Seducing an Angel

/12/

STEPHEN called upon Katherine, Lady Montford, late in the morning after leaving the House of Lords. He went with the intention of asking her to accompany him when he called upon Cassandra. But Meg was with her, having brought Toby and Sally to play with Hal in the nursery, and he was able to ask both of them to go with him.

"I ought to have asked about yesterday afternoon and your ride in the park as soon as I saw you, Stephen," Meg said. "You have taken it upon yourself to bring Lady Paget into fashion, then, have you? It is very kind of you. She is not particularly easy to like, is she? There is a habitual look on her face that suggests – well, a certain contempt for everyone she beholds, as though she held herself superior. I know it is probably just her way of protecting herself against what really is a very difficult situation, but even so her manner does not invite intimacy."

"I told her I would call this afternoon," Stephen said, "but it would not be quite the thing to go alone, would it?"

"She certainly does not need even the whisper of more gossip," Kate agreed. "You are quite right about her manner, of course, Meg, but I daresay that if I were all alone in London and everyone believed I had murdered my husband – with an axe – I would behave in much the same way. /If/ I had the courage to appear in public at all, that is. One must admire her. I will be pleased to come with you this afternoon, Stephen.

Hal will be ready for a rest after a busy morning, and Jasper is going to the races."

"So is Duncan," Meg added. "They are going together, in fact. I will come too."

It had been easier than Stephen had feared. There had been no awkward questions. It was obviously not clear to his sisters that he was nursing a guilty conscience.

When he arrived outside Cassandra's door on Portman Street during the afternoon, then, it was in a manner that was above reproach. He arrived openly, for every neighbor on the street to see if they wished, and he handed down two eminently respectable ladies to the pavement while the footman who had accompanied his coachman rapped the knocker against the door.

A few minutes later, they were seated in the sitting room, making polite conversation with Cassandra, who was pouring the tea, and with Miss Haytor, whom Stephen recognized from Hyde Park a few afternoons ago. She was sitting straight-backed in her chair, a prunish look on her face, but she was not an unhandsome woman.

And the prunish look was understandable. He just hoped he would not lose this gamble he had taken. He hoped she would not say anything that would reveal to his sisters the truth of his relationship to Cassandra. He doubted she would, though. She was clearly a lady.

In the meanwhile he set out to charm her, concentrating much of his conversation on her while the other ladies talked among themselves.

But all the while he was aware of Cassandra, who was playing the part of hostess with some ease of manner, though her face had that slightly scornful look that Meg had mentioned earlier. He wished she would relax and be herself. He wanted his sisters to like her, almost as if he really were paying her court.

She was wearing a mushroom-colored muslin dress that would have looked dowdy on most women, he thought. On her it looked simply stunning. It accentuated her figure and drew attention to the bright glow of her hair. She looked elegant.

She looked like a lady. She looked like someone to whom nothing sordid could possibly ever have occurred.

And then something happened to relax them all, though it caused Cassandra some initial dismay.

The sitting room door, which had seemed to be shut, clicked open and the shaggy, disreputable-looking dog came padding in with a bobbing gait and a lolling tongue.

"Oh, dear," Cassandra said, standing as he approached, "the latch did not catch on the door again. I am so sorry. I will take him out of here."

"I'll do it, Cassie," Miss Haytor said, getting to her feet too.

"Oh, but he is adorable," Kate said. "Please let him stay – if he is allowed in the sitting room at all, that is."

"Roger tends to be Cassandra's shadow whenever he is given the opportunity," Miss Haytor said, sitting down again. "He believes the whole house is his and that he is lord and master here. And usually he is."

For the first time she smiled. She even chuckled when Kate smiled back.

Cassandra took her seat again and half smiled too. Stephen, watching her, saw a look of pure affection on her face and felt something catch at his heart, something so elusive that it was quite impossible to grasp on to it or understand quite what it was.

"Roger," he said as the dog padded past and he reached out a hand to scratch his good ear. "You have a distinguished name, sir."

The dog stopped, set his chin on Stephen's lap, and gazed up at him with one mournful eye. The other eye was glazed over and blind.

"You are either one very unfortunate dog," Stephen continued, "who keeps running into trouble and coming out of it the worse for wear, or you are one very /fortunate/ dog who survived a terrible disaster."

"The latter," Cassandra said.

