“I didn’t mean to tease you,” he said. He didn’t like the word “mock.” “I don’t know what came over me at the table.” He wasn’t about to admit to jealousy. “Why shouldn’t you be a duchess? You could.” There, he’d apologized.
She was not mollified. “Idon’tdemand an apology for our dialogue at the dinner table, although youwererude. What you said to me in there is nothing less than what I would expect of you.” She sounded like the stuffiest of governesses.
“Oh. Well, then I’m sorry I apologized. I can’t seem to keep from offending you.” Yes, he wasmockingher, and rightly so. She was throwing his apology back in his face—and she was the one who had wanted it.
Her hands clenched into fists at her side. “You think you are so clever. Or that I am so desperate for marriage I’d lower my standards to your level—”
“Wait a minute, Cass. Now you are the one growing very personal here,” he warned.
“Cassandra,” she barked.
“Cass-andra,” he fired back. Her picking on the nickname didn’t make sense to Soren. Who wanted to go around being Cassandrrrraaa? The name was a mouthful. But a bit of honesty between them was refreshing. He pushed for more. “And, because I can’t read your mind and you obviously have been nursing a grudge against me for, what? Say, ten years and more—?”
“You called me a dog.”
The words flew out of her, and once spoken, she pulled away, covering her mouth, as if to deny them.
“A dog?” Soren frowned. “I’ve never said anything of the sort about you.”
That brought her back. “Oh yes, you did. It was at the Burfords’ house party.”
“Which one? They had one every year.”
“It was the last one you attended.” Her voice was accusing, as if he was being deliberately provocative.
“Right before I left for Canada?”
“Yes.”
Soren searched his mind. Why would he call her a dog, especially since she was anything but ugly or four-legged? “I don’t remember saying anything so offensive.”
“You don’t recall trying to be clever for the other boys?”
“I recollect the other lads. I also remember that suddenly, you refused to have anything to do with me.” He’d forgotten that day in general until this moment. “You went off in a huff. That was your cut direct?”
“Because you called me a dog,” she insisted.
He was genuinely puzzled. “Cassandra, I’m sorry. I have no memory of saying such a thing.”
She walked right up to him then. “We were up in the schoolroom, the lot of us. You picked up a slate and drew something. The other boys snickered over it. Do you not remember now?”
“No.”
She looked as if she could not,would notbelieve him.
He held up his hands as if to show her he was hiding nothing, and then the details of that day came into focus.
That morning, on the way to the Burford party, his father had informed Soren he would not be returning to school. He was behind on Soren’s board and the headmaster was becoming threatening.
Instead, his father had decided to send Soren to his uncle in Canada.You can finish your schooling there, he’d said.We’ll purchase a commission for you when you are of age. You’ll do well.
Soren’s stunned surprise had quickly escalated to fury that everything he’d known was going to be stripped away because of his father’s recklessness with money. In a fit of rebellious anger, he had nipped a bottle of port when no one was looking. He and the lads had escaped to the schoolroom to drink their bottle in private. That day, he had felt he was being thrown away. His friends would continue their schooling and go on to Oxford and he would be in Canada, wherever that was.
And then Cass and some of the girls had come into the room, disturbing the masculine bond a stolen bottle had given them...
He looked to her. “Tell me again what I did?”
“You drew a picture of a dog on one of the slates in the schoolroom. You wrote my name on it.” Her chin lifted in justified anger. She sounded grievously offended.
