Page 10 of An Earl Like You (Games Earls Play #6)

Chapter

Five

T his was a disaster. An utter and complete disaster.

Hayward had unwittingly unleashed a nest of hornets with his innocent suggestion that Lady Fosberry and her charges attend next week’s ball.

It might start with Lady Dumfries, but it wouldn’t end there.

Next it would be the promenade, then Gunter’s for pineapple ices, then the theater, and the next he knew, Hattie would be waltzing at Almack’s.

They’d be in it then, and once that happened, there would be no going back. If the Parrish sisters ventured into society, there would be no chance of them ever returning to obscurity again. The ton would sink their claws into them, and when they had them, they wouldn’t easily relinquish them.

Every despicable fortune-hunting scoundrel in London would be after their dowries, and the Parrish sisters no better off than lambs awaiting the slaughter.

He had to see Hattie, now. It was well past calling hours, but it couldn’t be helped.

“What the devil is the matter with you now, Windham? Is it the pineapple ices again?” Hayward cast a baffled look at him as they made their way back to Lady Laetitia’s carriage. “You were unforgivably rude to Melrose’s sisters, and you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

Hayward had no idea how right he was. “I haven’t got time to explain myself now. Make my excuses to Lady Laetitia, would you?”

“Make your…what are you on about, Windham? Where are you going? You can’t simply abandon Lady Laetitia without a word of?—”

“Forgive me, Hayward.” Cass pushed the tray with the melting ices into Hayward’s startled hands. “But I must go at once. I’ve an urgent matter to attend to.”

“Is this about Melrose’s sisters?” Hayward clutched the edges of the tray. The ice cups slid across the slick surface and the melted cream spilled in a sticky rivulet over the edges of the cups. “Please tell me you’re not following them to Lady Fosberry’s.”

Cass said nothing, but Hayward knew him too well to be fooled.

“For God’s sake, Windham, have you lost your wits? It’s far too late to pay a call now! You can’t descend on Lady Fosberry so late in the day. It’s not done. Wait until tomorrow, and I’ll accompany you to?—”

“No. I beg your pardon, Hayward, but this can’t wait.” Lady Dumfries’s ball was in less than a week, and in any case, what he had to say to Hattie was best said in private. “You’ll offer my excuses to Lady Laetitia?”

Hayward hesitated, but at last he gave a reluctant nod. “I don’t see that I have much choice, but?—”

“Good man, Hayward.” Cass gave his friend a grateful thump on the back and turned to go, but Hayward’s voice stopped him.

“A moment, Windham. I’ll make your excuses, but I’ll be awaiting a full explanation for your odd behavior.”

“You’ll get one. I promise it.” He owed Hayward that much, but not a single soul in London could ever find out the entire truth.

Not even Hattie. Especially not Hattie.

It seemed to take a lifetime for him to ride from Berkeley Square to Hampstead Heath. By the time he arrived the shadows were lengthening across the rolling green lawns and the formal gardens of Lady Fosberry’s estate.

How was he going to explain his presence here at this time of day? Lady Fosberry was hardly the stickler for propriety that so many others in London were, but neither was she likely to be pleased to find him on her doorstep at such an hour.

But as he dismounted and made his way toward the door, a flash of movement in the garden to the right of the house caught his eye. It looked like…the flutter of a lady’s skirt hems moving across one of the graveled garden pathways.

A rose-colored skirt hem, if he wasn’t mistaken.

Here was some luck, at last!

“Wait here, Sampson.” He ran his palm down his horse’s silky nose, then looped his reins around one of the iron posts surrounding the rose garden. “I won’t be long. There’s a good boy.”

By the time he turned around Hattie had vanished, having melted into the darkness, but he’d find her.

He stepped onto the pathway, his boots crunching quietly against the stones, and passed into the garden.

The problem with London was that it was impossible to find space to breathe.

At least, that was one of the problems. The dust and dirt, the noise and crowds of people, the streets choked with carriages and carts and littered with horse droppings were terribly unpleasant as well, but it was the lack of open space that truly appalled her.

Hattie paused at the corner of the small garden laid out on the east edge of Lady Fosberry’s lawn. It was a pretty spot, beautifully tended and large by London’s standards, but it was cramped indeed when compared to the Kentish countryside.

