Reviews for Kasey Michaels ...

"Ms. Michaels' eye for the ridiculous is without peer in this very demanding genre."

— Romantic Times

"Kasey Michaels never fails to entertain! She has an amazing talent for creating realistic and memorable characters."

— Literary Times

"A writing style, voice, and sense of humor perfectly suited to the era and genre."

— Publishers Weekly

* * * * *

The Haunted Miss Hampshire

A Regency Novel by

Kasey Michaels

Electronic Edition

Copyright 2011 Kathryn A. Seidick

Originally published 1992.

www.KaseyMichaels.com

* * * * *

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author.

* * * * *

Prologue

Dawn tiptoed into the quiet drawing room on tentative kitten's feet, picking its way carefully through slight chinks in the faded velvet draperies where they had been pulled together against the night. At first there could be seen nothing more than a slight graying of the previously dark room, a faint outline of the furnishings.

The light increased as the sun rose above the horizon, bringing with it a better, and therefore slightly depressing, vision of the mismatched contents that decorated the main room at Wormhill, a smallish country estate located just outside Buxton.

Even though it was the first of April, a chill could be felt in the air. But the fire in the grate had been allowed to go out, and wouldn't be relit until Pansy Farnley, the butler's meek wife, rose from her cot, checked beneath it for demons, fed her demanding husband his breakfast of fresh hens' eggs and two fist-size chunks of sausage, and stepped outside the kitchen door to make the sign against the evil eye three times in quick succession while facing directly north, as Farnley had taught her, therefore insuring safety from calamity for another twenty-four hours.

Thin fingers of sunlight slid farther into the drawing room, slipping across the faded Aubusson carpets, creeping silently past elephant foot tables, faded striped armchairs, and a pair of slightly frayed Chinese brocade couches that faced each other across a massive low square table, which had taken its toll on several generations of gentlemanly shins as they made rude contact with its sharp corners.

The sunlight continued its journey as the mantel clock ticked out the minutes to nine o'clock, twisting its way toward two dark shapes in the very center of the large room, two large wooden chairs that seemed to have been placed in deliberate prominence, even though they were of such an ugliness that, by comparison, the rest of the furnishings could have been fashioned by master craftsmen.

A single, slender fingertip of sunlight dared to reach out and touch the back leg of the closest chair, then slowly crept up its length to the top. Neither chair benefited from this illumination.

The first, the one now striped with splayed fingers of sunlight, was armless, its back composed of an intricately carved, grinning griffin's head, neck, and spread wings atop a crosspiece of wood over which a length of fringed fabric had been draped, tossed over to the back, and tacked down. From beneath the seat cushion, a fringed length of the fabric dangled between the front legs, which were carved to resemble those of dogs and topped by shaggy, maned canine heads, one on either side, connected by a reeded rail.

The companion chair was similarly armless and draped in the same fabric, but it gloried in its own unique ugliness. Instead of griffins, it had camels' heads as back supports, and camels' legs as back legs, while its front legs featured lions' heads atop fiercely clawed forepaws. The heads sported kingly wooden crowns, which could no more be explained than Thomas Sheraton's need to create either of these monstrosities in the first place.

As the sunlight bridged the gap between the two chairs, lighting on the fabric seat stretched between the crowned lions, something strange occurred. Something most extraordinarily strange occurred.

The sunlight seemed to gather itself into a small, throbbing sphere, an intensely bright orb of light and energy that rapidly grew until its brilliance outshone the watery sunlight and cast the remainder of the room into darkness.

"Eeeek! Sir! Farnley! Come quickly! Oh, come quickly, do!" Pansy's shrill shrieks destroyed the morning silence, reverberating in the strangely lit drawing room even though she was, in fact, standing far away, outside the closed doors of the room, at the head of the stairs, shouting down into the foyer.

The butler, still adjusting his jacket about his nearly nonexistent shoulders, raced into the foyer on long, spindly legs to glare up at his wife. "What is this commotion, Pansy? You know I'm not to be disturbed when I am fixing Mrs. Benedict's morning tray. I might have dropped a spoon, thanks to your carelessness, and you know that brings bad luck upon the mistress of the house."

Pansy's head bobbed up and down furiously in agreement as she struggled to find her voice. "I made the sign, sir, I swear I did. Three times, just like every morning." Her bottom lip began to quiver as she clasped the stair railing tightly with both hands. "It didn't work today, Farnley, sir. I went in to Mrs. Benedict just now, to help her sit up for breakfast—and there she was, a-lying there, her hands folded just so across her belly, and the most beautifulest smile on her face that I ever did see."

Her face crumpled. "Oh, Farnley—sir—Mrs. Benedict's gone and died on us!"

The butler's sallow face faded to a sickly yellow as he bounded up the stairs, determined to prove his missish wife wrong. He had his butler's keys at Wormhill, and might not be able to find so favorable a position in another establishment, especially with his mistress cocking up her toes before she could so much as furnish him with a recommendation. A recommendation? If the butler had possessed even a single shred of humor, which it must be said he did not, he would have laughed aloud at such a ludicrous thought. How could he hope for a recommendation from a twit of a woman who spoke and wrote only in quotes?

Farnley wrung his bony hands in abject fear and self-pity. What would he do if Mrs. Benedict were truly dead? Where would he and Pansy go? How would they live? He could always go back to being a valet, he supposed, cringing, while Pansy, his dearest, dumbest Pansy, was fit for nothing more than minding mice at the local crossroads.

Oh, what a terrible business, what a crushing blow—what a terrible turn of luck! He knew he should have hung that new hagstone on the lady's bedpost instead of keeping it for himself in the hope it would hasten the conception of his heir. His heir? And where would the next generation of Farnley's sleep—under the hedgerows?

But wait—perhaps the old woman had provided for them in her will. This thought—and this thought only—gave Farnley the courage to go on.

"Out of my way, missy," he commanded his wife, who was showing a disquieting tendency toward repeatedly flinging herself into his arms in order to indulge in fits of weeping. Having pried her loose one last time, he burst into the darkened bedchamber. "And get me that hand mirror over there. We'll hold it to the old nodcock's lips and see if she's breathed her last or not."

While Farnley and his wife tiptoed toward the bed, soon to discover that Lucinda Benedict had indeed quietly "passed over" in her sleep sometime during the night, the sphere of throbbing light floating above the second Sheraton chair reached its zenith and burst, its fiery brilliance dissipating in the wink of an eye.

All that was left behind was the faint, nearly transparent figure of a small, plump woman dressed head to toe in flowing, filmy draperies, sitting at her ease in the camel- head-topped chair.

The woman sat very still for a moment, blinking and looking about her as if startled, then raised a be-ringed hand to her dyed blond curls, patting them confidently as a beatific smile lit her pudgy features. Reaching down, she smoothed her hands along the seat of her beloved chair, one of the pair her dearest, sadly departed Jerome had left her.

She noticed the absence of both the usual pain in her fingers and the early morning stiffness in her limbs that had plagued her for so long. She felt no hunger, no thirst, no earthly urges or discomforts. Only peace. Sweet, glorious, comforting peace—and a heady sense of curiosity directed toward the plans she had made in anticipation of this wonderful day.

Lucinda Benedict pressed her palms together, as would a child in prayer, and raised her eyes toward the sunlight peeking in through the gaps between the draperies. "'O Lord,'" she intoned, barely able to suppress a giggle, "'how manifold are Thy works!' Proverbs."

Chapter One

"I still can't believe it, Cosmo, truly I can't. We was just here last month, and the old bird was as twittery as ever, bless her heart." Cyril Rayburn collapsed his long frame onto one of the Chinese couches, careful not to snag his new hose on the corner of the center table that had cost him dearly in the past.

"It came as a shock to all of us, Cyril," his brother answered, sticking out his chin so that it would not quiver as he thought of his scatterbrained, but totally lovable, late aunt. "We had barely gotten to know her."

"Penny and Lucien are that upset, not being able to be on hand for the planting tomorrow, but with the Leighton heir due to appear any day, there was nothing else for it, I suppose. Not that Lucien didn't have to all but tie Penny to a chair to keep her from coming anyway. What a stubborn chit."

Cosmo Rayburn, Cyril's identical twin, sat himself down on the facing couch, carefully arranging his coattails about him so as not to wrinkle the fabric. "We're not planting Aunt Lucinda, you twit. That's barbaric. We're walling her up. Didn't you see the mausoleum out back?"

Cyril sat forward and stuck a gaudy, gilt-edged quizzing glass to his eye. "Never say it's in the garden, Cosmo. That's a little too close for my taste. Damned distressing, as a matter of fact! Don't they usually set such things on hilltops or something, far from the house, nestled among trees and other soothing shrubberies?"

"It is on a hilltop—behind the house. What's the matter, Cyril? Aunt Lucinda always liked you best, feeding you comfits from morn till night until you nearly outgrew your waistcoats every visit. You don't really think the old dear might come back to haunt you or something, do you? And take that thing out of your eye, if you please. You look depressingly like a beached fish."

The quizzing glass dropped from Cyril's eye, to hang near his waist from its black riband. He relaxed once more against the back of the couch, crossing his long legs at the knee. "You're right, of course, Brother, on both counts, as I've seen you with your quizzing glass. You look exactly like a fish, too. It was only a momentary revulsion anyway, this burial thing, most probably brought on by the sight of dearest, die-away Farnley as he met us at the front door. Now there's a fellow who could haunt to effect, even while still aboveground. Aunt Lucinda would be a most kind, accommodating ghost, if there were such things."

"Which there are not," Cosmo pointed out, being twelve minutes older than his sibling and therefore believing himself to be in charge of making such serious decisions for the both of them. "And I wouldn't let Penny or Lucien ever hear you supposing that there are ghosts walking among us, or there'd be the devil and all to pay then. I can see our sister now, drifting down the stairs one fine midnight, dragging chains and moaning terrible moans, just so that she can watch your face drain white. I tell you, Cyril, our only hope is that motherhood will take some of the frisk out of her, or else I may just stop visiting the pesky creature so often for a while."

Cosmo held his peace as Farnley appeared with a tray bearing suspiciously meager refreshments, then ignored the battered silver teapot in favor of the glass decanter on a nearby table. "Don't like the looks of those sandwiches, do you? I think they're cucumber. Dreadful! Care for a little brandy, Brother? Of course you do. Just to rid us of the chill left behind by that walking cadaver, you understand."

He carried two snifters back to the table and handed one to his brother before taking a liberal swallow of the throat-burning amber liquid. "Ah, that's better. Thank heavens our beloved brother-in-law took it upon himself to stock Aunt Lucinda's cellar which, by the by, is one reason why, if you choose to stay away from dearest Penny, I shall not do likewise. Between the cook Penny hired and Lucien's taste in wine, their home has fast become my favorite stopping-off place."

"Unless Papa's there," Cyril grumbled into his snowy cravat, the thought of his father making him careless about the creation that had taken his valet an hour and four ruined cloths to achieve that morning. "He's forever after us to begin making something of ourselves. Truly, Cosmo, aren't we too young to be making something of ourselves? Papa should find a hobby now that Penny's off his hands, something to do that would keep those same managing hands off us!"

"Do I hear my fair father's name being bandied about?" said a third male, just entering the room. "What's dear Philo done now, Brothers, cut off your allowances for that little trick you played on poor Assistant Vicar Wilkinson? Running off with the only copy of his sermon, and on Easter morning, no less? Really, couldn't you have thought of something more original?"

"Papa should have given us a reward for that, Philip," Cosmo said, rising to greet his older brother, Philippos Rayburn, Earl of Hawkedon, and as fine an older brother as two mischievous younger brothers could wish for. "We read it, you know, and it was enough to bore the entire congregation into a stupor." He held out his hand, taking Philip's in a strong grip. "Terrible thing about the old girl, ain't it? You come to help us wall her up?"

"I do wish you'd stop saying that, Cosmo," Cyril complained, rising as well to greet the earl. "I heard from Farnley—the twit—that the Dowager Duchess of Avonall is to be descending upon us shortly, unfortunately minus her grandson, the duke, and his duchess, who are off traveling somewhere on the continent, the lucky devils."

Philip nodded, moving to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of wine. "I've already heard, Cyril. Avonall, his dearest wife Tansy, and their sons are all in Italy, and Avonall's sister, Lady Emily, and her husband—Digby something or other—live too far north to make the trip worthwhile. To tell you the truth, I'm rather surprised to find myself here, but the dowager duchess was rather insistent when I saw her three days ago in Bond Street. Said something about my name being mentioned in Aunt Lucinda's will, I believe."

Cyril's bottom lip came out in a small pout. "Your name, Philip? I know Cosmo and I are in the will somewhere, but you barely knew Aunt Lucinda. What could she have been thinking?"

"Thinking? Oh, that is splendid." A sharp laugh came from the doorway and three male heads turned to see the Dowager Duchess of Avonall striding into the room, stripping off her gloves as she came. "Consider it for a moment, you daft boy—Lucinda never did think. She didn't even speak, except to quote other people's words and ideas rather than using her own—which may have been a blessing," she added in an aside to Philip as he aided her in divesting herself of her cloak, "for I shudder to think what, left to her own devices, the widgeon would have said. Hello there, Philip, how good of you to come. It is amazing. Three days of traveling, and we arrive within minutes of each other. My congratulations. As I traveled the road to Wormhill I could barely make out the ruts your boots had made as you dragged your heels all the way from London."

Philip's blue eyes never wavered, although the left side of his mouth (including the left half of the mustache he had lately grown, hoping it would dispel much of the Botticelli angel look of his youthful features) did rise a fraction in recognition of the dowager's well-placed barb. "If I had known we would arrive so closely together, ma'am, I should have offered you a ride up with me, and saved you a day on the road, as I only left London yesterday at dawn. You do like curricles driven to an inch, don't you, ma'am?"

Her Grace beamed up at him, for she was very short and he was very tall. "Impudent pup. In my day, I could have beaten you to Wormhill by a full quarter hour! Now, are one of you boys going to pour me a glass of wine, or will I have to make do with some of Farnley's insipid tea before bracing myself to view the body?"

She looked about the room, her brow furrowed. "Where is the poor dear, anyway? I would have thought she would wish to be laid out down here, alongside those god-awful chairs. They're to be interred with her, one can only hope? Jerome Benedict was my cousin, and a rotter of the first water, but his most evil deed was to die, leaving his wife and those hideous monstrosities to me."

Without warning, a Sevres vase, which had once stood on the dowager's mantel—a gift from her granddaughter, Lady Emily, (and a more unlovely bit of porcelain the old woman had never seen, which accounted for its banishment to the mantel at Wormhill)—shattered onto the hearth with a loud crash that effectively turned everyone's attention to it.

"Cosmo!" Cyril exclaimed, grabbing at his brother's sleeve with both hands. "Did you see that? There was no breeze. My God! How could that have happened?"

Cosmo disengaged his sleeve from his brother's grip, brushing at the fabric as if it had been soiled. "Twit," he pronounced, refusing to meet Cyril's eyes, for he had no answer for him.

"What's the matter with you two?" Philip asked, walking over to examine the remains of the vase. "Was it a particular favorite of yours?"

"Good riddance to it, I say," the dowager duchess commented, throwing decorum to the winds as she poured herself a brimming glass of sherry. "There isn't a stick of furniture in this entire place I shouldn't wish to see set on fire. I might even be persuaded to perform a dance around the pyre. For generations we have used Wormhill as a depository for things best out of sight, which quite possibly explains why I allowed Lucinda to live here after my grandchildren were safely bracketed. I deeded the place over to Lucinda last year, as a reward for bringing your sister Penelope and the Earl of Leighton to the altar so neatly. I felt I owed it to her, I imagine, although I will never understand why she was so dotty for the place."

"I don't know, ma'am," Philip said, crossing to ring for Farnley. "Personally, I always thought Wormhill to be a perfect setting for Aunt Lucinda. Bits and pieces of other people's lives crammed into every nook and cranny—rather like the way she crammed other people's words into every corner of her brain."

The dowager duchess took a deep drink from her glass. "Even Shakespeare," she said, shivering. "That's when I sent her here, you know. I could have handled anything else, but when she took to quoting my beloved Shakespeare at me, I had to put an end to it—although I must admit we had some fine times together. Some fine, fine times." She shook her head. "Ah, I miss her already, the brainless ninny."

Cyril had poured himself another two fingers of brandy and retreated to the couch, his gaze still darting apprehensively in the direction of the fireplace. "We're still walling her up tomorrow, ain't we, Cosmo? Walling her up tight?"

Cosmo leaned forward to leer at his brother, his hands outstretched as he wiggled his fingers in Cyril's face.

"Aunt Lucinda's going to get you, Brother. She'll come to you tonight, at the stroke of midnight, and force you to eat comfits till dawn!"

Philip ignored his brothers, extending an arm to Her Grace, who was just then looking at Cyril and Cosmo as if contemplating whether or not she should take the time to box their ears. "Farnley tells me his wife laid Aunt Lucinda out upstairs, in her bed. I suppose," he went on, shooting a quelling glance at his brothers, who were dissolved in giggles on the couch, "being the only adults here, we should go upstairs and pay our respects to the lady."

The dowager duchess took Philip's arm, her small body seeming to shrink before the task. "I suppose," she answered, sighing. "Being the older of us two, I had always thought Lucinda would be the one viewing me. I can't tell you the nights I lay awake, dreading the thought that she might have the final dressing of me. Three-and-sixty, she was, but she always did herself up like some debutante about to make her come-out."

She shook her head. "When I saw her last—we let her out at Christmas, you understand—she was wearing more lace than the table in my grandson's dining room. And that hair—she dyed it blond you know, every single curl. Oh, Philip, Philip," she ended sorrowfully, "everyone I know is dying around me. It wasn't fair of Lucinda to die too. With my grandchildren all married, and my friends all below ground or as good as, I suddenly feel quite old and useless. If only I had something, some one thing, left to do."

"You could marry off Philip, ma'am," Cyril suggested, his tender heart touched by the dowager's plight, so that he didn't think before he spoke. "Papa would be that grateful, truly he would. He might even help, which would take his mind off of—other things. Wouldn't that be wonderful, Cosmo? Philip?"

Philip looked over his shoulder at Cyril, fusing the youngest male Rayburn to the couch with the heat of his stare.

"What are you looking at me like that for? Now, what did I say? Philip—you have to feel sorry for Her Grace, don't you? You do want to help the poor lady, don't you? I didn't say you'd have to go through with a marriage. Only that you'd let her look for you. Heaven knows, you're doing a shabby job of looking for yourself. Only remember last year, and that horrible Redfern chit—I thought we'd never get rid of her encroaching mama, so sure she was that you were going to ask for her missish daughter. What a—"

When it looked as if Cyril wasn't going to wind down any time soon, Cosmo reached for the candy dish and stuffed three sugary comfits into his brother's face. "Here you go, Brother mine—have a little something to eat. I think your brain needs the nourishment."

The dowager duchess had raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her lips, and Philip immediately decided that she hadn't overheard his brother's ravings as she continued to grieve the loss of her friend.

But he soon learned that he wasn't to be so lucky. When she drew the handkerchief away, as they reached the half-landing, it was to reveal a wide smile. "Cousin Philo must have had his hands quite full bringing up the four of you, Philip. Perhaps it is time you took over the reins for him. As your first assignment, might I suggest putting young Cyril's head under the nearest pump? He reminds me a bit of dearest Emily, lovely to look at but with a multitude of unfurnished space to let between her ears."

The earl looked down at the dowager duchess, his impassive features giving away none of his trepidation at the thought of this intelligent, determined woman's interference in his love life. "Then I shan't have to worry about you descending on me any time soon, armed to the teeth with simpering debutantes? I must say I'm relieved."

The dowager duchess returned her handkerchief to her pocket, her gnarled fingers touching on the folded sheets of paper that rested there—her last garbled, quote-laden communication from Lucinda Benedict. "My dear, dear boy. I'm an old woman now, and past such things. 'I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,' as dearest, bird-witted Lucinda might have said—although I would have swatted her dyed curls for quoting my beloved Bard of Avon. I assure you, matchmaking is quite the farthermost thing from my mind."

Philip allowed his fears to be allayed, and set his mind to getting through the next few days without finding it necessary to murder his brothers before he could safely return to the delights of the Season. He would begin by supporting the dowager duchess through the difficult ordeal of viewing the worldly remains of her cousin by marriage and friend, Lucinda Benedict.

* * * * *

The roadway was deeply rutted, a leftover of the heavy rains that had buffeted the area just a week earlier, and Cassandra Hampshire shifted her bottom on the rough planks of the wagon bed, hoping to find a more comfortable position.

She had been traveling almost nonstop for nearly two days, most of that time on foot—ever since running out of funds for the stagecoach in Hartington, as a matter of fact—so she knew she should be grateful for the offer of a ride from a passing farmer just outside Buxton. Yet it was difficult to summon up much in the way of gratitude when riding on the back of a wagonload of goods destined for the market, stuck between a sack of onions and the farmer's ratty, foul-breathed terrier, who had decidedly too much of a hungry look to his eyes.

"Comin' up on Wormhill any time now, missy," the farmer called back to her from his bench seat—a seat that he had refused to share with her for fear his wife would hear of it. Indeed, she seemed to hear of everything he did, good or bad, mostly bad. "I'll be takin' ye around the back to the kitchens, where the onions is goin', if that's all right with ye?"

Cassandra flashed him a bright smile, nodding her agreement. That's probably where she'd end anyway, in the kitchen, if they didn't just show her the door entirely. If it weren't for her natural curiosity, she wouldn't have embarked on this wild goose chase in the first place, notwithstanding the communication from the unknown Buxton solicitor hinting at an inheritance waiting for her from a long-lost relative.

It had to be another Cassandra Hampshire, not her. It had to be somebody else's cousin, for she had never heard of a Lucinda Benedict. Not that her parents had lived long enough to give her a complete rundown of all her family tree.

Her father had gone down with his ship early in the war with France, and she could remember seeing him only twice before his death, both fleeting visits home from his first love, the sea. Her mother had lived on for a few more years, only to perish in a fall down the stairs—whilst carrying a heavy load of laundry, for any servants they'd previously employed had long since departed the scene. Cassandra had been pretty much on her own ever since, bouncing among unwelcoming relatives before finding early employment as nursemaid to the vicar's six children.

Cassandra closed her eyes, the memory of those spirit-depressing days casting her temporarily into a self-pitying mood. But she brightened just as quickly, remembering her escape from the vicarage and the varied life she had led from that day to this.

It was a surprise to her that the solicitor had managed to run her to ground in the first place. It was not as if she had ever stayed overlong in any one spot. But find her he had, and she had been just desperate enough, and intrigued enough, to come to Wormhill and see this supposed long-lost cousin of hers before she was planted with the posies.

As the wagon turned in between matching stone gates—rather lopsided, mossy stone gates—Cassandra quickly took stock of herself, removing her drooping straw bonnet to smooth back her blond-streaked hair and brush bits of clingy onionskin from the front of her bright red traveling cloak. It wouldn't do to make a bad first impression, she supposed, although she must remember not to travel up any steps in front of anybody lest they see the hole in the sole of her left half boot. After all, she didn't wish to appear too anxious to hear what this Benedict woman had supposedly left to Cassandra in her will.

She turned her head from side to side as the wagon passed through a small, faintly overgrown park and approached a fair-to-middling-sized country home, its windowpanes blinking brightly against the sun. The house was made of mellowed pink brick and did not have a thatched roof, a romantic notion that, to Cassandra's way of thinking, was the only proper way to top a country home.

She counted three stories, the topmost one creeping up under the roof, with five randomly spaced dormers cutting into it. Tipping her head to one side, she imagined the interior of the house, mentally toting up at least seven bedrooms and an ample servants' quarters on the top floor.

"Yes, well, you've slept under the eaves before this, Cassy," she reminded herself aloud. "No one in his right mind would be putting me in the best bedchamber, not the way I look."

The wagon approached the front of the house, then turned onto a narrow pathway leading to the rear of the building and a fairly large garden that owed its beauty more to nature than any sense of order. Early roses drooped at the end of their stems, and there were more wildflowers than usual in an English garden, the shrubs untrimmed and shooting wildly in all directions. Cassandra loved it on sight.

"Easy as you go, now," the farmer warned as the wagon lurched to a stop, sending Cassandra all but flying off the rear, to stumble awkwardly across the gravel path, one hand on her bonnet while the other clutched a large tapestry bag that held all her meager worldly possessions.

Regaining her balance, and still keeping her bonnet jammed down hard on her head, Cassandra turned fully about, admiring her surroundings even as she saw a small group of somberly-clad people descending from a nearby grassy knoll, their heads bowed as the sun crept behind a cloud and a fine mist began to fall.

Cassandra squinted into the distance, making out a wrought iron-fenced area that held a few leaning crosses and one small mausoleum, then shifted her gaze back to the group of people.

Sighing, she shook her head. "Late again, Cassy," she admonished herself, feeling vaguely disappointed that she would never get to see Lucinda Benedict and perhaps search out some faint family resemblance.

She brightened just as quickly, remembering her mother's funeral and the fine feast the neighbors had so kindly laid out afterwards. It had been more than twelve hours since she had eaten the last of a loaf of bread she had bought at a roadside inn, and the thought of a good meal had her moving in the direction of the mourners with more anticipation than sympathy showing on her small, clearly drawn features.

Her gaze was directed at once toward the two slim, tall young men in the lead, a pair who seemed to be mirror reflections of one another, from their darkly blond heads to the tips of their matching malacca canes, a ridiculous affectation of aspiring dandies that she had never seen the use of until she watched the two impeccably clad exquisites employ theirs as props for the seemingly heated conversation going on between them at that moment.

She dismissed the couple bringing up the rear, as she could see that they were servants in the house, and she felt convinced she would, if she were allowed to spend the night at Wormhill, be seeing them shortly in the kitchen. She similarly dismissed the presence of the minister as, thanks to her interlude at the vicarage, she already knew more about the ways of the clergy than she felt any great need to know.

It was the tall gentleman helping an elderly woman down the lichen-slippery steps cut into the knoll at badly spaced intervals who captured and held her interest. Of above-average height, and remarkably well-shouldered for one so slim, he wore his dark clothing with the ease of one accustomed to superior dress. Indeed, even the black mourning band pinned to his left sleeve was fashioned of silk.

Carrying his hat in his hand, leaving his blond head bare, the man had more than a claim to handsomeness—he was downright beautiful, even if his features were totally devoid of expression and completely unreadable. Skin pale and smooth was marred only by the growth of reddish-blond hair on his upper lip, an affectation she was sure he had adopted in hope of looking less like an innocent. Still, he must be at least five years the senior of the younger boys, who had to be his cousins, if not his brothers.

She took a quick peek at the old woman, who had rid herself of the black veil that had formerly hidden her features. Cassandra smiled yet again. Ah, here was a worthy opponent, if ever she had seen one. The old woman may have bent with time, but she had most certainly not broken under it. She fairly crackled with energy as she walked, her head held high, daring anyone to mention the tears that still lay wet on her cheeks. If Cassandra were to be able to claim any relatives in this group, she would quickly choose the old woman.

She stood her ground in the falling mist, even as the wagon moved off and she fought a momentary urge to hop on it and make her escape before the people spied her out and condemned her as an imposter. She even took a moment to look longingly after the wagon, turning back just in time to see the tall, blond man turn his vivid, blue eyes on her, impaling her with his steely gaze. Had she really thought him harmless? She squirmed in her half boots, sure he was looking straight through to her soul.

"Hello, there. Who are you?"

The question came from one of the young gentlemen, which one Cassandra could not be sure, as she was still attempting to stare down the mustachioed gentleman—a notion that quickly lost its appeal as she realized the man could most probably outstare a dead cat.

Shifting her gaze to the younger men, she announced brightly—perhaps too brightly, "Me? I'm Cassandra Hampshire, some sort of cousin to Lucinda Benedict, or so I'm told, although I have to admit, I've never had the pleasure of encountering the woman. I suppose I'm too late for the funeral, which is no surprise, for I am almost always late for everything. It really is too bad of me, isn't it? Are you relatives, also? If you are, you're as much of a surprise to me as Mrs. Benedict would have been, if only I could have met her. I'd shake hands, but I'm rather dirty from traveling, and I think I smell of onions."

"What did she say, Cosmo?"

Cosmo tipped his head to one side, tapping the tip of his malacca cane against his cheek as he stared at Cassandra with amused curiosity. "Be quiet, Cyril. I'm still trying to sort it out. Something about cousins and onions. She's right about those—she smells dreadful. Hey, Philip, come over here a moment, if you please. It appears we have a visitor."

"Nonsense! You ignorant young puppy! Would you have your brother doing the pretty, leaving me to stand outside catching my death in this downpour?" the old woman barked impatiently, tugging on Philip's arm as he made to move toward Cassandra. "Bring the chit inside. I daresay I already know who she is—and if I weren't feeling so terribly charitable toward that twit Lucinda, I would cheerfully dig her up and wring her silly neck!"

"Not dig her up, ma'am," Cyril answered, holding out an arm to Cassandra while Cosmo relieved her of the tapestry bag. "You mean dig her out, don't you? That was a mighty slab of granite we pushed in after her. I know, because I checked it, just to be sure."

Cosmo shook his head, an exasperated action that did not escape Cassandra's all-seeing eyes. "Checked it out, did you, Brother? You beat the Dutch, do you know that? Aunt Lucinda ain't going anywhere. I don't care what we woke up to this morning. I'm telling you, there could be a thousand reasons why those chairs were back in the center of the drawing room after the old girl made Farnley push them into the corner."

"Well, if there are, I'd be terribly pleased to hear them! And what about yesterday, Cosmo?" his brother reminded him. "Don't forget the way that vase toppled off the mantel, without none of us even near it."

Behind her, Cassandra heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see one of the servants, a small, painfully thin, sharp-faced man, rubbing mightily at a rabbit's foot he held in front of him as if to ward off demons. Beside him, clinging to him tightly, was a similarly thin woman of indeterminate years, her sallow face a frozen mask of panic.

Cassandra turned back to Cyril, who maintained his grip on her elbow as they made their way through a pair of French doors, coming into what could only be the breakfast room. "Perhaps I have been too long without food and am imagining things," she said, watching as the man called Philip helped the old woman to a nearby chair while the butler began loading the sideboard with sliced meats. "You're not actually supposing that this Lucinda Benedict person has turned into some sort of spirit, are you? How intriguing that would be! Is that ham?"

"See, Cosmo. She called my idea intriguing. She don't think it's stupid," Cyril said smugly.

Cassandra's gaze flitted around the room, lighting quickly on each and every face before turning once more to the dowager duchess. "Then you do think so! Oh, isn't that exciting! Don't you think that's exciting, ma'am?"

The dowager duchess looked down the length of the table at Cassandra in blatant disdain. "There's no question about it, Philip. She's related to Lucinda, all right. Thank heaven it's on the maternal side, although the comparison might more easily explain your brothers, wouldn't it, as well as your dear departed mother's eagerness to marry a man who still believes he's living in ancient Greece? Why, the names he gave you all are enough to curl my hair—Cosmo, Cyril, Penelope, Philippos! Jerome Benedict may have been our family rotter, but he was a sane family rotter. The queerness comes straight from Lucinda. But never mind all that now. Come here, gel," she commanded Cassandra, "and let me get a good look at you."

When Cassandra obliged (for she was just as anxious to get a good look at the old woman as the old woman evidently was to look at her), the dowager duchess rose and walked completely around her twice, her tongue clicking a time or two in a disheartening way as she touched first the shabby red cloak and then a straggling blond-streaked brown curl.

"Is there some problem, Your Grace?" Philip asked, his innate good manners making it difficult for him to stand still for this blatant inspection of the stranger, as if the unfortunate girl were on the auction block. "You said you know who she is. How is the young woman related to Aunt Lucinda?"

"My name is Cassandra Hampshire, sir, as it would seem you didn't hear me the first time I said it," Cassandra answered boldly, removing her bonnet and cape ungrudgingly, in order to give the old lady a better look at her. "And until a few days ago, I had never even heard of anyone named Lucinda Benedict. Have you always had that mustache? It doesn't quite match the rest of your hair, you know. It's almost red."

"Touché, Miss Hampshire! Forgive me for talking around you, rather than to you. By the way, I am Philip Rayburn, the Earl of Hawkedon," Philip answered politely, "and the twin idiots over there, just now laughing their heads off at my expense, are my brothers, Lords Cosmo and Cyril Rayburn. The lady, um, inspecting you at the moment is Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Avonall. Perhaps you'll excuse her, and the rest of us, as it has been a rather trying day. We've just said our last farewells to a very dear friend."

An earl? A dowager duchess? It would seem Cassandra had somehow come to be moving among very exalted company, an exciting thought but, alas, one that did nothing to stop her empty stomach from grumbling out loud. "I'm extremely pleased to meet you all, my lords, and Your Grace," she said quickly, "and you have my sincere sympathy. However I just last night said farewell to my last piece of bread. Do you suppose I could have something to eat before Her Grace decides whatever it is she's trying to decide about me? I'm terribly hungry."

The dowager duchess appeared to have totally ignored the conversation going on around her as she continued to circle Cassandra, still intent on her inventory. "I suppose the bones are good, if lacking meat. You do have all your teeth, don't you—and it is already apparent that you know how to bite with your words, if not when to swallow them. Never mind. You'll learn. You remind me somewhat of my dearest Tansy. But that outlandish hair, that dreadfully tanned skin. I don't know. I just don't know."

She shook her head as she stepped back a pace, her hands on her hips. "I can't say for sure until we've cleaned you up a bit, of course, but this might prove more difficult than I had first imagined."

