Page 2 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Grant Thornton had already been seated inthe morning room when she’d entered, the tall backing of the chair obscuring him completely. Cassie had quickly dried her cheeks, wiped her nose, and chastised him for not announcing himself, as any gentleman should.
“And no lady should sound like a bleating goat when they cry,” he replied. “What are these tears for anyhow? A baby has been born. It’s an exultant occasion, or so I’m told.”
Itwasan exultant occasion, and that was why Cassie had waited until she was alone—or at least believed herself to be—before she’d let her tears fall. She wondered whether she would ever see a newborn baby and not feel stabbing heartache first and foremost.
“My tears are none of your concern,” she’d said before storming from the room. “And I do not sound like a goat!”
Now, here Lord Thornton was again. He looked much the same. Just as devilish and just as unimpressed with his surroundings. What was he doing at Lady Dutton’s ball? This was a society event, and it was well known that the fourth son of the Marquess of Lindstrom, and the physician to severaltonpeers, did not go out in society. He was a flirt, a libertine, and, as Cassie had learned from personal experience, so arrogantly confident that he made her back teeth ache.
There had been a time—a very short time—when she’d harbored an attraction to him. But that had been before they’d been thrown together during a few of Audrey and Hugh’s investigations. Being in close proximity to him had easily cured her of her affliction.
Cassie refrained from looking behind her again, and after several minutes in which Lord Thornton did not approach, she breathed easier.
“There you two are. I should have known I’d find you crouched behind foliage.” Mrs. Jane Riverton grabbed Cassie’s arm and tugged her out from behind the shrubbery. She arched a brow. “You’re hiding from that man. The one that looks a bit like a beaver.”
She rolled her arm free. “I’m starting to feel sorry for Mr. Hunt.”
“Oh, yes, a beaver is a much better comparison than a river otter,” Marianna said.
“Why are you hiding from him? He isn’t so awful. You must admit, he has a better chin than Gerald.”
Marianna glared at the insult to her husband. Jane had always said anything she liked without thought for whether it was nice. But ever since she’d married the wealthy and distinguished Mr. John Riverton, she’d gone from mildly pretentious to overtly superior.
“Looks aren’t everything,” Jane went on. “Ask Marianna, she’ll tell you. Besides, I’ve heard Mr. Hunt is quite rich.”
Marianna sharpened her glare while Cassie reached for another glass of champagne on a passing tray.
“So am I,” she murmured before taking a long sip that tickled her nose.
“Not until you are married,” Jane said with a roll of her eyes.
Cassie grimaced. She’d reached her majority two years ago, when she’d turned twenty-one, but her brother the duke had staunchly refused to give her the annual income it provided. Three thousand pounds per year was far too large a sum for a single woman to manage, he insisted, and it would also make her a target for any immoral, money-hungry cad looking to charm and use her. Her brother would not beswayed, and so, after many arguments and some artful calculation, Cassie had struck a compromise. She would agree to take the much smaller annual sum without complaint—ifshe could live independently from Michael and his wife, Genie.
It wasn’t that she disliked them, though her brother got under her skin like no one else. But Cassie needed privacy. She needed room to breathe. Michael had agreed, albeit with extreme reluctance. She now lived alone at his former Grosvenor Square residence with a small staff, but he had continued to work tirelessly to see her married off. Case in point: Mr. Hunt.
“Darling, at three and twenty, you don’t have much time left,” Jane said. “The pool of peers is rapidly thinning.”
“So is Mr. Hunt’s hair,” Cassie replied, but then felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t his appearance she objected to. It was his sex. She wanted nothing to do with men in general, and she was quite certain they would want nothing to do with her if they knew the truth of her past. She’d trusted a man once, and he’d played her for a fool. He’d broken her in so many ways, and she’d not yet discovered how to repair all the pieces.
“I called on you yesterday,” Jane said to her above the fast tempo of a pianoforte. Several couples were dancing a quadrille. “Your footman said you were out.”
Cassie sipped a little more champagne than she meant to and coughed. “Yes, I was shopping.” The lie was one of about five that she held in reserve for whenever an acquaintance couldn’t find her at her home.I was at the circulating libraryandI was on a stroll through the parkandIhad a megrimwere some of the others that were vague but believable, and also difficult to challenge, should one try.
Over the past year, she’d needed to come up with a host of excuses for her absences, as telling anyone the truth—that she was, in fact, running a charity home in a poor part of London for pregnant, unwed women—was out of the question. If Michael ever learned what she was doing with her paltry income, he would have an apoplexy. And he would immediately stopper the flow of her pittance. As the legal trustee of her inheritance, he would have the utmost authority to do so.
Jane leveled her with a skeptical look. “That is the third time I’ve called on you in as many weeks to find you not at home.”
“Send a note ahead next time,” Cassie said with a blasé shrug.
Avoiding explanation and elaborate apologies had worked well thus far, so she saw no reason to change her tactics now, even if it did inspire a scowl from her friend.
Cassie spent as much time at Hope House as she possibly could, but even still, it never felt like enough. Whenever she was there, a sense of purpose filled her to the brim, and whenever she left to return to her life in Mayfair, she felt a pinch of guilt. The girls and young women who found their way to Hope House would never know the safety and comfort of a large home, a full staff, or a plentiful income. They were mostly poor or working class, though a few middle-class girls had shown up inside the false front of their establishment on Crispin Street in Spitalfields. A bell above the main door was rigged to set off another bell inside the back of the house whenever someone entered, and it wasCassie’s job whenever she was there to greet whoever had wandered into the accounting offices of Mr. Hiram James & Sons. Most of the time she would find a gentleman, or some servant sent out by their employer, and she would see them out, explaining that their client list was too full to take on anyone new. But sometimes, she would find a frightened or nervous young woman who would say, “I’m here for a meeting with my friend, Miss Hope.” Audrey would welcome her to come out back, where Hope House operated in earnest.
Marianna clutched Cassie’s arm again, as she had when she’d seen Grant Thornton staring at her. “Oh, good heavens. He is coming over.”
Her heartbeat doubled. “Who, Lord Thornton?”
“No, Mr. Hunt.”
