over the bridge,’ Aunt Eunice said, before Aunt Cordelia shushed her.

‘The girl might be able to glimpse the trunks strapped to the roof when they get to the brow of it,’ she said.

Yes, the trunks. And there they were! She could see them now as the coach crested the narrow bridge over the River Teene. Each and every one of them stuffed to bursting with outfits she’d helped create, outfits which were going to London, a place she had never been, nor would ever be likely to go, not now, even though it was an experience most girls of her age and station considered their right.

Because she’d committed a Fatal Error.

‘Leave her be, Eunice,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘It can’t be easy watching a stuck-up little madam like that swanning off to town when our Cassy…’

Had been stupid enough to trust in a handsome face and a scarlet jacket, and a kindly demeanour…

Oh, dear, there went her lower lip again.

She dug into the pocket of her apron for a handkerchief, and surreptitiously dabbed at her left eye, which was, in spite of her resolve, starting to leak. She had no intention of letting the aunts see that she was on the verge of tears. It might make them think she was unhappy with her lot. Which would be terribly…disloyal. Because if they hadn’t taken her in and given her honest work, she could easily have ended up lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Or, worse, staying alive and earning her living by…

She pulled herself up short with a sniff. She hadn’t had to endure such horrors. Because the aunts had taken her in. Even though her own mother and stepfather had refused to do as much, claiming she would bring shame on them and blight her younger brother’s reputation, as well.

It was true that Aunt Cordelia, who was not really an aunt but only some sort of cousin of her mother’s, had only opened her door grudgingly. But that hadn’t been anything to do with Cassandra’s actions.

‘We don’t mix socially any longer,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘Not since we’ve set up house together. And if you come to stay the rest of the family will turn their backs on you, because they will consider you’ve been…er…contaminated by our sort of…’

‘Eccentricity,’ Aunt Eunice had concluded when Aunt Cordelia had floundered.

‘Yes, that’s the least unpleasant way they have described our arrangement,’ Aunt Cordelia had mused.

Cassandra hadn’t understood what they’d meant, not then. So she’d simply said that it wouldn’t make any difference, because none of her immediate family would have anything further to do with her anyway. Her stepfather had warned her that he would see to that.

‘Well, he has no say here,’ Aunt Cordelia had said firmly. ‘I’ve never had any time for that old lecher who married your mother for her money. And as for the rest of them…well, they all washed their hands of me many years ago, when I refused to marry some oafish male, and set up home with my good friend instead. But…that’s why you came to me, isn’t it?’

Cassandra had nodded.

‘Then you can stay for a while and see if we can all rub along together.’

And they had. They did.

Cassandra blew her nose. She had become, if not exactly happy, then at least content with her lot. Her aunts never made her feel she was a failure, or a disappointment, or a burden. On the contrary, they made her feel that she was making a valuable contribution to the upkeep of the household, since she was such a swift and neat stitcher. Which was, ironically, thanks to her stepfather’s insistence that she and her mother make all their own clothing rather than pay a dressmaker to do it.

However, on days like this, when the clouds looked as though they might part and let the sun through at any minute, and spears of daffodils were nosing their way through the frosty ground, bringing a sense of hope to everyone else, she was always particularly susceptible to suffering from regrets.

So Cassandra didn’t think she’d better attempt to converse with her aunts until she was in better control of herself. Therefore she stayed where she was, gazing out of the window that overlooked their front garden and the lane which led, eventually, to the road to London. And kept her handkerchief at the ready.

She had blown her nose for the fourth, and positively the last, time when she saw the top of a carriage driving over the hump-backed bridge.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It looks as though Miss Henley has forgotten something. At least…no, actually, I don’t think that is her carriage coming over the bridge. There are no trunks on the roof. And, oh! You should see the horses. Four of them. All greys.’ And all of them a distinct cut above the mixed team of chestnuts and blacks that Sir Barnabas occasionally put to work on his home farm.

Cassandra heard the clatter of scissors falling to the table an instant before feeling the presence of Aunt Eunice at her back.

‘She’s right, Cordelia. A spanking team. And, oh, my word, a crest on the door,’ she said as the coach drew level with the cottage.

‘A crest?’ Now it was Aunt Cordelia’s turn to toss her work aside and join them at the little bow-fronted window. ‘What on earth can somebody of that rank be doing in an out-of-the-way place like Market Gooding? Especially up this end.’ For the lane on which their cottage stood only ran between Henley Hall and the London Road.

‘They must have got lost,’ said Aunt Eunice as the carriage drew to a halt by their front gate. ‘Look, that fellow,’ she said, as one of the pair of footmen, who’d been perched up behind, jumped down and opened their gate, ‘is coming to ask for directions.’

‘Then why is the other one opening the carriage door and letting down the steps?’ asked Aunt Cordelia.

All three ladies fell silent at the first glimpse of the passenger, who was clearly a very grand lady to judge from not only the crest on the door, but also the air of reverence with which the footman held out his arm to help her alight.

‘A lady like that wouldn’t get out to ask her way from the inhabitants of a cottage like this,’ said Aunt Cordelia.

‘She must be a new customer,’ said Cassandra as her footman deftly caught the lady’s muff and the furs which must have been swaddling her, before they scattered in all directions.

‘Not she,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘No lady decked out in a carriage dress that fine could possibly want to mar her image by buying anything from a provincial dressmaker.’

Cassandra felt Aunt Eunice swell with indignation at the slur on her creative talent. For she was the one with the eye for seeing just what would suit those who consulted her, as well as the skills of measuring and cutting. Cassandra did the rough basting, and plain stitching nowadays, while Cordelia added the finishing touches. ‘I could turn her out just as fine,’ she growled.

‘Well, yes, you could,’ Aunt Cordelia acknowledged. ‘If you were able to get your hands on that amount of velvet, in just that shade of blue, and if she were to ask you to, but she wouldn’t, would she?’

‘Well, we’re about to find out,’ she retorted, as the footman who’d been stalking up the garden path rapped imperiously on their front door, causing all three ladies to cease their perusal of the vision of sophistication, who was finally ready to take the arm of the second footman, and rush to adopt various industrious poses around the room while Betty, their maid, went to answer the door.

Although Cassandra strained to make out the conversation taking place in the hall, the thick oak door to the parlour kept it frustratingly muffled. Her aunts, who were merely holding the tools of their trade, while leaning in the same direction, were looking equally frustrated.

But at last the door opened and the lady in blue velvet came floating into the room on a cloud of exotic perfume. It was as well they’d watched her arrive, otherwise they would all probably have sat there gaping at the vision of fashionable elegance, flanked on either side by two footmen whose heads almost brushed the ceiling.

As it was, all three of them managed to rise to their feet and drop into suitably deferential curtsies, with an air of aplomb that conveyed the message that they were used to entertaining titled ladies practically every day.

The lady stood there for a moment, looking them over, then abruptly flung her arms wide and headed straight for Cassandra.

‘Darling,’ she said, enveloping her in a highly scented hug. ‘I have found you at last!’

The aunts shot her looks of enquiry, which Cassandra had to return with a shrug. For she had absolutely no idea why this lady was hugging her and calling her darling.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, disentangling herself from the lady’s perfumed embrace. ‘But I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.’

The lady cocked her head to one side, and gave her what Cassandra could only think of as a twinkling look. ‘You are Miss Cassandra Furnival, are you not? Daughter of Julia Hasely, third daughter of the Earl of Sydenham?’

‘Er…yes, I am, but…’

The lady gave a rueful shake of her head and heaved a melodramatic sigh, making Cassandra suspect the lady never did anything without considering the effect it would have upon an audience. ‘I suppose I should have been prepared to find you had forgotten me. Because you were, after all, just the tiniest babe when last we were in the same room together.’ She drew off her gloves and held them out in mid-air. One of the footmen sprang forward just in time to catch them as she let them drop. ‘Which was at your christening,’ she finished saying, looking around as though searching for something. ‘Your mother was a great friend of mine,’ she said, making for one of the chairs reserved for customers. ‘A very great friend,’ she said, disposing herself upon it gracefully. ‘I,’ she announced, with a dazzling smile, ‘am your godmother.’