Chapter Two

The late afternoon luncheon had at last been consumed in the morning room, and gotten through without incident—thanks mostly to Cosmo and Cyril's verbal antics concerning some rather bizarre burial rituals as practiced by an obscure tribe in Africa—and the party had adjourned to the drawing room. A dry stick of a solicitor had come, pronounced, and gone—and now everybody knew what previously only the dowager duchess had been privileged, or cursed, to know.

Cosmo and Cyril had announced themselves to be well pleased, as Lucinda had bestowed on them her multitudinous collection of books, and they had a secret love of literature, even though they had learned to conceal this information well, so as not to become the butt of jokes from their schoolmates or blandishments to "make something of themselves" by their family.

Farnley and his wife Pansy, now departed for the kitchens where they doubtless were toasting the old lady with some of her best wine, had appeared nearly overcome with joy—although they hid this reaction admirably behind their thin, unsmiling faces—at hearing they had been given lifelong status at Wormhill, either in service or, if the new owner were to wish it, through retirement in a small cottage situated blessedly out of sight of the main house on the other side of the knoll, behind the family cemetery. Included in this gift—and a truly affecting gesture it might indeed be termed—was that of adjoining burial plots, set aside for the day one or both Farnleys should require them, the solicitor's reading of which at last succeeded in bringing a single tear to Farnley's beady left eye.

The dowager duchess had remained resigned—only muttering under her breath a time or two as she heard the bequest to Farnley, saying something about those that needed planting seldom getting it, while those that shouldn't be underground often are—as she had already been privy to the contents of the will, except for Lucinda's provision that Her Grace be allowed use of the main bedchamber (formerly Lucinda's) for as long as she lived. To the dowager duchess, this seemed only her due, as she had been laden down—only indirectly but more fatally—with a decidedly difficult project, and should be allowed as many creature comforts as possible, including what was sure to be the best mattress to be found in the house.

The remaining persons named in the will, the two most effected by Lucinda's last wishes, had exhibited remarkably disparate reactions upon hearing the last of the document, the part that disposed of the furnished house, lands, and income.

Even before the solicitor had completed the reading, Philip Raybum, Earl of Hawkedon and heir to his father the Marquess of Weybridge, had allowed his cool, blue eyes to widen a fraction as he turned his head to look at the young woman sitting next to him—the young woman who was just then nibbling on a raspberry tart she had brought with her from the table—and had then remained quietly in his chair, saying nothing.

It was, for the dowager duchess and most especially for the twins, a most discouragingly underwhelming reaction.

But, bless her, Cassandra Louise Hampshire, the newest, and still virtually unknown member of their small party, had been anything but reluctant to show her response to the news once the full meaning of the solicitor's announcement had penetrated her mind. Popping the last bite of the tart into her mouth, she had hopped to her feet, whooped "Bless her dear old heart!" and then grabbed hold of the gape-mouthed Cyril's hands, and begun gaily waltzing him about the room.

Belatedly remembering where she was—and with whom—Cassandra then returned to stand in front of her chair, curtseyed politely in the dowager duchess's direction, and collapsed into her seat once more, while not quite succeeding in suppressing a lingering giggle.

It was only then, after dismissing the ogling Farnleys with one piercing glare, that Philip rose from his chair, politely thanked the solicitor for coming while firmly ushering him toward the foyer, and then took up the man's seat behind the too-small, short-legged, kidney-shaped desk.

"Boys, if you'd be so kind?" the earl began, hinting that his brothers should leave the room.

They remained impervious to this politely veiled order. Either that, or they refused to recognize it as such. Cosmo, still fanning his brother with a large white linen handkerchief after witnessing his unexpected exertions with Cassandra, remarked frankly, "You're jesting of course, Philippos. It would take more than one of your devilish stares to boost Cyril and me from this room, wouldn't it, Brother?"

Cyril nodded in vigorous agreement. "Considerably more. It ain't often we get to see Philippos squirm. Not since we heard about how Lucien tucked him up into bed with a salmon last year after a bout of drinking, if memory serves me right. That's probably because he ain't had more than a few drops of anything to drink since, knowing he has no head for spirits. As a matter of fact—not before or since the salmon thing, and the kick-up over his running out on that Redfern chit—I can't think of a time when dear Philip hasn't had the upper hand. Damned depressing, if you ask me, considering that we're his brothers and we haven't been half so lucky. In the briars more than not, aren't we, Cosmo? No, I ain't going anywhere. Neither of us is. No. Not now."

Philip rested his elbows on the desktop and steepled his fingertips together. "If you are quite finished?" he tightly asked his brothers, who were not so grown-up that they could resist squirming uncomfortably in their chairs.

Turning to face the dowager duchess, Philip said wearily, "From all that you've said and done thus far, Your Grace, in the garden and since, I can only suppose that you were privy to this entire, painfully obvious matchmaking scheme from the outset."

The dowager duchess sat up very straight in her chair, a move that lifted her toes almost an inch from the floor. "Don't get all stiff and starchy on me, young man, for it won't fadge!" she commanded hotly, for she was no gangling youth to be intimidated by a man who, earl or not, was young enough to be her grandson. "Yes, I knew about it, heaven help me. Lucinda penned me a long missive—I won't lower myself to call it a letter—on the subject several months ago, just after Christmas, if memory serves. It took me nearly two months to decipher it, as all of it was made up of silly, disconnected quotes. She always mentioned the sources of those damnable quotes as well, you know, as if I cared one way or the other. Took forever to figure out what she was saying."

She shook her head. "Dashed, silly woman. And before you ask me why I didn't hie straight up here to Wormhill to confront her when I finally figured out her intention, remember this, my boy—we're speaking of Lucinda Benedict, a woman who used snippets from Plutarch to give orders to the staff concerning menus and household chores! Perhaps I should have summoned you and let you try to talk some sense into her head, except that I would then have been guilty of breaking her confidence. Besides, I'm older and wiser than you. I've long ago given up beating my head against stone walls."

The particular stone wall of which the dowager duchess spoke was, of course, the section of the will that dealt with Lucinda's disposition of Wormhill.

To some—a very limited audience indeed, consisting of Cosmo and Cyril and no one else save perhaps their sister Penelope and her husband, if they were to be privy to its contents—the will could only be seen as a cunning, Machiavellian masterpiece not entirely without humor.

To those of a less hilarity-prone, nonsense-loving disposition, the will could be seen as manipulative, and embarrassingly heavy-handed manipulation at that. Into this category fell the earl of Hawkedon and the dowager duchess, both highly intelligent people who knew how to appreciate the ridiculous, but who were not quite as fond of it when they were the subject of that manipulative ridicule.

Cassandra Louise Hampshire, however, fell into a category not inhabited by any of the other people in the room. Cassandra, living hand-to-mouth in an existence that had been more thrust upon her than sought after, and a young woman not in the habit of peering down the gullets of the few gift horses that had chanced to come her way, saw in Lucinda Benedict's last will and testament only what she wished to see. And what she wished to see pleased her. It pleased her in the extreme!

"If I might say something here?" Cassandra asked, when the silence in the room finally came to her notice (as she had been busily contemplating her abrupt change in fortune, and hadn't really been paying attention for the past few minutes). She spread her hands, palms upward, as if to encompass not only the morning room, but all of Wormhill. "I own this place? Is that right?"

"We own this place," Philip corrected, tossing down the will as he rose and began pacing, his hands clasped behind his back. "You seem to have conveniently forgotten that part of the will, or perhaps you stuffed up your ears once you heard the part that landed you in clover. For the next two months, providing neither of us leaves the estate for longer than three hours at one time, we own this place. After that, the estate reverts entirely to you, Miss Hampshire, and may you have joy in it."

"But if you take a flit before the two months are up, Philip," Cosmo pointed out bravely, "then the whole thing goes to the local vicarage—house, furniture and lands—leaving you and Miss Hampshire nothing but Aunt Lucinda's ugly chairs to divide between you—a thought that would be enough to keep me stuck fast to the place. Don't you think so, Cyril?"

Cyril's brows furrowed. "Do you really think Philip might take a flit, Cosmo? I mean, Lord knows his pockets are deep enough not to need Wormhill, even for two months, but would he do that to Miss Hampshire? Look at her gown, Cosmo—it has been mended in at least three places. And don't forget how she showed up here, riding on the back of a farmer's wagon. Poor thing. She mustn't have a feather to fly with. No gentleman could do anything so shabby, and Philip is first of all a gentleman. Ain't he, Cosmo?"

Cassandra's gaze flew to Philip's face, her initial elation finally tempered by the realization that her future—the future that had seen her dancing about the drawing room only a few minutes previously—hung in the balance. His expression gave nothing away, and her hackles rose, as she had never been beholden to anyone in her life (save for her guardian and protector, Fish, although he would never hold it over her head), and she didn't much like the idea of starting now, especially with the imperious Earl of Hawkedon and his stupid reddish-blond mustache.

The dowager duchess sprang to her feet, giving Cyril a glancing swat to the head as she walked to the center of the room. "Of course he's a gentleman—just as you are a silly, unlicked cub!"

"Ow! I ain't been hit since Papa caught me looking at his dueling pistols, slap me if I haven't, Cosmo."

"You should feel proud, Cyril," his twin countered, carefully keeping his own skull out of harm's way. "Not everybody can say they've been cuffed by a dowager duchess."

The dowager duchess ignored this exchange and turned to Philip, her eyes narrowing as she endeavored to get everything settled so that she could retire to her bedchamber for a well-deserved nap. "Now, Philip. I think we all know exactly what Lucinda had in mind when she penned this will. She learned of Cassandra's existence late last year, after I had deeded Wormhill to her, and decided that, as her final worldly act, she would take one last stab at matchmaking—and then dragged me in as unwilling chaperone, just to liven up my lackluster days."

She nodded to Cassandra. "That's why it was so simple for the solicitor to locate you, my dear, in case you've been pondering that question. Lucinda had had your whereabouts monitored for at least half a year. Why she didn't just rescue you I shall never know, but then, who could understand Lucinda? But her will, more's the pity, is clear as glass. Lucinda wishes for you and Philip to fall in love with each other, marry, and settle down—no doubt also securing the future of those two hideous chairs she was so dotty about."

Cassandra looked from the earl to the dowager duchess, and then back to the earl. "Marriage? To you? Her Grace is serious, isn't she? Why, of course she is! I didn't realize—I didn't really comprehend—I was just so overcome with joy to hear of my good fortune that—but—aren't we related?"

Cosmo nudged Cyril. "You hear that, Brother? Isn't that just like any female you ever met? She's already checking on the distance of the relationship, as if it's all but settled. Do you think we ought to pop down to the local church and post the banns?"

The dowager duchess, who had taken up a position behind Cosmo and Cyril, leaned forward, resting her hands on the backs of the twins' chairs as she lowered her head between them, to the level of their ears. Her voice was as low and menacing as her smile was wide and friendly. "You are both such dear, adorable boys. I cannot tell you when I last so enjoyed listening to the babble of young mouths. But we grownups have things to discuss now, and the nursery set is no longer required. So why don't you toddle off outside, now that the rain has stopped, and make mud pies? Otherwise, I might just be forced to—"

"Bravo, Your Grace," Philip said, giving a slight smile as the two red-faced boys jumped to their feet and all but ran from the room before she could finish. "Papa would give a monkey to learn your recipe for terror. He's been trying to find a way to light a fire under those boys' rumps for nearly twenty years."

He shifted his gaze to Cassandra. "Now, to answer your question, Miss Hampshire: Yes, we are related. However, that relationship has been quite thoroughly watered down, so that we could, conceivably, become marrying cousins. Which, I must add, we will not do, no matter how romantic a notion Aunt Lucinda must have believed such an occurrence to be."

Cassandra's mobile face puckered into a thoughtful frown and she stood up, appearing as if she might be eager to follow the twins from the room. "Then you are going to take a flit, as your brothers said? Well, let me tell you, I didn't much like the idea of having you to thank for my good fortune. You look like the sort who would keep your good deed hovering over my head like a sword dangling from a frayed string, never letting me forget how you sacrificed two whole months of your life for me. Well, I don't need your charity, sirrah! I know how to make it on my own."

"Good girl!" the dowager duchess exclaimed, clapping Cassandra on the back enthusiastically before pushing her down into her chair once more. "But there's a time and place for spunk, and this most assuredly is not it. Now, let's get this settled, shall we? Philip," she said, glaring at him while her voice took on a no-nonsense tone formerly reserved for the twins, her departed friend Lucinda, and any of her family who dared to cross her, "you are a gentleman. Knowing full well that Lucinda had it in her mind to lock you up here with Cassandra until the two of you fell top over tail in love with each other, you will nevertheless not set foot off this estate for more than three hours at one time for the coming two months. Am I correct?"

Looking directly at Cassandra, and manfully suppressing a shudder as she pulled a childish face at him, the earl—mentally erasing his plans for the Season, including a bound-to-be-pleasant interlude at Newmarket—bowed formally and answered fatalistically, "I am yours to command for the next eight weeks, Miss Hampshire."

As Cassandra opened her mouth, doubtless to inform the earl that she didn't desire this sacrifice (nor much want it, as the thought of being cooped up at Wormhill with such as he held little appeal, no matter how grand the reward), the dowager duchess silenced her by placing one small, bony hand on her shoulder. "And now for you, missy. You will live up to your end of the bargain by remaining at Wormhill, surely finding much to amuse you—most especially the regularity of the meals and the dryness of the sheets—until the time set by Lucinda is over, upon which time you will be, to be vulgarly frank, set up for life. Otherwise I—who can also be listed as a victim of Lucinda's foolishness, if you'll recall, as you cannot both reside beneath this roof without me here to keep up appearances while dissuading you from killing each other—will make both your lives a living hell. Is that clear, children? Now, I want the both of you to shake hands, agreeing to the arrangement."

Cassandra gave a deep sigh. "It's not just knowing that I'd owe my inheritance to him, Your Grace," she said with a toss of her head in Philip's direction. "I don't know that I can stay here for two entire months. It seems so confining. I have become accustomed to a freer existence."

"Yes," Philip countered easily, feeling mean and put-upon as he leaned against a corner of the desk. "Remembering how you arrived here today—which is not difficult, as the odor of onions and wet dog still clings to the air—I can see where confinement beneath a roof that does not leak would present a problem for you. Perhaps if you skipped a meal or two, and spent a few nights sleeping outside under the roses it would keep your memory fresh for what you are missing."

His smile was blightingly white beneath his mustache as he shrugged his shoulders. "It's merely a suggestion."

"Philip," the dowager duchess warned, "you are not so old, or so tall, that I cannot box your ears."

Cassandra rose, patting the old lady's hand as she did so. "I do my own fighting, if you please, Your Grace," she said coolly. Walking over to face Philip, she held out her hand, as if willing to put an end to their differences as the dowager duchess had suggested. Waiting until he took it in his, she said brightly, "There's no need for us to be ugly to each other, my lord. I promise you, no matter how high Mrs. Benedict's flights of fancy may have taken her. I have no designs on your bachelorhood. If you last out the two months—if we both last out the two months—we shall each have our rewards. I shall have Wormhill, and you shall have, as my gift to you for your graciousness, your own burial plot beside that of my die-away butler, whatever his name is. It's the least I can do. After all, I wouldn't want you to feel you've gained nothing by the experience."

And then, taking advantage of the earl's momentary speechlessness—and not bothering to hide a smile as she listened to the dowager duchess explode into appreciative laughter—Cassandra quit the drawing room, heading for the door that led to the kitchens, where she hoped to find someone who might direct her to her new bedchamber— the one that wasn't shoved up under the eaves.

* * * * *

Cassandra sat at the chipped Shearer dressing table, brushing through her long blond-streaked light brown hair as she contemplated her reflection in the cloudy mirror.

Also reflected in the mirror was Lucinda Benedict's newly remade four poster bed, as the dowager duchess had belatedly decided that she could not sleep comfortably on the same mattress upon which her dear friend had so lately been laid out in all her lacy, draped splendor, no matter that it was the finest mattress in the house. Besides, the dowager duchess's maid had already unpacked in the blue bedchamber, and the thought of packing it all up and starting over was just too much for one day.

Cassandra, who had slept more than once on smelly, understuffed straw mattresses, or without benefit of any mattress at all, did not have such scruples (or a moody maid to contend with), and was thoroughly delighted with her new bedchamber.

It was large, for one thing, giving her ample room to think and breathe, far away from the drawing room and the other residents of Wormhill, some of whom delighted her and others of whom made her feel as if she was a particularly suspicious specimen of moth, stuck on a pin for their inspection.

The residents who delighted her were, of course, the twins, Cosmo and Cyril. After spending the day in their company, she still had some trouble sorting out just who was whom, not that it mattered overmuch, as both young men were delightful zanies who had made her feel welcome without reservation.

Her chin lifted a fraction. And why shouldn't she feel welcome? This was, after all, her house! The chin fell again. No, it wasn't. It was their house, hers and Lord Hawkedon's. Heavens, but she couldn't remember another time when she had taken such an instant and intense dislike to anyone—even before she'd learned that he held the ticket to her future security, if she could think so vulgarly now that she was on her way to being a semi-official "lady" once again.

A lady. Placing her hands behind her head, she lifted her hair onto her crown and struck a dramatic pose before the mirror. "Allow me to introduce you to Miss Cassandra Hampshire, our newest member of the landed gentry," she intoned haughtily, inclining her head a scant inch and aping the dowager's way of looking at everything down the length of her nose. "Charmed, I'm sure," she answered herself, drawling the words, then winked broadly and let go of her hair so that it cascaded around her shoulders as she dissolved into nervous giggles.

It was delicious, entirely too delicious to comprehend! Rising from the stool in front of the dressing table, and dragging the filmy, too-large-yet-too-short dressing gown back up onto her bare shoulders, Cassandra began investigating her late relative's bedchamber, something she had been longing to do since Pansy had ushered her into it after dinner.

The individual pieces of furniture interested her, but not nearly so much as they would have, perhaps, if she had been exposed to them one at a time. Combined in a single room, and therefore thrust upon her senses with much the same effect with which she would have been immediately saturated from top to toe had she tumbled into a well, their very individual ugliness dimmed beneath the overall effect of grandeur gone awry.

An intricately carved, yet largely unremarkable Jones chimneypiece was nearly obscured by a tall, badly out-of-proportion Shearer fire screen that had been fashioned to serve double duty as a writing table, complete with cubbyholes for writing paper, nibs, inkpots, and other necessary items.

A striped satin Hepplewhite duchesse—a design borrowed from the French, and losing badly in the translation—consisting of two Buijair chairs stuck together face to face, with an attached stool in the center to separate them—stood at an angle beside the chimneypiece.

More than a half dozen assorted tables, chests, and chairs of various ages and fashion, all either highly ornate, highly impractical in design, or both, were scattered about the room as if the thought of trying to assemble them into any sort of order was more than could be humanly "arranged."

Adam candlestands and Pergolesi panels cluttered the corners and walls, while murky portraits of—Cassandra sincerely prayed—somebody else's equally murky-looking ancestors stared down at her from within ornate, tarnished gilt frames.

Inelegantly hefting the hem of the dressing gown above her knees, Cassandra took three giant steps and launched herself onto the high, wide tester bed, collapsing onto the mattress on her back, her giggles threatening to enlarge into a full-blown bout of hilarity.

It was hers, all hers. Ugly, overdone, catch-as-catch-can—it was hers—and she loved every carved bamboo table leg and chipped gilt wall panel of it!

So she had to put up with the Earl of Hawkedon for two months. Piffle! She'd had put up with worse, and for far longer. Lucinda Benedict, bless her short, pudgy frame (if this dressing gown was to be used as a measuring stick as to the dimensions of her departed relative), had lifted her from the depths of financial depression and an uncertain future and catapulted her, by the simple act of dying, into, if not the deepest gravy boat in all England, one in which she would wade most comfortably for the remainder of her days.

Cassandra sobered. She was allowing herself to become slightly drunk on her unexpected good fortune. A woman had died, for pity's sake. She had died, and been deposited in the mausoleum only a scant eight hours earlier. Whether she had known the old dear or not, Cassandra knew she should be feeling some way other than elated at this moment. Melancholy, perhaps? Perhaps even teary-eyed?

Another giggle escaped her curved lips, and her grey eyes twinkled like stars at twilight as she wiggled her bare toes in delight. It was impossible to grieve, not while she lay on a comfortable bed, her belly full and her future secured.

Except for Lord Hawkedon, of course, she reminded herself once more, although she refused to believe he would go back on his word and leave Wormhill, and her, in the lurch. He was a gentleman—hadn't he told her so?—and he would stick out these next two months if the effort killed him!

"And if the effort doesn't kill him," she said out loud to the painted nymphs looking down at her from the ceiling (an incongruous sight in a country house, but then, Cassandra wasn't to know that), "the dearest dowager duchess will have his liver and lights if he dares to pack his baggage, bless her heart. No," she assured herself, crossing her arms behind her head as she snuggled down on the coverlet, "this is mine. All mine. I can barely wait until my dearest Fish gets here. He'll be over the moon!"

* * * * *

"Go?" Cyril sat forward in his chair, spilling several drops of brandy onto his new waistcoat, as he had been about to take a deep drink when his brother spoke, shattering his feeling of well-being. "What do you mean, we have to go? We just got here. I say, Philip, that's awfully unsporting of you. Ain't it, Cosmo?"

"Terribly shabby," Cosmo agreed, handing Cyril a serviette and absently telling him to clean himself up before turning away to peer intensely at his older brother.

The left side of his mouth lifted in a small, knowing smile, Philip leaned back in his chair in the drawing room, where the trio had congregated after the ladies went up to bed. His brothers had reacted just as he thought they would. Cyril had blustered, and Cosmo had gone on a hunt for some hidden motive.

"Poor boys," Philip said. "Mean brother Philippos is taking you away from all your fun. You should have loved to play at Cupid, wouldn't you? It isn't enough for you that I have been banished to the back of beyond, to live for the next two months surrounded by a bold, graceless young woman who cannot succeed in keeping the gleam of avarice from her eyes at the thought of owning this rotting pile; an aged curmudgeon who takes her greatest delight in trimming hapless souls with her tongue, and that morose butler Farnley who, by the way, has already pulled me aside to offer me a nip from a small blue bottle, the contents of which are guaranteed to ward off matrimony-seeking females."

"He didn't!" Cosmo shook his head. "Better beware of that one, Philip. Remember, he's the one that dosed our brother-in-law with laudanum, to keep him from getting the brain fever after meeting Aunt Lucinda for the first time. Poor Lucien slept nearly twice around the clock, until I thought Penny was going to have strong hysterics, thinking we'd all be hanged for murder. You know what, Philip? I think you should reconsider sending Cyril and me away. You might want to keep us around—as your official tasters, like that Cleopatra person did back in ancient Egypt."

"Too true, Philip," Cyril said, neatly taking up the thread as he was wont to do after a lifetime spent with his twin. "Farnley's about as loyal as a dog at his father's wake into the bargain, and about as cheerful. No, I shouldn't think we could leave you like this, not in good conscience. There's no knowing what could happen to you, left in Farnley's hands."

Philip held up his palms in protest. "Please, boys, you threaten to unman me with your brotherly concern. However, as I shall have Simms, my valet, with me to bear me company—yes, Cosmo, and to taste things for me—I doubt that I will come to any harm. You are to leave at first light, before you can meet with Miss Hampshire again and say or do something that will end with me hanging for your murder!"

Cyril frowned. "Our murder? Cosmo, were we planning to murder anyone?"

"Philip means his murder—of us, you twit!" Cosmo answered testily, for he already knew there would be nothing else for it but to obey Philip, who could be most oppressive when he put his mind to it. "But, Philip, where will we go? Papa's at Weybridge, awaiting delivery of some Greek statues or something. I don't know why he wants the things—none of them have any arms, or even noses, for that matter. We haven't done anything wrong, so why should we be punished by having to help Papa prop up his pieces of marble in the gardens? And Lucien will toss us out on our ears if we come visiting Penny this close to her lying-in. Truly, Philip, there's no place for us to go."

"You may have my town house for the Season," Philip answered, knowing he could have settled the matter most swiftly by mentioning this at the outset, but unwilling to feel as if he was offering his brothers a bribe to get them to leave Wormhill before their agile minds wreaked havoc with an already difficult situation. "It's fully staffed, as I had already taken up residence, and I'll send a note along explaining your appearance to my majordomo."

Philip's nonchalant statement did not, however, fool the twins. "But we haven't a feather to fly with, dear brother," Cosmo said quickly, winking slyly at his twin. "What good is London without deep pockets? No, if our choices are either Weybridge with Papa, or Wormhill with you and that intriguing Miss Hampshire as our hosts, I'm afraid we'll just have to stay here, to do an inventory on our inheritance from Aunt Lucinda."

Cyril shrugged eloquently. "How many books do you say there are stacked up in the study, Cosmo? A thousand? Two thousand?" He heaved a great, aggrieved sigh. "It could take months—at least two months, to get them all in order."

Philip rose from his chair, turning his back so that his brothers wouldn't see his smile. They were a crafty pair, or at least they thought so, not that Philip hadn't prepared himself for a flush hit on his pocketbook. "A pony," he said, turning about to face them. "That's twenty-five pounds apiece, if you're unfamiliar with the term, and it is also my sole and final offer. Take it or leave it—but trust me in this, my wily, catastrophe-loving brothers—you will leave."

Chapter Three

The garden was lovely in the morning, the heavy, nearly wild roses drooping with dew, the mossy brick pathways curving in and out without order, so that as Cassandra moved, she drifted from sunlight into shadow without rhyme or reason.

Discovering a small stone bench tucked beneath an overgrown hedge that might once have been shaped to resemble a round, chubby animal but that now reminded her more of an overgrown pin cushion stuffed with long, bent hat pins, she wiped away the dew with the hem of her red cloak and sat down.

It would be at least an hour until breakfast was served, as she had learned when she surprised Pansy standing outside the door to the kitchens, making some sort of strange motions with her hands as she chanted under her breath. Cassandra might have asked the woman what she was about, if only she hadn't been so favorably impressed by the woman's clumsy curtseys and overuse of the term, "Miss Cassandra."

She smiled, reliving the moment. How long had it been since she had been "Miss Cassandra"? Surely not since her mother had died and she had been sent away to live with her distant cousin, George. Nanny had been let go then, of course. Dear, sweet Nanny, the one true anchor in Cassandra's life up until that time, and a woman who had stayed on in the Hampshire household long after funds to pay her had disappeared.

Cassandra wished Nanny could have lived to see Wormhill. How she would have loved this place. But Nanny, nearly the last link with her past, had died soon after Fish and Cassandra had found her two years ago, living in a small, rented cottage in Derbyshire.

Her mood dipped a fraction, and she fought to control a sudden urge to weep. She had to remember that she was not alone, and hadn't been alone since Fish had found her. Now, there was a thought to concentrate on; a happy thought to brighten her day!

Soon Fish would be here. Fish would see Wormhill and break into that wide grin of his that could make a grown woman swoon at his feet. He'd then put his hands on his hips, tip his head back, looking up at the sky as if there were something up there only he could see, and say, "Yes, indeedy. It's died and gone to heaven you have, m'darlin' girl, and, bless you, you've taken me up with you!"

"You're up and about early, Miss Hampshire." Cassandra's blood ran cold as the sound of Philip Rayburn's voice penetrated her pleasant daydream. "I saw Farnley's soulmate in the hallway just now, looking even more pale and pasty than usual, and she told me where to find you. What's wrong, did you find a few spoons missing when you counted up the family silver? Please don't sack the woman, Miss Hampshire, for there's an explanation. Cosmo and Cyril had a slight contretemps at table last summer and two of the teaspoons were bent beyond repair."

Cassandra's mood shifted rapidly from happy to combative. Slowly turning her head in his direction, she remarked levelly, "And why would you think I rose early to count the family silver, my lord? Is my look really that lean and hungry?"

She squirmed against her will, for her question seemed to serve as an invitation to the man to examine her from head to toe with his unreadable blue gaze. "Have you no black, Miss Hampshire? We're in mourning here, you know."

"For what, my lord? The sad loss of your senses?" she responded acidly. "My wardrobe, as you would have realized if you were to give the matter a moment's thought, doesn't run to mourning clothes. I could don something of Mrs. Benedict's, although the familiarity of them might upset the dowager duchess, while the length of them—or should I say, the sad lack of length of them—might serve to put a man such as you into a decline. And I haven't yet gotten around to counting the family silver. I'm still searching my late relative's cupboards for diamonds."

The earl's eyebrows rose a fraction at the rebuke, which they both knew he richly deserved, although he was certain she needn't have gone so far as to allude to the possible exposure of her lower limbs to his scrutiny. He bowed formally in her direction. "My apologies, Miss Hampshire. I'm hardly ever boorish. It must be that I am not yet reaccustomed to these early country hours. If I were in London, I would just be coming in, not waking to meet another day."

Cassandra refused to be mollified. Rising, she said, "And that's my fault, my lord? Goodness, if you blame me every time you recall the frolics you're missing in the metropolis, I imagine I shall soon feel as if the kindest thing I could do would be to find a deep lake and throw myself in it."

He bowed again as she swept past him. "Please don't neglect to weight your pockets down with rocks, Miss Hampshire, for you wouldn't want to keep bobbing to the surface. Oh, and—by the by—do you have any proof that you indeed are Cassandra Hampshire? It's just a piddling detail, but one I think we should check out before we get down to this farce in earnest."

She turned, her eyes narrowed, to look at him intensely as she came to a decision. "You're still smarting over what I said about your mustache, aren't you, my lord? And, being a man, you won't be content until you've stuck two darts into me for every one I've shot into you. All right," she said, nodding, "I apologize for pointing out that your mustache, which is almost red, does not match the blondness of your head. I will also apologize for thinking that you have only grown that mustache to keep you from looking younger than your brothers—or, for that matter, prettier than any female within fifty miles of this place. Now, do you think we can go in to breakfast without descending to the level of your brothers, and tossing spoons at each other? It would set a bad example for them."

"Cosmo and Cyril have been on the road to London for over an hour, Miss Hampshire," he told her, smiling ever so slightly as her mouth dropped open in surprise and disappointment.

She recovered quickly, and only hoped that Philip didn't know how much his news had upset her. Until Fish could arrive, she had been depending on the twins, who had been unflaggingly decent to her since her appearance yesterday, to bear her company.

"You sent them away, of course," she accused at last. "They were nice to me, so you sent them away. Why am I surprised? You know, I wish even more heartily now that I could have met my late relative. She must have been quite a zany indeed, if she thought that anyone could fall in love with you, my lord—even if she were to be locked up at Wormhill with you for a lifetime!"

* * * * *

"I think that went well," Philip said to himself as the door to the morning room slammed behind Cassandra's departing back. Not that he had sought the young woman out expressly to insult her, but when he had stumbled upon her in the gardens, and seen the beatific smile on her face, his self-protective instincts had flown to the fore. She had worn the look of a woman content with her lot, while anticipating even greater pleasure. Heaven knew he had been on the receiving end of just such revealing facial expressions before—most notably from that Redfern chit last spring.

Cassandra Hampshire had been handed a plum, the chance to set herself up in a fine country house, and with a secure income for the rest of her days. She had also been offered the opportunity of a lifetime—that of spending two uninterrupted months in seclusion with one of the most eligible peers in the realm, and with only a wily, matchmaking dowager duchess as chaperone. Stronger men than he had been made to propose marriage in less dangerous circumstances.

He took up the seat he had goaded Cassandra into vacating. He sat very still for a long while, then shook his head. A red cloak. Who wore a red cloak? Shopgirls trying for a bit of color to brighten their drab lives? Actresses hoping to be noticed by some buck who might set them up in a small apartment near Covent Garden? Certainly not well-brought-up young ladies, and most certainly not ladies in mourning.

Last night, after the twins had retired to their chambers, the dowager duchess had shared the scant information she had on Cassandra Hampshire, but there were still more holes in the young woman's life story than there were in the aphid-ravaged roses that faced him across the garden path.

Cassandra's father, a younger son of some impoverished peer (whose name hadn't impressed Philip enough for him to have retained it), had followed the sea, succeeding to the point of being second in command of one of His Royal Majesty's small craft, and perishing heroically in service to his country. While the man had served his country well, he had not provided for his family half so handsomely.

Cassandra's mother, who had been second cousin to Lucinda, had been forced into greater and greater economies, even though she had been the daughter of a baron. That the baron, also deceased, had shared his son-in-law's disaffection for financial solvency, and frittered away all his money on horses and cards before cocking up his toes, hadn't helped his daughter or granddaughter.

So Cassandra had experienced a difficult life, even before her mother's death, when the daughter was only just entering her teens. Cassandra had been sent to act as live-in servant to her cousin George, his wife, and their three children, a most dreary situation from which she eventually escaped, only to land in service to the local vicar, his wife, and their brood of an even half dozen.

At the age of ten and six Cassandra had bid the vicar and his brood adieu, and for the past three years—until Lucinda had succeeded in locating her this past fall—less than nothing was known of the young woman's life.

Did this lapse of information bother Philip? Indeed it did. It bothered him very much.

Strangely, it didn't seem to bother the dowager duchess, and that didn't augur well for Philip's peace of mind.

What was it about women that assured they couldn't rest easily, even in their graves, without first making sure they had bracketed all the men in their lives to suitable, or even totally unsuitable, females? And an unmarried man such as he, who had a title, a fortune, and excellent prospects, seemed to be a particular anathema to these conniving matchmakers.

