‘You are no longer in boring stuffy old England. Here women know the dance of love and they flaunt it.’ Rising from her bed, Celeste simply pulled off her gown, standing against the flame of her lamp like a goddess.
‘I want to know what it is to be passionate and wanton and brave. Only dull wits shall be for ever stuck with one boring husband for the rest of their lives and I certainly shall not be that. When we are young we should be able to know...everything.’
Cassie’s eyes ran across the fat abundance of her cousin’s breasts, breasts that were so different from her own. Celeste’s waist had slimmed and her hips had spread and the hair between her legs had been trimmed back into the shape of a heart.
‘You look beautiful.’ The words came from the very depth of admiration.
‘Too beautiful to be wasted on the boys that I am forever annoyed by here.’ One hand cupped her breast and the other fell to the soft place between her legs. ‘There is no power more durable than that of womanhood. No influence over men as strong as the desire for sex. Remember that, Cassandra, when you do finally grow up, and use it wisely.’
Draping a blanket around herself then, she smiled, turning again into the more-known cousin, the girl who would push the boundaries, but was kinder with it.
‘You look shocked, Sandrine.’ She began to laugh in earnest now. ‘Shocked and stiff. I do not think you are made for such confessions.’
All the words fell across Cassandra. Words she had not heard before or thought of. Ideas that had been a part of a world far from her own, lost in the corruption of love. She wished she were home in England, Maureen in the chamber next door and her father not far away either. Rodney was too young to think much of right now, but even his presence would have been a relief.
‘Come, let us sleep, cousin, and I promise I shall behave myself entirely. You have been ill, after all, and I should not tease you.’
* * *
In her bedroom in London all those years later Cassandra dashed away the tears that came so readily whenever she thought of Celeste. Her cousin’s promise had been fulfilled in blood and in pain, the danger of Baudoin’s brother Louis and the wildness within him no match for a slightly wayward French virgin steeped in the potential of adventure and romance.
‘Romance.’ She whispered the word into the room, and it curled into sin. Some losses were beyond comprehension and this was one of those. Some truths, too, were made mute by their sheer and utter horror.
Her truths.
No, she could never let Lord Nathaniel Lindsay know the exact depth of any of them and after discovering today that he worked for the British Service she knew she would have to be more than careful. Just another gulf of difference between them that could never be bridged.
* * *
Lady Acacia Bellowes-Browne hung on to his arm at the Smithson ball and laughed, a soft musical sound that ran through tenseness and made Nathaniel relax.
‘You said that you would come down to Bellamy for the hunting, Nat. I have held that promise for some weeks now’
‘And indeed I shall,’ he answered, liking the feel of her fingers on his skin, the many rings she wore decorative and colourful. He was about to speak again when Lydia Forsythe came across to the group.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, Lord Lindsay, but I want to thank you for your help the other week. Mama said you were most kind in ensuring that I did not bleed to death.’
‘I rather think that you would not have.’
‘Well, Miss Cassandra Northrup said that I might and she is thought to be most proficient of all in the arts of medicine. When I visited her to give her my thanks she barely allowed my gratitude. Instead, she has asked for my help with her charity. Mama, of course, does not approve, but I think it is important...to remember about the plight of others, I mean...’ She petered off as Acacia began to speak.
‘Cassandra Northrup has lobbied us all in her pursuit of supporting those less fortunate.’
Interest sparked his question. ‘You think she is too assertive in her search for patrons?’
‘No, not that. She is known to delve into the shady corners of London when locating all the broken women and I think she understands neither the dangers nor the gossip associated with such an occupation. She looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but I have it on all accounts that she is well versed in the art of self-defence.’
‘Isn’t she just wonderful?’ Lydia Forsythe’s eyes were alight with hero worship, and the woman standing with Hawk, who Nat had not met before, also nodded her head.
A paragon and model of charitable benevolence. What would these people say if they were cognizant of the truth as he knew it? He had not told a soul about the names she had given to Lebansart. A questionable protection? A foolish guardianship? Even for England he had not betrayed her.
‘She will never marry again, of course. She has made that quite plain.’ Acacia’s voice drifted into his thoughts.
‘She won’t?’
‘No, my lord. The love of her life was lost in a terrible accident in Paris and she has no want to ever offer her heart to another.’
Nat’s mind scrambled. Paris?
‘Well, I think that it is romantic to tender thoughts for a husband long dead.’ Lydia Forsythe for all her youth was most outspoken in her opinions. ‘I have asked the Northrup sisters to my ball and they have promised to attend.’
‘An inducement of money for the cause would no doubt bring them running,’ Acacia was quick to add. ‘The Daughters of the Poor is a worthwhile charity, however. I have a maid acquired from that very organisation and she has been a godsend. Cassandra Northrup’s benevolent society is both efficient and organised.’
‘She has a school somewhere?’ Nathaniel could not believe what he was hearing.
‘In Holborn. When the girl was sent to me she was well equipped with clothes and books. Miss Maureen Northrup is apparently the one who sees to that side of the business.’
Hawk began to laugh. ‘They sound formidable.’
‘They are. Kenyon Riley is involved in the endeavour as well.’
‘I thought he had lost a leg somewhere in America?’
‘Lost a leg and gained a fortune.’ Hawk took up the conversation. ‘And his great-uncle, the old Duke, is about to die without issue.’
‘A timely inheritance, then, for the Northrups.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Acacia trilled. ‘And Kenyon is most besotted by them.’
Nat looked away. Cassandra Northrup had a knack of landing on her feet after adversity and using others to the very best of her own advantage.
Of all the men in the world he was the one to know that.
‘Maureen Northrup has her own worries.’ A wide frown marred Acacia’s brow.
Now this was new.
‘She does?’
‘She is virtually deaf. She lip-reads, of course, and speaks in her inimitable fashion, but it is the younger sister who runs the show.’
‘And the father?’
‘Lord Cowper is a man who has tried to carry on the life’s work of his beloved wife. Something of tiny animals we cannot see that live on our skin and make us sick.’
Nathaniel’s mind went back. Sandrine had insisted upon dousing his gunshot wound in the clearing all those years ago with water and she had cleaned her hands before she had touched him. She believed in these things, too, then. Every single fact he heard about her was more astonishing than the last.
‘I