Cassandra rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She hated to have to let Rosalind down. Over the last few weeks, they’d become friends. Or the closest thing to friends that Cassandra had experienced for many years. Even though Rosalind was a bit rough around the edges, she had a generous nature and a warm heart. But now their friendship would all come to an end. The way friendships did at the first hint of trouble.
But where to start? With the first ball she’d ever attended, where she’d first met Colonel Fairfax?
No, for if she talked about that, she’d also have to go back further, to explain the complicated reasons why she’d gone there without her mother, and she didn’t want to go into all that right now. It would take too long to relate the story of how Lady Agatha, her closest thing to a friend back then, had decided it was high time she had a little fun and persuaded her own mother to let her join a party of local young people attending a benefit ball at the White Hart. Her stepfather had been not only too mean to wish to purchase three tickets to raise funds for the parish alms houses, but when Agatha’s father, the Earl of Spendlow, had offered to collect her in his own carriage and convey her home in it, too, Mama had timidly suggested that it would be a splendid way of helping her prepare for her eventual come-out, by experiencing a ball in unsophisticated surroundings, without incurring any expense whatever.
She sighed as she thought of her younger self, walking into that ballroom arm in arm with Lady Agatha and being immediately besieged by a corps of scarlet-jacketed officers from her brother’s regiment. Guy, Agatha’s brother, had seen how wary she’d been of all those boisterous young men and had taken her under his wing. And she’d felt safe with him, for he’d treated her exactly the way he treated his own sister.
There had been only one officer who hadn’t joined the mob, who hadn’t teased and flattered either her or Agatha. And that had been Colonel Fairfax. There was nothing frivolous or false about him, she’d decided, as the evening had progressed. He was fully in command of himself, unlike other men who became increasingly intoxicated the closer it drew to midnight.
She’d begun to wish he’d ask her to dance, but he never did. She’d danced with the squire and the grocer’s son. And then, after a particularly energetic reel with the young blacksmith, she’d gone outside to get a breath of fresh air and cool down. He’d followed her outside. And told her that she was being foolish to do so, alone. And had escorted her inside, having made her feel wretchedly guilty.
Especially because, for a moment, in the moonlit inn yard, he’d looked at her, or she’d thought he’d looked at her, or she’d imagined he’d looked at her, with a sort of admiration tinged with longing. As though he had been considering kissing her.
Wishful thinking, obviously. Ah, well. She knew better now. About a lot of things.
Including how much information to impart to someone she didn’t, really, know all that well.
‘When I was sixteen years old,’ she therefore told Rosalind, cutting right to the heart of the matter, ‘I eloped with a soldier.’
‘No!’
Far from being outraged, Rosalind looked positively enthralled.
‘’Andsome, was he? ’Andsome as that Colonel?’
‘No,’ said Cassandra at once. She’d never met anyone who could hold a candle to Colonel Fairfax. Not even considering the changes the years had wrought in him. He’d been taller than most of the men at the dance, so that he literally stood head and shoulders above them all. And he’d also had an air of self-containment about him, so that he’d seemed far more dignified than the rest of the laughing, sweating, roistering crowd.
Tonight, he’d looked like a pared-down version of himself. As though he’d been ill and was still recovering. Although the biggest change had been in his eyes. Or, at least, in the way they’d looked at her. No longer with kindness and understanding, but with a cold, implacable hostility. Like two chips of ice. She gave an involuntary shiver.
‘A good kisser?’
What? She’d never kissed the Colonel, or come anywhere near it. Oh, but Rosalind was still harping on Guy. ‘He only ever kissed me once or twice, to be honest,’ Cassandra explained. ‘And only on the cheek, or the hand…’
‘Then why on earth did you elope with him? Was it money?’ She frowned. ‘Nah, because you don’t have any. Or you wouldn’t be taking Pa’s wages to introduce me about to titled people.’
Cassandra flinched. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the blunt way Rosalind spoke about money, nor did she appreciate the reminder that she was being paid to be her friend.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t about money.’
‘Forbidden love, then? Ooh, how exciting! I never knew you had it in you. You always looks so prim and proper.’
‘Well, if I am a bit prim nowadays,’ said Cassandra defensively, ‘it is because I learned my lesson back then. Guy was trying to rescue me from an unhappy home, as a matter of fact. My mother, who was a widow, was deceived into marrying a horrible, horrible man who made my life an utter…hell.’ She shivered as she recalled those dark days. Darker than anything that had happened since. ‘And Guy, well, he was my friend’s brother, or, to be completely accurate he was only one of them, she had several. They lived in the neighbourhood where we went to live when my mother remarried. At least, some of the time. You see, Lady Agatha’s father was an earl, who had several properties dotted all over the country. When they came to stay, they were the principal family in the area, which made it hard for my stepfather to refuse to let them in when they came calling. Even though he wouldn’t allow Mama or me to pay any social calls in return.’
‘What? That’s…that’s…’
‘Mean, yes. And when, one day, things had become particularly unbearable and Guy saw how things were, he, well, was overcome by a fit of chivalry, I think. Said he couldn’t bear to leave me and begged me to run away with him. He promised that we’d get married. That his regiment was going abroad soon, but that as an officer’s wife, I could go with him. He made,’ she said sourly, ‘living in a billet in a war-torn country sound terrifically exciting—’
‘I’ll say!’
‘But the reality was anything but. When we got to Portsmouth, Colonel Fairfax—’
‘The one who just called you a siren?’
‘Yes. He…he really shouted at Guy. Said he’d ruined me because we were both under age and that I couldn’t get married without my guardian’s permission, and the permission of his commanding officer, as well.’
‘He was your Guy’s commanding officer?’
‘Yes. And he ordered Guy to send me back to my family. But Guy couldn’t, because he’d spent every penny he had getting us that far.’ Guy had been all chivalry and no sense, she reflected sadly. Insisting on separate rooms when they’d had to stop overnight on their journey, to preserve her virtue. Hiring a chaise he could ill afford rather than mounting her on horseback where she’d be exposed to the elements…
‘In the end, it was the Colonel himself who provided the fare home. And arranged for one of the other soldier’s wives, one who didn’t get picked to go with the regiment, to act as my chaperon, because,’ she explained, seeing Rosalind’s puzzled frown, ‘only a certain number of the common soldier’s wives are allowed to travel abroad and they draw lots to see who can go. And I was that grateful to him,’ she said, running her hands up and down her arms again, in agitation. ‘I thought he was sorting out the awful mess Guy had made of rescuing me, was being kind, when all the time…’
‘He was rescuing Guy from your clutches,’ said Rosalind, with a giggle.
‘It isn’t funny,’ retorted Cassandra, recalling the way she’d felt when he, her hero, had said he thought her neck was pretty. It had taken a moment or two to realise he wasn’t paying her a compliment. A few more insults before she’d seen that all