It was like being on the block, that's what it was, only the females were paraded in front of him for purchase, rather than the other way around.

Philip wasn't adverse to marriage, making him unlike most of his friends, all of whom had already married: St. John, Mannering, Betancourt—even his now brother-in-law, Lucien, as well as Ashley Benedict, the dowager duchess's own grandson, who had been the first to go. It was strange, actually. All of those men had fought the idea of matrimony tooth and nail; yet all of them seemed to be most happily settled, while he, who had actually wished for marriage, remained footloose and fancy free.

Well, almost fancy free. That business with Dorinda Redfern last year—she and her grasping mother and those terrible embroidered slippers Dorinda had presented to him, actually believing they would have him dropping to one knee to propose—had nearly turned him against the idea of ever setting up his nursery. Yet he had traveled to London this spring with high hopes of finding himself a wife before the Season came to an end.

But not this way! Not in this place, and not with the totally unsuitable woman his late aunt had posthumously picked out for him! He wouldn't do it, no matter if he stayed a bachelor for the remainder of his days!

After being nearly bored to flinders by Dorinda, and others of her milk-and-water ilk, he had confessed to Lucien that he had decided to look for an "original" this Season, someone not unlike his sister Penny or the unconventional women who had wed his friends.

Unconventional, however, was one thing. A woman who had spent the past three years of her life roaming the countryside, doing heaven only knew what to keep body and soul together, was pushing this business of unconventionality too far.

Besides, she had no manners, little breeding of note, and the most unpleasant way of making him feel silly and shallow. She acted as if he had deliberately taken a dislike to her because she had spoken ill about his mustache. It was ridiculous! He would never stoop so low, be so petty.

Raising a hand to his upper lip, he stroked the mustache that had, if he could only admit it to himself, become more of a nuisance than anything else. The thing took nearly constant grooming, for one, and he still had yet to master the art of eating bread and jam without ending up wearing most of the jam on his whiskers.

As a matter of fact, he had already been entertaining thoughts of ridding himself of the growth, especially since it was, as Cassandra had so rudely pointed out, more red than blond, and looked almost as if he had hired someone else to grow it for him and then plastered it to his own face.

But now he was stuck with it, at least for the next two months. If he had his valet shave it off now, he'd never hear the end of it. He might not know much about Cassandra Hampshire, but he did know that she would not let such a change in his appearance go unremarked. If he disliked mysterious women, he disliked gloating women even more.

Sighing at the trap he found himself in—the double trap laid partly by his aunt and partly by his own masculine vanity—Philip rose from the bench to seek out his breakfast, inwardly hoping that Cassandra had already filled her belly and left the room.

He should have wished for more. As he entered the morning room, it was to see that Cassandra had indeed departed, but the dowager duchess, a woman he had been sure would prefer to take her breakfast in her bedchamber, not to surface until noon, was seated at the head of the table, next to the coffee pot, as if holding court in the otherwise empty room.

"Are you just going to stand there, boy, letting in a draft, or are you going to put yourself to anchor somewhere? Farnley must be skulking around nearby, eager to serve you."

Philip's gaze shifted from the dowager duchess to the expansive buffet. "I think I can manage to serve myself, Your Grace," he answered, shutting the glass doors behind him and walking toward the silver plate that littered the sideboard. "You're out and about early, ma'am. I must say, if you are to become a daily fixture at the breakfast table, it will go a long way toward making my enforced stay here more pleasant."

The dowager duchess bit into a piece of toast before answering succinctly, "Never could abide a fibber, my boy. You can't like having me here any more than I want to be here. You'd much rather I'd quit the field, so that you could do the same, not being ungentlemanly enough to ruin the gel's reputation by staying unchaperoned under the same roof. Pity. I'm not going anywhere—and neither are you!"

Philip kept his back turned as he loaded his plate, so that the dowager duchess could not see the tic that had begun to work in his cheek. "Cosmo and Cyril send their farewells, ma'am. They, like you, wished to witness my distress firsthand, but the lure of my London town house and an ample allowance dug straight from my pockets succeeded in dissuading them from swelling the audience at this debacle."

He turned to face the woman, whose smile told him he might as well have spared his breath to cool his porridge. "Tell me, Your Grace, since you say you are here for the duration—might you not at least be open to bribery?"

The old lady chuckled deliciously, not taking offense. "Glad to see you've managed to regain your humor, Philip. It has been sadly mislaid since the reading of the will yesterday."

She leaned forward to catch his forearm as he sat down, his plate nearly overloaded with food. "Now, if I promise not to throw Cassandra at your head every other minute, will you join me in making the girl presentable for the not-too-distant time when she actually owns Wormhill outright?" She raised her eyes to encompass the entirety of the morning room, if not the whole house. "If we're going to land her with all this ugliness, the very least we can do is teach her how to dress, how to go on."

Philip eyed the dowager duchess warily as he used his fork to play with the coddled eggs on his plate. "No matchmaking whatsoever—even though that is clearly what Aunt Lucinda wished from you?"

The old lady sat up very straight, looking deeply offended. "Perhaps you'd like it written in blood, boy?" she exploded imperiously.

Philip, thoroughly chastened, was quick to assure her that he needed nothing of the kind; her word was good enough for him. He did add, however, unable to help himself, that, while he was willing to help make a silk purse of a sow's ear, he was no impressionable young boy who would then fall willy-nilly in love with his own creation.

"I should most certainly hope not," the dowager duchess surprised him by answering, "for I have already taken it into my head to present her to London for the fall Little Season. I worried away half the night, trying to discover some way to comply with Lucinda's wishes without involving you—who are, as you have already protested, not in the least interested in the gel. Indeed, I think it is absolutely heroic of you to have agreed to confine yourself here for the next two months, and Lucinda was completely batty to have pinned her hopes on the notion that your enforced closeness to Cassandra would blossom into mutual affection."

Philip decided the eggs were quite good, and took a second bite. "Really, ma'am?"

"Indeed, yes. It was a stupid, typically bird-witted Lucinda idea. Oh, and by the by—just to put a final seal on Lucinda's plans—Cassandra thinks you're naught but an overbearing, conceited twit. Yes, I'm quite convinced that 'twit' was the very word she used—which just goes to show you why I have already reconciled myself to accepting the fact that even my most estimable matchmaking talents could not succeed in this instance."

The left side of the earl's mustache lifted a fraction. "You cannot know how you relieve my mind, Your Grace," he said, at last fully aware of what the woman was about. Really, she was so transparent! She was going to attempt to turn Cassandra Hampshire into a swan—an unlikely happening—and then lure him in by the simple act of warning him away.

It was a rather inventive plan, almost worthy of applause, but it wouldn't work—not this time, and not with him. He had survived Dorinda Redfern's mother, and a half dozen other conniving, matchmaking mothers, and he would survive the dowager duchess. He was simply too smart for her.

* * * * *

"Here's your house key, Miss Cassandra," Farnley said, gingerly holding it out to her as she made to enter the drawing room. "Her Grace said you were to have one, as you're supposed to be the lady of the house."

Cassandra stopped and eyed the butler, whom she had only met briefly but was already convinced she could not like. "Supposed to be the lady of the house, Farnley? Or, wait, could you mean I'm supposed to be the lady of the house? Either way, you sound slightly incredulous, not that I can find it in my heart to blame you. Yesterday I was riding on a farm wagon, and today I find myself riding high on the hog. It's amazing what a single day can bring, isn't it, Farnley?"

When he didn't answer, but only grimaced, she held out her hand and allowed him to deposit the house key into it. "What's this strange-looking stone, Farnley?" she asked, examining the way a hole in the nearly fist-sized stone allowed a leather thong to be looped through both it and the top of the key. "Wasn't this rather cumbersome—not to mention crudely constructed—for Mrs. Benedict to carry about with her? I think I might dispense with it," she said, beginning to work on untying the knot in the leather thong.

"Don't do that!" the butler was stung into ordering, grabbing the contraption out of her hands. "This is a hag-stone, Miss Cassandra, and a very special hagstone at that." His voice, so unnervingly high pitched, lowered an octave. "It protects against witchcraft, Miss Cassandra, just on its own, but when you put it with the door key, hanging iron against stone, it protects you against all sorts of ill luck."

"Ill luck? Exactly what do you have in mind, Farnley?"

"No one can say for sure, Miss Cassandra, but if you don't mind my saying so, I think you could use all the protection you can get, what with the strange goings-on that have been happening ever since we, Pansy and me, spied out Miss Lucinda with her toes cocked up and that strange smile on her face. It was still there when Pansy laid her out." He shook his head as Cassandra bit her lip, trying not to laugh. "No matter what we did, we couldn't wipe that smile off her face. Unnatural, I calls it, Miss Cassandra, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Mind?" Cassandra choked out, taking back the hag-stone. "On the contrary, Farnley, I appreciate your concern. I may even begin to like you, which can only help to show you how desperate I am for companionship. Tell me, when you speak of the unnatural, could you possibly be hinting at something the young lords mentioned to me yesterday? Something about chairs moving and vases falling when no one is near them?"

She leaned forward as Farnley's sallow complexion blanched. "Could you, perhaps, be speaking of ghosts?"

Farnley shivered violently, as if a goose had just toddled onto his grave. His head whipped from side to side, as if checking to make sure no one could overhear what he would say next. "Stranger things have happened, Miss Cassandra," he whispered. "Why, I could tell you stories—"

"No, Farnley," she interrupted, tiring of the game, "I don't think you can. You see, I don't believe in ghosts, or spirits, or things that supposedly cannot be explained. I think the idea of them could be great good fun, but unfortunately, I have never been able to bring myself to truly believe in them. But thank you anyway. I shall keep the hagstone, if only to remind me that there is at least one person in this household who cares for my well-being. Or am I wrong, and you are only worried that some of my ill luck might stray in your direction?"

Farnley's gaze flitted from floor to ceiling, avoiding hers. "My wife and I wish only the best for you, Miss Cassandra, and to serve you all the days of our lives."

Cassandra inclined her head, acknowledging his statement. "Keep up the good work then, Farnley. I hadn't known it until this moment, but it appears that I am more than tolerably amused by flattery and toad-eating—when it is directed toward me. Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to be alone in the drawing room for a while, just to accustom myself to the place."

Farnley bowed low, giving Cassandra the momentary fear that he might kiss the hem of her morning gown, which would be pushing things too far. "One thing more, Farnley," she added, as the man began backing away from her, bowing as he went. "I am expecting, um, a visitor in the next few days. A gentleman, although you might not recognize him as one when he arrives. Tell me, is there a bedchamber available for him—something comfortably near my own? I'll take that choked groan as a yes. Please see that it is made up for him."

The butler's beady eyes all but popped out of his head, which was, now that she thought of it, probably exactly what she had hoped would be his reaction when she had brought up the subject of Fish.

"Yes, Miss Cassandra," he choked out, trying vainly to appear both subservient and indignant, rather as if he were trying to swallow and speak at the same time. "I'll have my wife see to it at once."

Fun was fun, but Cassandra felt she had spent enough time conversing with her butler, and so she left him to enter the drawing room, closing the double doors behind her to insure that she would not be disturbed.

The largest and most elaborately decorated area in the house, the drawing room at Wormhill had held an odd appeal for Cassandra when she had first sat in it the previous evening, hungrily awaiting Farnley's call to dinner. This morning, lit by the sun streaming in through the uncovered windows rather than by the flattering glow of candlelight, it assaulted her senses from every direction.

With its intricately carved wood, faded upholstery, cloudy gilt-edged mirrors, and fraying carpets, the room should have been unappealing in the extreme, but it was not. Not to Cassandra. A brilliantly decorated chamber with everything pristinely situated in a perfect setting would have been most overpowering to a young lady who had not lately inhabited a house, let alone a single room, of such dimensions.

Besides, the room seemed to possess its own sort of twisted splendor, one made up of discarded dreams and forgotten affections. Surely, long ago, in some other setting, each of the strange, mismatched pieces had once been recognized as representing the height of fashion. Some other day, some long ago day, the pieces had been thought of as beautiful and fitting.

Just as one day, long ago, she, Cassandra Hampshire, had occupied a niche made for her by her parents. Circumstance and time had combined to lift her from her niche, to move her from place to place, from pillar to post, much as the furniture in this room must have been shuffled about, just to end up here.

Stray furniture without a home and a stray female, equally homeless, brought together in this one place—certainly there was no surprise in the notion that Cassandra should feel an affinity for Wormhill. It was almost as if the house had been set up expressly for her.

She walked about the room, idly running her fingers over carved satinwood chair backs and dull brass finishes. "Other than the fact that I am stuck with the insufferable earl for the next two months, and that I am painfully aware that he is doing me a grudging act of charity, there is only one thing about this place to which I cannot become resigned," she said aloud to the carved screech owl that leered at her from its perch atop a Chippendale pier glass whose frame seemed to be composed of gilt twigs and twining lilies.

"Wormhill," she pronounced in distaste. "It is a terrible name for the village, and it is a terrible name for this house. Well, the village is not mine to tamper with, but this house is another matter entirely." She looked about the room, cudgeling her brain for inspiration. "I suppose I could rename it Hodgepodge, except that the reference is much too obvious. The house deserves something more original. I'll ask Fish when he arrives," she said, deciding not to make any snap decisions. "He will know just the thing."

When she had at last done with her inspection, lifting the lids of several candy dishes, to find all of them stuffed with comfits, she turned her concentration to the pair of armchairs sitting squarely in the center of the room.

Her eyebrows lifted, knowing instinctively that these must be the infamous Sheraton chairs that the twins had spoken of. Lucinda Benedict's chairs, which had been pushed into a dark corner the day before yesterday, only to be found back in their original places the next morning.

"You're not very pretty, are you?" she asked them, staring at one of the camel heads that seemed to be wearing a perpetual grin, then at the griffin-headed chair. "Neither of you."

She was almost surprised that the chairs didn't answer her, so lifelike were the carvings. Intrigued by their very ugliness, Cassandra rounded the back of the camel-headed chair and gingerly sat down in its companion, her hands coming to rest on the carved wooden dog heads that topped the front legs.

"Nor very comfortable," she added, slowly wriggling herself backward, to rest her spine against the faded drapery that hung between the griffin's heads. She sat very still for some moments, feeling decidedly silly as no one in his right mind, with an entire roomful of seats to choose from, would make this ridiculous chair his first choice.

Lucinda Benedict had to have been terribly sentimental, or certifiably batty, to have viewed these chairs as a loving remembrance of her husband. Even in this strange, jumbled room, they were out of place. Cassandra sighed, wondering if she should dare defy Farnley's allusion to "witchcraft," as well as the twins' vague reference to ghostly doings, and simply banish the chairs from the house altogether.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind than it left, chased away by her immediate feelings of guilt. Her relative, the dear, departed, unknown Lucinda Benedict, had loved these chairs. No matter how incongruous a pair, no matter how displeasing to the eye, they would stay right where they were.

Some things, after all—illogical or not—were just right.

So deciding, Cassandra, who had closed her eyes in a single long blink as she made up her mind, opened those eyes to see that she was no longer alone in the drawing room.

A small woman, a very strange-looking small woman, was sitting in the chair opposite hers, nearly swallowed up by both the size of the chair and the amount of lace festooned and flounced crepe pink draperies that made up her ridiculous, too-youthful gown.

The woman wore rings on nearly every finger, and her head, dyed a blatantly artificial blond, was a mass of ringlets. Watery blue eyes, perched above apple-round rouged cheeks and a red rosebud mouth, seemed to smile at Cassandra as she stared, openmouthed, at the unexpected sight.

But more than anything else—more than the shock of having someone appear before her unannounced, more than the sight of an elderly woman rigged out like a debutante in her first Season—Cassandra was struck by the undeniable fact that she could still see the entire outline of the camel-headed chair.

The woman, Cassandra's senses told her, was nearly transparent.

Chapter Four

"Who—who are you?" Cassandra heard herself inquire, once she could find her voice. It wasn't the most brilliant question she might have asked, but it was all the brilliance she could summon.

"'It is not every question that deserves an answer.' Syrus," the feminine apparition (for what else could the figure be called?) answered teasingly, smiling as she waggled a beringed finger in Cassandra's direction.

It talked! It talked—and what was even worse—Cassandra heard it!

If Cassandra Hampshire had been a miss prone to bouts of hysteria, which it must be gratefully noted she was not, this would have been the moment she would have let out a maidenly shriek (hopefully summoning aid), and crumpled to the floor in a graceful faint.

Since this event was unlikely to happen, no matter how desperately she wished her sturdy sensibilities could make an exception in this case—and since this figment of her fertile imagination seemed to be gentle and non-threatening—there was nothing else for her to do but react in a way more aligned to her disposition.

She leaned back in the griffin-headed chair, pinned an extremely unappealing smirk on her face, and said, "All right. What did the old lady sneak into my breakfast coffee? I know I didn't drink anything other than coffee at the table. Let me tell you one thing—if it was a love potion, drawn up by that superstitious Farnley, it has widely missed its mark."

The female apparition smiled serenely and made to rearrange her draperies as she crossed her legs at the ankle, the sudden movement setting her aloft a good three inches above the chair and bringing a faintly astonished look to her face until she could maneuver herself back onto the seat. Clearly this apparition, or ghost, or whatever it was, hadn't quite gotten the handle on how to navigate itself in the semi-afterworld.

Once resettled, she spread her hands, as if in welcome. "'Oh fairer daughter of a fair mother!' Horace."

Cassandra's pulse began to pound in her temples. "My mother? You knew my mother? I do resemble her, don't I? But how—" She stopped herself by the simple means of slapping a hand against her forehead. "For Lord's sake, Cassy, you're talking to a figment of your own imagination! Take a firm grip on yourself, before the earl stumbles in here and takes his chance, locking you up in some lunatic asylum so that he can hie back to the fleshpots of London."

So saying, she quickly squeezed shut her eyes and bowed her head, counting to ten. Surely when she opened her eyes the apparition would have vanished, and her sanity would have returned. "Nine . . . ten!" she ended out loud, and lifted her gaze once more to the camel-headed chair. "Good Lord!"

The apparition nodded solemnly. "'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' Psalms."

That tore it! Cassandra bounded from the chair, intent on running out of the drawing room before she began to babble. She had taken only three paces when pure feminine curiosity demanded she turn her head to take one last look at the camel-headed chair. It was empty. The apparition or figment of her imagination—or whatever the odd little woman could be termed—had disappeared.

Cassandra stood stock still, her mind whirling, considering what to do next. Willy-nilly, thoughts of Cosmo and Cyril and their suggestive teasing about smashed vases and moving chairs came to her. Did she really wish to think of herself as being on a level with those gullible twins? Certainly not!

Retreat, therefore, could not be numbered among her options. She had to stay here and face what had just occurred—what her beleaguered mind believed had occurred—not that it really had.

Yes, that was precisely what she would do.

However, she would sit down again while she considered what had happened, for her knees were proving decidedly wobbly.

Once more Cassandra gingerly deposited herself in the griffin-headed chair. Once more she looked across at the camel-headed chair. And once more, the odd little old lady was sitting in that chair, busily pushing at her golden ringlets as she admired herself in a cracked hand mirror.

Cassandra stood up again, and the vision vanished. Sitting down once more brought the apparition back. Unable to believe what was happening, she repeated the standing and sitting motion, with the same results. Up—down. Gone—here. Up—down. Gone—here. Up—down! Gone—here! At last, feeling more than a little foolish, she collapsed into the chair a final time, bowing to her fate. Here!

"'They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.' Psalms," the apparition commented, not entirely without amusement.

Cassandra swallowed hard and decided, striving for a little decorum, that if one was to run mad, one should, if possible, at least attempt to do the civil with the evidence of one's madness.

"I have been under a considerable strain of late, not without consequences. I know, dear madam, that you are not really here, and that I am talking to myself but—just for the sake of argument—is it possible that I might know your name? If Farnley or the twins were here, they might say that I am asking a question for which I should already possess an answer. They, I am assured, would say that I should know that you are none other than my late relative, the strange, forever quoting, mildly eccentric Lucinda Benedict."

"'Do not speak ill of the dead.' The Seven Sages," the woman warned sternly, pointing the hand mirror in Cassandra's direction.

"Then it is you, Mrs. Benedict? I mean, so I do imagine that it is you?" Cassandra's hand flew to her throat. "Forgive me! I forgot you were dead. I never knew you alive, you see, so it is somewhat difficult for me to imagine you as being dead. Does—does it hurt? Oh, that was a stupid question! Any fool could easily see that you're having the time of your life—I mean, your death—and at my expense!"

While the apparition continued to preen herself in the mirror, Cassandra lifted her toes from the carpet, as if to avoid tumbling into a bottomless pit that had just opened beneath them. If she were to actually believe that this was happening—that she was confronting a real ghost—and stop fighting the notion that she was in the middle of a mental collapse, perhaps she might be able to deal better with the situation.

She shook her head vehemently, trying to rid her mind of an ever-deepening suspicion that she was neither asleep, nor dreaming, nor drugged. She would act as if she were very much awake, and actually seated in the middle of the drawing room, babbling incoherently while watching an elderly ghost admire herself in front of a hand mirror.

But first—perhaps a pinch would help? So thinking, she reached beneath the cuff of one sleeve and gave the soft inside of her wrist a hard nip with her fingernails. It hurt. It hurt enough to wake her, if she had indeed been asleep. It hurt enough to rouse her from a mental collapse, at least long enough to cause the apparition conjured by her dream to waver for a moment, if not disappear. Yet it didn't.

All right. She would go on to the next step. She was awake; she was not losing her mind. Lucinda Benedict—the late, recently entombed Lucinda Benedict—was a ghost. Strangely, this thought lent Cassandra more comfort than the supposition that she had misplaced her sanity.

"I give up, madam," she admitted on a resigned sigh. "I believe you. You're a ghost. I never before believed in ghosts, but that's what you are. You have to be. So much for Farnley and his hagstone," she grumbled, feeling the weight of the stone and house key in her pocket. "I knew he was an idiot, even if he did turn out to be half right."

"'I would not take the fellow at a gift.' Sophocles," Aunt Lucinda remarked distastefully, laying down the mirror to look deeply into Cassandra's eyes. "'A penny for your thoughts.' Heywood."

Cassandra sniffed. "They aren't worth a penny, for they are quite jumbled." She leaned forward to study the woman. "So, madam—you're really dead? I mean, this whole thing hasn't been concocted as some sort of elaborate hoax, possibly by both you and the dowager duchess, meant to bring the earl and me together, and to make him fall in love with me? No—it couldn't be. That's too ridiculous. Besides, I can still see through you. I have to tell you, Mrs. Benedict, that it is most disconcerting, being able to see through you."

Lucinda Benedict shrugged. "'We are not all capable of everything.' Virgil," she said apologetically, reminding Cassandra of the lady's momentary ascension from the chair.

"Oh, now I have insulted you, haven't I? I didn't mean—that is, it isn't that terribly off-putting, honestly it isn't. You're doing quite well, really you are, as you are new to ghosting and all. And I'm certain I shall eventually get used to seeing you and those silly camels at one and the same time." Cassandra cut her apologies short as another thought struck her. "Am I going to get used to seeing you?"

Lucinda smiled most benevolently, spreading her short arms wide in a dramatic fashion. "'Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed.' Herodotus."

"Your appointed courses? Oh, dear!" It was ridiculous. It was ridiculous, and probably a sign of galloping insanity—but it was also undeniable. Cassandra was beginning to understand the woman, quotes or no quotes. "You're here until you've accomplished what you set out to do in your will, aren't you?" she asked, already sure she was correct. "You're here to make sure the earl and I are properly bracketed?"

A hint of panic entered her voice. "Good Lord—are you stuck here, madam? I mean, if the earl and I should decide not to marry—which I must tell you, is what will most likely happen, as I cannot abide the man and I doubt he has numbered me among his closest friends—are you to be forever caught here, halfway between this world and the next?"

Once again Lucinda shrugged, still not without humor. "'I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.' Socrates."

"Not Athens or Greece. Not Heaven or Hell. Just here," Cassandra murmured hollowly, "floating somewhere halfway between. That is what you meant, isn't it? Oh, dear. Then you are to be stuck here, locked up on that chair forever!"

At last Lucinda's smile wavered. Clearly this thought, this depressing thought, had not yet occurred to her. Clasping her beringed hands theatrically to her lace-draped breast, she exclaimed, "'Oh God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.' Shakespeare."

"I should have bad dreams as well!" Cassandra bounded up from her chair, overtaken with anger. "This isn't fair!" she exploded hotly, beginning to pace, for she was too incensed to remain still.

"First of all, it isn't fair to you, who certainly didn't pen your will with any such thing in mind. I mean, you may have felt somewhat jolly initially, thinking how you had been allowed to stick around Wormhill to watch the fun. But to condemn you to being a shade, or whatever it is you should be called, if your scheme doesn't work—doomed to spend eternity stuck in that ugly chair? Why, it is the outside of enough! It is utterly unconscionable!"

She whirled about, to see that Lucinda was no longer visible. "Whoops!" she yelped, running back to throw herself once more into the griffin-headed chair, so that her relative—who seemed to have recovered enough to pull a handful of comfits out of thin air, and was now chewing greedily on one of the sugary confections—reappeared.

"Forgive me, dear lady. I forgot the rules for the moment. Could you hear me while I was standing?" At the old lady's smiling nod, Cassandra relaxed, returning to the subject that had so agitated her.

"As I was saying, it isn't fair to you. But in the second place, it isn't very fair to me, either. I mean, think about it, Mrs. Benedict. If I don't marry that odious earl I will have to live the rest of my life knowing that I have kept you, the dear, witless woman who gave me Wormhill—by the by, I'm thinking of changing the name, as it is most unappealing—a prisoner within these walls until the end of the world. Now, if we're going to talk about what's unfair, that disheartening consequence definitely wins the prize!"

Lucinda raised one finger as if in objection to these dire predictions. "'Fair stood the wind for France.' Drayton."

"You still remain optimistic? Madam, haven't you been listening to me? We are not talking about the English victory at Agincourt," Cassandra pointed out pettishly, for she was rapidly beginning to feel quite sorry for herself.

Lucinda only smiled.

"You may believe that victory—or, in this case, matrimony—is going to be the end result, but I do not share your rose-colored view. No, I can see my future now, locked up here with you, growing old and babbling to what others will see as only an empty chair. But I do not wish to marry Philip Rayburn, be he Earl of Hawkedon or king of the world! Besides, it would never work, even if I did wish it just to save you. The man makes no secret of the fact that he detests me!"

Aunt Lucinda popped a final comfit into her rosebud mouth and chewed enthusiastically while she slapped the sugar from her fingertips. When she was done, she waggled one finger warningly in Cassandra's direction. "'A woman's time of opportunity is short, and if she doesn't seize it, no one wants to marry her, and she sits watching for omens.' Aristophanes."

"You certainly know where to place your darts, don't you?" Cassandra slumped in the chair, her chin coming to rest on her chest. "Marriage to the earl, a lifetime watching for omens, or spirit-sitting. None appeals overmuch," she answered dolefully. "Oh, I can't believe this is happening. But why am I surprised? I should have known my good luck wouldn't last. It never has before—even that time in Leeds—but that is another matter entirely. I can only wait until Fish gets here. Perhaps he'll have an answer for me."

She sat up suddenly as another thought struck her. "Will Fish be able to see you, madam, or are you only visible to me? Lord, I can only hope others can see you, else I will end up inhabiting the local madhouse. I mean, it is one thing for me to tell Fish about you, about my problem, but it is another thing entirely to get him to believe me. Fish, the earl, the dowager duchess, the whole world will think me mad! Whatever will I do?"

Aunt Lucinda rubbed her hands together, as if in unholy glee. "'Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.' Shakes—"

"—peare," Cassandra interrupted resignedly. "Yes, Aunt, I am familiar with the quote. I had much time for reading these last three years. So, I'm to be on my own, am I?" She slapped her hands down on the sides of the chair, coming to a conclusion.

"Very well. At least now I know the rules. I can see you, but no one else can. What else do I know? I know that I must either wed the earl or condemn the person who willed me this house to an eternity of haunting the place, never to know the joys of heaven. I know that I cannot live my life if I have condemned that person to such a fate. There is nothing else for it; I must find a way to make the earl wed me. Thank you, Lucinda Benedict," she complained self-pityingly. "Thank you so very, very much!"

Pulling her diaphanous draperies about her protectively, Aunt Lucinda pouted and said, "'There are some who bear a grudge even to those that do them good.' Pilpay."

Cassandra fought to stay seated, so that she could skewer Aunt Lucinda with her heated gaze. "Good? You call what is happening to me doing me good? Of all the silly, harebrained, ridiculous—oh, I give up! Why am I fighting this? It won't bring me any benefit and, besides, someone might come walking in here at any moment, to hear me screeching at an empty chair. No matter what I do, no matter which way I turn, I have already lost any chance to stop what your silly will has put into motion. Really, madam, I should have thought a ghost would be able to manage things far better than this!"

Knowing that her anger and frustration had loosed her tongue far more than it had pricked her wit, Cassandra abruptly ceased speaking and clapped a hand to her mouth, attempting to bring her rampaging emotions under control.

At long last, feeling the concerned scrutiny of her relative calling to her from the facing chair, she ordered a weak smile to curve her lips and said, "Please, madam, allow me to offer you my most profound apologies. I have behaved like the most crass of ingrates. You have willed me this house, which will be mine even if the two months pass without a declaration from the earl. You, my dear woman, are taking all the risks, while I cannot lose no matter what happens, unless the earl abandons me before the stipulated time is up, which he will not do, because he is a gentleman and because, I am sure, the dowager duchess would then hunt him down and skin him alive."

Lucinda nodded energetically, rolling her watery blue eyes as if contemplating the vision Cassandra's words had conjured. "'. . . like an angry ape.' Shakespeare," she quoted, shivering. Then she smiled, remembering that she could now use Shakespeare whenever she wished, even when referring to the dowager duchess, without fear of retribution. It was quite a heady thought.

Still, it bothered Lucinda that Cassandra felt so put upon. Endeavoring to ease the child's fears, she said hopefully, "'Perhaps some day it will be pleasant to remember these things.' Pilpay," then bit her bottom lip as she waited to see if the girl reacted better to this particular saying than had the dowager duchess when Lucinda had employed it as the two women suffered the effects of a rare bout of imbibing whilst awaiting the outcome of a duel between the dowager's grandson, the Duke of Avonall, and some kidnapping scamp who had run off with His Grace's sister. When Lucinda had voiced Pilpay's suggestion on that occasion, the dowager duchess had voiced the opinion that, if marooned on a desert island and needing to choose between an organ grinder's fleabitten monkey and Lucinda for companionship, she would choose the monkey—for, even though neither could be counted on for coherent conversation, she could, if pushed, at least eat the monkey!

Luckily, Lucinda had better results this time, for Cassandra, unbeknownst to her relative, had sunk to the point where she was willing to grasp at any straw, even one of mindless optimism.

"Yes, you're right, madam," Cassandra countered, lifting her chin a fraction. "I am being very much the spoilsport, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. The least, the very least, I can do is to try believing that a match between the earl and myself could be arranged, now, couldn't I?"

She tilted her head to one side, conjuring up a mental picture of the earl. "After all, it is not as if he has two heads, or no chin. Marriage is marriage—and no matter who the groom may be, you always end up with a husband. I am not such a pea goose that I have ever expected love to enter into any such arrangement. It's just—it's just that it may be difficult. He has this way of looking at me, as if I am some sort of odd freak of nature that he has never seen before, or some such thing."

Lucinda shook her head at this rambling speech, which promised even while it denied. "'Even if you persuade me,'" she imparted sternly, "'you won't persuade me.' Aristophanes."

Cassandra laughed hollowly. "Of course not. If the dowager duchess, whom I am convinced is a very formidable woman, could not manage you in life, I don't know how I would dare to suppose I could manage you in death. Death! Even to say it is enough to make me shudder. We've been sitting here this half hour or more, and still I cannot believe that this is more than a dream, a strange nightmare, and that I have not even awakened this morning, let alone come into the drawing room. Yet, inventive as my dreams might be, I have yet to invent a ghost in any of them, or a hagstone like the one weighting down my pocket. I am so fatigued, madam, but I do not know how to make a graceful exit. How do I leave you here, alone? I—"

Lucinda held out her hands warningly, then cocked her head toward the French doors. "'Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings.' Shakes—"

"Someone's coming?" Cassandra lowered her voice to a whisper. "But they can't see you, remember? Only I can see you, and only when I sit in this chair." She watched as Lucinda waved her fingertips frantically, as if searching for a quote to suit the occasion.

"Don't worry, madam," Cassandra soothed, reaching out a hand to touch the woman's knee and connecting only with the tapestry seat, her hand slipping straight through Lucinda's form. "I have to face this sort of situation sooner or later. Trust me, I won't betray myself."

Still Aunt Lucinda persisted in making shooing motions with her hands, as if to warn Cassandra away from the chair. "'Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.' Aesop," she admonished earnestly.

Then, just when Cassandra had begun to believe the old lady might be right, one of the French doors opened and Philip Rayburn, Earl of Hawkedon—the very last person she had hoped to see—stepped into the drawing room.

"So, there you are, Miss Hampshire," he said brightly, as if determined to be civil. "Ye gods, do my eyes deceive me? Are you actually comfortable in that chair? The dowager duchess has told me she has never dared to be so brave. She would 'as soon plant my rump on a cold stone floor than risk losing it entirely to one of those mangy beasts,' if I might be so bold as to quote her directly."

