The True Darcy Spirit
Elizabeth Aston

For Paul, with love

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Elizabeth Aston

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

On the forenoon of a hot May day in 1819, two persons were on their way to the Inner Temple. They were almost strangers, but bound by ties of blood and kinship, and in very different situations of life.

Cassandra Darcy was on foot, walking to save the expense of the hackney-coach; the fee of a shilling was more than she could at present afford to spend. Nor, although young and gently bred, was she accompanied by a maid or a footman. Possessed of more than her fair share of good looks, she attracted a good deal of unwelcome attention, yet there was that about her direct look and her straight brows that carried her past even the most loutish of the Londoners going about their business. She was in good time, would, in fact, be early for her appointment.

It wasn’t an encounter she was looking forward to. Not that she had anything to say for or against Mr. Horatio Darcy, but he was her stepfather’s lawyer, and there was no doubt about her feelings toward Mr. Partington. Even though, in all fairness, she couldn’t blame him for the predicament she found herself in. She had been rash, remarkably rash, and must take the blame and endure the consequences of her actions, and, she reflected, any consequences in which her disagreeable stepfather had a hand were likely to be of a most unpleasant nature.

She quickened her pace, as though to escape from the thoughts that crowded into her head. She had to think clearly, this was a time for rational thought and action, and yet feeling would intrude, driving out the clear thoughts that might help her to state her case and come to a reasonable solution of her problems.

Would that reason had played a larger part in her actions these last few weeks, but reason flew out of the window in such cases. She had often heard it said that it was so, but never dreamed that it might one day apply to her. And she, who prided herself on her self-control, had been the one to fling all restraint and sense aside. Her self-control had been her defence against the constant pricks and irritations of life at Rosings, but when she most needed it, it had deserted her.

Well—with an inner sigh—what was done was done. Now she must see how she could make the best of things. She cast a quick glance down at the map in the guidebook that Mrs. Dodd had lent her. It wasn’t clear, and she wasn’t used to maps, but an enquiry of a burly but amiable-looking hackney coachman gave her the right direction, and she turned off the Strand in the direction of the river. The narrow lane led through a noble gateway into the sanctum of the Inner Temple, one of London’s four Inns of Court, where the lawyers belonging to the Inn had their chambers. It was a tranquil and charming place, its grounds stretching to the banks of the Thames and the bustle and hubbub of London no more than a distant murmur.

Cassandra hesitated, looking across the grassy central area to the surrounding buildings. Men in black gowns walked briskly by; clerks, documents tied with ribbon under their arms, hurried past; errand boys, whistling as errand boys always whistled, scurried on their way with messages and parcels.

Here was the staircase where Mr. Darcy had his chambers, here was his name on a wooden panel. Here was a suspicious clerk, demanding to know her name and business, looking behind her for a father, a brother, a footman, a maid.

The clerk had a long, thin nose, red at the tip, the kind of nose that would always have a drip on it come the chills and fogs of autumn. Cassandra didn’t take to him, but then she wasn’t interested in Josiah Henty, clerk; she had come to see Horatio Darcy, lawyer.

And cousin. Distant cousin, she reminded herself. They hardly had more than the name in common, the connection was not at all close. Still, it was a link, and a link she suspected might not please Horatio Darcy just at present.

They had first met when she was a small girl in a smock with her hair tumbling about her shoulders and a smudge on her cheek. He was a great boy in comparison to her, just started at his public school, lanky and self-contained, eight years older than she was. The third son of a younger brother, he was treated with a certain degree of contempt by Cassandra’s grandmother, the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, although with an eye too observant for her years, Cassandra noticed a spark in Horatio’s eye, and she sensed that he wasn’t a whit bothered by Lady Catherine.

She had seen him once more since then, had pelted him with crab apples, in fact. That was when she was twelve, and a tomboy climbing trees during a visit to her cousins at Pemberley, where he was also a visitor. He had looked up, and said what a hoyden she was and gone on his way, tall and still self-contained, with almost as much pride as his cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mama had said, although with much less reason.

“Horatio Darcy does not have an income of ten thousand a year, indeed he has an income of nothing a year, except what his father gives him and what he may earn by his own efforts, nor does he own so much as a cottage, let alone a great estate like Pemberley. They say he is clever; he will need to be to make his way in the world, for even though his father was a Darcy, he was a younger son, and younger sons, you know…” This last with an affected sigh. “As was your dear father, of course.”

Cassandra was less than happy to have her affairs brought under the scrutiny of Horatio Darcy, or indeed any of the Darcy clan. It was her misfortune, she thought, that she was related to the Darcys both through her mother and father. If she had taken her stepfather’s name, as her mother had wanted her to, the Darcys would have had no concern for her present situation, and she might not be sitting here, waiting for her cousin, who was, she noticed with a glance at the clock that hung above the bookshelf opposite, late.

An unpunctual man.

In that case, the Darcys might have been content to shrug shoulders and wash their hands of her: “She always was a headstrong girl, Anne should have brought her up more strictly.”

The thought brought a wry smile to her lips; in many ways it would be difficult to imagine any stricter upbringing than hers, with her stepfather a clergyman with very strict morals indeed, and a naturally overbearing disposition, and her mother always willing to agree with him on the raising of all her children; Cassandra as well as the two daughters and son by her second marriage.

Horatio Darcy was not on foot, but was travelling in an elegant carriage, seated beside the beautiful Lady Usborne. Not that the vehicle moved at much more than a walking pace in the crowded London thoroughfares, and walking fast and purposefully, as was his way, he could have covered the distance from Mount Street, where the Usbornes had their town house, to his chambers at the Inner Temple in much less time than the carriage was taking. He was an active, vigorous man, a young man in a hurry, his enemies said, and certainly not one to idle and linger his way through the day.

Yet here he was, with half the morning spent in a very idle, not to say, dissolute way, that made him no money and brought him no business. Time passed in the arms of the luscious Lady Usborne, although the connection might, at some point, bring him advancement—for the Usbornes were people of wealth and influence—was time wasted as far as his professional life was concerned.

A very pleasant amorous interlude on the chaise longue in her private sitting room, with the door locked against intrusive servants, who were supposed to believe that their mistress had need of yet another lengthy consultation with her handsome young lawyer, had led to a light nuncheon, and then, Lady Usborne declaring that she was driving out, to visit a milliner, it would have been churlish not to accept her request that he might accompany her at least part of the way.

There had been a slightly uncomfortable encounter with Lord Usborne in the hall of his lordship’s town house. The older man was taller and better dressed than Darcy, and a raised eyebrow, a cynical twitch of his lordship’s lip left Darcy feeling ruffled, so that he was anxious to part from Lady Usborne and return to the calmer waters of his chambers.

“Stop here,” he called out to the coachman. A last, swift kiss, and then he jumped down on to the pavement, conscious of the fact that he carried with him the faint aroma of Lady Usborne’s clinging scent, but with a sense of liberation.

He was late for his appointment with Miss Darcy, and he didn’t like to be late. However, it might do this particular client good to kick her heels for a while, waiting could often put an awkward client into an anxious and more amenable frame of mind. Not that she was, strictly speaking, a client. It was a tiresome affair, and one that he had much rather not be mixed up in, but it was right to keep family matters, especially ones of this kind, within the family, where they might be dealt with swiftly and discreetly.

There she was, sitting in the clerk’s room; why the devil hadn’t Henty shown her in? Did he think she was going to snoop among his boxes and papers? Damn it, she was a Darcy, wasn’t she? Although her behaviour might indicate…

He was taken aback as she rose and held out a hand. This assured, poised young woman with her direct look and considerable degree of beauty was not at all what he had been expecting. A fluttering young woman, overcome with guilt, would be more appropriate, or a palefaced, wretched creature, needing masculine support and advice. She certainly didn’t take after her mother, not in appearance. No, he would have known her anywhere for a Darcy, and that irked him. How dare she behave in such a very discreditable way and then appear to be so much in command of herself and of the situation?

When had he last seen her? Nine, ten years ago? At Pemberley, if his memory served him rightly. She had been sitting astride the bow of a tree above his head, hurling crab apples down on him, in a very unfeminine way. He’d been at Westminster School then, not inclined to take any notice of his hoydenish and fortunately distant young cousin.

Horatio Darcy ushered Cassandra into a big, handsome room, with windows overlooking the river. She looked around her, her attention diverted from her problems by the novelty of her surroundings. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with dusty tomes and stacks of papers tied up with faded ribbons. Dozens of boxes were lodged on the topmost shelves, each with a name written on the front in a spidery copperplate too small to decipher. A large desk stood in the centre of the room, and Mr. Darcy placed a chair for her, before retreating to his side of the desk and sitting down with his hands steepled together.

Her cousin had grown into a remarkably handsome man, with a fine, tall figure, but he didn’t look to have become any more amiable in the years that had passed since their last encounter.

“You have come alone?” he asked. “Mr. Eyre is not with you?”

He spoke the name in an icy tone, which made Cassandra wince inwardly. As if the very mention of James Eyre didn’t make her heart turn over. She took a deep breath to make sure none of her emotion showed in her voice or expression. “Mr. Eyre is presently out of the country,” she said. “And this has nothing to do with him.”

Mr. Darcy’s eyebrows shot up. “No? I would have thought his presence was of the first importance in such a matter.”

“If you have summoned me here to talk about Mr. Eyre, then I may tell you at once, that I shall not listen to you.” She began to rise from her seat.

“Sit down,” he said. “To be perfectly correct, I haven’t summoned you, I merely sent you an appointment. It was Mr. Partington, your father—”

“Stepfather.”

“Very well, your stepfather, who asked me to have this interview with you. I question the wisdom of your coming here alone, that is, without Mr. Eyre, because he must surely have a say in what is to be agreed.”

“Nothing is to be agreed that need concern Mr. Eyre.” It caused her a pang to say it, even though it was the simple truth.

“Your marriage to Mr. Eyre is only one of the matters that has to be discussed, but since it is the key to everything else, let us discuss that first.”

“There is nothing to discuss with regard to any marriage between Mr. Eyre and me. I told Mr. Partington how matters stood. If he chooses to disbelieve me, then that is his own affair.” She took another deep breath, she must not show how fragile was her self-possession. “I received a message from you asking me to wait upon you on a matter of business. I did not expect to have my private affairs raked over by you.”

“I am a lawyer, acting for your father.”

“Stepfather.”

“I also have the honour to be a member of the family to which you yourself belong. You bear an ancient and an honourable name, and since you seem determined to drag it in the dust, it is the duty of all the male members of your family to point out to you how wrong is your wilful decision not to marry Mr. Eyre.”

“It is odd,” Cassandra remarked in a conversational tone, “how everyone now is wild for me to marry Mr. Eyre, whereas only a few weeks ago, it was the last outcome that my family wished.”

“That was before you ran away with the gentleman in question,” said Mr. Darcy coldly.

“Eloped,” Cassandra said.

“Elopements end in marriage, not in cohabitation in London lodgings.”

Cassandra flushed, hating to have her connection with James spoken of in those terms, although God knew, Mr. Darcy was right. She felt she must defend herself. “When I left Bath in the company of Mr. Eyre, it was on the assumption that we were heading for Gretna Green, where we would be married under Scottish law.”

“That was not, however, the case, and you were perhaps naïve to assume any such thing. By putting yourself in the power of a man such as Mr. Eyre, you surely must have been aware that you were laying yourself open to all kinds of dangers.”

“You do not know Mr. Eyre, I believe? So pray do not speak of him in those terms. I and Mr. Eyre have…” Despite herself, her voice faltered. “We have parted, but even so…” She paused, and frowned, her eyes fastened on the floor. Then she raised them to look directly at her cousin. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Darcy?”

Horatio Darcy was thunderstruck. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you had ever been in love. If not, you may be unable to understand how things were between Mr. Eyre and me. I believed then that he was a man I could trust in every way.”

“If your relationship was as amiable and trusting as your words imply, then it came to a very unfortunate outcome.”

“When one is in love—”

“Love, Cassandra, has no place in a lawyer’s office.”

“There, I felt sure that you had never fallen head over heels in love, or you would be less disapproving of my behaviour.”

“My personal life has no bearing on this whatsoever. The case is simple. You ran away from the protection of your family, you were under the care of your aunt—”

“Of my stepfather’s sister, in fact.”

“Very well, of Mrs.”—he glanced down at the paper in front of him—“Cathcart, who stood in loco parentis to you, I believe, your mother and stepfather having placed you in her care. As I say, you ran away from her house in Bath, and put yourself under the protection of an unmarried man. With whom you lived on terms of intimacy—”

“As man and wife, in fact.”

“—terms of intimacy, with, apparently, no concern as to the irregularity of your union.”

The words were beginning to anger Cassandra, chasing away the surge of unhappiness that swept over her when she thought and spoke of James, of what he had meant to her, of how it had ended. Irregularity of their union; what cold, unfeeling words! True, it was a union unsanctified by church or state, but they had fallen in love, had chosen one another as their life’s companion—or so she had thought—and did a few days or weeks make so very much difference, even in the eyes of God?

She should have known how it would end, of course; from the moment the coach bowling out of Bath took the London road instead of the road to the north, she should have known that Mr. Eyre had quite a different scheme in mind from what was planned.

Never for a moment had she doubted his love for her, any more than she doubted her own affections. But prudence had appeared from nowhere, a prudence and a caution she would never have expected in the gallant officer who had swept her off her feet.

“It will be better to tie the knot when the arrangements have been made with your family,” James had said, leaning forward in the carriage, so that she could not see his face.

Arrangements. Money, of course, it was money that lay at the heart of his stepping back from an immediate marriage, although prudence hadn’t kept him out of her bed.

“I dare say,” he had said, succumbing to his passions just as she did, “that this will make it harder for your family to send me packing.”

He didn’t know her stepfather, and so it had ended, not at the altar, but in this lawyer’s room, with her cousin’s words recalling her to the present.

“I would be grateful for your attention,” Horatio said drily. “Under the terms of your late grandmother’s will—”

“I know the terms of the will. Rosings and the land and property naturally go to my brother. I, and my two sisters, are to be provided, upon our marriages, with such fortunes as Mama and my stepfather see fit. One hundred and fifty thousand pounds was set aside for our dowries.”

“Of which—”

“Of which, my stepfather was prepared to give me not a penny, and on that basis, Mr. Eyre declared he would not marry me. Now he says he will take me with twenty thousand pounds, and the family, to which you have the honour to belong, has put a great deal of pressure on my stepfather to agree to this. The settlements are drawn, the bridals may take place as soon as possible.”

Horatio looked at Cassandra with cold distaste. “I see you like to come to the heart of the issue.”

“I do.”

“Yet, having thrown yourself into the arms of this man, whom you claim to love, you now refuse to marry him.”

“There are other conditions, I believe.”

Horatio Darcy looked down at his papers, flicked through them, and took one up. “There are. First, the marriage is to take place discreetly, in London. Second, Mr. Eyre is to leave the navy. Third, immediately you have exchanged your vows, you are to leave the country and spend at least the next twelve months abroad, in Switzerland, where a house will be provided for you. On return to this country, you will live out of London, and at some distance from both Kent and Derbyshire.”