"Oh, how very dreadful, Lady Paget," Meg said. "It is only in very recent years that I have had pets in the house – my eldest son brought a whole litter of puppies inside when he could no longer stand having to go out to the stables every time he wanted to see them, and of course their mother had to come too, though she was not at all housebroken at the time. But I know how quickly pets become family, as precious in their own way as the human members."

"I believe," Cassandra said, her gaze still on Roger, "a part of me would have died with him had he not recovered from his injuries, Lady Sheringford, but he did. I refused to let him die."

Her gaze moved up the short distance from the dog's head to Stephen's face before she looked away.

No one asked what the accident had been, and she did not volunteer the information.

"You are going to be covered with hairs, Lord Merton," Miss Haytor said.

He smiled at her.

"My valet will doubtless scold, ma'am," he said, "but he will brush off every last one of them. And a valet must be provided with something to scold about from time to time, you know, if he is to feel wanted and enjoy his work."

She almost smiled back at him. But she had not forgiven him quite yet – if she ever would.

No one had thought to cross the room to close the sitting room door and make sure it was shut fast this time. As a result, a little curly haired, rosy-cheeked head appeared about it, as it had about the maid's skirts the day before, and the child, seeing the dog, stepped inside the room. She was wearing a pink dress that was faded, though it was spotlessly clean and had been crisply ironed.

"Doggie," she said, laughing as she came.

But Roger seemed quite happy where he was, having his ear smoothed out and his head scratched, though he did humph a lazy welcome and opened his eye when she buried her fingers in the hair on his back and bent her head to kiss him.

"Oh, dear," Cassandra said, sounding embarrassed again. "I am so sorry.

I will take – "

But the child appeared suddenly to have noticed that there were people in the room as well as the dog, and that one of them was a lady wearing a flower-trimmed straw bonnet. She stepped away from Roger and Stephen and pointed at Meg's bonnet.

"Pretty," she said.

"Why thank you," Meg said. "And your curls are pretty too. Perhaps you can spare one. I'll cut it off with the scissors I have in my reticule and take it home with me and paste it onto my own head, shall I? Do you think it would look pretty on me?"

The child was giggling with glee.

"No-o!" she cried. "It would look s-silly."

"I suppose you are right," Meg said with a sigh. "I will have to leave it on your head, then, where it looks quite lovely."

The child lifted one foot and held her leg behind the knee.

"I got new shoes," she said.

Meg looked at them.

"They are very fine indeed," she said.

"My others was too small," the child said, "because I am a big girl now."

"I can certainly see that," Meg said. "I daresay the old shoes were very much too small. Would you like to sit on my knee?"

Cassandra sat down again, exchanging glances with Miss Haytor as she did so. But they need not have worried. It might not be perfect etiquette to allow a shaggy, decrepit dog and a servant's child to wander into the sitting room while one was entertaining noble guests, but those noble guests were charmed. Stephen knew both Meg and Kate were. And he certainly was. This was a house, he realized, where children and pets were allowed to roam virtually at will. It was a home. He had felt it yesterday from without the door. Today he was sure of it.

Cassandra did not live in perpetual gloom. Even now she was looking at the child with exasperated affection.

"I have a little boy," Meg said when the child was on her lap, "but he is older than you. And I have a little girl who is younger. And another boy who is a tiny baby."

"What are their names?" the child asked.

"Tobias," Meg said, "though we call him Toby. And Sarah, whom we call Sally. And Alexander, who is Alex. What is your name?"

"Belinda," the child said. "What else could you call /me/?"

"Hmm, let me see," Meg said, making a show of thinking. "Belle? I have a niece who is Belle, short for Isabelle. Lindy? Linda? Lin? None of them sound as pretty as /Belinda/, though, do they? I think maybe your name is perfect as it is."

Roger had settled on the floor across Stephen's boots. Kate had turned her attention to Miss Haytor. Stephen was smiling at Cassandra, who was biting her lip and looking back, an answering smile surely lurking in her eyes.

He was glad he had come. He was glad Meg and Kate had come with him. And he was glad about that faulty catch on the drawing room door. This was so much better than last night despite the sensual pleasures the night had brought him. This was a new beginning and a good one. Cassandra was seeing the best of his family, and he was seeing the best of hers.

A new beginning…

Did he really want one?