‘Your Grace,’ gasped Cassandra, collapsing on to her own chair as she finally realised that this lady had, indeed, come to visit her. The Duchess of Theakstone, her godmother, was the only person from her past life who still corresponded with her. Even though it was only ever in the form of a note at Christmas and her birthday—hastily dashed off, to judge from the handwriting—she had treasured each and every one. For it was more than anyone else had done.

The Duchess laughed at this expression of Cassandra’s shock at finally meeting her in person. ‘I can see that I have taken you by surprise.’

Surprise? That was putting it mildly.

‘You have never once asked me to help you, but I have often wished I could. While Theakstone was alive, of course, it was impossible.’ She twisted her mouth into what, on a less beautiful woman, would have been called a sneer.

This statement only served to puzzle Cassandra even further. For one thing, the Duke to whom her godmother had been married had died several years ago. For another…

‘Oh, my dear, how perplexed you look,’ said the Duchess of Theakstone, with a challenging sort of smile. ‘As though you never expected me to lift as much as a finger.’

‘Ah…’ Well, no, she hadn’t. But the Duchess was making it sound as though somehow that view offended her.

‘Well, no,’ stammered Cassandra, ‘I would never have presumed so far. How could I, when not even my own mother was prepared to acknowledge me after I committed my Fatal Error? But it wasn’t only that…’

‘Oh? Then what was it, precisely?’ asked the Duchess, rather frostily.

‘Only that you don’t look…that is… I suppose that my mother must be considerably older than you. Well, she looked older than you last time I saw her, which was more than half-a-dozen years ago. So I don’t see how you could have been such friends.’

‘Oh, my dear, how clever of you to say just the right thing,’ she crowed with delight. ‘I am sure we are going to get along famously,’ she said, untying and removing her bonnet to reveal a mass of gleaming golden curls, not one of which had been flattened by the cleverly constructed confection.

Aunt Eunice sprang forward to take the exquisite bonnet before either of the footmen could crush it in their meaty great paws, and carried it reverently over to a hatstand, currently occupied only by a swathe of sprig muslin.

‘Thank you,’ said the Duchess. ‘Not only for taking such great care of my hat, but also of my goddaughter. I am so glad she found a safe haven with two such compassionate ladies.’ She looked at each aunt in turn and then at Cassandra in a way that somehow made her aware that she hadn’t effected a proper introduction.

‘This is my Aunt Cordelia,’ she said. ‘Er… Miss Bramstock, I should have said,’ she added, blushing.

‘Ah, so you are the one who caused such a stir by spurning Hendon’s offer and running off to set up home with your schoolfriend,’ said the Duchess, before turning to examine Aunt Eunice, who lifted her chin to stare back with some belligerence.

‘And this is, well, I call her Aunt Eunice,’ Cassandra said, hoping that this was not going to turn into the sort of confrontation that would send her godmother flouncing out in a huff.

‘Because you are so fond of her,’ the Duchess concluded for her. ‘Which is not surprising, when she has clearly done far more for you than any of your blood relations.’

Aunt Eunice subsided at once, murmuring her thanks and protesting that it was nothing.

‘Is there somewhere that my boys,’ said the Duchess, waving a hand at the two enormous footmen, ‘may take refreshments?’

‘Of course,’ said Aunt Cordelia with a touch of chagrin at the reminder she was forgetting her duties as a hostess. Once she’d sent ‘the boys’ off to the kitchen with a message for Betty to not only look after them, but also to bring tea and cake to the parlour for their guest, Cassandra and both her aunts took to their chairs and gazed at their visitor in an expectant silence.

‘Now that we are alone,’ said the Duchess, ‘we may get to the point. As I said, I am sure nobody could deny that you ladies have done my goddaughter a sterling service, up to this point. But now she needs someone with social standing to bring her out, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Bring me out? That is not possible. Not when I am ruined. Socially, that is, if not in fact. For I’m sure that Stepfather must have made everyone aware he would not let me set foot in his house when I went back to try to explain…’

‘Yes. And that he cut you off without a penny to your name, as though it was something to be proud of,’ put in the Duchess grimly.

‘Yes. And I don’t suppose even my mother has ever said one word in my defence…’

‘The poor creature was so browbeaten by that bully she married I don’t suppose she dared,’ said the Duchess.

‘No, she wouldn’t,’ said Cassandra, marvelling at how clearly the Duchess saw what had happened back then. She wondered if perhaps her mother had written to her, explaining, and asking her to help her only daughter… No, no, that couldn’t be it. Stepfather would never allow any kind of missive to leave the house without scrutinising it carefully.

‘But if I,’ continued the Duchess, ‘were to spread a rumour that it was all a plot he made up to swindle you out of your inheritance, plenty of people would be ready to believe it nowadays. Because, let me tell you, my dears, since the time he turned you out of doors he has shown his true colours often enough that he is generally held in aversion.’

‘But, Your Grace, that is not true! I mean, yes, I’m sure he did leap at the chance to get his hands on what money should have come to me, because he is that sort of man. But he didn’t have to make up any scandal about me. I did run away with a soldier, you know, and I did return home unmarried…’

The Duchess held up her hand to stop her saying anything further. ‘I am glad that you are being so frank with me. But you cannot restore your reputation if you go round blurting out the truth to all and sundry.’

Cassandra’s heart gave a little lurch. Could it be possible? Could she really slough off the cloud of disgrace she could always feel hanging over her head, even when everyone was polite to her face these days? Could she find a place in polite society again? Become respectable once more?

But at what cost? ‘I won’t tell lies to try to persuade people I am something I am not,’ she said firmly.

‘There will be no need,’ said the Duchess after a pause. ‘From what you have just said, it sounds as if your so-called scandal was little more than a brief escapade, which could have been brushed over if your mother had not married such a monster.’

‘Well, yes, but…’ she clasped her hands at her waist as another barrier to the Duchess’s scheme sprang to mind ‘…am I not too old to make a come-out?’

‘Not at all. You cannot be more than twenty years of age?’

‘I am three and twenty.’

‘You look much younger. Besides, there are plenty of men who do not want a bride right out of the schoolroom. Someone more mature, with a bit of sense. And you are so pretty that I am sure there will be someone who is willing to overlook all that other business,’ she said, waving her hand to dismiss Cassandra’s Fatal Error as though it was no more than a bothersome fly.

‘But… I’m not at all sure I wish to marry,’ said Cassandra with a guilty look at her aunts, whose views on marriage she had begun to absorb. ‘I am very happy here.’

‘I am sure you are,’ said the Duchess soothingly. ‘And if you don’t find a husband and wish to come back here after your Season, why, of course you may. But there’s more to having a Season than catching a husband. There are all the balls and parties, and picnics and shopping, and visiting the theatre, and galleries and exhibitions. I vow and declare you deserve to enjoy all that has been so long denied you—through, I’m sure, no fault of your own.’

‘That’s true, Cassandra,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘And even though we both turned our backs on society, at least we had the luxury of choosing to do so.’

‘You see?’ The Duchess turned to Cassandra with a smile of triumph. ‘Your aunts would love you to be able to find a husband, if that would make you happy, even if it wasn’t for them,’ she declared with a candour that was slightly shocking.

‘And even if your experiences have put you off men altogether, that is no reason not to come to London with me. Wouldn’t you like to go to balls and see the sights, Cassy darling?’

