Seducing an Angel

Was he mad? Was he besotted with her? Surely he was not. Of course he was not. He must simply be mad.

"Yes," he said with a sigh. "I do."

"The whole /ton/ would believe you were courting me," she said. "Your wings would soon be tinged black, Lord Merton. You would soon find yourself being shu

"I ca

"We were fated to meet, then?" she said. "And to fall in love, perhaps, and marry and live happily ever after?"

"We make our own fate," he said. "But some things happen for a reason. I am convinced of it. We met for a reason, Cassandra. We can choose to explore that reason – or not. No effect is fated."

"Only the cause," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I think. I am no philosopher. Let us start again, Cassandra. Let us give ourselves a chance at least to be friends. Let me get to know you. Get to know me. Perhaps I am worth knowing."

"And perhaps not," she said.

"And perhaps not."

She sighed, and when he looked back at her he could see that she had dropped all pretenses. She looked simply vulnerable – and lovely beyond belief.

A murderer? Surely not. But what did a murderer look like?

"I ought to have known," she said, "as soon as I saw you that you would be trouble. Instead, it was your friend I dismissed as potentially dangerous. It was he I thought I would not be able to control. The one who looks like the devil. Mr. Huxtable."

"/Con/?" he said. "He is my cousin. He is not evil."

"I thought angels were safe," she said, "and so I chose you."

"I am not an angel, Cassandra," he said.

"Oh, believe me, you /are,/" she said. "That is the whole trouble."

He smiled at her suddenly, and for a moment there was a gleam in her eye, and he thought she was going to smile back at him. She did not do so.

"Let me call on you tomorrow afternoon," he said. "Or this afternoon, I suppose I mean. A formal call. On you and your former governess. Pardon me, remind me of her name."

"Alice Haytor," she said.

"Let me call on you and Miss Haytor," he said.

She was swinging her foot again.

"She /knows,/" she said.

"And doubtless believes I am the devil incarnate," he said. "Shall we see if I can charm her out of her strong disapproval of me?"

"She also knows," she said, "that it is all my fault, that I seduced you."

"She can know no such thing," he said, "because it is not true, Cassandra. You signaled strong interest in me. I was not seduced. I chose to be interested in return. You /are/ beautiful. And desirable. I deserve Miss Haytor's disapproval. I made the wrong decisions concerning you and my attraction to you. Allow me to try to win her respect."

She sighed again.

"You will not just go away, will you?" she said.

They looked at each other.

"I will," he said. "If you tell me to go away and stay away, I will do it. If the /real/ Lady Paget tells me, that is. Do you want me to leave, Cassandra? Do you want me out of your life for now and always?"

She stared at him and then closed her eyes.

"I do," she said after a few moments, "but I ca

"I do not know," he said. "Shall we discover the answer together?"

"You will regret it," she said.

"Perhaps," he agreed.

"I already regret it," she said.

"Tomorrow afternoon?" he said.

"Oh, very well." She opened her eyes and gazed at him again. "Come if you must."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Come," she said. "And I shall tell Mary not to put a spider in your teacup."

He smiled.

"And now go," she said. "I need some sleep even if you do not."

He crossed the room to put on his cloak and take up his hat. He turned toward her. She was standing in front of the chair.

"Good night, Cassandra," he said.

"Good night, Stephen."

He walked home wondering what on earth he had got himself into now. His life seemed to have been turned upside down in the past two days.

Had they /really/ been fated to meet? For what possible reason – except that he help keep her and her friends from starvation?

But the reason was for them to discover. Some events, some moments, were dropped deliberately into one's life, he believed, by an unseen hand.

But that hand had no power to dictate one's response. It was up to the individual concerned to make something out of those events and moments.

Or not.

It rained all morning, but by early afternoon the rain had stopped, the clouds had moved on, the sun was shining, and the roads and pavements had dried off.

"It is a /perfect/ afternoon for a walk," Alice said stubbornly, having crossed to the sitting room window to prove with her own eyes that she was quite right. "We have been promising ourselves a walk in Green Park, Cassie. It will be less crowded than Hyde Park."

"When you arrived home for luncheon," Cassandra reminded her, "you declared that your feet would surely drop off if you had to walk one more step today."

Alice had spent the morning trying to discover agencies she had missed yesterday and revisiting those at which she had left her name, in the hope that something had turned up overnight.

She had said that about her feet before Cassandra had finally plucked up the courage to mention very casually that the Earl of Merton was to call this afternoon – a formal social visit to take tea with them, not official business.

"It is amazing what a little luncheon and a cup of tea and an hour's sit-down can do to restore one's energy," Alice said brightly. "I am ready to go again – and this afternoon I will not even get wet."

"I agreed that I would be here when he came, Alice," Cassandra said. "It would be ill-ma

"Besides /what/?" Alice was cross. She had turned from the window, a frown on her face.

Cassandra had no work on her lap – she could not seem to settle to anything these days. She had no excuse to look anywhere else but back at her old governess.

"I think our… /liaison/ is at an end, Allie," she said. "In fact, it is. He found it distasteful – mainly, I believe, because Belinda lives here. He said something about sullying i

"Come for a walk," Alice said firmly, "before it is too late. Just get your bo

Cassandra shook her head and looked down at her hands in her lap. She examined her fingernails. They needed cutting. She was wearing her sprigged muslin dress for the occasion. Pretty clothes were something she /did/ have left. Nigel had always insisted that she dress well.