Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Ruth said nothing as she set the breakfast tray on the foot of Cassie’s bed.
She didn’t need to speak a word for her concern to come across plain as day.
The lady’s maid could control her tongue, but she’d never mastered controlling her expressions.
The furrowing of her brow and the nibbling on her bottom lip gave her worry away.
“I’m not unwell, Ruth,” Cassie assured her as she pushed herself up from where she’d been lying stretched on her side, staring out the window into the milky mid-morning sunshine. She sat against the bolster pillows and accepted the cup of tea her maid offered.
“Forgive me, milady, it’s just that you’re usually up long before now.”
“I suppose I needed a morning to laze about,” she said, hoping it would placate her.
Lazing about wasn’t something Cassie did well.
She liked to be busy, not bored. But that morning, she’d found all motivation sapped right out of her as soon as she opened her eyes.
It was as though the muscles in her legs and arms simply didn’t want to work.
Sleep beckoned her, causing her to wake then fall asleep again, however light the slumber was.
It was how it had been all night. After returning from the art showing, she’d gone to her room and held herself together while Ruth undressed her.
Once the maid had finally taken her leave for the night, she’d crumpled. Literally.
The soft, thick pile of the carpet had padded the strike of her knees as she’d folded, sobs and tremors wracking her body for what felt like hours.
Eventually, she’d crawled into bed and, exhausted from crying and from the overwhelm of seeing Lord Renfry again for the first time in years, fallen into a black, fathomless sleep.
But when morning arrived, the truth was waiting for her. It was why she’d stayed abed so long. She’d wanted to avoid it.
Cassie sipped her tea without tasting it. “I’m not hungry, Ruth. If you’ll draw me a bath, I’ll get ready.”
There was no point avoiding anything now.
Her unexpectedly wonderful meeting with Madame Archambeau and Miss Stone, all thanks to Grant, had been tainted by the appearance of Renfry and her disappointing inability to control her reaction to him.
She thought she’d overcome everything that had happened.
Countless times, she’d imagined what it would be like to meet with him again.
The cold, stony glare she would level him with, how she would exude detachment and serenity, as if she thought nothing of him.
Her poise and disinterest would assure Renfry that he was nothing to her.
Instead, she’d frozen. Her pulse had throbbed in her neck, her breaths becoming stilted and panicked.
In that moment, with Renfry looking at her like she was something amusing, making her feel small and filthy, she’d been transported back years in time, to the very moment she’d read the wedding banns in the society pages for Lord Winston Renfry and Miss Evelyn Rothchild, the exorbitantly wealthy daughter of a shipping merchant.
This, weeks after he’d promised to visit her brother Philip at Fournier Downs in Hertfordshire to ask for Cassie’s hand in marriage.
Weeks after he’d bedded her while whispering vows of love.
And three days after she’d realized she was carrying his child.
All that pain, disappointment, and fury had surged up again last night and threatened to drown her. To make things cataclysmically worse, it had all happened in front of Grant Thornton.
She hadn’t been able to look at him, too afraid he’d see the truth in her eyes.
But of course, he needn’t have made eye contact with her to know something had occurred between her and Renfry.
His stifled anger, his hot confusion, had filled the carriage on the way back to Grosvenor Square.
At least Grant had done her the honor of respecting her plea to stop asking questions.
It would not last.
She set her tea down and stood from bed.
Her legs still felt heavy as she went toward the window.
Looking out over the square, she could only think about what a tenuous life she led.
Within a glass room, it seemed, where one crack in the thin wall could send the whole thing into shambles.
First, her secrets about Hope House, and now, about Renfry and the baby.
Good God, what would Grant think of her if he knew everything?
As soon as she thought the question, she shook it off.
Why should that matter? He might not be as depraved at Renfry, but he was still using her for his own gain.
Would he truly go to Michael and reveal everything he knew about Hope House if she no longer played along with his scheme?
Cassie didn’t want to believe it. But she’d been wrong before.
She’d made an awful misjudgment of character with Renfry. What a fool she’d been!
She would not make that same mistake with Grant Thornton.
Cassie bathed and dressed, and then jotted a letter to Emily Strafford, apologizing for what occurred the previous day.
