Patricia Rice by Dash of Enchantment Read Free Book Online Page B

for his physical needs.
    ~*~
    That one small triumph scarcely weighed against all the
minor disasters of the evening, Cassandra decided later as she retired to her
room. To avoid being asked to play the piano, she had allowed a rather
decent-looking gentleman to lead her out to the terrace.
    She had successfully fended off his amorous attentions with
a slap, but not before Merrick had seen it. He had scolded and ordered her to
her room, but she had refused to go. It was the public humiliation of having
her hostess suggest that she see to her aunt’s comfort—at Merrick’s behest, of
course—that made Cassandra’s blood boil with fury.
    She could hear the other guests now, laughing and singing
and chattering gaily in the salon below, and she wanted to weep in frustration.
She wasn’t a baby. She was a woman grown. What would it take to make them
realize it?
    After seeing that her aunt was comfortably settled in bed
and not inclined to accompany her downstairs, Cassandra grimaced and, chin
lifted in resolution, prepared to storm the citadel. She would not be sent to
bed like a child.
    The billiard room wasn’t hard to discover. She had spent
many lonely hours perfecting her game over her father’s table.
    The two gentlemen lackadaisically knocking a ball around
stood up in surprise when Cass helped herself to a cue and began to chalk it.
The game quickly became animated and the room filled with others ready to take
on the challenge of her prowess.
    Heady with triumph, Cass was slow to notice the silence enveloping
the room. She did not look up until her shawl unexpectedly dropped upon the
table, cascading her balls hither and yon. She straightened with a start. Merrick
stood disapprovingly behind her. The other players retreated to the shadows,
leaving her alone to face him.
    “I believe your aunt is looking for you, my lady.”
    There was that about his voice not meant to be denied. Had
it been Duncan or any of his friends, Cassandra would have flouted his
authority and challenged him to a game. But this was Merrick, the proper,
upstanding earl whom she wished to marry, although at the moment she could not
quite remember why. Still, she had set herself a goal, and she was in danger of
losing it.
    Draping her shawl about her shoulders with studied grace,
Cassandra dipped a demure curtsy and offered a vapid smile. “Thank you, my
lord. It is good of you to play the messenger boy. I bid you good night.” This
last encompassed the remainder of the company as she beat a hasty retreat.
    The memory of Merrick’s dark eyes upon her sent her
scurrying even faster. He had been assessing her, she knew, and she feared she
had come out lacking. Heavens above, how would she make him come up to scratch
if he thoroughly disapproved of everything she did? How was she to prove to him
that she could be as she ought?
    As the week drew on, the company made it quite plain that
she could not prove what she was not.
    Her lack of education did not merely encompass the inability
to play a musical instrument. She had no notion of how to go about fluttering a
fan and batting her eyes and speaking in musically modulated whispers. She did
not know how to sit still and speak idly for hours on end in all-female
company, waiting patiently for the men to join them. She much preferred to be
in male company, riding, hunting, playing cards and billiards as she had done
in the past. Every time she sought more interesting entertainment, Merrick was
there to restrain her.
    She cursed vividly and fluently to herself as she was
ordered out of the card room again one miserably rainy day toward the week’s
end. The women were sipping tea and doing needlework and busily cutting into
ribbons friends and neighbors unfortunate enough not to be present.
    Cassandra neither knew nor cared about the morals or
finances of these subjects for gossip. She had come no closer to her goal than
before, and things were looking decidedly grim. She was almost positive that
the