From Derbyshire? “Is the great Mr. Darcy of Pemberley really afraid that my residing there would pollute his neighbourhood?”

“This condition comes from your mother. She does not wish you to associate in any way with any member of your family after your marriage. You will not be allowed to visit Rosings, nor to communicate with your brother and sisters.”

“Half brother and half sisters.”

“I can see you might find these conditions onerous—”

“Outrageous, I would say, but it does not matter how they are to be described. Since I will not marry Mr. Eyre, the rest has no relevance.”

“Let me continue. If you persist in your stubborn refusal to marry Mr. Eyre, then you have two choices. I tell you this, since I have been instructed to do so; however, I feel sure that your good sense and your duty to your family will lead you to make the only proper decision, of agreeing that the marriage will take place. If not, then your mother and f—stepfather have decided that you must live out of the world. You are ruined, you have lost your good name, and for your own protection and for the sake of those connected with you, you need to live quietly, out of the public eye, and a long way from your immediate family, so that this fatal step you have taken may, in time, be forgotten.”

“Where is this place of retirement to be? Ireland? Some remote part of the Scottish Highlands? Or perhaps abroad? I believe English people who are ruined often go to live in Calais.”

“Those are people who face financial ruin.”

“You mean I won’t?”

Horatio Darcy’s voice was growing colder by the minute, and it gave Cassandra some satisfaction to see that she was needling him.

“I may say that your levity, at such a time, is ill-assumed, Miss Darcy. Perhaps you could restrain yourself and allow me to finish what I have to say. The accommodation your parents have in mind is to live under the care of one Mrs. Norris—ah, I see you recognize the name—who presently resides in Cheltenham, in the company of the disgraced Mrs. Rushworth, Maria Bertram as was, who, like you, took a step that removed her irrevocably from the company and society that her birth and upbringing entitled her to.”

Nothing this man had said so far had sent such a chill with her. That would be a punishment indeed; she had heard much about Mrs. Norris from her stepfather, and knew her for a cold-hearted woman with a mean temper and narrow outlook. She could scarcely imagine a worse fate. “Live with Mrs. Norris! You cannot be serious.”

“I am perfectly serious.”

“Well, whatever happens, I will not do so. You said I had two choices; pray, what is the second?”

“If you will neither marry nor go to live with Mrs. Norris, then your family, your mother, and stepfather wash their hands of you. You have, I understand, a small income from your late aunt of some ninety pounds per annum. This will be paid to you quarterly, and your parents will never see nor speak to you again.”

Cassandra couldn’t help it; tears were welling in her eyes. She dug in her reticule, took out a small lace handkerchief, and blew her nose.

“Allow me,” Horatio said, getting up and handing her a clean and much larger handkerchief. She waved it away, unable to bring herself to speak.

“Don’t be foolish. Take it. I am not surprised you are upset, for this is a very harsh treatment. However, I would point out that there are parents who would choose such a rejection of a daughter who has behaved as you have done, without offering what I think are very generous alternative arrangements.”

The desolation in Cassandra’s heart almost overwhelmed her, and she strove to compose herself, with the result that her words sounded, even to her ears, cold and uncaring. “I cannot marry Mr. Eyre. I will not marry a man who doesn’t love me enough to marry me without a fortune or my family’s approval. And I cannot consent to a life of misery such as would be mine were I to live under the same roof as Mrs. Norris.”

“Then you must resign yourself to a single life, knowing every day that you have incurred the wholehearted disapproval of every single member of your family, close and distant, and that you are cast off from everything you have known up until now: a home, the affection and concern of those nearest to you, and the life of a young girl of good family and fortune. There are places where you can live on ninety pounds a year, but it would not permit your residence in London, for example.”

“I shall have to earn my living, I can see, just as you do.”

He looked affronted. “I hardly think that any duties you may undertake to augment your income are on a par with my profession. Besides, with a tarnished reputation and no references, you will find it very hard to secure employment of any kind. To be brutally frank, the future that awaits you is far more likely to be that you will come upon the town.”

“You do indeed have a low opinion of my morals if you assume that I would ever become one of those women.”

“I am a realist. I know what London is, that is all, and what is the fate of most women in your situation. My recommendation to you, should you commit yourself to an independent life, is that you move to a provincial town where you may live quietly and inexpensively.”

“Could not you give me a reference, so that I might find respectable employment?”

“Certainly not.”

“I thought, the very first time I met you, that you had a kindness about you. I remember you picking me up when I fell off my pony, and defending me against my governess’s wrath. I see that I was mistaken.” Cassandra got up.

“I do not expect you to give me an answer now. I am instructed to allow you a week to—”

“Come to my senses, is that what my stepfather says? Believe me, Mr. Darcy, I do not need three minutes to make my decision.”

Horatio hesitated. “Speaking, not as a lawyer, but as your cousin, Cassandra, and as a man who has lived in London long enough to know what a terrifying place it can be to those cast adrift upon it, I beseech you to think most carefully what you are about.”

“You are worried lest a Miss Darcy be known to have joined the impures, is that it?”

“Really, I do think…Cassandra, you have no idea what it means to come upon the town!”

“You may set your mind at rest. I shall not use the name of Darcy from now on. My family casts me off; very well, I do the same to them.”

Cassandra went slowly down the staircase from Mr. Darcy’s chambers, blinking as she came out of the shadows into the bright sunlight. She felt numb, as though all power of sensation had drained away from her. Her mind, though, was far from numb, and indeed she saw the outside world with an extra clarity; grass, pathways, trees, figures all as though they had been outlined with a sharp pen.

In that brief half hour within Mr. Darcy’s chambers, her life had changed. A door had shut behind her and she was excluded from every part of her life that she had formerly known. Why should she feel this now, and not think that her old life had ended some other critical moment? Why not when she had left Rosings; now, as she knew, for the last time? Why not when she had arrived in Bath, or left it, with James? Why not when she had reached London, and had spent a night in his arms?

It was, her mind told her, because, in those chambers, she had made the decision. It was not circumstances or chance or the authority or advice of a parent or a lover—or, indeed, of a lawyer—that had, inside that room, laid down the pattern of her future life. It owed nothing to any other being, only to herself.

She walked away across the green towards the broad gravel walk that ran alongside the river. On such a fine day, there were several people promenading up and down beside the river; it was a favourite spot for Londoners, the clerk had grudgingly informed her. She watched a middle-aged couple strolling along, the man in a brown hat and his wife holding a parasol at an elegant angle to shield her complexion from the sun. A pair of young women walked arm in arm, laughing and talking together, the feathers on their hats fluttering in the slight breeze, their muslin skirts playing around their ankles as they walked. One of them was leading a little dog that pranced along on its short legs, excited to be out and snuffing the smells of the river bank.

Not being a Londoner, and having spent no more than a few hours in her whole life in the capital before she came there with James Eyre, Cassandra had never seen the Thames. James, learning this, and laughing at her for being a mere country girl, had taken her to see the river on their first morning in London, and she had been entranced by the teeming waterway.

“It is never twice the same,” he told her, and she had seen it dark under grey skies with him, and now, gleaming and glinting under a blue sky, with the sun shining upon it. She stood and watched strings of barges under sail going up and down, and the watermen plying their trade and calling to one another across the water. These moving craft made their way among a forest of masts, more than three thousand, James had said, amused at her amazement, promising that they would take a day out on the river, travel up to Kew to visit the botanic gardens, or ride to Richmond.

Excursions they would never take, she thought despairingly. But she wasn’t going to give in to despair, nor let regrets cloud her mind, she told herself as she walked up and down, the gravel scrunching lightly under her feet. She could not allow herself the indulgence of reflections and memories.

Horatio stood at the window. A tap on the door and Thomas Bailey, a colleague of Horatio’s, came into the room and went across to the window, his eyes following Horatio’s as they dwelt on the slim, upright figure walking to and fro upon the gravel.

“Damned fine woman,” said Bailey.

Horatio turned on him. “That happens to be my cousin, Miss Darcy.”

Bailey took a step backwards. “She’s still a very good-looking young lady. Isn’t she the one who ran away with a naval officer, causing all your family no end of trouble? An heiress, no doubt, all you Darcys are as rich as Croesus, and to throw herself away on a mere lieutenant! It doesn’t bear thinking of.”

“You have a vulgar mind, Thomas,” Darcy said coldly. “And as for rich, you know very well I have a younger son’s portion.” He was silent for a moment. “She is a very distant cousin,” he added in a harsher voice.

“What is she doing here, in the Inner Temple?” said Bailey. “Oh, I suppose she has come to see you. Has her father asked you to crack the whip? And who’s the lucky fellow, I wouldn’t mind—” He saw the fury on Horatio’s face and stopped himself in time, turning the rest of his sentence into a half cough.

Normally, Horatio found Bailey a very good kind of fellow, but today he was filled with irritation at the sight of him. “Haven’t you any work to do?”

“I can take a hint,” said Bailey, amiably enough. He went out with Henty, telling him to look out the papers on Lady Ludlow’s estate.

Horatio, still standing at the window, saw Cassandra check her pace and then straighten her shoulders, as though taking up a burden, before she made her way to the gate that led out of the Inner Temple.

He was filled with a sudden rage, at her obstinacy, her refusal to see sense, to conform to the rules and proprieties of that order of society into which she had been born. Would her stepfather really cast her off? Would her mother, who was after all her own flesh and blood, allow him to do so? He was not closely acquainted with Mrs. Partington, but what little he had seen of her he hadn’t admired. She seemed to be completely ruled by her second husband, a poor fellow, in comparison to the clever, amiable man that the late Thaddeus Darcy had apparently been.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He could merely wait and hope that during the next few days his cousin would come to her senses. Perhaps Eyre would return from Ireland and her affection for him, which must be considerable in order for such a girl to cast herself under his protection, would be sufficient to persuade her that marriage to her naval lieutenant was the best hope of a reasonable future that she had.

At the same time he felt a sudden loathing for Eyre. Had he meant to ruin Cassandra? No, that wasn’t likely. By all accounts he had left Bath in a hurry because of his indebtedness. And he wasn’t the kind of man not to seize the chance of a pretty companion, especially one who he knew might well be possessed of a large fortune.

How could Cassandra be guilty of such folly as not to see that Eyre was only interested in her fortune? Although he supposed that he might have had some feeling for her as a person as well. She was well-looking enough, although he himself would never choose to live with a girl who had a look as direct and alarming as Cassandra’s—or so pigheaded a character. She reminded him, uncomfortably, of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, also his cousin, and a formidable man.

Damn it, where was Henty? Here was the day half-gone and no work done, nothing achieved. He flung open the door into the outer office and curtly told his clerk to come in, that there was much to be done.

He started to dictate a letter, to go to Mr. Partington, in Kent. Then he thought better of it. This was a family affair. He would write to Partington himself that evening, and give him a brief account of the meeting that he had had with Cassandra, saying that he had duly passed on Mr. Partington’s message and the conditions that he laid down for his stepdaughter. When he had an answer from Cassandra, which he was sure would be in favour of marriage, he would again be in communication with him.

He said no more about Miss Darcy to Henty, and indeed made every effort as the day went on not to think of his cousin. If he was going to think of any woman, he would prefer to think of Lady Usborne, with her pretty, flattering ways, and no grey eyes sparkling with anger, or—and this irked him even more—amusement, when she looked at him.

Cassandra found that the flowing river, the people walking at their leisure taking in the air, enjoying the sunshine and the warmth of the day, jarred with her mood. It was too leisurely, too comfortable here. She wanted to be in motion, she needed to take action, not to muse or brood.

So she left the Inner Temple, with its calmness of centuries of learning and law, and went out through the handsome Inigo Jones gate into the Strand. There the traffic was as busy as ever and the clamour of London rang in her ears: horses’ hooves ringing on the cobbled way, the screeching sound of wagon wheels, the rattle and clatter of carriages, and all around her, voices raised in laughter or argument, peddlers and street men selling their wares, a woman shrieking loudly at a disobedient child, small boys squealing amongst themselves as they played with the stone that they sent skittering across the cobbles trying to bring down a passing horse.

There were shops all along the Strand, their bay windows full of enticing goods. None of these caught Cassandra’s attention. In fact, after the first impact of the scene with all its movement and life, she hardly noticed what was going on around her nor where her steps were leading to. She was considering Mr. Darcy’s parting words to her, his warning that even a young lady such as herself, well-born and carefully raised, could, by setting her will against the wishes of her family, easily find herself come upon the town.

And Cassandra knew precisely what the phrase meant. Despite the apparent strictness of her upbringing under her stepfather’s rigid control—and Mr. Partington was a man very strong on morality—she was no prude. An innocent abroad she might be; ignorant, she was not. Many years of friendship with Emily Croscombe, a lively young woman of just Cassandra’s age, had made sure of that, for Emily had an unusual mother, an educated woman, positively a blue-stocking, who believed modern girls should not be kept in a state of passive ignorance, and what Emily knew, so did her friend and confidante, Cassandra.

There had been a case in the village, when the attorney’s daughter had, at the age of fifteen, run off with a member of the militia; Emily had told Cassandra that the girl, abandoned by her lover, had come upon the town to make her living and she also told her that Sarah was enjoying her new life, much to the outrage of the village.

Mrs. Croscombe pointed out to the girls, in a matter-of-fact rather than a moralising way, that while Sarah was young and pretty and had her health, she might find her life in London not disagreeable. But those years soon passed, and a girl lost her bloom, and then with no family, no means of support and nothing of youth and beauty left, the prospects for a single woman in that situation were nothing if not bleak.

Cassandra came out of her reverie to find herself outside a shop which did catch her attention, for as the door opened to let out a customer, a poignantly familiar smell wafted out. This was a colourist’s shop, and the smell was an unmistakable mixture of linseed oil and pigment that carried her at once back to her attic studio at Rosings, where so many hours of her girlhood and early womanhood had been spent in the absorbed happiness of working at her easel or her drawing table.

Rosings! An image of her home came before her eyes, an artist’s image of the façade painted in early spring, with green flecking the trees and the family posed for the picture. Rosings wasn’t one of the great houses of England, it was not a house to compare with a Chatsworth or a Wilton, but it was still a fine, imposing house—and, for Cassandra, the place where she had spent the previous nineteen years of her life, until she had driven away from it, with scarcely a backward glance, only a few weeks since.

What a difference those few short weeks had made, what a complete change in her circumstances had been wrought in that time. She looked with unseeing eyes at the little piles of colour set out in trays behind the tiny panes of the shop window, wondering if there were a time or place she could pinpoint that marked the turning point; a day, an incident, which had propelled her on the course that had so changed her life?

Chapter Two

It had been a morning at the beginning of April when Cassandra rode over to Croscombe House from Rosings with some exciting news. Croscombe House was two miles distant from the village of Hunsford, where Rosings was situated, and Cassandra could have found her way there blindfold, so much time had she spent there over the years in Emily’s company.

