Seducing an Angel

/9/

ALICE arrived home soon after Cassandra.

She had trudged about London for four hours in the heat of the afternoon, going from one employment agency to another without any success. Her age was against her in almost any form of employment that was available. The fact that she had had only one employer and two forms of employment – as governess and lady's companion – in all her working life for the past twenty-two years was against her, despite her effort to explain that the very longevity of her employment proved that she must be both steady and trustworthy. She could not expect to be employed as a housekeeper, one of the few forms of employment for which her age might qualify her, since she had no experience in the tasks involved, and she could not expect to be anyone's chef for the very simple reason that she did not know how to cook anything more complex than a boiled egg.

The best she had been able to do was leave her name and letters of introduction and recommendation at the two agencies that were willing to take them, in the faint hope that something would turn up.

Alice was well aware that it was a very faint hope.

The only really good thing that /had/ happened to her during the afternoon was that she had encountered an old friend while she was sitting on a bench beneath the shade of a tree on the outer edges of a churchyard to rest her aching feet. She was amazed that she had recognized him after so many years. She was even more amazed that /he/ had recognized /her/. But they both had, and he had stopped to talk with her and even sit beside her for a few minutes. Did Cassie remember Mr.

Golding?

"Wesley's tutor?" Cassandra said after thinking for a moment.

"You /do/ remember," Alice said, beaming.

Cassandra remembered him. He had been a whole head shorter than her father, a thin, dark-haired, earnest young man with wire-framed spectacles. He had been hired when Wesley was eight and their father had just won one of his rare windfalls. Less than a month later the inevitable crash had come and Mr. Golding had been forced to leave, unable to stay when his employer could not pay him – though Alice had stayed, as always.

Cassandra remembered him only because she had been thirteen at the time, just the age when girls began to develop an awareness of men. She had fallen secretly and passionately in love with him after he had smiled at her one day and called her Miss Young and inclined his head to her with flattering deference as though she were an adult. She had mourned his departure for a whole week after he left, convinced that she would never /ever/ either forget him or love another.

"How is he?" she asked.

"Very well indeed," Alice said. "He is secretary to a /cabinet/ minister, Cassie, and is looking very prosperous and very smart indeed.

His hair has turned gray at the temples. He looks very distinguished."

It struck Cassandra then that perhaps she had not been the only one in love with him fifteen years ago. He and Alice had probably been close in age, and for a whole month they had worked in near proximity to each other.

"He asked after you," Alice said, "and was surprised to hear that I am still with you. He called you /Miss Young/. Perhaps he did not hear of your marriage."

And Alice did not tell him? Cassandra did not blame her.

"I told him you were now Lady Paget and a widow," Alice said. "He sent his regards."

Ah.

And that was the last they would ever hear of Mr. Allan Golding, Cassandra thought, smiling at an unusually flushed Alice. She felt sorry for Alice's sake. She could not recall a time when Alice had had a close friend of her own.

They had dinner together and sat in the small sitting room afterward.

Cassandra glanced wistfully more than once at the fireplace, in which kindling and coal had been set ready to be lit. But there was so very little coal left in the bin outside the kitchen door and, though she had some money now, there was not enough to allow for extravagances. She must save every penny she was able. Summer was coming, and all the /ton/ would leave town then, including, no doubt, the Earl of Merton. She dared not think far enough ahead to decide what she would do then. But in preparation for the time when she must consider it, she must save as much as she could.

It was not a cold evening, only slightly chilly.

"He is coming tonight, I suppose," Alice said abruptly at last, her head bent over some mending she was doing. She had not made any reference until now to the way Cassandra had spent the afternoon.

"Yes," Cassandra said. "He is."

Alice stitched on, as if she had not heard.

"What I ought to do," she said after five minutes or so had elapsed, "is rob a stagecoach – with smoking pistols and a black mask."

She raised her head when Cassandra said nothing, and they stared at each other until neither could control her facial muscles any longer and they bellowed with laughter, doubled over with it. They mopped their eyes, glanced at each other, and went off into whoops again – all far in excess of the humor of the joke.

And then they sat back in their chairs and looked at each other again.