Cassy twisted the hands she still held clasped at her waist. Because not five minutes earlier, she had been wishing for just that very thing. And to be honest, if she could find a man like her real papa, a man who’d been kind and jolly from what she could remember of him, then she wouldn’t mind marrying, either. For one thing it would mean she wouldn’t have to work for her living any longer. And for another, she might have children. Adorable little chubby babies, who’d grow into people who would love her.

‘You know,’ pointed out Aunt Eunice, gruffly, just as Cassy had begun to get a real pang of longing to feel a warm little bundle in her arms, while another pair of youthful arms hugged her knees, ‘it wouldn’t do you any harm to go up to Town just to see the latest fashions being worn.’

‘And visit some of the silk warehouses and see what’s on offer,’ said Aunt Cordelia.

‘There, you see? These dear ladies are in agreement. Even if you cannot find a husband, there are plenty of other useful things you can do in town. And we shall have such fun,’ said the Duchess, clapping her dainty little hands in delight. ‘Oh, I knew this was going to answer.’

‘Well,’ said Cassandra, wondering why she was bothering to argue when everyone in the room, including her, thought that a trip to London was just what she needed. ‘It is very good of you, Your Grace…’

‘Oh, don’t start off calling me that. I am your godmother and it will be of the utmost importance to remind everyone of that fact. So you had better get into the habit of calling me Godmama right away. And as for being good,’ she added with a rather mischievous grin, ‘that is not altogether true. Since you have been honest with me, my dear, it is only fair that I return the favour by being completely honest with you.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You see, although it is true that, for a while, at one point in our lives, your mother and I were great friends, that is not the only reason I have offered to bring you out.’ She tilted her head to one side, setting her golden ringlets dancing, and smiled in what Cassandra thought of as a positively coaxing manner.

‘It is my stepson,’ she said, her smile fading. ‘He has practically ordered me to leave Town and go to live in the Dower House. Which I shall never do! I have such horrid memories of my years at Theakstone Court that I vowed never to set foot anywhere on the estate ever again. But when I told him so, he said I would have no choice if he were to turn off all the London servants. Well…’ she leaned back as both aunts gasped in outrage ‘…that was all he knew! For the moment I warned the staff of his threats, they all swore they would stay on without wages, if necessary. Isn’t that loyal of them? The dears. Which meant that of course I could not abandon them, either. And so I started cudgelling my brains for a solution which would mean that we could all stay on in Grosvenor Square. Which,’ she said, holding out her hand to Cassandra in a way that looked like an appeal for help, ‘is where you come in…’

Chapter Two

Colonel Nathaniel Fairfax stood for a moment just inside the doorway of the ballroom, scouting the terrain. Dance floor directly ahead, full of couples performing complicated manoeuvres at the trot. To his right, a dowagers’ bench, fully occupied by well-fed matrons. Beyond them, a trio of fiddlers sawing away industriously. There were two exits, he noted, apart from the doorway in which he was standing. One led to a refreshment room, to judge from the tables he could spy through the crowds gathered there, and the other led to the outside. A terrace, probably. Most houses of this size had them.

There was a sort of corridor between the terrace door and the dance floor, formed by a set of pillars, and several strategically placed urns stuffed with foliage behind which sharpshooters could crouch, should they wish to prevent uninvited guests getting in through any set of doors.

Not that he was expecting to encounter sharpshooters in a ballroom. Though he was scouting the terrain for something potentially far more dangerous.

A woman.

She wasn’t one of the ladies cavorting about the dance floor. Only a couple of them had dark hair, but neither of them were anywhere near as pretty as he recalled her being.

She was not on the dowagers’ bench. Not unless she’d aged a couple of decades and put on several stone in weight during the six years since he’d last clapped eyes on her.

Was she among the crowd loitering in the corridor by the terrace doors? That was where a lot of young females were standing, watching the dancers, and fluttering their fans. He ran his eyes along the rank of them. A tall thin blonde, a short squat ginger piece, a medium-sized brunette with…

Good God. His sister, Issy, had not lied. She was here. Cassandra Furnival. Brazenly pushing her way back into society when by rights she ought never dare show her face. But then he should already have known she was brazen. Why hadn’t he learned his lesson when it came to her behaviour? She was the kind of girl who could entice a man to follow her out into a moonlit stable yard and almost make him forget the moral code by which he lived. The kind of girl who could, not one month later, entice an entirely different man to elope with her.

And that when she’d been scarce out of the schoolroom.

Back then she’d been pretty enough to cause two officers within the same regiment to lose their heads over her. Since then she’d only grown lovelier. To look at, that was. According to Issy, all that loveliness concealed the heart of an avaricious, designing baggage.

‘Nate,’ Issy had wailed, with tears trickling down her face, ‘if you don’t do something about her I don’t know who can.’

‘Do?’ He’d flung down his pen in exasperation, since not only had she burst into his study unannounced, but had also taken a chair even though she could see he was busy. And the tears meant she was not going to leave until she’d said her piece. ‘What do you expect me to do?’

‘Stop her! Before she gets some other unsuspecting male in her clutches and wheedles his fortune out of him, the way she did to poor Lady Agatha’s brother.’

Typical of Issy to use such emotionally charged words, in such a biased manner when, from what he’d observed of Lieutenant Gilbey and Miss Furnival, they’d both been equally culpable.

‘And just how,’ he’d said rather irritably, ‘do you think I could do such a thing? Even if you could convince me it was any of my business, which I don’t believe it is.’

Besides which, he had no wish to browbeat any female. It was not behaviour befitting an officer of His Majesty’s Army.

‘Of course it is your business! Lady Agatha’s brother was one of your junior officers. You can’t have forgotten poor Lieutenant Gilbey, can you?’

No, he hadn’t forgotten the lovelorn young man. He hadn’t forgotten any of the men who’d died while serving under his command. His life would now be far less uncomfortable if he only could.

‘Surely,’ Issy had persisted, ‘you can see that you owe it to his memory, to…to his family, too, who are all devastated to learn that Furnival girl is trying to worm her way back into society.’

He did owe the fallen a great deal. And their families. But surely not to the extent of coming the heavy with Miss Furnival? Not the Miss Furnival he recalled, anyway. She’d seemed a rather timid little thing, not this brazen harpy his sister was describing.

‘If she is as bad as you claim—’ and he wasn’t totally convinced of it ‘—I hardly think anyone is likely to receive her. You are probably making a fuss over nothing, Issy.’

‘It’s not nothing! Not to Lady Agatha. She was so cut up when she heard that girl had been taken up by that pea goose the Duchess of Theakstone that she left Town for fear she might accidentally come face to face with the designing baggage who cast her spell over her poor deluded brother.’

There had been a good deal more of the same. About how she’d brought some friend with her, too, who was from a background of trade and had no place in society ballrooms at all. Until, seeing that the only way he would be able to get his sister to leave him in peace to get on with his work would be to say that he would see what he could do.

Even though he had suspected much of what Issy claimed as fact would probably turn out to have no substance. He’d been certain that nobody would invite the girl anywhere, after what she’d done, even if she had taken up residence in London.

And so he hadn’t got as far as working out what he could really do about her, even if he did run her to ground.

So, for a moment, all he could do was stand stock still, staring at her. Just staring at her. Until she bent to listen to something the short, ginger girl was saying, and laughed.

Laughed!

As though she hadn’t a care in the world. When he…

He flinched as a series of stark and dreadful images surged to the forefront of his mind. Images he kept firmly locked away behind a sort of door in his memory. A good portion of them relating to Lieutenant Gilbey.

Gilbey sitting with his head in his hands. Gilbey pacing back and forth, his face tortured, after reading one of those damned letters she’d sent him. Gilbey’s shattered body staining the snow scarlet…

He found himself stalking across the room, dazed to discover that Issy had been right. And, that being the case, he did have to do something. Even though he didn’t know exactly what. Because, even though the hostess, Lady Bunsford, was hardly a leader of society, if the Furnival girl had got in here she would not stop until she’d gained the objective Issy had painted in such lurid colours. And that he could not allow.

