Page 21 of An Earl Like You
Hattie paused at the corner of the small garden laid out on the east edge of Lady Fosberry’s lawn. It was a pretty spot, beautifully tended and large by London’s standards, but it was cramped indeed when compared to the Kentish countryside.
Here, one could hardly move a dozen paces before encountering the elegant iron fencing that separated it from the formal rose gardens on either side of it.
How she longed for the bright open meadows that surrounded Melrose House in Kent! She’d be home soon enough—as soon as she possibly could be—but until then she’d make what she could of this garden and be thankful that Lady Fosberry didn’t live in Berkeley Square.
She marched to the opposite corner of the garden, then back again in the other direction—back and forth, back and forth, her mind whirling with questions that had no answers.
They were to attend Lady Farthingale’s garden party tomorrow morning. Would she see Cass there? If so, how was she meant to behave towards him? What was she meant to say? Whatever else happened she must be careful not to attract the attention of the gossipington. If there was even a whisper of scandal attached to them, Johnathan might hear of it, and goodness knew what would happen then. He was a mild-tempered man, but he was terribly protective of them, and he wouldn’t easily overlook a secret jaunt to London.
And it might have all been for nothing?—
“You never did answer my question this afternoon, Lady Harriet.”
She’d paced to the opposite corner of the garden again, but she turned at the rumble of that deep voice, and her feet froze in place.
It was past seven o’clock in the evening, and the sun was just sinking below the horizon, washing everything around them in shades of gold and orange. She couldn’t quite make out his face at this distance, but there was no mistaking that voice.
It was him. Of course, it was him.
His voice had deepened since she’d heard it last, yet she knew every vibration of it, every chord and texture as if it were a beloved song she’d played so often each note of it was etched in her memory.
It was as familiar to her as the beat of her own heart.
She’d heard him tease, she’d heard him lecture, she’d heard his whisper in her ear, low and confiding, and she’d heard that voice light with laughter, but never—not once—had she ever heard it as cold as it was now.
It was his voice, and not his at the same time.
She’d hardly recognized Cass when she saw him earlier today. The man he’d become wasn’t at all like the boy he’d once been. His father had been a Corinthian and a Whip, and despite his wickedness, a fashionable man about town. He was accepted by thetonand welcomed everywhere he went.
But he’d been cold down to the deepest depths of his black heart.
It would be easy to believe that was the sort of man Cass had become. Grand and fashionable, but underneath his handsome face and elegant trimmings, callous and debauched.
But the loneliness she’d sensed in him when he first came to Kent all those years ago clung to him still, despite his aristocratic friends. Anyone who didn’t know him well wouldn’t have noticed it, but now he was so close to her, she could see it.
She could seehim. Everything he was, and everything he tried to hide.
It was as plain to her as lines written in a book.
She raised her chin and sucked in a breath to clear the tremble from her throat.
“What are you doing here, Cass?”
Had he come to beg her pardon for his coldness earlier? Hope rose in her breast, even as she cursed herself for a fool. Yet it would not be contained, pressing with wild abandon against her rib cage.
There was something so familiar about him, standing under the cherry tree that dominated the center of the garden, its slender dark branches now laden with thick clusters of pink flowers.
For as long as she’d known him, flowers and Cass had always gone together. Unbidden, a memory rose in her mind of him bent over a pile of daisies in his lap, his tongue resting in the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on stringing the delicate blooms together into a chain.
His hands were too big to make quick work of it, even then. She glanced at his hands hanging loosely by his sides and a strange sensation passed over her, settling in her lower belly.
“I told you already.” He stepped closer, a shadow with broad shoulders that blocked the last dim rays of sunlight. “I’ve come for an answer to my question. Have you come to London for the season, my lady?”
Ah, it was still my lady, was it? He’d chased her all the way here from Berkeley Square, but even so, he insisted on keeping this distance between them.
Her heart, ridiculous organ that it was, sank into the pit of her stomach. “Does Lady Fosberry know you’ve sneaked into her garden?”
“No. This has nothing to do with Lady Fosberry, or anyone else. This is between us.”
