No, not a /little/ extra. A great deal extra. Never mind bare subsistence and rainy days, when they would be so dearly bought. She and her friends would live in luxury. They /would/. The man who was going to pay for her services would pay very dearly indeed – or watch someone else claim her instead.
It did not matter that she was twenty-eight years old. She was better than she had been when she was eighteen. She had put on weight – in all the right places. Her face, which had been pretty then, had acquired a more classic beauty since. Her hair, which was a rich copper red, had not darkened over the years or lost any of its luster. And she was less innocent. A great deal less. She knew what pleased men now. There was one gentleman out there somewhere in London right now, at this very minute, who was soon going to be willing to squander a fortune on possessing her and buying exclusive rights to her services. There was more than one gentleman, in fact, but only one whom she would choose.
There was that one gentleman who was aching for the sensual delight of possessing her, though he did not even know it yet.
He was going to want her more than he had wanted anyone or anything else in his life.
She /hated/ men.
'Cassie,' Alice said, and Cassandra turned her head to look inquiringly at her, 'we have no acquaintances here. How can you expect to meet any gentlemen?'
She sounded triumphant, as if she wanted the task to be hopeless – as no doubt she did.
Cassandra smiled at her.
'I am still /Lady Paget/, am I not?' she said. 'A baron's widow? And I still have all the fine clothes and accessories Nigel kept buying me, even if they /are/ somewhat outdated. It is the Season, Alice. Everyone of any importance is here in town, and every day there are parties and balls and concerts and soirees and picnics and a whole host of other entertainments. It will not be at all difficult to discover what some of them are. And it will not be difficult to find a way of attending some of the grandest of them.'
'Without an invitation?' Alice asked, frowning.
'You have forgotten,' Cassandra said, 'just how much every hostess wants her entertainment remembered as a great squeeze. I do not expect to be turned away from any door I choose to enter. And I shall walk boldly through the front doors. Once will be enough – more than enough to serve my purpose. You and I will go walking in Hyde Park this afternoon, Alice – at the fashionable hour, of course. The weather is fine, and all the beau monde is bound to turn up there to see and be seen. I will wear my black dress and my black bonnet with the heavy veil. I daresay I am known more by reputation than by looks – it is a number of years since I was last here. But I would rather not risk being recognized just yet.'
Alice sighed and sat back in her chair. She was shaking her head.
'Let me write a calm, conciliatory letter to Lord Paget on your behalf,' she suggested. 'He had no right to banish you from Carmel House as he did, Cassie, when he finally decided to move there almost a year after his father's passing. The terms of your marriage contract were quite clear. You were to have the dower house as your own residence in the event of your husband's predeceasing you. And a sizable money settlement. /And/ a generous widow's pension from the estate. None of which you ever got from him during that year, even though you wrote a number of times, asking when you might expect all the legalities to be settled. Perhaps he did not clearly understand.'
'It will do no good to appeal to him,' Cassandra said. 'Bruce made it quite clear that he considered my freedom a generous exchange for everything else. No charges were ever brought against me in his father's death because there was no proof that I had killed him. But a judge or a jury might well find me guilty regardless of the lack of conclusive evidence. I could hang, Alice, if it happened. Bruce agreed that no charges would be pressed provided I left Carmel House and never returned – and provided I left all my jewels behind and forfeited all financial claim upon the estate.'
Alice had nothing to say. She knew all this. She knew the risks involved in fighting. Cassandra had chosen not to fight. There had been too much violence in the past nine years – ten now. She had chosen simply to leave, with her friends and with her freedom.
'I will not starve, Allie,' she said. 'Neither will you or Mary or Belinda. I will provide for you all. Oh, and you too, Roger,' she added, tickling the dog's stomach with the toe of her slipper while his tail thumped lazily on the floor and his three and a half paws waved in the air.
Her smile was tinged with bitterness – and then with something more tender.
'Oh, Alice,' she said, hurrying across the room and sinking to her knees before her former governess's chair, 'don't cry. /Please/ do not. I will not be able to bear it.'
'I never thought,' Alice said between sobs into her handkerchief, 'to see you becoming a /courtesan/, Cassie. And that is what you will be. A high-class pr – A high-class pros – ' But she could not complete the word.
Cassandra patted one of her knees.
'It will be a thousand times better than marriage,' she said. 'Cannot you /see/ that, Alice? I will have all the power this time. I can grant or withhold my favors at will. I can dismiss the man if I do not like him or if he displeases me in any way at all. I will be free to come and go as I choose and to do whatever I will except when I am… well, working. It will be a /million/ times better than marriage.'
'All I ever wanted of life was to see you happy,' Alice said, sniffing and drying her eyes. 'It is what governesses and companions do, Cassie.
Life has passed them by, but they learn to live vicariously through their charges. I wanted you to know what it is like to be loved. And to love.'
'I know what both are like, silly goose,' Cassandra said, sitting back on her heels. '/You/ love me, Alice. Belinda loves me – so does Mary, I think. And Roger loves me.' The dog had padded over to her and was prodding one of her hands with his wet nose so that she would pet him again. 'And I love you all. I /do/.'
A few stray tears were still trickling down her former governess's cheeks.
'I know that, Cassie,' she said. 'But you know what I mean. Don't deliberately misunderstand. I want to see you in love with a good man who will love you in return. And don't look at me like that. It is the expression you wear so often these days that it would be easy to mistake it for your real character showing through. I know it well enough, that curl of the lip and that hard amusement of the eye that is not amusement at all. There /are/ good men. My papa was one of them, and he certainly was not the only one the dear good Lord created.'
'Well.' Cassandra patted her knee again. 'Perhaps I will quite inadvertently choose a good man to be my protector, and he will fall violently in love with me – no, not /violently/. He will fall /deeply/ in love with me and I will fall deeply in love with him and we will marry and live happily ever after with our dozen children. You may fuss over them all and teach them to your heart's content. I will not refuse to employ you just because you are over forty and in your dotage. Will this make you happy, Alice?'
Alice was half laughing, half weeping.
'Maybe not the twelve-children part,' she said. 'Poor Cassie, you would be worn out.'
They both laughed as Cassandra got to her feet.
'Besides, Alice,' she said, 'there is no reason that all your life and happiness should be lived through me. /Vicariously/ is a horrid word.
Perhaps it is time you began to live on your own account. And love.
Perhaps /you/ will meet a gentleman and he will realize what a perfect gem he has found and will fall in love with you and you with him.
Perhaps /you/ will live happily ever after.'
'But not with a dozen children, I hope,' Alice said with a look of mock horror, and they both laughed again.
Ah, there was so little opportunity for laughter these days. It seemed to Cassandra that she could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had felt sheer amusement during the past ten years.
'I had better go and dust off my black bonnet,' she said.
Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, was riding in Hyde Park with Constantine Huxtable, his second cousin. It
