“It was very strange,” Sybil said. “I was perplexed about what I ought to do and thought of going to my mama, but then Lord Lockwood appeared by my side and offered to take me in.”
“How lucky!” Cassandra said.
“Yes, I suppose it was lucky,” Sybil said thoughtfully. “Though I cannot account for why he did so. He barely said a word throughout. You know how awkward that can be, having to hold up a conversation alone. I cannot imagine what more I could have said about the weather.”
“At least you were not holed up in the retiring room, praying that no lady would come upon you and stare at you with a pitying gaze.”
“Very true,” Sybil said. “And perhaps Lord Lockwood was only momentarily tongue-tied, the pact may have weighed heavily on his mind. They must all know it is the topic of the town.”
Before Cassandra could comment, Racine came in with the tea. The old butler had been known to her as long as she could remember. He’d always been exceedingly kind—delivering her no end of biscuits when nobody was looking. She’d been in the habit, as a young girl, of creeping down to the butler’s closet and pouring out her heart to him whenever she experienced some little upset. He’d always taken her side of things, even when she could see now that he ought not have.
The butler set down a tea tray with a plate of the cook’s marvelous fairy cakes.
“You spoil us, Racine,” Cassandra said.
Racine was a formal sort of fellow when he was not comforting a heartbroken young girl in the butler’s closet. Cassandra still remembered fondly his commiseration with her when the viscount had denied her idea of acquiring another five mastiffs to make a proper pack. Racine had told her it seemed a fine idea and the viscount might change his mind someday.
Now, he said, “It is a butler’s purview, I think, to show those little considerations that might indicate favor.”
“Goodness,” Sybil said. “I can hardly convince Merrydon to deliver a bit of dry bread so soon after breakfast.”
Racine clearly looked askance at that way of going on. He raised an eyebrow in the most delightful disapproving manner and left the room. Cassandra had no doubt he was moments away from informing the housekeeper of Merrydon’s unsatisfactory habits.
“Now,” Sybil said, “you must tell me of your evening. I know you were to go into supper with Lord Burke, he is an amiable fellow, is he not?”
“Very amiable,” Cassandra said. “A deal more amiable than was Lord Hampton, both during the opening of the ballandacross the table at supper.”
“Lord Hampton? He did not offend?” Sybil asked.
“He very much offended me actually,” Cassandra said. “He was all but wordless on the ballroom floor. I thought it rude and told him so.”
“You did no such thing!” Sybil said.
“Oh, I most certainly did,” Cassandra said resolutely. She did not see a reason for pretense. Lord Hampton had been rude, and she had informed him of it. “I think,” she went on, “that the lord flatters himself over this pact. He wished to make it known that he was not on the auction block. I made it equally known that I was not bidding.”
“Goodness,” Sybil said. “But then, you spoke to him at supper too? Was that not uncomfortable?”
“Terribly,” Cassandra said. And, if she were truthful with herself, that part of the evening she’d prefer to forget. There had been no cause to inform anybody that she liked a wild ride on a horse or, worse, that she’d ever raised a shotgun.
“Well,” Sybil said, “at least you have no worries over Lord Hampton approaching you again.”
Cassandra smiled. “I have not the slightest worry over that, my dear Sybil. That gentleman will view me as no more alluring than the plague.”
Sybil squinted her eyes, appearing to look out the window over Cassandra’s shoulder. “There is Lord Lockwood, going into Lord Dalton’s house.”
“Lord Dalton’s house?” Cassandra asked. She’d had no idea that the gentleman with the scar was one of the gentlemen named in the pact.
“Oh! And there is Lord Hampton, himself, just rode up on a horse!”
Cassandra had no wish to look and could not quite understand why her eyes insisted on doing so. Nevertheless, her eyes would force her head to turn.
Lord Hampton leapt off his horse and handed it over to a groom. He took the steps two at a time and disappeared into the house with Lord Lockwood. Three more gentlemen arrived in quick succession, all bounding into the house.
Whatever Lord Hampton’s temperament might be, Cassandra could not deny that he cut a dashing figure.
“It would not be too difficult to guess who the unknown gentlemen are,” Sybil said. “Dalton, Lockwood and Hampton are all to do with the pact, those other three must be Ashworth, Cabot and Grayson.”
“I suppose they conspire to thwart their fathers,” Cassandra said. “They must feel they are hunted stags in the forest, with mamas circling round and ready to fire.”
