Page 37 of The Lady's Last Mistake
It wasn’t much to go on, but Cassie thanked her. It was at least more than they’d known earlier. And now, it made sense how Mr. Young had come to find Hope House. It felt much like a weasel having been caught circling the hen house.
“Is the girl safe?” Sister Nan asked.
“Yes,” Cassie answered, though she stopped short of saying where she’d been taken. The fewer people who knew, the safer Isabel would be.
Shortly before one o’clock, she took her leave from Crispin Street. She was expected by Jane Riverton and Marianna Dutton for a shopping stroll along Bond Street, something she had no interest in but also could not avoid. The last two days, a small mountain of notes and calling cards had piled onto a tray in the foyer. Callers, including the incurably inquisitive Lady Dutton, had come by, and many more had sent invitations to tea while Cassie had hid in her room. All because of her three dances with Lord Grant Thornton at the Tennenbright ball. Jane’s invitation was the only one she’d responded to. She would have ratheravoided all social interaction, but it would be noted upon, and the last thing she wanted was more interest directed her way.
Cassie arrived on the busy stretch of Bond Street near Lindquist’s as Jane had instructed, the command as terse in her note as it would have been in person. The fashionable dressmaker was Jane’s favorite, and she was likely ordering a whole new collection for the spring. Cassie would order something too, have it put on the duke’s account, and then perhaps after a visit to another shop, she could make her excuses and leave.
Patrick handed her down from the carriage. She had expertly changed from her flannel cape and plain bonnet back into her finer velvet pelisse, hat, and gloves along the way from Spitalfields. But she’d begun to wonder… For how long could she keep up this pretense? For how long could she live, split between two worlds? Grant had been doing it for five years, and by the looks of things, successfully. But he was a man. Men were not scrutinized nearly as closely as women were. Men were expectednotto be at home, but to be out and busy doing important things.
Bond Street was one such place they might go. Tobacconists, tailors, and haberdashers were strung all along the popular street, as were clubs for fencing and boxing and other, more licentious sports. So, when a familiar masculine figure in a top hat and caped greatcoat caught her attention across the street, she should not have stopped in her tracks the way she did. Curse her wretched luck!
Grant didn’t see her as he walked with hasty purpose. She hoped he’d turn into a shop before he could. Cassie held still on the pavement, not wanting to move in case it caught hiseye. Ridiculous, considering the whole street bustled noisily. Perhaps it was her sudden stillness that did her in.
As if feeling her gaze on him from across the busy street, Grant glanced up. His eyes locked onto hers. He lifted his chin and slowed his swift pace. The mischievous smirk he wore so often and so well slid into place. Taking the brim of his hat, Grant tugged it gently, acknowledging her.
“Lady Cassandra.” Marianna’s high-pitched voice blared in her ear, and Cassie nearly jumped out of her skin. Marianna and Jane had come to stand right next to her, their hands tucked into fur mufflers and their attentions drifting across the street, toward the physician.
“We’ve an appointment, Cassie, do come,” Jane said tightly, and then turned to go inside.
Cassie followed as a few carriages rolled by in succession, blocking her view of Grant. Once in the shop, they were settled in a private corner for their appointment, thankfully away from the front windows. After tea service was delivered, Jane folded her hands in her lap.
“Details. We want all of them. Now.”
Cassie stirred a cube of sugar into her assam. “There isn’t much to say.”
“Hogwash,” Jane tutted, eliciting a shocked gasp from Marianna. “I read the column about Lady Tennenbright’s ball inAll the Chatteralong with everyone else in Town. Are you claiming you did not dance three sets with Lord Thornton?”
The gossip rag had not lied. She’d danced twice more with Grant at the ball, just as he’d wanted. And just as he’d vowed to do, he’d kept Mr. Forsythe at bay—along with every other man in attendance. As predicted, gossip hadquickly taken root about their noticeable attachment. The column inAll the Chatterhad even mentioned the possessiveness Grant displayed. It should have irritated her. It should have made her feel anything other than slightly gratified, or marginally delighted. But gratified and delighted she was, and all because of that blasted moment in his Church Street office.
No, she could not dwell on it. Not again.
“People are jumping to conclusions much too quickly,” Cassie said, still uneasy with the idea of the courtship going public. It made her oddly hot and her pulse exasperatingly fluttery. “Lord Thornton asked me to dance. That is all.”
Marianna grinned with a deviousness she rarely displayed. “Three times. And you acceptedthree times. You know what that means.”
Cassie lifted her cup and saucer, a quiver in her wrists. “I do.”
“But the man is a notorious seducer,” Jane whispered forcefully. “And he works. My goodness, a physician for a duke’s sister? I never thought I would say it, but I’d rather you not marry at all than marry a man of his character.”
Cassie gripped the fine china of her teacup’s bowed handle tight enough to snap it. “You speak as if I am already betrothed. I am not.” She gathered a breath, fighting the urge to say more. To defend Grant’s character.
“It is clearly what he intends,” Jane replied.
Marianna leaned forward, her manner giddier and more curious than Jane’s display of admonishment. “Hewasstaring at you quite decisively the night of Lady Dutton’s ball.”
Jane scoffed. “I’m sure he stares at every woman in such a depraved way. Take just now for example. To look at you the way he did across a public street!”
Fearing for the teacup’s handle, Cassie set her cup and saucer down with a clatter. His eyes had seared her on Bond Street, but the look had been rigidly proper in comparison to what happened in his Church Street office. There, he’d eclipsed the bounds of propriety. But…what of her? More than once, Cassie had wondered what she would have done to stop him, had Tris not come downstairs. Anything at all? Or would she have allowed Grant to kiss her?
The modiste approached their alcove, and after exchanging a few pleasantries, Jane instructed her as to what gowns she was looking to have made, in what fabrics and colors, and what designs. She left little room for the modiste to make any suggestions. Wisely, Mrs. Lindquist nodded and stepped away to collect samples.
“I urge you, Cassie, out of care for you and your reputation, you must distance yourself from the physician,” Jane said once they were alone again. “I know he is the Viscount Neatham’s close friend, and that must raise Lord Thornton in your esteem, however…” She paused to grimace. “Mr. Riverton has it on very good authority that Lord Thornton’s mistress is a scandalous woman by the name of Miss Martha Devereaux. Mr. Riverton says she frequents one of the clubs right here on Bond Street. The kind that does not hang out a sign so as not to offend passing ladies. Goodness, that might have been where Lord Thornton was coming from just now! Cassie, you are being taken in by his charms.”
She squirmed in her chair. Grant’smistress? He’d madeno mention of a mistress. Then again, why would he? The image of him meeting with this Martha Devereaux, a faceless woman in Cassie’s imagination, sent a bolt of something bitter through her. It felt maddeningly like jealousy.
“I will not be ‘taken in’ by any man, I assure you.”