Here, one could hardly move a dozen paces before encountering the elegant iron fencing that separated it from the formal rose gardens on either side of it.

How she longed for the bright open meadows that surrounded Melrose House in Kent! She’d be home soon enough—as soon as she possibly could be—but until then she’d make what she could of this garden and be thankful that Lady Fosberry didn’t live in Berkeley Square.

She marched to the opposite corner of the garden, then back again in the other direction—back and forth, back and forth, her mind whirling with questions that had no answers.

They were to attend Lady Farthingale’s garden party tomorrow morning.

Would she see Cass there? If so, how was she meant to behave towards him?

What was she meant to say? Whatever else happened she must be careful not to attract the attention of the gossiping ton .

If there was even a whisper of scandal attached to them, Johnathan might hear of it, and goodness knew what would happen then.

He was a mild-tempered man, but he was terribly protective of them, and he wouldn’t easily overlook a secret jaunt to London.

And it might have all been for nothing?—

“You never did answer my question this afternoon, Lady Harriet.”

She’d paced to the opposite corner of the garden again, but she turned at the rumble of that deep voice, and her feet froze in place.

It was past seven o’clock in the evening, and the sun was just sinking below the horizon, washing everything around them in shades of gold and orange. She couldn’t quite make out his face at this distance, but there was no mistaking that voice.

It was him. Of course, it was him.

His voice had deepened since she’d heard it last, yet she knew every vibration of it, every chord and texture as if it were a beloved song she’d played so often each note of it was etched in her memory.

It was as familiar to her as the beat of her own heart.

She’d heard him tease, she’d heard him lecture, she’d heard his whisper in her ear, low and confiding, and she’d heard that voice light with laughter, but never—not once—had she ever heard it as cold as it was now.

It was his voice, and not his at the same time.

She’d hardly recognized Cass when she saw him earlier today. The man he’d become wasn’t at all like the boy he’d once been. His father had been a Corinthian and a Whip, and despite his wickedness, a fashionable man about town. He was accepted by the ton and welcomed everywhere he went.

But he’d been cold down to the deepest depths of his black heart.

It would be easy to believe that was the sort of man Cass had become. Grand and fashionable, but underneath his handsome face and elegant trimmings, callous and debauched.

But the loneliness she’d sensed in him when he first came to Kent all those years ago clung to him still, despite his aristocratic friends. Anyone who didn’t know him well wouldn’t have noticed it, but now he was so close to her, she could see it.

She could see him . Everything he was, and everything he tried to hide.

It was as plain to her as lines written in a book.

She raised her chin and sucked in a breath to clear the tremble from her throat.

“What are you doing here, Cass?”

Had he come to beg her pardon for his coldness earlier? Hope rose in her breast, even as she cursed herself for a fool. Yet it would not be contained, pressing with wild abandon against her rib cage.

There was something so familiar about him, standing under the cherry tree that dominated the center of the garden, its slender dark branches now laden with thick clusters of pink flowers.

For as long as she’d known him, flowers and Cass had always gone together. Unbidden, a memory rose in her mind of him bent over a pile of daisies in his lap, his tongue resting in the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on stringing the delicate blooms together into a chain.

His hands were too big to make quick work of it, even then. She glanced at his hands hanging loosely by his sides and a strange sensation passed over her, settling in her lower belly.

“I told you already.” He stepped closer, a shadow with broad shoulders that blocked the last dim rays of sunlight. “I’ve come for an answer to my question. Have you come to London for the season, my lady?”

Ah, it was still my lady, was it? He’d chased her all the way here from Berkeley Square, but even so, he insisted on keeping this distance between them.

Her heart, ridiculous organ that it was, sank into the pit of her stomach. “Does Lady Fosberry know you’ve sneaked into her garden?”

“No. This has nothing to do with Lady Fosberry, or anyone else. This is between us.”

He took another step, then another until he was close enough she might have reached out a touched him.

She didn’t. But neither did she retreat. She’d made a promise to Lady Fosberry, and she wouldn’t break it. “The London Horticultural Society is having a lecture series next week. Are you aware of that, my lord?”

“The London Horticultural Society,” he repeated flatly. “You’ve come all the way from Kent to hear a lecture?”

“Not a lecture, but a series of lectures. Sir Joseph Banks is meant to speak on his improvements to Kew Gardens. I daresay it will be fascinating.”