She wailed aloud, reared up from his shoulder, and twisted about, smashing her fist against his cheek.
The quickness of her assault took him off his guard and he nearly lost his grip on the ladder. Cassie heard shouts from the sailors above and struggled against him, until she looked down and saw that if he lost his hold, they would be plunged into her boat, not into the water.
She went limp on his shoulder.
“Death is never preferable, is it, Cassandra?”
She gritted her teeth and said nothing.
He stepped over the side, onto the quarterdeck, gently eased her off his shoulder, and set her on her feet. She ran until she felt a palm flattened against the small of her back.
“Leave her be, Scargill, she is not a fool.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Cassie whirled about. “You are Lord Clare’s valet. I recognize you. Will you not tell me the meaning of this?”
She heard the earl say crisply, from behind her, “All in good time, Cassandra. First I must see to your boat.”
She turned slowly. “What do you mean?”
“You will soon understand,” he said, striding toward her. Cassie forced herself not to move, and thrust her chin upward, unwilling to let him see how frightened she was.
He reached out and lifted off her wide-brimmed straw hat. She watched as it floated in the stiff breeze to the polished wooden deck.
“You will have no further need of your hat. I have never really liked them, you know. Your face should be tanned golden by the sun.” She blinked, and before she could respond, he turned abruptly away from her.
“Dilson, is the bow firmly secured?”
“Aye, captain.”
Scargill stepped from her side to stand beside the earl. Cassie gripped the bronze railing and watched as her small sailboat lurched clumsily through the waves, drawn forward by the yacht.
“Harden up a little, Angelo,” she heard him order the helmsman. “No nearer, the rocks are treacherous. Keep her so.” She saw him turn and nod to the sailor, Dilson, and the little man climbed like an agile monkey over the side and down the ladder to her boat. He drew a sword and with several powerful strokes hacked through the wooden mast. It teetered an instant and fell, shrouded in its white sail, into the water.
“No!” She rushed forward, without thought, to climb over the side of the yacht.
She felt a strong hand on her arm and turned in her fury to strike him. He efficiently clasped both her wrists in one large hand.
“I am truly sorry, Cassandra. I know that you love your sailboat, but it must be done.”
He shaded his eyes with his free hand, took in their distance from the clumps of outjutting rocks near shore, and commanded suddenly, “Cut her loose, Dilson.”
Dilson’s sword sliced through the looped rope about the bow. In an instant, he scrambled back to the ladder and pushed off the sailboat with his booted foot.
“Please do not,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. “The tide will smash her against the rocks.”
“Yes, I know, but you will not witness it.” He turned to the helmsman. “Lay the course, Angelo. Come, Cassandra.”
Chapter 7
Cassie walked beside him down the deck to the companionway, vaguely mindful of low-pitched sailors’ voices blending with the sounds of flapping sails overhead. He drew her to a halt below deck in front of a closed door.
“After you, Cassandra,” he said as he opened the door, and stood back for her to enter.
Cassie stepped into a shadowy cabin, aware of the tangy scent of lemon polish and sandalwood. She dully noted the rich mahogany paneling and the elegant furnishings. It was a cabin fit for a captain and an earl. She whipped about at the sound of a key turning in the lock.
He turned to face her, a broad-shouldered man, who now seemed a dangerous stranger to her. His eyes appeared black in the soft afternoon light of the cabin, darker than she remembered, almost as black as his arched brows and his thick hair.
“Would you care for a cup of tea?” he asked.
She stared at him, and shook her head out of habit.
“Forgive my lapse of memory. You do not care for tea, do you? Most un-English of you, Cassandra.”
She watched warily as he crossed the cabin, his steps noiseless on the deep pile of the blue carpet, and eased himself onto a high-backed leather chair, one of four that stood about an elegant circular table.
“Will you not sit down?”
Cassie forced her feet forward to stand behind one of the chairs, and clutched at its carved back.
“How stupid of me to have forgotten,” she said finally, forcing her voice into momentary calm. “I saw your yacht once, long ago, at Clacton.”
“Perhaps you did, but then her name was not The Cassandra. She is lovely, is she not? Even Farmer George wanted to purchase her, but of course, I refused.”
She waved away his words. “If you would not mind, I should like to know the meaning of your senseless behavior.”
“My behavior is never senseless, Cassandra. In this particular instance, perhaps, I was forced to employ some rather rough and ready methods to secure your presence.”
“Damn you, my lord, tell me the meaning of this.” She drew a deep breath and swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “You are an English peer, my lord, an earl. I did not believe that gentlemen of your rank and wealth indulged in white slavery. Are there other young English ladies aboard your yacht?”
Anthony Welles blinked at her, then threw back his head and laughed aloud, his white teeth contrasting with his tanned face. “White slavery. Good God, Cassandra, what an imagination you have. A slaver in the English Channel.”
“In that case, my lord, there is much that requires my attention at Hemphill Hall, for I am to be married tomorrow, as you know since you are an invited guest. You will please set me ashore at once.”
