Chapter 17 #2
Cassie went directly toward the fire. She was still wearing the dress from the boxing match, but her face had been cleaned of any blood, and her hair had been loosened and plaited into a single thick braid. It rested over her shoulder. “I have no proof, but I believe it was Mr. Youngdale.”
Grant stalked to the window and peered outside into the square but saw no conveyances outside the viscount’s home. Not even Cassie’s.
“Tell me you did not walk here,” he said, letting the curtain drop. Her home was less than a five-minute stroll from Hugh’s, the two squares adjacent to one another. But it was late, and if she’d been followed, whoever it had been might still have been hanging about.
“If it would make you less upset, then no, I didn’t walk.” She paused. “But you should know that is a lie.”
Grant flexed his hands into fists. What had she been thinking, going out alone?
“Why would he follow you?” Hugh asked before Grant could react. The viscount’s ability to remain focused on the immediate problem only highlighted Grant’s own much narrower focus. It converged entirely on the woman holding her hands to the flames.
“That is my question too,” she replied. “If Mr. Youngdale has Isabel, why would he care to follow me?”
“You’ve likely left his face scarred,” Grant reminded her. “He could be interested in revenge.”
“Whatever the reason, he now knows where you live,” Hugh said with a heavy sigh. He tossed back the rest of his drink.
Cassie wrapped her arms around herself with an appropriate amount of apprehension. “That is why I came here. I instructed my footmen to lock the doors and windows and not allow anyone inside for the time being, but I didn’t want to stay there tonight.”
“Fournier will hear of it soon,” Grant said.
Cassie grimaced. “I am aware of that, thank you.”
“If you’d simply stayed away from Duke’s, like I asked, this wouldn’t have happened.” The moment he said the words, he regretted them.
Her fingers tightened where they clutched her arms. “You have already made yourself perfectly clear on that point, Lord Thornton. Would you please stop harping before I am driven to slit my wrists?”
“I’ll stop when I believe a modicum of good sense has leaked its way into your reckless mind.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do not boss me about! You have no right.”
“Even if it is for your own good? Your own safety?”
“I will decide what is and isn’t safe, for myself!”
“You’ve done a hell of a job of that so far!”
Their shouts ebbed, and at a soft clearing of a throat, Grant belatedly remembered they weren’t alone. At the study doors. Audrey stood with Hugh, and they looked on with interest.
Cassie turned away and attempted to compose herself.
“Cassie will be staying with us tonight,” Hugh murmured to Audrey, who looked intrigued but refrained from questions.
“Of course. I will tell Mrs. Carrigan to prepare your guest room,” the viscountess said, then, with a hand to her husband’s arm, added, “There is a matter I’d like to discuss, if you have a moment?”
Hugh showed reluctance to leave the study, but with a sharp look from his wife, conceded. It was evident Audrey only wanted to draw him away to give Grant and Cassie a moment alone.
Once they were, and the flames crackling in the hearth were the only sounds in the room, his storming temper calmed. He’d probably looked and sounded deranged just now. Running a hand through his hair, he blew out a gust of air.
“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking the silence. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”
She eyed him warily, as though questioning if the apology was genuine. Grant went to Hugh’s desk and poured her a finger of whisky. The other night at Thornton House, she’d seemed more settled when she held something in her hands.
He brought it to her, and she accepted, her fingers closing around the cut crystal. He’d never truly observed her hands before. They were small, her fingers slim and dainty. For a heartbeat, he recalled the press of them against his chest in Lady Dutton’s closet. He dashed the image away.
“I don’t usually raise my voice,” he said. It was true. He found a silver-tongued remark, or some well-timed sarcasm could be just as effective. More so, even. But with Cassie… his temper had never fluctuated so rapidly or easily.
“Neither do I,” she said, absentmindedly sliding a fingertip over the rim of the glass. “Well, that’s not necessarily true, I do shout. Though usually just at Michael.”
Grant wasn’t entirely certain he liked being lumped in with her brother.
But at least for the moment they’d found a tenuous peace.
“Youngdale attacked you in that alley, and now he may have followed you home.” When Cassie began to rise to her own defense again, he held up a hand.
“I don’t want any harm to come to you, that is why I get angry.
When I think of any man hurting you, causing you any pain, I want to crush him in my bare hands.
” At the awed parting of her lips, he caught himself. “Forgive me for being a boorish male.”
She deflated, the argument she’d been about to commence fizzling. Instead, she took a deep sip of her whisky and shrugged.
“If you can apologize, I suppose I can make the effort as well.” She gathered a breath.
“I wasn’t needed at Duke’s. My presence there made no difference and likely made things worse.
I’m sorry.” She spoke hurriedly, and then took another sip of her drink.
To chase away the discomfort of the apology, he imagined.
Grant tried to suppress a smile, but she still saw it.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Not at all, but did that apology draw blood? It looked painful.”
Cassie affected insult but let out a light laugh. Some of the tension left his shoulders.
“I like the sound of that.”
She continued to smile. “Of what?”
“Your laughter. I haven’t heard it in a while.”
He remembered one time in particular when he’d raced her to the top of the Grand Shaft in Dover; she’d tripped on a step, and when he’d caught her, she’d giggled.