Cassandra smiled weakly while taking a quick look at Lucinda, who was showing signs of pouting at hearing this poor opinion of her beloved chairs. Cassandra was stung into defending the chairs, even though the one she was sitting on was less comfortable than the farm wagon she had ridden on the day before. The only good thing she could say about the chair, actually, was that, unlike the farm wagon, it wasn't moving along a rutted country road.

"Really, my lord? You and the dowager duchess don't care for them? I—I find them delightful, myself. Truly, um, unique." Lucinda's bottom lip ceased its quivering, urging Cassandra on to an even greater flight of fancy. "Yes, indeed. And comfortable! Altogether delightful chairs, I am sure."

Philip advanced more fully into the room. "Really, Miss Hampshire, you don't have to put it on so thick and rare. Wormhill is to be yours no matter what. Waxing poetic over these two monstrosities is not necessary."

Still keeping in mind how her relative felt about the chairs, and remembering that Lucinda Benedict's powers, although still somewhat difficult for the lady to manage, had proved powerful enough to dislodge vases and move furniture, Cassandra persisted. "I am not toad-eating, my lord. For sentimental value alone—coming as they did as a gift from Mrs. Benedict's late husband—these are two most extraordinary chairs. And—and I say again that they are really most comfortable—if you sit up straight, that is, which everyone should do, as poor posture is so off- putting, don't you agree?"

She shut her mouth, afraid she had already said too much, only to find herself proven correct when the earl walked over to stand in front of the camel-headed chair.

Inclining his head in her direction, Philip at last seemed to bow to her wisdom. "I suppose, if one digs deeply enough, one can find the good in anything. But, just to test your theory—would you mind if I sat down?"

Cassandra's posture, already good, instantly became poker-straight, even as her eyes nearly popped from her head. "Sat down? You wish to sit down? Why, um..." She shook her head as she leaned to one side and looked hopefully toward Lucinda, who was patting her blond curls as if preparing herself for a guest. "I—I can't imagine why not. No," she ended sorrowfully when she knew nothing she might say could stop him, "I can't imagine why not."

"Well, good, Miss Hampshire," Philip responded, eyeing her warily, which well he should, for she was behaving most oddly. Why, she was looking toward the chair behind him as if she actually believed it might bite him. "You had me worried for a moment. I'm so pleased to have garnered your permission."

Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut as the earl lowered himself into the chair and gave a small sigh of pleasure, saying, "So far, so good. I don't feel anything nipping at me yet."

Cassandra peeked at the earl, and nearly fainted.

He was sitting at his ease in the camel-headed chair, his legs crossed at the knee, looking straight at her.

Floating just inches above his lap, perched sideways so that her right arm rested on his broad shoulders, resided the nearly transparent Lucinda Benedict.

Reaching up her free hand, the ghostly woman began running her fingertips along Philip's cheek in a caressing fashion as she smiled happily at Cassandra. "'Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine,'" the old lady trilled, planting a quick kiss on the tip of Philip's nose, "'so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.' Aristophanes."

"Stop that at once!" Cassandra hissed in a fierce undertone, her knuckles white as she gripped the wooden sides of her seat.

Philip immediately bristled. "I was only making an observation, Miss Hampshire. It may not have been in the best of taste, but certainly you are overreacting. I didn't believe you could be so missish."

He thought she was talking to him! Cassandra felt ready to sink into that bottomless hole she had thought about earlier, unable to figure out whether she was nearer laughter or tears. She struggled to compose herself.

"Forgive me, my lord," she pleaded, watching in agony as her relative began playing with Philip's mustache. What did Mrs. Benedict think she was doing? "I—I think I have the headache," she offered weakly, avoiding his eyes.

"You think you have the headache? Aren't you sure? Moreover, and this question begs to be answered, what would make you believe you either did or did not have the headache? Shall we flip a coin?"

Cassandra threw him a look that should have sent him screaming from the room, only it didn't. He remained in his seat, appearing indifferent to her glare. "You may have wondered why I sought you out again so soon after our last meeting, but I am a firm believer in beginning as you plan to go on. Our beginning, being less than a favorable one, would be tedious to continue. Therefore, I suggest we call a truce and begin again. Otherwise, by the time our enforced stay here together at Wormhill is at an end, we will both have been worn into a frazzle."

"'An argument needs no reason, nor a friendship.' Ibycus," Lucinda inserted neatly before her niece could form an answer.

"Are you suggesting we cry friends?" Cassandra asked her, disbelieving her relative's suggestion.

Philip frowned at Cassandra, idly wondering why it was that the woman seemed to be talking to his left ear. "Friendship? I hadn't taken it that far but, yes, I suppose we could consider friendship as an option. Shall we begin by dispensing with the formalities?"

Cassandra, who had been berating herself for continuing to forget that only she could hear or see Lucinda, was quick to agree with him. She would have agreed to anything, if only he would get up from that chair before Aunt Lucinda did something dreadful. She'd get up herself, except that there was no knowing what the mischievous ghost would do once she knew Cassandra could not see her do it. "That would be very nice—Philip."

The earl's smile, the first real one she had seen, was dazzling, and unexpectedly captivating. "Thank you—Cassandra. A lovely name. It's Greek, you know, meaning 'disbelieved by men,' which is a pity, for she was a good woman. The original Cassandra was a Trojan princess, whose prophetic warnings went unheeded, leading to the downfall of Troy. I am actually Philippos, by the way. The name translates to 'lover of horses.' Excuse me, but my father is a great lover of things Greek, and I could not help but have some of it rub off on me. Ah, you're smiling. Wonderful. I can feel the tension between us beginning to ease already."

Lucinda threw up her hands, a movement that caused her to rise a good two feet above the earl's lap. "'Rejoice, we are victorious.' Philippides," she ejaculated, throwing Cassandra a kiss.

Cassandra eyed her sternly. "Oh, for pity's sake! One swallow does not a summer make, you know," she was goaded into replying, unhappy to see that Lucinda had been so encouraged by a simple exchange of Christian names and a bit of ancient history.

Philip rose, feeling his overtures at friendship to have been rebuffed, to look down at her with disbelief, and not a little concern. "No one said that it did. I wasn't proposing that we fall on each other's necks, crying everlasting love, Cassandra. Or do you believe that simple courtesy on my part will lead to undying love on your part? If so, may I remind you that I am only here under duress, and you will see the back of me the very minute the two months is up."

Cassandra also rose, grateful to see—and hear—the last of Lucinda Benedict for the moment. She could see that the earl was angry with her, and she couldn't blame him a bit. He had taken the first step which, for a man as proud as he, could not have been easy, only to have her all but throw his attempt at friendship back in his face.

She put a hand on his sleeve as he turned to leave. As soon as she touched him she felt an overwhelming need to draw back her hand, for the mere contact of her flesh against his coat had sent an unexpected, yet extremely pleasant, jolt of sensation straight through her.

"Please, Philip, forgive me," she choked out, trying to understand what had just happened to her, for she could not recall ever before having experienced that particular sensation. It was the strangest thing, but she suddenly found herself feeling sorry for him.

"I didn't sleep well last night, Philip, and I think I am still slightly undone by all that has happened to me in these past twenty-four hours. I have been given nothing but good news, and have responded badly to each and every offer of kindness. I'm ashamed of myself. Truly, I should like above all things to have your friendship. I—I have had very few real friends in my lifetime."

She withdrew her hand, hating herself for what she was doing, what she knew she must continue to do. Liking him would only make what she had to do more difficult—for, after all, she did have a conscience.

But there was only one way to help Lucinda, and she had to take it. She had to throw herself at Philip's head, and make him propose marriage before the two months were up and he made good his escape to London.

While Cassandra held her breath, Philip seemed to consider her words. "We are going to be thrown together almost constantly, Wormhill not being a very large place. And it will make the time pass more quickly if I do not have to spend all my time trying to avoid both you and the dowager duchess, who is, I am convinced, closeted in her chamber at this very moment, trying to discover some brilliant way to compromise us if we do not fall in love on our own as ordered. And if we are to find we cannot even be friends, we at least can work as allies against her."

"Wonderful!" Cassandra exclaimed, knowing she had won this first battle of wills. Now it was time to put her plan into action, while he was feeling so in charity with her. "I do believe my headache has fled with this good news. I wonder, Philip? While I was out walking this morning, before our earlier meeting in the garden, I observed that there are several riding horses in the stable. Your earlier mention of horses brought them back to my attention. I love them too, even if I cannot ride. Do you think, just as a way to pass some of this time you spoke of, you might agree to give me riding lessons? I have always wished to ride, but I'm afraid my family's finances did not stretch to accommodate feeding any mouths but ours."

Philip, who was considered to be one of the premier horsemen in all of England, and the man who had sat his baby sister, Penelope, upon her first pony, eagerly agreed to the idea, and a moment later he was off to procure two suitable mounts for them, to be brought round to the front entrance of Wormhill directly after luncheon.

Once he was gone, Cassandra dropped back down into her chair, fanning her flushed cheeks with a crumpled handkerchief she had pulled from her pocket. Looking over at Lucinda, who was perched most demurely in her own chair, she shook her head and asked, "You heard, of course. Satisfied, madam? You nearly ruined everything with your silly pranks, but I managed to pull a few irons out of the fire, I believe."

Lucinda, agreeing, rubbed her plump palms together in delight. "'The lamb began to follow the wolf in sheep's clothing.' Aesop."

"With me cast in the role of wolf, I suppose. Oh, thank you, dear lady. You have made me feel even lower than I did before."

But Lucinda was not to be depressed by this show of scruples. "'He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Isaiah," she continued, chortling with good humor.

"Isaiah? I hadn't realized before that the Bible could be so bloodthirsty." Cassandra grinned weakly at her own jest and gave a deep sigh. "You know, madam, it's a good thing Philip Rayburn is not a lamb. He is neither helpless nor cuddly. Otherwise I couldn't so heartlessly lead him to that slaughter. Now, good day to you. I'm off to find Pansy, in the forlorn hope she will be able to turn one of my gowns into an acceptable riding habit."

Lucinda was quick to voice her opinion as to the hopefulness of Cassandra's success in enlisting Pansy's aid for anything. "'As crazy as hauling timber into the woods.' Virgil."

Cassandra laughed out loud, for her opinion of Pansy's brainpower wasn't much higher. "Well, perhaps she can lead me to a needle and some thread. At least I know how to sew a seam."

"Excuse me—Miss Hampshire? I was just coming in to close the draperies against the sun and—"

Cassandra's head whipped around to see who was speaking. "Farnley!" she exclaimed, immediately noticing that the man, who had taken no more than a single step into the drawing room, was looking at her piercingly, his eyes narrowed in mingled apprehension and speculation. "Yes, Farnley. It is you, isn't it?"

"'A snake lurks in the grass.' Virgil," Lucinda warned, pulling one of her filmy draperies up to cover her face.

"Yes, Miss Hampshire. It is Farnley. I—I thought I heard you talking to someone." He leaned forward, his feet not daring to move an inch. "Were you talking to someone, Miss Hampshire?"

Cassandra looked at Lucinda, who was still hiding behind her draperies, and then back at Farnley, who had extracted a rabbit's foot from somewhere and was rubbing it furiously between his thumb and forefinger. The sight of the rabbit's foot lent her courage. This superstitious man wasn't to be feared. "And if I was? I am mistress here, Farnley, and I can do what I wish. If I wish to talk to myself—or even to this chair here—who are you to remark upon it?"

The butler's close-set beetle eyes narrowed until they all but disappeared. He had served the quality all his days, finally earning his butler's keys, and he knew his place. But this Hampshire woman was a nobody, with clothes more mended than any of the villagers. He had been nice to her this morning, giving her the hagstone and all. Now it was time he showed her who really ruled this house.

"Nobody, Miss Hampshire," he said quickly. "I'm nobody. But talking to yourself is a bad omen, Miss Hampshire, if you don't mind my saying so. But hearing someone answer you—well, missy, that is the very worst. You don't hear anyone answering you, do you, Miss Hampshire?"

Cassandra barely suppressed the urge to look at the camel-headed chair. "No, Farnley, I do not hear voices."

The butler nodded, saying, "Good, missy. Very good. But, if ever you should hear voices—not that you ever will—please come to me straightaway. I know about these things. We can have a sitting then, where we join hands and call the voice to us, so that we can shoo it away forever."

Cassandra bit her bottom lip to keep from grinning as, out of the corners of her eyes, she saw Lucinda put her hands to her mouth, aghast.

"A sitting, you say, Farnley? How extraordinarily interesting. But, no. I don't hear any voices, at least none that I wish to 'spirit' away. However, if I ever should, I am grateful to know that I can count on you for assistance. You must have been a great comfort to Mrs. Benedict while she was alive, as you appear to be a man of many talents."

Lucinda crossed her arms over her breasts, thrusting out her lower lip just like a belligerent child, and said, "'Miserable comforters are ye all.' Job," a statement that succeeded in bringing tears of mirth to Cassandra's eyes.

"Yes, missy," Farnley answered, seeing the tears and believing he had touched his new mistress's tender heart. He modestly backed out of the room, sure he had scored a small victory in his private battle for control of Wormhill.

Cassandra quickly followed him out, refusing to wait in the chair to hear her relative's sure-to-be-scathing opinion of what had just transpired. It might have been a mean thing to do, but, all in all, Cassandra had not had a good morning, and she felt justified in finding some humor any way she could.

Chapter Five

Cassandra angrily stomped through the black and white tile foyer and into the drawing room, throwing her sadly crushed straw bonnet onto the nearest chair. "So much for trying to be conciliatory! I should have known the man didn't really mean it when he said we should cry friends."

"Are you by chance addressing me, or the world at large?" The dowager duchess, dressed in a mourning gown which she had, to her mind, worn entirely too often in recent months, looked up from her book, and watched as Cassandra began pacing the length of the worn Aubusson carpet, slapping at her leg with a small riding crop. When Cassandra didn't answer, she asked, "Whatever are you wearing, gel?"

Cassandra stopped in the middle of the room, spreading her arms wide as she looked down at the outfit she had obtained from Farnley. "What does it look like I'm wearing, Your Grace? A shirt, an ill-fitting waistcoat, and—if the word isn't too shocking to your sensibilities—breeches! How else do you expect me to go riding?"

The dowager duchess closed the book and laid it on her lap. "I don't know, dear. Perhaps by donning a riding habit? Had you considered that?"

Cassandra threw up her hands in disgust. "No, I hadn't considered that. I'm wearing breeches merely because I wished to wear them. I've had a lifelong dream of wearing breeches! Lord, doesn't anyone in this place have any sense?"

"Aren't you too old for tantrums?" Rising, and pulling her thin shawl more closely around her shoulders, the dowager duchess walked across the room to face Lucinda's young relative. The girl was stunning—all flashing grey eyes and flying, streaked blond hair. And her body: those long legs, that infinitesimal waist, those high, pert breasts—why it was enough to make the dowager duchess wonder what sort of slowtop Philip Rayburn could be that he had not immediately dragged the girl into the bushes and made mad, impassioned love to her.

"Let me see if I have this correctly, my dear," the dowager duchess said kindly. "Presumably the earl, who was presumably also your riding partner, took some sort of exception to your choice of ensemble. You, in your turn, took exception to his taking exception. Am I correct so far?"

Cassandra nodded, picking up her bonnet, just to see that her last act of violence had proved too much for the thing. The faded blue silk flowers that had adorned it now hung limply from the brim. "Then he laughed at my bonnet, saying that, if I had but applied to him, he would have been able to find me headgear more appropriate to the rest of my outfit. He suggested a curly-brimmed beaver!" The bonnet went sailing across the room, to land on the seat of the griffin-headed chair. "Lord, how I detest that man!"

"Why?" the dowager duchess asked, chuckling. "He only behaved as any man would, if not better than most I could name. As a gentleman, he must have taken refuge in foolery, in hope of getting you to bolt before he succumbed to his male instincts. Oh, yes, there are some, my dear—the starchier sort—who might have been appalled, and read you a stern lecture about displaying your appendages in public. But only a precious few. Most others, base fellows all, I'm convinced, would have taken one look at you and immediately suggested you and he adjourn to some private place and engage in another form of 'riding' exercise. All in all, I'd say in this case Lord Hawkedon gets full marks for his behavior."

Cassandra's eyes widened in shock at this plain speech. She raised her hands to her breasts, then skimmed them, passing downward to her waist and hips. She and Farnley were much of a size, but the butler did not possess any of the curves she could feel stretching at the seams of the breeches as they clung to her thighs. She swallowed hard, blushing a becoming pink to the roots of her hair.

"I needed an outfit for riding," she offered in explanation. "I acted purely out of impulse, ma'am, before I could really think, wishing to take the earl up on his offer to teach me to ride before he thought better of it. Farnley took forever to convince, which wasted even more time. There—there was no mirror in my chamber, at least none that permitted me a full view of, that is, a view of my—"

"A full view of your truly delightful body," the dowager duchess helpfully finished for her, guiding Cassandra to one of the couches and sitting down beside her. "Now, let's dispense with any maidenly tears, for they serve no purpose, and I don't much care for watering pots. We have more serious matters to discuss. Tell me, gel, exactly how many gowns do you have? There can't be many, considering the size of the bag you arrived carrying and, I must tell you, I haven't been overly impressed with the weary rags you've worn since your arrival."

Cassandra longed to become angry, but she couldn't. It was true. Her wardrobe, such as it was, could not be said to be extensive. "I tried rigging up my blue muslin as a riding dress, but only succeeded in ruining it. With the blue gone, I am left with two plain gowns, my cloak, a nightdress, and a few undergarments." She motioned toward the griffin-headed chair. "Oh, yes. I also have one bonnet."

The dowager duchess began tapping a forefinger against the side of her hatchet nose. "Just as I supposed. You and Lucinda are not much of a size, which is a pity, as I always said her gowns were more suitable for a debutante than an old lady." She rose and went to the bellpull, to summon Farnley. "First things first, I say, Cassandra. You can't hope to catch Philip on your snag without the proper outfitting, now can you?"

Cassandra sat up very straight. "Are you comparing me to a protuberance, Your Grace, a tree limb lying in wait to catch up the earl as he innocently wanders by? I don't believe I quite like the comparison."

The dowager duchess shrugged indifferently as she returned to her seat. "Even Eve resorted to well-placed fig leaves, my dear, and as we're all here, it must have worked. And don't say 'protuberance,' it makes you sound too much the bluestocking."

There was no answering those observations, and Cassandra did not try. "What makes you so certain that I wish to catch the earl, Your Grace? I never said so. As a matter of fact, I do believe I made myself very clear on the matter. I want nothing to do with him!"

"Fiddlesticks!" the dowager duchess replied sharply, slapping Cassandra on the upper arm. "If we are to go on together, gel, I suggest you refrain from trying to cozen me with glaring untruths. You are a woman, he is a man. You have been thrown together for the next two months. What else do you have to do to pass the time, hmm? Surely you don't expect me to teach you tatting or some such idiocy, for it won't fadge. Ah, Farnley, there you are at last. You look a bit frazzled. Did I take you away from something? I see you have that same ferret-faced look about you that you had when you were under my roof, plotting to protect us all from Miss Tamerlane, the darling girl who is now my beloved granddaughter-in-law. What were you about this time, you silly fool—making up some smelly potion to ward off yet another one of your imaginary runs of ill luck?"

"No, indeed. Your Grace," Farnley answered, quickly running his tongue around the inside of his mouth, just to be sure no pimple, a sure sign a person has been telling lies, had sprouted on it. "Um—you rang, Your Grace?"

"I know that, you fool," the dowager duchess answered gruffly. "I need your help, Farnley, which does not please me, so don't pester me with the obvious. Now, do you know the name of Miss Benedict's seamstress? I am convinced she must have applied locally for her gowns, as I distinctly remember paying several dressmaking bills during the first year of her residence in Wormhill."

"You wish to know the name and location of Miss Benedict's seamstress, Your Grace?" Farnley asked blankly, so that Cassandra, who had begun to have a healthy respect for the dowager duchess's temper, could not resist flinching.

"Lord, but he's a quick one," the dowager duchess whispered to Cassandra out of the corner of her mouth, causing the younger woman to collapse in a paroxysm of giggles. "Have her brought to me as soon as possible, Farnley, along with her design books or fashion dolls or whatever it is benighted country bumpkin dressmakers use. And have her bring several bolts of material, and all the buttons, thread, and lace she might need. Inform her that she is to come prepared to stay for at least a week, perhaps two. Have her bring a sampling of gloves, and hats, and, yes, cloaks, as well. Piffle! Just tell her to bring everything she can carry. Do you think you can remember that, you idiot man, or shall I write it down for you?"

Farnley's chin, what there was of it, lifted in objection to this slur on his intelligence. "I'll see that Mrs. Miller is here first thing tomorrow morning, Your Grace. Do you wish anything else?"

"Yes, I do," the dowager duchess said, giving Cassandra a quick jab in the ribs with her elbow, "but as I doubt you'd be willing to oblige me by relocating your skinny shanks in faraway India for the next twenty years, you may retire now."

Once the butler had quit the room, Cassandra had to wipe at her eyes with her handkerchief, to remove the evidence of her suppressed mirth. "Oh, Your Grace, isn't he the most irritatingly amusing little man you've ever met? He gave me a hagstone this morning, to help ward off evil spirits, and later informed me that he could rid a house of spirits, if ever I should desire he do so. How did Mrs. Benedict ever put up with him?"

The dowager duchess merely sniffed. "He was my grandson's valet, before Avonall's marriage. Once we had our fill of Farnley in London, we gave him his butler's keys and shipped him and his new bride here with Lucinda as, each being eccentric in his own way, we thought they might suit. To this day, I don't know if we were rewarding him for his help over the years, or punishing him for being such a colossal pain in the rump!"

Giving Cassandra's arm a nudge, she bade the girl to rise. "Now, I suggest you nip off upstairs and rid yourself of those breeches before Philip comes in to find you here. Later, when we have time, we shall discuss strategy."

Cassandra stood rooted, not yet willing to quit the room. "I must make one thing very clear, Your Grace," she said, searching her brain for the right words to say. "I have changed my mind, it's true. I do wish to bring the earl to the altar. But not because I am bored and wish to pass the time by grabbing myself an earl—and certainly not to amuse you. Most especially, I am not doing it because I have found myself to have fallen in love with the man overnight. I'm lowering myself to the level of any matrimony-grabbing miss, Your Grace, because I have come to realize that I should be behaving most inconsiderately toward Mrs. Benedict if I were to do otherwise. That, and that alone, is my reason for what I am about to do!"

The dowager duchess sprang to her feet so quickly that Cassandra was fearful the woman was about to take a fit—or set in beating her for mouthing such effronteries. "Good girl!" the old woman chortled enthusiastically, squeezing Cassandra's hands in hers. "Such a commendable speech, if a bit long-winded. Spirit! Honesty! Responsibility! And a fine figure into the bargain! I take back every nasty thing I've said about Lucinda since my arrival—the widgeon has unwittingly left me a treasure! And please stop calling my friend Mrs. Benedict, a name so formal I have to think twice each time you use it. Call her Aunt Lucinda; all the young ones do. You're one of the family now."

"Ma'am?" Cassandra questioned, the honesty the dowager duchess had spoken of prompting her to speak. "Before you become too overjoyed with my suitability, perhaps you should know I have not exactly lived what society would call a conventional life these past three years."

The dowager duchess, who had cut her wisdoms decades earlier, and who did not shock easily, squeezed Cassandra's hands yet again and asked, "Are you still intact?"

Cassandra frowned at the question. "Am I what, Your Grace?"

"Intact. Complete. Untouched. A virgin, gel. Are you a virgin?"

"Of course I am!" Cassandra replied hotly, pulling her hands free. "What a terrible question to ask!"

'Terrible, yes. But necessary. Yet, just as I supposed," the old woman said, satisfied. "You blush too easily to be a fallen woman. So where is the problem? Money and rank—my money, my rank—can take care of three little years. You were ill, you were abroad—any story will serve. Just keep your mouth shut, and I shall take care of the rest."

Cassandra felt a great urge to box the little woman's ears. Not able to bring herself to that point, she settled on shocking the dowager duchess, as the old lady had done her. "Even my time on the stage, Your Grace? A little Shakespeare, a few minor farces. Will you be able to explain that away as well?"

Not waiting for a reply, she leaned down and gave the dowager duchess a quick kiss on her papery-thin cheek. "How very wonderful, ma'am. I will go upstairs now, as you suggested, and perhaps take a nap. Suddenly I find myself relaxed enough 'to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,' Hamlet, Act Three."

The dowager duchess stood very still for a few minutes after Cassandra, her steps long in the unrestricted breeches, quit the drawing room. At last, shaking her head, she walked over to retrieve the ruined bonnet from the griffin-headed chair, for lack of anything better to do, and because she was not a drinking woman, although a trip to the drinks table wouldn't come amiss.

The girl had trod the boards! How on earth was a person to erase that fact from the eyes of the world? Surely, no matter how small the troupe, or how rural her performances, someone must have seen her. Money and rank carried a goodly amount of power with them, but there were limits to what even they could do.

Distracted enough not to realize that she was breaking a long-standing personal rule never to sit in either of the Sheraton chairs, she dropped heavily into the griffin-headed chair. "I'm getting too old for this sort of foolishness," she mused aloud, sighing as she dropped her head into her hands. "Otherwise, I would be seeing the terrible humor in all of this."

"'Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, at which the audience never fail to laugh?' Aristophanes."

Without lifting her head, the dowager duchess spat, "Oh, stifle yourself, Lucinda. This is no time for you and your twittering, asinine quotes."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the dowager duchess's head snapped upward, her eyes wide behind her distinctive beaklike Benedict nose as she stared at the vision in the camel-headed chair. "Lucinda! My dear, good Lord—Lucinda! Can that be you? Can my eyes deceive me, as well as my ears? Dear God, it is you, isn't it, Lucinda? But how?"

Lucinda Benedict waggled her fingers delightedly in greeting. "'It is the stars, the stars above us, govern our conditions.' Shakespea—."

"Shakespeare! How dare you quote the great Will to me, you vacantly grinning twit!" the dowager duchess was stung into replying, her anger causing her to banish her terror, at least for the moment. "It's one thing to come back and haunt me, but to quote Shakespeare to me at the same time? No! It's too much for one old woman to bear. I won't have it, Lucinda, do you hear me!"

The previously cheerful ghost, who had thought herself justified in materializing in front of her old friend (even after telling Cassandra she would appear only to her) in order to support the dear woman in her time of trouble, cringed against the back of the camel-headed chair.

This proved to be a misjudged reaction, as it placed the top half of Lucinda's body partially behind the chair, so that the dowager duchess now saw only a semi-transparent head, a set of flounced lace-covered lower limbs, and not much else. "'Fear came upon me, and trembling.' Job."

The dowager duchess sat as if transfixed, staring at the various pieces of what looked and sounded like her old—and supposedly safely entombed—friend. Maybe she should drink more, she thought hysterically, clutching at her bosom, just to be sure her heart was still beating. It was. Rapidly. Very rapidly.

She was looking at a ghost. It was a simple explanation to accept, really, if she could just remain seated and try not to scream. A ghost. The Benedict family had never had a ghost before, although many old English families could lay claim to a half dozen or more chain-rattling, icy-breeze-causing spirits lurking around their family estates. Amongst her set of aged leftovers from the eighteenth century, a ghost in residence was almost to be wished for, a definitive sign of being one of the true Quality.

Indeed, the dowager duchess had long ago hoped that, upon his death, her beloved husband, the late duke, would deign to come back to her as a ghost, but it was not to be.

It was strange how things worked out. Her husband had died, to be mourned to this day. Her friend Lucinda had died, yet here she was, returned again like a bad penny, not more than a week later, playing peek-a-boo from behind one of those ridiculous chairs and waving at her as if she had just accomplished something wonderful. Lord, couldn't the woman at least sit still?

The dowager duchess shook her head and found her voice. "Still can't manage to do anything quite right, can you, Lucinda—even dying?"

Lucinda raised her eyes as if to heaven and said, "'This and a great deal more I have had to put up with.' Terence."

"What are you looking up there for?" the dowager duchess asked, suddenly nervous once more. "Have you been speaking ill of me? Why do I ask? Of course you have. Well, a whopping bit of good it has done you, you nincompoop. They wouldn't even let you all the way in, would they?" She dropped her head into her hands once more. "I should have known this was too easy. I should have realized you wouldn't be content to have gone quietly, leaving me in well-deserved peace. Even worse, you still persist in speaking in quotes!"

Lucinda Benedict propelled her body completely into view once more and smiled weakly. "'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' Jeremiah."

"Oh, shut up, Lucinda, and let me think. How long have you been here? One of those juvenile Rayburn twins was convinced it was a ghost that had swept the vase from the mantelpiece the day I arrived. And then there was that business about these ridiculous chairs. Yes, yes, you can stop grinning and nodding like the village idiot. I'm not such a nodcock that I don't understand that you were the architect behind both those incidents."

She began tapping a forefinger against the side of her nose, a habit she had gotten into decades earlier and one she had never seen the need to give up. "You've heard everything that has gone on in this room, every single word, good and bad. Can you move about the entire house?"

Lucinda shook her head, pointing to the chair she was sitting in—or, more correctly, hovering slightly above.

The dowager duchess gave a cackling laugh. "Stuck you in one place, did they, the powers that be? Good for them! No wonder it's said that those in heaven have a higher intelligence, although if they had applied to me for advice I should have told them to stick you in a box. A heavy wooden box with a stout lid. I wouldn't ever want to think you could be floating about at ceiling level, watching me while I'm in my tub."

Lucinda's nose wrinkled at the depressing thought of seeing the old woman naked. "'To have died once is enough.' Virgil," she dared to joke.

This attempt at levity completely restored the dowager duchess to a good humor. "Lord, Lucinda, how I have missed you! But then you know that, don't you, as you heard me in here the other day. I never thought you should ever bring me to tears, other than tears of desperation, but you did. But enough of that silliness," she said with a wave of her hand, as if dismissing her previous display of grief as a passing weakness best not mentioned. "We have much more important things to discuss. Did you hear what that young gel said to me? She was an actress. An actress, Lucinda! What do you have to say to that!"

Lucinda raised her hands, palms upward, and shrugged, admitting defeat. "'A great ox stands on my tongue.' Aeschylus."

"I've left you speechless? You? Oh, Lucinda, I beg you, don't tease me," the dowager duchess returned swiftly. "It wouldn't be fair to raise my hopes, just to have you open your mouth a moment later, to throw somebody else's words in my teeth. After all, I'm an old woman, and you have already delivered one very large jolt to my system this afternoon."

Steepling her fingers in front of her face, the dowager duchess now got down to business. A half hour later, and not without considerable effort on her part, she had deciphered most of what Cassandra Hampshire already knew. Lucinda Benedict could only be seen by a person sitting in the griffin-headed chair, and then only if Lucinda so wished it. Lucinda was stuck in the camel-headed chair, and would be throughout eternity, unless Philip could be brought to the altar. Cassandra, the dear, kindhearted child, had agreed to sacrifice herself for her relative.

Lastly, and most importantly—and much to the dowager duchess's approval—Philip Raybum was not to know of Lucinda's plight until he had already proposed to Cassandra, and Cassandra was not to know that the dowager duchess knew about Lucinda. Anything less than Philip's wholehearted agreement to the match would nullify all the goodness to be gained from the arrangement.

As to keeping Cassandra in the dark—well, that was the dowager duchess's idea. She just couldn't see the two of them perched side by side on the griffin-headed chair, trying to make polite conversation with a ghost.

"So," the dowager duchess said at last, "I think I have it all now. Lucinda, lofty as your motives are, I do believe you are in grave danger of molting on that hideous chair."

"'As they say,' " Lucinda agreed wearily, plucking at the lace that edged one of her flounces, "'I have got a wolf by the ears.' Terence."

The dowager duchess reached out to pat Lucinda's hand, only succeeding in patting the crown sitting on the lion's head that topped the front left leg of the chair. "Don't worry, my dear friend. You also have me."

Chapter Six

Philip watched, his anger and frustration building, as Cassandra, unaware of his presence, strolled aimlessly through the overgrown garden, stopping briefly then and again to smell the heady aroma of a full-blown rose, or merely to throw back her head and glory in the warm spring sunshine.

Without the bonnet the dowager duchess (over the girl's very vocal protests) had bade her wear, and with her unprotected face held up to the sun, Cassandra could only succeed in tanning her face more, increasing the sprinkling of light brown freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose and cheeks, and adding to the strange blond streaks in her otherwise light brown hair.

She would also, Philip knew, come inside for luncheon—smelling of sunshine, her light gray eyes set off by the healthful bloom of her cheeks, her hair in enticing disarray—and deliver yet another figurative, breath-stealing blow to his solar plexus with her smile.

Yes, she grew more beautiful every day, damn her, and he could no more deny his attraction to her than Farnley could exchange his lucky black kitchen cat for a cracked mirror!

Adding to Cassandra's already obvious charms, the dressmaker, Mrs. Miller, had wrought a miracle transformation in the girl's appearance within a few short days of her arrival at Wormhill. Philip would not have thought it possible had anyone applied to him for his opinion in the matter—which, it must be noted, no one had.

By the simple matter of removing a layer or two of the flounces Lucinda Benedict had favored, and repositioning them at the hem of some of her gowns, the dressmaker had created a workable wardrobe of no mean proportions for Cassandra before setting to work on the morning gowns, day dresses, and cloaks the dowager duchess had commissioned.

And the girl wore her new clothing well. With her sun-kissed light brown hair piled loosely on top of her head, stray tendrils curling softly about her cheeks and nape, and her eyes sparkling, she was obviously aware of her improved looks as she moved about Wormhill, taking charge of the place as if she had been born into this world to be a woman of property.