"Allie," Cassandra said fondly, "he is a decent man. I did not choose him for that reason, or even for his looks. I chose him because I knew he must be as rich as Croesus and because I knew I could attract him.

But some good fairy – or perhaps some good angel – was watching over me. He is kind and decent."

And uncomfortable to be with. And the possessor of two blue eyes that could draw her in deep enough to drown.

"He is /not/ decent," Alice said, the laughter of a minute ago forgotten, "if he is prepared to pay money for – No man is decent if he will do /that/, Cassie."

"But he is a /man/," Cassandra said. "And I can be very alluring when I want to be. Last evening I wanted to be. He did not stand a chance, Allie. You must not blame him. Blame me if you must."

Alice was not to be mollified, however, even though Cassandra smiled beguilingly at her.

"Besides," Cassandra said, her smile fading as she sat back farther in her chair and gazed into the unlit coals, "I think he has engaged my services as much out of kindness as out of lust. He is not stupid, Allie, and I am not much of a liar. He knows why I sought him out. I was really quite open about it this morning. There was no point in /not/ being. He knows that my interest in him is strictly monetary, and I think he agreed to my terms because he felt sorry for me."

It was a humiliating admission. If she had been the irresistible courtesan she had thought to be, he would have accepted her terms for no other reason than that they would give him unlimited access to her bed and body. It would have been so much better that way.

Alice was looking steadily at her, her needle suspended above her work.

"It is getting too late for you to be sewing," Cassandra said. "It is quite dark, yet I hate to light a candle before it is absolutely necessary."

She had squandered candles last night. She must not continue to do that.

"You are tired," she said. "You have had a long, busy day. Why don't you go to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of tea and take it up to bed?"

"You do not want me here when he comes," Alice said, threading her needle through the fabric, setting her work aside, and getting to her feet. "And I do not want to be here either. I could not be civil to him.

Good night, Cassie. I wish you did not have to do this for my sake, at least."

"You have not been paid for almost a year," Cassandra reminded her. "You have done a great deal for my sake, Allie. You did not get paid through most of my childhood either, did you? But you stayed even though at that time you would have been able to find other employment without any trouble at all."

"I loved you," Alice said.

"I know."

Cassandra went into the kitchen with her. Mary was cleaning the old grate on which she did the cooking. Roger was lying on the hearth. He thumped his tail in greeting without lifting his head.

"Mary," Cassandra said, "will you /never/ stop working? That grate has probably not gleamed as brightly in all its long lifetime. Go to bed."

"I'll never stop working for /you/, my lady," Mary said fervently. "Not after all of what you done for me, first coaxing his lordship to keep me on when Billy went away and I found out about Belinda being on the way, and then trying to protect me when his lordship would have – "

"Then do my bidding and go to bed," Cassandra said, interrupting her.

"And if you hear a knock at the door, ignore it. I will answer it."

"And then bringing me here with you when Billy was gone again and his present lordship dismissed me before he come back," Mary added, refusing to be daunted. "What you ought to do, my lady, is let /me/ answer the door and do with that gentleman what you plan to do. It is only right and fitting. He can pay /me/, and I will give the money to /you/."

"Oh, Mary." Cassandra closed the distance between them and hugged her, heedless of her grubby apron and hands. "That is the dearest offer anyone has made me in a long, long while. But you must not worry. The Earl of Merton is a kind and decent man and I like him. And it has been a long time… Well, never mind. But sometimes work can also be pleasure, you know."

She felt her cheeks flushing and wished she had not tried to give any explanation at all.

Alice, having finished making her tea, banged the kettle down on the hob.

"He /is/ a handsome gent," Mary conceded. "He looks like an angel, don't he, my lady?"

"I think maybe he is one," Cassandra said. "An angel sent to save us all. Go to bed now, both of you, so that I can get ready for him. And don't look at me, Alice, as if I were preparing myself for my own execution. He is /gorgeous/. There, I have said it. He is gorgeous and he is my lover and I am happy about it. It is /not/ all about money. I like him and I am going to be happy with him. You will see. After a year of wearing black and being increasingly gloomy, I am going to be /happy/. With an /angel/. Be happy /for/ me."

He had called her /outrageous/ last evening, and, oh, dear, she was.

