Page 68 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Cassie’s fingers loosened from Grant’s and fell away. He shouldn’t have felt the loss of them as keenly as he did, especially given the stunt she’d just pulled. It had been hasty and ill-judged, and she was going to regret it once her temper receded.
He followed Cassie and Penelope to the dining room, where the seating was arranged to make sure no one sat directly next to their spouse. Cassie was placed to the marquess’s right, and to her right was James. Grant took a chair across the table, diagonal to her. While the wine was poured and the soup course delivered, her mouth remained a grim slash, her eyes furtively taking stock of Lord Lindstrom. For once, she was directing her discontent toward another man, and Grant found he was rather enjoying the show.
“Lady Cassandra, has my brother ever told you the story of his first patient?” James asked after the serving of the roast and a rather dull monologue from Lawrence about a finance bill moving through the House.
Cassie lowered her glass of wine and tossed a droll glance toward Grant. “He has not.”
“It’s nearly as tedious as that finance bill,” Grant said with a shake of his head. This story never failed to amuse James, and every time he told the sodding thing, he injected more fanciful imaginings.
“The bill is an integral piece of legislation, Grant, though I don’t expect you to know or care,” Lawrence muttered.
“Monsieur Quack,” James began, affecting a French accent and ignoring their oldest brother.
Cassie arched a brow. “Who?”
“Grant’s first patient. Our pet duck.”
“James—” Grant sighed, but his brother held up a hand.
“He loved that duck.”
“I bloody hated the creature,” he said. But James continued as if he’d said nothing.
“And when Monsieur Quack received grave wounds while fending off an attack by a vicious dog?—”
“It was a broken wing from our aunt’s decrepit poodle.”
“—he spent all night tending to it, doing everything he could to save the poor thing.”
Grant tossed back the rest of his wine. “I set the wing. It took ten minutes.”
“It was then that we all knew he would be a marvelous physician,” James concluded. Then with a wink toward Cassie, whose lips were pinned together against an amused grin, “Or perhaps just strangely attentive toward waterfowl.”
Groans from around the table followed the well-worn finish to James’s story. However, Cassie released a genuine laugh. The sound charged through Grant like a wallop of victory.
The marquess cleared his throat and put an end to the fragile good humor. “Here is another story, Lady Cassandra. When my youngest son expressed an interest in medicine, I told him to do as he pleased. You see, I didn’t believe he had it in him to see through university let alone lower himself to actually work as a doctor.”
Cassie’s smile slipped, as did everyone else’s.
“Imagine my surprise and horror when he hung out his shingle,” Lindstrom went on, fingers tapping the table—a signal of his mounting displeasure.
Cassie cut her gaze toward Grant, but he didn’t wish to meet it. No doubt it would be full of pity and disbelief at the marquess’s derisive remarks. Instead, he kept his attention on his father, whose forehead creased with an expectant look.
“It is high time you put all that nonsense behind you, son. A new marriage is a fresh start, and I doubt His Grace will approve of his sister marrying a man who takes his profession more seriously than he does his title.”
His father’s disapproval had become so engrained in him that it often felt like an extra layer of skin. Not only did Lord Lindstrom despise the fact that his son worked, but he was also embarrassed by it. While the boy in him longed for his father’s approval, the man in him did not require it. Both parts of him took an indecent amount of pleasure in the marquess’s humiliation.
However, as he had not sufficiently warned Cassie of hisfather’s shortcomings, she once again balked at the old man. “Give up his profession?”
“Yes, quite right,” he said.
“Or at least give up Miss Matthews,” Mary said. “It is untoward for the young woman to be working alongside you, Grant, and well you know it.”
“The girl is ruined. No one will have her now,” the marquess went on, cutting his hand through the air dismissively. “But Lady Cassandra, surely, you do not desire to be the wife of a doctor. And well you shouldn’t!”
Cassie didn’t desire to be his wife at all, Grant thought, but she had just turned their courtship into a betrothal out of some fit of pique. Here was one such consequence—being subjected to his father’s edicts.
He was oddly curious as to how she would handle it.
