Page 3 of Against Her Will

“Relax,” he leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. There are very few people left dancing and even fewer around the room. I promise you that you will survive this dance with your reputation entirely intact, Mademoiselle.”

Cassie clamped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at him, then looked away, vowing to herself not to react to him in any way, despite the dizziness she felt that she churlishly attributed to him. The waltz would soon be over, and then, hopefully, she would never have to see the boorish oaf again.

Count Victor Andreiv Kaspersky Salkov knew exactly what Cassie was doing and how she felt about being what she probably considered to be manhandled by him on the dance floor. But this little flower obviously knew absolutely nothing about being manhandled, although when he implemented his plot she would become quite intimately familiar with the term, whether she wanted to or not.

And he highly doubted she would want to . . . at least at first.

“You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen, Mademoiselle. Is it a wig?”

Cassie would have vowed to her dying day that there was nothing this boor could say to her that would get her to talk to him or respond in any way. She was an old master at giving the cold shoulder, and had once, at the tender age of eight, gone for nearly two months without speaking to her Mother, despite the fact that Father required that the family eat both breakfast and dinner together. Alicia Moorhouse Winthrop had denied her daughter the opportunity to buy the horse she wanted – one that both of her parents had thought was much too spirited for her, although her father had left it up to her mother to make the final decision, as he often did in matters that concerned his daughter.

But, as far as Cassie was concerned, the Count’s comment could not have been much more incendiary if he had questioned her virtue.

“Of course it’s not!” she replied in utter outrage, wishing she could – if not leave him entirely - then at least step back from him and stop the dance as she gave him the full effect of her wrath at his temerity.

But he continued to usher her around the floor as if he had said nothing in the least outrageous to her. A small smile played about his lips as Cassie realized he was trying not to laugh at the vehemence of her response, and then favored her with yet another insulting question. “Is it dyed?”

Victor watched her eyes go wide, then narrow to incensed slits. This time she refused to grace his question with an answer of any sort at all. Would this dance never end? She wondered as she stood as stiffly as she could within his all too forward embrace, realizing suddenly that she felt quite dizzy.

After a few moments of complete silence between them, Victor ventured an apology that, like a lot of what he’d said to her, she felt was completely lacking in sincerity. “I am truly sorry if I’ve offended you, Mademoiselle Winthrop. I only meant to discern if I should direct my deepest compliment on that sumptuous mane of yours to you, your wigmaker or your hairdresser.”

Cassie closed her eyes and took a deep breath – advice she had often gotten from her mother but had never followed before. But then she’d never found herself in a situation in which she felt such a complete lack of control. She wanted desperately to throw a huge tantrum, as she’d done when she was younger when things didn’t go exactly the way she wanted them too, but could hardly do so now.

“Your hair is truly gorgeous,” he whispered, much to close to her ear. “It’s the very definition of a crowning glory.”

The compliment, which sounded heartfelt even if it wasn’t, went a long way towards soothing her bruised ego. Although she still refused to respond, he could feel her relax, more than just slightly.

And then he realized that she was practically in a dead faint as she leaned limply against him. Without missing a beat, Victor lifted her up into his arms and carried her out into the gardens, to the very end of them where they would be well out of eyesight of anyone at the house and the back gate was handy to his purpose, while the faint light of dawn was just beginning to appear at the horizon. As he walked out of the ballroom with her, Victor flagged down a servant for a glass of champagne and a bit of gammon to feed to her once he’d roused her, which he did with a kiss that she sputtered against as soon as she came to.

“Here, eat this,” he instructed while sitting down on one of the white marble benches that were strewn about the ornate gardens.

Cassie had a rebellious look in her eye, but his were just as resolute, she did as he asked.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“Some time yesterday, as if it’s any of your business,” she answered haughtily, still nibbling on the portion of meat he had given her.

“Drink this.”

If she had been standing, she would have stomped her foot at his autocratic manner, but it was impossible to do so when one was being held on someone’s lap, and she found herself docilely doing as she was told, although she was going to give him a piece of her mind as soon as the world stopped spinning violently.

But it seemed that the more she drank, the fuzzier she got – and she had a horrible thought in the back of her mind that it wasn’t just that she hadn’t had much to eat in a while, nor was it the fault of the champagne. There was a slightly bitter aftertaste to the bubbly, and she knew that couldn’t possibly be right. Angus Costello – the owner of the house and host of the ball – was much too much of a snob to serve anything but the best of champagnes.

It was then that she saw the slightest grains of residue at the bottom of the glass, but not before she had consumed it all.

“You – y – drug – d- mehhhhh.” Cassie was trying for an accusing tone, but her voice became a breathless whisper as she fell into unconsciousness.

Victor again lifted her into his arms and began to carry her towards the back gate, but not before he heard someone very nearby calling for her.

“Miss Cassie? Miss Cassie, where are you?”

Instead of trying to slink away, he walked towards the voice, and when he discovered a distraught Sissy, who had been told by another servant that her mistress appeared to have fainted, Victor said, “I’m taking her to my physician to make sure everything is all right. Why don’t you come with us and then you can accompany her home.”

Sissy, who had brought with her the light wrap that Cassie had forgotten, nodded passively and followed the man who was carrying Miss Cassie in his arms into a large, nondescript black coach that she was immediately terrified to realize was full of rough men who apparently took their orders from the man who was holding her mistress.

“This is her?” one of them asked in a language Sissy didn’t recognize.

“Yes. All is as it should be.”

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