There had been no repeat of her gauche appearance following his agreement to give her a riding lesson, a circumstance that Philip did not know whether he should curse or applaud. She had nearly knocked him back on his heels that day, skipping down the steps from the front entrance, her long legs hugged tightly by the most favored pair of breeches ever fashioned.

He had been stung into teasing her into flight, for he knew he could not give in to impulse and drag her luscious body into his arms, kissing her until her small, perfect white teeth rattled in her head. Had he ever had such a strong, immediate reaction to the sight, or near sight, of a woman's body? No, he hadn't, at least not in recent memory, that silly calf love he'd felt at eighteen for a certain Covent Garden opera dancer of the glaringly obvious charms notwithstanding.

He could feel the muscles of his legs bunching as he fought the urge to flee—the garden, Wormhill, perhaps even the country. How long had he been cooped up here with Cassandra? Five days? A week? Long enough to begin believing that she was not only tolerably pretty, but actually beautiful. Was he already so desperate for female companionship, so at loose ends without the comfort of a woman, that he might even be beginning to see her as desirable?

And if he felt this way after only a week, how would he ever survive for two whole months? Good Lord—he'd probably be groveling at her feet within a fortnight, begging for her to marry him and put him out of his misery!

He had to get out. He had to get away. Yet it was as impossible to leave as it was dangerous for him to stay. He had given his word, and his word was his bond, even if it could be said that Lucinda Benedict, ably abetted by the dowager duchess, had twisted his arm in order to goad him into uttering it.

Philip drew himself up to his full, impressive height, throwing back his broad shoulders as if the movement would lend him resolve. He was an Englishman! He was made of sterner stuff. He could survive this, and a lot more.

What if Cassandra Hampshire had turned, seemingly overnight, into a graceful swan? What if her dinner table conversation was scintillating, her smile a benediction, her bubbling laugh like water spilling over pebbles in a sunlit stream, and her fine, clearly-drawn features reminiscent of a cameo carved by a master?

What of it, when he knew that she could also be impulsively frank to the point of rudeness (he raised a hand to his itchy mustache, just to remind himself of one particular thrust that had hit home). She was also perpetually late for meals (being a punctual person himself, this particular bad habit truly annoyed him), seemed to hop from activity to activity and subject to subject as if easily bored, and had the most maddening propensity for pulling comical faces behind his back (he knew this because he had caught her at it just last night at dinner, after he had dared to mention that she had not finished her green peas).

Later, after enjoying a cigar in the garden, he had rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, just to walk in as Cassandra—much to the delight of the dowager duchess, who was all but weeping in mirth—was concluding an embarrassingly accurate imitation of him, repeating his earlier admonishment about the soaring cost of fresh vegetables.

Why, if he was truly to search for reasons to dislike Cassandra Hampshire, the girl was even left-handed, a circumstance which, according to the womanish Farnley, made it unlucky to cross her path on a Tuesday.

Didn't she know who he was, that he was a person of some consequence, even if people such as the dowager duchess, and even his own father—both of whom were so ancient they should by rights creak when they walked—persisted in treating him as if he was still in leading strings?

He had estates of his own, several of them in fact, and he ran them beautifully. He had taken up his seat in Parliament, giving three well-received speeches in less than a year, and he had once delivered a punishing facer to Gentleman Jackson himself, sending that surprised man to the mat.

All these thoughts (even that last, rather silly, immature one) gave Philip solace, until he realized that he, this wonderful man among men, this shining example of the Compleat English Gentleman, was at this particular moment cravenly hiding behind the shrubbery, spying on a defenseless woman.

"It is Tuesday," he murmured aloud at last, cursing himself for a coward the moment the words left his mouth.

Taking a deep breath, more or less to steady his nerves, Philip stepped from behind the shrubbery and started down the pathway Cassandra had taken only moments earlier.

As he rounded the corner between an overgrown rosebush and a drooping stand of narcissus he could see that Cassandra had dropped to her knees a few yards further down the path (obviously with little thought given to her sea foam green sarcenet gown), and seemed to be intensely inspecting something in the weed-choked flowerbed.

"Shh!" she admonished him with a wave of her hand as he approached, a carefully rehearsed casual greeting hovering on his lips. "There is some sort of animal trapped in here, I'm sure of it. Perhaps a little lost kitten. I don't wish to frighten the poor thing."

Philip approached cautiously, trying not to snag his hose on the branches of one of the wild rose bushes. "An animal, you say? Be careful, Cassandra. It could be a rat, for all you know. Actually," he commented dryly, gingerly squatting down beside her, his coattails pulled forward over his arms so as not to drag in the dew, "an elephant could be hiding in this jungle without much fear of detection."

Without looking at him, and still intent on piercing the tangled weeds for sight of the animal, Cassandra replied vaguely, "Yes, I mean to have it cleaned up a bit one of these days, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. It is rather pretty this way, don't you think?"

Philip raised his gaze to encompass that part of the garden he could see without rising. "I think, Cassandra, that we have different definitions of that word. I think order is pretty. Chaos, even fragrant chaos, does not appeal to me very much."

She shot him a look that was openly condemning before deliberately pinning a smile to her features. "A place for everything, Philip? How utterly boring. But necessary, I'm sure, if one is to go about with any certainty of locating articles when they are needed. Why, do you know I have already mislaid one of Aunt Lucinda's brooches, with nearly tragic consequences? One minute it was there, and the next it was gone—poof!" She turned back to the weeds, her concentration once more on locating the animal, adding, "Luckily it did not quite succeed in piercing Her Grace's skin when she sat on it."

Philip nearly lost his balance, putting one hand down on the mossy brick to steady himself. "I'm surprised I didn't notice that the roof had been shouted off the house. She did read you a scathing lecture, didn't she?"

Cassandra shrugged her shoulders, rising so that Philip was left looking up at her. "She was slightly unamused, but I diverted her quickly enough with a story about the time I misplaced one of the vicar's children. There were six of them, you understand, so it was easy to accomplish. We found poor Augustus in the dairy, sick to his stomach after eating butter directly from the churn."

She continued down the path, half dancing as she picked her way along the bricks. "Have you given up looking for the animal, or did my mention of it possibly being a rat frighten you?" Philip asked, falling into step beside her, inwardly chalking yet another black mark against her for lack of attentiveness.

Shaking her head, and thereby dislodging some of the pins so that her hair, which had never really been neatly done up in the first place, tumbled loose onto her shoulders, Cassandra answered cheerfully, "Oh, I saw it. It was one of the cats from the stables, dining most happily on something far smaller than, but still related to, the rodent family."

She turned to face him, pulling the yellow velvet ribbon and the remaining pins from her topknot, not in the least embarrassed to be seen with her hair in disarray, for she had already noticed his admiring glances. "Mrs. Miller assures me that my riding habit will be ready by tonight, as I begged her to make it a special project. It's the loveliest thing, all darkest blue, with velvet piping. If you have forgiven me for my outrageous appearance the other day, perhaps we might have my first real riding lesson tomorrow?"

She commenced walking once more, averting her eyes so that he could not see the triumph glowing in them—or the hint of guilt she felt at so shamelessly maneuvering him.

Philip watched, his throat growing tight, as she ran her fingers carelessly through her hair and shook her head while she walked, her streaked curls arranging themselves like a halo around her small face. Her only concession to convention was to refasten the yellow ribbon about her head, a haphazard, drooping bow tied near her left ear keeping the curls in place. He didn't have it in him to tell her she was behaving no better than a hoyden. He was enjoying the sight of her too much.

'"Riding?" he managed to utter, his own fingers itching to bury themselves in her tangled glory as they pulled her close to receive his kiss. He nodded, politely clearing his throat. "Riding would be fine. Tomorrow? After breakfast?"

Cassandra's innocent smile, which hid her inward grin of victory, urged Philip into offering more than she had asked. "I would be willing to help you draw up a plan for this garden, if you wished, as it would help to fill our days. I'm sure if we put our heads together we could devise a way to keep what pleases you while ridding the place of weeds and taming the ornamental shrubbery."

"You'd do that for me?" Cassandra asked, genuinely pleased. Wasn't that nice of him? Really, the earl had been all that was gracious, which could not be easy for a man who must so heartily wish himself elsewhere.

Cassandra found herself suddenly excited by the prospect of redesigning the garden, while at the same time drawing Philip closer to her. She must remember why she was doing all this. She must remember poor Aunt Lucinda and her terrible dilemma. She wouldn't be within five miles of Philip Rayburn otherwise, let alone trying to entice him into declaring himself, truly she wouldn't. Would she?

She abruptly stopped walking and turned to deliberately lay her hands on his forearm. "You'd draw up the plans, of course, for I am a total loss at such things, and we could even do some of the work ourselves. As a child, I was in charge of our kitchen garden at home, and truly enjoyed digging my fingers into the warm earth. It makes you feel so alive, so at one with Mother Nature. So—so earthy!" As if to mimic her words, Cassandra's fingertips began gently kneading the fabric of his sleeve.

Philip had a sudden image of Cassandra, kneeling in the middle of a garden overflowing with fragrant blooms, her lightly tanned skin sheening with dewy perspiration, her hair undone the way it was now, her sleeves rolled back as she held out her hands, dark rich soil sifting through her fingers while she smiled up at him, her eyes alight with a passion that had a lot to do with that part of nature that ruled man rather than flowers.

The vision was so elemental, so stirring to the blood, so evocative and provocative, that Philip (who to date in his lifetime had never even thought about pulling a single weed, let alone grooming an entire garden full of the noxious plants), was pushed to place himself in the picture. He saw himself, standing legs hip-width apart, his white lawn shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled up to bare strong forearms, his sinewy thighs encased in skintight buckskins, a soft breeze ruffling his blond hair as he posed with one hand on his hip and the other holding a shovel, or a hoe, it mattered not—master of the land, master of all he surveyed and, most importantly, master of the "earthy" woman who knelt at his feet, the woman who shared his domain, his land, his bed.

Covering her hands with his own larger one, Philip looked down at her, his earlier anger forgotten, his earlier frustration redefining itself as desire, his senses ruling his head, his entire concentration centering on closing the gap between his mouth and her soft, pouting lips, and began, "Cassandra, I—"

"And here it is you be, Cassy m'darlin'. 'Tis a fine thing, you rompin' around in this great green forest with some flashy blackguard who's clearly up to no good, you know, whilst I'm thinkin' of sendin' out a small landin' party to search fer you! It's lettin' go of her you'll be, me fine boyo, else it's knockin' your two eyes into one I'll be, and no mistake!"

Before Philip could completely register what he'd heard, the vision (and, unfortunately for him, his opportunity) had exploded, and Cassandra was gone, running back down the brick path happily calling, "Fish, you miserable boglander! I had about given you up!"

The tall, well-set-up man she raced toward stood in the middle of the brick pathway, legs hip-width apart, his white lawn shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled up to bare strong forearms, his sinewy thighs encased in skintight buckskins. A soft breeze ruffled his overlong, coal black hair as he stood with one hand jammed onto his hip and the other held out, ready to gather Cassandra close—master of the land, master of all he surveyed. Most importantly, he seemed to be master of the woman who just then launched herself into his arms. Was she the woman who shared this man's domain, this man's land—this man's bed?

Philip shook his head. Would she really share a bed with a man named Fish, even if he was the most handsome dark devil Philip had ever seen? He began walking toward the couple, intent on discovering just what in blazes was going on!

Cassandra's feet had been lifted a good six inches above the ground as she hung suspended from the man's neck like a living jewel, smothering his face with kisses. "Oh, Fish, dearest, darling Fish," he heard her exclaim between kisses, "you cannot know how I have missed you! You had to pick last week to go wandering off on your own again, didn't you, leaving me all alone just when I needed you. I was so worried you wouldn't find the letter I left behind, telling you where to find me."

The man Cassandra had called Fish slowly lowered her until her slipper-clad toes were back on the ground, saving Philip the trouble of bloodying the man's nose for him. "And it's devastated I am that I couldn't be here sooner, darlin'. There's nothin' so fine to an Irishman than a funeral. It's our national pleasure, you now. Was it a fine wake?"

"Cassandra," Philip said silkily, his face devoid of expression, "perhaps you will introduce me to your, um, your friend?"

"Here, now," Fish answered, pushing Cassandra behind him as he stepped forward to grab Philip's right hand and give it a mighty shake, "and you must be one of m'darlin's new relatives. I didn't really mean that business about knockin' your two eyes into one, but you were holdin' onto my little colleen, weren't you, now? It's a pleasure, sir, indeed it is. Givin' you much trouble, is she?"

Philip couldn't help himself. "Other than to entirely reshuffle my life and that of the Dowager Duchess of Avonall, no, I wouldn't say she has been much trouble." He appeared to hesitate a moment, then added lightly, "Of course, there is some business about Cassandra and me possibly marrying but, other than that one small thing, we're all having a jolly good time here at Wormhill."

Cassandra, who had been thoroughly enjoying Philip's reaction, her all-seeing eyes taking in the small tic that had begun to work in his left cheek, quickly stepped forward to do the introductions before Fish could utter more than, "The devil, you say," still holding onto the earl's right hand as if they were about to begin a wrestling match.

"Earl of Hawkedon? Well, if that isn't wonderful!" Fish leaned down to give Cassandra a quick kiss on the cheek. Grabbing Philip's hand into his once more, his grip so firm the earl had to suppress the urge to wince, he said, "I always knew Cassy would land on her feet one of these fine days. So, when's this marriage to be taking place?" His grip tightened even more, if that was possible, for Philip knew his hand to be nearly bloodless already. "It'll be a fine day, that."

Philip, hearing Cassandra's giggle, and knowing her amusement came entirely at his expense, spoke hastily, saying, "You think so, do you, sir? Cassandra—how many times must the dowager duchess explain to you the inadvisability of going out without your bonnet? Go fetch it at once."

Cassandra opened her mouth to protest, but immediately thought better of it, sensing that the earl had about reached the end of his tether. It wouldn't do to put his back up, not when things had been going so well. "She says I'll soon be as red as a wild Indian," she told Fish, grinning. "I suppose I should go inside, leaving you two men to get to know each other. Besides, I must speak to Farnley about preparing another bedchamber for our guest."

Once Cassandra had gone inside, it took Philip some doing before he had finally explained his hasty, self-serving comment about marriage, and he and Fish had settled down facing each other across the large table in the drawing room, the latter making great inroads on a previously full decanter of wine.

"I'd give my eyes to have met this Mrs. Benedict of yours, my lord," Fish said at last, leaning back at his ease on one of the couches, one strong ankle crossed over his knee. "There's a mess of evil lurking for a man in a woman's notion of doing good, isn't there? I can only thank you for not running off the second you heard the news, losin' Cassy this place out of hand."

Fish looked about the drawing room, not for the first time, his dark gaze taking in the odd furnishings. "Such a mass of grandeur. Yes, and it's a fine place m'darlin' will be getting, stuffed full of the faded relics of old decency."

Philip was struck by the man's poetic description of the hodgepodge furnishings. As a matter of fact, he was struck by a lot of things about Fish.

The man's fine, strong good looks, for one thing, which were so at odds with his single, sadly prosaic name, raised questions in Philip's mind.

Fish's brief lapses into correct, nearly unaccented English were another puzzle, complete with the sometimes clear pronunciation of his final "g's".

The seeming ease with which Fish cradled the delicate crystal wineglass between his calloused fingers, as if not entirely unaccustomed to fine things, also struck the earl as being odd for a man who had already admitted to having arrived at Wormhill on foot, being temporarily short of funds.

And, lastly, the fact that the man, who seemed to be no more than half a dozen years past his own age of eight- and-twenty, had taken on the guardianship of Cassandra Hampshire without, so it seemed, becoming romantically involved with her, was perhaps most difficult of all to assimilate.

Yes, Fish was a puzzle, and Philip dearly loved solving puzzles. Hence his interest in Cassandra, or so he liked to tell himself.

Bringing himself back to the matter at hand—and out of dangerous "Cassandra" territory—Philip said, "So you do understand that there will be no marriage between Cassandra and myself, but merely a brief enforced association? I only mentioned the possibility to gain your attention, as I was beginning to feel neglected during that touching scene of reunion you two were sharing."

Fish raised one elegant black eyebrow and lifted his glass, as if saluting the earl. "You're truly a man of honor, my lord. And if you had found out in the garden that I was a rotter of the first water, with my evil sights set on Cassy—and now on this lovely little nest that will soon be hers—you would have gritted your teeth and announced your betrothal on the spot, just to protect the dear child."

Philip grinned, genuinely amused. "Don't fool yourself, Fish. If you and Cassandra wish to marry the very day these two months are up, I should be the first to raise my glass to toast the bride. It would serve my late aunt right, and the dowager duchess as well. I don't appreciate being managed, you understand. When I wed, I reserve the right to choose my wife myself. I only wish there were some way I could quit Wormhill now, before the dowager duchess, panicked by your arrival on the scene, stoops to something terrible in her efforts to get me to the altar."

"And it's feared of me she'd be, my lord?" Fish shook his head. "You still think you're readin' the whole book in a few pages, my lord, if you're still thinkin' Cassy and myself have anything havey cavey goin' on between us, and that's a fact. I sailed the seas with her late papa, the good Lord grant him rest. I may have seemed a mite young for a guardian, and it took me some years to find her, what with the war and her mama moving clear up here from Sussex and other trifles of concern to no one but me, but I promised her papa as he lay bleedin' out his life's blood on the deck that I would protect the child until she didn't need me any more. I too, sir, am a man of my word."

His gaze shifted once more to encompass the drawing room. "It's good she will be, too, rooted to one spot so that she can grow into a fine full flower of womanhood without worries. All this travelin' about and strange living was sure to get to her in the end, even if she always did eat it up like candy."

Philip sensed his opportunity and took it. "According to the dowager duchess, information about Cassandra's life for the past three or so years has been sketchy at best. As a matter of fact, it was only by dumb luck that Aunt Lucinda's solicitor located her at all six months past. May I take it that you've been with her during all of this missing time?"

Fish nodded, his face suddenly solemn. "Ever since the day I found her, workin' her fingers to the nub slavin' for that penny-pinchin' vicar. Took her off with me that very day, I did, and we haven't either of us looked back since. Traveled to the Auld Sod and stayed there for close on to two years, one way or the other, with me workin' at this and that to keep a roof over our heads, until it behooved us to find our way back to England. Did she tell you about the months we traveled Wales and Scotland with O'Flattery's Players? Oh, and what a fine time that was, don't you know. This past year hasn't been so easy, though, all in all, and I've had to go farther and farther for my, um, my work, coming back to Cassandra when I could."

Philip's good humor vanished in the twinkling of an eye. "You allowed Cassandra to go on the stage? Of all the dim-witted, flea-brained—and you call yourself a guardian?"

Fish sat forward, his black brows lowered menacingly over his darker black eyes. "And what would you be having me do with her then, my lord, send her out to sweep grates and empty slop pots for the likes of you? At least that way I could keep my eye out for her, and not worry that some randy young son of the household would be try in' to catch her behind the curtains for some slap and tickle. Why, the good vicar's eldest was already eyein' her up when I got there!"

Just when it looked as if the two of them were going to come to blows, the heavy metal rod holding the velvet draperies hanging in one of the windows facing out over the front of the house pulled loose of its moorings, and both rod and draperies came crashing onto the floor, riveting their attention.

"I don't believe this! The whole place is falling apart. Of all the—Farnley!" Philip bellowed angrily. "Get your skinny shanks in here on the double and clean up this mess!"

"Lucky thing, that," Fish remarked cheerfully, sitting at his ease once more while they waited for the butler to come clear away the draperies. "Another moment or two, my lord, and I would have had to see fit to break your jaw. Now, given a moment to reflect on the business, it seems to me that you care more for my Cassy than you wish me to see. Have no fear, my lord. She was always safe with me. I would have sooner cut out my own heart than ever see her good name come to harm. But good names mean nothing when your belly's kissin' your backbone."

Philip sighed, reconsidering his own anger. "But the stage. Fish? Couldn't you have done better than that?"

"It's the sea I know, and only the sea, since I was two-and-ten. This Fish was well and truly out of water, don't you know, keepin' a stout line on a young girl who loves life as our Cassy does. And I had my own affairs to take care of, such as I could, so that maybe I wasn't always the best person for her." He drained his wine glass. "But now all our prayers are answered. Soon Cassy will have this place to call home, and I can be on about my own business."

"Which is?" Philip dared to ask as Farnley crept into the room, looking this way and that as if he feared attack at any moment.

"Which is my own business," Fish repeated, grinning. "Is it an outpouring of my deepest secrets you'd be after, my lord? It'd take more than this watery stuff to unhinge my tongue, don't you know."

"My apologies, Fish," Philip answered sincerely. "That was regrettably clumsy of me. However," he warned, smiling, "I'd be careful what I drank around the dowager duchess. That old woman could squeeze blood from a turnip, and not bother to be subtle about it. She may be little, and three years older than God, but she's sharp as a tack."

A loud sniff from somewhere behind him reminded the earl of Farnley's presence. "You have something of interest to add to what I foolishly believed to be a private discussion, Farnley?" Philip asked pointedly.

"Me, my lord?" The butler squeaked, gathering up the voluminous velvet draperies into an untidy bundle while doing his best to exit the room without staggering under their weight. He stopped near the door, looking back at the two men. "Well, if you don't mind my saying so, my lord—there is something. About the dowager duchess, that is."

"Yes, yes, get on with it, you twit," Philip urged when the man fell silent. "Now you might understand, Fish, why I am so eager for your company. This sorry specimen is the closest thing to a man at Wormhill since I sent my brothers away, not feeling up to their foolery. I should most probably have made you welcome if you had been a rotter of the first water, just for the sake of having someone to share a cigar with after dinner. It isn't easy living under petticoat rule. Farnley, are you ever going to speak?"

"Sorry, my lord, but I thought you forgot me." Farnley looked around as if to be sure no one else could overhear him. "It's just that business you said about the dowager duchess being a sharp one. I saw the old lady in here yesterday afternoon, sitting big as life in one of those awful chairs—the ones she vowed never to sit in if there were nothing else to plant herself in for three miles."

"Good God!" Philip exclaimed, winking at Fish. "Do you think we should call in the local doctor? Perhaps it's already too late, and she's beyond help. In that case, we may have to summon the family. I will write a note immediately, telling her grandson the duke that Farnley says the dowager duchess is teetering on the brink of—" He turned to the butler. "On the brink of what, Farnley? I'm not quite sure how I should word my note."

Farnley's protuberant ears turned a fiery red. "Please, my lord, don't trouble the Duke just now. Let me explain. She wasn't just sitting, even if that is bad enough. She was talking."

Philip winked again at Fish. "Not just sitting, but talking as well. Then it's true. We must summon the family at once, before she slips her wits and wind entirely. Fish, my landlocked seafaring friend, you may get your wake yet."

Clearly trying to hold onto his temper, for surely he was being sorely tried, Farnley gritted, "She was talking, my lord, talking to that other ugly chair, the one with the camel heads—but nobody was there to listen. Nobody."

"By the hokey, that doesn't sound good," Fish remarked, looking toward the chairs in the middle of the room, the two ugly chairs that must be the ones to which the butler referred. "Likes a bit of the creature now and then, this dowager duchess?"

Suddenly the butler's words were no longer quite such a cause for hilarity. "Go on," Philip said softly as the butler paused again in his story.

Satisfied that he had their full attention at last, and longing these past four-and-twenty hours to tell somebody what he had seen and heard (as it wouldn't do to show fear in front of Pansy), Farnley dropped the draperies and walked over to stand between the two couches, hitting one skinny shin against a corner of the table, which served him right for betraying the dowager duchess in the first place.

"She was talking to Mrs. Benedict, my lord," he whispered hoarsely, chancing a look at the empty chairs. "Even called her by name a time or two. Talking, and giggling like a silly girl, and asking questions about the hereafter and all that. When she saw me she jumped up so fast I thought she'd fall, and then she shooed me out of the room so quick I knew something was terrible wrong."

Philip found himself captivated in spite of his own usual good sense and lack of interest in servant talk. "And what do you conclude from all that you saw, Farnley?"

The butler leaned closer, his beady eyes mere slits in his head. "Mrs. Benedict is dead, my lord, but she won't leave. She's here. In this house. In this very room." He stood up once more. "What do you think knocked down those draperies, my lord? The wind? No!" he stated firmly, feeling powerful now, almost as powerful as he did when Pansy sat at his feet, listening intently to all he had to say.

"What knocked down those draperies?" he repeated smugly, already sure he knew the answer. "The same thing that pushed the vase from the mantel. The same thing that shoved those chairs back into the center of the room after the dowager duchess had me push them into a dark corner. No. Not some thing, my lord. Someone. And that someone, begging your pardon, my lord, is Lucinda Benedict!"

"Sweet Mother of God," Fish whispered, downing the remainder of his wine.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!"

All heads turned to see Cassandra striding into the room, hands on hips, cheeks flushed; she obviously had heard Farnley's last statement. "And to think that women are condemned as twittering gossips! Farnley—clean up this mess and make yourself scarce. I want those draperies rehung before nightfall. Fish—your bedchamber is ready. I suggest you go to it at once. And bathe, for pity's sake. You can't have been within praying distance of soap and water for days."

As the butler scurried from the room, and Fish followed—albeit much more slowly, and not without pausing to tell Cassandra that she was a cheeky miss—Philip rose, applauding softly. "Congratulations, my dear. You certainly do know how to clear a room. Now, if I might be so bold, what are your plans for me?"

Chapter Seven

Cassandra slowly walked to the center of the room, unconsciously twisting her hands together as she darted quick, nervous glances toward the innocent-looking Sheraton chairs. "Plans for you, Philip?" She lifted her chin a fraction. "I wouldn't be so bold as to presume to make plans for you."

Motioning her to a chair (the griffin-headed one was, unfortunately, the closest to her), Philip smiled what, to Cassandra, was a most evil, mustache-cloaked smile of triumph. "Really? I thought, now that Fish has arrived on the scene, we might have a change of plans. Rather than dig about in the garden—such dirty work to be one of your talents—we might put our heads together and come up with something more entertaining to pass the time. We could perhaps—and this is merely a suggestion on my part—endeavor to put on a small play?"

Cassandra—who had been gingerly, and very much against her will, settling into the griffin-headed chair, not precisely eager to see Aunt Lucinda at the moment—shot to her feet. "That blabbering Irishman! I should have known better than to allow the two of you alone together. Telling me to fetch my bonnet, indeed! That was just a ruse to get rid of me so that you could grill him about me. And he told you!"

Walking past her, and gently pressing a hand onto her shoulder so that she had no choice but to subside once more into the chair, Philip seated himself in the facing camel-headed chair, asking pleasantly, "Oh, was it to be a secret then, Cassandra? I wouldn't have believed you'd think that way about it. After all, putting one's face out there for all to see seems such a sorry way to keep a secret."

The moment Cassandra had seated herself, Aunt Lucinda appeared as if on cue (wearing the most ridiculously full-skirted, juvenile ball gown of white satin and lace the world had ever seen), and was now once more perched a few inches above Philip's lap. She wagged a finger in Cassandra's face, as if admonishing the girl for being naughty.

"Oh, you, too?" Cassandra was stung into retorting, not really sure to whom she was speaking. "It was all perfectly harmless. O'Flattery's Players was the smallest of groups, and we neither of us used our own names. For pity's sake, Philip, what sort of nodcocks do you think Fish and I are?"

Philip sat back in the uncomfortable chair, crossing one leg over the other so that Aunt Lucinda, not expecting such a movement, momentarily seemed to slip halfway inside his body. Her girlish giggle, which accompanied her outlandish body movements as she seemed to "swim" back up to her former position, had next to no effect on Cassandra, who was too angry to see any humor in the situation.

"What sort of nodcocks are you?" Philip repeated consideringly, trying to fight the feeling that, even now, he did not quite have Cassandra's full attention. "Why, I would imagine you are the worst sort, the naive sort. Do you actually believe, did you even for a moment ever believe, that the two of you could travel across England—or even Ireland—for three years, without a chaperone, without observing the proprieties, and not suffer some harm from the experience? God's teeth, girl," he ended, feeling that he might be losing his grip on his temper, "did either of you seriously entertain the notion that the world would believe your association to be the innocent one of guardian and ward?"

Lucinda pulled a face at the earl, obviously deciding that he was coming on a bit strong with his disapproval—for, after all, she had known him long enough, and heard enough stories from the dowager duchess, to know that Philip Rayburn had not exactly lived his own life as a pattern-card of virtue. "'Things that are done,'" she intoned heavily, "'it is needless to speak about things that are past, it is needless to blame.' Confucius."

Ignoring her aunt's borrowed truism—which she might have employed to advantage—Cassandra allowed her anger to guide her answer. "It occurred to Fish, Philip, which is why he changed our names during that time, and why he kept me in Ireland with a hired companion for as long as he could, and why—once some of the patrons at O'Flattery's shows began paying me too much attention—he deposited me deep in the countryside, in one lonely, isolated cottage after another, while he left me as seldom as he could, and only then because we so desperately needed money. But it is easy for you, with all your inherited wealth, to sit back and judge us, isn't it?"

Philip opened his mouth as if to speak, but Cassandra had the bit firmly between her teeth now, and wouldn't give him time to force a word in edgewise. "It never occurred to either of us that I had any long lost relative still aboveground who might deign to include me in her will, giving me a chance for a home again, a place to lay my head, or money to put food on the table. And, frankly, it never occurred to me that I should have to apologize for not staying at the vicar's and allowing his bug-eyed son George to practice his clumsy lovemaking on me, for fear that one day I might be in this position—this position of having to defend myself from your filthy Society mind!"

Lucinda looked to Philip, whose expression showed him to be thoroughly ashamed of himself, and then to Cassandra, whose cheeks were flushed with triumph at having reduced the earl to speechlessness. Oddly, she did not smile. "'Another such victory over the Romans,'" she quoted to Cassandra, her small white teeth worrying her bottom lip, " 'and we are undone.' Pyrrhus."

Cassandra was at once brought back to the reality of the situation as her aunt saw it. She had made her point—brilliantly—but not without wounding Philip in the process. She was supposed to be enticing this man into marriage so that Aunt Lucinda could go to her final reward. Causing a man to feel petty and foolish, especially a man as proud as Philip, could only seriously damage Aunt Lucinda's chances of ever being reunited in heaven with her beloved Jerome.

"Philip," Cassandra began, not really knowing what she should say, "please forgive my outburst. It was truly uncalled for. You had every right to be outraged when you heard my history. But I would have told you myself, you know, when the time came."

He regarded her owlishly. Hers had been a brilliant set-down, delivered in righteous anger, and one which he had royally deserved. Why did she suddenly look so frightened, when she had just trounced him so thoroughly? "When what time came, Cassandra?"

Realizing that she had blundered, Cassandra lied quickly. "Why, when the two months are over, of course. The dowager duchess has already been making noises about taking me to London for the Little Season, you understand, a notion that may be kind but is certainly misguided. I had counted on telling you my history at that point, and then enlisting your aid to convince Her Grace that such a move would serve no point."

Aunt Lucinda applauded enthusiastically, then gave her opinion of the success of Cassandra's words. "'To pull the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw.' Molière."

Philip lifted a hand to his face, using his thumb and forefinger to stroke his mustache, a move that made Cassandra long to jump up and box his ears. "That might have stopped Her Grace once, but not now, Cassandra. Your story is very plausible, not that I would ever wish to hear it bandied about the Ton, and Fish is, I am assured, an honorable man. I would say, therefore, that you will most probably have to agree to attend the Little Season or else bodily throw the dowager duchess out of your house, once the two months are past and it is totally yours."

Cassandra began slowly shaking her head. "I don't think I understand, Philip. One moment you are ringing a mighty peal over my head, all but declaring me ruined, and the next you are telling me that I am a fitting candidate for the Little Season."

"Only if you conveniently misplace the memories of the years since your mother died, and allow the dowager duchess and myself the liberty of inventing new ones for you," Philip said, qualifying his earlier statement. "Society adores an original, a beautiful unknown arriving, unsuspected, into its midst—especially one sponsored by a person as powerful as the Dowager Duchess of Avonall—but it does not take kindly to deception. A whisper of scandal, a breath of those months on the stage, and they would tear you to ribbons."

"But you accept me anyway, knowing the truth?" Cassandra could not help pushing the question, for she was finding it difficult to believe that Philip Rayburn could be quite so forgiving. It made her want to like him, and she didn't really wish to like him. She only wanted to marry him.

Philip's eyes became two cold chips of blue ice. "I make up my own mind, thank you. You may be unschooled, you may drive me mad at times with your unconventional behavior, and I may have initially disliked you merely because you, thanks to that stupid will, stand between me and my town house in London—said town house, by the by, which has by now most probably been reduced to a shambles by my gadabout brothers. But you are Aunt Lucinda's relative, and therefore salvageable. Besides, I like Fish, and feel confident he has done his best for you. Finding you as he did, at the mercy of the vicar, I probably would have done the same as he."

His expression softened as he spoke from his heart. "As a matter of fact, Cassandra, if I were to have met you for the first time in London, and without the constraints placed upon us by Aunt Lucinda's will, I would most probably have made up one of the set of your admirers. You are, you know, enchanting when you put your mind to it."

Aunt Lucinda, nearly overcome with joy, all but tumbled out of the camel-headed chair, only righting herself with an effort, to trill, "'He goeth after her straightaway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter.' Proverbs."

