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I got ready for the evening meal with a sense of dread. But I need not have feared. Eddie appeared to have made his peace with Tynan and was at his most charming. Cad did not put in an appearance at all, having made arrangements, Lucy informed us, to dine with a friend. When I closed my curtains that night before retiring to bed, I could see flickering candlelight in the gatehouse window, and I wondered who the friend was. Perhaps Cad preferred the company of the anonymous corset wearer to the drama of Jago family life. I would not admit, even to myself, how much the thought hurt.
Eddie left for London again early the next day, promising to take me with him once the doctor agreed I could travel. His eagerness to get away was palpable, and I spared a scant minute to examine my own feelings on the matter. I ascribed my overwhelming sense of relief to the fact that Lucy—who I had come to consider a friend—would know a greater sense of tranquillity now that her warring sons were apart.
* * *
Struggling to fight off the mists of sleep, I fumbled to light my candle and hurried to answer the staccato summons on my bedroom door. When I opened it, Cad was leaning against the frame, the lids of his cat’s eyes half-closing sleepily. His white shirt hung open and his feet were bare. With a hint of his piratical smile, he held up one hand to show me the two-thirds empty bottle of brandy he clutched.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” His speech was very slightly slurred. “I thought it was time I got to know my new sister a little better.”
“I think we know each other well enough,” I informed him coldly. His eyes roamed the length of my body, and I was glad that one of my recent purchases had included the high-necked, serviceable, completely unrevealing nightgown I wore. My hair hung in a loose plait over my shoulder. In spite of the cold and the fact that I was alone, I would never have considered wearing a nightcap. The very idea made me shudder.
Ignoring my less than welcoming manner, Cad strolled past me into the room anyway, throwing himself down onto the bed and patting the space next to him invitingly. I closed the door but remained standing. “Ah, but that was on a purely physical level, bouche,” he reminded me with a reminiscent grin. “So, while I know how much you enjoy having the back of your neck kissed, and that you have a tiny mole, shaped like a star, on the inside of your thigh, and that, if I flick my tongue just inside—”
“Stop it!” I gasped. Fury and surging lust fought a desperate battle in my breast. Fury won. But only just.
“But I am simply illustrating my point, bouche,” he said reasonably, unstopping the bottle and taking a long swig. “I know all of these things, but I do not know where you grew up, who your family are, what music you enjoy. Or, for example, why you were in my bed in Paris, when you were living with my brother. Your ‘roommate,’ I think you called him?”
He had obviously been making enquiries about me. I should have expected it. I took a deep breath. “It was wrong of me to have spent the night with you—”
“No it wasn’t!” The words were wrenched from him with an intensity that astonished me. “You know as well as I do, it was right. The most perfect, incredibly right thing—My God, bouche, if you knew how hard I tried to find you again! I was like a man possessed. I even threatened to choke the life out of Maurice if he did not tell me who you were. But the little worm feigned not to know your name.”
I should think not. I had sworn Maurice and Claude to silence and, in return had posed for them free of charge for a whole month. I had also steadfastly refused to allow them to tell me the identity of my mysterious stranger. If he had a name, I reasoned, he would become real and it would be even harder for me to consign him to the past.
Cad broke off, running a hand through his already disordered hair. “You cannot love Eddie, bouche, not after what we shared.”
“You are very sure of yourself.”
“I was there, bouche. I have every reason to be.” I knew, of course, that the arrogance in his tone was justified. “And, having seen the two of you together, even fleetingly, I know you don’t love him. And he—” The word was filled with contempt. “The way he looks at you is the way a child seeks his mother’s breast. For sustenance, nothing more. You have more fire and passion in your little finger than my brother has in his whole body.”
