Page 88 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Lawrence spluttered, “Whitechapel? That place is a cesspool.”
Grant held his father’s lowering glare. “That’s right. I tend to the masses, father. The poor, the destitute, men and women of different colors and creeds,prostitutes—” At that, Lawrence’s wife gasped. But Grant only smiled. “And a hell of a lot of criminals.”
“Uncle Grant said hell, mummy,” Lawrence’s daughter, Emmaline said from the carpet. His nieces had abandoned their game of jacks. Grant belted out a laugh as a weight he’d not known was even there lifted from his shoulders. Miraculously, he could breathe again. How long had he been struggling for air?
“What are you thinking opening a clinic in the slums?” Lawrence asked. “Mingling with the diseased?”
“Now, let us all calm down—” Alfred began to say, but he was disregarded.
“This is unacceptable!” the marquess shouted. “I knew medical school was going to bring nothing but trouble. I should never have indulged you!”
“Did you say Lady Cassandra knew of this clinic?” Penelope asked.
“That is what he said, Pen. Do listen,” Harold chided.
“Mummy, what is a prostitute?” another of Grant’s nieces asked.
He threw back his head and laughed as Mary and Priscilla got up from their chairs to shepherd the little girls from the room.
“That is it! I am finished with being patient,” his father said. “I am cutting you off until you close down that clinic and give up your profession. You will marry and you will be a gentleman, as I’ve raised you to be. And by God, you will not bring shame upon this family!”
It was the very threat Grant had been desperate to circumnavigate before. The one that had led him to manipulate Cassie. As Grant stood in the center of the room, hisbrothers and sister bickering between themselves and his father blasting off at the mouth about the repercussions of such selfishness, a surge of exuberance unlocked something inside him.
“Take your money,” he said, tossing up his arms. “Go on, take it. Cut me off. I will no longer be beholden to you. I am finished, too, Father. I’m finished caring what you think. I am a doctor. I treat people who need help, and I don’t give a damn if they live in Mayfair or Wapping or if it might damage my reputation.”
He’d never felt so alive, so free as he did right then. Shocked silence descended over his family. They knew he was not in jest. He could see it on their expressions.
“I will make my own living, if I must, and if that means I am a destitute lord without two ha’pennies to rub together, then so be it. It will be worth it to not have to come crawling to you with my tail tucked between my legs. And if I marry,” he went on, unable to curb his erupting confession. “If I marry, I will do so becauseIwant to. Not because you want a spare grandson to ensure the title passes within your line. I will marry because I am in love, and I can’t imagine my life without her. Because she is the only thing I can think about, even though she makes me want to tear my hair out, and even though she makes me feel like I’m a bottle of brut about to explode.” He turned in a circle, raking his fingers along his scalp. “And she’s not replacing Sarah, no, it’s not that. I can’t compare them. They are both incomparable. But Sarah is my past, and Cassie...” He dragged in a breath. “Is my future.”
He fell quiet and waited for the guilt to weigh him down again. But it didn’t. After several breathes, the idea of afuture with Cassie had still not filled him with any guilt at all. Only anticipation. And then, uncertainty.
She didn’t want him. She’d made it clear that she didn’t wish to marry, and after the way he’d used her, how could he blame her? Cassie may have come to his bed willingly, but that had been on her terms, and for just one night. She’d gotten what she’d wanted from him, and now, she’d asked him to stay away. Was that whatshewanted, though, or was it because of his inflexible avowal to never remarry?Hell. He had to find out.
“I thought Lady Cassandra turned you down,” Lawrence said.
Snapped from his stupor, Grant saw his family all staring at him with bemused expressions. “She didn’t turn me down,” he replied. “Because I never even asked her.”
“What are you talking about? The girl said you were betrothed!” his father spluttered.
He could keep spluttering for all Grant cared. “I have to go.” He broke for the door. “I have somewhere more important I need to be.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
For a week, Cassie had planned what she would say. And for a week, she’d struggled to find the right words. Whenever she thought she’d settled on the perfect way to announce to her brother what she had been doing for over a year, she would practice saying it, cringe, and start over. Until finally, she realized that there was no combination of words in the English language that could possibly make such a confession sound agreeable.
“Milady? We are here,” Ruth said from the opposite bench inside Cassie’s carriage. In fact, they had arrived at Violet House several minutes ago. Patrick, whom she’d hired after Tris left for Essex, had opened the door. He was still waiting for Cassie to emerge.
Her body was a pile of lead on the bench. Every time she meant to move, she found she could not. It was Christmas Eve, and inside her brother’s home, a family dinner was underway. Hugh, Audrey, Sir, and little Cat would be there, as would Tobias.
When Cassie had missed the previous dinner at VioletHouse on the evening Mr. Youngdale had followed her to St. Paul’s Church and rectory, she had sent a note to her brother, announcing that she had ended the courtship with Grant and that she needed time and space. He’d given it to her, only asking that she come for Christmas Eve. Being with family may help her to restore herself, he’d said.
So, for the next handful of days she had lingered at home, in bed mostly, devising her confession. And thinking of Grant. Again and again, she heard the closing of the back door at Hope House as he left, and her own voice telling him to go, that it would be best if they did not see each other again. In genuine self-loathing, he’d likened himself to Renfry and asked her to do him the honor of despising him. It would make things easier, he’d said. He’d been right, it would. She’d tried, but just like her need to come clean about Hope House, she needed to face the truth that she didn’t despise him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even be angry with him for his pledge to never remarry out of dedication to his dead wife. How could she be when it was one of the things that she loved about him?
“My lady?” Patrick said. He still had his hand extended.
Cassie forced herself to sit forward and take his hand. The action physically drained her. Her pulse grew thready as she walked to the front door, the footman already there, waiting for her. He took her pelisse, hat, and gloves, and Cassie followed the lively voices toward the drawing room. Her somber march into the room was met with wide smiles and welcomes, and Genie and Audrey both stood to come greet her.
