“Me?” Head canting to the side, Gabriel’s smile was arrogant, “Why me?”
“Look for yourself. Turn around,” Cecilia said.
Once again, his brows lifted, and Cassian pivoted as Gabriel did. The man suddenly went as white as chalk, and Cassian almost stepped in behind him in case he swooned.
His eyes landed on a young woman with auburn locks, and she was holding a boy with wheat-colored hair, no more than two years old, in her arms. The way the gathering went quiet, the wicked smile on Lady Catherine’s face, and the pure horror on Whitmore’s face made Cassian’s mind jump.
“Don’t you wish to greet Miranda, Your Grace?” Cecilia offered boldly. “Though I suspect she does not, I am sure yoursonhas sorely missed you.”
It took a mere second before a bell struck in his mind, and Cassian’s head snapped to Cecilia as his mouth fell an inch. Gabriel was rocking on his heels, and this time, two more men neared him as his face went bloodless, as if he were about to drop dead.
“Son?” Gabriel snorted derisively, but his tone was weak. “I do not have a son.”
“Yes, you do,” Catherine said as she came closer to the woman. “Frankly, I am ashamed for you, Your Grace. How can you look yourself in the mirror knowing you were so scandalous, acted like such a louse, and dismissed the girl when she could not tickle your fancy any longer?
“Do you think it was easy to get her here, embarrassing her just to show your hypocrisy?” Catherine took the young boy from the mother. “You are not the paragon of the ton, Your Grace. You are like any other rakehell here.”
Cassian whistled faintly. “Suchdelicate words,my lady. I think it might have been more merciful if you had drawn and quartered him.”
“I have no idea who this woman is,” Gabriel blustered, but his eyes darted around their sockets like a cornered animal.
Coming to Cecilia, Cassian noted how the occupants of the green lingering near them began to whisper between themselves; he saw the raised brows and secret smirks behind the champagne flutes. Lady Ophelia had pulled from Whitmore, horror growing on her face as well.
Her eyes flickered between the child and Gabriel—as did everyone else’s—and there was no doubt, the boy was his blood. Ducking his mouth to Cecilia’s ear, he whispered, “Did you have a hand in this?”
She swallowed and looked up, gazed at his eyes, and then, after a long moment, nodded.
A wild, uninhibited pride struck a fire in Cassian’s chest, and if not for potentially taking away the solid debasing Whitmore was being served, he would have most certainly swept Cecilia into his arms and given her the wildest kiss of her life.
“I—” Gabriel rose to his full height at the whispers floating in. “This is a trap! It’s nonsense. Surely you good people can see that, right?”
Ben came forward and clasped his hand on Whitmore’s shoulder, “I think we should take this inside, old boy.”
“What? There is absolutely no reason to—” Whitmore spun, and as he spotted the disbelieving and frankly disgusted expression on the faces of the people around him, he went even paler. He looked at Ben and swallowed. “M-maybe that is best. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.”
As Ben headed the disgraced duke, the woman, and the child inside, the green burst with hushed whispers and chatter. Cassian drew Cecilia to the side, his hands hooked under her arm, pulling her closer toward the garden maze.
“Cassian—?”
“Shh,” he whispered as he dragged them through the maze. Once away from peering eyes, he dropped his hands on her waist andpulled her in. “Why didn’t you tell me you had such a brilliant plan in the works? Hell, how did you know something I didn’t?”
She rested her hands on his shoulders. “There are some secrets women have access to that men do not. To be bluntly honest, when I met with Ladies Catherine and Jane—”
“Sisters of consorting misery?”
She rolled her eyes, “—to find some blight on Gabriel’s name, I learned that he was once as scandalous as any rakehell in London, but then he reinvented himself into the incomparable. Lady Catherine was the one who knew about Miranda, but I was not so sure about the plan.”
“Why?” Cassian laughed. “If I had known, I would have gone to get her myself.”
Lacing her arms around his neck, she murmured, “Because it would hurt her in the process. Alas, it was she who was up to it more than we all. So, I wanted to do this. For me.
“Fortunately, this scandal will be big enough that it will suffocate the rumors he was spinning on my name.”
Pride cloaked Cassian’s chest as he held her. “Devil, you’ve no idea how aroused you make me.”
Before he knew what he was doing, he cupped her jaw in his hands, drew her face to his, and kissed her. Her body froze, but her lips parted when his breath brushed against them.
It felt like the most natural reaction in the world. He hoped to hell she had not been getting kissing lessons from other men. Her tongue met his with the same fervor he was giving her.