A beginning of what?

But before he could either ponder the question or enter the conversation again, there was a tap on the drawing room door and the horrified face of the thin maid appeared around it.

"Oh, my lady," she said with a gasp, "I am so sorry. I was getting the clothes in off the line and Belinda and Roger went inside. I thought they was in the kitchen, and then I couldn't find them /anywhere/.

Belinda!" she said in loud, urgent whisper. "Come out of here! And bring the dog with you. I /am/ sorry, my lady."

"I believe both of them have been entertaining our visitors, Mary,"

Cassandra said, finally looking fully amused. "And Belinda has been able to show off her new shoes."

"Belinda and I are becoming friends, Mary," Meg said. "I do hope you will not scold her for coming in search of the dog. She is a delight, and I have been happy to meet her."

"Roger has been keeping my feet warm," Stephen added, smiling at the maid.

"You must be very proud of your daughter," Kate said.

Belinda slid off Meg's lap and wrapped her arms about Roger's neck. He lumbered to his feet and bobbed out of the room ahead of her. The maid closed the door, and Stephen heard her give it an extra tug until it clicked shut.

"That was all very embarrassing," Miss Haytor said with a little laugh.

"You will not be accustomed to mingling with the children of servants and with household dogs, Lady Montford, Lady Sheringford."

Meg laughed.

"Oh, you are quite wrong," she said, and she proceeded to describe their upbringing in Throckbridge. "When you spend all your days in a small village, Miss Haytor, you become quite accustomed to mingling with people of all stations in life. It is a healthy way to grow up."

"I still miss that life on occasion," Kate added. "I used to teach the very young children at the village school. We used to dance at assemblies that were for everyone, not just for the gentry. Meg is very right. It was a healthy way to grow up. /Not/ that either of us is complaining about the good fortune that befell us when Stephen inherited the Merton title, of course."

"I am certainly not complaining," Stephen said. "There is much privilege in the position. There is also much responsibility and much opportunity to do good."

He looked at Miss Haytor as he spoke. Perhaps it was not a wise thing to say, as she might well be thinking that his position also gave him much opportunity to do ill, but he smiled at her, and it seemed to him that she had lost much of her prunish look in the half hour they had been there.

And Rome, to use the old clichГ©, had not been built in a day.

It was time to leave. He could see Meg preparing to stand up. But before she could do so, there was a knock on the front door, and they all turned their heads to look at the sitting room door, as though it offered a window through which they might see who the new caller was.

After a few moments the door opened and the maid appeared again.

"Mr. Golding, my lady," she said, "to call on Miss Haytor."

Miss Haytor jumped to her feet, her cheeks suffused with color.

"Oh, Mary," she cried, "you really ought to have called me out. I will come – "

But it was too late. A gentleman came past Mary into the room, and then looked acutely embarrassed to find it occupied. He stopped abruptly and bowed.

Cassandra got to her feet and hurried toward him, both hands outstretched, her face glowing.

"Mr. Golding," she said. "It has been a long time, but I do believe I would have known you anywhere."

He was a small, thin, wiry man of middle years and unprepossessing appearance. His dark hair had receded from his forehead and thinned to an almost bald patch on the crown of his head and silvered at the temples. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles halfway down his nose.

"Little Cassie?" he said, setting his hands in hers and looking as delighted as she. "I would /not/ have known /you/ except maybe for your hair. But you are Lady Paget now, are you not? Miss Haytor told me that when I met her yesterday. I am sorry about your husband's passing."

"Thank you," she said, and she turned to present him to her other guests, her face still bright and happy and quite incredibly beautiful.

She explained that he had been her brother's tutor for a short while when they were children, though now he was secretary to a cabinet minister.

"I came to pay my respects to Miss Haytor," Golding said after he had made his bows. "I did not intend to walk in on you and your visitors, Lady Paget."

"Do have a seat anyway," Cassandra said, "and a cup of tea."

But he would not sit down, clearly intimidated by the company.

"I merely came," he said, "to see if Miss Haytor would care to join me for a drive out to Richmond Park tomorrow. I thought we might take a picnic tea."

He looked at Miss Haytor, clearly uncomfortable.

"Just the two of us?" she asked, the color still high in her cheeks, her eyes bright. She looked really quite handsome, Stephen thought. She must have been a pretty girl in her day.