Cassandra sniffed indelicately, responding to her relative's crudely quoted optimism. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that," she answered skeptically.

"You're contradicting me?" The earl, believing Cassandra had been speaking to him, and not in a very flattering way at that, immediately rose from his chair and reached out to grab at Cassandra's arm at the same time. Aunt Lucinda remained speechless, being fully occupied trying to smooth her unexpectedly raised skirts back down to cover her exposed bony ankles, her entire body seemingly displaced due to the slight breeze caused by Philip's quick journey through her nearly transparent form.

A moment later, Aunt Lucinda had disappeared from sight without ever getting a chance to comment (which was probably a good thing), as Cassandra too was on her feet, looking up into Philip's handsome, stony face. She felt sorry for him, an emotion that surprised her, as he couldn't know what had been going on around him.

"I—I didn't mean to contradict you, Philip," she said hastily, wishing he would release her arm, for his touch was making her heart beat too rapidly for comfort. "I—I was just hinting for another compliment, I suppose. It is very nice to hear that you consider me to be enchanting."

"Enchanting? Is that the word I used?" Philip asked, releasing her arm only to slide both his hands insinuatingly around her small waist. "What a pale, ineffectual word. Shame on me for being so uninventive. You have a way about you, Cassandra, that is much more than merely enchanting."

"I—I do?" Had he stepped closer to her, the two of them poised between the Sheraton chairs, so that the entire world had narrowed to this single small spot? Not knowing where to put her hands, she lowered them to her sides, feeling particularly gauche, and not unaware that her invisible ghost aunt was privy to all that was going on. Nervously, without thought, she brought the tip of her tongue forward to moisten her suddenly dry lips.

"Yes, my dear," Philip continued, his steady blue eyes looking down at her, deep into the darkest recesses of her soul. "Do you know, I once believed that I should like a conventional wife, a woman content to bear me an heir, serve as my hostess, and keep an accurate count on the linens. But I was proven wrong on that account last year, and have since believed that I should be much happier with a woman more in line with those women my friends wed, unconventional women—women who might not always behave as expected and are not afraid to speak their minds."

"Someone like your sister Penelope?" Cassandra asked, knowing she was stalling for time. "The dowager duchess told me how your father banished Penelope to Wormhill last year because she refused to have a Season, only to have her end by keeping a strange man tied up in one of the bedchambers."

Philip gave a slight, one-sided smile at this brief summary of what had become a classic family joke, remarking, "That's a charmingly simplified explanation for the nonsense that went on here last year." But he sobered just as quickly, once more discovering himself to be intent on finishing what he had hoped to begin in the garden before Fish had interrupted.

The time had more than come for him to satisfy his curiosity, for him to take Cassandra in his arms and discover if the reality mirrored the dream that had been haunting him for days.

"Cassandra," he said, barely able to hear himself over the pounding in his ears, "I know that this is very sudden, and that we haven't exactly gotten off on the right foot, the two of us, but—"

Cassandra raised a hand to stroke his cheek, not caring where she had found the courage to make such a bold move. Perhaps she did have the makings of a temptress. Aunt Lucinda would be so proud of her! "But what, dearest Philip?" she asked, her voice low and wavering.

But what indeed? Philip had stopped speaking because he hadn't known what to say.

Could he tell her that he believed he might be falling in love with her?

Hardly.

Could he tell her that she had intrigued him with her quick enthusiasm and sprightly wit, had lit a fire in his belly with her unconventional beauty, and he wished to satisfy that fire now, and possibly for the entirety of the two months they would be forced to live at Wormhill, with no real thought toward any more permanent arrangement?

Certainly not—not if he didn't wish for both the dowager duchess and Fish to take turns beating him into a jelly.

Could he even explain to himself how a virtually unknown girl, whose habits alternately pleased and infuriated him, who seemed to shun him one day only to throw out extremely obvious lures to him the next, could have somehow become so important to his happiness?

No, he couldn't. She just was.

There was nothing else for it. He would have to release her and walk away, or else he could never live with himself again.

"Cassandra," he began, actually believing for that split second that he could stand this close to her and then let her go, only to feel the front legs of the camel-headed chair pressing uncomfortably against the back of his knees, as if urging him to act.

He hadn't realized that, upon rising, the two of them would become virtual prisoners between the chairs. It would be awkward now to move away, awkward and embarrassing.

It was a dreadfully lame excuse for doing what he had wanted to do in the first place, Philip knew, but it would serve as well as any other he might have mustered.

"Oh, damn," he expelled on a groan when his mind could take him no farther, letting his body do the speaking by pulling her fully into his arms, his mouth coming down to claim hers in a kiss that asked more questions than it answered.

Within a moment his most pressing question, the one he hadn't admitted even to himself, the one that hadn't been completely satisfied by the explanations he had heard from both Cassandra and Fish, had been answered.

Cassandra's lips, though sweet and eagerly enticing, were totally unschooled. When their mouths touched, Cassandra's immediately formed into a hard pucker, as they would have if she were kissing Fish on the cheek. The girl didn't have the faintest idea of what she was about when it came to the more involved art of kissing a man in earnest. In plain words, and no matter how far-flung her travels or varied her experiences, she could not ever have been kissed before now.

He drew slightly away from her, but not without effort since she had raised her arms to encircle his neck, all but smashing her face against his. She looked up at him through her long lashes, her gray eyes wide and tearing at his soul with their expression of mingled fear and anticipation.

"Gently, my sweet," he admonished, raising a fingertip to her lips to tenderly pry them apart. "Like this," he breathed, lowering his head once more.

Of all the words he might have used, of all the terms of endearment that might have sprung to his lips, the word "sweet" now seemed to have been an inspiration, and a portent of things to come. For Cassandra's mouth was sweet—sweet, warm, and innocently seductive.

Keeping her waist secure with one hand, he raised the other to indulge in what had become his fantasy, tangling his fingers deeply into the curls at her nape as he urged her closer, ever closer.

His gentle seduction quickly became an aggressive plundering of her mouth and body as he reacted, mindlessly, to the urgings of his body, urgings that could never before have been this immediate, this intense.

Suddenly, and so abruptly that he could not react, two things happened. The camel-headed chair, the one that had seemed so providentially close moments earlier, smacked him sharply on the backs of his knees, causing him to lose his grip on Cassandra and tumble down onto its seat. And, secondly, he got to see Cassandra, one hand held to her mouth as if protecting it from further assault, run rapidly from the drawing room.

Philip sat in the camel-backed chair for a long time, not wondering if he had imagined the thing moving on its own—for that was a ridiculous notion, and he was not a ridiculous man—but quietly berating himself for his brutish actions.

He had meant only to kiss her, to experiment, actually, with his possible romantic feelings toward her. He had never planned a prolonged embrace, an impassioned interlude that could only be perceived as either the prelude to a proposal or—which was worse?—the prelude to a proposal.

Obviously, Cassandra had seen it as the latter, a proposal of intimacy such as one would entertain with someone like the Covent Garden females of his salad days, or any of the discreetly kept women of the world he had favored since.

Certainly she could not believe he would have ended their embrace with a proposal of marriage. Men did not kiss the women they planned to marry with such enthusiasm, such abandon. Wives, he had always been taught, were to be treated with more respect for their fragile sensibilities.

But then, he reflected thoughtfully, hadn't he once stumbled upon his sister and her husband ardently embracing in the solarium, with Penelope actually taking on the role of aggressor? His sister was a wife, a lady—certainly not to be lumped in with those that sang at Covent Garden—yet she appeared to enjoy lovemaking.

Having no real memory of his mother and father ever indulging in shows of affection within his sight, and having accepted Society's general definition of marriage as a convenience (with a more comforting "convenience" kept discreetly housed on the fringes of Mayfair), Philip had believed his friends' wives to be the exception, and never the rule.

Was he, through no real work of his own, to be so lucky as to have found similar passion in Cassandra? It barely seemed possible.

He raised a fingertip to stroke his mustache, idly wondering if evidence of its rough texture would be visible on Cassandra's face when next they met for dinner. He rather hoped not, for he did not wish for her to be embarrassed in any way. Hadn't he done enough already?

More important was to consider what this afternoon's lapse would mean to the rest of the time he must remain at Wormhill, his actions and reactions visible to the dowager duchess and now to Fish as well.

If he had disliked Cassandra at first, his initial dislike had certainly drastically reversed itself within the space of one short week. Would it be possible to hide his attraction to the girl, especially now that she, who had shown an initial dislike for him as well, seemed to have suffered a similar change of heart within a single day—and now was determined to wrap him round her thumb?

He gave a short, rueful laugh. Perhaps he was overestimating his attractions, and she had not really altered her original dislike of him. Perhaps she was simply afraid of losing Wormhill if her treatment of him remained cold and he decided to leave before the time stipulated in the will had expired. Or—and this was a sobering thought indeed—perhaps she had given the matter some consideration and decided that Wormhill wasn't enough for her, and an earldom seemed much more to her liking.

Philip made his way to the drinks table, intent on pouring himself a full glass of wine, then thought better of it. Why was he belaboring the point? Cassandra seemed to have developed a tendre for him. He, in turn, had discovered a passion for her in himself.

It may have galled him slightly that they had been maneuvered together by the machinations of a dead woman, and it may still have been bothering him that the dowager duchess—never one to waste time on subtlety when a straightforward push would do as well—was obviously throwing them together whenever possible, but that didn't mean he was pigheaded enough to turn away from what he had found.

There was time enough to think of lasting relationships. He and Cassandra had nearly two months in which to get to know each other. If at the end of that time he still felt as he did now, he would declare himself. If not, he would still have time to seek out what was left of the Season and find himself a promising house party to carry him comfortably into July. After that—well, there was always Scotland and a bit of hunting and fishing.

So thinking, and pushing aside the thought that, from now on, his every move would be registered not only by the dowager duchess but by Fish as well, Philip quit the drawing room, intent on having himself a bruising ride before he had to dress for dinner. As for Farnley's womanish fears about ghosts, Philip dismissed those out of hand.

* * * * *

It was nearing midnight when Cassandra, dragging a reluctant Fish by one hand, stuck her head inside the drawing room "just to make sure the coast is clear and that stupid Farnley isn't in residence, spouting incantations over the chairs."

The Irishman declined to hide his amusement. After all, he had come to know Cassandra very well these past three years, and had lived through more than one of her flights of fancy. There had been that time when they had been in Ireland only a few weeks and she had sworn to him she had spied one of the little people in the woods—as if a leprechaun would actually appear to an Englishwoman. It had been all he could do to keep her from setting off to find the leprechaun's pot of gold, until something else had come along to divert her interest.

And then there was that other time, of which he had reminded her as recently as an hour ago, when she had found an old book at some village market and believed she had stumbled upon the answer to the puzzle surrounding the exact location of Arthur and Guinevere's ancient kingdom.

But to come to his bedroom with this latest foolishness? She was not a whimsical child any more. She was nineteen now, and should be past such inventive nonsense. How was she going to bring that conveniently corralled earl to the sticking point if he overheard her talking to her dead relative? It was nearly more than Fish could bear.

"And now it's into ghosties we are, is that the way of it, Cassandra? That's what comes of listenin' to servant talk, for it's sure I am that skinny-shanks butler has somethin' to do with this. Have you told that flinty-faced dowager duchess? Now there's one who'd soon shake you out of such flights of fancy," he had commented dryly once she had finished her fantastic story. Unless Farnley was tellin' the truth about the old lady, of course. No," he assured himself, shaking his head, and not bothering to tell Cassandra that Farnley had told him and the earl that the dowager duchess had been seen talking to an empty chair. "It's all a hum anyway."

Cassandra hadn't bothered to argue with him—for she had been too busy thinking about what was to come next to really listen to him—and had merely taken his hand and led him here, to the drawing room.

"Ah, m'darlin', it's a heavy heart you're giving me, that you are," he said now.

"It would take more than a ghostie to give you a heavy heart, Fish," Cassandra answered absently, looking around to see that, although the room was deserted, candles still burned in their holders, giving ample light for what she planned to do.

She had to tell Fish about her disturbing interlude with Philip, but how could she do that without first introducing him to Aunt Lucinda, so that he understood why she had started down this road to ruin in the first place?

"Would this be one of the chairs you've been talking about, Cassandra?" Fish asked, gingerly laying a hand on one of the camel heads. "Farnley talked about them too. By the hokey, m'darlin', I've seen uglier—but not lately, and not this close up. No wonder it's seeing things you are, settin' yourself down midst such nasty pieces."

Cassandra put a hand to her lips, as if to warn him to silence. "These chairs were a gift to Aunt Lucinda from her husband, who died soon afterward. They are her most treasured remembrances of her dear Jerome. It isn't nice to talk badly about them. Besides, she can hear you."

"Of course she can, m'darlin'. And would you be wantin' to sit down awhile, just to rest your troubled head?"

Cassandra had known it wouldn't be easy to get Fish to understand, but she hadn't planned on his amused teasing. "Now look here, Fish," she argued hotly. "If you Irish can have fairies and little people, why can't we English have a ghost or two? It only seems fair."

Fish looked at his ward, saw the tears standing bright in her eyes, and gave in. "All right, Cassy, show me your ghostie. It's thanking her I should be anyway, for giving you this lovely place."

Cassandra bit her bottom lip, suddenly very nervous as she slipped onto the griffin-headed chair. Her heart skipped a beat as her aunt appeared, dressed in a voluminous nightgown, a white nightcap pulled down over her blond curls, and a decidedly mulish expression on her face as she grumbled her opinion of this late night summons: "'Now up, now down, as a bucket in a well.' Chaucer."

"Aunt Lucinda," Cassandra said apologetically, "I know it's late, but I have a particular favor to ask of you." She stopped speaking to look at her aunt again. "I had no idea ghosts slept. Do you dream? Never mind, that isn't important right now. I have the most terrible problem, which only you can solve."

Aunt Lucinda clucked her tongue sympathetically. "'Apeck of troubles.' Erasmus," she agreed, motioning toward Fish.

Cassandra also shot a quick look to Fish, who was standing beside her, his arms folded across his chest, gazing down at her with both pity and concern. "Then you do understand? You've seen Fish in here earlier, I know, and I respect the notion that you don't wish for anyone else to see you, although I suppose it would be impossible not to have Farnley nosing about, but—oh, Aunt, how else will I be able to explain what went on here this afternoon? How else will I be able to apply to Fish for guidance, if he does not know of your existence? Please, please, dear Aunt, show yourself to Fish."

Lucinda looked up at the tall Irishman once more, smiling appreciatively at his handsome face as she pushed at her blond curls, poking them into some semblance of order (for, although Lucinda Benedict might be dead, she wasn't blind, and Fish was a fine specimen of manhood). She returned her compassionate gaze to Cassandra, warning direly, "'Men willingly believe what they wish.' Julius Caesar."

Cassandra leaned forward, desperately trying to understand. "He'll only see you, hear you, if he believes he will? Oh, Aunt Lucinda, how can that be? I saw you, and I wasn't even looking for you. Was I?" As if to answer her own question, Cassandra murmured softly, "I did want to see you. I can remember saying as much when I arrived too late for the funeral. But Fish no more wants to see you than he wishes for another ward such as me to come into his life. Oh, drat the man! Now, what will I do?"

Fish didn't know what Cassandra could do. He only knew that he'd had enough of this foolishness. He had agreed to come downstairs, only to humor Cassandra, but he could no longer stand idly by listening to her talk to—and appear to listen for answers from—an empty chair. Besides, he didn't seem to be coming off too well in her supposed exchange with her dead relative. "Cassy, m'darlin', come along to bed now. I think you'd best be gettin' some rest, and no mistake."

"No!" she cried in protest, pulling her arm free of his grasp. "Fish, listen to me, please. You're an Irishman. You believe in fairies. If I told you that it wasn't Aunt Lucinda in that chair, but one of the little people, wouldn't you wish to sit down and see her for yourself?"

Fish scratched the side of his head. "Being Irish has nothing to do with it. Your papa once told me how he saw a mermaid, off the shore of some island, and I never doubted him. All right, Cassy, I'll sit down. I'll sit down and I'll look for this ghost of yours. But just for a moment. Then, I have to be tellin' you, I'll not be sayin' no to a bit of the creature."

"There's no gin in the house, but I'll get you some brandy as soon as you say," Cassandra promised gratefully. She scrambled up out of the chair, her fingers already crossed in the hope that Fish would be able to see Aunt Lucinda. A moment later the man was sitting in the chair, his expression solemn, staring at the empty space above the ugly camel-headed chair.

He didn't believe, but he wanted to believe, for Cassandra's sake. Deliberately, he cleared his mind of doubt and concentrated on seeing what Cassandra promised he would see.

Slowly, as if a wisp of fog had somehow chanced to find itself into the drawing room, something began to take shape in front of him. He darted a quick look at Cassandra, but only for a split second, as the formless fog now had taken on the consistency of a fluffy cloud, the sort which he could remember seeing while taking his watch aboard ship, the sort of cloud that seemed to take the shape of a ship in full sail, or a sleeping dog, or a magnificent castle.

He pushed his fists into his eyes, rubbing furiously, only to open them again and see, not a ship or a dog or a castle—but a woman. She appeared to be a fairly old woman, although her smile was curiously childlike, and she was dressed in a most peculiar fashion, as if for bed.

Fish opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words would come. Instead, he heard the woman recommend pointedly, her voice fairly high and as curiously childlike as her features, "'Now's the time for drinking!' Horace."

Fish jumped from the chair as if he had suddenly realized he had sat himself down on the wrong end of a tack. "God's death!" he ejaculated, which was a pretty tame epithet for a seaman who was said to be able to quench a candle at the other side of the deck with his curse.

"Indeed," Cassandra answered, relief coloring her voice. "Now, Fish, if you could just put your eyes back in your head, perhaps you will sit down once more. I, in turn, will sit on your lap, which I believe to be the only way both of us can have a long overdue conversation with the lady. There is, sad to say, still much more for you to learn—about Aunt Lucinda's penchant for quotes, and how she's locked in that chair until I can get the earl to the altar, and how I, to that end, most shamelessly tricked him into kissing me this afternoon—"

Fish abruptly recovered his tongue at this point, rattling off a string of curses that would have done a tinker proud. Forsaking any thought of brandy, he then lifted Cassandra into his arms as if she were no heavier than a feather, sat the both of them back down in the griffin-headed chair, glared at the shrinking Aunt Lucinda, and demanded he be told the whole of it, from the beginning.

It made for a very long night.

Chapter Eight

Philip had been pleasantly surprised, not to mention enormously relieved, to learn that Cassandra didn't hate him for his forwardness yesterday afternoon in the drawing room. She had proved it last night when they had all met in the drawing room for dinner, treating him politely, even though she had excused herself directly after the meal, and she had proved it again this morning, by presenting herself at the stables immediately after breakfast as promised, dressed for her first riding lesson.

The only ingredient missing, the addition of which would have made the morning perfect, was Philip's own peace of mind. He had spent a restless night, tossing and turning as he relived their passionate interlude in the drawing room, alternately enjoying his reflections and berating himself for his behavior.

Adding to his discomfort, he had already caught Cassandra yawning widely several times, as if her sleep had been as disturbed as his. But she had kept him talking and laughing as he put her through the preliminaries of riding until, by the time he felt she could manage the tame mare he had chosen for her, he had almost forgotten to feel guilty.

They rode out without the groom, who had been fully occupied all morning putting compresses on a gray gelding's spavined foreleg. Traveling slowly, Philip giving Cassandra occasional instructions as to the tension of her hands on the reins and proper horsewoman posture, they made their way along a deserted country road until Philip steered the mounts into a fairly flat, unplanted field he had ridden across many times before on his own.

"Are these my fields?" Cassandra asked, eagerly looking toward the tree-lined perimeter to the other fields that stretched out around it.

"Some of them," Philip answered, trying not to envy the long, thin peacock feather that drooped from Cassandra's fetching riding hat to caress her right cheek. To be that close to her soft skin—ah, heaven itself paled in comparison. "Wormhill may be a good-sized holding, but it does have boundaries. Don't worry, my dear. The income should be sufficient so that you won't ever feel penny-pinched."

The feather that had so entranced Philip seemed only to bother Cassandra, who impatiently pushed it away. "Philip," she asked, deliberately widening her eyes as she looked at him, unaware that she had intruded on his fanciful musings, "do you think Aunt Lucinda or the dowager duchess would be terribly upset if I dispensed with the name Wormhill?"

"You've discovered a name you like more? Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. Could this new name possibly be Hampshire House?"

Cassandra's mobile features puckered in dislike. "That would be rather self-serving, don't you think, Philip? No, I had thought to call it Benedict Cottage, after my benefactress. It's rather large for a cottage, and it doesn't have a thatched roof, but I rather like the way it sounds—Benedict Cottage, Benedict Cottage. What do you think?"

He thought that he should like to pull their horses to a stop, lift Cassandra from the saddle, and kiss her until she was breathless, but he refrained from putting thought into action. "Your benefactress, if she could only know of it, would doubtless be flattered."

"Yes," Cassandra answered, her smile rather faraway and dreamy. "I think she'll be pleased when I tell her."

Philip had been riding almost before he could stand upright without the aid of his nanny, yet now he found himself about to topple out of the saddle. "When you tell her? Cassandra, the dowager duchess and I warned you time and again about going outside without your bonnet."

Cassandra flashed him a quizzical look, her interest piqued by his remark, diverting her from the uncomfortable knowledge that she had to learn to better guard her tongue in future. "What does wearing my bonnet have to do with anything? Surely you don't believe the sunlight has addled my brains, Philip, for that is ridiculous."

As they were nearing the edge of the field and a small stand of trees, Philip reached out to take hold of the mare's reins, easing both horses to a stop. "Perhaps, Cassandra. Although I must tell you, I much prefer that explanation to any other that might pop, unbidden, into my mind."

She allowed him to help her alight, resting her hands on his shoulders until her feet were once more solidly anchored on the ground. "What other explanations might there be, Philip?" she asked, deliberately refusing to acknowledge the way her fingertips tingled from their brief contact with his person.

Philip smiled kindly down at her, so caught up with her beauty and the smell of violets that seemed to rise from her hair that he neglected to realize that he was heading into a typically masculine failing—that of treating a grown woman with the same indulgent sympathy with which he would console a lovable, endearingly naive child.

"Let's not talk about it, sweetings. I had worried for a moment that you may have begun to give some sort of credence to that idiot Farnley's womanish babblings, but I'm sure that is not the case. No one of any sense believes spirits walk among us, now does he?"

Cassandra could not have felt more stung if he had slapped her smartly on the cheek. If Aunt Lucinda would only deign to appear to those who believed in ghosts, Philip would never see her. Not only that, but he seemed to believe that anyone who did believe in ghosts was in line for a one-way journey to Bedlam.

"I wish to be correct in this, Philip. Are you saying then, my lord, that only an idiot or a woman—the two of which, from the way you speak, are interchangeable—would put even a modicum of credence in the belief in spirits or ghosts?"

He took her by the hand, leading her over to a fallen log before taking out a large handkerchief and spreading it on the bark, inviting her to sit down. She doggedly remained standing stiffly erect, so that he couldn't help realizing he had blundered.

"You're overreacting to a simple statement, Cassandra," he told her reasonably. "Farnley has had his wife and the rest of the staff in an uproar for days, in case you hadn't noticed, telling all who will listen—alas, including Fish and myself yesterday afternoon—that Aunt Lucinda has refused to go to her eternal rest and is even now floating about Wormhill somewhere. He is instigating mischief with his talk of ridding the place of her spirit."

"Really?" Cassandra made a mental note to strangle the loose-lipped butler.

"Yes, sweetings. Really. You couldn't live under the same roof with the rest of us and not have heard his gibberish. Why, even the dowager duchess is beginning to behave most oddly, keeping almost exclusively to her rooms. She was quite a dragon in her day, but I fear that day has now passed, if Farnley is to be any judge. Now, to hear you speak of Aunt Lucinda as if she could still hear you, I can only wonder if you are beginning to believe this foolishness as well."

Cassandra stuck out her chin in defiance. "Fish believes in ghosts," she asserted hotly, as if that settled the matter.

Philip threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Fish believes in ghosts? Oh, well then, sweetings, that settles it, doesn't it? After all, this is the same man who believed it possible to protect you by putting you on the stage."

Cassandra's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You said you weren't going to bring that up again, Philip!" she declared, giving him a sharp shove. "You're just like the vicar, do you know that? I dropped one vegetable platter—one—and every time I was called on to serve at table he dragged the incident up again and threw it in my face. Well, my Lord Hawkedon, let me tell you this: I may have had to listen to the vicar catalogue my sins over and over again, but I do not have to stand here and listen to you do it!"

She started back toward the waiting horses. "Now, give me a leg up, if you please. I wish to return to Benedict Cottage."

"No."

It was a simple word, consisting of only one syllable, yet Cassandra seemed not to comprehend its meaning. "What?" she asked, whirling about to glare at him.

"I said—no. I won't give you a leg up. If you want to leave, walk. It can't be more than a mile if you go back by the roadway. If you cut across the fields it is even shorter, although the trip will most probably put paid to those lovely new boots."

Cassandra's eyes nearly disappeared into her head, so narrowly did she compress her eyelids. Never before in her life could she remember so longing to punch a person she had only moments earlier wished to kiss until one or preferably both of them were breathless. "Philip Rayburn, you are no gentleman. I demand that you do as I say, or else—or else—"

"Or else you'll scream?" Philip suggested amicably, seating himself on the handkerchief he had spread for her. It was nice, he mused, to feel that he had the upper hand now and again. "No, Cassandra, I doubt that you would do anything quite so ordinary. However, intrigued as I am by what you might choose to do, I would much rather apologize, and then drop this distasteful subject so that we might speak of other things."

Cassandra was instantly diverted. They had not yet spoken of their interlude in the drawing room, and she was not unaware that it still hung between them, aching to be brought out into the open for further examination—especially now that she had gained Fish's permission to continue with her plan.

Besides, she was once again indulging in a costly "victory over the Romans" such as Aunt Lucinda had already warned her against. She must remember to be conciliating, not off-putting, no matter how this intriguing man exasperated her.

Taking a small step in his direction, she asked carefully, "What other things?"

Satisfied that he had successfully avoided all-out warfare, Philip rose once more, motioning Cassandra to take a seat. "I believe I am going to make the supreme sacrifice, and have Farnley rid me of my mustache," he told her, adding the lie without blinking, "as much as I favor the thing, and would like your opinion now that you have had a closer association with it. You see, I noticed a slight tracing of rice powder on your face last night, sweetings," he said, his voice low and soothing as he traced a finger along the soft skin above her upper lip. "You were attempting to hide the evidence of our shared kisses, revealed by your tender skin."

Cassandra jerked her face away, knowing she was blushing to the roots of her hair. "You weren't supposed to notice," she replied tersely. "I repeat, you are no gentleman. A gentleman wouldn't have mentioned it, even if he had noticed."

Philip merely nodded, using the tip of one finger to gently guide her chin back around so that they could once more look at each other. "A gentleman wouldn't have kissed you so thoroughly, sweetings. And, although I had previously thought of myself as a gentleman, the word pales into nothingness when I am within your vicinity. At first, I reacted somewhat meanly toward you, for which I am ashamed. But then I wasn't in danger of falling in love with you when first we met. Please, Cassandra, don't ask me to be ashamed of my actions of yesterday afternoon, for I don't think I am capable of forcing such an obviously false emotion."

Cassandra felt as if her heart would break. Philip cared for her, really cared for her. And she cared very much for him. It was a revelation. But what should have been wonderful, what should have been the most thrilling moment in her life, suddenly turned into the worst moment of her life.

She had won, yet she also had lost. Philip believed he loved her, but for all the wrong reasons. He hadn't loved her until she had deliberately set her cap for him, until she had purposely thrown out lures meant to reel him in.

Equally as terrible, she had not really considered him as anything more than a nuisance, a necessary part of her eventual acquisition of Benedict Cottage, until Aunt Lucinda's dilemma had forced her into seeking his company. Now, after spending time with him, and after being held in his arms, she realized that she had been caught up in her own trap. If Philip believed he loved her, she was similarly convinced that she now loved him as well.

And their love was all based on a lie.

"There are clouds coming in, Philip," she murmured weakly, averting her eyes once more in order to scrutinize the contradictory, sunny horizon. "I think we should head back to the house before it begins to rain. I shouldn't wish to ruin my new riding habit."

"The rain is hours away from here, sweetings," Philip whispered back to her, the tone of his words making the prosaic speech into a strange form of lovemaking that teased her senses. "There is still time for us to sit here and talk—among other things. But first, I have something very important to ask you. Cassandra? Are you listening to me?"

Cassandra's mouth was very dry, making it difficult for her to swallow. Philip had all but declared for her. If she only allowed herself to remain seated, if she only allowed herself to lean even slightly in his direction, if she only would give him the slightest indication that she favored him, he would ask her to be his wife.

This was what she had wanted. This was what Aunt Lucinda so desperately needed. This was even what Fish, reluctantly, had condoned. Why couldn't she allow it to happen?

Because it was dishonest—that was why!

Cassandra knew that, and she couldn't go through with it.

"We must start back now," she all but shouted, hopping to her feet. "The dowager duchess will be very concerned. Besides, I am not at all interested in having to resort to rice powder again tonight in order to be seen at the dinner table. Perhaps, if we get back soon enough, you might be able to find someone more inclined to indulge your passions."

If Philip had looked up to see that the budding tree branches above his head had been turned into masses of hissing, wriggling snakes he could not have been more surprised than he was by Cassandra's reaction to an interlude he had thought had been going along quite swimmingly, thank you.

Not used to having his declarations pushed aside (not that he had actually made a declaration before, or even quite gotten around to making this one), Philip didn't quite know whether he should feel angry or relieved. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have been operating in an "either-or" fashion ever since meeting Cassandra. He had been constantly off balance, at the mercy of her fluctuating moods.

It was enough to drive a man to drink or—if a man knew from past experience that drink was not an answer for him—to explosive anger. Rising as well, and completely forgetting to retrieve his embroidered handkerchief (which had been a gift from the last, unlamented female who'd nearly managed to ambush him into a proposal of marriage), he grabbed hold of Cassandra's hand and all but pulled her along behind him as he stalked toward the horses.

"You don't have to drop a red brick on my head, Miss Hampshire," he told her coldly, putting out his cupped hands to serve as a mounting stone so that she could hoist herself up onto the sidesaddle. "I can take a hint. Sheer female curiosity caused you to put yourself in my arms yesterday, just as sheer female perversity reared its unattractive head this afternoon, warning me off again."

Hot tears stung at Cassandra's eyes as she watched Philip stomp over to mount his own horse, his spine so ramrod-stiff with bruised pride that he was sure she had injured him past all chance of recovery. "Philip, I didn't mean to hurt you, truly I didn't," she explained as he reached over to impersonally bend her fingers around the reins in the correct fashion.

"Hurt me?" he countered, his misleadingly youthful features suddenly much older, though still as heartbreakingly handsome. "Madam, in order for what you do or say to hurt me, it would first be necessary to presuppose that I care. I had only hoped for a small, romantic diversion while I am stuck here in the country. If I led you to believe I felt anything more than a passing interest in you, I apologize. Men will say almost anything if they believe the woman gullible enough to believe them. How do you suppose so many chambermaids find themselves lying in the beds they have made, believing they will one day marry their masters?"

If Cassandra had been even the least bit more sure of herself on horseback, or even a smidgeon more convinced that she knew the way back to Benedict Cottage, she should have applied the whip to the mare's flank and left Philip Rayburn in the dust.

After all, it was one thing to be hurt by her clumsy attempt at diverting him from declaring himself. It was another thing entirely for him to become downright rude, and crude as well.

Yet there was nothing else to be said, for Philip had said it all, and she knew her behavior had lent at least some justification to his attack. It was over, all over, and she had cost Lucinda Benedict her last chance at reaching heaven.

All she could do now was to hold her tongue until they got back to the stables, until she ran the gauntlet of the dowager duchess and Fish (and even Aunt Lucinda), who were all doubtless eagerly awaiting their return, looking for signs of success, and until she reached the privacy of her bedchamber.

Then, and only then, could she indulge in a fit of weeping unlike any she had known since her mother had died and she realized that she was alone in the world.

* * * * *

Late that night, the dowager duchess, who had waited until she could be reasonably sure the rest of the household was abed, tiptoed into the drawing room, gingerly sat herself down in the griffin-headed chair, and waited for Lucinda Benedict to show herself.

"'By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.' Song of Solomon."

The dowager duchess blinked twice at these words, and at the sight of her old friend, just now floating slightly above the chair cushion, her butter-yellow gown rumpled, her blond curls askew, her apple cheeks wet with ghostly tears.

"Lucinda?" the dowager duchess questioned worriedly, trying to understand. "Are you crying your heart out over Jerome? Are you saying that you cannot find him?"

As Lucinda nodded, blowing her ghostly nose into a lace handkerchief, the dowager duchess, much relieved, sniffed and said, "Well, of course you couldn't find him, you twit. You're probably looking for him up in heaven. You'll have to look considerably lower if you wish to find that rotter!"

She immediately regretted her words, as they seemed to set Lucinda off into another copious bout of weeping, a complication which did the dowager duchess no good at all. She had come down here tonight to speak of more important things than the whereabouts of that lovable wastrel, Jerome Benedict.

"Lucinda, dear friend, forgive me," she said, speaking loudly in order to be heard over the woman's sobs. "I was only jesting, and didn't really mean to hurt you. You know how lamentably easy it is for me to joke at your expense."