The very moment he began to stalk towards her, she turned, as though sensing his interest. Looked at him. Frowned a bit, as though trying to work out why his face looked familiar.

And then her face lit up. As though she was delighted to see him again.

The power of that smile almost, almost made him falter. It was so warm. So welcoming. And promised so much. For a moment or two it felt as if she’d cast some kind of net, formed from invisible gossamer threads, and that she was reeling him in rather than him marching across a crowded ballroom to challenge her because that was his choice. The same way she’d done the very first time he’d met her, at that assembly near where the regiment had been based for a time. All she’d had to do, that long-ago night, was to look over her shoulder at him, wistfully, as she went through a door that would take her to the stable yard, and he’d trotted after her like a…like a dog called to heel. Even though he’d resisted the temptation to ask her to dance before that moment. Even though she was too young for him. For any man, so he’d thought. She’d been all promise. Blossom. Not ready to be plucked. And yet, oh, so damned alluring.

It was her mouth. The way the top lip pouted, as though inviting a man to suck it into his own mouth and…

No, it was her eyes. The liveliness that danced in them, making a man yearn to drown in their greeny-brown depths…

No, it was her skin. Which wasn’t blandly perfect like that of so many debutantes who reminded him of brittle porcelain. It was creamy and warm, and dotted here and there with moles which made his fingers itch to trace the course of their intriguing pattern…

‘Colonel Fairfax,’ she said, holding out her hand with the practised grace of a seasoned seductress.

No man could have resisted taking it, bending over it and bestowing the kiss she demanded. Least of all, as it turned out, him. Which infuriated him.

‘How delightful to see you again,’ she cooed, ‘after all this time.’

He straightened up and dropped her hand. Just because he acknowledged her beauty, her allure, it did not mean he was going to fall under her spell. Thanks to Issy he knew what she was, now, what she was capable of. Saying she was delighted to see him again, for instance. Making him believe, with the radiance of that smile, that she meant it when he knew it must be impossible. She was too young, too lovely to genuinely have any interest in a dried-up husk of a man like him.

‘Miss Furnival,’ he said, his wounded pride smarting so much that his voice sounded harsh, even to his own ears. ‘Still up to your pretty little neck in mischief, I see.’

The hand he’d just kissed flew to that neck, as though inviting his eyes to follow. Inviting his lips to do the same, at some later date. Or perhaps his teeth. If she was everything Issy had said, then she wouldn’t care which.

Even though he’d just thrown down the gauntlet? Perhaps because he’d challenged her. Perhaps it was a declaration that she would fight back, with all the weapons in her arsenal. And a fight it was to be, now, he realised with a pang of what felt like loss. The warmth had gone from her smile. From a distance it probably looked the same, but this close to her, close enough to smell the floral fragrance she was wearing, he knew different.

‘Mischief?’ She gave a little frown, as though she could not understand what he could possibly be implying. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

For a moment, he wished she really didn’t have any idea what he meant. That they were not on opposing sides. That he’d been able to bask in the warmth of that first smile, rather than having to make it freeze in place. That he could have taken her hand without reservation and begun to converse with her the way any man would talk to a pretty woman he’d met and felt drawn to.

But that outcome had never been possible. When they’d first met, he’d known he would shortly be going abroad and that he might be away too long to even suggest, let alone hope, she might wait for him. Known that she’d been too young for him and now…now his mission made fraternising with her an impossibility.

He tore his eyes from her before her loveliness gained sufficient power to weaken his resolve and focused on the girl next to her. The girl Issy had told him was the daughter of a mill owner. ‘To begin with, foisting a girl like that,’ he said to Miss Furnival, though he kept on looking at the ginger girl, ‘on to a featherbrained creature like the Duchess of Theakstone.’

The ginger girl flinched. Scowled. And, as he’d regained command of his wayward tendency to wish for the impossible, he turned his head to address Miss Furnival directly. ‘I don’t know how you have managed to persuade her to take part in one of your schemes, but I do know that you are encroaching upon her good nature.’

‘One of my schemes?’ Miss Furnival added a shake of her head to the mystified frown she’d manufactured for his benefit. ‘What schemes?’

‘Don’t think you can fool me by that look of innocence,’ he snarled at her through a mixture of bitterness and disappointment that she had, apparently, already done so once. ‘Nor anyone else, not for very long. There are those who know what you have done, what you are…’

She flung up her chin. ‘And what am I?’

Where to start? ‘An adventuress. A heartbreaker.’ Not that she’d broken his heart. He’d only got as far as wishing she was older, wishing he could get to know her better before the regiment left England, wishing he could ask her to consider waiting for him…

Thank goodness. Otherwise, when she’d turned up on the quayside, clinging to Gilbey’s arm as the lad stammered out his intention to marry her and carry her on board with them like so much baggage…

But then, according to Issy, she was a baggage, wasn’t she?

‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘I could ever forget what you did to Lieutenant Gilbey?’ According to Issy, that was. Although he still wasn’t completely convinced. And it wasn’t just because she was acting so surprised. Part of him really didn’t want to believe she could look so lovely, yet be so hard-hearted. Perhaps, if he flung her supposed crimes in her face, she would refute them in such a way that he could go back and inform his sister she’d been mistaken. ‘You cajoled him to make a runaway match of it,’ he ventured. ‘And then when I believed I’d managed to extricate him from your clutches, you still managed to wheedle his fortune out of him.’

‘You…got him out of my clutches?’ Her eyes widened, briefly, then turned hard.

His heart sank as she revealed a side of her he’d kept on hoping, right to this very minute, had been a figment of Issy’s imagination.

But then wasn’t that always the end result of hope? Shattering disappointment. Nothing ever lived up to a man’s expectations. Not military glory, not social preferment and most definitely not, he’d just discovered, a woman.

‘If that is your opinion of me,’ she said frostily, ‘then I fail to see that we have anything further to discuss.’ She turned aside as if to cut him. He prevented her from doing so by simply stepping sideways and so maintaining his position directly in front of her.

‘On the contrary,’ he said, bitterness and disappointment driving him further than anything Issy could have provoked from him. ‘I have come here tonight specifically to warn you that I have received intelligence as to your manoeuvres. I suppose you have run through Lieutenant Gilbey’s fortune by now. That is why you have come to London. You are hoping to be able to dupe some other gullible fool into loosening his purse strings.’ That was certainly what Issy believed. And, believing it, had not been able to sit back and watch Miss Furnival get away with it all over again.

‘I have no intention of doing any such thing,’ she denied hotly.

‘Why else would you be using the Duchess to parade you about town, if not to catch yourself a husband?’

She frowned. Glanced at her companion. Took a breath. But before she could utter a single excuse, he said, ‘You will not get away with it. I will not allow you to get away with it.’ Issy had been right. He owed it to Gilbey, and Gilbey’s family, and every other vulnerable male of marriageable age in England, to put a stop to her scheming before she could really get going.

‘Get away with it?’ Her eyes flashed with fury. ‘And just how, pray, do you intend to stop me?’

If he’d had any doubts about her plans before, that statement exposed them. Because he could not very well hinder non-existent plans, could he?

‘For a start,’ he said, thinking on his feet, while wishing he’d taken the precaution of forming some kind of contingency plan, ‘I shall inform the poor woman you have deceived into giving you house room exactly what you really are. And then I will make sure everyone knows that she,’ he said, indicating the ginger girl, ‘the one you claim is your friend, has no right to appear in decent society, either.’

‘Cassy…’ The ginger girl took hold of her arm, a look of concern on her face. He turned to address her.

‘My quarrel is not with you, miss. If you withdraw from society quietly, I shall pursue you no further. And if you—’ he turned to Miss Furnival once more ‘—confess your crimes to the Duchess, before any harm is done to her, and leave Town, I shall not expose you, either. I am, after all, a man of honour.’