It was the fashion for owners of large and elegant houses to have them painted: house, park and, generally, the family lined up in front of the building. Mr. Partington, never one to be outdone by his neighbours, had, through the good offices of Herr Winter, a painter who lived in Hunsford, engaged an up-and-coming young artist to come down to Rosings and paint the house and family.

“Imagine,” Cassandra told Emily. “He is only four-and-twenty, but already, Herr Winter says, he is making a reputation for himself in London as an artist.”

“Is he English?”

“No, he is a fellow countryman of Herr Winter, who knew his father when he lived in Germany. But he speaks excellent English, Mr. Partington was insistent on that point, of course, he would be, for otherwise how could he tell him what to do, and how to paint the picture? Oh, I can’t wait for him to arrive, it is a great opportunity for me, to see such an artist at work.”

“You won’t be able to see much,” Emily observed. “Not when you’re sitting still, looking like a well-bred young lady for hours on end, under the portico.”

“That is what I feared, but all is well, it is to be a portrait of the Partington family, and of course I am a Darcy.”

Mrs. Croscombe was so shocked she could hardly speak. “Do you mean that you are not to be painted with your mother and sisters and brother?”

“Half sisters and half brother, as Mr. Partington is always so quick to point out. No, and don’t look so horrified, for I don’t give a button for being painted. I should very much prefer to be on the other side of the process, I do assure you.”

Emily could see that her mother had a great deal more to say on the subject, so she intervened: “What is this painter’s name? When is he to come?”

“He is called Henry Lisser, and he will arrive on Thursday se’ennight. By which time we will have another visitor, I forgot to mention that, because Mr. Lisser is so much more exciting.”

“Not another clergyman?” said Emily.

“No, not at all. It is my cousin Belle, Isabel Darcy. I have no recollection of her, although I know we met as children, when I visited Pemberley.”

“So she is one of your cousin Mr. Darcy’s daughters,” said Mrs. Croscombe. “He has five, has he not? Isabel will be one of the younger ones, I think, for I am sure the older two are married.”

“Yes, and her twin sister Georgina is lately married and gone to live in Paris. And, in the strictest confidence, although Mama won’t say anything, and Mr. Partington just tut-tuts and looks grave, I have a notion that she has been in some kind of a scrape, and that she is coming to Rosings to be out of the way and kept out of mischief.”

“I would have thought Pemberley would keep her out of mischief.”

“Oh, I believe her parents are abroad or some such thing, but do not want her to stay in London for the summer.”

“She will be company for you, is she about your age?”

“She is eighteen.”

“What is she like?” Emily asked. “Is she pretty?”

“I have no idea, but you may see for yourself, for she arrives tomorrow, so unless she is to be kept strictly within bounds, or cannot ride a horse, I shall bring her over to make your acquaintance.”

Belle was no horsewoman, but the visit was paid nonetheless, Cassandra being allowed to take her cousin with her in the carriage. “Which,” she said to Emily as she jumped down outside the steps of Croscombe House, “shows you how rich and important Belle’s papa is, for you know how Mr. Partington hates to have the horses put to the carriage on my behalf.”

Belle, angelically fair, with striking violet eyes, had a discontented expression on her pretty face as she stepped down from the carriage. She made no bones about telling Emily and Cassandra why she had been posted off to Rosings. “It is because I am in love with the most handsome, dashing man, my dearest Ferdie, only my family consider I am too young and too volatile in my affections to enter into an engagement.”

Mrs. Croscombe had, through an intricate network of friends and acquaintances, found out more than this. When Emily told her at breakfast the next morning what Belle had said, and expressed her indignation at any family being so gothic as to stand between a girl and the object of her affections—“For he is a perfectly respectable parti, an eldest son, and very well-connected”—her mother thought it only right to say that this was the third young man within a year that Belle, “who is but eighteen, my dear,” had fallen in love with and wished to marry.

Emily was much struck with this, and passed the information on to Cassandra, warning her not to reveal to Belle how much Mrs. Croscombe, who had a wide correspondence, and kept up with all the gossip of town, knew about her. Cassandra thought it a very good joke. “Perhaps she will next fall in love with one of Mr. Partington’s clerical protégés, or with one of your rejected beaux.”

“I do not mind whom she falls in love with, so long as it is not my Charles,” said Emily.

There was no danger of that. Charles Egerton, while appreciating Belle’s undoubted prettiness—although he was wise enough not to comment on that to Emily—had no time for such a flighty piece of perfection. “She is very silly,” he said disapprovingly. “She would drive any man of sense to distraction. Her father and mother are very right to remove her from London, for it will be much better for her to grow up and become more sensible before she marries any of her lovers.”

Nor did any other of the young men of the district seem to take her fancy. “In fact,” Belle confided to Cassandra, with a prodigious yawn, “I do wish they had let me visit my sister in Paris. I have never been so bored in all my life. This is even worse than Pemberley, how do you stand it?”

“I have plenty to occupy myself. You could do some sketching, if you choose, or there is the pianoforte, in tune, and very willing to be used.”

“Oh, I never play the piano if I can help it. I leave all that to my younger sister, Alethea, who is a prodigiously fine musician. I play the harp, and my sister Georgina was used to sing with me, but now she is in Paris, and I have not brought my harp with me, and besides, what is the point of playing, if there are no young men to listen and applaud? And as for sketching, I have no talent in that direction, none at all.”

“You could read. The library here is very good.”

“I’ve looked, and it’s all fusty stuff. Nothing modern, does not your mama buy any novels?”

“My stepfather does not approve of novels.”

Belle stared. “You mean you do not read novels?”

“I do, only without his permission. Emily lends me what I want, she and her mother are both great readers.”

“Mrs. Croscombe is very learned, is not she? The books she reads must be very dull.”

“Some of them are, but she enjoys novels as much as Emily does. When we next go over there, ask to borrow one.”

Another yawn from Belle. “Why don’t you take my portrait?” she suggested, brightening up at the thought. “I would like to have my portrait painted, of me on my own, because whenever anyone has drawn or painted me, it has always been with my sister. If you take my likeness, I can smuggle it out to send to my dearest Ferdie, would not that be a very good plan?”

Cassandra was always happy to have a new model, and Belle went off to change into her prettiest dress and a smart new bonnet, while Cassandra rang for Petifer and went up to her studio, which she had set up in one of the attics, as far away as possible from both the public rooms and the family rooms.

Petifer had been detailed to look after Miss Darcy, once she reached an age to have her own maid, and she was kind, fierce, and devoted to Cassandra. Taking her side against Mr. Partington, whom she despised, Petifer aided and abetted Cassandra in her painting, even though she thought it a strange occupation for a lady, and she had become very handy with the paints and canvases. She also did Cassandra a further service, which her mistress knew nothing about, by keeping the servants from gossiping too much about the hours Miss Darcy spent up in her attic with all those odorous paints.

Cassandra had never had a more chatty subject, for Belle wouldn’t stop talking.

“My sister Camilla is lately married, to a very agreeable man, and he had her portrait painted, it is considered a very good likeness. She is wearing yellow, which is her favourite colour, and it makes her look almost pretty. She is the least handsome of us, but Wytton, that is her husband, does not seem to mind. Or perhaps he has not noticed, his mind is taken up with antiquities and ancient Egypt and that kind of thing. Did not you say that Mr. Partington has engaged an artist to paint you all? Perhaps he might draw me as well. When does he arrive? At least it will be more company, or will he be consigned to the servants’ quarters?”

“He is to stay with Herr Winter, who is an old friend of his family. But I believe the habit of treating artists as tradesmen has quite gone out. Mr. Lawrence dines with the king, you know, and a fashionable painter, such as I believe this Mr. Lisser to be, is received in all the best houses.” Cassandra didn’t add, as she might have done, that it had taken considerable persuasion and an extremely large fee to entice Mr. Lisser away from London and down to Rosings. Anyone who could command so much money was unlikely to find himself dining among the servants.

Henry Lisser posted down from London, and word of his arrival at Herr Winter’s house flew around Hunsford. The next day he came to Rosings, and stepped out of the carriage sent for him by Mr. Partington, followed by his servant, a thin, undernourished young man, who unloaded a surprising number of boxes and cases and several canvases under Mr. Lisser’s directions.

Mr. Partington sailed out to greet the young artist with more than his usual condescension. He was taken aback, Cassandra saw, to find Henry Lisser seemingly quite unimpressed by his surroundings and company; here was no bowing and scraping young man, overwhelmed by the grandeur of Rosings. The young artist cast a quick glance around, looked Mr. Partington up and down, and, Cassandra felt sure, took his measure in those few seconds, and held out his hand.

Belle was watching from an upstairs window. “Do not you think him a remarkably handsome young man?” she said as soon as Cassandra joined her.

“I didn’t notice,” Cassandra said. “He seems pleasant enough. I shall know more about him if I am allowed to watch him while he works. Some artists won’t allow it, you know, but Herr Winter promised to put in a word for me.”

“Oh, you will be more interested in his palette and paintbrushes and how he mixes his paints than in his countenance,” Belle said with a toss of her head. “I shall ask if I may watch, too.”

That rather alarmed Cassandra; while she knew she could tuck herself in a corner and not be noticed, Belle was never happy unless she was conspicuous.

“It will be very tedious to watch, you know, unless you happened to be interested in technique as I am. Besides, you will catch Sally’s eye and give her the giggles, you know you will, and that will put Mr. Partington into a temper, and get Sally a scolding.”

“He is not so very tall, and I like a man to be tall, but he has a good figure. And those eyes, they are very fine, his eyes. Do you not think he would look well upon a horse?”

“I think you had much better return to your novel, you said it was most exciting; I dare say much more exciting than any painter.”

Chapter Three

The previous evening, dining with his old friend Joachim Winter, Henry Lisser had questioned him about the family at Rosings.

Herr Winter was a retired artist of some distinction, who had been obliged to lay down his brushes on account of rheumatism in his fingers. However, he had taken on a new career, as master to the many young ladies who lived in the neighbourhood, and who wished to improve their drawing and painting skills beyond the instruction that their governesses could provide. It became quite the thing among the families to employ Herr Winter; kind, tolerant and conciliatory, he was a great favourite with his young pupils.

It was fortunate for Cassandra that her grandmother, the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had agreed that she might learn with Herr Winter. Lady Catherine, who had been thwarted in her attempts to make her own sickly daughter, Anne, as accomplished as she would have wished, was determined that Cassandra was going to turn out the most accomplished young lady in the country. So when the governess, Miss Wilson, came to her ladyship with the suggestion that a master might be engaged to instruct Cassandra in drawing and water-colours, she was listened to.

“Pray, why cannot you instruct the girl?” was Lady Catherine’s immediate reaction.

This was rough ground, and must be got over as lightly as possible—Miss Wilson’s brother was in the army, and she often thought of her life at Rosings in military terms. “Indeed, I can, and she has made good progress. However, there is a notable master come to live in Hunsford, a Herr Winter. He is retired, but is taking pupils: He goes to Croscombe House to teach the Croscombe girls, and Miss Emily is doing remarkably well under his tuition. The Tremaynes think so highly of him that they send a carriage over, twice a week, for him to attend at Hunsford Lodge, where he instructs Mr. Ralph, who has considerable talent in that direction, and all the Miss Tremaynes.”

“Croscombe House, you say, and Hunsford Lodge?”

“And several other pupils besides. He is so much in demand, that I fear he may be unable to take on any more at present.”

No master was going to refuse to teach Lady Catherine’s granddaughter. The amiable Herr Winter was summoned, subjected to an impolite interrogation as to his background and abilities, and informed that he was to have the honour of teaching Miss Darcy.

Fortunately, Herr Winter was possessed of a sense of humour, and he had taken a liking to this Cassandra, with her wide grey eyes and ill-contained energy. At first, he had expected no more of her than of his other female pupils, who needed to sketch and draw and do water-colours as an accomplishment and as an agreeable way to pass the empty hours of leisure, and he had been astonished to find in Cassandra a talent far beyond that of the usual run of young ladies.

Very soon discovering that there were few of his male pupils, in Germany or in London, who had ever shown more promise, he forgot about her sex and simply enjoyed unfolding to her the mysteries of his craft. “Art, I cannot teach,” he would always say. “That comes from the soul and cannot be taught.”

Water-colours and pastels weren’t enough for her, and by the time she was fourteen, she was already an accomplished painter in oils, a skill she took care to keep hidden from her mother. He would have liked her to tackle some bigger themes, but Cassandra was firm about where her tastes and skills lay: She could paint from nature well enough, for her early training with her father had made her observant, and the liveliness of her flowers and trees and landscapes made them delightful, but her real love, and gift, was for portraiture.

Herr Winter showed some of her work to young Henry Lisser, who was duly impressed. “Were she not a young lady, and born into an English gentleman’s household, she could make a living from her brush,” he said.

“Look at the upstairs parlour at Rosings, if you are able,” Herr Winter said. “She painted the panels in there; they thought I did it, but she wanted to learn fresco techniques, and so I showed her, and let her do the work. It was irksome for me to take the credit and the fee, but the pleasure and pride she took in the work were their own reward for her, and the main reward for me. It is much admired, I could not have produced anything so charming myself, and I was besieged with requests from other houses to do a similar thing. I had to say that my fingers were giving me considerable pain, since otherwise it might be noticed that those exquisite pastoral scenes did not come from my brush.”

Henry Lisser shrugged. “It is a waste of a talent,” he said, almost to himself. “However, she will marry a country squire and settle down to be a wife or mother, as is her destiny.”

Herr Winter put Cassandra’s work back in its portfolio. There was a tiny frown on his amiable countenance. “Part of me hopes that this will be the case. But, with this particular young lady, I do wonder about her future. I think it may not be as you describe. Her life at Rosings is not altogether a happy one; I only hope that she does not break out some day, tired of the smallness of her life, and perhaps take some disastrous step that she will come to regret.”

Once Mr. Lisser began work at Rosings, he saw for himself what Herr Winter meant. However, he kept his thoughts to himself, and, in truth, he was not much interested in a set of persons whom, he imagined, he would never see again, once the painting was finished. He had a good deal of reserve, and liked to keep a professional distance between himself and his clients.

Mr. Partington tried to draw him out—what was his background, what were his antecedents?—but he gave little away. He had studied in Leipzig and Vienna and Paris, before coming to London, he said, and no more could be got out of him.

Mr. Lisser had been surprised to find that the family arranged in front of the view of Rosings that he was to paint was to consist of only five members of the family. Mr. Partington chose the grouping, with him standing protectively behind his wife, who was seated with her baby son in her arms. Their youngest daughter sat cross-legged at her feet, in a foaming muslin dress with a pink sash, and her older sister, similarly attired, sat on a nearby swing.

It was a charming composition, very much in the modern taste, showing a paterfamilias enjoying the pleasures of family life, and the dutiful and fecund wife serene and contented, under his care.

“You have another daughter,” Henry Lisser said abruptly. “Is she not to be in the painting?”

She was not, Mr. Partington said snappishly, since she was a Darcy, a mere stepdaughter, not a Partington. However, Mr. Partington would be very much obliged if Mr. Lisser would include one or two of his prized Shorthorn cattle in the picture.

