Page 43 of Impetuous

“I was only speaking the truth.”

“I’ll tell you this—you will never catch a husband as long as you can control your tongue no better than this!”

“I have no wish to ‘catch’ a husband who cannot stand to hear the truth.”

The two women glared at each other. Aunt Ardis marched past Cassandra and opened the door. “I shall expect an apology in the morning,” she said, not looking back at her niece, and stalked out, slamming the door behind her.

“Hah!” Cassandra made a face at the blank door. She knew she would apologize, of course. However annoying and venal her aunt might be, she was still an older relative and therefore deserving of courtesy. But the apology would indeed have to wait until the next morning. Right now Cassandra was too seething with rage at her aunt’s clumsy warning.

It wasn’t true. Cassandra was certain that Sir Philip was not so base a man. She did not believe that he went about the country leaving a trail of poor seduced maidens in his wake. Perhaps he was a man of great appetite. Heat stabbed her abdomen at the memory of her own experience with that appetite. But he was not wicked. He would not take his pleasure at the considerable expense of another.

Would he?

She could not help but think of the other night, when he had kissed her. Sir Philip’s actions certainly had not been those of a gentleman. What would have happened if Chumley had not happened along? There had been no indication that Sir Philip would have stopped.

And what about the other times? She had to admit that Sir Philip’s interactions with her had been disturbingly sexual. Did that mean he intended to seduce and abandon her? Her aunt was right in saying that she knew little about men. Everything women said about men seemed to indicate that men pursued a woman for either honorable love or dishonorable sex, and there was a great chasm between the two. As lowering as her aunt’s blunt assessment of her was, Cassandra was honest enough to admit that it, too, was true: a spinster possessed of neither fortune nor a beautiful face. It was not the description of a woman a man would pursue for marriage.

It followed then that if Sir Philip was interested in her personally, he was interested in her only for sex. Was he that callous? That cruel? Was he the sort of man who would ruin a woman’s reputation for his own pleasure?

Cassandra sighed. She could not believe Sir Philip was uncaring and deceitful. He did not talk with her and laugh with her, acting as if he enjoyed her company, because he was trying to lure her into his bed.

Yet she could not still the small, insidious voice inside her head that kept asking: Why else would he be interested in her?

CHAPTER TEN

CASSANDRA LEANED HER head back against the richly stuffed leather squab of the carriage and sighed with pleasure. She had slept little the past two nights, and the entire day yesterday had been one long trial. But she had finally gotten through it, even apologizing dutifully to her aunt this morning for what she had said to her the night before. The atmosphere between them had remained stiff and unpleasant, but at least Aunt Ardis had been willing to start out on the journey to Haverly House.

Her aunt, of course, had tried every stratagem to get Sir Philip to ride in the Moulton carriage with her and Joanna, but he had politely and smilingly refused, saying that he preferred to ride his horse. It was only his riding outside either of the carriages that had made it at all acceptable to Aunt Ardis. Had he ridden in his own carriage with Cassandra and her family, Cassandra was sure that her aunt would have been red with apoplexy.

Cassandra, on the other hand, was well content with the arrangement. Sir Philip’s carriage was both roomier and more luxurious than her aunt’s, as well as being much better sprung. Of course, there had been the little problem of Hart’s bit of travel sickness at the beginning, but once they had stopped and let him relieve himself of his breakfast by the side of the road, he felt much better, and they were able to continue in relative peace.

Sir Philip rode beside his carriage, and with the curtains rolled up both inside and out, it was possible to talk to him through the open window—not to carry on a full conversation, of course, for it was too noisy, but she could exchange a remark now and then or ask a question. Cassandra also noticed that it gave her a wonderful opportunity to look at him unobserved.

He sat his horse superbly, back straight, his strong thighs easily controlling the spirited animal he rode. He rode hatless, and his hair glinted black in the sunlight like a crow’s wing. The breeze tousled his hair, giving it a faintly unkempt look that Cassandra found appealing. She studied the firm jut of his jaw, the strength of his mouth and chin. And she wondered, all over again, how much, if any, of what Aunt Ardis had said was true.

She watched idly as the familiar landscape of the Cotswolds passed by. They stopped to rest the horses at an inn in Chipping Norton. As soon as they jumped out of the carriage, Hart and Crispin began to pepper Sir Philip with questions about his carriage and the horses, a beautifully matched set of four that even Cassandra, no connoisseur of horseflesh, could tell were remarkable.

Philip, laughing, suggested that they ask the coachman himself. “Will!” he shouted in the direction of his driver, who was overseeing the hostlers unhitching the horses. “I have a couple of would-be coachmen here. Why don’t you and Tommy take them in hand?”

“Of course, sir,” the coachman answered affably, nodding to his assistant Tommy to take his place supervising the inn’s hostlers and walking over to where Sir Philip stood with the boys. “Mayhap you’d like to climb up and see what the view is like from where I sit.”

“Would I!” Crispin cried, while Hart was rendered speechless by such bounty.

“Could I, too?” Olivia asked.

The coachman turned toward her, surprised, but Philip with a smile said, “Of course, Miss Olivia—that is, if it is all right with your sister.”

Cassandra nodded, smiling, pleased that he had not denied the pleasure to her sister. Olivia grinned and began to clamber up after the boys.

“Olivia swings back and forth between wanting to put her hair up and wear long skirts and dazzle every man in sight and wanting to climb trees with her brothers,” Cassandra told him, amused, watching her siblings. “Thank you for letting her. I know many would think it an unfit thing for a girl, but Papa and I always believed in not restricting activities to certain sexes. Papa said it was stifling to the mind and weakening to the will.”

“It is obvious that your father applied his principles to you, as well.”

“Thank you. I will take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as such.” Sir Philip grinned down at her, admiring the way the sunlight turned Cassandra’s serious gray eyes almost silver.

“Olivia!” A shocked cry burst from their aunt as Ardis crossed the yard toward them. “Get down from there at once. Cassandra! What are you thinking, letting her scramble around like a hoyden? It’s disgraceful!”