‘A man of honour?’ Miss Furnival turned up her nose in scorn. ‘Men of honour go about interfering in matters that are of no concern to them, do they? Flexing their muscles and threatening defenceless females?’

He hadn’t flexed any muscles, in a literal sense, but somehow by referring to them he suddenly felt aware of several. One in particular that had been lying dormant for some years.

If she’d really been defenceless, that reaction might have given him pause. But she wasn’t. The ease with which she could arouse a man who’d been practically dead in that department just went to prove it. So he gave a bitter laugh.

‘Defenceless? You are about as defenceless as those sirens were, luring all those sailors to their deaths.’

She looked taken aback. It was a small victory, but one he was prepared to accept. And on the principle that it was better to withdraw while he had the advantage, he turned on his heel and quit the ballroom.

Chapter Three

Cassandra watched the Colonel stalk from the ballroom, her heart pounding and her limbs shaking. She couldn’t believe she’d spoken so sharply to him. She never stood up to anyone, or lost her temper, ever. But then he’d dragged her through so many strong emotions in such a short space of time. Perhaps that was what had made her lose self-control.

To start with she couldn’t believe he would turn out to be so…unkind. She’d had such fond memories of him. He’d been the first man she’d ever looked at with any sort of romantic interest. And although he’d been far too mature and important to return that interest, she hadn’t held that against him. On the contrary, when he’d come to her rescue, several weeks after their initial meeting, he’d gone up in her estimation even higher. So much so that ever since, she’d thought of him as her hero. Her saviour. She’d never had the chance to thank him properly for what he’d done. And so she’d been really pleased to see him when he’d marched into the ballroom.

Only to learn that he hadn’t done what she thought he’d done at all. Far from stepping in, and rescuing her from her folly, he thought he’d been rescuing Guy from her clutches. Those few curt words had shattered the bubble of pleasure in which she’d been floating, during these last few weeks since she’d come to London. No, come to think of it, he’d punctured her pleasure the moment he’d reached her side when he’d accused her of being up to her neck in mischief just as she’d been thinking how wonderful it was to be able to renew their acquaintance. Now that she was old enough to hope he might see her as a woman and not a silly schoolgirl.

‘What,’ said Rosalind, breaking through the turmoil of her reactions, ‘was all that about? Who was he? And aren’t you supposed to be smiling? Her Grace says we are always supposed to have a serene smile stuck to our lips no matter what, when we’re out in society.’

Cassandra blinked. ‘Yes, of course, you are correct. Thank you for reminding me,’ she said, fixing the required smile in place.

‘Who is he? An old flame, or something?’

‘Not an old flame, no. But I did believe he’d been my friend. He was the only person, during the whole sorry episode, who did anything practical.’ He’d been like a rock. Standing firm in the midst of all the confusion on the quayside, the only one who seemed to know what was going on and having some control over it.

‘What sorry episode? And what did he mean about you scheming? Are we done for?’

‘I am so sorry, Rosalind,’ she said, turning to the girl, rather than continuing to gaze blankly at the door through which he’d just gone. ‘I did warn Godmama that things from my past might come back to haunt us, but she assured me that she could scotch all the rumours about the indiscretion, particularly since I committed it when I was scarcely more than a schoolgirl…’

‘Indiscretion?’ Rosalind’s eyes grew round with wonder. ‘You? And you always being held up as a pattern card for me to follow.’

Yes, well, Cassandra had spoken to Godmama about that, too. But she’d brushed Cassandra’s concerns aside, reminding her that Rosalind needed to learn so much in the way of deportment and etiquette that advising her to mould herself on Cassandra would be the quickest way to effect the necessary transformation in the short time they had available.

‘After all, it is one of the reasons I brought you to Town, darling,’ she’d said. ‘So that you could help me school Miss Mollington into behaviour fitting someone who could marry a titled man.’

Of course, Cassandra had felt that it was the least she could do to repay Godmama’s generosity and hard work in attempting to restore her reputation.

‘I am so sorry,’ said Cassandra. ‘You must be so disappointed…’

‘The only thing that will disappoint me is if you don’t, immediately, tell me all about it. What kind of indiscretion did you commit when you was a schoolgirl that could get a man like that in such a pother that he’d threaten to expose you?’

‘Not here,’ said Cassandra, who’d noticed that several people were looking their way, then looking at the door through which Colonel Fairfax had just marched, and then back at them again and then whispering behind their fans. ‘Come.’ She linked her arm through Rosalind’s and sauntered along until they reached the door to the terrace. There were a few people outside taking the air, but there was still plenty of places where they could talk without risk of being overheard.

‘Well?’ The moment they were out of earshot of the ballroom, Rosalind leaned back against the parapet, demanding an explanation. Cassandra rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She hated to have to let Rosalind down. Over the last few weeks, they’d become friends. Or the closest thing to friends that Cassandra had experienced for many years. Even though Rosalind was a bit rough around the edges, she had a generous nature and a warm heart. But now their friendship would all come to an end. The way friendships did at the first hint of trouble.

But where to start? With the first ball she’d ever attended, where she’d first met Colonel Fairfax?

No, for if she talked about that, she’d also have to go back further, to explain the complicated reasons why she’d gone there without her mother, and she didn’t want to go into all that right now. It would take too long to relate the story of how Lady Agatha, her closest thing to a friend back then, had decided it was high time she had a little fun and persuaded her own mother to let her join a party of local young people attending a benefit ball at the White Hart. Her stepfather had been not only too mean to wish to purchase three tickets to raise funds for the parish alms houses, but when Agatha’s father, the Earl of Spendlow, had offered to collect her in his own carriage and convey her home in it, too, Mama had timidly suggested that it would be a splendid way of helping her prepare for her eventual come-out, by experiencing a ball in unsophisticated surroundings, without incurring any expense whatever.

She sighed as she thought of her younger self, walking into that ballroom arm in arm with Lady Agatha and being immediately besieged by a corps of scarlet-jacketed officers from her brother’s regiment. Guy, Agatha’s brother, had seen how wary she’d been of all those boisterous young men and had taken her under his wing. And she’d felt safe with him, for he’d treated her exactly the way he treated his own sister.

There had been only one officer who hadn’t joined the mob, who hadn’t teased and flattered either her or Agatha. And that had been Colonel Fairfax. There was nothing frivolous or false about him, she’d decided, as the evening had progressed. He was fully in command of himself, unlike other men who became increasingly intoxicated the closer it drew to midnight.

She’d begun to wish he’d ask her to dance, but he never did. She’d danced with the squire and the grocer’s son. And then, after a particularly energetic reel with the young blacksmith, she’d gone outside to get a breath of fresh air and cool down. He’d followed her outside. And told her that she was being foolish to do so, alone. And had escorted her inside, having made her feel wretchedly guilty.

Especially because, for a moment, in the moonlit inn yard, he’d looked at her, or she’d thought he’d looked at her, or she’d imagined he’d looked at her, with a sort of admiration tinged with longing. As though he had been considering kissing her.

Wishful thinking, obviously. Ah, well. She knew better now. About a lot of things.

Including how much information to impart to someone she didn’t, really, know all that well.

‘When I was sixteen years old,’ she therefore told Rosalind, cutting right to the heart of the matter, ‘I eloped with a soldier.’

‘No!’

Far from being outraged, Rosalind looked positively enthralled.

‘’Andsome, was he? ’Andsome as that Colonel?’

‘No,’ said Cassandra at once. She’d never met anyone who could hold a candle to Colonel Fairfax. Not even considering the changes the years had wrought in him. He’d been taller than most of the men at the dance, so that he literally stood head and shoulders above them all. And he’d also had an air of self-containment about him, so that he’d seemed far more dignified than the rest of the laughing, sweating, roistering crowd.

