The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection. Rebecca WintersЧитать онлайн книгу.
changes I made to the estate would only incense you, after all, for we have tried that track before.’
‘Then take a wife, for God’s sake, and settle down. You are old enough to be giving the estate some assurance of longevity, some hand into the future.’
A wife.
Nat almost laughed. He had a wife already and if he could have produced Sandrine Mercier at that moment he would have dearly loved to, if just to see the look of horror and disgust in his grandfather’s eyes. But she had been lost to him in Perpignan, gone into the ether of betrayal, a woman who had not given trust a chance and who had flouted every principle of integrity.
Placing the glass carefully down on a small oak table beside him, Nathaniel tipped his head in parting and left the room.
Cassandra Northrup had come to the Forsythe town house on Chesterfield Street with her sister and Riley, just as Nathaniel had hoped she would not.
Tonight she had forsaken the colour of mourning and adorned herself in muted gold, like a flag of defiance, her eyes shining with fight. With her hair dressed and the gown complementing the sleek shades, she was the embodiment of all that Albi de Clare had once predicted.
Unmatched.
Original.
The girl in southern France only just seen through the woman she had become.
She neither fidgeted nor held on to her sister or Kenyon Riley for support, but stood there, chin up.
He doubted he had ever seen her look more beautiful than at this particular moment and when her eyes finally met his, Nathaniel knew without a shadow of doubt that the swirling rumours of a relationship between them had reached her ears.
Her sister appeared less certain, but Riley, positioned in the middle of them both, gave the impression of a cat who had just been offered a bowl of cream. Nat wanted to hit him.
‘Let the games begin.’ Hawk was hardly helping matters, and Reginald Northrup to one edge of the room was watching Cassie intently, as was Hanley.
Undercurrents and anticipation. Nat did not make any move towards the Northrup party whilst he waited to see what would transpire.
The older Forsythes reacted first, moving from Kenyon Riley to Maureen Northrup without a glance at the one beside them. Then Lady Sexton and her husband turned their backs. A cut direct from a woman who was known for her own dalliance was hardly lethal. But it was the next snub that did it.
Lydia Forsythe, the young hostess who had the most to thank Cassandra for given her recent brush with the chandelier, simply stood, right in front of her, the slender wine goblet she held tinkling to the ground, shattering into pieces.
The band ceased playing.
Silence descended, the inheld breath of a hundred guests slicing through movement, ruin taking the physical form of a woman in a glorious gown and sharp blue-green eyes. She stood very stiffly, the horror of all that was transpiring barely hidden upon her face, her mutilated fist tight wrapped in the folds of her golden skirt.
Despite trying not to, Nathaniel moved forward, the only motion in a room of stillness and those all around craned their necks to see just exactly what might happen next.
‘Unfortunately, Miss Lydia Forsythe is a woman prone to histrionics,’ he said as he reached Cassie, then he lowered his tone. ‘However, if you act as if you do not care you might be able to salvage something of the evening yet.’
Cassandra was silent, dumbfounded, he supposed, by the way things had plummeted from bad to worse. Worry had furrowed a deep frown in the space between her eyes.
‘The trick in it is to converse as if you have all the time in the world or at least smile. Your face at the moment suggests you believe in the ruin of your name and this is exactly what others here have come to see.’
To give Cassie her due, she did try, the glimmer of humour showing where before only a frown had etched her brow.
Her sister, however, picking up the undercurrents, began to help, droning on about the seasonal changes and the new buildings in Kew Gardens. Riley stood silent, the grin on his face infuriating.
‘I always love the Palm House, of course, but I think the Water Lily House will be every bit as beautiful. They say when it is finished the giant Amazonian lily will flourish within it and that a child might sit on a leaf like a boat and not get wet at all. Imagine how huge it will be.’
Amazonian must have been a difficult word to say for someone who could not hear properly, Nat determined, though Maureen’s unusual pronunciation did have the effect of making Cassandra’s lips turn upwards.
Around them the silence was beginning to change into chatter, the terrible scene that some might have hoped for fading into something unremarkable. Even Lydia Forsythe had pulled herself together, her mother signalling to the band to begin to play again and the young hostess making an overture of civility towards the Northrups in the form of a genuine smile.
A waltz. Without waiting for another moment, Nat asked Cassie for the dance and they stepped on to the floor.
‘Thank you.’ She held him away as they moved, a large space between them, circumspect and prudent. They did not dance as lovers might, though beneath his palms the warmth of the old Sandrine lingered. He tried to ignore it.
‘Your uncle appears to welcome the demise of your name.’
‘I think his enmity has something to do with his relationship with my mother.’
‘It was his friend Hanley who told the world he saw us together.’
Her direct glance faltered. ‘I have heard.’
‘What would Reginald Northrup have to gain by discrediting you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not the title, for Rodney is the heir apparent.’
He might have asked of her movements after Perpignan then, just to see what she might tell him, but the colour in her cheeks was returning. Besides, the middle of a crowded dance floor was not a place he wanted to hear an answer in.
‘He is far more wealthy than my father, so money cannot be a factor.’
‘A man with no obvious motive is more dangerous than those who have one, and if your nocturnal wanderings are known to him then it would be wise to be careful. Or cease altogether.’
She tipped her head, her expression puzzled, and his fingers tightened around hers in a will all of their own.
* * *
He was so beautiful and so known.
The corners of Cassie’s heart squeezed into pain as he watched her, grey ringed with just a touch of dark blue. In his arms, here in the middle of a crowded ballroom, she felt completely safeguarded, even given the poor start to the evening. No one could touch her. No one dared. The exhilaration was surprising.
‘Come with me next time, Nathaniel. Come and see just what it is that the Daughters of the Poor do.’
His lazy smile was lethal. ‘I have already discovered some part of it in the bawd house off Whitechapel Road.’
‘No. Not that. It’s the successes you need to see.’ She thought of the toddler Katie, her injuries fading and her smile blooming again. It was these things that she wanted him to know of. A new beginning. Another finer path away from the chaos that had once consumed them.
‘Please.’ She did not wish to beg, but this moment might be her only chance to make him understand that sometimes with endeavour honour could be reinstated.
‘When?’
The anger in the room and all her problems melted away with that one small question. He would allow her a chance? For the