The humor fell from his face, and he sat forward in his chair. His rugged features softened as his eyes rested intently upon her face. “You are not going back to Hemphill Hall, Cassandra.”
“I do not understand you,” she said slowly. “I have been told that your wealth is great, thus I cannot credit that you wish to hold me for ransom. I ask you again, my lord, what is your purpose?”
“My purpose, Cassandra, is to make you my wife.”
She jerked back at his softly spoken words and stared at him in shock. “I do not believe you, my lord. And I find your jest repellent. Set me ashore, I demand it.”
He was silent for what seemed an eternity to Cassie, and she rushed on in furious speech. “My family will miss me. They will mount a search when I do not return and—” Her words died in her throat, and she felt herself go white.
“And, Cassandra,” he finished for her, “they will find your boat smashed upon the rocks. You know yourself that the tides in this area are vicious, unpredictable.”
“They will believe me drowned, dead.” She raised wide, uncomprehending eyes to his face. “But this makes no sense. Why are you doing this to me? I have always believed you to be my friend, that you liked me.”
“Indeed, I am your friend, only now I will be much more to you.”
Cassie stared into his face, a face that many ladies she knew admired, one that over the past few years even she had come to think harshly beautiful. Now, in his black knee boots and billowing white shirt, his black hair unpowdered and blown into disarray by the sea wind, he looked the swarthy pirate, not the English earl.
She said, still trying to cling to her image of him, “You seem different, changed. I have always thought of you as an indulgent uncle . . .”
He winced, but remained silent.
“A gentleman, a powerful lord, whose esteem gave me confidence. You were someone who never cared if I did something stupid or didn’t behave like a simpering girl. You treated Eliott as a brother after my father’s death, teaching him his responsibilities as baron, helping him. By God, he was even touting your praises at our ball
last week.”
“And I am fond of your brother. Though he will never have your strength of character, he is nonetheless an amiable boy. You will see him again.”
She shook her head at him in disbelief, unable to grasp the enormity of his words. She said in a shaking voice, “Damn you, this is ludicrous, my lord. You cannot do this. I am to be married tomorrow.”
“I suppose that my thirty-four years do seem ancient to one of eighteen. As for Edward Lyndhurst,” he continued with calm detachment, “you were never meant to belong to him. Your turbulent girl’s infatuation for him would not have lasted, you know. Although you have known him all your life, he is cut from a very different cloth than are you.”
“You do not know what you are talking about, my lord. I have loved Edward all my life, and nothing you can do or say will change that.”
“I daresay that I shall say and do many things, Cassandra, that will help you to change.” He shook his head in mock reproof. “It came as quite a surprise to me that a well-bred English girl would correspond surreptitiously with a soldier. It was stupid of me, I suppose, to believe Lyndhurst out of your heart and mind when he left three years ago.”
“He has never been out of either, my lord,” she said coldly. “I would like to know how the devil you found out about our letters.”
He waved an indifferent, dismissing hand. “It’s not particularly important. Suffice it to say that his abrupt return and your immediate announcement to wed with him forced a dramatic shift in my plans.”
“What do you mean—your plans?”
“Simply that I fully intended to court you during your Season in London in proper style and wed you at Hanover Square, with all the pomp due to the Countess and Earl of Clare.”
She regarded him with cold contempt. “You lied to yourself, my lord, for never would I have wed you, nor will I. How very convenient for you that I came out in my boat today. Have you been skulking about long?”
“For the past two weeks, if you would know the truth. I did not expect Lyndhurst to have such control over your actions. Did he plan to burn your sailboat, Cassandra?”
“He will come to understand, I know it.” She saw that he was regarding her with disbelief. “Damn you, it’s none of your affair in any case.”
“I have told you, my dear, that you are now completely my affair. I beg you not to forget that.”
“When I look at the coward who speaks, of course I shall. And what would you have done, sir, had I not come sailing today?”
“Ah, a question that I posed to myself several times. You would have come to my yacht dressed in your nightgown, Cassandra. Certainly a more harrowing solution and one that would have left untidy questions. I thank you for being so obliging.”
She slowly shook her head back and forth, and rising panic filled her voice. “You cannot do this. Please, you must let me go home.”
“You home is with me now, Cassandra. I have watched you grow into a lovely young woman, watched you let your skirts down and cease scraping your knees. I have much time and energy invested in you, my lady, and since your seventeenth birthday, I have been determined to marry you. Though I regret that you will feel grief for your lost viscount, I know that it will pass. Hearts do not break, you know, they merely bruise for a while.”
She turned on him viciously. “I find you repellent, my lord, and quite mad. If you believe that I shall ever change my mind or forget Edward Lyndhurst, you are a fool. As to marrying you, I shall see you in hell first.”
She dashed to the cabin door and twisted frantically at the knob. She raised her fists and pounded at the door, blind to anything save her escape from him. She dug her nails relentlessly into the small space where the door met its frame, and tore them on the wooden splinters. A defeated sob ripped from her throat, and she sank slowly to her knees, her cheek pressed against the door.