Chapter Four

Cassandra was exasperated. Belle had been introduced, thanks to Mrs. Croscombe, to several agreeable and handsome young men; why did her volatile fancy have to alight on Mr. Lisser? And while she might tell her stepfather that such an artist would be a welcome addition to the dinner table at many a lofty home, it didn’t mean that he would in any way be considered a suitable lover for a Miss Isabel Darcy, with a fortune of some thirty thousand pounds or more.

Belle was a flirt, a determined and accomplished flirt, and now her attention was fixed on Mr. Lisser, there was nothing Cassandra could do to prevent her cousin from playing off her tricks. And it seemed that Henry Lisser was not displeased by the pleasure Belle took in his company. When he was at work, his attention was focussed entirely upon his subject. He was grave and uncommunicative, saying little to his subjects, and those few words merely a request to move this way or that, or to place a hand or reposition an arm. He gave instructions to his assistant, as necessary, and sometimes spoke to Cassandra, as to a pupil, but in a low, indifferent voice.

To her admiration, he banished Belle from his presence while he painted, in a kind enough way, but with sufficient authority that she accepted his rejection with no more than a toss of her head. The children, of course, could not hold their poses for very long, so he had filled in their small shapes and then dismissed them, bidding them to run along and play with their cousin Miss Belle. They skipped off, and he was left to do some more work on the patient Partingtons.

Cassandra was fascinated to see how he worked, it was so very different from her own style of painting. He took numerous sketches, charcoal or graphite, and had always a sketchbook in his hand, drawing the house from numerous angles: “You must see the whole in your mind, even while you only paint one view.”

Cassandra was full of admiration and questions. He asked to see her notebooks, making few direct comments, but suggesting a shading here, another grouping of a composition there, and gave her some valuable advice as to portraiture, although, as he said, his own genius did not lie in that direction. Oh, yes, he could paint figures in a landscape, but head and shoulders or full-length portraits were not for him.

“You should travel, Miss Darcy, it would be of great benefit to you to go to Italy, to study the works of the masters and also to see for yourself the landscapes of that country.”

“Italy! Why, Mr. Lisser, Bath would be an adventure for me, and as for London, I long to go there, but”—with a sigh—“it is not at present possible.”

Mr. Lisser remembered what Herr Winter had said about his talented pupil, and said no more about her painting or travel. Instead he wanted to talk about Belle.

“She is your cousin, I believe?”

“The relationship is not such a close one. We share great-grandparents through her father and my mother, and there is also a connection through my father, who was the younger son of a younger son. Belle’s father is the eldest son of an eldest son. Do you have brothers and sisters, Mr. Lisser?”

“I have a younger brother, and two sisters.”

“Are they artistic?”

“My brother is destined for the military. One of my sisters is a good musician, the other has no artistic bent that we are aware of.”

“And they live in Germany?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you chose to come to London to work.”

“There are reasons…” His face took on a reserved look. Then he smiled, a smile that transformed his features. “London is a good place for those who wish to make their way as a painter, and I have to earn my bread like this. In the future perhaps—”

“You will prefer different subjects, a different style?”

“I hope so. But meanwhile I can benefit from the English love of landscape, especially when a painting portrays their own handsome property set in the midst of it. I have noticed that these kinds of paintings and family portraits are what hang on the walls of most houses that I visit.”

Cassandra thought of the dozens of portraits that hung in the public rooms at Rosings and also in corridors and passages where they were never noticed. And on the top floor, a picture gallery ran the length of the central part of the house, where the finest portraits hung, from stiff Tudor faces, all very much alike, through the long, big-eyed, livelier Stuarts, a riot of lace and silk and satin, for the de Bourghs had always held to the royalist cause, to the wide-skirted and gold-laced men and women of the last century.

Belle came dancing into the room, a vision in a figured muslin, with a wide sash about her slim waist, and a fetching hat in her hand. Now, as he rose to his feet, Mr. Lisser had no eyes or thoughts for anyone but Belle; she was a minx, to lead him on like that. Cassandra stood up, too.

“I am going to show Mr. Lisser the gallery of family portraits,” she said.

“Oh, let me do that, you are wanted in your mama’s room, she asked me to look for you.”

Belle went off with Mr. Lisser, and Cassandra dutifully went to her mother’s chamber, where her mother was surprised to see her; no, she hadn’t summoned her, she had merely remarked to Belle that she might find her cousin downstairs with Mr. Lisser.

“And I wish, my love, that you will not spend so much time with Mr. Lisser. He is here to work, you know, not to talk.”

“He is giving me some very helpful advice, Mama.”

Mrs. Partington gave a faint smile. “He is very kind, but you must not presume upon his kindness. He is no Herr Winter, not a drawing master, but an accomplished artist, he is not to be wasting his time on your little drawings and sketches.”

“Thank you, Mama,” said Cassandra, whisking herself away before she should say something she would regret.

Mr. Partington also disapproved of the time Cassandra spent with Mr. Lisser, and told his wife so. “She is putting herself forward, it is always so. She talks to him as though she were an equal, another artist; very unbecoming behaviour in a young girl. And she is too often alone with him. While he has too much sense to take advantage, word will get around, tongues will wag. It is not appropriate for a Miss Darcy to be closeted for hours on end with a young man, however much their talk is of grounds and colours and form.”

“I have already mentioned the matter to her, my dear,” said Mrs. Partington in soothing tones.

So Cassandra had to snatch moments with Henry Lisser at such times as her mother was out visiting, and Mr. Partington was out inspecting a pig or giving instructions for his early wheat.

“I should like to paint Mr. Partington in his farmer’s smock,” said Mr. Lisser, showing Cassandra a sketch he had made without Mr. Partington’s knowledge. “He seems more at home out on the land than he does in the drawing room in his fine clothes. No, don’t frown, I am not speaking ill of your stepfather, I admire him for it. My father, also, is a keen farmer.” Again, that reserved look. Did he feel that his origins were low, that it was a disgrace to be the son of a farmer? Certainly, there was no hint of the clodpole about Mr. Lisser, his manners were polished and he was a man at ease in his company.

Although less so in Belle’s company; as the days passed, Cassandra noticed that he was stiff and uncomfortable when Belle was with them, and that there was a warmth in his eyes when he looked at her frivolous cousin that suggested his feelings for her might be deepening beyond mere flirtation.

There was nothing she could say, she could not advise a man several years her senior, a guest, a virtual stranger. But she did drop a hint as to the reason why Belle was at Rosings. He laughed, genuinely amused. “Miss Belle is of a type, but she is good-hearted beneath the frippery, I believe.”

Cassandra couldn’t agree with him, she thought Belle entirely heartless, and especially so to lead on a man in Henry Lisser’s position; it could bring nothing but unhappiness to him, and even trouble in his professional life. Why could not Belle be more careful what she was about?

It irked her slightly that the eyes and suspicions of her parents and even her governess were directed at her. She liked and admired Mr. Lisser, she was anxious to learn all she could from him, but as a man, he did not interest her. She had not yet met a man who did.

She remonstrated with Belle, who gave a familiar toss of her head, and pouted, and said that Cassandra knew nothing about it, and she was not flirting with Mr. Lisser, nor had he captured her heart, the idea was absurd.

“I am very sure that is the case,” Cassandra said. “For I know how attached you are to your Ferdie.”

“Ferdie?” said Belle. “Oh, him. Yes, of course.”

“I do believe she has forgotten him,” Cassandra said to Emily on her next visit to Croscombe House. “She is the most cold-hearted, thoughtless girl I ever met.”

“I do not think she is heartless, exactly,” said Emily. “I think she likes to flirt, and men take it more seriously than she intends, and then she likes the excitement and drama of a supposed attachment that she knows will not meet with her family’s approval, however worthy the man, because she is so young. One day, she will find a man she can give her heart to, and then she will change, you will see, it will all be different.”

Cassandra supposed that on matters of the heart, Emily knew much better than she, but she still wished that Belle were not at Rosings just now.

The picture was going on excellently, Mr. and Mrs. Partington were very pleased, and busy discussing where it might hang. Not in the gallery, that was too out of the way, no one ever went there, except the children in wet weather, when they slid up and down on the polished floor and played skittles. The great drawing room would be the best place, so fresh hangings and new wallpaper would be required. Samples of fabric and wall coverings were ordered down from London, and Cassandra’s mama became almost animated as she occupied herself with choosing and matching and planning.

Mr. Partington was out of doors most of the day, as the weather continued fine, and almost grudged the time required for his sittings. However, the picture was nearly done, it would soon be finished, would be taken to London for varnishing and framing, and then Mr. Lisser would be gone.

Belle grew melancholy at the prospect, and Cassandra began to suspect that Mr. Lisser was taking longer than necessary to finish his work. Poor deluded man; now, although she had rejoiced in his being in the house for so many hours each day, she longed for him to be gone, before Belle forgot herself, and found herself once again in disgrace.

It was not to be. It was Cassandra who found herself in disgrace, in deep and unjustified disgrace.

“Mrs. Lawton saw you, do not deny it,” her mother said, her voice tearful.

Mr. Partington was red with anger. “To be embracing a man, a guest in the house, and, I may point out, a man very much your social inferior, what were you about? If you had no thought for your own reputation, could you not consider in how difficult a situation you placed Mr. Lisser?”

“Shame on you for that,” cried her mother. “You have led him on.”

“Indeed you must have, for he is too sensible a man to behave in this way otherwise. I am outraged that such a thing should happen in my house,” announced Mr. Partington. “You will go to your room and stay there until I consider what is to be done with you.”

Why, Cassandra asked herself, had she not protested, defended herself, said at once that she had not lingered in the shrubbery with Mr. Lisser, no, nor any man?

Partly because she was so shocked at her parents’ at once jumping to the conclusion that if any young lady were dallying with a young man, then it must be Cassandra. They had immediately blamed her, without seeking any further for the truth, or even considering that Belle, who, after all, had a history of such a kind of behaviour, might be the young lady in Mr. Lisser’s arms.

Nor did they seem inclined to hold Mr. Lisser himself at fault: They assumed he had been led on, had taken Cassandra’s free and easy ways for something quite else, and had supposed that it must arise from careless parents, who were not troubled to restrain and guide their daughter into a proper way of behaving.

She also felt a sisterly solidarity that meant she was reluctant to accuse Belle, who was, after all, already in trouble with her family. And she had an inkling that if she were the guilty party, Mr. Lisser would not be held so much at fault, whereas if he had been embracing Belle, then the guilt would be entirely his.

She wasn’t quite sure why this should be, but it was. So she held her chin high and said nothing as the tide of Mr. Partington’s wrath flowed over her. Once out of his presence, though, she went upstairs to her own chamber so swiftly that at the end she was positively running, anxious to reach the privacy of her room before giving way to the rage that threatened to overcome her.

She taxed Belle with it that evening, after a miserable dinner of bread and water; did her stepfather think he was living between the covers of one of those despised novels?

“It was you with Mr. Lisser, was it not?”

Belle pouted and hung her head.

“I am sure it was, so you need not trouble yourself to lie. Why do you not say so?”

A jumbled, mumbled speech came out, of her parents’ dismay, of not wishing to bring any harm to Henry—

Henry, forsooth? Cassandra said to herself.

—of her fear that he might be sent away, that she might be sent away, that they might be parted; the words flowed disjointedly from Belle’s pretty lips, and her violet eyes brimmed with tears.

“And what if they send me away?” said Cassandra.

Belle brightened. “Why, it would be the best thing in the world for you to be away from Rosings.”

“What, under a cloud?”

“Oh, as to that, talk of clouds is all nonsense. What is a stolen kiss, after all? It is nothing so very much.”

“Kisses exchanged with a person of our own order might not matter so very much, as you say, but Mr. Lisser is not in that position. Besides, to my mother and stepfather it does matter. Mr. Partington is old-fashioned in his views.”

Belle cast Cassandra a long, thoughtful look. “He dislikes you, so I dare say he is building it all up, just so that he may send you away.”

Cassandra was astonished that Belle should have so much insight, for she didn’t care to admit to Mr. Partington’s dislike of her even to herself. She and her stepfather had never got on very well, it was true, but then a man of his type and age would expect to have nothing in common with a young lady, any young lady, let alone one with a mind of her own.

“I am surprised your mother will allow him to ride roughshod over you,” Belle was saying, “but it is often so in marriages. I shall make very sure that I do not marry a man who has anything of the tyrant in him. Henry has a very sweet disposition, and—”

“You need not talk of Mr. Lisser in that way, for you know that is all a hum about marriage; you would not be permitted to marry Mr. Lisser.”

A mulish look came over Belle’s face. “I am very tired, and I want to blow out my candle and go to sleep, so I would be obliged if you would leave me. Besides, you are supposed to stay in your own chamber, there will be more trouble for you if you are found creeping around, you will be locked in.”

At any other time, Cassandra might have laughed at Belle’s effrontery. Only the situation was too serious for that, and she found herself wishing with all her heart that Belle had never come to Rosings. She sat down to pen a note to Emily, to tell her what had happened, and early the next morning she had a reply.

Mrs. Partington had driven over to Mrs. Croscombe first thing, supposedly to bring her neighbour a basket of fruit from Rosings’ succession houses, but in fact to bemoan the wickedness of her elder daughter, and complain how ill-natured her husband was at present.

“She will sacrifice you to have peace at home,” Emily wrote, “and I believe both your parents are anxious lest this means the portrait will not be finished. Mama has said that it is all nonsense to make so much fuss, that she does not believe you at all attached to Mr. Lisser—no mention of Belle was made—and that your mama had much better take up the old plan of your going to London to stay with your cousins the Fitzwilliams.”

Mr. Partington would not hear of it. What, let loose in London a girl who had shown so clearly that she had such scant respect for the conventions or what was due from a girl of her breeding? It was not to be thought of. And, while he would not speak ill of his dear wife’s family, he had no very good opinion of Lady Fanny, whose life was given over to pleasure and frivolity.

Mrs. Partington roused herself to protest, “My dear, she is a very good mother to her children.”

“That is as may be, but I notice that she was unable to control Mr. Darcy’s daughters when they were in London last year.”

“Three of the girls have made very good matches.”

“Indeed, you think so? There is Miss Camilla married to a rackety man, never content to stay in England and attend to his estates, while Miss Georgina ran off with Sir Joshua, yes, I know they were married and it was all hushed up and covered over, but that does not excuse the sin. And they are obliged to live in Paris, which is a less censorious, in fact a lax city, but I would not wish for any such fate to befall any daughter of mine, nor even a stepdaughter.”

“Letty married a clergyman,” said his wife in placatory tones.

“That is true, but he is not sound on doctrine, he has a very liberal, free-thinking way about him, which I cannot approve. No, it will not do. London is a sink of corruption, a den of iniquity, she cannot go there.”

Mrs. Partington much disliked it when her husband remembered that he was still an ordained clergyman; fortunately, except when a fit of morality came upon him, he thought more about mangel-wurzels and spring corn than about God these days.