Aunt Lucinda stopped her crying long enough to point a finger at the dowager duchess and warn, "'Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.' Bion."

The older woman winced at this truism. "As has happened at least twice before in the two dozen years I've known you, Lucinda, you have bested me, and I bow to Bion's wisdom, if not to yours. Now, if we are done with this verbal to-ing and fro-ing, may we please discuss what is to be done with Cassandra and Philip? Other than to bang their two heads together until they come to their senses and declare their love for each other," she admitted, "I have no suggestions to make that will help to boost you out of that ridiculous chair and reunite you with Jerome. You, I am already certain, are aware that, since returning from their ride this morning—a purposely unchaperoned excursion I had engineered with the groom, and an interlude upon which I had dared to place my hopes—the two children are no longer on speaking terms?"

Aunt Lucinda nodded, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief before stuffing it into the pocket of her gown. "'That proverbial saying, "Bad news travels fast and far."' Plutarch."

Wriggling slightly in her seat, partly because she was excited, and partly because the chair was quite the most uncomfortable contraption she had ever had the misfortune to find herself sitting upon (and that included the time, in her long ago youth, that she had chanced to travel on a public stagecoach), the dowager duchess agreed with her friend.

"All sorts of news travels swiftly, Lucinda," she said, "including the disturbing news that you, my dear friend, are not in heaven, where you belong, but here, trapped among the living. Farnley, the demmed blockhead, has done everything but take up a bell and gone about the house ringing it, announcing your presence. He has even included my name in his ravings, the impertinent twit! Half the household thinks I speak with ghosts, while the other half is eying me up for my own straight-waistcoat."

"'The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.' Aesop," Aunt Lucinda remarked happily before biting into a sugar comfit that seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

The dowager duchess was not similarly amused. "You may think it is above everything wonderful to have your name bandied about by the serving staff, but then I seem to remember that you also thought it to be the best of good luck to have discovered that horrendous rose gown you insisted upon wearing to dearest Tansy and Avonall's wedding. You looked like a gargantuan strawberry tart that day, Lucinda. I still blanch at the memory."

When she could see that Lucinda's body had begun to fade, as if the woman was purposely avoiding her, the dowager duchess once more found herself in the position of having to apologize, although the only thing she was truly sorry for was the fact that she had to apologize, and not for what she had said. It was difficult dealing with a ghost and, as one used to having the upper hand, she did not care for her position.

Lucinda was dead. It had been a difficult fact to accept, not only because it reminded the dowager duchess of her own mortality, but because she knew she would truly miss the quoting widgeon, but she had accepted the loss.

Having Lucinda back again—yet not really here, and not able to truly leave—she could not accept. The matter had to be settled, and it had to be settled quickly, or else, the dowager duchess was convinced, there would be the devil and all to pay!

So thinking, it was not surprising that she spoke her thoughts aloud. "Lucinda, this business between Cassandra and Philip is not working out. It may be some time before it does, if it ever will. I cannot possibly keep Philip here beyond the time limit your will impressed, and I cannot rest easily believing nothing can be done until they face up to what everyone else can see, which is that they are positively dotty about each other. Why, it could take years!"

She took a breath before continuing, "I'm an old woman, Lucinda. I may not have many years left, and my energy is waning. I cannot live with your plight on my conscience, and I most certainly do not intend to die with you still floating above that ridiculous chair, stuffing your mouth with comfits and weeping over your lost Jerome. No, Lucinda, there is nothing else for it. We must find a way to make you leave!"

Aunt Lucinda's bottom lip immediately began to quiver and she said, "'Your heart is always harder than a stone.' Homer."

The dowager duchess ignored this secondhand condemnation. "Farnley has been making noises about some sort of pagan ritual designed to free your spirit from this house." She grimaced slightly, adding, "Of course he did not phrase it precisely that way, saying more that we would be ridding the house of you, rather than the other way round."

Aunt Lucinda looked at her owlishly.

"But it means much the same thing. If I cannot manage a marriage between Cassandra and Philip—and I have to tell you, my hopes in that area were quite cut up this evening when he arrived back in the drawing room tonight after dinner without that ridiculous mustache and Cassandra did not so much as react—we must settle for the next best thing. Connivance! We must, heaven help us, try this ritual of Farnley's—this very night, if possible. Now, Lucinda, do I have your permission? I must tell you, I will proceed no matter what you say, but I would feel better if I were to have your help in the matter."

Aunt Lucinda's face took on an expression of stubbornness. "'My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.' Psalms," she intoned warningly.

The dowager duchess pulled a wry face. "Yes, well, Lucinda, that's easy enough for you to say. I'm more inclined to believe that the good Lord has enough on His plate without worrying about a silly old woman who bungled herself into becoming an earthbound ghost rather than one of His heavenly angels. No, you asked my help in your will, and you are going to get my help whether you wish it or not. Now I am going to stand up, which I have found to be a perfectly splendid way to end arguments with you. I only wish it had been possible in your lifetime, for it would have saved me an endless amount of trouble. Goodnight, Lucinda, and—if Farnley is to be believed—good-bye. I shall miss you, my friend, but I shall sleep better nights, knowing that you will be waiting for me in heaven."

The dowager duchess suppressed a sob as she rose and the vision of Lucinda disappeared. She had lived through a lot of difficult times in her life, including the burial of her beloved husband, but she was older now, and saying this second final goodbye to Lucinda had sapped much of her strength.

Perhaps that explained why she could do no more than smile weakly when, upon turning for the door to the foyer, she saw Cassandra Hampshire sitting on one of the straight-backed chairs, unashamedly weeping, a cup of warm milk sitting forgotten on the table beside her.

"Oh, dear madam," Cassandra said, rising to gather the small woman into her arms, "I had come down to fetch something from the kitchen, as I could not sleep. Forgive me for intruding, but I am so glad you got to see and talk to her as well. I had so wanted to tell you about her myself, and about her problem, but she didn't seem to wish it, even though she deigned to appear to Fish when I applied to her."

The dowager duchess stiffened, pulling out of Cassandra's embrace, then laughed with genuine mirth. "She told you she didn't want me to know about her—which, you may have noticed, didn't stop her from appearing to me on her own—and then went and showed her face to that good-looking Irishman? Good Lord, has she no shame? The woman's ten days dead, and still flirting!"

Cassandra bit her lip to stifle a gurgle of laughter, knowing the dowager duchess to be still very much affected by what had just transpired. "I heard you speak of the seemingly fatal breach between Philip and myself, Your Grace, and I must tell you, I consider it to be just that. I have found that I have scruples, and cannot allow Philip to marry me, no matter what my feelings toward him."

"What? Who told you to have scruples, for goodness sake? Certainly not me."

"Our association has been based on deception and, as he will never believe Aunt Lucinda is trapped here on earth, I can never explain what I have done and ask his forgiveness. Still, I want her happiness above everything. The case, in short, appears hopeless. But I also heard you speak of a ritual, Your Grace, a ritual that might yet save Aunt Lucinda. Farnley mentioned it to me when first I came here, although I discounted it at the time. I believe he called it a Sitting. Please, allow me to help you."

Looking at the younger woman assessingly, the dowager duchess made a decision. "Very well, gel. Go fetch that muckworm of a butler and his vaporish wife. We do it tonight!"

Cassandra bit her lip. "And Fish, Your Grace? I'm sure he'd be happy to participate."

The dowager duchess shook her head in exasperation. "Yes, yes, the Irishman as well. We could wait for Prinney and his entire corset-stuffed court to get here from London, and any stranger you might wish to pull in from the crossroads as well, but I suppose we have enough without them. Now, please, allow me to sit down. I need to regain my strength."

"Yes, Your Grace," Cassandra said, already racing from the room.

Once she had gone, a crystal candy dish rose from a side table, moved jerkily across the drawing room, and slowly dumped its sugary contents squarely on top of Her Grace's gray head.

The dowager duchess didn't so much as blink at this outrage.

Chapter Nine

Philip sat alone in the darkness that came after midnight, sporadically assuring himself that he had come to the moonlit garden to think, and had not retreated to hide there, safely removed from Cassandra's studied indifference, Fish's suggestive comments, and the dowager duchess's poison-tipped barbs that had plagued him all through dinner and beyond.

Had he really been that ridiculously obvious in his behavior around Cassandra? Had he truly been that lamentably easy to read? Or perhaps someone had stuck a sign to his back when he hadn't been paying attention, a sign that read: "He's in love with her, paper-skulled fool that he is." Whatever the reason, he still couldn't be sure if he felt more upset by their clear reading of his feelings or the fact that he had such feelings in the first place.

He had regained some of his self-assurance that morning during his exchanges with Cassandra, feeling more in control of himself, more like himself. But that self-assurance had been fleeting—disappearing the moment she had repelled his well-rehearsed speech of declaration—and once more he had found himself reduced to a jangled mass of nerves, totally unlike the clear-headed, clear-thinking person he knew himself to have been before Cassandra Hampshire had barreled into his life.

He deserted the bench he had been sitting on in order to pace a section of the brick pathway, his charged actions unconsciously mimicking those of a frustrated, caged animal.

It was ludicrous! How had he, a supposedly sane, supposedly intelligent man, gotten himself so embroiled in this bubbling stew of a dead woman's romantic machinations? One minute a carefree bachelor about to embark on a London Season, he had been catapulted into the role of a gentleman forced by his own honor to remain at Wormhill for two long, long months in order to assure a poverty-stricken girl her inheritance.

But that, he mused, shaking his head, constituted only a small part of it. Oh, yes. Aunt Lucinda had not only confined him to Wormhill, but she had thrust the Dowager Duchess of Avonall at his head as well, as a sort of warder. Toss in the poverty-stricken girl, obviously meant to become his romantic interest, add a dash of handsome, proprietorial Irishman, and the stew had come to a roaring boil in the matter of a week. A week? Could it only be a week? It felt like a year. Ten years.

Philip absently raised a hand to his smooth-shaven upper lip, surprising himself yet again to find his mustache to be a thing of the past. He had shaved it off himself just after dinner that night, not even bothering to call for his valet's assistance, the action the result of an insane impulse that he had regretted the moment he had done it.

Not that anyone had dared to comment on its absence when he had entered the drawing room later, unbelievably thirsty for a glass of wine, for he was sure his steely blue glare had silenced any such thoughts on the subject before they could reach the lips. And it was a good thing, too, for he would cheerfully have choked anyone who might wish to comment on this abrupt change in personal grooming.

Of course that hadn't kept the dowager duchess or Fish from continuing their long-winded conversation, begun at dinner, over the tea tray. Theirs was a fast-paced dialogue that seemed to have a lot to do with the old woman's descriptions of the well-executed nuptials of both of her grandchildren and Philip's own sister, Penelope.

The talk of marriage, and babies, and wedded bliss had already carried the two from soup to the removal of the last of the dinner dishes almost without missing a beat, for neither Cassandra nor Philip had added anything more concrete to the conversation than the occasional request for service from Farnley.

Philip, hearing the dowager duchess still hard at it—prattling about wedding ribbons and the like—had forgone the wine he had come for, as well as Fish's half-hearted invitation to join him in the garden for an after dinner cigar, refusing to give a reason for his second quick departure from the scene of his frustration.

Cassandra, as he had learned later from Farnley (who had come into the gardens to impart this information, while simultaneously attempting to gift the earl with a charm meant to ward off evil spirits), had likewise not spent the remainder of the evening in the drawing room, opting instead for the privacy of her own bedchamber, claiming the headache or some such malady.

Philip felt curiously pleased to believe that Cassandra was suffering, petty as he knew the emotion to be. She deserved a little pain, for all the pain she had dealt to him that afternoon. Perhaps he had been rushing his fences; a week was really a very short span of time in which to make a decision regarding the choosing of a lifelong partner, but she had done everything but tuck herself up in his bed to show him that she wouldn't be averse to his attentions.

Bold. That's what she was. Bold. And cheeky. And fickle. Definitely fickle. Leading a man on, just to cut him off the moment he was about to declare himself.

Did the chit think it was easy, this giving up of his bachelorhood? Well, it wasn't, damn it! It was a terrible, fateful, unrecoverable step and, once taken, binding for life. For life, for heaven's sake! Had he been mad, trusting his heart, his life, his pride to a woman who ran as hot as boiled tea and as cold as a Scottish stream five times within the space of a day without even seeming to try?

God, how he loved her! He loved the look of her, the smell of her, the honeyed taste of her. He loved the way the sun had painted golden streaks in her hair, the clear, clean definition of her faintly freckled features, her quick smile and even quicker frowns. He loved her sharp wit, her generous heart, her eagerness to learn, her whimsical beliefs, and even her quick, short-lived temper.

Yes, he thought, his jaw firming as he left off his pacing to look up at her darkened bedchamber. He loved her. "I love her," he said out loud, and that simple action lifted the weight that had seemed to settle in the center of his chest that afternoon, leaving him feeling years younger, if no wiser.

Time, he was suddenly convinced, had nothing to do with the matter. Aunt Lucinda may have decreed the two-month limit, believing that he would fall in love with Cassandra within that time, but there was no need to adhere to that time limit now that he had made up his mind.

He had planned to find himself a wife this year, and he had found one—not the sort he had been looking for, but definitely the only one who could assure him a life filled with arguments, passion, frustrations, delights, surprises and, he was certain, a gaggle of the most adorably incorrigible children any man could ever wish to claim for his own.

And Cassandra loved him. He was convinced of that fact, the events of this past day notwithstanding. He might not know everything about women, but he had not just hit the ground this year, and he had been in the company of them long enough to know a willing woman when he kissed one.

All he had to do now was to make her see that, no matter how hard they both tried to fight it (and each other), their fate had already been sealed. Aunt Lucinda would have her dying wish, if he had to climb up the ivy to Cassandra's bedchamber, toss her willy-nilly over his shoulder, and drag her off to Gretna Green!

This amazing jumble of disjointed, at times bizarre thoughts now behind him, and his mind made up, Philip saw no reason to wait until a more conventional hour to make his decision known to Cassandra.

Eschewing the romantic notion of climbing the ivy for a more conventional assault, he headed for the glass doors to the drawing room, intent on bounding up the stairs to Cassandra's bedchamber and breaking down the door if need be to gain entrance.

As he approached the glass doors, he could see the light from only a few flickering candles reflecting in the otherwise darkened room.

Had everyone else gone to bed? It was past midnight, after all. But, if they had, shouldn't Farnley have snuffed out all of the candles—or was the butler intent on having them all burn to death in their beds? Philip's hands balled into fists. It was a good thing he planned to marry Cassandra and take her away from this place as soon as possible. Marriage might be the only thing keeping them from some Farnley-orchestrated disaster.

He eased open the doors to the drawing room, already mentally preparing a stern lecture for the butler, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening at the sight of the other occupants of Wormhill gathered around a small round Ince card table that had been dragged to the center of the room, just beside Aunt Lucinda's pair of Sheraton chairs.

The dowager duchess was there, as were Cassandra and Fish, the women most incongruously dressed in their nightclothes. Also present were Farnley and his wife, Pansy, as well as one thoroughly frightened-looking young housemaid, her nightcap tightly pulled down over her ears.

The glow he had seen did indeed come from a small scattering of candles, one placed at each of the built-in candle stands that abutted the cylindrical depressions in the tabletop, especially fashioned to hold gaming counters.

But no one was playing at cards. In the center of the table, Philip saw as his eyes became adjusted to the flickering light, stood a single fat, white candle, around which had been placed an open-topped glass globe, so that the thing seemed reminiscent of a sphere lighted from within.

Everyone in the group was holding hands—the sight of the dowager duchess actually touching paws with Farnley being the most jarring—and their eyes were all shut tightly, as if they were concentrating very hard on solving a difficult puzzle.

As Philip opened his mouth to speak—to say what, he couldn't be quite sure, for there were so very many things he could have said—the butler threw back his head and began to moan.

"Oooh . . . ooooh," he groaned in sorrowful tones, his head thrashing from side to side. "We call to you, Lucinda Benedict. We call to you and demand that you answer. Lucinda Benedict. Answer us!"

"Perhaps she doesn't know the question," Philip interjected, his silent footsteps having brought him directly behind the butler.

"Aarrgh!" This strangled scream issued from Farnley's bloodless lips just before the petrified man swooned dead away, toppling most inelegantly into the dowager duchess's lap.

"Oh, laws, laws!" Pansy shrieked, jumping up to catch her husband's tumbling body as the dowager duchess unceremoniously gave the butler a strong shove onto the floor. "He said the charm would keep his lordship away, but it didn't!"

"Demmed spineless jellyfish!" the dowager duchess spat disgustedly, raising her eyes to Philip. "I should have taken his advice, though, and locked you up in your room with a laudanum-laced nightcap until we had this business taken care of. So—enjoying yourself, my boy, are you?" she asked at last, as Philip had begun laughing quite openly.

"Like the devil in a high wind, I'd say, Your Grace," Fish put in before hefting the still unconscious butler onto his shoulder and taking him out of the drawing room, a tearful Pansy and the young housemaid following closely in his wake.

That left only Cassandra yet to remark on Philip's presence, and he, sobering at last, turned to her now, silently hoping that, as the rest of the household appeared to have run mad, he might be able to hear some sense from her.

Fortunately for the earl, his hopes hadn't been too high, for Cassandra merely propped her elbows on the table (her left elbow unfortunately finding one of the counter holes so that she appeared to be somewhat lopsided) and said in obvious exasperation, "Well, now you've gone and done it, Philip. You've ruined everything. I hope you're proud of yourself!"

"Gone and done what?" he asked, whirling to face Fish, who had just come back into the room. "Fun's fun and all that, but now it's time for some explanations. Is someone going to tell me what this foolishness is all about, or am I going to have to start yelling?"

"You already are yelling, Philip," Cassandra pointed out unnecessarily, rising from her seat to join the dowager duchess on one of the couches, patting the old woman's bony hand. "I'm so sorry, Your Grace. It would appear that we must search for another way to help Aunt Lucinda leave here and find her Jerome."

Philip realized that his hands were shaking, not in amusement, or even fear, but due to a rapidly intensifying anger. "Aunt Lucinda? Jerome? Is that what all this is about? Aunt Lucinda? Don't tell me you two—and you, Fish, you're supposed to be a man, for God's sake!—actually believe this ridiculous business Farnley is spreading about, saying that the woman is haunting Wormhill? I don't believe it! I can't believe it!"

Fish walked up to Philip, pressing a snifter of brandy into the younger man's hand. "And I'd be the first to say that Farnley is missing a slate or two on his roof, boyo, but it's true just the same, and no mistake. Met the old girl myself, I did, just last night. Here, in this very room. And nice enough she was too, for a ghostie. Why don't you be takin' this drink, and go set yourself down over there, in that chair?"

Philip backed away from the Irishman, refusing the drink, although he did sit down, most providentially, in the griffin-headed chair. He could still see the candlelit table, and the spherical light glowing eerily at its center. He had heard of this new phenomenon, this business of supposedly calling spirits, but he had never before seen it. And he had been out in the garden worrying about his sanity? "You were having a séance, weren't you?" he whispered hoarsely. "You were trying to call the spirit of Aunt Lucinda. First Farnley says she's here, and then you go calling for her! Good God! You're quite mad, you know—all of you."

Philip's companions in the drawing room might have been insulted by his condemnation, had they been listening. But they were not. Unbeknownst to Philip, Aunt Lucinda had appeared in the camel-headed chair the very moment Philip had collapsed into its mate, making herself visible to those who believed in her presence.

Sitting most comfortably, arranging her flowing draperies about her, she smiled and remarked pleasantly, "'They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not.' Psalms."

Fish took a deep, steadying drink from the snifter he had prepared for Philip. Cassandra and the dowager duchess exchanged quick looks, as if to ascertain whether both of them had seen Aunt Lucinda appear and heard her speak.

Just then, before anyone could react more completely, Farnley's narrow face showed itself at the doorway, peeping around the doorjamb as if to check whether or not the coast was clear for his reappearance. His presence did not go unnoticed by Aunt Lucinda who, in the midst of fanning herself with an overlarge ostrich fan, remarked with a triumphant smile, "'As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.' Proverbs."

The sound of the butler's unconscious body hitting the foyer floor, followed by Pansy's hysterical screech, made it unnecessary for the women to ask Aunt Lucinda for an explanation of her last, rather graphic statement. Clearly the butler, a believer, had just clapped eyes on his late employer.

Besides, there was something exceedingly more important to think about than the fate of Farnley's pate. Cassandra was the first to put thought into speech. "Philip, are you going to sit there and say you didn't hear Aunt Lucinda's voice just then? Look," she ordered frantically, pointing toward the camel-headed chair. "Surely you can see her?"

Philip, feeling it best to humor the lunatics until such time as they hopefully regained their collective senses (or could be safely transferred to an asylum), obligingly looked toward the camel-headed chair. "See her? Why, of course I see her." He winked and waved in the general direction of the chair. "Hello there, dear lady. How nice you are to drop by. You're looking well. Strange, but I had thought you'd be wrapped in chains or some such thing."

Aunt Lucinda threw down her fan in disgust. "'Surely there is nothing more wretched than a man, of all the things which breathe and move upon the earth.' Homer."

Fish sidled up to the earl. "It's shuttin' your gob I'd be if I were you, my lord. It's the fidgets you're givin' the old lady, and she might just decide to bean you with a candlestick."

Philip looked up at the Irishman. "The dowager duchess, Fish?"

"Not me, you stubborn fool," Her Grace answered testily. "If I had my druthers, and if I didn't like your family so much, I'd simply shoot you. I'd shoot Lucinda, too, for not showing herself to you, except that—besides being toes-cocked-up already—I'm convinced that she is powerless to help us. The only people who can see or hear her are people who wish to see and hear her. Or, as in Farnley's case, people who just happen to believe in ghosts. Obviously, arrogant asses are no exception to those rules."

Cassandra, who had been fidgeting in her seat—whether because of what was transpiring or because she had realized she was in Philip's presence while dressed in her nightclothes only she knew—suddenly sprang to her feet, running a hand distractedly through her long, unbound hair.

"Philip," she began slowly, obviously striving for calm, "the dowager duchess sees Aunt Lucinda. Fish sees Aunt Lucinda, Farnley and the rest of the servants see Aunt Lucinda. I see Aunt Lucinda. We know that she won't appear to you because you refuse to believe in her. Has it occurred to you, in even a small corner of your stubborn male brain, that we are right, and you—because of your pigheaded refusal to believe in ghosts—are wrong?"

"No," Philip answered shortly, although he knew himself to be wavering slightly. "Perhaps if you explained it to me again. You might begin with this ridiculous business you were about tonight when I walked in here."

Cassandra began pacing the carpet, her hands moving nearly as quickly as her tongue as she told the story of Aunt Lucinda's presence in the camel-headed chair, beginning with the first time she had seen the woman, and ending, no more than five minutes later, with the reason for this evening's sèance.

She skimmed over certain parts, and rearranged a few facts to suit her purpose (mostly those having to do with him, and her, and the word "marriage"), although he wasn't to know that, of course.

"And now that you've destroyed our plan," she concluded quickly, knowing there were several gaping holes in her story, "Aunt Lucinda is destined to remain in that chair for all eternity, never to see her Jerome again. I hope you're satisfied with yourself, Philip, for you have done a terrible, terrible disservice to a woman who only meant to do you good. She only wanted us to marry for our own good, you know." At this last revealing statement her cheeks colored and she turned away from him.

"If trying to have me bracketed with a woman who swears she talks to ghosts can be looked upon as considering my best interests," Philip remarked lightly once Cassandra, looking extremely weary, retook her seat beside the dowager duchess.

"But she needed the two of you married in order to leave here," the dowager duchess blurted out, goaded past all bearing. "Why do you think I allowed myself to be talked into this séance thing, if my first choice for rousting Lucinda out of here hadn't been destroyed by your pig-headedness?"

Philip held out his hands, as if calling for a short recess in the conversation while he collected his wits. "Are you saying what I think you're saying? Are you saying that you believe Aunt Lucinda is doomed to haunt this place unless Cassandra and I marry—all talk of ghost chasing sèances to one side?"

"No!" Cassandra all but shouted.

"In plain language, yes!" the dowager duchess shouted even louder.

"Any more questions, boyo?" Fish asked, finishing his drink.

Philip's gaze traveled to each of the other three inhabitants of the room in turn, taking in their earnest, worried faces. There was no humor, or even anger, left in him, only concern. He might not believe in ghosts, but it was evident to him that they did. They really, truly, most disturbingly did. Didn't they?

Fish he discounted, not really knowing the man well enough to make a judgment. The dowager duchess, however, was known to him, and a more level-headed person it would be difficult to find, if he were to search from John O'Groats to Land's End, so her belief in Aunt Lucinda's presence still troubled him. And Cassandra? Well, Cassandra was Cassandra. The girl was a born romantic, which was only a part of her charm.

He rose, going over to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of wine, for a moment considering the idea of Aunt Lucinda's actually being a ghost. It was difficult for him, but he tried his best.

According to Cassandra's fanciful tale—and the dowager duchess's blurted confession—there were only two ways to free Aunt Lucinda from her imprisonment at Wormhill. These ways were either Farnley's plan to roust her by supernatural means, or a marriage between Philip and Cassandra. As he placed absolutely no dependence on Farnley's powers, that left only marriage to Cassandra, which had been his plan in the first place.

Once they were wed, and away from Wormhill, Cassandra, sure that Aunt Lucinda and her Jerome were at last reunited, would find something else to occupy her mind and forget this business of ghosts. He would see to that.

His hand stilled on its way to his lips. Wait a moment! Cassandra's explanation of what had transpired at Wormhill since her discovery of Aunt Lucinda's spirit had been quickly gone over, and he now realized that there were several gaps in her story, several glaring lapses that he, given a moment to think about it, and tacking on the dowager duchess's admissions, now filled in by himself.

Whirling about to face Cassandra, who seemed to freeze in place beneath his flinty glare, he gritted, "When first you heard of Aunt Lucinda's will, you were very clear on how you felt about it, and about me. You tolerated the will, detested me. Not two days later, you began to follow me about like a lovesick puppy, smiling at me and casting out blatant lures that were impossible to ignore."

"Now, boyo," Fish interrupted, placing a hand on Philip's shoulder, "it was wondering I was, how long it would take you to figure that particular business out for yourself. But don't go sayin' anything now. Give yourself some time to think about it."

Philip shook him off, advancing once more on Cassandra. "You deliberately set your cap for me, in some misguided notion of helping Aunt Lucinda." He slapped a palm to his head. "I don't believe it! I allowed myself to fall in love with you, and you were only using me in your twisted belief that it would help a figment of your imagination? No wonder you were so eager to get rid of me this afternoon. I loved you, but you were repulsed by me. You couldn't go through with your plan, no matter how you believed it would affect Aunt Lucinda. That's why you dragged that idiot butler in here tonight—to have him get rid of your ghost without having to sacrifice yourself. Is marriage to me that unattractive to you, Cassandra?"

Aunt Lucinda—who had been quiet for so long that those in the room who could see her had forgotten her (the way people like the dowager duchess had become accustomed to doing when she was alive)—must have felt her heart touched by Philip's anguish, for she immediately piped up, "'The woman's a whore, and there's an end on it.' Johnson."

Cassandra, her face pinched and white, sprang to her feet to defend herself. "I am not a whore!"

Philip threw up his hands, totally exasperated. "Whore? Who said anything about whores? Damn it, woman, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you were willing to sacrifice yourself for Aunt Lucinda. God! Now I'm talking as if the woman actually is a ghost, as if anything that has gone on here at Wormhill in the past week has even a semblance of sense to it."

"Not Wormhill, Philip," Cassandra countered, immediately mulish. "Benedict Cottage."

"Benedict Cottage, Wormhill, Dungheap—I don't care what you call it." Philip spat, rapidly losing his grip. "You used me, woman!"

"'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' Shakespeare," Aunt Lucinda pointed out, perhaps trying on the role of conciliator.

"Lucinda!" the dowager duchess shot back angrily, glaring in the direction of the—to Philip at least—empty camel-headed chair. "How many times do I have to tell you—no Shakespeare!"

Philip spun about to face the dowager duchess. "Crazy, that's what you all are. Crazy as loons!"

"The woman's here, boyo," Fish put in calmly. "Face it like a man, I tell you. I may not be likin' it any more than you are, but the woman's here."

Philip pressed his palms together, intertwining his fingers so that he could not be pushed into losing control and beating the Irishman heavily about the head and shoulders.

At last, tamping down his anger with what he considered to be near-superhuman effort, he said tightly, "Very well, Fish, I'll accept it. You all believe Aunt Lucinda is here. I have to accept it, if I'm going to make any sense of this situation. Nothing else really explains Cassandra's behavior, or the behavior of the rest of you. And it's no great wonder our resident ghost hasn't shown herself to me. She's too embarrassed!"

"Easy, boyo," Fish warned.

But Philip pushed on. "It's too bad, really. I had just this afternoon made up my mind to marry Cassandra, although she did not appear amenable to the marriage when I attempted to propose—for reasons we now know—and was, for my sins, on my way upstairs tonight to broach the subject once more when you interrupted my progress with your asinine ritual. Now, however, knowing what I now know, you must all see why any question of a marriage between us no longer applies. Therefore, if Aunt Lucinda is to remain earthbound, the blame falls on Cassandra's head—or even Farnley's—but not mine. I wash my hands of the entire business."

So saying, Philip executed three deliberately deep, formal bows, first to the dowager duchess, who had incongruously begun to giggle into her handkerchief some minutes earlier and was still so occupied, and then to Cassandra, who, much more reasonably, had begun sniffling into her own handkerchief, and lastly, in the direction of the camel-headed chair. Turning to look at Fish, he nodded briefly, then took his leave, careful not to step on the still unconscious Farnley as he passed into the foyer.

Aunt Lucinda, who had somehow conjured up a chicken leg, upon which she had been nibbling most delicately, sighed, saying, "'He has departed, withdrawn, gone away, broken out.' Cicero." And then she too disappeared, most theatrically, in a small puff of smoke—as if to show she knew more than a few party tricks—leaving Fish behind to deal with two distinctly dissimilarly, yet mutually hysterical, women.

Chapter Ten

"Fish, you can't leave me now!"

The Irishman carefully pried Cassandra's fingers from his sleeve and guided her to a nearby bench. He had come upon her in the garden shortly after luncheon, purposely seeking her out to tell her that it was time he was on his way.

"It's ten full days I've been coolin' my heels here, m'darlin', and I have to be about my business for a while. The earl has calmed considerably, not that he talks to any of you more than he can help. And not that I'm blamin' the fellow, for it's a terrible thing you women did to him, and no mistake."

Cassandra's voice became very small as ready tears sprang to her eyes. "I love him so much."

Fish shook his head sorrowfully, for he had heard this before. "And he loves you, m'darlin'," he recited singsong, for he had said this before. "Have you given any more thought to talkin' to him, rather than moanin' and cryin' to me? You've more ups and downs than a ship fighting swells in a full gale, Cassy, but this time you don't seem to be tryin' to right yourself. It isn't like you."

Biting her lip, Cassandra shook her head, rejecting the suggestion that she approach the earl after she had been so firmly rebuffed by him the first morning after the sèance. He hadn't come to the breakfast table again for a week. "I know you mean well, but I've tried, Fish, you know I've tried. But Philip won't listen. All he does is ride that horse of his all day and play cards with you all night. I knew the moment I met Philip that he was a proud man."

"Proud, yes, and as stubborn as you. It's knockin' your two heads together that might solve this, but then who's to stop you from scratchin' at each other again the moment my back is turned?"

"Philip let his guard down around me—most lovably, I must say—and all I did was hurt him. He'll never forgive me for that. The dowager duchess has a plan to compromise him into marrying me, which I have rejected out of hand, and Aunt Lucinda keeps mumbling something about the pitfalls of best-laid plans. Farnley, that laughable fool, even went so far as to mix some sort of love potion into the earl's wine last night. It's all so useless."

"I had a talk of my own with our ghost, Cassy," Fish told her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, for he still had some difficulty conversing with a woman who, his good sense told him, couldn't really exist. "She's a mite down, poor soul, and quotin' tons from the Good Book. Job, mostly, and whatever part pertains to that man Jonah, who got swallowed up by a whale. That's one of the reasons why I'm goin' on my way. If the earl can't play cards with me at night, mayhap he'll wander into the drawing room, and your aunt can toss some furniture at him or something so that he finally understands that she's there."

"He hasn't gone into the drawing room once since that night, has he, Fish? You know, Farnley won't go in there either, nor any of the servants. I've had to take over dusting the place myself. As if Aunt Lucinda would ever hurt anyone. It's ridiculous!" She turned to her good friend once more. "Please, Fish, don't go! I'll have Benedict Cottage soon, and enough money to keep us comfortable. There's no more need for you to go out gambling."

The Irishman's dark eyes flattened as he looked down at the girl he had taken care of these past three years. "And who says it's gamblin' I'm about, m'darlin'?"

Cassandra's cheeks flushed, realizing that she had spoken impulsively. But she recovered quickly, for she would do anything to keep Fish by her side, to act as a buffer between Philip and herself. "I've known for years, Fish," she said honestly. "You play at cards to get money to feed us, and when it runs out you gamble again. You didn't really think I believed that farradiddle you handed me about doing farm work these past months, did you? You've never even come home with dirty fingernails. Besides, I checked your pockets a time or two, and found vowels scribbled by some of your fellow players. Do you cheat a little bit, Fish, or are you just a very good gambler?"