Anthony Welles rose quietly from his chair and walked to her crumpled figure. He frowned at the sight of her torn fingernails, several of them ripped so deeply that they bled. He dropped to one knee beside her and laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Come, Cassandra, you have hurt yourself.” As he slipped his arm about her waist to pull her upright, she twisted about, and with a cry of rage, smashed her fists against his chest. She caught him off balance and he toppled backward, pulling her with him. He grabbed her wildly flailing arms, rolled her over on her back, and pinned her hands above her head. He saw the blind fury in her eyes and slammed his leg down over hers to stop her from kicking him. She lay panting beneath him, her chest and belly moving in deep gulping breaths.
She grew suddenly still. “Let me go,” she said in a voice of deadly calm.
He stared down at her pale, set face. “You were the attacker, Cassandra,” he said finally. “I will release you if you promise to keep your knee away from my manhood.”
Slowly, she nodded.
“Will you also promise to let me take care of your hands? You have torn your fingers quite badly.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and said, “I promise.”
The earl released her and helped her to her feet. “Come and sit down.”
She stared at streaks of her blood on his white shirt and became aware of throbbing pain in her fingers. She sat down on the chair he held for her and splayed her fingers on the table top.
She lowered her head and did not look up even as she felt him lifting her fingers, one by one, sponging off the blood with warm water.
“Don’t move, Cassandra. I must fetch some bandages, several fingers must be bound.”
She kept her head bowed as he wrapped slender strips of white linen about her fingers.
He looked up from his task when she said in a low, tightly controlled voice, “The first time I remember seeing you was when I was a small child. You were very kind to me I recall, even brought me a pastry from a fair stall in Colchester.”
“I remember.”
“But then you left and it was some years before I saw you again. Miss Petersham said you were a great nobleman both in England and in Italy and that you did not spend all your time in England. I also remember now that I had nearly forgotten you when you suddenly returned when I was fourteen. You gave me an ivory chess set for my birthday. I asked Miss Petersham if you had a daughter of my age and whether that was why you were so attentive to me.”
The earl gently cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “You are the image of your mother and it was her face that was in my mind until yours replaced it.”
“My mother?” she asked, knitting her brows.
“Yes. You see, I loved Constance, even though I was hardly more than a boy at the time, but unfortunately she had already wed your father. That she was my senior by six or so years was unimportant to me. The last time I saw her, her belly was stretched full with child—with you.”
“Then you should hate me, for I killed her.”
“Perhaps I did, for a time, just as I hated your father for planting his seed in her womb. I left England and did not return for some five years. When I came back, I met you, her daughter, and you were the image of her. You were such a lively child, full of wonder, your eyes bright with intelligence. It was in my mind to take an interest in Constance’s daughter, to watch her grow up, to be a part of her life in some way. When I saw you at fourteen, it was only Constance’s face that I beheld, not her character or personality. I was drawn to you as a young girl, Cassandra, and when you turned seventeen, I realized that I wanted you, loved you for yourself.”
“You lie to yourself, my lord. It is my mother you love.”
“You are quite wrong,” he said.
“You do not really know me. You cannot love someone you do not know.”
“But I know you quite well, Cassandra, believe me.”
In her bewilderment, she tried to close her hands, and winced from the pain in her fingers. She felt his long fingers close about her wrists, and she knew it was to keep her from hurting herself. T
he small token of his caring made her sick with despair.
She raised bleak eyes to his face. “How can you want someone who does not love you?”
“There are few things in life that are unchangeable.”
She reared back. “Damn you, I don’t want your glib words, my lord. I shall never change.”
“You are but eighteen years old, Cassandra,” he said gently, and abruptly released her wrists. He sat back in his chair and regarded her silently. She saw tenderness in his dark eyes, and drew back instinctively. She hated herself, but could not prevent her pleading words. “Please, just take me home. I swear I shall tell no one about what you did. Just take me home, I beg you.”
He said with cold finality, “No. And never again abase yourself, Cassandra, it ill befits your character.”
“How dare you speak so arrogantly about my character? You can have no real notion whatsoever about me. If I choose to plead or abase myself, even to a knave like you, it is because it is in my character to do so.”
Her torrent of words, spoken with such perverse defiance, made him smile. “I suppose that next you will tell me that a woman’s tears come easily to you, that a woman’s guile are also part of your character.”
“Go to the devil.”
“Ah, the lady finally speaks words I understand. I wager that other young ladies of your age would have demonstrated sufficient sensibility by this time to have swooned at least twice. I thank God for your character, Cassandra, for fainting ladies are a damned nuisance.”
She turned stiffly away from him and felt cold despair once again pervade her mind like a familiar cloak. She could feel the swiftness of the yacht and knew that each minute took her farther away from her home and from Edward.
“Where is your yacht bound?” she asked, not looking at him. Perhaps he would dock somewhere in England and she could escape him.
He extinguished the small glimmer of hope with one word. “Italy. Genoa, to be exact. We have a long voyage ahead of us. You know, of course, that my father was an English peer, the third Earl of Clare. My mother was Italian. Over the past years I have spent roughly equal periods of time in both countries. Now, my mother’s homeland will be mine—ours.”