It seemed, though, when his mind did turn to spiritual matters, that he was much more strict and rigid in his principles than he had ever been when inhabiting the parsonage at Hunsford. Then he had reproved the village girls who got into trouble, but married them just the same, large bellies and all. Now, when he heard of those who had fallen from the narrow path of virtue, he was wont to recommend hellfire and a good whipping as a suitable remedy for the sin.

“I’m sure you know best,” Mrs. Partington said. “Perhaps Bath, I believe it is a very quiet, genteel place these days.”

“I was on the very point of suggesting it, had you not interrupted me,” he said. “She shall go to my sister Cathcart, that will be best. And I shall tell her to look around at once for a husband, it is the only thing for Cassandra, then she will pass into another’s hands, and there will be no opportunity for her lax ways to be passed on to our daughters.”

“No, heaven forbid,” said Mrs. Partington, who hadn’t considered this alarming possibility. Secretly, she thought that Mr. Partington was making too much of it all, as Mrs. Croscombe had forcefully pointed out. Yet at the same time she felt that life at Rosings might go on more agreeably without her older daughter’s presence.

Mr. Partington was delighted by the opportunity to be rid of Cassandra—for once and for all, if his sister did her duty. And there was no reason why she should not. She had raised three daughters on the strictest principles, and sent three meek and dutiful young ladies off into the arms of highly respectable husbands. Well, she could do the same for the troublesome Miss Darcy. And he would no longer have to put up with that quizzical look she had, as though seeing straight through you, nor with all that haughty Darcy pride and her strong-willed ways.

“In some ways, she is very like my dear mama,” murmured his wife.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Partington. “Lady Catherine filled her high position with grace and a strong sense of duty. Cassandra is simply a spoilt young miss. You have indulged her too much, with all this painting and so forth, and now see what has come of it. I told you it would be so.”

Chapter Five

The journey to Bath was one of more than an hundred and fifty miles, a considerable distance, and not one to be covered in a single day. Cassandra and her cousin were to change horses at the Bell in Bromley, on the first part of their journey from Hunsford, and to spend the night with their cousin Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam, in her house in Aubrey Square in London.

From London, Cassandra might very well travel on the mail, her mother had said peevishly, but Mr. Partington pursed his lips. While always keen to save his pocket, he knew it would not do, a Miss Darcy, the granddaughter of a Lady Catherine, could not travel on the mail, even accompanied by a maid. Besides, what would his sister Mrs. Cathcart say when Cassandra arrived at the posting inn instead of driving up to her front door in Laura Place, as befitted her rank in life?

Their send-off was no very merry affair. There were pleasant enough farewells for Belle, but nothing more than a few moralising words from Mr. Partington and a sad look and mournful expression on her mother’s part for Cassandra, which her daughter knew had nothing to do with her missing her and everything to do with her supposedly shocking behaviour.

“I have sent an express to my sister giving her full details of this shameful affair,” Mr. Partington said repressively. “So she knows what has led us to send you to Bath, do not imagine that she will receive you in any spirit of holiday.”

Thank you, Cassandra said inwardly, as the groom let go the horses’ heads and the carriage moved forward, to bowl down the drive, through the great gates, and along the road by the parsonage. The parson was in his garden, sweeping off his broad-brimmed, black hat and bowing as the carriage went by, and further along, as they swept through the village, Cassandra saw Emily standing in front of Mrs. Humble’s shop, waving furiously as she went past. At least there was one smiling face to see her off.

Belle sat back against the squabs, looking thoroughly discontented. “It’s too bad that I have to be packed off to London, just because they think you’ve been misbehaving and might have been a bad influence on me. I don’t see the reason in that.”

“They feel you would find it dull, with no one of your own age to keep you company.”

“Much they know, how could it be dull with Henry there?” For a moment, Belle glowed. Then the dissatisfied look came back to her face. “Besides, I’m supposed to find it dull, I was only sent to Rosings because of the fuss everybody made about my marrying Ferdie.”

“Do you still want to marry him?”

Belle cast her cousin a dark look. “Of course I do not. It does not matter whom I wish to marry, they will always say no, I am too young, I do not know what I want, on and on and on. Were they never young, were they never in love? It is too bad, and I hate them all.”

The rest of the journey to London was accomplished with no mishap beyond Belle throwing a tantrum when she remembered she had left a favourite novel behind on the sofa in her room.

“I had not finished it, and it was so exciting, what am I to read now?”

“I dare say you may find a copy of it in one of the libraries, or Lady Fanny may have it, if it is a new book.”

“Oh, yes, well, perhaps you are right, everyone is reading it, to be sure, and I dare say Fanny will have subscribed for it.”

The carriage turned into Aubrey Square as the shadows were lengthening across the garden in the centre of the square. Lady Fanny’s children came running to the gate to greet their cousins, pursued by a harassed nursemaid, bidding them to “Give over, do, and remember your manners.”

“I do not know how it is, but there is always a bustle and noise when any of the Darcy girls arrive, they are all the same,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam to his wife. But he greeted his cousins affectionately enough, observing that Cassandra had grown a good deal since he’d last seen her. Belle, who knew to perfection how to please any man, be he boy or lover or staid older cousin, dimpled at him, and swept a pretty curtsy and won herself a pinched cheek and a “Well, here you are again, Cousin, and in mighty fine looks; country life suits you.”

That earned him a pout and a toss of her fair hair. “It does not, not at all, it is so dull in the country I can’t tell you, nothing but green and no paths that aren’t muddy and hardly anyone to talk to or call on, unless you make a great trek to some other house.”

He laughed, thinking how pretty and agreeable she was; while Cassandra, whom he didn’t know at all well, had that Darcy look, which he never liked to see in a young woman. Pride and intelligence sat ill on feminine shoulders, he considered, look at Alethea Darcy, the image of her imperious father and a rare handful. Now thankfully married off. “They’ll have trouble finding a husband for Cassandra,” he said to his wife, as they made ready for bed. “She will put the men off and find she has but few suitors to choose from. Unlike Belle, who grows prettier every day.”

“Who has all too much choice, with the men all wild for her as they are,” said Fanny, with a yawn. She passed her earrings to her hovering maid. “Belle needs an older man, someone who will be a steadying influence.”

“Cassandra will have to change her ways or she will get no husband at all, not if she makes a habit of slipping away to the shrubbery with unsuitable men. A foreign painter, I never heard of such a thing!”

“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe a word of it. Very likely Anne made a mistake, you know how often she gets hold of the wrong end of a story. Cassandra has grown into a very handsome young woman; I wish she may find a husband soon, for I do not think life at Rosings can be easy for her.”

Neither Lady Fanny nor Mr. Fitzwilliam cared for Anne’s second husband, Mr. Fitzwilliam stigmatising him as a prosy bore and Lady Fanny of the opinion that his deep-set eyes were far too close together.

The next day, Cassandra set off for Bath, slightly wistful at not being able to spend any time in London, but consoled by Fanny’s assurances that London was hot and too full of company at that time of year, and she would find Bath a delightful place for shopping and amusements. “And we shall be setting off ourselves, tomorrow,” she said, giving Cassandra a soft, affectionate hug. “We are going with Belle to Pemberley, you know, for a stay of several weeks.”

“Pemberley!” said Belle without enthusiasm. “More country; Lord, how bored I shall be.”

Cassandra was heartily bored herself by the time she and Petifer reached Bath the next day, after a tedious if uneventful journey. There were delightful things to be seen from the carriage, but the motion was too great and their speed too fast for her to be able to make any more than the roughest sketches. She had brought a book with her, but it made her feel queasy to read, and so she sat back and let the passing landscape slip by.

She was heartily glad when they reached the final stage of their journey. As they made their way down the hill into Bath, the air thickened, the coachman was obliged to slow his horses to a walking pace, and Cassandra sat up to take in the to-ing and fro-ing of coaches and carriages and carts and riders and pedestrians. Her spirits rose. She had parted from her family in disgrace, it was true, and Mrs. Cathcart was the least amiable of her relations, but Bath must have compensations to offer to a young woman who had spent so much of her life hitherto in the quiet seclusion of the Kent countryside.

Chapter Six

Mr. Partington’s sister Cathcart was a widow who had been left comfortably off, and whose life in Bath was largely taken up with gossip and religion. Life in Bath suited her exactly; genteel society, but not so grand that it would despise the relict of a successful merchant, and its daily round of meeting friends at the Pump Room, with perhaps a visit to the theatre or a ball in the evenings, for Mrs. Cathcart, although a religious woman, was no puritan.

She did, however, have stern views on the behaviour and upbringing of girls. On her visits to Rosings, she had been shocked to see how much licence was permitted to Cassandra, and had spoken to her sister-in-law about it. “If she is allowed to run wild in this way, and indulge her fancies, you will pay for it later on, for she will never find herself a husband.”

She had learned with satisfaction of Cassandra’s disgraceful behaviour, for she loved to be proved right in her judgements. It was a good thing they had sent the girl to Bath, before it was too late, she thought, as she devoured the shocking tale written to her in her brother’s neat, small hand. Under her strict and careful guidance, the hoydenish and wilful side of her nature might be suppressed, at least enough for her to be found a suitable husband, for it was, her brother informed her, his and his wife’s dearest wish that Cassandra might be married off as quickly as possible. Before she got herself into worse trouble, and, he added bluntly, so that he might be relieved of her presence at Rosings. She was a bad influence on the younger children, he feared, and would no doubt be happier in an establishment of her own, preferably at the other side of the country and under the care of a watchful and no doubt stern husband.

As soon as she received her brother’s letter, Mrs. Cathcart put on her newest bonnet and sailed round to her near neighbour in Henrietta Street, a Mrs. Quail, to talk the matter over. Mrs. Quail had but one daughter, a plain girl somewhat older than Cassandra, who had recently become engaged to a worthy gentleman who had a good estate and a seat in Parliament.

Together, over several cups of tea, made by Mrs. Quail herself, for she was not inclined to hand over the key to her tea chest to any of the servants, with it the best China, and costing an amazing number of shillings the pound, the two women discussed the marriageable talent presently in Bath.

“Mr. Bedford might do. A civil, agreeable young man, but they say he is of a consumptive constitution, and while it is no bad thing to be a widow, it is best postponed for a few years in the case of such a young woman as Miss Darcy.” There was always Sir Gilbert Jesperson, but somehow he did not seem to be the marrying kind, no end of keen mamas had dangled their daughters in front of him, but to no avail.

“They say,” Mrs. Quail said, lowering her voice, although there were no others present in her handsome drawing room, “that he has a mistress in keeping, and that it suits him very well to remain single.”

Mrs. Cathcart professed herself shocked, although the mistress came as no news to her. “In these immoral times, men do marry and keep the mistress as well, but I could not condone such behaviour. We will leave Sir Gilbert to one side.”

“There is Mr. Makepiece—only he is rather old, is he not past forty?”

“An older man might do very well for my niece. She is a headstrong girl, not at all well brought up, although it pains me to say so, and an older man might suit her very well, an older man has more authority over a young wife, you know.”

“I did hear, it was only a rumour, to be sure, that Mr. Makepiece has offered for Miss Carteret.”

Mrs. Cathcart’s eyebrows shot up. “That I had not heard.” She gave a sniff. “I would have thought a mere Honourable not high enough for Lady Dalrymple’s daughter, such airs as that woman gives herself, for you cannot say that a viscountcy is the same thing as an earldom.”

Mr. Frankson was considered, and rejected, too much of the shop about him, although of course he was very wealthy. “I do not think my dear brother would approve the connection,” Mrs. Cathcart said. “Tobacco is profitable, but low.”

A pause, while both ladies took small sips of the fragrantly scented tea, and then Mrs. Quail put down her cup and gave a little cry of triumph. “I have it! Why did I not think of him at once? Mr. Wexford is come to Bath, to take the waters. He would be the very man for your niece.”

“Mr. Wexford? I do not know the name, and why does he take the waters? An invalid is not a good prospect as a husband, even for my niece, for there is the question of children to be considered. Is Mr. Wexford an elderly gentleman—I assume he is a gentleman?”

“No, no, he is in his thirties, and not at all an invalid. He had a bad fall from his horse a while back, and the doctors have recommended the hot baths for his knee, which has not perfectly healed. Otherwise, he is of a sound constitution. He has a good estate not far from Bath, at Combe Magna, and is of an excellent sound family. He was engaged to be married some years ago, but the young lady, she was a Gregson, if I remember rightly, was killed in a carriage accident, a tragic affair. It was before you came to Bath, otherwise you would know all about it, and about Mr. Wexford.”

Mrs. Cathcart didn’t care to admit to any gaps in her knowledge. “I have heard his name and of his misfortune, of course, now you remind me. I believe he has not recently been in Bath?”

“No, but here he is now, just at this very time when we need him, what could be more fortunate?”

“You are acquainted with him, I take it?”

“Indeed, I am, for his late father and my dear husband were at Cambridge together.”

“A man of some fortune, you say?”

“What my husband would call a very tidy fortune, no great wealth, but sufficient to keep a wife in comfort. Pray”—coming to the heart of the matter with feigned indifference—“what may Miss Darcy’s portion be?”

“As to that, there is a son, you know, and two more daughters to be provided for.”

Mrs. Cathcart was striking a delicate balance here. Whilst she knew that her brother wanted her to find a husband for Cassandra that would take her with the smallest possible share of the fortune that was to be divided among the girls by their mother, which meant in practice by Mr. Partington, she liked the consequence of having a niece, even a stepniece, who was in possession of a handsome fortune. “All these Darcys are as rich as may be,” she added carelessly.

And although Mrs. Cathcart was eager to find a match for Cassandra, she would prefer that her niece didn’t marry a richer man than her own daughters had. Mr. Wexford sounded as though he might do very well.

“I do not know why I did not think of him sooner,” said Mrs. Quail. “And you say that your niece is a high-spirited girl—”

“I shall soon put her in a better way of behaving.”

“Miss Gregson, you see, was a lively girl. So another such might well take his fancy. If you wish, I will write to him directly, my servant can very quickly find out where he lodges, and then we may arrange for a meeting. When does Miss Darcy arrive?”

Chapter Seven

Cassandra went to bed on the night of her arrival in Bath tired after the journey, and no longer in good spirits. Mrs. Cathcart was worse than she remembered her: officious, disapproving, and moralising. Cassandra had had to endure a lecture over supper on her folly, how grave could be the consequences of any straying from the true path of virtue, and how her aunt, if she might call herself so, expected conduct of the most correct kind while she was in Bath.

“For bad news travels fast, you know, and we cannot count on word of your shocking behaviour in Rosings not having already reached Bath.”

Cassandra, endeavouring not to yawn, felt quite sure it had, Mrs. Cathcart would have seen to that, if she were any judge. And it was all so absurd, over an embrace in the garden that had never in fact taken place. You would think she had attempted to run off with a groom; almost she wished she had, if it had spared her the prospect of several weeks in Mrs. Cathcart’s company.

