Page 21 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Cassie froze. “Why?”
She’d offered to repay him… He couldn’t possibly be asking for somethinguntoward?
He seemed to comprehend the direction of her thoughts and groaned. “There is something more I need to discuss with you.”
“Still?” Patrick opened the door, but Cassie remained seated. “Can’t we leave it at your apology? I rather liked that.”
“I’m sure you did. But no.”
She took her new driver’s extended hand. “Fine. But you will go around the back. I can’t have anyone seeing you enter my house, the two of us alone.”
Cassie entered through the front door while Patrick took the carriage, and Grant, to the mews. Her footman, Pierce, greeted her, and she asked for Ruth to be sent to the study. Cassie had been thrilled to take over the room when she arrived at the house; she’d always adored the small study Audrey kept at Violet House, but there was something about the dark mahogany walls, the rich, wine-red carpet, and the masculine furnishings of her brother’s former study that gave her extra pleasure. To be a female in command of this space was practically heretical.
Ruth arrived there only a minute after Cassie, collecting her pelisse, hat, and gloves that Cassie had tossed onto the sofa.
“I have a visitor arriving with my new driver, Tris’s brother, Patrick, in the mews,” Cassie told her, glossing over the change in staff. She would deal with that later. “Can you see him in through the tradesmen’s entrance without Pierce and the others learning of it?”
Ruth bobbed. “Yes, milady.”
She disappeared on her task, and Cassie went to the fireplace, the flames already built up in preparation for her. Hersmall staff knew she preferred this room to any other and always kept it ready for her. She held out the skirt of her gown to the fire’s warmth and waited impatiently.
“I don’t think your maid likes me.”
She turned to find Grant standing in the study behind her, the door already shut behind him.
“She is a good judge of character,” Cassie replied with a goading arch of her brow. In truth, Ruth likely believed her mistress was about to embark on a tryst with Lord Thornton and disapproved. The notion sent a charged frisson through her belly. She folded her arms around her waist. “What did you so urgently need to discuss?”
Grant moved through the study, toward the fireplace. “At dinner tonight, my father will have invited at least two eligible young ladies to fawn over me.”
“Lucky you,” she replied. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“He has instructed me to select a lady by the first of the year. And marry her.”
A quick, hot spike lanced her abdomen. She scowled at the reaction. “So?”
Grant came to her side at the hearth. “You want to repay me for helping Isabel? There is something you can do for me.”
The rest of the study began to darken at the edges as the physician’s green eyes seemed to reach for her. Cassie stepped back, as wary of him as she was entranced. But then he spoke and severed the thrall.
“Court me.”
The two words were lost beneath the chiming in her ears.They stole the oxygen from her lungs and set her pulse pounding.
“You cannot be serious,” Cassie said, breathless.
“I know it is a rare occurrence, but yes, I am,” Grant replied.
“You…” She stopped to even out her breathing. “You wish tocourt me?”
He lifted both his palms, a signal to slow down. “Just pretend to for a short while. A fortnight. Two at the most.”
She snapped back, appalled. And oddly insulted. “You want topretendto court me?”
The handsome, fair-faced Lord Renfry bloomed in her memory with such vivid detail that she hitched her breath again. He’d pretended. He’d led her to believe what he felt was real and lasting. Alongside his charming smile, and the way he’d looked at her with what she’d thought was open admiration, was the memory of the pearl ring he’d shown her the first afternoon they had been alone together, at his house in Knightsbridge. She had managed to slip away from her chaperone, Miss Stinton, and they’d entered his residence through the back door. Much the same as Grant had just done.
“This will grace your finger in public as soon as the duke gives his permission,”Renfry had said, holding up the three pearls, twisted together in a swirled setting of gold. Cassie had been so happy, so full of excitement. He’d placed it onto her finger, then tugged her to him. His kisses had turned fevered, his hands brazen. She’d known what it was he wanted to do. And because he’d chosen her, she had allowed him to lead her to his bedchamber, that ring still gracing her finger.
She regretted that day more than any other in the whole of her life so far. Even more than she did the one that came nine months later, when her heart tore in two. It never would have happened had she not trusted Renfry and taken him at his word.