Tonight, he’d looked like a pared-down version of himself. As though he’d been ill and was still recovering. Although the biggest change had been in his eyes. Or, at least, in the way they’d looked at her. No longer with kindness and understanding, but with a cold, implacable hostility. Like two chips of ice. She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘A good kisser?’

What? She’d never kissed the Colonel, or come anywhere near it. Oh, but Rosalind was still harping on Guy. ‘He only ever kissed me once or twice, to be honest,’ Cassandra explained. ‘And only on the cheek, or the hand…’

‘Then why on earth did you elope with him? Was it money?’ She frowned. ‘Nah, because you don’t have any. Or you wouldn’t be taking Pa’s wages to introduce me about to titled people.’

Cassandra flinched. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the blunt way Rosalind spoke about money, nor did she appreciate the reminder that she was being paid to be her friend.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t about money.’

‘Forbidden love, then? Ooh, how exciting! I never knew you had it in you. You always looks so prim and proper.’

‘Well, if I am a bit prim nowadays,’ said Cassandra defensively, ‘it is because I learned my lesson back then. Guy was trying to rescue me from an unhappy home, as a matter of fact. My mother, who was a widow, was deceived into marrying a horrible, horrible man who made my life an utter…hell.’ She shivered as she recalled those dark days. Darker than anything that had happened since. ‘And Guy, well, he was my friend’s brother, or, to be completely accurate he was only one of them, she had several. They lived in the neighbourhood where we went to live when my mother remarried. At least, some of the time. You see, Lady Agatha’s father was an earl, who had several properties dotted all over the country. When they came to stay, they were the principal family in the area, which made it hard for my stepfather to refuse to let them in when they came calling. Even though he wouldn’t allow Mama or me to pay any social calls in return.’

‘What? That’s…that’s…’

‘Mean, yes. And when, one day, things had become particularly unbearable and Guy saw how things were, he, well, was overcome by a fit of chivalry, I think. Said he couldn’t bear to leave me and begged me to run away with him. He promised that we’d get married. That his regiment was going abroad soon, but that as an officer’s wife, I could go with him. He made,’ she said sourly, ‘living in a billet in a war-torn country sound terrifically exciting—’

‘I’ll say!’

‘But the reality was anything but. When we got to Portsmouth, Colonel Fairfax—’

‘The one who just called you a siren?’

‘Yes. He…he really shouted at Guy. Said he’d ruined me because we were both under age and that I couldn’t get married without my guardian’s permission, and the permission of his commanding officer, as well.’

‘He was your Guy’s commanding officer?’

‘Yes. And he ordered Guy to send me back to my family. But Guy couldn’t, because he’d spent every penny he had getting us that far.’ Guy had been all chivalry and no sense, she reflected sadly. Insisting on separate rooms when they’d had to stop overnight on their journey, to preserve her virtue. Hiring a chaise he could ill afford rather than mounting her on horseback where she’d be exposed to the elements…

‘In the end, it was the Colonel himself who provided the fare home. And arranged for one of the other soldier’s wives, one who didn’t get picked to go with the regiment, to act as my chaperon, because,’ she explained, seeing Rosalind’s puzzled frown, ‘only a certain number of the common soldier’s wives are allowed to travel abroad and they draw lots to see who can go. And I was that grateful to him,’ she said, running her hands up and down her arms again, in agitation. ‘I thought he was sorting out the awful mess Guy had made of rescuing me, was being kind, when all the time…’

‘He was rescuing Guy from your clutches,’ said Rosalind, with a giggle.

‘It isn’t funny,’ retorted Cassandra, recalling the way she’d felt when he, her hero, had said he thought her neck was pretty. It had taken a moment or two to realise he wasn’t paying her a compliment. A few more insults before she’d seen that all these years, he’d been blaming her for the mess Guy had led her into and thinking she was some sort of siren who lured unsuspecting men to their doom.

‘Why are you giggling?’

‘That Colonel. Thinking that anyone would need rescuing from your clutches. At that age! And you not even knowing as much as that you were too young to obtain a special licence…’

‘We were so silly. The pair of us. If I hadn’t been so desperate to escape my stepfather, and of course in those days I thought marriage was the only way a girl could escape…’ She shook her head. ‘Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. I was desperate and I did trust in a foolish boy, and ended up ruined.’

‘Ooh.’ Rosalind sidled a bit closer and leaned in. ‘What was it like? Being ruined?’

‘Cold and uncomfortable.’

Rosalind frowned. ‘Cold? Didn’t he…you know…snuggle up when he was doing it?’

‘Doing it? Oh!’ Cassandra suddenly saw that they’d been talking at cross-purposes. ‘No, I thought I told you, we never did…that.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘It wasn’t him, or anything he did that made me cold and uncomfortable. He was always a perfect gentleman. It was after. When I got home again. That was the worst bit. My stepfather refused to take me back. Said I was a…well, I don’t want to repeat any of the names he called me.’ She shuddered, recalling the look of glee on his face when he’d said that her behaviour obliged him to wash his hands of her. That from now on she was dead to him and to her mother, and to her brother. That she must never return and not a penny would she ever have from either of them.

‘Betty and I had no money left and nowhere to go.’

‘Betty?’

‘The soldier’s wife I told you about. The one who came with me, to lend me respectability on the journey. Fortunately, my stepfather hadn’t seen her, since he’d been too busy shouting at me and forbidding me to enter the house. She had the sense to sneak round the back and ask the servants if any of them knew of anywhere else we could go. And the cook, who’d been with the family from before my mother’s second marriage, let her know about an aunt of mine who was supposed to be living in a scandalous manner. I’d never heard of her before, because, well, nobody talks about scandalous aunts to young girls, do they?’

‘I don’t suppose they do, no,’ said Rosalind, enthralled. ‘And they took you in, did they?’

‘Ah, eventually, yes.’ It had taken weeks to reach the house in Devon. She and Betty had to walk all the way, foraging for food from the hedgerows as they went. They must have looked like scarecrows by the time they knocked on the front door of the cottage in Market Gooding, so she supposed it wasn’t so surprising the two older ladies had been reluctant to let them in. It was only when Betty had broken down in tears, saying they had nowhere else to go and threatening to lie down and die in their front garden, that they’d said they supposed the pair could stay for a while until they thought of something else.

They hadn’t been there long before discovering why the two ladies had been so reluctant to have them stay and also why they didn’t have any live-in servants already. Although the house was relatively spacious, they shared a bedroom. Betty had explained to the puzzled young Cassandra that the pair of them were in love with each other, in a romantic way, and were probably worried about what people would say if they found out.

‘For my part, Miss Cassy,’ the pragmatic Betty had declared, ‘I don’t care what they get up to as long as they give me houseroom. And nor should you.’

And she didn’t.

‘Betty gradually took on more and more of the household chores,’ she said, ‘and I became an apprentice in their dressmaking enterprise.’

Rosalind frowned. ‘You had to work with the needle to earn your living?’

Cassandra nodded, maintaining the fiction that her aunts used to disguise the real reason why they chose to live together, without a husband between them. People accepted the story of them being indigent females, throwing in their lot together and plying their needles to eke out a living, assuming that neither of them had managed to find a husband to support them. And the aunts, and now Cassandra and Betty, too, took great care to conceal the fact that they loved each other in a way that society would find shocking. As Rosalind might. Which was why she wasn’t going to tell her about it. Or, at least, not right now.

‘So what was all that about running through Guy’s fortune?’

‘I don’t really know. I mean, he did leave me some money in his will—’

‘Oh, did he die, then?’

‘Yes, in the retreat to Corunna. Along with Betty’s husband, which actually settled her position in my aunt’s household. She is their cook-housekeeper now, with a proper wage to reflect her status.’