They were both sniveling when they went off to bed. /Not/, Cassandra guessed, with happiness.

And yet she had not completely lied, she realized in some surprise, even dismay. There /was/ a part of her that almost looked forward to the coming night. She had been lonely for a long, long time. She still was lonely. At least the night – and her bed – would not be empty. Not tonight, anyway, and not, if she was very fortunate, for most of the nights in the foreseeable future.

There had to be /some/ silver lining to the cloud that had hung so persistently over her for so long. Surely there must be.

Perhaps being bedded by the Earl of Merton would push back the loneliness just a little bit.

Perhaps he was the silver lining.

She was so /weary/ of the darkness. /Please, please, let there be some light/.

Stephen dined at Cavendish Square with Vanessa and Elliott and a few other guests. Inevitably the latter included one unmarried young lady, who had come with her father.

His sisters were not persistent matchmakers. Indeed, they were all quite vocal in their hope that he would not marry too early in life and that when he /did/ marry it would be for love. But they were not above drawing his attention to young ladies who were eligible and might just take his fancy. They knew his tastes too.

Miss Soames was to his taste. She was young and pretty and slender. She was sweet-natured and vivacious and had an infectious gurgle of a laugh.

She had manners and conversation. She was modest but not overly shy.

Stephen sat beside her at dinner. He sat beside her in one of the carriages that conveyed them all to the theater afterward, and he sat next to her in Elliott's private box. He enjoyed her company and believed she enjoyed his.

It was an evening typical of many others.

And also different from many others.

For there was scarcely a moment all evening when his mind was free of thoughts about Cassandra.

And despite himself he looked forward with some impatience to seeing her again later.

He ought not. He ought to cling to the world that included Miss Soames and Lady Christobel Foley and their like, the world of his male friends and activities, the world of his family, the world of his parliamentary duties and all the other responsibilities that went with his title and his landholdings.

The world with which he had grown familiar in the past eight years. It was a world he liked.

Cassandra, Lady Paget, was of another world, and there was darkness there. And something undeniably enticing too.

It was not just the promise of frequent sex.

Surely there was more than just that to attract him.

But it was an unwilling, uneasy attraction, whatever it was.

Sir Wesley Young was at the theater too. He was seated in a box with seven other people, one of them the lady with whom he had been driving in the park this afternoon. There was a great deal of merriment in their box during the course of the evening.

His presence did not help Stephen concentrate his attention upon Miss Soames and the other members of his brother-in-law's party. He tried to imagine one of his own sisters in Lady Paget's situation – Nessie, for example. Would he have been able to ignore her in the park this afternoon, hopeful that the /ton/ would not discover that she was his sister? Would he be able to make merry here tonight, knowing what he had done?

It was inconceivable! He would always stand by his sisters no matter the consequences to himself. Some forms of love /were/ unconditional and eternal, despite what Cassandra had said to the contrary.

While he ought to have been enjoying the play, one of his favorite activities, he entertained mental images of her five-year-old self hovering over her newborn brother, hugging and kissing him, crooning to him, talking to him, loving him because there was no one to love her except an often-absent father, and no one to love /him/ unless she did it.

And Stephen's mind kept reverting to that scene at her door this afternoon.

The very domestic scene.

There had been the young, thin, wide-eyed maid who looked more like a waif than the sort of battle-axe of a servant he would have expected if he had thought about it. And a shy, mop-haired child with rosy cheeks.

And an elderly dog who looked as if he had been through a war or two in his time but had lost none of his affection for his mistress.

Perhaps, he thought, Cassandra had had more than her own survival and well-being in mind when she had gone to Meg's ball in search of a protector.

Perhaps there was light in her life after all, even if it had been dimmed by circumstances.

This afternoon her house had looked rather…

Well, like a home.

As he left Merton House on foot after the theater party was at an end, Stephen's feelings were mixed. He wanted to see Cassandra again. He wanted to be inside her bedchamber again. He wanted to make love to her again, perhaps with a little more finesse this time and a little more attention to giving her full pleasure.

At the same time, he felt uneasy about conducting such business inside her home. Perhaps he ought to have rented a house in which to conduct their liaison. Perhaps he still ought.

He would think about it tomorrow.