The Thirteenth Earl (9 page)

“I will be scolded,” Cassandra said, finally letting go of his solid arms. “Even though he has been shameless with his admiration of Lucy.”

“It is my fault,” Thaxton said, shaking his head. “If you were being courted by anyone else, he would not have the same look of fury. Miles probably thinks I am taunting him.”

“Good,” she said, narrowing her eyes and letting a touch of bitterness seep into her voice. “He has been following Lucy around like a lost puppy.” She stopped, going back over what Thaxton had just revealed, tangled in his phrasing. “Did you say you were courting me?”

“Thank you for the dance, Miss Seton,” he said, bowing and raising his voice, talking more to the crowd than her. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

She was about to press him to explain, but Lady Dorset’s hand closed over her arm in an unimpeachable grip that demanded attention, pulling her to the side of the dance floor.

“Do you recall that I told you not to dally with that monster?”

“He asked me to dance. It would have been rude to refuse.”

“But the waltz!” Lady Dorset exclaimed, pausing to take a steadying breath. “That waltz was beyond careless. Anyone who looked at the two of you could see.”

“Could see . . . what? Dancing?”

“The viscount was whispering in your ear, Cassie, shockingly close. I heard Spencer’s mother grumble about ‘brash young people,’ and on the way over here, I heard Lord Hartford remark about ‘the Ghost’s undue interest in Dorset’s daughter,’ so people noticed, and your father will know by week’s end.”

“Jonathan does not like that nickname, and it is unspeakably crass that people insist on perpetuating it.”

“You should not know that,” Lady Dorset said through her teeth, pulling Cassandra back toward Miles, “nor should you care. Nor should you call him Jonathan.” She turned fully on Cassandra, her face crumbling from poise into anger and resentment. “Do not ruin your impending nuptials, Cassandra, or I will make sure that your life is miserable. And do not think you can simply go back and meddle at your father’s house anymore. It is unseemly that you have been allowed to do so for so long.”

“Viscount Thaxton is a new friend at a house party, and there is nothing improper about him. He is Miles’s blood relative, for heaven’s sake,” Cassandra said, her arm burning from her stepmother’s touch. Lady Dorset’s claw sparkled with rings bought by her father, and family heirlooms that should have been Cassandra’s.

“He is the son of a madman and hermit.” Lady Dorset’s fury began to fray the edges of her public society manner. She had made the waltz even more of a scene than it had to be. “You have no business trifling with him, even if you are only thinking of an assignation.”

It always unnerved Cassandra the way that both of her parents spoke of infidelity: casually, as if it were an accepted fact. Their feelings on the sanctity of wedding vows made it impossible for her to argue that she would not marry Miles because she did not love him. She and Lady Dorset had reached Miles’s side, where he entertained Lucy and a flock of tittering women.

He bowed low to Cassandra’s stepmother, making too much of a show of his gratitude. His attendance to her had begun to border on groveling.

“Thank you for returning my beloved safely, Lady Dorset.”

There followed an unbearable dance, in which his arms around her felt as if they were trespassing on ground already claimed by the viscount. They did not speak.

All through the everlasting dinner, she thought about the plan. She would need to get away without causing too much of a fuss. A headache usually sufficed, the tried-and-true excuse, but she found she had used that one a lot lately. Perhaps a stomach complaint? No, she did not want Eliza to think that the food had caused it. She kept an eye on Thaxton to see when he would leave and tried not to be distracted by how handsome he was, even across the room. Miles’s posture was stick-straight, and he avoided looking at her too long. She could tell he wanted to question her about the viscount, but they were surrounded by dinner guests. Finally, the men left the ballroom, and the ladies adjourned to the parlor. Before she could join them, Miles emerged from the smoking room and steered her away. As they were walking, him leading her by the elbow, a man called out to Miles and urged him to hurry back to the room. Cassandra vaguely remembered his face as one of Miles’s uncles when he introduced them at dinner, but she had been preoccupied in thinking about Thaxton’s arms around her inside the waltz.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the crowd, Miles unloaded his ire.

“What did he say to you, the viscount?”

Cassandra stumbled a moment, ashamed that she had quite forgotten to have something at the ready should Miles ask that question.

“He said it was a wonderful party, he was so enjoying himself . . . and he congratulates you and me, bidding us a happy marriage.”

“I know full well those are all things Thaxton would never say.”

She could not argue with that.

“We were just chatting, Miles. I must do so at balls, you know.”

“I asked that you not fraternize with him, and you blatantly disobeyed me. Do you think me a fool, that I cannot see what is going on?” He glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to his raised voice. “I will not tolerate it, Cassandra. You will not speak to him beyond greeting, and if he asks you to dance again, your answer will be no, thank you.”

“And what of Lucy?” she snapped. “Will you cease dancing with her?”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Leave it,” he said, his words clipped and tight. “This is not a discussion for a ballroom, but I will summon you tomorrow.”

“You will . . . summon me?”

“Indeed I will, as is my right.”

Cassandra stayed mum, fearing that if she opened her mouth a torrent of words would come out—every miserable feeling she had about this man who had ruined her life. She would save it for when he “summoned” her, she thought, shivering with indignation.

“I will look forward to it,” she said, able to measure her words but not her scorn. “I find that I have developed a headache, Miles. I think I will make my apologies to the countess and turn in early.”

“See that you do,” he said, his mouth turned down.

Cassandra tried to glide away gracefully, but felt more like she was stomping. The crowd in the sitting room would never demonstrate such behavior. Her stepmother did not seem to be among them. More the better if she had gone to bed early, one less explanation to make. Cassandra touched Eliza’s elbow and made her good-bye, feeling a fleeting guilt at her deception.

