Cupid's Mistake (Cupid Regency Romance) (12 page)

"
Charities?"

"
Terrible situation, my old. There are starving folk all around us. She quite convinced me to contribute to the aid of these poor creatures."

"
You?"

"
Blytheland, you pain me. Of course,
me
. I may be a Pink of the ton, but I am not without heart. And never tell me she hasn't spoken of her charities to you."

The marquess looked uncomfortable.

"Ah, I see she has. Laid out any blunt for it?"

"
Yes, and I promised to ask my father to speak at the House on it."

Lord Eldon laughed.
"Persuasive creature, isn't she? But there you are. We shall rub along quite well together, don't you think? She with her causes, I with the money to fund them."

"
You are getting as vulgar as she is," Blytheland retorted.

"
I? Vulgar? should call you out, my old, if I didn't know how good you are with the pistols." Eldon moved himself from the wardrobe and sank into a large chair next to the fireplace. "But tell me. How is Miss Hathaway vulgar?"

"
I should not have said vulgar," the marquess amended. "She is, certainly, indiscreet."

"
Better and better," Eldon leered.

"
I did not mean to imply she was a light skirt, damn you, El! She's more pure than—than that damnably ill-tied thing you have around your neck! I should call you out, if I knew you had the smallest ability to drag yourself out of bed before eleven."

His friend looked complacently at his own snowy white neckcloth reflected in the mirror and smiled.
"Pure as an angel, I should think. Well, now. Indiscreet?"

"
She can't control her tongue. She says whatever comes to her mind. Lord, the number of times I have seen her give a set-down to some stiff-rumped hypocrite! And sometimes she is not even aware she is doing it!"

"
I should be amused, I think."

"
Amused!" The marquess grimaced into the mirror. "Well, it is amusing," he admitted. "It is also why I brought her into fashion. I thought it would be entertaining if I did so. That's all there is to it, and so you may tell your betting cronies." Fichet entered with another, freshly pressed, neckcloth. He warily handed it to his master.

"
Hmm . . . And not because you are enamored of her?"

"
I have known far more beautiful women than Miss Hathaway."

Lord Eldon noticed that his friend did not actually answer his question. He smiled to himself, then rose from the chair.
"It's just as well, old Blythe. I just didn't want to step on your toes, you know." He put on his hat at a precise angle and took up his cane. "Think La Hathaway might come to see herself as a baroness? Perhaps I should go see her soon."

"
I'd prefer you go to the devil, Eldon," said the marquess through clenched teeth.

"
Better than being blue-deviled, my old!" His friend laughed, and left the room.

Blytheland cursed and ruined another neckcloth.

* * * *

But Eldon
's words came back to the marquess, niggling at him, for they were not content to settle in the far corner of Blytheland's mind, where he had consigned them. He glanced at Miss Hathaway, who was at the pianoforte flexing her fingers in readiness for the recital. Thoughts of Cassandra and marriage, of the natural consequences of marriage—the marriage bed, for instance—leapt upon him like a cat upon a mouse and played with his emotions unmercifully and with a killing instinct. They pounced on him when he happened to be near her and looked at the lips he had kissed, and when she played the pianoforte, he thought of how her fingers caressed the keys into soft sound and how they might caress his—

Blytheland took a deep breath and set his violin upon his chest and tried not to look at Cassandra as she began to play the sonata. There were plenty of things to focus upon in Lord and Lady Langdon
's house, for it was well lighted and decorated with finely executed paintings, so he need not look at Miss Hathaway at all during the performance. He needed to pay strict attention to the music, for they were before Lady Langdon and her guests, and all eyes were upon them.

It was a piece of music both of them knew well and had practiced before either of them had met, and so it needed only two practice sessions to see if they could play together. There had been an initial awkwardness at first, but they had gone through it well enough, and quickly. He was not sure he could have gone through a third session; he
'd been distracted enough during the first, almost as much as he had been distracted when Cassandra first played her pianoforte for him.

He
'd look at her only once to signal the beginning of each movement and not look at her while they played. He would concentrate on the music, and that was all.

Silence descended on the guests, he took a deep breath, and nodded to Miss Hathaway. He watched her fingers touch the keys, then he closed his eyes and drew his bow across his violin.

It was a mistake. He should have known not to have selected this Beethoven sonata. If the presto beat made him take in a breath, the first notes in the minor key took it away from him. He had intended to select a difficult piece so that there would be a higher chance of Cassandra stumbling in her performance. He would be able to focus on his own performance then. But she did not stumble now, not as she had done when they had practiced before. She had obviously practiced more, afterward.

And now, now he was lost, for she played it perfectly. The music from the pianoforte twined around his own and pressed itself against him until Blytheland almost gasped and drew his bow across his violin with greater force in defense. But it was as if she would have none of it: her music wrestled with him. Passion gave way to crying sweetness, so tangible and sharp it sat on his tongue and he nearly groaned when he drew in his breath, for it was the taste of lovemaking.

Blytheland opened his eyes and stared at Cassandra. It did not help. Her whole concentration was on the music, and she did not look at him. It did not matter—no, it was worse, for she looked like a woman sunk in pleasure: her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded, her breath coming quickly from between her lips. He could imagine it, making love to her, almost feel it.

The music, the music! Think of the music! he told himself, but that did not help either, for the music pulled at him and caressed him like a lover
's hand—Cassandra's hands. He looked down at the keyboard, how her slender, delicate fingers stroked the keys and lured the notes from the instrument, so that he wanted to weep with the sweetness of it. But he could not. His violin wept instead and wailed the anguish within him.

