Page 65 of The Lady's Last Mistake
“I understand completely,” Audrey said with a laugh. “Hugh drove me mad when I first met him. Everything he did and said would anger me. There was a reason why, but it was one I didn’t want to understand, so I chose not to.”
When Audrey met Hugh, she’d been married to Cassie’s oldest brother, Philip, the Duke of Fournier. While away in France, he’d drowned, and after a year of mourning, Audrey had accepted Hugh’s offer of marriage. Of course, Cassie knew that her former sister-in-law’s feelings for the Bow Street officer had developed long before her mourning ended. In fact, she’d suspected they had begun even before Philip’s death.
The viscountess’s expression turned solemn, and she looked to her hands, folded in front of her. “I was quick to anger because I wanted to protect myself from what I wasfeeling for Hugh. I wanted to keep him at a distance, and antagonism is an excellent way to do that.”
Cassie nodded. What Audrey said made sense, and she had to admit that whenever she and Grant argued, it gave her a reason to walk away. It was the moments when she could find no fault in him, like at Church Street after his thoughtful handling of Amir, and last night, when he’d apologized and then made her laugh, that she felt in danger of liking him too much. Because if she admitted to liking him a little, what was to stop her from liking him more than that?
“I told him everything,” she said. “About Renfry. About the baby.”
And he had not pushed her away. He’d shown compassion, not judgment.
Audrey nodded. “Because you trust him.”
But how could she? It was utterly foolish. She’d been a fool before with Renfry, and she’d paid an awful price for it.
Cassie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve proven to be a terrible judge of character before. Now, I really must go.”
She started for the door, eager to be gone. Audrey’s long exhalation was audible, but she didn’t say anything more as she followed Cassie and summoned a carriage to bring her back the short distance to Grosvenor Square. The viscountess held up a hand at her assertion that she could reach home on foot faster than it would take for a carriage to be prepared for her. She gave in and had tea with Audrey while waiting for Carrigan to come around the front of the residence. No more talk of Grant ensued, thank goodness, though she could see that Audrey was still thoughtful about him.
Once at home, Cassie informed her small staff that theywere to continue being cautious, but that there was likely no immediate danger. After bathing, her sleepless night sneaked up on her and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She slept until noon. Almost as soon as she opened her eyes, foggy from sleep, the question of why Mr. Youngdale would have followed her carriage was waiting for her. Proper sleep seemed to have returned her priorities.
Grant suggested he might want revenge for scarring his face, but she wasn’t convinced. If he had Isabel back in his clutches, what was he doing out at Duke’s? Why had he spent time following Cassie, when he could have been with Isabel, forcing her to marry him?
Around two o’clock, she summoned Patrick. She’d sent a message to Elyse the evening before, informing her of Isabel’s disappearance from Church Street, but now wanted to be at Hope House, if only to distract herself. Ever since Grant had come to the safe house as Dr. Brown and discovered her there, she’d started to feel the divide between her two lives more keenly. Not to mention everything involving Grant and his scheme had occupied more of her time and energy. She needed to get back to what she’d been doing before and reorganize her priorities.
“Milady,” the footman, Pierce, said as she entered the foyer to make her way out front. He presented a bouquet of hot house flowers, a small card inserted between the green stems and foliage. With some reluctance, she took the card and read it:
Dinner Monday night at Lindstrom House. I’ll fetch you at six.
A barb of dread partnered with a tremor of anticipation. She could not think of anything she would like to do lessthan attend a dinner with Grant’s father. And yet at the same time, the thought of seeing Grant again stirred the phantom pressure of his lips against hers, the greedy clutch of his arms, and the hard muscle of his abdomen when her hands had slipped to his waist.
She gritted her teeth and pocketed the note. If she’d thought for one moment that the physician would wake up with a change of heart about his scheme, she’d been proven wrong. The courtship was still to play out.
Chapter
Nineteen
By the time Monday night arrived, frustration had settled like a stone in Grant’s chest. Dinner with his father had loomed like a ominous black cloud for the last two days, and it had cast its shadow over everything, it seemed.
Saturday at the clinic, plenty of patients had come in for one thing or another, but he had not seen Amir or his father. The boy’s sutures needed checking; without proper care and attention, they would fester. Surely, Mr. Mansouri would have sent for him had Amir turned feverish, or the wound red and infected. Still, he and Hannah waited an extra half hour past their regular closing time to give them a chance to show. They hadn’t.
Then, arriving home, a message from Hugh had been waiting. Mrs. Lydia Montrose had denied any knowledge of where her niece could be. In the aunt’s opinion, the ungrateful girl had captured a wealthy man’s heart and had squandered it by running away. The only helpful thing she provided was Youngdale’s address, but when Hugh hadcalled on him, the staff said their master was out and that Miss Isabel had not been seen as of late. With no solid legal reason to force entry, all Hugh could then do was place someone as a look out. Unsurprisingly, Sir had volunteered. But there was still no sign of Youngdale. Sunday night, Grant returned to Duke’s for a match, but he had not been among the spectators either. It was as if he’d disappeared. Or was lying low.
And, of course, there was Cassie.
As Merryton pulled along the curb outside twelve Grosvenor Square, Grant regretted every single decision he’d made for the last fortnight. But none so much as the one he’d made Friday night in Hugh’s study. Though, kissing Cassie hadn’t been as much a decision as it had been a compulsion.
Grant had cursed under his breath the entire walk back to Thornton House. Storming inside, he’d barked at his butler to lock up for the night, taken the stairs to his room like a tempest, and slammed the bedroom door in his valet’s face. But one look at the bed in which he’d so recently imagined laying Cassie down on, stripping her gown from her body, and making love to her, and he’d ached with the solitary need for release.
He wasn’t often in a foul temper, and so the servants were sure to talk, but he did not care. He’d lost control in Hugh’s study. Hell, if he’d been assured of their privacy, he would have laid Cassie onto the carpet in front of the fireplace and taken her there and then.
Had that happened, when the sun rose, he would have had no choice but to go to Fournier and offer for Cassie’s hand.In truth.
That was something he could not do. That he would not do.
Cassie’s footman allowed him in, and Grant held himself rigidly while he waited. He’d forced all his frustration from the last few days to stay lodged where it had accumulated, right in the center of his chest. He would make no more mistakes.
He was staring holes in the parquet flooring when a throat cleared softly. Cassie had come to stand in front of him. He straightened but didn’t look her directly in the eye as he murmured a good evening. She held still and quiet as her maid helped her into her pelisse, thankfully covering up the emerald satin gown she wore; a hasty assessment had shown it displayed a healthy amount of decolletage. Grant refused to let his eyes linger.