“And there is to be none of that drawing and sketching and painting while you are here. My brother is strongly of the opinion that you have been allowed too much freedom in that direction, and what should be one of many accomplishments has taken on too much importance in your life.”

Cassandra, before she went to bed, asked Petifer to hide the sketchbooks and crayons and water-colours and brushes she had brought with her; she wouldn’t put it past her aunt to remove them if she knew about them.

The next morning, with the natural ebullience of youth, Cassandra awoke feeling that things weren’t so very bad. True, there was the oppressive Mrs. Cathcart, but then there was also Bath: new sights and scenes, shops and people, and the sun was shining, and who knew what the day might bring?

The first thing the day brought was the sturdy, thin-lipped Miss Quail, come at her mother’s bidding, to take Miss Darcy out for a walk, and show her something of Bath.

“Of course,” said her mother, “Mrs. Cathcart will go with her to write her name in the visitors’ book and all that kind of thing, but first she may learn her way around with you, for it is to be understood that she may never go out unless under supervision.”

Mrs. Cathcart had, the previous evening, relieved Cassandra of the sum of money which Mr. Partington had bestowed upon her when she’d left Rosings. Since she knew to the penny how much this was, it was clear that it had been arranged beforehand. “It is not suitable for a young girl to have so much money”—it was, Cassandra thought, a miserly sum, to last her for a long stay—“so I will take care of it, and you may ask me for such small sums as you may need to disburse while you are here. There cannot be many expenses, you know, while you are my guest.”

Now she gave Cassandra exactly enough to pay for a subscription at the circulating library. “I do not approve of novels, and you are not to bring any into the house”—how like her brother, Cassandra thought—“but you may borrow works of an improving nature. It is quite the thing to go to the library to exchange your books, it would be thought odd if you did not do so.”

Along with her sketchbooks and paints, Cassandra had carefully hidden some money that her aunt knew nothing about. Her mother had given her ten pounds—guilt money, Cassandra thought bitterly—with an injunction not to tell her stepfather about it, it was for those little fripperies that a girl might need, which Mr. Partington didn’t precisely understand.

In addition, Mrs. Croscombe had pressed a note on her, via Emily. “Mama says she is sure that Mr. P. will send you off with very little money—no, it is a present, she will be offended if you do not accept it.”

And then she had some money of her own put by; although she spent most of her allowance on her materials, she had some money left to her by her godmother, paid quarterly; not a large sum, and one that Mr. Partington insisted on seeing accounts for, but accounts need not be strictly accurate.

How odd it was that strict morality led to deception and less than openness, Cassandra said to herself as she put on a straw bonnet trimmed with cherries.

The cherries did not meet with Mrs. Cathcart’s approval. “Cherries? This fashion for fruit on hats is most unsuitable. Still, if you have nothing else to wear, I suppose it is not possible to remove them just now.”

“Not without tearing the straw away,” said Cassandra, determined at all costs to keep her cherries.

Cassandra did not take to Miss Quail, who had a solemn way about her, and a great deal of satisfaction at being an engaged woman. She brought the phrase into her conversation at every opportunity, as they walked across Pulteney Bridge and into the main part of town. “As an engaged woman, I’m sure you will allow me to tell you how one should go on in Bath. I understand you have led a very retired life until now.”

“I live in the country, but I suppose I shall go on in Bath much as I would anywhere else.”

“No, indeed, for within the privacy of a country estate, behaviour passes without comment, whereas in Bath, let me assure you, as an engaged woman with some knowledge of life, this is not the case at all; one cannot be too careful about one’s reputation.”

She lowered her voice, as if Cassandra’s reputation were in danger from the mere mention of the word.

“A young girl, a young single girl, cannot be too careful,” she reiterated.

They walked up Milsom Street, Miss Quail prosing on, while Cassandra’s eyes were everywhere, delighting in the busy streets and shops. Somehow, she must contrive to slip out on her own, and make some purchases, which she knew her hostess would not permit.

“There are a remarkable number of people in chairs and on crutches,” she observed. “That must be depressing after a while, to live in a place with so many people in poor health.”

Miss Quail bristled. “It is only a small number, I assure you, there is nowhere in the whole kingdom less depressing to the spirits than Bath. At this time of day, you know, the invalids come out to go to drink the waters, or take the hot bath.”

“Where will you live when you are married?” said Cassandra, not wishing to goad Miss Quail any further.

“In Bristol, my dearest Mr. Northcott lives in Bristol. Well, not in Bristol itself, not in the city, of course, he has an estate at Clifton, a house with a park around it. And we are to have two carriages,” she added with pride. “I suppose you keep a carriage at your home in Kent? Mrs. Kingston tells us that Rosings is a considerable property.”

Cassandra stared at her; what was this talk about carriages? “We keep a carriage, yes,” she said.

“And I dare say a great many horses? Mr. Northcott has a pair of carriage horses, in addition to his own horse. Some people merely hire them, you know, but we are to have our own pair.”

“Is there always such a glare from the buildings? I think Bath is very hot in summer, I wonder that people choose to come.”

“Indeed, it can be rather warm, but that is partly the hot waters, you know. People say there is positively a miasma hanging over the city on some days, but I have never noticed it, I find it a very good climate. Not as good as the air of Clifton, of course, we shall be in a very good air in Clifton. Now, here we are at the library. If you put your name down, I will show you where the books are that you will want to borrow.”

As she led the way to a shelf full of very dull-looking essays and sermons, she felt that here was another reason for slipping out on her own, so that she might borrow the kind of books she wanted to read.

“Why, you have chosen nothing,” said Miss Quail, clutching a fat volume. From the way her hand hid the title, and she sidled away from Cassandra to have the book written down for her, Cassandra had a strong suspicion that the chosen book was a far cry from being a worthy tome such as had been recommended to her. So Miss Quail was hypocritical as well as tiresome; it didn’t surprise her.

They walked to the Pump Room, where they joined Mrs. Quail and Mrs. Cathcart, and Cassandra was introduced to their numerous acquaintance, a tribe of women all very much the same as themselves, all holding themselves quite stiff in the presence of a Miss Darcy, for however much Mrs. Cathcart might talk about her brother Partington as though he were the master of Rosings, they knew that he had been a mere clergyman, whereas Cassandra was the granddaughter of a Lady Catherine, and related to an earl and other members of the nobility.

Altogether, Cassandra reflected, as she stood, head bowed, at the dinner table, while Mrs. Cathcart intoned an interminable grace, an interesting day. Not interesting in itself, but in the information it provided as to the likely course of her stay in Bath. The first, and most important, thing was to find some time to herself. Were she always to find herself in the company of Mrs. Cathcart and the Quails, she would go mad.

Cassandra, although she had learned to be careful about keeping some of her artistic pursuits out of sight of her stepfather, was not, by nature, a dissembler. Her frank and open manners were one of the characteristics that Mr. Partington disliked, and she was not entirely sure how she might go about achieving any degree of independence for herself. She felt uncomfortable being under scrutiny all the time; there must be a way to be alone.

The next day was Sunday, and here she saw an opportunity. Although Mrs. Carthcart’s brother was a clergyman of the Established Church, she had married a Methodist, and she herself chose to worship among the small group who gathered at the chapel of the Countess of Huntington, feeling that the aristocratic foundations of the Methodist sect gave it extra lustre. She rather hoped that she could require Cassandra to go with her, but here Cassandra felt on sure ground. She was a member of the Church of England, her mama would be upset to learn that she had not attended divine service at a suitable church.

“Such as the Abbey,” she suggested. “I shall go to the Abbey.”

And, she thought, sit at the back, and slip out while no one is looking, and have at least a chance of a walk by myself.

Mrs. Cathcart had to agree. She could not foist either of the Quails on to Cassandra, for they were also Methodists. “You must take your maid, it will not do for you to be out unaccompanied.”

Nothing could suit Cassandra’s purposes better, and she sallied forth to attend the service, with Petifer beside her, both of them pleased to be out of the house. “For a more witless set of servants I never saw,” she told Cassandra.

They duly slipped out of the Abbey, Petifer shaking her head when she realised what Cassandra was about. They walked swiftly away from the Abbey, into one of the smaller, quieter streets on the other side of Union Street. There, after a short tussle, they parted, Petifer agreeing to spend an hour looking around the town, while Cassandra spent some time on her own.

“Don’t look so put out, Petifer; you have seen for yourself how many young ladies go about alone. There won’t be so very many people about at this time, they will be at home or in church until after twelve.”

“Where are you going?”

“Only up Milsom Street and from there up into the Broad Walk, the air will be pleasant up there.” Cassandra went briskly off, very pleased of the opportunity to stretch her legs and have the pleasure of her own company for a while. She had a small sketchbook tucked in her reticule, and after a stroll along the Broad Walk, she sat herself on a bench and became absorbed in drawing the details of the scene around her.

She felt, rather than saw, a hovering presence, and looked up. A young man was standing a few feet away, watching her intently. As she saw him, he bowed, and apologised for disturbing her.

“You do not do so, and you will not do so if you walk on,” she said. He was a gentleman, by his voices and clothes. A good-looking man, with dark red hair and a pale complexion that spoke of Celtic ancestry. She wondered if he were going to make a nuisance of himself, try to scrape her acquaintance, but he took off his hat, bowed once more, and apologised again for disturbing her, then strode away.

Her work interrupted, she made an impromptu sketch of the redheaded man she had just encountered, for there was a liveliness about him that she liked. Then she returned to her earlier sketch, working diligently and, as so often when absorbed in a picture, losing all sense of time.

She was jolted out of her work by Petifer’s indignant voice sounding in her ears: “I knew how it would be, once you sat down and took out that sketchbook. The service finished a good while ago, everyone is out of church now.”

“We were to meet in the lower part of town,” said Cassandra, as she tucked away her sketchbook and pencil.

“I knew I would still be there waiting for you an hour hence, so I came to find you.”

“What time does Mrs. Cathcart return from church, do you suppose?” Cassandra asked as they set off down the hill and back towards Laura Place.

“It’s a long service at that chapel she goes to, from what the servants say, and I think they talk together afterwards.”

“If we hurry, we shall be home before her,” Cassandra said, and quickened her pace.

Which they were, by a few moments, but that was enough for Petifer to vanish into the basement, and for Cassandra to run upstairs and whisk off her hat. As they ate a nuncheon of cold meats, Mrs. Cathcart interrogated Cassandra on the sermon she had heard, which questions Cassandra was hard put to answer, falling back in the end on memories of one of the Hunsford parson’s less dull sermons. However, Mrs. Cathcart wasn’t really interested in what passed for a sermon in the Church of England, and instead bored Cassandra with a detailed account of the excellent sermon that the Reverend Snook had preached.

Cassandra was startled by Mrs. Cathcart’s enthusiasm for fire and brimstone and the tortures of the damned, and she wondered whether her aunt felt that she was numbered among the sinners and likely to pay for those sins in the world to come.

“Tomorrow,” Mrs. Cathcart informed her, “I have arranged a treat for you.”

Cassandra’s heart sank.

“We are to go for a picnic, on Lansdowne. Bath is very stuffy just now, and it will do us good to breathe a fresher air for a few hours. Mrs. Quail and her daughter will accompany us, and some others. We shall be quite a little party.”

Chapter Eight

Mr. Northcott, who was engaged to Miss Quail, was a stolid young man with a large nose and an air of self-consequence. Miss Quail hung upon his arm and simpered and smirked, while Mrs. Quail beamed her approval: “Such a handsome young couple, don’t you think? And”—in a whisper—“an income of at least two thousand a year.”

They went in an open carriage, with the young ladies sitting forward, and Mr. Northcott trotting alongside on horseback. It was a slow haul up the steep hills, but the air became noticeably better as they made the ascent, and Cassandra was, after all, glad that she had come.

Mrs. Quail had arranged a meeting place, a shady spot beneath some trees, and they were the first to arrive. “We are waiting for Mrs. Lawson and her daughter, a most amiable creature, very young, only just out of the schoolroom,” Mrs. Quail told Cassandra. “And my dear friend Mr. Wexford, and a guest of his, a Mr. Eyre, I believe, make up our party. Now, here, even as I speak, is Mrs. Lawson’s carriage arriving, and close on their heels Mr. Wexford and his friend.”

When Cassandra had met the redheaded man on the Broad Walk, she had had no idea who he was, had supposed that she might meet him again while she was in Bath, although it seemed unlikely that he would move in Mrs. Cathcart’s circle. Yet there was a kind of inevitability to this, their second meeting.

Cassandra was introduced, first to Mrs. Lawson, then to Mr. Wexford, by Mrs. Quail, and finally the man with the red hair, who had been standing back, was ushered forward with something like pride by Mr. Wexford. Mr. Wexford was very tall, very thin, and had a bland but agreeable enough countenance. Had Cassandra been asked five minutes after they were introduced to describe him, she could not have done so.

“This is Lieutenant Eyre, of the Royal Navy, who is presently staying with me, while waiting for a ship,” said Mr. Wexford.

Mr. Eyre’s manners were excellent, even if his mouth twitched when Mrs. Cathcart, disapproval written all over her, began to question him about his antecedents. Mrs. Quail discovered more by drawing Mr. Wexford to one side and plying him with questions about his guest.

“He seems a pleasant young man, is he cast ashore on half pay?” This was the fate of many naval officers, with the war over, and chances of promotion hard to come by.

“He is, but he has many good friends, and hopes to have another ship soon.” Lowering his voice, Mr. Wexford went on, “He is the Earl of Littleton’s son, you know. A younger son, he has four older brothers, and it is an Irish title, of course, but coming of a good family, being a gentleman, as it were, still carries weight in the Royal Navy, I am glad to say.”

“And I am glad to hear it,” cried Mrs. Quail. She was longing to ask if the young man had means of his own, or whether he had to live on the hundred or so pounds a year that the government paid a serving lieutenant when he was ashore.

“He is not a rich man,” Mr. Wexford said, “but he is very good at his profession and will make his mark in the world, I am sure. He fought in some notable actions, he was on board the Shannon, when the Chesapeake was taken in the American war, were you not, James?”

Mr. Eyre took his eyes from Cassandra and laughed. “I was a mid-shipman you know, the lowest of the low, but, yes, I was there, it was a notable engagement, and a very bloody one.”

Miss Lawson rolled her eyes in his direction, it was clear that she had taken a liking to the red-haired young man. “Were you wounded?”

“A mere scratch, nothing in comparison to some of the officers and men. But it was worth it,” he added, a fine fervour showing in his face.

Mrs. Cathcart decided that she didn’t care for this young man with his Irish ancestry and hair and fine manners. She almost pushed Cassandra forward, towards Mr. Wexford. “My dear, this is an historic place, as Mr. Wexford can tell you. Was not there a great battle fought here, Mr. Wexford, during the English war?”

“There was indeed,” said Mr. Wexford, his face brightening. “Is Miss Darcy interested in history?”

“Indeed she is,” said Mrs. Cathcart, before Cassandra had a chance to answer. Cassandra had not the slightest interest in history, was, in fact, woefully ignorant upon the subject, although she had heard tell of the Civil War in the century before last, when the king fought Parliament and lost his head as a consequence.

