Chapter 1 #2
“So is Mr. Hunt’s hair,” Cassie replied, but then felt a twinge of guilt.
It wasn’t his appearance she objected to.
It was his sex. She wanted nothing to do with men in general, and she was quite certain they would want nothing to do with her if they knew the truth of her past. She’d trusted a man once, and he’d played her for a fool.
He’d broken her in so many ways, and she’d not yet discovered how to repair all the pieces.
“I called on you yesterday,” Jane said to her above the fast tempo of a pianoforte. Several couples were dancing a quadrille. “Your footman said you were out.”
Cassie sipped a little more champagne than she meant to and coughed.
“Yes, I was shopping.” The lie was one of about five that she held in reserve for whenever an acquaintance couldn’t find her at her home.
I was at the circulating library and I was on a stroll through the park and I had a megrim were some of the others that were vague but believable, and also difficult to challenge, should one try.
Over the past year, she’d needed to come up with a host of excuses for her absences, as telling anyone the truth—that she was, in fact, running a charity home in a poor part of London for pregnant, unwed women—was out of the question.
If Michael ever learned what she was doing with her paltry income, he would have an apoplexy.
And he would immediately stopper the flow of her pittance.
As the legal trustee of her inheritance, he would have the utmost authority to do so.
Jane leveled her with a skeptical look. “That is the third time I’ve called on you in as many weeks to find you not at home.”
“Send a note ahead next time,” Cassie said with a blasé shrug.
Avoiding explanation and elaborate apologies had worked well thus far, so she saw no reason to change her tactics now, even if it did inspire a scowl from her friend.
Cassie spent as much time at Hope House as she possibly could, but even still, it never felt like enough.
Whenever she was there, a sense of purpose filled her to the brim, and whenever she left to return to her life in Mayfair, she felt a pinch of guilt.
The girls and young women who found their way to Hope House would never know the safety and comfort of a large home, a full staff, or a plentiful income.
They were mostly poor or working class, though a few middle-class girls had shown up inside the false front of their establishment on Crispin Street in Spitalfields.
A bell above the main door was rigged to set off another bell inside the back of the house whenever someone entered, and it was Cassie’s job whenever she was there to greet whoever had wandered into the accounting offices of Mr. Hiram James & Sons.
Most of the time she would find a gentleman, or some servant sent out by their employer, and she would see them out, explaining that their client list was too full to take on anyone new.
But sometimes, she would find a frightened or nervous young woman who would say, “I’m here for a meeting with my friend, Miss Hope.
” Cassie would welcome her to come out back, where Hope House operated in earnest.
Marianna clutched Cassie’s arm again, as she had when she’d seen Grant Thornton staring at her. “Oh, good heavens. He is coming over.”
Her heartbeat doubled. “Who, Lord Thornton?”
“No, Mr. Hunt.”
Drat! Cassie dumped the remainder of her champagne, along with the empty glass, into the potted palm. “I’ll be back shortly,” she said to the two women and then darted away, behind a few throngs of guests, toward the ballroom exit.
“Coward,” she heard Jane say as she went.
Perhaps she was. But she’d rather drown herself in a bowl of punch than endure a bland and meaningless conversation with one of Michael’s potential suitors.
Eventually, Mr. Hunt would take the hint and give up, just as all the others had done. There was no need to draw things out.
Cassie reached the ballroom doors and entered Lady Dutton’s entrance hall.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been to the dowager’s home, but she’d never been beyond the ground floor and main ballroom.
A few ladies were coming down the stairs, no doubt returning from the withdrawing room.
There, they could have their maids refresh their hair or mend a torn stocking or use the bourdaloue behind a privacy screen.
A glance over her shoulder showed Mr. Hunt craning his neck above the sea of guests.
His eyes found her. With a jolt, she raced for the stairs.
Cassie reached the first level just as Mr. Hunt exited the ballroom.
She turned left, down a darkened hall rather than the well-lit one to the right.
This hall, she hoped, would lead to a servant’s staircase that would take her back down to the ground floor and ultimately, to the ballroom.
Once there, she could say her goodbyes to Marianna and Jane and then have a footman call for her carriage.
However, she reached the end of the darkened hall and let out a groan. No stairwell. No withdrawing room. Just several closed doors. She’d have to go back the way she came.
She turned—and went still. Mr. Hunt had reached the top of the stairs.
He glanced left, then right, and hesitated on which direction to take.
Panicked, Cassie grabbed the glass knob on the door closest to her and twisted.
She hurried into a room and closed the door behind her.
She leaned against it, her heart thrashing.
She exhaled, though her anger began to simmer.
How dare he follow her upstairs? Surely, he knew how improper it was.
Unless…he wished to corner her. Entrap her and force a wedding.
She did, after all, possess a substantial dowry.
The income from it would be enough for any gentleman of the peerage to live quite well on.
She pressed her ear to the door and listened. No footsteps came. Only the clearing of a throat behind her.
“This is me announcing myself, as I have been told a gentleman should.”
The deep voice raked over her back, setting her scalp to tingling. Cassie turned, and her stomach dropped at the sight of Lord Thornton, seated in a chair. A woman stood in front of him, her foot propped on his thigh, the hem of her gown lifted to her knee.
Lord Thornton smirked. “Aren’t ladies taught to knock first before barging in?”