She did not have a headache and was not going to bed. She had seen Thaxton leave ten minutes before, and it was past time to follow him. She was going to be late.

Thaxton did not think Miss Seton was coming, after all.

By five past he paced the blue parlor alone. He left the door open a crack, to signal that he was inside. He lit two candles, enough to obliterate the darkness. Music from the ball filtered down in a faint shadow of itself, leaving the ground floor of Spencer House quiet. Only one footman remained posted near the front door of the estate, in case of emergency, but he knew enough to pay no mind to Jonathan Vane wandering around at night.

Six past. He could not believe it; he had been convinced she would show.

Thaxton turned his eyes to the ceiling and sank into a chair in the corner, which emitted a cloud of dust from disuse. Foolish idea in the first place, this whole thing. He was not sure what had possessed him to invite Miss Seton to meet him alone, an act that would mean devastation to her reputation if they were caught. He drummed his fingers on a side table and resisted the urge to reach for the brandy snifter.

Eight past. Incredible.

He lifted one crystal glass, shifted it to glint off the moonlight low in the windows. It had been too long since he had enjoyed the company of a woman in the biblical sense—likely the reason behind his rash decision to extend the invitation. When things had deteriorated at home, Thaxton had found himself with a distinct lack of female companionship. Merry widows were too merry to have a fling with a man holed up in gloomy city rooms with his mad father. Debutantes were out of the question, and prostitutes . . . perish the thought.

Blast it. He was going to have a glass of brandy.

“Don’t you dare,” Miss Seton hissed from the doorway, wreathed in the glow of the candles. “You cannot investigate in your cups.”

He sat up, putting a finger to his lips and waving her closer. Shame ruddied his cheeks in the absence of brandy to fulfill the same function. How quickly he had shot to attention. He closed the door, flicked his wrist with the precise speed required to fool the telltale creak, and turned the lock. Cassandra stared at the doorknob for a moment; he would have paid to know what she was thinking.

“Shh,” he whispered. “You are late.”

“I had to endure a lecture.”

“About me?” he asked in an impish tone.

“Yes, about you.” Her voice held something close to frustration, tempered by amusement. “We are going to have to stay apart in public, now more than ever.”

“I shall have to send you notes,” he said, wanting to pull her into him with the abandon of his adolescent days, before his father’s approaching madness had changed his life. He resisted the whim. “I shall send you notes, and you can burn them. Fittingly covert, don’t you think?”

“I am surprised how given to caprice you are, Jonathan.” She smiled around the syllables of his name, and his body reacted without his consent. He slipped behind the table, which cut him off at the waist and effectively hid his tightened trousers. Her saying his name like that made him want her to whisper it, then moan it.

He cleared his throat. “I have been known to follow fancies.”

“If we are to investigate,” she said, “it must be . . . scientific.”

“Scientific?” he repeated on a laugh. He regarded her endearingly stern expression. “We are going to investigate supernatural phenomena. Science, darling?”

“No need for pet names. I insist we approach this with the utmost skepticism.”

“Easy for you to say. I assure you that if you grew up in the Vane family, you would have been taught from an early age that the afterlife exists and that it is always near.”

“I think we should take a look at any family histories, while we are at it. Your father and Spencer’s were very close; there must be one book on the Vane line in the library.”

“You are a highly managing woman,” he said, amused.

“You are an incredibly naive man,” she replied, looking under the table. “There has to be a logical explanation for . . .” She waved her hands to encompass the whole of the situation. “This.”

For some reason, her lack of tolerance for nonsense heartened him. He liked watching her sniff around the room, lifting knickknacks and moving chairs. Thaxton felt that he should help, so he turned over a candlestick on the mantel and examined its bottom. Nothing of interest.

“What exactly are we looking for, Cassandra?”

“I imagine we will know it when we find it.” She pointed to the corner. “Does this dumbwaiter function?”

“I believe so. Why?”

“I noticed it during the séance. Seems like a very good place to hide something, or someone.”

They both crossed over to it, their paths meeting at the point of a
V
. She had brought a candle over, prepared to lean in. Thaxton unlatched the front of the small hand-pulled elevator, sliding the door open. Cassandra coughed.

“Musty,” she said, the candle wavering.

“That probably means no one has opened it for some time.”

“Not necessarily.” She peered in, illuminating the wooden walls of the inside. “It’s bigger than I thought.”

“Big enough to hold the dowager countess. This parlor used to be her private room. She used the compartment to transport anything and everything, even furniture. She would sometimes climb into it to go up, instead of taking the stairs. It unnerved the newer servants.”

“So it goes to the countess’s chambers?”

“The portrait hall, actually. Well, the portrait hall now, though it was the old ballroom. When Spencer took over and his mother moved to the dowager estate, it was converted.”

“A person hiding in here could have made the noises,” she reasoned.

“But not the bell. That sound would have been muffled, and it was not—it was near the table. At the table.”

“It’s a start,” Cassandra said, so far into the dumbwaiter that her top half had disappeared and her voice echoed.

That was when Thaxton heard the footsteps. He froze, his mind whirling—if they were found, Cassandra would be ruined. He heard the key, the little scrape into the lock. You had to wiggle it to get it to open correctly, thank goodness, because that gave him time to shove Miss Seton fully into the dumbwaiter and tumble in after her, putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her yelp.

Her eyes widened above his fingers.

“Someone’s coming,” he said, next to her ear. The doorknob rattled and her eyebrows arched again. He removed his hand slowly, and she took a big breath. He slid on his knees, splinters of old wood flaking off on his trousers, closed the door of the dumbwaiter, and blew out her candle. Cassandra and he were thrown into complete darkness.