Mr. Wexford was not at all ignorant of the war. In fact he was appallingly well-informed, and a stream of information, from the death of Strafford to the defeat of Charles II at Worcester—“with his famous flight and hiding up an oak tree, you will know the story, Miss Darcy.” He also knew every detail of the battle that had been fought on that very spot, and he expounded with enthusiasm about the positioning of the Roundhead forces, the charge that Prince Rupert had made, and the exact regiments that were involved.

Cassandra was too polite not to listen, but her eyes slid round to where Eyre was talking to Miss Lawson, what could he find to talk about in that animated way to her? She wished she might be talking to him, instead of being obliged to endure a history lesson from Mr. Wexford. Fortunately, their lunch was now spread out beneath the trees, and she could be spared any more facts and figures about what seemed to have been an interminable war.

Mrs. Cathcart took pains to make sure that Mr. Eyre was not seated anywhere near Cassandra; her sharp eyes had noticed the effect he was having upon Miss Lawson, and even Miss Quail, while apparently listening to Mr. Northcott imparting some tedious anecdotes of the Civil War, had been giving the young man some covert glances.

Cassandra found herself sitting next to Miss Lawson, who was shy, and who turned big, anxious eyes towards Cassandra when she was addressed by her. But she grew more at ease, finding that Miss Darcy wasn’t as toplofty and disagreeable as Miss Quail had said, and confided to her, as they ate a delicate honey ham pasty, that her mama had said that Miss Darcy was to make a match of it with Mr. Wexford, and was that indeed so?

Cassandra nearly choked on her food. “Why,” she said in a much louder voice than she had intended, then, more quietly, “that is all nonsense, I have only met the man today, and I have no intention of marrying anyone just at present.”

Colour flared into Miss Lawson’s cheeks. “Oh, I am sorry, then, to have spoken as I did. I must have misunderstood. So many girls come to Bath looking for husbands, you know, and they say Mr. Wexford is a very good catch, for he is quite rich. Only, he’s rather old, don’t you think?”

“In his thirties, I would imagine,” Cassandra said, having recovered her calm. “Too old for one of your years, perhaps, or indeed for me, but he will do very well for some young woman of six- or seven-and-twenty who may be looking out for a husband.”

“La, would he marry such an old maid?” said Miss Lawson, looking shocked. “My mama says I’m too young to be thinking of a husband, for I am but seventeen, but my best friend from school was married at seventeen, indeed on her seventeenth birthday, do not you think that odd?”

Lunch was over, and a walk was agreed upon, a gentle walk of a mile or two along the ridge would offer them a most astonishing view. “And I can show you where the Royalist army camped the night before the battle,” Mr. Wexford said to Cassandra.

Quite how it happened, Cassandra was never sure, but as the group walked along the lane, Mr. Wexford fell into deep conversation with Mrs. Cathcart, Mrs. Quail kept up with them, wanting to hear what they were saying, Mrs. Lawson, no great walker, fell behind, and then said she would rest on the bank, and await their return; that her daughter would stay with her—at which what was almost a pout might be seen on Miss Lawson’s pretty face—and so it was that Cassandra found herself walking beside the gallant lieutenant.

How different his conversation was from that of any man she had known. He was witty and droll, and told stories about naval life that were about other men, not about himself. He drew her out, but in a courteous way, that could give no offence, asked her about her drawing—“For when I saw you on Sunday, you were sketching, were not you?”—and said that he had met a Miss Darcy, a Miss Isabel Darcy, in London; was she a relation? An entrancing creature,” he said, “and I am sure I heard that she was engaged to a Mr. Roper.”

“Nothing came of that,” Cassandra said. “There never was anything in it. She has lately been staying with us. Are you making a long stay in Bath, Mr. Eyre?”

“I wasn’t,” he said at once, “but I find that there are one or two things that may keep me in the area for a little while yet.”

Chapter Nine

Cassandra was in love. It had come to her as a bolt from the blue, but by the end of the picnic, she was aware that she had never taken such pleasure in any man’s company as she did in Mr. Eyre’s. For her, it was a new world, as though the sun had suddenly come out from behind dark clouds, illuminating everything; her life was at once full of joy, combined with a heightened awareness of the world about her. Birdsong sounded sweeter than it ever had, the green of the trees was more intense than she had ever seen it, and people around her looked to be as glad to be alive as she was.

“Is it not a wonderful day?” she said to Petifer when her maid drew back the curtains around her bed and opened the shutters.

Petifer took a sceptical glance out of the window at a blustery Bath day, and sniffed. She knew quite well what was up with her mistress, and she was much alarmed—only what could she do about it? Caution Miss Darcy? As well caution the wind or the waves as try to bring someone down to earth who felt the way Cassandra did. Drat that man for being in Bath, and for being so handsome and charming and so obviously delighted by her mistress.

It was a strange, secretive courtship. Cassandra quickly learned to be inventive and, she thought ruefully, two-faced. Her former self would have deplored such behaviour in anyone else, and, looking back to her days at Rosings, she would have told anyone who suggested that she might ever behave in such a way, that it was impossible, preposterous.

And to do it all for a man, she, who had thought it possible, nay, likely that she would never marry, who scorned her friends as they laid aside their childish habits of girlhood, their Amazon ways, to pretty themselves and simper, and regard every single man as a potential husband.

At least that she had never done. If she’d been on the lookout for a husband, Mr. Wexford, who was clearly very taken with her, would have been the better choice, in any worldly sense.

That was how she’d been able to deceive the wily, watchful Mrs. Cathcart. Mr. Wexford liked Cassandra, sought out her company, suggested to Mrs. Cathcart that her niece might attend a ball or a supper party, or an outing of pleasure or a picnic, or a walk among ruins, or along shady paths or up hills to gaze out at the surrounding countryside. All good schemes for dalliance, only, where Mr. Wexford went, there, too, went his good friend Mr. Eyre. Mr. Wexford was uncommonly proud of James Eyre, openly envious of his naval career, looking up to him as a much cleverer man than he was, and admiring his ready wit and savoir faire.

Mrs. Quail uttered words of warning; she heard from Miss Quail how often Cassandra and Eyre wandered off, while Mr. Wexford happily stayed with the rest of the party, talking about his everlasting battles and campaigns. So much so that Miss Quail was moved to protest: Why did he not become a soldier himself? Then he could fight battles and skirmishes and engagements on his own account, and spare them the details of all that long-ago warfare.

This rebellious outburst astonished her mother, who said reprovingly that she was picking up Miss Darcy’s outspoken ways, and she wanted to hear no more such comments about Mr. Wexford, who was as civil, agreeable a man as ever lived. But if what her daughter said was true, that Mr. Eyre was intent on cutting out his friend with Cassandra, then Mrs. Cathcart must be told.

“I would not do so,” said Miss Quail, smarting under her mother’s reproof. “Mrs. Cathcart will see what she wants to see, and Mr. Wexford is monstrous taken with Miss Darcy, although I cannot see what there is about her to make the gentlemen admire her. She flirts with Mr. Eyre, but she will marry Mr. Wexford.”

Her words gave her mama pause for thought, and she held her tongue, watched Cassandra with a hawkish eye, and, thanks to Cassandra’s well-bred manners and natural reserve, concluded that it was no more than flirtation. Not that she would care to see any daughter of hers carrying on in such a way.

She would have been shaken if she had seen Mr. Eyre and Miss Darcy slip away while on an outing to the Sydney Gardens, on a summer evening when scent of the flowers hung heavy in the air, and fireworks distracted everyone’s attention; only Miss Quail noticed the brightness of Cassandra’s eyes as she looked about her and then removed herself unobtrusively from their company.

How almost delirious with happiness Cassandra had been, when she found herself in James’s arms, to meet his lips with hers, to lose herself in a passionate embrace and give herself up to those sensations which were so wholly new to her. And the happiness lasted when they parted, and she arrived back to join the others, a little breathless, her eyes aglow, her heart pounding. That night she hardly slept, as the intense joy of knowing that she loved and was loved was beyond anything she had ever known.

And two nights later, Mrs. Cathcart had found her locked in a passionate embrace in the best parlour. Wrapped up in one another, whispering words of love and ardour when their lips reluctantly parted, they had not heard the approaching footsteps, the door handle turning. By the time they sprang apart, it was too late, a furious Mrs. Cathcart was in the room, a torrent of abuse pouring out of her; Cassandra was no better than a whore, fit to be whipped at the cart’s end, a drab, fie on her for bringing her sluttish ways into a respectable household, while James, horrified, sidled to the door and escaped.

Mrs. Cathcart’s remedy for such wickedness was simple. She locked Cassandra in her room, forbade all the servants to speak to her, and took her a tray of bread and water morning and evening. She had written to her brother Partington, how angry he and Mrs. Partington would be to hear of this further disgrace, Cassandra was beyond redemption, if she were her stepfather, she would whip her and then have her shut up in an asylum, for she must be mad to behave in such a way.

Cassandra, hungry, defiant, and contemptuous of Mrs. Cathcart’s melodramatic outbursts, dropped a note out of the window into Petifer’s hands. Mrs. Cathcart had plans to send her off the next day by coach to Rosings, she wrote. James’s reply, bringing the offer of his hand and a dash to Gretna Green, was slipped under her door after her hostess had retired to bed.

Marriage! Did she want to be married? To be in love was intoxicating, but could it last a lifetime? a voice of caution in her head asked her. How right Emily had been, when she’d predicted that Cassandra would one day meet a man who would mean more to her than her art or anything else in her life; surely that man was James?

Chapter Ten

Now here she was in London, alone, with little money and no friends or acquaintances to ask for help. She must stop dwelling on what was past, even though her heart still ached from her betrayal by James Eyre, from the knowledge that her lover’s affection for her was not equal to hers for him, that prudence had ruled his emotions as it had not hers.

It was time to take stock of her situation and start planning her future. Life must go on. First, she decided, she should return to her lodgings, and collect her few belongings before moving elsewhere. That in itself seemed an insuperable problem, she had not the least idea how to go about finding respectable new lodgings.

She looked at the window on the other side of the doorway into the shop. There were prints and two paintings on display; looking at a water-colour of a collection of flowers, she told herself that she could do very much better than that, and if such paintings might be sold, then why not hers?

Cheered up by this, she opened the shop door and went inside, a bell proclaiming her arrival to the wrinkle-faced man who came bustling into the shop from an inner room. The air smelt of linseed oil and varnish, and gave Cassandra comfort. This was a familiar world, and one where she might find a truer base for happiness—if not survival.

She bid the shopkeeper good day, in her pleasant, well-bred voice. He glanced behind her, expecting, Cassandra knew, to see an accompanying maid or a companion of some kind.

She would begin with a purchase.

Mr. Rudge had the new blocks of water-colour, and she had to restrain her impulse to buy a boxful; she must take care of her money now. Then a chance mention of Herr Winter brought a smile and a gleam to the faded blue eyes of the shopkeeper. Herr Winter had long been a customer, a friend, he would venture to say, such a shame that he had had to leave London.

Of course, for any acquaintance of his, a pupil, did she say…? Indeed, then it was a privilege to help, and Cassandra found that the prices were suddenly less than had originally been quoted.

“Is there anything more I can do for you?” he asked, as he made a neat brown paper parcel of her small purchases.

She hesitated. “Perhaps. I am to make a little stay in London, and my friends, with whom I was to stay, are longer out of town than they had planned,” she said, improvising rapidly. Did he know of some respectable woman who let out rooms?

He pursed his lips, and shook his head from side to side. “Not that would be suitable for a lady of quality,” he said regretfully.

It was an impasse, for she could hardly claim not to be what she so obviously was.

The bell tinkled, and a middle-aged woman, of smart appearance, dressed in bombazine, came into the shop. Cassandra stood to one side, hoping to have a further word with the proprietor when he had finished with this new arrival, who seemed to be an honoured customer. The design for a screen was ready, she would wish to see it and approve before any more work was done on the panels. He hurried into the back, and reappeared with several sheets of paper intricately worked with a pattern of peacocks and urns.

An unbalanced design, Cassandra said to herself, but she said nothing.

Mrs. Nettleton—for that was how Mr. Rudge addressed her—studied and questioned and approved. Then she turned and smiled at Cassandra.

“I am sorry to have interrupted your business here; I had thought you were finished.”

Her voice was ladylike, and her smile was pleasant but not over-familiar.

“No, pray do not worry. I have made my purchases, I was lingering to ask Mr. Rudge about another matter.”

“A pupil of Herr Winter’s,” Mr. Rudge told Mrs. Nettleton. “I mention it, for you bought one of his paintings some years ago, a fine work, on a mythological theme, if I remember correctly. Miss”—he looked enquiringly at Cassandra—

“Kent,” she said quickly.

“—is but recently come to town, but finds herself at a stand for lodgings, her friends not having returned as soon as they were expected. Your best course,” he said, addressing Cassandra, “will be to put up at one of the hotels.”

Mrs. Nettleton nodded her approval, but the look she gave Cassandra was shrewd and appraising.

“Do you live far from London?”

More invention came into Cassandra’s head. “I have come from Bath, where I resided until recently. I am a widow, my husband was wounded at Waterloo, and was never well again, and he died last year. From his wounds. My friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fortescue, dwell in Wimpole Street.” Cassandra had little idea of where Wimpole Street was, but had heard Emily describe it as the kind of place where maiden aunts with no great social position or money often chose to live.

Mrs. Nettleton looked faintly surprised. “Wimpole Street? Indeed. I would have thought…but that is no matter. Are there no servants at home?”

“The knocker is off the door. They have been away in Scotland, but were due to return last week; I can only conclude they have been delayed. I hope no mishap can have befallen them.”

“Is your stay in London to be of some while?” Mrs. Nettleton asked.

Cassandra blushed. “I intend to establish myself here, I am well-taught as an artist, and I hope that I may find employment instructing young ladies”—she turned with a smile to Mr. Rudge—“as Herr Winter did me.”

“Have you no family in London, no other acquaintance?” Mrs. Nettleton said.

“I fear not. My parents are dead, I have no brothers or sisters.” Cassandra felt a momentary qualm, consigning her mama to the grave, but she didn’t want Mr. Rudge to pursue the subject of her family; it was best to keep away from the county of Kent.

Mrs. Nettleton searched in her reticule and produced a card, which she handed to Cassandra. It was engraved in an elegant copperplate, and gave her address as 7 St. James’s Square.

“It so happens that I have a room which I let out from time to time, only to ladies of good family, and generally to persons I know. My house is large, and I am glad of the company that a lodger provides. It is a comfortable apartment, on the second floor.”

Cassandra stared at the card and then looked up at Mrs. Nettleton. Could her problem be solved in this fortuitous way?

“You know nothing about me,” she said.

“Mr. Rudge vouches for your master, at least, and I am sure Herr Winter would instruct none but those who came from the best houses, is that not so, Mr. Rudge?”

“Indeed, a man of Herr Winter’s standing and reputation might pick and choose where he chose to teach, and I did hear that he has pupils at several great houses in his neighbourhood…” Mr. Rudge looked questioningly at Cassandra.

