Miss Weston's Masquerade Read Online Free PDF Page B

maidservant was mending the fire and the heavy luggage was piled high in one corner. With a nod at the girl, Cassandra began unpacking the dressing case, laying out the silver-backed brushes and shaving gear.
    Poking into the various valises, she found what seemed appropriate evening wear and clean linen. It was not until she was laying a nightshirt on the bed that a thought struck her. Where was she to sleep? Where did servants sleep in establishments like this? And more immediately, where was she to eat?
    What time was it, and when would Nicholas require warm water? How little she knew. It was all very well to have to act like a boy. That was easy, compared with learning to act like a valet.
    ‘Oh, hang the man.’ Cassandra muttered, angry that Nicholas had abandoned her in this strange place and, suddenly, not a little nervous.
    ‘Language, infant.’ Nicholas was leaning against the door jamb. He seemed lazily amused, his eyes narrowed as he watched her.
    ‘I am not an infant. How could you leave me without giving me some idea what to do with all this?’ She gestured wildly at the pile of cases, irrationally more angry now he was there than she had been before.
    ‘What did you expect me to do?’ he enquired, strolling into the room and loosening his neck cloth. ‘Invite you to take tea with Lady Broome?’ He shrugged off his coat and handed it to her. ‘Brush this will you, it’s dusty from the journey.’
    ‘Brush it yourself.’ Her chin came up and she threw the coat onto the bed. ‘You just go off with that woman and leave me…’
    ‘Calm down, Cassie and don’t treat my coats like that. I’m sorry I left you, brat. To tell you the truth, I keep forgetting you’re not a boy, you’re so good at it.’
    He straightened and strolled across to look down at her, his eyes warm with amusement. One long finger tilted her chin up, forcing her gaze to meet his. ‘Stop sulking, Cassie. I couldn’t just leave Lady Broome, it would have looked most odd. Besides,’ he smiled reminiscently, ‘what better way to kill an hour than in the company of a beautiful woman? You seem to have managed well enough. Have you ordered hot water?’
    Cassandra bit her lip, acknowledging to herself that her real complaint was Nicholas’s preference for Lady Broome’s company over her own. ‘No. I didn’t know what time you wanted it. I’ll get it now.’ She paused, her hand on the door knob, ‘Nicholas, where am I to sleep tonight?’
    He paused, arrested, his neck cloth half off. ‘Lord, I hadn’t thought of that. Go for the water, I’ll think of something.’
    Cassandra returned with a steaming ewer to find Nicholas pulling a battered screen across one corner of the room. ‘What are you doing?’ She set the jug down on the dressing table and came to peer round the edge. ‘Where did you get that from?’ A low truckle bed was set behind the screen.
    ‘It was under the bed. I’ll take this, you have the bed.’
    ‘I can’t do that, Nicholas,’ she protested, scandalised. ‘I cannot sleep in the same room as you. It’s…’
    ‘…the only option we have,’ he finished for her. ‘What would you prefer? To share with the male inn servants?’ He looked at her, grimaced and added ruefully, ‘Face it. You’re as compromised as you’re ever going to be, Cassie. By running away with me dressed as a boy, you burned your boats. A night in my company can make it no worse.’
    Cassandra knew her blush was deepening. Her tongue felt too clumsy to get round the words. ‘But we… I never thought…’
    ‘I don’t believe you thought half a day ahead from the moment you left home. But then, neither did I, at least, not about this.’ He hesitated, ‘Look, Cassie, with the screen pulled across it will be almost as if we’re in two separate chambers.’
    Cassandra cast round for other reasons not to share the room. It wasn’t as though she didn’t trust Nicholas, it was just that the big bed was strangely