Chapter 11 #2
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 expected not to 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 his eye. 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 in All the Chatter along 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 had quickly taken root about their noticeable attachment.
The column in All the Chatter had 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 accepted three 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. “He was staring 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’s mistress? He’d made no 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.”
But she had been, once; by Renfry. And then, at Grant’s clinic, she’d let down her guard long enough for him to grope her hip, to nearly kiss her.
At the Tennenbright ball, she’d been on edge, and Grant had sensed it keenly enough to ask why she was angry.
The obvious answer had been his scheme. But he’d known it wasn’t that, and now, she admitted he was correct.
She’d nearly let him take liberties. Had wanted him to.
Even knowing what sort of rake he was, how their courtship was all a farce…
she’d still done exactly as Jane had accused: fallen for his charms, if only momentarily.
Cassie had been furious with herself, not Grant. No, he was only being the depraved scoundrel that he proudly was.
A scowl was still fixed on Cassie’s lips when one of Mrs. Lindquist’s assistants came to their seating area, followed by who else, but the subject of their current conversation.
She suppressed a groan as Grant doffed his hat.
But that roguish smirk couldn’t be so easily discarded.
He directed it toward Cassie, Marianna, and Jane with equal intensity.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said with a regal bow. Then, his attention fully on Cassie, “Lady Cassandra.”
She bit her tongue. There could be no mistaking his intention. He wanted an introduction to her friends. Not to mention, to be seen inside a dressmaker’s shop with Cassie would surely inspire more gossip about their attachment.
“Lord Thornton,” she said, gritting her teeth. “May I introduce Mrs. Marianna Dutton and Mrs. Jane Riverton.”
He bowed again, this time even more regally, if possible.
“I did not know you patronized Lindquist’s, my lord,” Jane said coldly.
As it was a dressmaker’s shop, there was no earthly reason any unmarried man should be present.
“I cannot say any of the fabrics on hand would suit me, Mrs. Riverton. I merely wanted the pleasure of saying hello to Lady Cassandra and making your acquaintance.”
His smooth charm would not work on Jane, but Marianna seemed to be melting beneath it, evidenced by the flush along her neck. Cassie refrained from rolling her eyes.
“What brings you to Bond Street, Lord Thornton?” she asked sharply.
Jane’s suggestion that he’d been visiting a club where his mistress frequented had swiftly rooted in her mind.
That he might have just come from her… Cassie suddenly could not sit another moment.
Just as Grant began to speak, she stood abruptly from her chair.
Once standing, she had no excuse for it.
Grant, Jane, and Marianna all stared at her quizzically.
“Are you unwell, my lady?” Mrs. Lindquist inquired as she returned with two assistants, each young woman holding bolts of fabric in the purples, greens, and blues Jane had requested. “You look piqued.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I’m not feeling well,” she said. The lie swiftly became truth when she met the gaze of one of the modiste’s assistants.
Cold dread cascaded into her belly as recognition shone in Miss Emily Stafford’s eyes. Oh no.
“Miss Banks?” Emily said softly. Then, realizing she’d spoken aloud, she took a small curtsey. Cassie’s body went numb, her tongue heavy as lead.
“Miss Banks?” Jane echoed. “Why do you address her ladyship in this manner?”
“My apologies, my lady,” Mrs. Lindquist said, shooting her assistant a look of reproach. “Miss Stafford is new here.”
Embarrassment flooded Emily’s expression, and guilt stabbed under Cassie’s ribs. This wasn’t her fault at all. She’d had no idea this was where Emily had gone from her old position at the drapers in Marylebone.
“Her ladyship?” Emily murmured as confusion joined her embarrassment.
“You have mistaken Lady Cassandra Sinclair for this Miss Banks,” the modiste said, flustered and vexed by the gaffe.
Emily’s shock drew her pale brows together. She didn’t look to believe it, and for all the world, appeared ready to dispute it.
“Whoever this Miss Banks is,” Grant took a stride forward to put himself between Cassie and the assistant, “she must greatly resemble Lady Cassandra, and for that Miss Banks should count herself as fortunate.”
It was guileless and overly complimentary, but when her panicked stare lifted to him, she saw a shrewdness in his eyes.
“Mrs. Lindquist, if Lady Cassandra requires anything today, I insist you place it on my account.”
Total silence followed Grant’s statement. Heat suffused Cassie’s body as what he’d just said and done wove its way through her already stuttering mind.
“That is…that is unnecessary, my lord, I shall have it placed on the duke’s account,” she replied, her hoarse voice betraying her astonishment.
Taking her limp hand and bending over it, Grant put his lips to her knuckles. “I insist.”
Marianna and Jane stared, openmouthed at the display, Jane with abject disapproval and Marianna with thrill.
He could not pay for her clothing! It was indecent.
It was what husbands did for their wives, or betrothed men did for their intended brides.
Worse still, it was what men did for their mistresses.
As Grant took another bow and bid them a good afternoon, he cut Cassie a knowing arch of his brow.
He was aware of what he’d just done. And as his eyes slid past Miss Emily Strafford—the disruption over calling her Miss Banks now completely overshadowed—she comprehended why he’d done it.
To help her. And yet, in doing so, he’d also solidified the rumors of their attachment.
Cassie suffered through the first round of fabrics that Mrs. Lindquist showed to Jane, all the ladies pretending nothing untoward had just occurred.
When the modiste left to fetch another few bolts in a different color palette, Cassie stood and apologized, saying that she was expected at Violet House.
The lie wasn’t contested, and she took her leave.
When she arrived home, she unpinned her hat roughly and impatiently shrugged out of her pelisse.
“A servant from Thornton House delivered this not long ago, my lady.” Pierce, her footman, said as he presented a letter that topped yet another small mountain of notes and calling cards.
Cassie took it and detached the dark blue wax wafer, pressed with a T. Inside, a brief message had been scrawled in the center of the paper.
I will pick you up at 8 o’clock tonight. - G
Cassie lowered the paper with a fluttering of her pulse. What on earth was the interminable nuisance planning now?