Impetuous

“There is no need to be testy,” Cassandra stated. “And you needn’t worry for your, uh, for the lady’s reputation. I’m not likely to besmirch my family by telling anyone that Joanna makes assignations with men in her bedchamber. She is my cousin, you see.”

“Your cousin?” Neville studied her face in the candlelight. “That’s odd. I don’t recall seeing you with her.”

“That is often the case.” Cassandra kept her voice light. She was used, after all, to being overshadowed by her beautiful, flirtatious cousin. Joanna’s guinea-gold hair and large blue eyes generally captured all male attention when she was around.

Cassandra, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, knew that she was on the shelf and, indeed, had never been popular with men. She had not “taken” one during her season, and her father had not been able to afford more than one. Cassandra knew, anyway, that any number of social seasons would not have seen her married. For one thing, she had no knack for flirtation and even less interest in it. For another, while she was not precisely plain, her features lacked the even perfection of a true beauty. Her cheekbones were too high, her jaw too firm, and her mouth was much too wide for the popular rosebud look. Even her eyes, which she felt to be her best feature, were a quiet gray rather than a soulful brown or a sparkling blue, and she did not use them to her advantage, instead gazing at the world in a straightforward, clear way that did not lure men.

So she had retired from the social world after one year, not really displeased that she had not made a successful marriage. She had done the season as a duty for her family. They were, as always, in desperate need of money, and she would have gritted her teeth and said yes if an eligible man had asked for her hand. But she had found no man during the year of her debut whom she had accounted as anything but boring, and she was, frankly, quite glad to return to the bosom of her family at Chesilworth unengaged and unlikely ever to be so. With relief, she had donned her old clothes, wound her hair up into the familiar bun and jumped back into the management of her father’s household, which had fallen into a woeful state in her absence. She found contentment in raising her younger brothers and sister, and intellectual companionship with her father, and if there was anything missing in her life—other than a chronic lack of money—she had not felt it, or at least had not allowed the feeling to dwell long. At social functions, she sat with the matrons overseeing the antics of the youngsters, rather than with the giggling, hopeful maidens, whose conversations she found stultifying, and in the last couple of years, she had even taken to wearing a small cap over her hair in acknowledgment of her spinster status. It was just as well, she thought, that men’s eyes slid past her indifferently. It was much less trying not to have to make conversation about nothing.

Still...she could not help but feel a twinge of hurt at the thought that Sir Philip had not even noticed her when he was standing not three feet away from her, chatting with Aunt Ardis and her cousin Joanna.

“You were otherwise occupied,” she continued, not without a sting.

“I see.” He turned and looked at her. It puzzled him that he could have missed noticing this creature with the wide eyes and tumbling mass of bright hair and...other, entrancing features. His gaze dropped down to her torso, where her nightgown, still unbuttoned, had once again slipped off her shoulder and down her arm, revealing a high, firm white breast with its enticing pinkish brown nipple. Even fully clothed and with her hair done up in proper midday form, how could he not have noticed her?

Cassandra, following the direction of his gaze, glanced down and saw with horror that her breast was exposed. Blushing furiously, she jerked up the neck of her nightgown and began buttoning it up, keeping her eyes turned down. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her! How could she face him again? No man had ever seen more of her than what was bared by the neckline of an evening gown. Now this man, this stranger to her, had seen her with the intimacy of a husband. Worse—what was she doing with half the buttons of her gown undone? She thought of the wild, swirling emotions of her dream, the startling sensations and the heat in her abdomen. What had happened? Had it been not a dream lover but a real man touching her in those intimate ways? Had this man caused that fierce, primeval jolt of pleasure that had finally dragged her from her slumber?

She looked up at him, color still staining her cheeks. She was embarrassed, but Cassandra Verrere was not one to flinch from the truth. “What happened? Here, tonight, I mean. I—I feel so strange. I dreamed, well, bizarre things, things that I— Were they real? What did you—what did I do?”

Sir Philip hesitated, then he leaned over and took her hand gently. “You did nothing. I assure you. I entered your room, thinking you were another. You were in the midst of a fevered dream. I—you were tossing and turning. Thinking you were Joanna, I came over and, ah, took your arms. I tried to wake you, but you were very heavily asleep. I...kissed you. And you woke up. That is when I realized that you were not Miss Moulton.”

“And that is all?”

His eyebrows rose lazily. “Yes. Of course. What else could there be?”