“That is so,” said Cassandra. “But he also instructs young people from more modest establishments, such as myself. My late papa was a clergyman.”

Why had she not thought to say that sooner? It was not so far from the truth as some of her wicked lies, for was not her stepfather, although still alive, an ordained clergyman?

The clerical touch worked magic. Mrs. Nettleton and Mr. Rudge beamed approval. She was placed, she was respectable.

“Pray step round at any time to suit you,” said Mrs. Nettleton. “You have my direction. Where are you staying at present?”

“With my old nurse, in Parker Street, but it is not precisely convenient for her…”

“And not suitable for a young lady such as yourself,” said Mrs. Nettleton firmly. “I have a numerous acquaintance; perhaps it will be possible for me to find some houses with daughters in need of a drawing teacher.”

“I will keep my ears open, also,” promised Mr. Rudge, “although it is an overcrowded profession, especially here in London. However, a pupil of Herr Winter’s would come highly recommended, I feel sure.”

The two women left the shop together, shaking hands as they stood outside on the pavement.

“I hope to see you soon, my dear Mrs. Kent,” said Mrs. Nettleton. “Shall we say tomorrow morning?”

Cassandra walked back to Covent Garden with a lighter heart than she had had for many days. Even the hostility of Mrs. Dodd, who was not her old nurse at all, but James Eyre’s, could not upset her that evening. Mrs. Dodd thoroughly disapproved of her, for she had a great fondness for James, as was only natural, and knew that he and Cassandra had had a violent quarrel. Cassandra suspected that only the knowledge that Mr. Eyre would expect to find Cassandra there when he came back prevented Mrs. Dodd from tossing her and her possessions out into the street. She was grateful for that small mercy, but nonetheless, she must be gone before James did return. He was in Ireland, to visit a sick godfather, from whom he had expectations; he had said he would be away less than a week, and that time was nearly up.

She had arrived at Parker Street in Covent Garden in quite a different mood to that of the present. Their departure from Bath had been sudden and thrilling, slipping out from Laura Place at midnight, the door left on the latch for her by a reluctant Petifer, with the few things she could bring with her hastily made into a bundle.

She had left a note for Mrs. Cathcart, saying that she was bound for Gretna Green; this she had laid on her own pillow, knowing that by the time it was discovered in the morning, she and James would be many miles on their way northwards.

It was not until the first raptures of their journey had abated, that Cassandra had discovered they were not heading for the border.

“On reflection, my love,” James had said, “I came to the conclusion that we are better off in London. It will be harder for them to trace or follow us, you know, and after all we do not wish to be hauled back like a pair of school runaways. In London, we may make our plans without any fear of interference.”

Cassandra would willingly have accepted a suggestion that they set off for the steppes or the wilds of Turkestan, if that had been what James wanted. He was older than she was, and much more experienced in the ways of the world. And the last thing she wanted was to find Mrs. Cathcart banging on an inn door on the road to Scotland, summoning her for retribution and separating her from James.

She asked whether they could be married so easily in London, since she was underage, but he smiled at her tenderly, and said that anything could be arranged in London, she was to leave it all to him. It might take a little time to arrange, but as long as they were together, what did a few days matter?

“We had best tell Mrs. Dodd that we are married, however,” he said. “I do not suppose you have a ring you could wear, no, of course not. We must stop and purchase one, only I am very short of funds just at present. It’s a dashed nuisance.”

“I have my mother’s wedding ring,” Cassandra said. “Will Mrs. Dodd believe that you are married, with no announcement of an engagement or a wedding?”

“She is used to my impulsive ways, and when she meets you, she will love you as much as I do, and not ask any awkward questions, you need have no fears on that score.”

Mrs. Dodd did not seem exactly enthusiastic over their arrival, but she was obviously fond of James, if suspicious of Cassandra. “You’re in a scrape, James, and too old for me to get you out of it as I used to when you were a little boy. You may have the best bedchamber, you and the new Mrs. Eyre.”

Even if there was a hint of sarcasm in Mrs. Dodd’s voice, it warmed Cassandra’s heart to be called Mrs. Eyre. And an idyllic night of love with her beloved James made her care even less when and how their marriage was to take place. She was living for the moment, and these moments were filled with rapture and happiness. In the daytime, they strolled arm in arm about London, exploring and laughing together. He told her tales of his nautical life, and she hung on his every word. She gave him all her money, although it seemed sadly depleted; she must have spent more in Bath than she had thought.

“It’s only a temporary difficulty,” James said. “I shall come back from Ireland with full pockets, and this will last us meanwhile.”

Cassandra could not bear to be parted from him. “Must you go to Ireland?”

“I wouldn’t leave you dear heart, not for an hour, if it were not necessary. My godfather has not been well for some years, and he looks forward to my visits, I cannot disappoint him. And you know, he has named me in his will, I do not want to incur his displeasure. I shall leave on Tuesday, and be back by that day se’ennight, if I travel fast.”

What a fool she had been, how wrapped up in her love and in James! Cassandra looked about the best bedchamber with an aching sadness; how could she imagine that her dream could shatter in such a way?

“Shall we be married when you return from Ireland?” she had asked him.

“I have it all in hand, do not concern yourself about it.” He gave her a hearty kiss. “I am going to leave you in here for an hour, no more, for I have some business to conduct, and Mrs. Dodd has given me the use of her parlour. I beg you will not stir from here, do not come downstairs, for I would not have you seen.”

“Is this business with someone I know?” she asked in a teasing voice.

“No, why should it be? Of course not. What put such an idea in your head?”

“Do not snap at me, it was a remark, I do not mean to meddle in your private affairs.”

“My affairs are your affairs, but in matters of business, you know, one deals face-to-face, and does better with no distractions.” Another kiss, and he was gone, shutting the door firmly behind him.

The room overlooked a small yard, in which grew a mulberry tree. Cassandra opened the casement as wide as it would go and sat herself down on the wide window seat with her sketching book, happy to spend an hour catching the exact shape of a leaf, and, more difficult, the movement of the leaves in the slight breeze.

It was a hot day. The sun shone down on the garden, and the sounds of London, the city that was never still, never quiet, were all around her. She could hear voices, someone singing a popular catch, someone bawling out the details of sweetmeats he had to sell, a groom talking to a horse. Closer now, that was James’s voice, coming up from the room below; the window downstairs must be open, too. She smiled, just the timbre of his voice made her feel warm inside.

She stiffened, as another voice reached her ears. An all too familiar voice. No, it couldn’t be, it was impossible, it was another man who sounded the same, that was all. She kneeled on the window seat and leant out as far as she could. James and whoever he was with had moved closer to the window downstairs, now she could hear them more clearly.

Good God, she was not mistaken. Mr. Partington was there, downstairs, talking to James. He had traced her, how was it possible? Her heart was thumping, and she bit her lip, should she run downstairs, be at James’s side?

Her reason, striking with cold clarity, told her that this was no unforeseen encounter. James had known that Mr. Partington was coming. There had been an appointment, her stepfather was expected, this was no sudden discovery.

No, she cried to herself, inside her head, no, that wasn’t right. James had gone down to see someone else, and then, out of the blue, in had walked Mr. Partington.

Nonsense, said her reason, and now her ears confirmed it. She could hear what they were saying; Mr. Partington had raised his voice, was almost shouting at James. Who seemed to be keeping his temper admirably, but what was he saying?

She sat and listened numbly, unable to take in James’s betrayal. Yes, he would marry her, but if, and only if…and not until he had assurances, written settlements, lawyers’ letters, stating that Cassandra came to him with a fortune. With, in fact, twenty thousand pounds. Yes, they were living together as man and wife; no, he would not be stigmatised as a rogue, for he would let it be known that Miss Darcy had made all the running, had fallen so desperately in love with him that she would live with him upon any terms. Her name would be dragged through the mud, not his, for that was the way of the world.

Horror crept over Cassandra. This could not be James speaking, her merry, open-hearted, kind James.

Only it was. There it was. He didn’t mind whether he married her or not, but he could not marry a woman without money, so, if she had no fortune, then she would have no wedding ring put upon her finger by James Eyre. No, Mr. Partington need not bluster and talk of prosecution for abduction of a minor, that would simply ensure that the tale spread more quickly. “The broadsheets, you know, sir,” James said. “They love a scandal of this nature.”

More furious words from Mr. Partington, which she could not quite catch, and then the sound of James’s laughter, the laughter that had so enchanted her. And he seemed genuinely amused. No, Mr. Partington might try to break him, but it would not wash. He had no ship, was a half-pay lieutenant, but he still had friends and his family had influence enough to make sure his career would not suffer.

Then the two men below moved away from the window, and Cassandra heard no more.

She had heard quite enough, and although it was half an hour before James came bounding up the stairs and burst into the room in the best of spirits, it seemed to her as though only minutes had passed.

“Well, my dearest,” he began, “there is my business concluded, and most successfully, too.”

The words echoed in her ears as she began to sort out her possessions, her few possessions. The row that ensued had been so passionate, so vehement, that it brought Mrs. Dodd to the door, banging and shouting out to be heard, fearful that they were killing one another. Then James had thrown some clothes into a portmanteau and stormed out, he was leaving for Ireland directly, anything to get away from such a shrew; when he returned, all would be settled and they would marry directly. “Only you will enact me no such scenes when we are wed, by God you will not.”

No, indeed, she wouldn’t, for they wouldn’t be wed.

She had sat down, his angry words ringing in her head, to write a note to Mr. Partington. He would be staying at Aubrey Square, she had heard a mention of Mr. Fitzwilliam’s name. She asked him to wait on her, she had something of the first importance to say.

Back came a curt, impersonal note. Mr. Partington had no wish to see or speak to Miss Darcy, now or ever again. Any communications would henceforth be through a lawyer, and any letter to her mother would be torn up, burnt, destroyed, unread.

She wasn’t going to dwell on it. These memories were bitter, she must lock them away, she had enough to do in the present, there was no time to let what was past take up her thoughts and energies. Her immediate need was money; were she to take the room offered by Mrs. Nettleton, she might be expected to pay in advance. All the money she had in the world was the few coins in her purse.

She could go back to Mr. Horatio Darcy and ask for an advance on her income, but she would much rather not. She had had enough of her cousin with his supercilious ways and scorn, thank you.

As she shook out a pelisse, something fluttered to the floor. A note! It was the money that Emily had given her, from Mrs. Croscombe. She had been right in her calculations, she had not spent so much in Bath. Thank God she had not found it sooner, thank God it had been caught up in the pelisse which was too warm to wear in this hot weather, and not in a muslin scarf or dress, where she would have discovered it at once, and handed it over to James.

Chapter Eleven

St. James’s Square was situated between Piccadilly and the Thames, a big square with a railed garden in the centre; Cassandra was impressed by its size and elegance. Many of the fine houses, built in the last century, and with the characteristic handsome sash-windowed façades of that time, were let out as lodgings, since the more aristocratic and richer families now preferred to have their London houses in the fashionable squares and streets of Mayfair, further to the north.

Number seven was on the south side. Cassandra lifted the big brass knocker, shaped in the form of a dolphin, and was admitted by a tidily dressed maid, who bobbed a curtsy and said that her mistress was expecting her. Cassandra followed the maid up the wide staircase and through double doors into the drawing room to be greeted by Mrs. Nettleton, dressed in a morning gown, who came forward to greet her in the kindest way.

“I am so glad you are come, now sit down, and Betsy will bring us a pot of coffee directly. Do you like coffee? Yes, I was sure you were a coffee drinker, I can always tell.”

The room was furnished with green covers and hangings, and done up with some style. Cassandra’s eyes went first to the pictures, none of which she found particularly interesting; most were on mythological themes, with a preponderance of scantily clad nymphs and some saucy-looking cupids. However, there was a landscape above the fireplace that she could admire: a pastoral scene, done in the rococo manner, with shepherds and shepherdesses dallying beside a gently flowing river while their woolly charges frolicked in a grassy meadow behind them. She would not herself have had the simpering figures, but the natural part of the scene was exquisitely done.

Mrs. Nettleton was as pleasant as she had seemed the day before. She drew Cassandra out, asking about her drawing and painting, and said that as soon as she were settled, were she to decide that the accommodation met with her approval, then she must, positively must, show Mrs. Nettleton some of her efforts.

Coffee came, and was drunk, and then Mrs. Nettleton took Cassandra upstairs to view the room. It was a large room on the second floor, and overlooked the garden to the rear of the house.

“It is quieter, you see, on this side, for although St. James’s Square is not half as busy as some in London, there is always some noise, of carriages and people coming and going, and then at night, there are the night carts, you know. So it will be more peaceful for you here, and young people need their sleep, and you are young, for all that you are a widow. It is sad to see such a young widow, for you can hardly be more than one-and-twenty.”

Cassandra smiled, and said, yes, she was but one-and-twenty. She had an idea that it would be better for Mrs. Nettleton to think she was of age. She preferred, she added truthfully, not to speak of her late, dear husband, as she found it upset her too much.

That should put a stop to any awkward questions. The trouble with lies was that once started, the fiction had to be continued, and it was hard always to be remembering details that you had made up upon the spur of the moment.

She was delighted with the room, and couldn’t believe her good fortune. With a little money in hand, and a comfortable roof over her head, she could begin to make her way in London. With some diffidence she enquired about terms, and was surprised at how reasonable the rent was.

“I do not wish to make money, you know; as I say, I like to have a lodger because it livens up the house, so big as it is, and only me and the servants, and from time to time my young nieces who come to stay, I have a vast number of relations, and their mamas are very keen to have their daughters come to London and be under my care. However, just now, I have no guests, and if you will dine with me on some evenings, then you will be obliging me, and you may meet some interesting people, for my little dinner parties are quite famous. I also hold card parties from time to time, but I will understand if you do not wish to join me for those, since the stakes are often quite high, and if you are at present living on slender means…”

Cassandra assured her that her means were indeed slender, quite sufficient to pay the rent, but not to gamble with. “I must take care of what I have.”

“Why, as to that, I have no doubt that I shall very soon fix you up with the best imaginable position—as a drawing instructor, I mean. Such an one as yourself, with your ladylike ways and good looks, for I assure you those count in any employment; who would choose to have ugly people about them, while they might look on beauty?”

Cassandra’s private opinion was that anyone who employed her to teach their children would not care how plain she looked; in fact, she had a very good idea that mothers, at least, might prefer to have their governesses and people of that kind as unprepossessing as possible. She would dress simply and keep a severe expression on her face when she went for interviews.

Without knowing it, a severe look came over her face as she was thinking this, and it caused Mrs. Nettleton to give her a sharp look. “It is quite extraordinary, I do not know if you are related to anyone of the name of Darcy, for upon my word, you do have a look of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley! Not that I have ever met the gentleman, although I have many aristocratic friends, he is not one of those…we do not move in the same circle. However, there was recently a portrait of him that I saw exhibited at Somerset House. A very fine likeness, everyone said, and for a moment the similarity was striking. As to expression, of course, rather than feature.”

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