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Another way Cassandra had been in error. When Papa asked her to marry Joshua, he had meant it not as a burden, but as a gift. Papa never intended for Cassandra to sacrifice happiness for her family, but rather to find happiness for herself.
Oh, Papa, she thought.Dear, dear Papa. You were so very right, and you were so very wrong.
* * *
Lord Charles’smisguided matchmaking hopes were still bouncing around Joshua’s mind when their carriage trundled back into the traffic. For the first time since Mrs. O’Dea had exploded that particular powder keg, he looked at Cassandra, who finished arranging herself and offered a wan smile.
He should tell her how he could look at her all day. That she did bring him happiness. That she made him stronger and calmer and he was every kind of fool.
Lord Charles had meant well, the poor, broken man, lost in a fog and smiling all the while.
“Don’t smile at me if you don’t mean it,” he snapped. “You don’t have to hide everything under a bloody smile.”
The smile disappeared. “I smiled at you because looking at you makes me smile. Except when it makes me want to throttle you or slap you or kiss you or all of those at once. I can smile at you and still be upset at others, because I am capable of feeling more than one thing at a time, and if that is too much for you to comprehend, let me tell you I jolly well don’t care.” Like a soldier, she straightened her gloves and her shoulders and tormented him with her politest face. “It seems I shall have time to help Lady Morecambe pick out some new china after all. She is wavering between the Delft and the Wedgwood. If you would be so kind as to let me down at Bond Street.”
Polite small talk. That was cruel and unusual punishment, and she knew it. What was the alternative? Rude big talk. Very well then.
“Tell me about your mother,” he said. “She left, she didn’t leave, she’s unwell, she’s not unwell. Do you have a mother or not?”
“I do and I don’t.” Her look seemed to challenge him to argue, so he stayed quiet. “When Charlie was dying, the doctor gave Mama something to help her sleep. She’s been taking it ever since. She is not always sure what is real.”
She lifted her chin and stared out the window, but not before he saw the shine in her eyes. Finally, he understood: Lady Charles was an opium eater and had retreated into her own world.
“All this time?” he said.
“On and off. I’ve discovered she takes less if she has something to occupy her mind. She used to have an interest in herbs and cordials, so last autumn, Mrs. Greenway and I fixed up the distillery, with new equipment and recipe books. Now she potters about in there most mornings, devising new cordials for us to sample. Her orange and sage wine is…interesting, shall we say. At least she is in the world for half the day.”
She looked as calm as if she had nothing on her mind but her aunt’s choice of porcelain, yet still she was turning herself inside out trying to fix her family, and not one of them seemed to know or care.
He was the worst of the lot, because he knew and he cared, and still he hurt her, time and time again. Yet somehow he couldn’t stop himself, because whenever being with her started to feel right, another part of him insisted that it was very, very wrong.
Then her face was soft and gentle, the face he usually saw by candlelight. His legs jiggled with the urge to hurl open the carriage door and throw himself out.
“What Papa wanted,” she said quietly. “For us.”
“No. Do not go getting romantic ideas simply because your father wanted it.”
“I was going to say I knew nothing of his matchmaking. I thought I was marrying you only to secure the inheritance.”
“And I told him I had no wish to marry again and would accept a marriage in name only.”
“Which is why we agreed to return to our separate lives.”
“Exactly,” he snapped, more irritated by her than he could ever recall being. “It means nothing that our bedsport is highly satisfactory—” He stopped. “It is satisfactory for you?”
“I have no complaints but I feel no need to discuss it. Heavens, what was Papa thinking? That I might be married to a man who discusses the most inappropriate things.”
“That I’m married to a woman who cares more about what is appropriate than about expressing her own needs.”
“A man so devoted to expressing himself that he cares not if he upsets others.”
“A woman so concerned with not upsetting others that she makes herself miserable.”
“A man who has learned only to run away from loss.”
“A woman who has never learned to fight for what is hers.”
The carriage lurched into a hole and their noses nearly bumped. As one, they realized that they were leaning across the carriage toward each other. As one, they threw themselves back against the squabs.