Cassandra let out a sigh of relief. “Nothing. It was just peculiar. I felt as if I were not quite asleep, yet I could not seem to pull myself out of my slumber.”

“No doubt you had a tiring day.”

“Mmm.” Cassandra knew it had not been at all tiring physically. But the social interaction that a large house party involved was rather wearying. Still... “I think you had better leave now.”

“Yes. You’re right.” He slid off the bed and walked toward the door. Cassandra followed him. He paused and turned toward her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she responded automatically, then added, “What are you thanking me for?”

“For being a most calm and reasonable young woman. There are not many who would have reacted as you did.”

“Oh.” Cassandra nodded matter-of-factly. “I am afraid I haven’t much sensibility.”

He reached for the doorknob, but Cassandra laid a restraining hand on his arm. “No. You had better let me see if anyone happens to be out in the hall first.”

“Of course.” He nodded and stepped back.

Cassandra eased the door open a crack and put her eye to it. She gasped and jerked back, closing the door hastily. She turned to Sir Philip, her eyes huge.

“What is it?” He made a move toward the door, but she raised her hand.

“Don’t!” she cautioned. “Shh. It’s my aunt!”

Almost without thinking, she reached down and turned the key in the lock. The last thing she wanted was for Aunt Ardis to barge into her room.

“What is she doing here?” he whispered.

“I have no idea. Could she have seen you enter my room? If she knocks on the door, you will have to hide.” She looked speculatively toward the window. “I wonder if you could escape out the window.”

“We are on the second floor,” he reminded her.

“There might be a trellis or a tree.”

He raised one brow sardonically. “You seem awfully familiar with this sort of predicament.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

Their discussion was interrupted at that moment by heavy pounding on a door, not Cassandra’s, but the one next door. Cassandra jumped at the sound, then relaxed with a heartfelt sigh. “Thank God. She’s at Joanna’s room.”

“Joanna!” Aunt Ardis bellowed, her voice carrying clearly through the walls. “Open this door. This is your mother! Open this door at once, I say!”

“Is your aunt in the habit of waking everyone up in the middle of the night this way?”

Cassandra shook her head, puzzled. “No. I cannot imagine what has possessed her. She is always in bed by ten.”

“Joanna!”

Cassandra stealthily unlocked her door and opened it a fraction, peering out at the spectacle of her aunt. Aunt Ardis was a sizable woman, with a large bosom that thrust out like the prow of a ship when she was corseted. It did so now, despite the fact that Aunt Ardis wore a red velvet dressing gown and bedroom slippers. Cassandra noticed, too, that her hair was still coiled up into its usual flat braided bun, not hanging loose down her back. Cassandra frowned, wondering what could have happened to put her aunt into such a state.

“Joanna! Open up I say. Who’s in there with you? I heard voices.”

“Voices!” Cassandra exclaimed softly and looked back at Sir Philip. “Oh, dear, do you think she could have heard us?”

Neville shook his head, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Cassandra had to admit that it seemed unlikely, given the fact that her aunt’s room was on the other side of Joanna’s.

At that moment Joanna’s door was wrenched open, and Joanna cried out in a carrying whisper, “Hush! It’s too early! He’s not here yet!”

Aunt Ardis’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her daughter in horror. All up and down the hall, doors were opening and heads were popping out, their expressions variously sleepy, irritated or avid, and some all three.

“I say, what’s going on?” Colonel Rivington, across the hall from Joanna’s room, called out. “What is all this commotion?”

“Uh.” Aunt Ardis’s mouth opened and closed like that of a landed fish.

“I’m so sorry.” Joanna smiled sweetly at the man. “Please forgive my mother. She was, uh, she was just...”

“Worried!” Aunt Ardis found her voice. “That’s it. I was worried. I heard Joanna crying out in her sleep. She must have been having a bad dream.”

“Yes,” Joanna agreed quickly. “A nightmare. I was having a nightmare.”

Cassandra eased the door shut and turned toward Sir Philip, frowning in puzzlement. “How odd. Why are they—” She stopped short at the forbidding expression on his face. “What is it?”

“I understand now.” His words were short and clipped, his mouth thinned with distaste. “I was surprised when Miss Moulton threw herself at me this afternoon. Before that she had been acting like the usual coy, flirtatious maiden. Then suddenly she turned into a brazen woman of the world.” He remembered his faint surprise as she had “accidentally” brushed against him three times this afternoon in the conservatory and the seductive looks she had sent him, the long, promising kiss behind a palm tree as she slipped the note into his hand.