‘And Guy left you a fortune…’

‘No. I mean, he didn’t have a fortune to leave. I receive a small annuity, that is all. Though even that took me by surprise.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Even though he kept in touch, after the way things had ended, I didn’t really believe a word he wrote.’ She wouldn’t even have written to let him know where she was and what had become of her, if her aunts had not insisted, saying that he was responsible for it and should shoulder the blame. ‘I mean, he said that he considered himself betrothed to me and that he would carry through on his promise to marry me as soon as we were old enough. And that he would always take care of me, no matter what. But…’

But Rosalind had clearly lost interest in Guy.

‘So that Colonel was blowing a lot of smoke, then? He really has no reason to threaten you, or force me to go home?’

‘Well, no, not exactly. But,’ she said, lowering her voice and leaning in a bit closer, ‘if he decides to make trouble for us, people might feel obliged to look a bit deeper into the reasons Godmama is giving everyone for our, um, relationship. And rumour can be terribly damaging.’

‘So what are we to do?’

Cassandra had no idea. ‘We will ask Godmama,’ she said. ‘I am sure she will come up with one of her clever notions.’ And if not, well, at least she’d had a few weeks in London, which she’d thoroughly enjoyed, before having to pay the piper.

It was just such a shame that Rosalind’s plans, too, would come to nothing.

Chapter Four

‘Godmama,’ said Cassandra, the moment they stepped through the front door of the house on Grosvenor Square which the Duchess called home. ‘We need to speak with you, Rosalind and I.’ She glanced at Captain Bucknell, who had been their escort as usual that night, and who was still loitering in the hall. ‘In private.’

‘Yes, yes, in the morning,’ said the Duchess, as the butler reverently removed the cloak from her shoulders.

‘I am afraid not, Godmama,’ said Cassandra. ‘We shall neither of us be able to sleep for worrying. Could we not just step into the drawing room for a while? I am sure you will excuse us, Captain,’ she said, forcing herself to smile at him sweetly, ‘won’t you?’

‘Oh, ah, I suppose I could do that,’ he said, looking a bit annoyed. Which didn’t surprise her. For usually, after acting as their escort for the evening, he would stand in the hall, arm in arm with Godmama, watching the girls go up to bed. Cassy suspected that he never left the premises before he’d spent several more hours with Godmama. ‘That is, I mean to say…’

‘Dear Captain Bucknell,’ said Godmama, tripping across the hallway and extending her hand for him to kiss. ‘It was so kind of you to escort us to the ball. How lucky I am to be able to rely on you so very often, for the most tedious of favours.’

She meant, Cassandra supposed, all the times she’d put him to use as a partner for the girls to practise on. He’d nobly allowed them to tread on his feet during the dancing lessons given by the wizened little dancing master Godmama had employed. And sat through many dinners during which Rosalind had learned how to carry on the kind of conversation considered appropriate in polite society—just in case anyone ever invited her to dine in such company. Given the fact that he’d never treated either girl as if he regarded them as nuisances, Cassandra couldn’t really understand why she didn’t like him.

But she felt a definite frisson of revulsion when Godmama reached up, on tiptoe, to whisper in his ear. Especially when whatever it was she’d whispered brought a smile back to his face. A rather devilish smile.

‘Come, girls,’ said Godmama, once she’d appeased Captain Bucknell. ‘Let us go to the drawing room so that you can tell me all about whatever it is that has put you both in such a pother.’

While Godmama and Rosalind chose seats by the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze was crackling away, Cassandra hung back, listening out for the sound of the front door opening and closing. However, just as she’d suspected, instead of hearing anything to indicate Captain Bucknell was leaving the house, she heard the tread of heavy footsteps going up the stairs. She knew it! Godmama and Captain Bucknell were lovers.

The fact that there was a fire lit in here and that a decanter, two glasses and a plate of the Captain’s favourite biscuits were set out on a little table beside the chaise longue was even further proof.

Even though she had no right to criticise a single aspect of Godmama’s behaviour, she couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed, for Godmama had lured Cassandra to London with promises of restoring her reputation. And had also undertaken to find a titled husband for Rosalind. How on earth did she think she was going to accomplish either feat when she was carrying on with the big Guardsman so brazenly?

It wasn’t as if he was irresistible. The best she could say about him was that he was easy-going. Many people said he was handsome, but Cassandra didn’t find all that facial hair of his the slightest bit appealing. Nor the way the blackness of his whiskers made his lips look unnaturally red. What was more, he was one of those officers who had his uniforms tailored to fit so tightly that his breeches, in particular, left nothing to the imagination.

‘So, girls,’ said Godmama, thankfully interrupting Cassandra’s train of thought before it could dwell too long upon Captain Bucknell’s skin-tight breeches. ‘What is so urgent it cannot wait until morning?’

‘Colonel Fairfax was at the ball tonight. He—’

‘Colonel Fairfax? Was at the ball? Gracious heavens! Lady Bunsford must be in alt.’

Cassandra frowned at her godmother, wondering what on earth she could mean.

‘In alt? But he was only there for about five minutes.’ Nearly all of which he spent glaring and growling at her.

‘That makes no difference. He was there, when he is famous for never wasting his time attending anything so frivolous as a society ball. Not unless someone from High Command hints that it might be of use to Wellington’s plans. And I’m sure nobody in command would have thought any such thing about a function arranged by the likes of Lady Bunsford!’ She laughed. ‘But now Lady Bunsford will be able to claim the cachet of being the first hostess to succeed where so many others have failed.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Cassandra persisted, having learned by now that if she didn’t pull the conversation back on track very swiftly, Godmama would find some other way of diverting it in the direction she wished it to take. ‘He approached us and threatened to tell everyone about…’ she swallowed ‘…my past.’

‘No!’ Godmama, at last, looked suitably shocked.

‘Only, he had things all muddled up. He seemed to think that I had deceived you into launching me and Rosalind into society and insisted I confess all to you.’

‘He said what? Oh!’ Godmama burst out laughing.

‘Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but I don’t find it very funny,’ said Rosalind mulishly. ‘He said I wasn’t fit to mix in polite society and would force me to leave.’

Godmama produced a handkerchief from somewhere and dabbed at her eyes with it. ‘But don’t you see? He has spiked his own guns by insisting you make a confession to me. Because the next time he challenges you, you may say, perfectly truthfully, that I know all and that I am very happy to continue to sponsor you. Both of you,’ she added, sending one of her charming smiles at each girl in turn.

‘Yes, but…’

‘And anyway, what can he really do? He does not have the power to physically eject either of you from my home. He may spread rumours, but, really, I shouldn’t think that he will. It would not be the act of a gentleman to speak ill of a lady and he is one of the most rigid, principled men you are ever likely to meet.’

That had, Cassy reflected, been just what she’d thought of him, before tonight. That he was noble and upright, and…solid. Like a rock, actually, when she’d seen him standing on the quayside, ramrod straight and clearly in command of all the soldiers scurrying about like so many ants. Even after he’d dealt with Guy, her belief in him hadn’t wavered, because he’d seemed like the one man upon whom she could rely.

But now…well, he’d been so beastly earlier. He’d even made her question her initial impression of him. She’d thought, back then, that he’d been angry with Guy. Only now it turned out that he blamed her for everything.

But that was a topic to mull over another time.

‘So…you don’t think he will do or say anything to hinder Rosalind’s chances,’ Cassandra asked, ‘until he has made sure I have confessed my supposed crimes to you?’

‘No, I don’t. What’s more, he is so busy with his work for, oh, some general or other who organises supplies for the army, or something of the sort,’ she said, waving her handkerchief about in a vague manner, as though working for the defence of the realm was neither here nor there, ‘that he probably won’t even remember to check up on you for some considerable time. And when that time comes, you may tell him whatever comes into your head that will serve the purpose.’

