Her cheeks flamed. “I am placing my trust in you, Your Grace. Please, do not disappoint me.”
He understood all too well what she meant. Few women risked meeting the Duke of Wadebridge alone, and those who did ventured into the shadows fully intent on courting scandal.
Cassandra Staunton was virtuous. A gently-bred country miss. She trusted him to be better than his villainous reputation. She wagered her future on his ability to be a good man.
CHAPTER NINE
The chair scraped as Cassandra rose to her feet. A footman rushed forward to help ease it back, and then she extricated her hoop skirts from beneath the table. This was hardly the effortless, inconspicuous exit she had hoped for.
Octavia looked up from her dessert dish. “Where are you going?”
“To the necessary,” she lied.
“Do you know where it is?”
Cassandra resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll find it.”
The elder sister frowned. Surely, Octavia had noticed the duke’s empty chair, his untouched dessert. His Grace had taken his leave and trusted Cassandra to invent an adequate lie to excuse herself from the group.
She hated deception. She loathed intrigue. She lived her life openly and honestly, and rarely did anything that could not be shared with her sisters.
Lying to Octavia in order to meet the Duke of Wadebridge?
Cassandra feared what sort of trap she’d fallen into.
The other guests were too engrossed in their champagne jellies to notice her absence—or his. She slipped from the dining room without a word. She dared not glance over her shoulder.
Removed from the festivities, the rest of the house was dark and quiet. Lamplit sconces had been dimmed, their light just bright enough to warm the walnut paneling.
Artwork hung at intervals throughout the house—paintings framed in gilt-wood, intimate family portraits, and vast landscapes. Some were more splendid than others, but all were worth a second, a third, and even a fourth look.
She envied Octavia, who lived her life surrounded by such beauty. The eldest Staunton could study these works at her leisure, while Cassandra could only steal a hurried glance.
She navigated the corridor without a servant to guide her way. Each footstep seemed to echo for miles down these labyrinthine passages, but somehow Cassandra found the entrance hall.
The duke stood beneath a chandelier. Dozens of beeswax candles illuminated the beautifully-plastered quatrefoil ceiling that towered overhead. Wadebridge heard her slippers tread the floorboards. He looked up, smiling, as she approached. “You’ve a daring streak.”
She did not return his smile. She was too nervous. “Did you not think I’d show?”
“I hoped you would, but, then again, I do not know you very well.”
“You know me well enough, it would seem. I must be marked an easy target.” Cassandra paused just out of reach. She clamped her arms to her skirts, ready to dash at the first sign of danger. Thankfully, voluminous silk shielded her shaking hands.
She dreaded being alone with men—they always made fools of themselves. A kind smile from her was often mistaken for flirtation. Friendly conversation inevitably led to some awestruck stranger following her home. Once, when she’d experimented kissing a handsome neighbor, the young lad had ruined their fun by dropping to one knee and offering marriage.
Cassandra’s beauty made good men do strange things. She was terrified to discover what lengths Wadebridge—a known libertine—might go to in order to possess her.
He offered his arm, and she flinched. Her face burned scarlet, yet he laughed! “You’re as jumpy as a foal. Haven’t you ever been alone with a man before?”
“I have.” She placed her hand on his sleeve. The wool was soft, fine, and warm. The man beneath was firm, elegant, and confident. Cassandra swallowed at the memory of his arms around her skirts. “But never with a duke.”
Never with someone likehim.
“Consider me a mere mortal, then,” Wadebridge said, leading her slowly across the hall. He was careful not to make any sudden movements, lest she flee screaming into the night. “I’ve infinite respect for you, Miss Staunton. I shan’t do anything to compromise you.”
“For some of my neighbors, this—here, now—is enough. Longstone is an old fashioned sort of place. My father used to believe that we were shielded by the dales, that those peaks and valleys protected us from whatever dangers lurked beyond. Of course, the railway changed all that, in the end.”
“But walking alone, in the dark, with a stranger still means ruination?”
