Page 26 of An Earl Like You (Games Earls Play #6)

A visitor? She hadn’t heard the bell, and it was far too early in the morning to receive calls. Who would be visiting her, anyway? After last night, she would have thought everyone in London would take care to give her a wide berth.

Scandal, after all, could be contagious.

“Give my excuses, won’t you, Mary? I’m a trifle under the weather today.”

“Yes, my lady, only the gentleman said it was urgent. A matter of life and death, he said.”

Life and death? How strange, but it seemed she was to have no peace at all. “Yes, very well, Mary. I’m coming.”

She turned and dragged herself back down the stairs, but she hadn’t gone a half-dozen steps before she paused, her feet frozen to the step beneath her.

There, standing in the entryway with his hat in his hand, was Cass.

She pressed her hand to her chest, her heart beating a wild tattoo against her palm. She must have made a noise, because his head jerked up, and his gaze met hers, and for an instant time was suspended as they stared at each other.

He looked different this morning. Oh, he was every inch the elegant Earl of Windham in his fashionable cutaway coat an elaborately embroidered silk waistcoat, but his cravat was slightly askew, as if he’d tied it in a hurry.

The shadow of a beard darkened his handsome face, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept.

“Cass,” she whispered, a tremor in her voice, because just looking at him with those shadowy circles under his eyes was breaking her heart. “What are you doing here?”

“I-I beg your pardon for calling so early, Hat—that is, Lady Harriet. I hoped you’d agree to have a word with me.”

He waited, turning his hat in his hands, his gaze locked on her face.

Perhaps she should have refused. Perhaps she should have told him it was best for them each to go their separate ways before someone else got hurt. After everything that had happened, there didn’t seem to be anything left to say, and yet…

She’d never been able to refuse Cass anything, and she couldn’t refuse him now. She couldn’t turn him away any more than she could give up breathing. “Mary, please tell Lady Fosberry Lord Windham is here, and that I’ve joined him for a walk in the rose garden.”

“Yes, my lady.” Mary cast a wide-eyed glance at Cass before hurrying off in the direction of the breakfast parlor.

Slowly she descended the staircase, her legs shaking with every step, until she was standing in the entryway with Cass, so close she might have reached out and touched him.

Wordlessly, he offered her his arm, and for better or worse, she took it, because she could do nothing else. She would always take Cass’s arm, every time he offered it to her.

They didn’t speak, and they didn’t look at each other, but as he led her through the entryway and out the front door his height and broad shoulders kept the chilly wind at bay, and his arm felt warm and solid beneath her fingertips.

She’d always felt safe with Cass, and despite everything that had happened, she still did.

Surely, that must mean something.

After the lies Egerton had told her about the letters, Cass had feared Hattie would refuse to see him this morning. Even now, with her small hand on his arm and the soft crunch of her boots on the pathway, he could hardly believe she was here.

Regret had found him last night as soon as his head touched his pillow, just as he’d known it would. One’s sins always seemed darker at night than they did in the cold light of day.

He had no misgivings about the brawl with Egerton. If he hadn’t been certain another scandal would hurt Hattie, he and Egerton would have been facing each other at dawn this morning.

The villain had gotten less than he deserved.

But where Hattie was concerned, his conscience wasn’t as clear as he might have wished.

He should never have left her side at the ball last night.

He should have prevented Egerton from dancing with her, he should have kept a better eye on her…

the self-recriminations went on and on, the apologies hovering on his lips, but now he had her alone at last, he didn’t have the first idea what to say to her.

Where did he begin?

“Er, I trust you slept well?”

Good Lord. Of all the places he might have started—apologies, and pleas for forgiveness—that was the best he could do? He’d hardly opened his mouth, and already he was making a mess of this.

“No. I slept very ill, indeed, but you didn’t come all the way here so early in the morning to ask me that, did you, Cass?”

Cass . Briefly, he closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but as soon as she spoke his Christian name, he knew she’d already given it to him.

“No. I, ah…” He cast about for the right words to say, but in the end what emerged was a broken, “I’m so sorry, Hattie. Can you ever forgive me?”

She went still, the crunch of the graveled path under her feet going quiet.

“Forgive you? Cass, you saved me last night. There’s no reason in the world for you to ask for my forgiveness. It’s me who should be begging your pardon.”

“No. I shouldn’t have left you alone with Egerton. I know who and what he is. I should have been there, I should have?—”

“I brushed off your warnings about him.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Cass.”

He had. He’d done everything wrong, starting with ending their correspondence, and with it a friendship that meant more to him than anything else. He’d hurt them both.

“Your letters, Hattie. I know Egerton told you I showed them to him, but that’s not?—”

“Not true. Yes, I know. I never believed him for an instant. I know you would never show my letters to anyone, Cass.”

Just like that, the weight that had been pressing down on him since last night fell away, and he could draw a deep, clean breath for the first time since last night.

Thank God, she hadn’t listened to Egerton. Thank God .

“I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you, Hattie, but I was foolish enough to befriend Egerton, to trust him. I kept your letters in a locked drawer of my desk. But one night after an evening of debauchery he found the key and read some of them before I awoke and stopped him. I ended the friendship there and then, but the damage had already been done. After that, I realized how selfish I was. Your friendship with me was putting your reputation at risk?—”

“Wait, Cass. That’s why you stopped writing to me? Because Egerton found my letters?”

“Yes. If I hadn’t been so thoughtless, he never would have known about them. I was afraid my friendship would end up hurting you.”

“You never stopped caring for me, then. All this time I thought you found me dull, my life tedious, but those long months of silence were never about anything but your need to protect me.”

He gave her a pleading look. “I never stopped caring about you, Hattie?—”

“Hush.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “No more recriminations, Cass.”

If she hadn’t touched him it might have ended differently, but the moment she brushed her soft fingertips against his lips the dozen years they’d spent apart fell away as if they’d never been.

She’d been his first friend, the only one all those years ago who’d truly mattered to him. For those brief months in Kent, he’d had everything he ever wanted.

Nothing had changed since then. Now, twelve years later, nothing mattered to him as much as she did. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than he wanted her.

When he looked at Hattie Parrish, he saw the future.

Everything else faded away in the face of that truth.

There was only one question left to ask, then.

What did Hattie see when she looked at him? Did she see her childhood friend, the boy she’d once crowned with daisy chains? Or did she see the man she’d grown to love?

It was as simple as that, in the end.

So, he took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and the words were already there, waiting for the chance to burst from his lips. “I’m in love with you, Hattie Parrish.”

She went still. “Cass,” she whispered, her blue eyes bright with tears.

“I’ve been in love with you for years.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “There has never been anyone for me but you.”