"Me? Fuzz the cards? Never!" The Irishman was highly insulted. "And I never gambled for more than enough to keep body and soul together. Never think I'm a hardened gamester. It's just that cards have always come easy to me. I could have beat your Philip all hollow if I'd had a mind to, which I didn't. But I won't be livin' on your inheritance, Cassy. It's pullin' my own weight I am since I was just a wee broth of a boy. Besides, I've got a few other irons on the fire just now."

"And what would those be, Fish?" asked a deep voice.

Cassandra looked up, startled. "Philip!" she exclaimed, shaken to her toes. He had been avoiding her for so long, and doing such a very good job of it, that she couldn't believe he had actually come into the garden to seek her out. He was so handsome, even now, with no sign of a smile to warm her heart. Poor thing, she thought lovingly, even in anger he can't look more fierce than the heartbreakingly beautiful painted angels I see in church. "You're here."

"Yes, Cassandra, I am, unlike Aunt Lucinda, actually here," he responded silkily. "I was not, however, addressing you, but Fish."

"It's surprised I am to see you here as well, my lord," Fish answered matter of factly. "As it's still daylight, I supposed you'd still be out and about in the countryside, riding atop your high horse."

Philip's features remained expressionless, although a slight tic began to work in his left cheek. "Bellami threw a shoe," he answered tightly, "so I thought I might amuse myself by challenging you to a few hands at cards, just to see if my luck had changed since last night."

"Fish!" Cassandra scolded, immediately believing the worst of her self-appointed guardian. "I thought you said you didn't take advantage of the earl. Shame on you." She looked up at Philip, her gray eyes cloudy with concern. "How much do you owe him? Never mind. You don't have to pay him. He's a professional gamester, you know, so he most probably didn't come upon his winnings honestly in the first place. Did you, Fish?"

The Irishman spoke through clenched teeth. "I told you, Cassy, I don't cheat. I don't have to, especially when the man sitting across the table is so sunk in the love doldrums that he can't remember what's trumps." He shook his head. "Three years or more of mindin' you, and you turn on me the moment your heart is involved. No wonder it's leavin' I'm about. Cassy, m'darlin', you're just like every other woman—about as fickle as the weather on a spring day."

Cassandra was immediately contrite, begging Fish's pardon. She didn't mean what she'd said, she told him. It was only that "certain events, certain persons" had her so upset, "so at sixes and sevens" that she no longer knew what she was saying half the time.

Philip laughed out loud, although without any hint of mirth. "Meaning me, of course. Oh, that's above everything wonderful, Cassandra, really it is. I should have thought that you would have gotten used to being tripped up on your own tongue, what with your nonsense about Aunt Lucinda, and the rest of it."

"I thought you weren't speaking to me, my lord. But, now that you are, I find I have something to say to you!" Cassandra hopped to her feet even as Fish grabbed ineffectually at her hand, trying to keep her in her seat.

"The rest of it, Philip?" she demanded. "Why dress it up in fine linen? What's the matter? Can't you come right out and say the words? Well, I can. I can speak about how I deliberately made myself appealing to you, hoping to get you to propose to me in order to save Aunt Lucinda. And you were most accommodating, as I recall, for a man who stated at the outset that he didn't want anything to do with Aunt Lucinda's matchmaking ploys as she set them out in her will. If I am upset it is because I know I shouldn't have done it. You're only upset because I did it so well!"

"Meaning?" Philip pressed her, moving a pace closer.

"I think it's as obvious as that horrid beaklike nose on the poor dowager duchess's face, boyo," Fish put in, also rising, as it looked to him as if someone had better place himself between Cassandra and Philip before the feathers began to fly. "M'darlin' girl here is saying that you're still in love with her, whether she was leading you a merry chase or nay. But tell me, my lord, all this time you've been out riding and sulking, did you ever stop to think that she might have been given a bad turn in this thing herself, and might really be in love with you as well?"

Philip, who had been glaring down at Cassandra (who was similarly glaring up at him), shifted his gaze to Fish's handsome, grinning face, then back to Cassandra once more. He opened his mouth to speak, seemed to reconsider, and then said at last, "Two words, Cassandra—two words. No more. No less. Two words are all I want you to tell me about. Aunt Lucinda."

Cassandra frowned, not understanding. "What—what about Aunt Lucinda?"

"Is she sitting in that damned chair, or isn't she? No, not two words. One word. Yes, or no. Are you finally ready to admit what I've at last figured out for myself? Are you ready to admit that this whole ghost business, the entire idiotic, elaborate scheme, was drummed up between you and that conniving dowager duchess—even going so far as to drag in Fish and that superstitious twit Farnley—all in order to bring me to the altar?"

"Oh, Philip," she answered sadly, her last hope deflated. "You have listened to all of us, lived through these past days, and can still ask that? My answer to you is yes. Not, yes, the dowager Duchess and I tricked you but, yes—Aunt Lucinda is still sitting in that chair!"

Without another word, Philip turned smartly on his heels and walked away down the brick path, leaving Cassandra behind, not knowing whether to dissolve into tears of frustration or go off searching for a large stick with which to beat some sense into her beloved's thick head.

Fish rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. "Well, m'darlin,' that just about takes care of that. You've made a beginning. My bags are packed, so I'll be off. I'll be back in time for the wedding, and no mistake, so don't you go worrying your pretty head about that."

Cassandra's eyes grew wide. "What do you mean, that's that? Do you have onions stuck in your ears, Fish? He may not have denied that he loves me, but he won't bend an inch until I tell him that this whole ghost business is nothing more than a trick set up by the dowager duchess and the rest of us, a charade meant to bring him to the altar. I know his family has a love of playing pranks on each other, but does he honestly believe anyone would think up something so silly as a ghost? It's even worse now than it was when he just thought we were all crazy. Ten times worse! Oh! Fish, I swear it, if I didn't love him so much I'd murder the man!"

Fish bent to give Cassandra a farewell kiss. "The dowager duchess told you about that just yesterday, Cassy. Swearing isn't ladylike. If it's a countess you're goin' to be, you'd best start minding your manners. Now you know I wouldn't leave if I didn't think you and the earl were going to be just fine, don't you? You just have to give it some time."

Cassandra slipped her hand through the crook of Fish's arm, walking with him toward the stables. "A countess, indeed. Fish, you'd best be leaving now, for staying here seems to have addled your brain. I should hate you for deserting me, but if I have learned one thing these past three years, it is that you can't stay in one place for long, and I have long ago given up trying to hold you with tears. Now that I have Benedict Cottage, will you go back to sea, or maybe return to Ireland?"

Fish's dark eyes took on a strange, sad, faraway look. "Ireland? No, m'darlin'. Ireland was never truly my home. It turns out I only lived there. As for the sea—well, that time is past. No wars to fight, new laws meant to stop a man from making an honest dollar from the pickin's from another man's ship—they've taken all the joy out of it, don't you know."

"But, Fish, if there's nowhere for you to go, why leave?"

He smiled widely, winking at her. "Why, it's off to make my fortune I am, m'darlin'. Five or six more lovesick Englishmen like your Philip, and a little less bleeding heart softness from me, and my pockets should be full to overflowing. I promised your papa I'd take care of you, and I did it the best I could. Now I have other promises to keep, and even a fine new horse to take me where I want to go."

Cassandra found herself beginning to cry in spite of her best intentions. "Promises to whom, Fish?" she asked, suddenly ashamed of herself. She had been so grateful to Fish for his help, so dependent on him, and not once had she given any real thought to what his life would have been without her. She had been a child, thinking only of herself, and he had made their time together such fun that she had believed he was as happy as she. "Oh, Fish, I've been so selfish!"

The tall Irishman drew her into his arms, patting her head as she cried into his shoulder. "No, Cassy, never selfish. You were my little sister, my good friend." He gently pushed her away. "But now it's time for the both of us to grow up, and high time it is for me, too. I'll never really leave you, m'darlin', but you have to start fendin' for yourself now, solvin' your own problems, and not just skippin' through life, playin' at being grown."

He tipped up her chin with his knuckles. "I'd start by headin' for the drawin' room, Cassy. That's where your Philip has gone, you know."

Cassandra stood back, sniffling, and wiping at her moist eyes as she shot a look toward the doors to the drawing room. "Could—could you find it in your heart to take the dowager duchess with you, Fish?" she asked, smiling up at him through her tears. "She's been enough help to me already. I wouldn't want her stumbling in on Philip and me once we really get to talking."

The groom came forward, leading Fish's horse, and the Irishman mounted. "Lock the doors, m'darlin, and don't let anyone in or out until you've said all there is to say. You might get your heart broken, but I don't think so. The earl is a good man, and he loves you."

Cassandra, unable to speak, only nodded, waving as Fish turned the large bay gelding and headed down the drive, riding away from Benedict Cottage. It was only as he had nearly moved out of earshot that she finally called after him. "You be back for the wedding, you black Irishman! You hear me? Or I'll come after you with a horsewhip!"

* * * * *

Philip stood in the middle of the drawing room, feeling more foolish than he had since his brothers had tricked him into showing up at Lady Hereford's rigged out like Henry VIII for a costume ball, only to discover that the party had been nothing more than a small gathering brought together to endure a harp recital by her ladyship's youngest daughter.

But here he was, looking about the room as if he actually might see something, hoping against hope that he was wrong, and Cassandra hadn't been party to an elaborate scheme meant to trap him into marriage.

Not that he believed that Cassandra had been the real author of such foolishness. No, such an outrageous plan had to have sprung fully grown from the dowager duchess's fertile brain after listening to Farnley's womanish nonsense, and Cassandra had merely gone along with it. And why wouldn't she? After all—and Philip didn't consider himself to be immodest in thinking this—there wasn't a woman born who wouldn't wish to be married to an earl.

The deception and bare-faced conniving had been difficult enough to swallow, but what had really hurt Philip, what had wounded him to the quick, was the realization that Cassandra hadn't been able to follow through on the plan once success had been in sight. Was he that repulsive to her?

As he poured himself a snifter of brandy, a thought that had been nibbling around the edges of his brain for some days now came to the fore once more. There could be another reason for Cassandra's strange about-face the day he'd almost asked her to marry him. Fish had hinted at it often enough.

Cassandra just might really love him. She might love him so much that she couldn't go through with the deception, even though to admit that there was no ghost would have been an outright contradiction of the dowager duchess, and she couldn't bring herself to hurt the old lady.

He drank deeply, considering that avenue a moment longer. Cassandra did seem rather dispirited, poor thing, totally unlike her usual happy self. She hadn't worked in the garden. She hadn't gone riding with Fish, even though, technically, the horses in the stable were hers.

And she hadn't laughed. Ten days now, and she hadn't laughed once within his hearing. Of all the things he missed about Cassandra—her scent, the feel and taste of her—he missed most her laughter, her joy, her quicksilver moods, and even her outrageous stories.

"Except the one concerning you, dear lady," he said, tipping the snifter toward the Sheraton chairs in salute. "I could have lived most happily without hearing about your supposed presence."

A split second later Philip was sprawled on the faded carpet, where he had dropped in order that the china statue of a buxom shepherdess—the one that had inexplicably risen from a nearby table, to come sailing at him—could fly harmlessly over his head.

When he didn't hear it crash against the wall he looked up, to see Cassandra standing near the glass doors, holding the statue in her hand, a fearsome frown on her face. "What have you said to upset Aunt Lucinda, you—you doubting Thomas, you!"

Philip remained on the floor, considering his options, but shortly realized that there was no way he could get out of his present situation without looking the complete fool. Rising as gracefully to his feet as he could, he pulled down his cuffs, touched at his cravat, and turned to face Cassandra down.

"You used a string," he asserted, grasping at straws, refusing to believe what he had seen. "I had thought Cosmo and Cyril couldn't have been here long enough to teach you their tricks. Heaven knows you've had plenty of time to rig up a half dozen silly party pranks in here."

Cassandra barely had time to open her mouth in warning before another figurine went flying across the room, this time whistling past Philip's head less than an inch from his left ear before crashing on the hearth.

"And I suppose that was another one of my party tricks?" Cassandra asked challengingly, advancing into the room to replace the shepherdess. "It's all right, Aunt Lucinda. I'm going to do this myself. You don't have to help me knock some sense into his head."

Philip stayed where he was, studying Cassandra as she seemed to address the empty camel-headed chair. Tipping his head to one side, he squinted, almost wishing he could see what everyone else swore they could see. But there was nothing. Nothing but the ugly camel-headed chair.

"Philip," Cassandra spoke up, breaking his concentration. He had never seen her looking so determined, or so vulnerably beautiful, dressed as she was in a soft dusky pink morning gown, her streaked hair artlessly piled up on her head. "Fish has gone, telling me that I must settle this matter between us by myself. I would rather he had stayed, but he made me realize that he had better things to do than stay around here, watching two people who love each other behave like naughty nursery tots. Now, are you going to sit down and listen to me, or am I going to have to get Aunt Lucinda after you again?"

At her last words, a heavy silver candlestick rose a good six inches above its resting place, to remain there, hovering menacingly, as if ready to attack.

"Love each other?" Philip questioned, arching one well-defined brow. He let out a deep sigh, giving into the inevitable. "All right, Cassandra, all right. I won't make more of a fool of myself than I already have. Yes, I love you. There, I hope that makes you happy."

"Immensely," Cassandra answered, taking a single step forward before halting, her quick smile replaced by a dark scowl as her mood shifted from ecstasy to anger. "No! I'm wrong. It doesn't make me happy. You don't know what love is, Philip. You wanted a wife and I was here, conveniently dropped into your hands like some ripe, juicy plum, even if you fought our attraction at first because you didn't care for the way Aunt Lucinda's will had maneuvered you. But put one tiny roadblock in your way, one small problem, and you go running off, acting as if the whole world had turned on you. Shame on you, Philip!"

The earl sat down in amazement, dropping into a nearby chair, although he might just as easily have sat down on the floor, so astounded had he been by Cassandra's outburst.

"One small problem, Cassandra? You and the dowager duchess threw together this whole intrigue about ghosts in order to give you an excuse to chase after me like a dog after a juicy bone. Then, after I stumbled in on that little séance scene you had concocted for my benefit, you were belatedly hit by an attack of scruples—as I'm sure it was your first, I can understand why it took you so long to recognize it for what it was—and you tried to cry off, in the end unable to face marriage to me."

Cassandra plopped herself down onto one of the couches, then jumped to her feet again a moment later. "Oh, you make me sick!" she cried hotly. "You forget that I had already run from your proposal that afternoon. There was, according to you, no need for a sèance."

He shrugged, then offered one possible explanation. "It had already been planned. You had no choice but to go through with it."

"Now you're being ridiculous, Philip. But let us get back to your accusations. Which was it—my scruples, or my distaste for a man who had kissed me so thoroughly that my toes tingled? You can't have it both ways, you know. Either I disliked you so much that I couldn't go through with the plot, or I loved you so much that I couldn't marry you, knowing I had purposely set out to entrap you."

She collapsed onto the couch once more, again hopping to her feet a split second later. "Or—and here's a thought to set your toes a-tingling—there was no plot at all, but only a misguided effort on my part, and on the part of the dowager duchess—and yes, even Farnley—to help an old lady find her way to heaven. Castles have ghosts, Philip. Castles, and old abbeys, and even London's Tower, or so I'm told. Why can't Benedict Cottage have a ghost?"

The candlestick remained suspended in midair rather than flying off to attack Philip. However, the four unlit tapers suddenly became flame-topped and the entire object began slowly spinning about in a circle, as if dancing to some unheard music. Throughout the large room, every last candlestick lifted into the air, burning brightly as they turned round and round, two of them seeming to come together in the first steps of a country dance.

Philip stared at them in amazement, then got to his feet and walked over to Cassandra, taking her hands so that he could pull her close. Smiling, he looked down into her tear-drenched eyes, glorying in the revelation that had just struck him more forcefully than any china statue could.

Philip was a proud man. Philip was for the most part a practical man, although he did dearly love a joke. Philip was also an intelligent man. And an intelligent man knew when it was time to put pride and practicality to one side and listen to his heart.

Cassandra truly loved him. He didn't know how he finally came to that conclusion. He only knew he had. All her protestations, all her fine arguments were as nothing now, for he had seen the measure of her love. After all, anyone who could go to the trouble of rigging such an elaborate trick had to be in love.

"Cassandra, can you forgive me?" he asked huskily. "I've been a pigheaded fool. If I promise to believe that you love me, truly love me, as I love you—will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

She was silent for some moments before her eyes narrowed and she looked up at him suspiciously. "Aunt Lucinda is sitting over there, in the camel-headed chair. Aunt Lucinda is making the candles dance. You believe in her now, don't you?"

"Anything you say, my darling," Philip murmured agreeably, already nibbling on the side of her throat. He would admit to believing in the man in the moon, the possibility of traveling there to meet him, and the chance to dine on some of the fellow's finest cheese, if only it meant an end to the torment he had been going through since the night of the sèance. "I'm even willing to agree that I'm rather flattered to think you'd go to such lengths to catch me, especially since I was already so eager to be caught. Hey—"

Cassandra had pushed him away, stepping past him to stand in the center of the room, one faintly trembling hand resting on the camel-headed chair. "You still don't believe in Aunt Lucinda!" She shook her head, obviously amazed at the stubborn thickness of his skull. "I was on the stage for a few months, Philip, but as an actress, not a magician."

Just as he was sure he had bungled, Cassandra stopped speaking, tilting up her chin as if suddenly pondering some great thought.

"You don't believe in Aunt Lucinda," she began slowly. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but that is absolutely wonderful of you, Philip! I mean, if you had believed my story, why, I would never know if you were marrying me because you truly loved me, or if you were only trying, as I had been, to help the poor woman rejoin her Jerome."

"What?"

"Oh, Philip," she burst out happily as she launched herself into his waiting arms, "everything has worked out simply perfectly, just as Fish said it would, and the dowager duchess didn't have to get you to compromise me after all. I'll discount Farnley's potion, for I'm sure you haven't proposed because of some silly herbs. I love you, Philip! I love you so much! Of course I'll marry you!"

"Compromise me? Potion?" Philip mumbled as Cassandra rained quick kisses onto his cheeks and throat. They'd have to discuss these things at some point, he was sure, but as his arms wrapped tightly about her, he decided that, for the moment at least, they had much better things to do.

Capturing her chin with his fingers, he redirected Cassandra's lips toward his, closing his eyes as he claimed his betrothal kiss, never noticing that the griffin-headed chair and the camel-headed chair had joined the candlesticks in their dance.

Epilogue

She was late—again—and although Philip knew he would have to get used to it, he hadn't thought she would be late for her own wedding.

"It's that Fish person, of course," the dowager duchess complained, straightening her purple turban as she whispered fiercely into Philip's ear while smiling at the assembled guests—of which, thankfully, there were few. "He hasn't shown up yet to march her down the aisle, and she refuses to allow your father, or even Avonall, to stand in for him. A marquess, a duke. Can you imagine? She can have either of those, and she chooses a tardy Irishman."

"He's not Irish," Philip whispered back to her out of the corner of his mouth, wondering if his cravat had begun to wilt in the heat of the small chapel located just a mile from Benedict Cottage. "Fish isn't even his real name. According to Cassandra, her father gifted him with the name after plucking him from the sea."

The dowager duchess waved to an elderly woman in the last row, her failing eyesight registering nothing but the fact that the unknown woman, dressed most outrageously in pink chiffon, had been waving to her. "What?" she asked distractedly.

"Fish, madam," Philip repeated, smiling. "He's not Irish. He's a fellow Englishman."

He had succeeded in gaining the dowager duchess's full attention. "Preposterous!" she exclaimed, frowning furiously. "He told you that? He doesn't talk like any Englishman I know."

Philip heard the wedding guests beginning to murmur among themselves. "Keep smiling, madam, or the guests will believe my bride isn't coming. But truly, Fish is an Englishman. Or at least Cassandra has told me he's not Irish. I believe there's a story there somewhere, for Fish has a certain air about him, regardless of his casual speech. I plan to take him to one side later today and ask him just what—"

Philip didn't finish his thought, as the wheezy organ at the back of the church suddenly shuddered into life, the assistant vicar pounding out an unrecognizable hymn just as Cassandra appeared in the doorway, holding tightly to Fish's arm.

She was a vision straight out of his fondest dreams, clad in softest white lace and satin, her chin held high as she moved down the aisle until she had advanced far enough for him to see that, although she was smiling at him as if no one else was in the church, tears streamed down her cheeks.

The dowager duchess proudly took her place on Cassandra's left, and Cosmo and Cyril stood beside their brother, uncharacteristically solemn as their brother pledged his troth two months and one day after the reading of Lucinda Benedict's will.

Neither bride nor groom remembered much of what happened after their bridal kiss, not even signing the church register, or the short carriage ride back to Benedict Cottage, or the small reception the dowager duchess and Philip's father had insisted upon hosting, even if Cassandra was still officially in mourning, for neither of them could overlook any excuse for a party.

Cassandra and Philip, at Philip's insistence, planned to leave in the morning for a short visit to the Lake District, but they would remain at Benedict Cottage for their wedding night, with only the marquess and the dowager duchess not agreeable to finding other lodging for the evening, and only Fish actually being invited to stay.

With the rest of the guests safely tucked up in nearby inns, the five remaining residents of Benedict Cottage (sans Farnley and the other servants, who were quite happily dining on leftovers from the wedding dinner in the kitchen) gathered in the drawing room for one last toast.

"To my new daughter, Cassandra," the Marquess of Weybridge said, lifting his glass high. The toast was boomed out in the marquess's big voice, a voice almost as large as the man himself, who seemed to be an extremely handsome gray-haired copy of his three sons. As a matter of fact, whether it had something to do with the absence of his mustache, or merely the fact that he had that day pledged his troth, Philip's cherubic good looks had taken on a new maturity that, with the addition of a few years, would most likely have him resembling his father quite closely. "May she always be as fair and happy as she is today, and may she give me a dozen strong grandsons." Downing the wine in one swallow, he turned to the dowager duchess and said, "Cassandra's a Greek name, you know. Fine name. Yes, yes, very fine name."

The dowager duchess pushed at her turban, which had begun to sag hours earlier, but whose removal would doubtless show up the sparsity of Her Grace's flattened hair. "You're an ass, Philo, you know that?" she said, sniffing. "Surprised your children turned out half so well. Look at Philip over there, will you, drooling all over dearest Cassandra. Extremely well-set-up young man. Doesn't look a thing like you. Now, are you going to stand here all night making inane toasts, or can we let those two go to bed now, before your handsome lad embarrasses the lot of us?"

The marquess didn't answer. He just stood there, as if turned into one of the marble statues he so favored at Weybridge, his mouth at half mast, staring into the distance.

"Uh-oh," Fish remarked softly, looking to the marquess, and then to the area the man was staring at, transfixed. "This is no great help to us. Don't look now, Your Grace, but it's some unexpected goings-on we're havin'."

"Is that boy pawing her?" the dowager duchess asked testily, removing the wine glass from the marquess's nerveless fingers before it could crash to the floor. "And this idiot here asked why the nuptials couldn't wait until we could have an outlandish crush at St. George's. You'd think he'd never been young."

Fish shook his head, noticing that Cassandra as well had gone very still, biting her bottom lip as Philip, his back turned to the room, placed his wine glass on a side table. "It didn't work, Your Grace," Fish said, pointing to the Sheraton chairs. "I thought you said she'd gone, but she's back. Look!"

The dowager duchess whirled about to see Lucinda Benedict sitting in the camel-headed chair, wearing the ridiculous pink chiffon gown she had spotted in the church. "Lucinda!" she was startled into exclaiming, racing across the room to confront the old woman. "You're like a bad penny. We can't get rid of you. What's the matter, didn't Jerome want you? Or wasn't he there? I told you you'd have to look lower to find the fellow."

At the other side of the room, Cassandra winced visibly. Aunt Lucinda hadn't gone. Even worse, the dowager duchess was talking to her—with Philip, the unbeliever, in the room.

Cassandra may have given up hope that Philip would ever admit Aunt Lucinda had been here, especially since the woman hadn't reappeared since the day Philip had proposed, but to have her come back now could do nothing but drag up the business again, this time with the marquess seeing her too, if the man's stunned expression had anything to say on the subject. Obviously, at least one of the Rayburn men (not counting Cosmo and Cyril, who, thankfully, weren't there) believed in ghosts.

"What's going on?" Philip asked, turning around at the sound of the dowager duchess's strained voice. "I thought I heard—Good God!"

"Hello, Philip," Aunt Lucinda said in her high, singsong voice, gaily waving in his directly. "Never fear, I'm not going to stay. It was a lovely wedding. To quote dear Milton, 'Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring.'"

"Philip! You see her!" Cassandra threw herself into her husband's arms, weeping with joy. "You see her!"

The Marquess of Weybridge, luckily already nearly three sheets to the wind, and prone to forgetfulness when in his cups, took this opportunity to faint into Fish's strong arms, effectively putting himself out of harm's way for the moment.

Philip's arms went around Cassandra, whether in love or for support he wasn't sure, and he continued to stare at Aunt Lucinda, who was now toasting them with another quote, this time from Sophocles. "All this time, my darling, and you were telling me the truth. How can you ever forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive, dearest," Cassandra answered, regaining her composure. "I'm just so happy Aunt Lucinda could be here for our wedding, to share our joy. That you have seen her only adds to that happiness—for, loving me, you must somehow, deep inside, have wished to believe in ghosts."

The dowager duchess planted herself directly in front of her old friend, looking at her searchingly. "Lucinda, you talked," she said wonderingly. "All these years you've spouted quotes at me like some educated parrot, mouthing words and never ideas until I was tempted to throw a shawl over your cage to shut you up—and you can talk!"

Hand in hand, Cassandra and Philip approached the Sheraton chairs, as did Fish (having deposited the slumbering marquess on one of the nearby couches), to stand beside the dowager duchess, waiting to hear Lucinda speak again.

She smiled at them all, her transparent figure seeming to fade even more in front of their eyes. "I was never very quick as a young girl, you know, never very witty," she explained apologetically. "But I had a good memory. A very good memory. I began using quotes from books I had read, and everyone seemed to think I was terribly bright to know so many fine sayings. I began using more quotes and less of my own words. People thought it amusing." She grinned up at them. "One thing led to another, and soon I found myself speaking entirely in quotes."

Lucinda reached out, as if to take the dowager duchess's hand, but her beringed fingers did nothing more than pass through the other woman's wrist. "I'm so sorry, my dear friend, if I angered you at times, but I couldn't help it. Just as dicing got the better of my dear Jerome, my quotes got the better of me."

The dowager duchess accepted the handkerchief Fish handed her, wiping her eyes before copiously blowing her nose. (She then attempted to hand the handkerchief back to him, but he politely declined.) "Oh, Lucinda," she said, sniffling unashamedly, "it didn't really matter. Not if the quotes made you happy. It's just the Shakespeare that bothered me, you know. The rest of it was quite amusing—sometimes."

"Thank you, my good friend," Aunt Lucinda said, turning to look at Cassandra and Philip (who was still staring at her in some amazement). "I hope you forgive me as well, my dears, for my matchmaking, and for all the trouble I've caused you. But as some anonymous poet once said, 'Over rocks that are steepest, love will find out the way.'"

Philip's head was so full of questions, and his heart so full of love and thankfulness, that he had difficulty finding his voice. "It is I who owes you an apology, dear lady," he said as Cassandra slipped an arm around his waist, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Without you, I should never have found my dear wife. And I promise you, our first daughter shall be named Lucinda."

"And our first son, Jerome," Cassandra added quickly, only frowning as she heard herself speak. She looked up at Philip, whose normally unreadable face was eloquent with pain. "Well, maybe not as a first name precisely, Aunt, but we'll stick Jerome in there somewhere."

"A ghost," Philip murmured, although it was doubtful he realized he was speaking. "Aunt Lucinda is a ghost."

"Not for much longer, dear boy," Aunt Lucinda told him, reaching into a hidden pocket in her skirt and pulling out a sugary candy. "I was given this one last visit so that I could speak to all of you in my own words, although I am not allowed to tell you all the mysteries I've learned. You may ask no questions please, or else I might get into trouble, although Jerome tells me everyone is most forgiving," she raised her eyes toward the ceiling, "up there."

The dowager duchess sniffed. "They'd have to be, if Jerome is 'up there'." But the words hadn't come out cuttingly, for the woman's heart truly wasn't in it.

"Before I give you my messages, I believe I must explain something Jerome told me. These chairs," she said, motioning to the griffin-headed chair, "are not my Jerome's last present to me, as I had thought them to be. He won them, you see, and had only sent them to our house in the country because he felt they were too ugly to remain in London. He has most expressly asked me to explain that to you, poor man, worrying all this time that people would think he couldn't tell pretty from ugly."

"I've grown to admire them, Lucinda," the dowager duchess admitted, flushing. "If you don't mind, and if Cassandra agrees, I should like to take one of them back to my estate with me, in remembrance of the dearest friend I've ever known. Oh, dash it, Lucinda—you're making me cry, and I never cry!"

Aunt Lucinda turned to her, smiling benevolently. "Dear friend, be of good heart. Please, it is time to listen to my messages. Your beloved husband awaits you patiently, but you have more of your grandchildren's children yet to see safely into this world. Emily and her Digby will be presenting you with twins next spring, and Tansy will have an announcement for you soon after. All in all, you'll be very busy. But truly, my friend, you must say your prayers with much more regularity. They watch these things up there, you know."

As Fish laughed at this last admonition, Aunt Lucinda pointed toward him, saying obliquely, "Rid your heart of anger and thoughts of revenge, my boy, for what's over is over. You've done Cassandra a good turn and you will soon have a good turn done to you in exchange, but there is no hope of true love without forgiveness."

"Fish?" Cassandra asked, not understanding Lucinda's message, but Fish only smiled and shook his head, and she knew he would only explain when he felt the time was right.

"Cassandra, Philip," Aunt Lucinda said, calling their attention back to her. It was difficult to see the old lady now, as her image was rapidly disappearing. "I have no message for you, for you have found true love, and have no need of anything I could say. I am only here to give you my blessing, dear children, sorry as it will sound in my own paltry words." She straightened up in the chair by wriggling her rump from side to side, much as a very young child would do when unable to touch its feet to the floor.

Cassandra and Philip waited patiently for the woman's body to settle itself once more (for she had floated into the air again, never seeming to have quite captured the knack of moving about gracefully in a ghostlike state).

"May you always be as happy as you are today, dear children," she intoned earnestly, "and may your love for each other continue to be as strong and gentle, as giving and forgiving, and as steadfast and eternal as is God's love for you."

Lucinda Benedict disappeared then, gone back to her Jerome, sugary candy and all, leaving the occupants of the drawing room behind, standing in a small semicircle around the empty chair.

Philip finally guided Cassandra out into the overgrown, moonlit garden, knowing she would weep for a few minutes before—as his quicksilver wife was sure to do—she would brighten, concentrating on the wonderfulness of Aunt Lucinda's blessing. He would hold her while she wept, and he would hold her when her sorrow turned to joy. He would hold her close and love her for all the days and years of their lives.

Back in the drawing room, it was left to the dowager duchess to break the silence. " 'As steadfast and eternal as is God's love for you.' You are eminently quotable, dearest Lucinda," she said at last, gratefully accepting Fish's supporting arm as she turned toward the foyer, leaving the marquess behind to the tender ministrations of Farnley, who seemed to think working for a marquess not outside his reach.

"Yes, indeed, dear lady," Fish remarked, chancing a look over his shoulder to where Cassandra and Philip stood just outside the glass doors, locked in an embrace. "Eminently quotable."

Author's Note

It is always difficult to say good-bye to a well-loved character, and in the case of Lucinda Benedict (The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane, The Playful Lady Penelope) it became doubly so; first, because I had grown to love her, and secondly, because she had never spoken in her own words. The Haunted Miss Hampshire presented the perfect theater for Aunt Lucinda's first and last personal oration, and I hope I did her at least a modicum of justice.

So we have bid a final, fond farewell to Aunt Lucinda, who is off to rejoin her adored Jerome, knowing that she would not wish our regrets, but only quote from the dowager duchess's beloved bard:

"If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me."

And, of course, because the dear lady seemed concerned for him, I believe I shall have to do something to help Fish find his own true love . . .

(Update: Which, Dear Reader, I did, with The Wagered Miss Winslow, also soon to be available in ebook form.)

###

Look for other recently reissued Regency Romance ebooks from

Kasey Michaels ...

The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane

The Playful Lady Penelope

www.KaseyMichaels.com

About Kasey Michaels:

Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 100 books (she doesn't count them). Kasey has received three coveted Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly, two for the historical romances, The Secrets of the Heart, and The Butler Did It, and a third for contemporary romance, Love To Love You Baby (that shows diversity, you see). She is a recipient of the Romance Writers of America RITA, Waldenbooks and Bookrak Bestseller awards, and many awards from Romantic Times/RTBooktalk magazine, including a Career Achievement award for her Regency era historical romances. She is an Honor Roll author in Romance Writers of America, Inc.

Kasey has appeared on the TODAY show, and was the subject of a Lifetime Cable TV show "A Better Way," in conjunction with Good Housekeeping magazine, a program devoted to women and how they have achieved career success in the midst of motherhood (short version: "with great difficulty").

A highly praised nonfiction book, written as Kathryn Seidick, "...Or You Can Let Him Go," details the story of Kasey and her family during the time of her eldest son's first kidney transplant.

Kasey has written Regency romances, Regency historicals, category books including novellas and continuities and a few series "launch" books, and single title contemporaries. She has coped with time travel, ghosts, trilogies, the dark side, the very light side, a mystery series, and just about everything in between. And, says Kasey, she's just getting started!