Oh, dear. Godmama appeared to have forgotten Cassandra’s insistence that she was not going to sink to the depths of telling lies to explain her presence in London. She didn’t even seem to think that telling lies was sinking to any sort of depths at all.

‘But what,’ Rosalind objected while Cassandra was still trying to come up with a polite and respectful way of expressing her reservations, ‘if he thinks he can speak ill of me, since I ain’t… I mean, I am not a lady?’

Godmama shook her head. ‘He cannot say anything about you without making himself rather unpopular. Because, darling, everyone knows, or at least, suspects, that Cassandra never met you before she came to my home. Everyone knows, or thinks they know, that your father is paying me to find you a titled husband. But everyone is perfectly happy to go along with the story we have put about, that I am launching my goddaughter and graciously extending hospitality to her friend. That way, they can invite you to places where you can meet their sons without looking as though they are being mercenary about it. It is a fabrication that suits everyone concerned. And if Colonel Fairfax goes about trying to put a spoke in your wheel he is going to upset a lot of very influential families with younger sons to provide for.’

‘Papa don’t want a younger son for me,’ Rosalind reminded her. ‘He wants a title.’

Once again, the Duchess made play with her handkerchief. ‘Yes, yes, but you know what I mean.’

‘So, you don’t think,’ put in Cassandra before Rosalind could start really quarrelling with Godmama about the terms of their agreement, ‘we have any reason to worry about what he may do?’

‘There is never any point in worrying about what a man may do, darling. What matters is how you two deal with the threat. Trust me to know of which I speak,’ she said darkly. ‘Any sign of panic and people will say there is no smoke without fire. But laugh it all off as a piece of spite and people will…well, let us just see how it plays out, shall we? He has fired a shot across our bows, that is all. Given us a warning. Now, if that is all?’ Godmama gave them one of her charming smiles, gathered her things together and got to her feet.

And, since there was nothing Cassy could do about Colonel Fairfax that night, anyway, she accepted her dismissal and went upstairs to bed.

She didn’t sleep well, though. Her dreams were uncomfortably crowded with images from the darkest time of her life, all muddled up with the things she feared might happen in the future. First Stepfather would be shouting at her and thrusting her from his doorstep. Then Colonel Fairfax would be shouting at her and dragging her out of this house and along the streets of London, where people she’d met over the past few weeks were staring and jeering, and throwing rotten fruit.

She woke with what felt like a dark cloud hanging over her. A cloud that was all too familiar from years before, but which had been slowly dispersing ever since she’d gone to live with her unconventional aunts. The cloud comprised of the opinions of people who thought she was no better than she ought to be. Who had branded her a hussy and a slut for running away with an officer and coming back unmarried. Before reaching her aunts’ house, nobody had blamed the officer concerned. And even when the aunts had come down on her side, she’d always felt it had been more from habit, since they hated all men on principle, rather than from having any faith in her. Betty didn’t count, because she’d always claimed she had no right to judge anyone, considering the things she’d got up to when she’d been Cassandra’s age.

And now it turned out not even Colonel Fairfax had believed in her when all these years she’d thought he had been the one person who had tried to protect her.

For a moment or two, when she first woke up, all she wanted to do was pull the covers up over her head and…and what? She couldn’t hide from her own life. And to be honest, thanks to Godmama’s effervescence and Rosalind’s open manner, she’d been enjoying it immensely of late. Right up to the moment Colonel Fairfax had accosted her and robbed her of all her joy.

Well, to the devil with Colonel Fairfax, she shocked herself by thinking, as she thrust aside her bedcovers and got out of bed. She wasn’t going to let him make her feel ashamed of herself. Because she hadn’t jolly well done the half of what he’d said. Even the things she had done were only the result of being gullible and naive. Or, to put it another way, young and foolish, and so desperate to escape her stepfather’s tyranny that even Guy’s offer of marriage, and going off on campaign, had sounded perfectly acceptable.

But now she was older and had learned the folly of allowing some man to divert her from her plans. If only she’d waited, patiently, as her mother had counselled her to do, her stepfather would have had to allow her a Season in London, however grudgingly. Now she was here, she was not going to let anyone, not even Colonel Fairfax, ruin her pleasure in it. Not when she’d been dreaming about having one for such a long time. And what was more, she wasn’t going to let him spoil Rosalind’s chances of finding a husband. Why shouldn’t Rosalind marry a man of rank? She was as lovely a person as many of the better-born girls she’d met in Town. She’d make any man an admirable wife. Nobody had the right to look down their long, thin, aristocratic noses at her just because her father had pulled himself up by his bootstraps rather than having his wealth handed to him on a plate.

Golly. She’d worked herself up to such a pitch that she needed to go to the window and fling up the sash to get some fresh air blowing over her heated face. She leaned on the windowsill and gazed out over her view of the mews at the back of the house, where the grooms were just starting to amble about, scratching various parts of their anatomy. The sun was already shining from a cloudless sky. It was going to be a lovely day. And she would enjoy it.

She would.

Because she wasn’t in disgrace and shunned by society any longer. Nor was she alone and unprotected. Godmama didn’t care what she might or might not have done. And it was thanks to her determination that she was here. And the generosity of Rosalind’s papa, she would not forget that.

She bit down on her lower lip as she watched the grooms working the pump in the yard. She was going to stop finding fault with Godmama’s motives and her flexible attitude to the issues of right and wrong and remember what she owed to her generous heart and that flexible attitude towards those suspected of great sins. It wasn’t as if Godmama had tried to hide anything from her, was it, not after she’d made her own confession? And hadn’t both her aunts agreed that, in certain circumstance, a tiny bit of subterfuge was justified? And who would know better than they?

Cassandra went to her washstand and lifted the ewer, which was empty. Because not quite all of Godmama’s staff had been as loyal as she’d claimed. One or two of her more junior employees had defected during the period between the Duke making his threats and Godmama’s coming up with the solution. In the form of Rosalind Mollington, whose father was willing to meet all the expenses of a London Season providing the Duchess could bring her out just as if she was a real lady and find her a titled husband while she was at it.

However, those who’d stayed with Godmama all pitched in to fill in the gaps. And, since Cassandra was awake before any of the staff had decided to take on the task, she had no objection to going down to the kitchen and fetching her own hot water for washing.

It was funny, she reflected as she covered her nightgown with a modest wrap before venturing from her room, how Godmama had manged to make her rather rash and impetuous stand against her stepson sound like taking up a noble cause. Even her aunts had applauded her determination to defy the man who was threatening the livelihoods of so many working people. And that was the thing about Godmama. Even though she would do just about anything to get her own way, no matter how unethical, she could always make it sound as if it would be no worse than having a bit of a lark. And to be fair, coming to London and meeting Rosalind, and going to see the sights, and attending a few routs, and balls, even if they weren’t in the homes of people from the very best circles, had all been tremendous fun.

Until Colonel Fairfax had come storming over, accusing her of all sorts of bad things. Of being a siren, for heaven’s sake!

She paused to check her rather dishevelled reflection in the mirror before leaving the room, to make sure nothing about her appearance would offend the servants. She was no siren! She had nice hair, she supposed. Or at least, it would look passable once she’d run a brush over it. The hairdresser Godmama had hired had raved about it, actually, saying what a pleasure it was to style, since it had a bit of a curl to it. And Godmama had declared that her lashes were long enough and dark enough that she would have no need to employ cosmetics to make her eyes stand out. But nobody had said anything about her mouth. Well, they couldn’t, could they? Her lips were too full and the top one stuck out a bit, making it look as though she might have buck teeth.

She stuck her tongue out at her reflection and opened her bedroom door. She was no siren! She was no saint, either, or she would not have got herself tangled up in Godmama’s schemes. She was just a girl. A girl who’d been punished enough for stepping out of line. A girl who, she decided, clutching her ewer to her chest like a shield, was never, ever, going to let some…man…some buffle-headed delusional man…spoil things for her again.

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