Chapter Sixteen #3
Eliza extended her hand. “Come. Let’s climb into bed, shall we? Just like we used to before we were old and married. And you can tell me all about what went wrong.”
Together, they climbed up onto the bed. Cassie sighed as they huddled. Sitting so close—head to head, as they’d so often done—made her feel less unmoored.
“I can’t talk about it, Eliza.”
“Twaddle and bilgewater,” Eliza dismissed her objection. “Was he simply arrogant? Or was he truly dastardly? I’ll bet his cloven feet are terribly scratchy, too. Hoof lacerations would upset anyone.”
“Taradiddle.” Cassie chuckled half-heartedly. “No. And no.”
“Then why are you here…alone?”
“I needed time away.” Cassandra chewed on her lip. “I just can’t think when he’s near.”
“You can’t think? Or you can’t be as mad at him as you would like to be?”
Cassie smiled reluctantly. “The latter, I suppose.”
“I completely understand. Sometimes I could wring Adrian’s neck, but then he smiles at me in his special, intimate way, and—” Eliza interrupted herself with a growl and then punctuated with an eyeroll.
“Evil!” Cassie said mockingly.
“I know!” Eliza nodded enthusiastically.
Cassie sighed. “I’m hopeless.”
“Doubtful.”
“Really? What if I told you I can’t stop thinking about the moment he swept me onto the Almack’s dance floor?
” Again, the dizzying memory. The colors.
The scents. The unbelievable thrill of being chosen by a young, handsome duke, followed by the absolute horror of humiliation when the patroness had ordered them out of the room.
Tears blurred Cassie’s vision.
“Don’t cry, Cassie.” Eliza gripped her shoulders. “There’s no need to relive that night.” She shivered. “The gasps, the whispers, the way the women swept aside their skirts.”
“The crowd’s reaction came after the countess ordered the music to stop. And, to me, the gasps were not the most mortifying part. Not at all.”
Eliza’s brow wrinkled in question.
“At first, when he was walking toward me with a look so full of determination,” Cassie explained, “I thought he’d chosen me on purpose.”
“Oh, Cassie.”
“I thought—I was stupid enough to think—the handsomest, most powerful man in the whole room had chosen me.”
The room blurred even more, and she covered her face with her hands.
“Oh, my poor sweet girl. How did I never suspect you had true feelings for him?”
“I never wanted you to suspect.”
Eliza rubbed her back. “Love at first sight?”
Cassie sniffed. “Attraction at first sight, at least.”
“Maybe he did choose you on purpose,” soothed Eliza. “Only he just didn’t fully know his own mind at the time.”
Cassie laughed bitterly. “Have you forgotten what he said to me before he swept me out onto the dance floor?”
“I remember.” Her sister shuddered.
“You’ll do,” she repeated the hurtful words aloud. “Eliza, I think something in me shattered at Almack’s, only I didn’t know yet. I held everything together…until today.” She put her hand to her head. “It just became too much.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened that sent you running off?”
She shook her head no. “Not yet.”
“Well, he doesn’t know how lucky he is.” Eliza chewed her lip. “I hate him and his cloven hooves!”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Cassie said. “But I already know hating him is overwrought.”
“Do you hate him?”
Cassie didn’t answer.
“When he was pretending to court you, you liked him,” Eliza reminded. “You called him gentlemanly.”
“Gentlemanly,” she sighed. He had been. Even though he’d been forced to court her, he’d been thoughtful in small, unnecessary ways, just as he’d been these early weeks of their marriage. “Harbury is gentlemanly.”
“See? Your voice softened! You don’t hate him after all.”
No, she didn’t. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about him. I want to be sweet and nice, understanding and accommodating, but when I try to turn my good intentions into action, I feel a silent roar in my chest.”
“What did he do to make you flee?”
“I didn’t flee. I left him for a time. And not because of something he did, but something he didn’t do. He didn’t tell me the woman he swore he’d love forever had been his sister’s governess.”
Eliza winced.
“Eliza! You knew, too?!”
She nodded. “Adrian told me everything after he and I saw Lady Pennington at the Royal Academy. And, if you remember, I tried to talk you out of marrying him by revealing his infatuation, but you told me you already knew all about his first love.”
Cassie scowled. “Apparently he forgot to tell me a few essential details.”
“What did he do when you found out?”
“He held me. He let me cry.” Cassie’s shoulders slumped. “He repeatedly told me I knew him better than she ever had.”
Eliza’s eyes went soft. “The fiend.”
“Not you, too!”
“You must admit it’s romantic.”
“He’s romantic. And thoughtful. And when he smiles”—she jabbed her finger into her cheek—“he has a stupid dent right here that makes me want to kiss him.”
Eliza nodded knowingly. “Clearly evil.”
“I’m so, so angry. I feel like the anger will never end.”
Eliza gazed at her with sympathy. “Maybe the anger you are feeling is not only about Harbury. Maybe your anger has something to do with Mama’s unhappiness, too?
” Eliza held her breath as she studied Cassie.
“Maybe,” she continued, “you’re just a little bit angry that following her example of sacrifice hasn’t worked? ”
Cassie grabbed a fistful of her skirts and twisted. “You’re the angry sister, not me!”