It had been utterly girlish and so unlike her that he’d worn a wide grin the rest of the way to the top.
They’d arrived gasping for air and in between gasps, argued over who had won.
It seemed ages ago now. Another lifetime.
And yet, even then, she’d been keeping her secret about Renfry and the baby. Cassie was a mother. One who had been forced to make a heartbreaking sacrifice. Her pain had to be fathomless. He wished he could fix it. Take it away or make it better somehow.
Grant realized she was no longer smiling. Neither was he. They stood in close conference in front of the fire, the flames lighting half of her in a golden dance.
“There aren’t many reasons to laugh lately,” Cassie said.
He was suddenly desperate to make her smile again. To make her laugh. The corners of her eyes bowed upward whenever she did, and the bridge of her nose crinkled adorably.
“I want to change that,” he said, before he could think.
She cocked her head. “Why?”
His immediate answer was simple: Because he wanted her to be happy. But there was much more to it. Why did he care about her happiness? Why did the things she thought and felt seem to rule him as of late?
And why did his attention keep diverting to her mouth?
On impulse, he reached for her. His hand brushed tentatively against the deep rose silk.
To touch her was the only thought firing into his brain.
Once his fingertips made contact, Cassie’s lips, which he’d been so studiously watching, parted.
Grant filled his palm with silk as he pressed his hand against her hip, the same way he had at the clinic.
Her top teeth bit the soft mound of her bottom lip, and her whisky glass, loose in her grip, tipped.
He caught the glass, supporting her fingers around it.
“Grant,” she whispered.
He gently prized the glass from her and placed it on the mantel, his full attention never leaving her eyes. Her breaths shortened, and her pulse visibly beat against the curve of her throat. He placed his fingertips against her warm skin there and felt the quickened throb.
“Cassie.” He heard his voice, but it was trancelike. Far away and muffled. He hardly recognized it.
She didn’t respond, but kept her face lifted to his.
As her eyes dipped toward his mouth, he read the unmistakable invitation.
Stronger and surer than the one in her eyes the other night in his study.
He’d resisted then. He should now, too, but as the tip of his nose came against hers, and her warm breaths gusted against his mouth, the last scrap of Grant’s resistance foundered. His lips grazed hers.
He’d intended for a gentle, appraising kiss, to give her the chance to pull back or push him away.
But at the first caress of her velvet lips, all gentlemanly intentions dissolved.
He fused his mouth to hers, and the fingers gathering the silk at her hip dug in and hitched her closer.
Grant reveled in the feel of her body pressed against his, and in her soft, decadent whimper when he impatiently nudged her lips apart.
In a strike of victory, Cassie’s indecision evaporated.
Her tongue met his, and the world around them fragmented and fell away.
There was only Cassie and her mouth and her sumptuous figure, sealing itself to him.
The smoked spice of whisky on her tongue curled through him as he consumed her kisses, one after another, each rising in fevered need.
He filled his palms with as much of her body as he could, spending an ungodly amount of attention to the lush swells of her backside.
Breathless and mindless, he barely stopped himself from sweeping her feet from the floor and cradling her into his arms. This wasn’t his house.
He couldn’t toss her over his shoulder and climb to his room where he’d lay her down on his bed, peel the silk from her body and sink into her.
He groaned at the sinful image. Cassie, feeling the vibration of it, gasped into his mouth.
Her palms, braced against his shoulders, slid down his chest. Then lower, against his stomach.
Any more of this and he wouldn’t be able to stop.
With more fortitude than he’d ever shown in his life, Grant clamped his hands down over hers and broke away from her mouth.
Her swollen, pink lips competed with the invading reality that this was Hugh’s study, and that he or Audrey or one of their nosy servants could come barging in at any moment.
She breathed heavily, her eyes two smoldering coals as she came down from the same frenzy.
“Cassie,” he said again, his own breaths ragged.
He wasn’t given a chance to say anything more.
Sprightly footfalls in the entrance hall beyond the closed study doors drove them to release each other.
Grant raked a hand through his hair and scrubbed at his mouth as Cassie whirled toward the fireplace to straighten her gown and hair.
He was smoothing the lapel of his jacket when Hugh entered, followed closely by his housekeeper, Mrs. Carrigan.
“Cassie, your room is ready. Thornton, Norris can drive you back to your home—”
“I will walk,” Grant interrupted him, desperate for the cold air to douse the fire consuming his good sense.
“You’re sure?” Hugh asked.
“It’s less than a mile, I’ll be fine,” he said, far too abruptly to be anything other than suspicious.
He turned his back on Hugh’s narrowing stare and met Cassie’s red-cheeked and red-lipped face.
Hugh would certainly recognize the complexion of a recently plundered mouth.
Christ. Grant bowed. “Good night, Lady Cassandra.”
“Lord Thornton,” she said, still rather breathless.
He left without a glance toward his friend, though he felt Hugh’s eyes on him.
As he collected his coat and hat, and then emerged into the brisk December night air, he could still taste Cassie on his tongue.
Could still feel her warm body against his.
Bloody hell. Grant walked faster, the notion that everything was about to go to shit snapping at his heels.