The sound caught at Cassandra, and she lifted her eyes and stared at him. The room did not exist—the guests, the house. There were only the notes that pierced her heart, only the way Lord Blytheland looked at her, just as he had when he kissed her at the Marchmonts
' ball. Her breath halted in her throat, and she remembered how his lips had moved across hers, how his fingers had traced a scintillating path down her throat, just as his fingers now moved upon the violin and drew out sweet music.

She pulled her gaze away from him, concentrating on the sonata, but she knew he was still staring at her—she could feel it. Cassandra looked at him again; he did not smile, but there was a fiery warmth in his eyes, and his gaze shifted downward to her mouth. She could feel her lips heat as if he had kissed them. She almost missed a note and brought her attention back to the pianoforte. But the music conspired against her, for she could not help looking at Lord Blytheland again when his music moved with hers, and she felt drawn to something she was afraid could not be real.

Joy and fear caught her, and she pounded it into the keyboard, trying desperately to focus on the notes she remembered. But the violin's notes curled around and about her, and touched her in hidden places, seducing her. She had known of emotions that welled up within her when she played or heard a fine piece of music; she did not know music could make her feel these other things. Did he know? She was half afraid of the answer and almost glad the sonata was nearly over. Almost over; it was safe, then, to give in to the music, for it would be done soon. The violin said so— the high, sweet notes whispered in her ears: come, love, listen. Her eyes filled with tears at the sound, and her heart came open as she touched the last chords of the sonata.

Cassandra sighed and felt a drop of wetness upon her hand, and she lifted her hand to wipe at her wet cheeks. She looked up at Lord Blytheland who extended a handkerchief to her.

She smiled and dabbed her eyes with it. "So silly of me! I have never wept before like this. I do not know what came over me."

He said nothing, but only looked at her, a disturbed expression in his eyes. He turned to the guests, then bowed.

The guests! Oh, heavens. Cassandra grew conscious of their silence, and turned also. She felt her hand grasped, and looked up at Lord Blytheland as he pulled her from her seat at the pianoforte.

"
Curtsy," he hissed.

Hastily she did. She dared look at the guests, and she could not help blushing. What had she done? She could not help seeing the clearly speculative looks on many of their faces, or sly, knowing expressions. The memory of her feelings during the performance came to her, and she blushed and despised herself for blushing. She hoped that the guests would think she was blushing at their applause, but she had learned enough now—especially with the way they looked at her—that they probably did not. Whatever she might have felt, she did not want anyone else to know. It was a stupid thing to hope, for however many men had seemed to be attracted to her, nothing had ever come of it. Each time she had hoped, and each time she had died a little, inside.

Lord Blytheland turned to her and smiled a stiff smile and bowed low over her hand. "Don't," she whispered.

He looked at her with brows raised, but she only pulled her hand away and smiled tentatively in return. She gave another curtsy to the guests and returned to her seat next to her parents. Her mother smiled and nodded at her, and her father looked at her with searching eyes.

She smiled again, briefly. "How glad I am the performance is over!" she said as cheerfully as possible. "I become quite anxious performing in front of so many people." It was not quite a lie, for though she had lost all nervousness while playing—heavens, she had felt everything except nervousness!—she had felt it at the beginning. But she noticed the speculative looks from the people around her fade, and she was glad of it.

A new set of musicians were tuning their instruments, and the guests looked toward them in readiness for the next piece. Cassandra breathed a sigh of relief and looked cautiously about her for Lord Blytheland. He was nowhere in the room that she could see. Perhaps he had left already
. . . although he usually liked to stay for all of a recital in the past, she had noticed. She sighed again. If he was as conscious of the looks they had received from the guests, she would not be surprised if he had left.

* * *
*

Lord Blytheland had indeed been conscious of the speculative looks from the guests at Lady Langdon
's musicale, and more. He needed refreshment, as he always did after a performance, and had gone to the punch bowl at one end of the room. The musicians were tuning up for the next piece of music, and the attention of the guests were drawn to that corner of the room; he doubted he was much noticed as he quickly took a cup of punch and downed it behind a large fern on a pedestal. Certainly he had not been noticed by the ladies who came to stand next to the punch bowl with their backs to him.

"
Did you see the way he looked at her? Hetty Chatwick said that they were good as betrothed," said one of them.

"
I
cannot see what anyone might see in Miss Hathaway— she is a bluestocking, you know!" the other tittered. "But she is a sorry case as anyone can see, for I do believe she has fallen completely in love with him, if looks are any indication." the lady nibbled at a small sandwich, then giggled. "I vow, she seemed almost to pant after him like a dog after a bone! So vulgarly obvious. I feel quite sorry for her. Lord Blytheland can look higher for a wife than she."

The first lady laughed.
"Who, like you, Amanda? You may not be a baronet's daughter, but you are not much higher than that."

Lord Blytheland clenched his teeth. He did not like being discussed like a bull to be bought by farmers.

"A viscount's daughter is much more eligible than anything Miss Hathaway can lay claim to," Susan said complacently.

He could stand it no longer and emerged from behind the
fern. "For your information, ladies, nothing would compel me to consider either of you as a prospective wife." He bowed curtly and turned on his heel, catching enough of their red and chagrined expressions to feel a savage satisfaction.

But as he went down t
o his coach and left Lady Langdon's house for his own, he knew he had erred greatly in paying so much attention to Miss Hathaway. If it had indeed been bruited about that they were as good as betrothed—and he would not have put it past Lady Hathaway to have hinted it to her acquaintances—then he was sorely mistaken in how much time he had spent in Miss Hathaway's company. He grimaced. Eldon had been right, and he had been wrong to ignore his friend's warning. For all that Eldon liked to tease and had a damnable way of poking his nose where it shouldn't be, he was a good friend and knew all the gossip around about town. He should have listened to him.