“Yes, I know.” Eliza half-smiled as she gently worked the fabric out of Cassie’s hand. “Millie and I rebelled. Lenora became a changeling, disappearing into fantasy, while Nettie favors sweets and larks. But you—you chose Mother’s example.”
Had she?
“Mother,” Eliza continued, “made herself the martyr who suffers an absolute monster of a husband in silence. You simply believed your role, too, was to take every blow without complaint.”
For a moment, every muscle in her body seemed to scream. Then, the pain passed, and she became numb to everything but the slide of a cool tear down her hot cheek.
“Don’t think we all didn’t notice.”
“Well,” Cassie replied, “you might have said something before.”
“Things have been unsettled for us all for a long time. And, before Adrian, I hadn’t truly understood how different marriage can be when both husband and wife have a mutual regard, so I don’t think I understood how much we were all influenced.
” Eliza squeezed her hand. “As the oldest, we’re the ones who best remember Mother before Father’s unreasonable demands and infrequent visits silenced her and broke her heart. ”
Cassie gazed bleakly at Eliza. “Are you trying to tell me I’m desperately afraid of becoming our mother—devoted to a man who will never love her back?”
Eliza grimaced, then gave a reluctant nod.
Cassie forced herself to swallow. “But Harbury isn’t a monster.”
“He’s not?” Eliza asked.
“No.” Cassie turned over the last few weeks in her mind, dwelling longest on the times Harbury had asked questions to draw her out and listened deeply to her answers. “He’s nothing at all like our father.”
“After witnessing how uncaring he was of your feelings after the Almack’s debacle, how he thought only of his own, I own I believed Harbury as meanspirited as our father.
But Adrian insisted I give him a chance.
And I agreed, because he and Adrian have been close since they were children, and any man who has kept up a true friendship for that long must have some redeeming qualities. ”
“A few,” Cassie admitted.
Her sister patted Cassie’s hand. “If anyone can bring them to the surface, you can.”
“But I don’t want to bring out his good qualities!”
Eliza sat back, giving Cassie a considering look. “What do you want, then?”
“I want him to value his own good qualities.”
“Good. But what do you want…for you?”
Last night, she’d simply wanted the comfort of her sister’s presence. But she couldn’t remain here forever. Eventually she’d have to face Harbury again. And, when she did, what did she hope would happen?
“I want him to want me,” she started carefully. But she already knew he did. “I want him to need me.” No, need wasn’t quite right, either. She wanted to be more than just a source of comfort. Which left only… “I want him to love me.”
She closed her eyes, trying to rein in the sudden swell of inner longing.
“I want him to love me as completely, as desperately, as I love him.”
“Oh, Cass. I want that for you, too.” For a few, long, silent minutes, Eliza stroked Cassie’s hair. “You know,” she mused, “I was so angry I could have shot Harbury for what he did to you at Almack’s.”
Cassie’s partial giggle ended in a sniff. “Instead, you headed out to a gaming hell and got yourself mixed up with Adrian.”
“Did I ever tell you what the owner of that hell told me about my anger? She told me to use the rage I felt to make change.”
“Use your anger?” Cassie repeated, mulling.
Yes, she supposed one could. She would never have worked up the courage to come to Eliza’s if anger hadn’t bolstered her strength and certainty.
But she didn’t want to feel this awful way.
“Easier for you than me, I think. You’ve always been a little angry.
And somehow displaying such unladylike emotion never made you feel ashamed. ”
“As opposed to you, perhaps. You’ve always been the perfect daughter. Maybe it’s time to use the voice I know you have.”
“You mean you want me to give in to these horrible impulses? To blurt out every horrible thing that comes into my mind?”
“No. I want you to treat the angry part of you as you would treat me when I’m upset—listen to it.”
Cassie sat and listened.
But the warring voices in her head had gone silent.
She sensed, however, a wide range of possibilities between either making her husband’s life grotesquely uncomfortable or silencing the parts of herself that had needs and made demands.
“But if I gave up sacrificing my happiness….?” Her eyes filled and she shook her head.
“Oh, Cassie—you don’t have to be perfect to be loved. Lord knows how far I am from perfection, and yet Adrian and I—”
“—are perfect for each other,” Cassie finished her sentence.
Eliza nodded. “Just remember, whatever happens, Millie, Lenora, Nettie, and I will be here for you. If you honor your anger, yet still give him a chance, and he continues to make you unhappy, we can go back to hating him.” She leaned forward.
“I imagine there are hundreds of devious ways determined sisters can make a duke pay.”
Cassie snorted.
“We’ll bring the whole family in on the fun,” Eliza continued. “Millie can draw caricatures more distorted than any political sketches. Lenora can mimic and mock him. And Nettie… Ah, I know! Nettie can bake him a poisoned apple tart.”
“Can Nettie bake now? I mean, I know she’s always wanted to learn but father forbade it, and Lady Asquith’s cook had no time or interest.”
“Well, I saw no reason to prevent Nettie from learning something that gave her joy. And Cook’s delighted to teach. Nettie is ever so happy.”
“I’m so glad,” Cassie sighed. “As for Harbury”—she flashed Eliza a significant look—“murder might be a bit much.”
“No hasty decisions,” Eliza replied. “Sleep on the matter first.”
Sleep she would.
Though without Harbury, she doubted sleep would come easy.