Seducing an Angel

"Would the sister you remember actually /kill/ a man," Stephen asked him, "in order to be free to enjoy life again?"

Young crossed back to the leather chair and dropped heavily into it.

"She was mother, sister, and friend to me when we were growing up," he said. "But people change, Merton. /She/ changed. I saw it with my own eyes."

"Perhaps," Stephen said, "she was made to change. Perhaps all was not as it seemed in that marriage. Your visits, I take it, were infrequent and not lengthy?"

Young frowned at his own boots and said nothing.

He knew, Stephen thought. He had probably always known – or strongly suspected, anyway. Sometimes it was easier not to know, though, to shut one's mind to the truth.

"I was very young," Sir Wesley said, as if reaching for an excuse.

"You are past your majority now, though," Stephen said. "She needs a friend, Young. She needs someone of her own who will love her unconditionally."

"Miss Haytor – " Young began. He had the decency not to complete the thought.

"Yes," Stephen said. "Miss Haytor is her friend. She is not family, though. Neither is she a man."

Young moved restlessly in his seat, but he would not look at Stephen opposite him.

"The young lady who was with you in the park," Stephen said. "I do not have an acquaintance with her, I'm afraid."

"Miss Norwood," Young said.

"Do you still have hopes of marrying her?" Stephen asked.

"She was indisposed when I arrived to escort her to a garden party yesterday afternoon," Young said with a twisted smile. "She was expected to be indisposed for some days to come. I saw her at Vauxhall last evening, though, looking in perfect health. She was with her parents and Viscount Brigham."

"Then I would say," Stephen said, "that you had a fortunate escape.

There will be those members of the /ton/ who will respect you far more if you stand staunchly by your sister than if you pretend you do not even know her. And of course there will be those who will not. Which group would you rather impress?"

He got to his feet to leave.

"What is your interest in Cassie?" Young asked him, keeping his seat.

"Is she your mistress?"

"Lady Paget," Stephen said, "is in dire need of a friend. I am her friend. And although I know from her own lips that she had motive more than sufficient to kill the bastard who was her husband, something tells me she did not do it. I know nothing about the circumstances of his death beyond the fact that he was shot with a pistol, /not/ hacked to pieces with an axe. But I will tell you this, Young. Even if at some time I discover beyond all doubt that it /is/ true, that she /did/ shoot him, I will still be Lady Paget's friend. He /was/ a bastard. Did you know that she had two miscarriages and one stillbirth, none of them necessary?"

Young looked directly at him then, the color draining from his face.

Stephen did not wait for him to say anything. He took up his hat and cane from just inside the door and let himself out of the dingy parlor and out of the rooming house.

Well, how was /that/ for interfering in lives that were really none of his business?

He found his steps leading him toward Portman Street and Cassandra's house. He had no idea why. Perhaps he needed to confess what he had just done. She would, he suspected, be furious with him, and she had every right to be. But was he sorry? He was not. He would do it again given the chance.

And did he /really/ believe Cassandra was i

She was not at home. It was almost a relief.

"She has gone out with Miss Haytor, my lord," the maid told him.

"/Ah/," he said. "Some time ago?"

"No, my lord," she said. "Just this minute."

But there was no sign of her in either direction along the street. She would not be back soon, then.

"Mary," he said, "may I have a word with you?" /Now/ what the devil was he up to?

"With me?" Her eyes grew saucer-wide, and she touched a hand to her bosom.

"Can you spare me a few minutes?" he asked her. "I will not keep you long."

She stood back from the door to admit him, and he gestured toward the kitchen. She scurried ahead of him.

He noticed in passing that there was a distinctive gilt-edged card propped against a vase on the hall table, with Lady Paget's name written on it in an elegant hand. It was an invitation to Lady Compton-Haig's ball the following evening. He had a duplicate addressed to him on the desk in his study.

It was begi

The child was sitting on the floor beneath the kitchen table, the dog stretched out at her feet. He raised his eye to Stephen and thumped his tail lazily on the floor but did not otherwise move. The child was singing softly to her doll, which was wrapped in its white blanket. She was rocking it.

Mary turned to face Stephen, and it occurred to him that she really was rather pretty in a thin, pale sort of way. She had fine eyes, and the color his presence had put in her cheeks became her.

"Mary," he said, and realized he could not ask what he most wanted to know. She probably did not have the answer, anyway. He felt suddenly foolish. "What happened to the dog?"

She looked down and twisted her apron.

"Someone," she said, "a-a /stranger/, was trying to beat Lady Paget out in the stables, and Roger tried to defend her. He did too – she was not near so badly beat up as she usually – As might have been expected. But Lord – But the strange man caught hold of a whip and whipped the dog so vicious that he lost the sight of his eye and lost the tip of his ear, and his leg was crushed so bad that part of it had to be cut off."

"Crushed with a whip?" Stephen asked.

"With a – a shovel, I think," Mary said.

"And did this stranger – or Lord Paget – get hurt too?" Stephen asked.

She darted him a glance before returning her attention to her apron.

"He got bit something fierce, my lord," she said. "In his arms and legs and on the side of his face. He took to his bed for a whole week before he could get up and go about his business. Lord Paget, I mean. When he went rushing to her rescue, that was. I don't know what happened to the strange man. He must of escaped."

Stephen wondered if she would think back and wince at the gaping holes in her story.

"The head groom wanted to put Roger down," Mary said. "He said it was the kindest thing to do. But Lady Paget had the crushed part of his leg took off and then carried him to her own room, and she kept him there until he was better, though none of us but her thought it would happen.

Lord Paget never said he was to be put down though we was all expecting it. Roger must not of recognized him when he came to the rescue and attacked him too."

Stephen set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

"It is all right, Mary," he said. "I know. Lady Paget told me herself.

Not about Roger, but about the rest of it. She did /not/ tell me about Lord Paget's death, but I will not try to squeeze that story out of you."

Yet it was what he had come inside to ask, he realized.

"I am sorry if I have caused you distress," he added.

"She didn't do it," she whispered, her eyes like saucers again, her cheeks suddenly pale.

He squeezed a little harder before releasing her.

"I know," he said.

"I worship her," she said stoutly. "Did I do wrong coming here with her?

I cook and clean for her and do everything I can, but did I bring shame on her by coming? And did I add a burden on her because she has to feed me and Belinda? I know she feels obliged to pay me. I know she don't have no money – or didn't until – " She stopped abruptly and bit her lip.