She thought to send it to the shop directly but after wondering if Mrs. Lindquist might open it, crumpled the letter and rewrote it.
She wrote as Miss Banks instead, who had just heard from Lady Cassandra of the mix-up.
She expressed hope that she was getting on well in her new position.
There was no way to know if Emily would be able to infer the truth from the cryptic letter, and after sending it off, Cassie rubbed her eyes.
Once again, she questioned how much longer until her life in Spitalfields erupted into her life in Mayfair.
Concerned though she was, she still set out for Crispin Street. Elyse was in, and when she saw Cassie, she drew her aside, into the privacy of her small bedchamber.
“I heard about Sister Nan’s visit, and what she revealed about Mr. Young.”
Instantly, Cassie flushed with guilt. She hadn’t given anything to do with Mr. Young or Isabel a lick of thought yet that morning. She’d been too self-absorbed with everything having to do with Grant, Renfry, and Emily Stafford.
“I’m worried,” Elyse went on, and indeed, the press of her brow emphasized it.
“As am I.” Cassie felt the same jittery alarm as she had the afternoon before, when Sister Nan had explained how the man had tracked Isabel down. “If he knows our location, what is to stop him from breaking in? We have a few locks. No guard.”
“Or he could make it public,” Elyse added.
She began to pace the braided rug, her fingers rubbing her temples.
Cassie wished she knew the answer. Wished she could do something to put Elyse at ease.
She’d given herself to this place. Her time, her energy, her skill.
She was here day and night, while Cassie was able to come and go as she pleased.
She sat on the edge of Elyse’s bed. “It’s been over a week since he approached me in the alley—”
“He attacked you, Cassie, he didn’t approach you.”
“Yes, all right, attacked,” she conceded, though she didn’t like to make it sensational.
Playing the matter down helped her to deny how dangerous the situation really had been.
“My point is, it’s been days. If he hasn’t tried again, he might not be coming back.
Perhaps he began to doubt Sister Nan’s information. Or the woman who obtained it.”
Elyse stopped pacing and then perched on the bed beside her. “I hope you’re right. I would hate to have to shut this place down.”
Cassie knocked into her shoulder. “What’s this? Shut down? That wouldn’t happen. We’d simply find a new location.” She turned to face her friend. “I know I don’t do much around here—”
“Stop it, that’s not true.”
“—but I can at least manage to keep a roof over everyone’s heads.”
Elyse smiled but looked doubtful. “I’ve seen our ledgers, Cass.”
So had Grant, she thought, again prickling with annoyance.
But that put her in mind of Madame Archambeau.
With an excited hop that jounced them on the bed, Cassie told Elyse about her meeting with the benefactress the evening before.
Elyse leaped to her feet when she heard about the invitation to call on them.
“You want me to go?” she exclaimed.
“It should be you,” Cassie replied. “You’re the one who runs Hope House.”
Elyse eyed her curiously. “We run it together. Why are you discounting yourself?”
Cassie stood up and smoothed the skirt of her gown. “I’m not. I’m just being realistic. I can’t apply for their aid—they know me as Lady Cassandra. I can’t show any knowledge of Hope House without risking them saying something to the wrong person.”
Elyse crossed her arms, nodding. “All right. I’ll go. But goodness, what will I say?”
“We’ll think of something,” Cassie said, “though right now, we should visit Isabel.”
As it wasn’t a Saturday, Grant wouldn’t be there. Hopefully. They left Hope House in Mabel and Sister Agatha’s capable hands and took Cassie’s carriage to Church Street.
On the way, Elyse inquired more about the benefactress, including how Cassie had even come to be introduced to her.
“There is something I should tell you about Doctor Brown,” Cassie said. “His real name is Lord Grant Thornton.”
Elyse jerked back, her eyes popping wide. “The rake you were stuck in a closet with?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not tell me before?”
“I don’t know really. I suppose I didn’t want you to despise him.”
“Whyever not?”
What to say? That any time someone said something disparaging about Grant, she wanted to defend him? Even though she was constantly complaining about him herself. It made no sense.
“Well, for one, he’s the reason we have the interest of Madame Archambeau,” she said.
Elyse perked up. “Is he?” She frowned. “Well, that is kind of him. I suppose he received an invitation as well, to discuss his free clinic?”