"I suppose it is not quite the thing, is it?" he said, turning his hat in his hands and looking as though he would be glad of a hole opening at his feet to swallow him up. "I just do not know who else I could ask to accompany us. I suppose I could – "

Beginnings needed middles before they could find endings, Stephen thought, whether in this potentially budding romance between two middle-aged people who had been a governess and a tutor together in a long-ago past, or in his new relationship with Cassandra, his new /friendship/ with her that might lead anywhere as far as either of them knew now. But he wanted to discover where that anywhere was.

"If you have no great objection," he said to Golding, "and if Lady Paget has no plans for tomorrow afternoon, perhaps she and I could join the two of you on your picnic. The ladies could be each other's chaperone."

"That would be very decent of you, my lord," Mr. Golding said, "though I do not wish to impose."

"It is no imposition at all," Stephen said. "I only wish I had thought of it for myself. Now all we need, Golding, is to have two ladies agree to accompany us." He looked inquiringly from Miss Haytor to Cassandra and back again. "I ought to have asked you first, Miss Haytor, if you mind my being one of the party. Do you?"

He shamelessly smiled his most charming smile at her.

But he could see from her eyes that she very badly wanted to go.

"You are quite correct, Lord Merton," she said sternly. "If Cassie is with me, I will be able to chaperone her and see that she comes to no harm. Mr. Golding, I would be delighted to come."

They all looked questioningly at Cassandra.

"It seems," she said without looking at Stephen, "that I am going on a picnic tomorrow."

"Splendid," Golding said again, rubbing his hands together, though he still looked horribly embarrassed. "I will have a hired carriage outside the door at two o'clock, then."

"Perhaps," Stephen said, "since you are presumably supplying the tea, Golding, you will allow me to supply the carriage?"

"That is decent of you, my lord," Golding said, and he bowed himself out of the room without further ado.

"It is time we all took our leave," Meg said, getting to her feet.

"Thank you for tea and your kind hospitality, Lady Paget. And it has been very pleasant to meet you, Miss Haytor."

"It has indeed," Kate said. "I wanted us to share some teaching stories, Miss Haytor, but we have not had a chance, have we? Perhaps next time."

"I will look forward to tomorrow, ma'am," Stephen said, making her a bow before following the others out of the room. Cassandra was with his sisters.

He let Meg and Kate go out to the waiting carriage while he lingered in the hall to take his leave.

"I have always had a weakness for picnics," he said. "Fresh air. Food and drink. Grass and trees and flowers. Congenial company. They are a powerful combination."

"The company may not be very congenial," she warned him.

He laughed.

"I am sure," he said, "I will like Golding very well indeed."

She half smiled at his deliberate misunderstanding of her meaning.

"I meant myself," she said. "You must know that I do not want to go, that this new… relationship you spoke of last night is doomed to failure. We cannot be friends, Stephen, having once been protector and mistress."

"Lovers cannot be friends, then?" he asked her.

She did not reply.

"I have a need to make amends," he told her. "Instead of bringing some joy back into your life, I did the opposite, Cass. Let me make amends."

"I do not want – "

"We all want joy," he said. "We all /need/ it. And there is such a thing, Cass. I promise you."

She merely stared at him, her green eyes almost luminous.

"Tell me you will look forward to the picnic," he said.

"Oh, very well," she said. "If my doing so will make you feel better, I will say it. I will not sleep tonight for eager excitement to have the picnic begin. I shall say my prayers for good weather every hour on the hour."

He smiled at her and flicked her chin with one finger before hurrying outside and climbing into the carriage to take his place opposite his sisters, his back to the horses.

"Oh, Stephen," Kate said when the door had been closed and the carriage rocked into motion, "I did not understand this morning. Or perhaps I /chose/ not to understand. Are none of us to have a smooth road to matrimony and happiness, then?"

"But it was a rough road that led three of us to happiness, Kate," Meg said quietly. "Perhaps a smooth road does not do it. Perhaps we should /wish/ this rough road on Stephen."

But she did not smile or look particularly happy. Neither did Kate.

Stephen did not ask them what they meant – it was all too obvious.

They were wrong, though.

He was merely attempting to set right a wrong.

He was merely trying to bring some joy to Cassandra's life so that his conscience could rest in peace.

They rode on in silence.