Page 19

CHAPTER TEN

C assia felt her face flame with color.

How? How had Ravenscroft gotten her handkerchief?

And then she realized. She must have dropped it in the Green Room when she’d walked in on him at his bath.

She glanced at him, and fought to maintain an unassuming casualness to her voice. “Wherever did you find that?”

He regarded her, his eyes sparking. “Oddest thing, you know, I happened to notice it on the floor of the Green Room last night after I finished taking my bath. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it could have appeared there. It is yours, isn’t it?”

He knew. He had to know for his amusement was fair dancing in his damnable hazel-green eyes. Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps sometimes a person’s thoughts could be seen by others like the open pages of a book. Perhaps ...

“I fear Lynette must have dropped it there when she was fetching the laundry.”

Had she really just said that?

She had, and so she stuck to the story.

Rolfe lifted a brow. “Of course.”

A rescuing knock sounded at the door in the entrance hall. Moments later, the butler, Clydesworthe was standing at the door.

“There is a visitor to see you, Lady Cassia.”

Cassia nearly leapt from her chair. “Of course, show her in, Clydesworthe. I am expecting her.”

The next moments were nothing short of a blur. A woman, clothed entirely from head to toe in canary yellow, came suddenly bustling into the room, just like the strange storms that were wont to blow in off the southern coast at Ravenwood.

“Cassia, dear, how are you doing? I am so glad you asked me over for tea this morning. I have been anxious to see you. In fact, I was up with the dawn in anticipation, but of course I waited until a more acceptable hour before coming to call. I have been fair going out of my mind with worry over you. I haven’t seen you since your father’s funeral.

How are you faring? Court just isn’t the same without you, although I do hear tell through the galleries that you made an appearance at Whitehall yesterday.

Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have loved to have been there.

Seems you delivered quite a blow to the hauteur of Barbara Palmer, too, I learned, much to my enjoyment.

And, I’m further told that Her Majesty’s spirits were decidedly lifted after your visit to her yesterday.

So you see, you mustn’t stay away from court for very long.

I’ll simply grow blue with boredom without you and?—”

The chattering yellow bird suddenly caught sight of Rolfe from the corner of one of her twinkling brown eyes.

She stopped, smiled broadly, and extended a yellow kid gloved hand toward him.

“And who, might I ask, is this very handsome gentleman sitting in your parlor having breakfast with you? ‘Tis no wonder you’ve been keeping yourself to home.”

Rolfe stood to bow, wondering how this petite and utterly beguiling creature could have possibly said all that she had in so short a space of time and all in one breath. He took her offered hand and pressed a kiss upon it.

“Lord Ravenscroft at your service, madam.”

Her hand still in his, the as-yet-unnamed woman cocked her head to the side before shooting Cassia a look of pure delight.

“Well, there you have it. I finally have the answer to London’s most perplexing question these days.

Yes, there truly is still one last gentleman left in England.

I’d begun to think they’d all lost their minds, morals, and their manners. ”

She regarded Rolfe then, smiling ever brightly. “Good day to you, my lord. I am Cordelia, Lady Haslit, and I am certainly at your service as well.”

She was a minx, and the nearly two hours that followed were spent conversing over tea and a lost number of the cook’s fresh biscuits as the trio sat in the parlor together.

Rolfe merely listened while Lady Haslit related every scrap of gossip from Whitehall she could muster.

He was amazed at how much of most everyone’s personal life this entrancing creature seemed privy to, and found himself hoping she never took it to mind to delve into his affairs.

Lady Haslit, Rolfe learned from the conversation, was married to one Percival Fanshaw, the tenth and current Earl of Haslit.

He was at present away from court, much to his young wife’s chagrin, engaged in commanding a company of His Majesty’s soldiers, where precisely she did not know.

In fact, her husband’s current whereabouts seemed to be the only thing this woman did not know, a point that was of great vexation to her.

The poor Cordelia, it seemed, hadn’t seen her husband in nearly a year.

Rolfe quickly learned that Cassia had known Lady Haslit—please call her Cordelia—since they had been young ladies in the schoolroom together, having both left England with their families during the Civil Wars to cross the Channel for The Continent, following the misplaced English royal court into exile.

