Patricia Rice Read Online Free PDF Page B

noble name and title turn to cutting you dead for your wantonness?”
    “I am not wanton! You are the libertine, throwing me into
the arms of your disgusting friends. I will not go gambling with you anymore.
You never pay attention to my warnings anyway. Take me to respectable places
and let me find someone decent, if I have become such a burden to your
finances.”
    Duncan stood up and started for the door. “You’ll not find
anyone with Rupert’s wealth willing to take you. Sorry, old girl, but the deed
is done. You’ll find he’s not so bad when he sets you up in that elegant house
of his and dresses you in silks and furs. You can look for someone decent after
you give him his heir.”
    Cassandra slammed a book after his departing back, but it
merely bounced off the door as it closed. She would not wed that lecherous
fiend. She would not! What could he do if she refused to say the vows?
    She didn’t want to think about it. She knew her brother well
enough to realize he would be prepared for that eventuality. Rape, drugs, and
Gretna Green were not beyond him.
    It wasn’t that her brother didn’t love her, she told herself
as she started toward her mother’s bedroom. It was that he didn’t know what
love was. Duncan had inherited his disgusting weaknesses from his father along
with the title and the estate and the empty coffers. The Howards had been
drunkards for generations. The only father-son relationship they knew was over
a table and a bottle of wine.
    Cassandra didn’t fool herself into thinking she was
untainted. Had she been a male and introduced to her father’s society, she
would undoubtedly have turned out the same way. Her sex and her mother had been
her saving graces. Ladies weren’t supposed to drink, and her mother had warned
her of the dangers of strong spirits. Too bad she had not been more of an
influence on Duncan.
    A servant in shabby livery hastened up the stairs before she
had time to enter her mother’s chamber. Cassandra raised her eyebrows at the
man’s appearance after an absence of several days, but his message prevented
questioning.
    “There’s two gents below to see you, m’lady.” He tugged his forelock
respectfully, remembering his modicum of training.
    “Gentlemen? To see me? Or Lord Eddings?” Any callers at all
were highly unusual. Her mother had been an invalid for years, and her brother’s
friends weren’t of the type apt to make formal calls. Cassandra could safely
say she had no friends. She had never been formally introduced to society, and
her childhood playmates had been left behind in Kent.
    “You, m’lady,” the servant insisted.
    Curious, Cassandra followed the footman downstairs. Surely
Rupert had not already recovered from his night’s excesses and come with a
friend to claim her. Besides, the footman had said they were gentlemen. Even an
untrained servant was discerning enough to recognize Rupert was no such thing.
    When she entered the front salon she was conscious of the
unaired mustiness of the room. The draperies had been drawn against the fading
effects of occasional sunlight, and it was doubtful if they had been aired or
cleaned in decades. She felt her breath catch in embarrassment as she
recognized the two immaculately proper gentlemen on the graying carpet.
    “Lord Merrick, Mr. Scheffing, it is a pleasure.” She curtsied,
determined not to appear as shabby in manners as the room was in appearance.
Duncan’s scathing remarks on her behavior still rankled.
    “Cass, you needn’t stand on propriety with old friends,” the
elder Scheffing exclaimed, stepping forward to take her hand. “We’ve known you
since you were in leading strings.”
    Cassandra threw a look over Bertie’s shoulder to the stern,
proud man behind him. That wasn’t what Merrick had said. She gave the earl’s
unsmiling visage a triumphant look and turned her smile to his friend. “But I
am supposed to be a proper lady now, sir. Won’t you have a seat? Let me