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Poor Lady Dawes, Cassie thought, as she bade them welcome, she must needs tolerate a profligate husband who treats her like a stick of wood, deaf and dumb to his rakehell behavior.
Cassie was beginning to shift her weight uncomfortably on her high-heeled slippers when half an hour later, Anthony Welles, Earl of Clare, strolled negligently toward them, his powdered hair in startling contrast to his deeply tanned face.
“Lord Clare, how kind of you to come,” Cassie said, smiling at the elegant man she had known most of her life.
The earl lightly kissed the palm of her hand, then bowed slightly to Edward and Eliott. “You have assembled an elegant group, I see,” he said, gazing for a moment into the crowded ballroom. “Ah, the musicians from Colchester. They have a nice way with the minuet, I believe. I trust you will save a dance for me, Cassandra. Eliott, Lord Edward, Miss Petersham, your servant, ma’am.”
“He is usually the last to arrive at any party,” Eliott said.
“Poor Menkle will be quite hoarse in the morning if there are many more guests to arrive. I, for one, have very sore feet.” Even as Cassie spoke, Mr. and Mrs. Webster appeared, ready to be greeted and to be pleased.
“I shall have to hide the brandy,” Eliott said.
“Mr. Webster and your father were very close,” Miss Petersham said severely. She saw a drooping Menkle signal to her. “You may now rest your tired feet, Cassie, but first, of course, you must dance with the viscount.”
“Such sacrifices I already make for you, my lord.” As she took Edward’s arm, she heard Miss Petersham say sternly to Eliott, “Do not spend the evening in Miss Pennworthy’s pocket, else her doting mama will have you to the altar before you catch your breath.”
Chapter 5
Edward negligently wrapped a curl of golden hair about his finger as he looked past the tree branches overhead to the tranquil sea beyond the cliffs. During his five years of army life on the baked, miserably hot plains north of Calcutta and in the ruggedly beautiful Port of Pondicherry, he had almost forgotten the placid life of the English countryside, where foreign upheavals, the misery of war, even the growing political chaos surrounding King George III and his inept ministers, seemed as far away as England’s colonies across the Atlantic.
He would never regret his years in the army, though he knew that to his dying day he would remain appalled at the devastation and the utter waste of human life he had seen. Still, he wondered if he would have so readily given up the disciplined life to which he had grown accustomed had it not been for Cassie. Now, he thought, he was embarking on the unexceptionable career of the English country gentleman. Though objectively it seemed like a rather boring prospect, he could not imagine it being so with Cassie beside him, Cassie and his sons and daughters.
He released her hair and watched the curl he had wound over his finger spring back over his hand.
Cassie awoke from a light sleep and raised her head from Edward’s shoulder to gaze up at his face, a face whose expressions she had come to know quite as well as her own in the two months since his return.
“So pensive, my love?” she said, raising her fingertips to his lips. “I do hope that you are not regretting taking me to wife.”
Edward lightly nibbled her fingers and shifted her in his arms. “Actually, Cass, I was trying to decide if I prefer a boy or a girl as our first child.”
“Good lord, Edward, can I not remain skinny for at least a while?”
She was looking at his mouth. “I will allow you to remain skinny, if you promise not to fall asleep in my company, at least until after we are married. If you find me so boring now, I fear to think how you will treat me a year from now.”
“A year from now, my lord, you will not be constrained by ridiculous codes of propriety, and I trust we will have discovered more entertaining pastimes.” For a moment Edward allowed her hand to move across his chest and down to his belly, in innocent exploration.
He pulled them both to their feet. He was straining against his breeches and he turned away from her to get control of himself. He doubted that in her innocence she realized the effect her touch had on him.
“And you, Edward,” he heard her say from behind him, “if you cannot bear to look upon me before we are married, will you force me to wear a sack over my head after a year?”
“If you promise to wear nothing else, I suppose I would not quibble.”
She laughed in delight, and he pictured the dimples deepening on either side of her mouth. He turned about, his desire for the moment calmed, to see her standing close to him, her eyes sparkling outrageously.
She was wearing a light muslin gown of pale green, whose bodice was, thankfully, fastened with small buttons to her throat.
“Look, Edward,” she said suddenly, shading her eyes with her hand as she gazed out to sea, “in the distance, to your left. What a gorgeous yacht. Look how her sails are billowing in the wind. I believe I can even make out gun mounts on her port side.”
It was a beautiful craft, Edward thought, his eyes following her pointing finger, of sufficient size for ocean travel.
“Drat,” Cassie said, turning back to him. “She is moving so swiftly that I cannot see whether she is English.” She added, with a small sigh, “How I wish I could captain her.”
“She is probably London-bound. In any case, my love, you are going to be far too occupied to concern yourself with yachts. There is our wedding trip to Scotland, you know. And then we will be married and you will have far more interesting things to do than concern yourself with such unfeminine pursuits.”
She frowned at him, but just for an instant. “There are undoubtedly sailing craft in Scotland, my lord, and if you would but once come sailing with me, I know you would change your opinion.”
“It is not that I doubt your prowess, Cass, it is merely that I have a very healthy respect for the sea and its power. Come, le