It was obviously a true friendship, too, for Rolfe noticed that from nearly the moment Cordelia had come fluttering into the room, she had boosted Cassia’s spirit, giving her an ease that hadn’t existed before.

Never had Rolfe seen two women who were so very unlike one another and yet seemed so comfortable together.

Where Cassia tried to present an image of stoic propriety and practiced grace, this woman seemed not to care a whit for social convention, even going so far as to lift her skirts to her knees in order to display her matching canary yellow slippers with the wide bows while Rolfe looked on with appreciative male eyes.

All in all, Lady Haslit was a thoroughly charming and witty package, and from what Rolfe could surmise, she was not sharing another man’s bed in her husband’s absence as so many of her contemporaries might.

Since she spoke of everyone else’s bed partners so openly, Rolfe had little doubt she’d have no qualms about mentioning her own.

And though theirs had apparently been an arranged marriage, Lord and Lady Haslit seemed to have found an accord with one another.

From the dim light of longing that came into her eyes when speaking of her long-absent husband, “Percy” she called him, one might say she’d even done the unspeakable: Cordelia broke society’s trend and had actually fallen in love with the man.

“And, then, when the king asked Her Majesty to repeat the new word he’d taught her for Lord ‘Bucks,’ with our friend Barbara Palmer standing beside her for all to hear, the queen announced to the entire assemblage that the king was truly most adept at rogering with her as evidenced by her current breeding condition. ”

Cordelia shot a look at Rolfe to see if he would be shocked at hearing a lady speak thusly.

She simply smiled and quickly added, “Please do forgive me, Lord Ravenscroft. I keep forgetting we ladies are not alone here.” Then, having dispensed with that social obligation, she turned back to Cassia, oblivious of him once again.

“Only I hear that Her Majesty was given this little lesson in English by a visitor she’d had earlier that same day.

An unnamed visitor. I say, Cassia, wasn’t that the same day you came to Whitehall to visit the queen . ..?”

Cassia merely smiled over her teacup, neither confirming nor denying the implication.

“And what did His Majesty do?” she then asked.

“The king threw back his head and roared with laughter. They had to clap him on the back and throw open the windows to allow him to catch his breath. Everyone found it most amusing—even old man Clarendon was seen to crack a smile—all, that is, excepting, of course, our dear Lady Castlemaine, who was seen to melt into the background and disappear soon after, most probably to devise some sort of attempt at retribution.”

“Good for Her Majesty. It is so seldom she manages to get back at that termagant.”

Then Cassia peered at the doorway where Winifred had suddenly presented herself. She rose from her chair and went over to her. After exchanging a private word, she returned.

“It seems I must speak with the cook about the menu for this week. I should only be gone a short while. Pray, Cordelia, Lord Ravenscroft, continue to visit together while I am away.”

Rolfe stood and watched her go, caught between the urge to go after her and the social obligation of remaining with Lady Haslit. His decision was soon made for him when Cordelia took his hand and pulled him back to his seat.

“Come, Lord Ravenscroft, do sit back down and tell me about yourself. As I understand it, you were most instrumental in helping to bring His Majesty back to the throne. It all sounds vastly exciting. I would simply love to hear every fascinating detail.”

Rolfe found himself wondering how much she might have already delved into his past.

“I was really just a small part of the consortium that sought to restore His Majesty to the Crown ...”

It took nearly an hour to recount the long past tales from the wars before Rolfe realized he’d been hoodwinked.

Not just hoodwinked, but thoroughly trounced.

When reality finally dawned on him and he realized just what he’d been subjected to, he stood while Lady Haslit was in mid-sentence and walked from the room.

As expected, Cassia was not in the kitchen.

Nor was she to be found anywhere on the premises.

None of the servants, tight-lipped and loyal to their mistress, would divulge her whereabouts, not even the groom, Quigman.

A fine lot they were. As he stalked through the corridors and threw open every door, Rolfe’s anger piqued until, by the time he had retraced his steps back to the parlor, he was fairly furious.

He let go a long exhale before speaking to the waiting Cordelia. “Where the devil is she?”

Lady Haslit took a quiet sip of her tea, raising innocent eyebrows. “Excuse me, Lord Ravenscroft? I’m not sure what you mean. Where is whom?”