Cassandra smiled at her.

"I am still /Lady Paget/, am I not?" she said. "A baron's widow? And I still have all the fine clothes and accessories Nigel kept buying me, even if they /are/ somewhat outdated. It is the Season, Alice. Everyone of any importance is here in town, and every day there are parties and balls and concerts and soirees and picnics and a whole host of other entertainments. It will not be at all difficult to discover what some of them are. And it will not be difficult to find a way of attending some of the grandest of them."

"Without an invitation?" Alice asked, frowning.

"You have forgotten," Cassandra said, "just how much every hostess wants her entertainment remembered as a great squeeze. I do not expect to be turned away from any door I choose to enter. And I shall walk boldly through the front doors. Once will be enough – more than enough to serve my purpose. You and I will go walking in Hyde Park this afternoon, Alice – at the fashionable hour, of course. The weather is fine, and all the beau monde is bound to turn up there to see and be seen. I will wear my black dress and my black bonnet with the heavy veil. I daresay I am known more by reputation than by looks – it is a number of years since I was last here. But I would rather not risk being recognized just yet."

Alice sighed and sat back in her chair. She was shaking her head.

"Let me write a calm, conciliatory letter to Lord Paget on your behalf," she suggested. "He had no right to banish you from Carmel House as he did, Cassie, when he finally decided to move there almost a year after his father's passing. The terms of your marriage contract were quite clear. You were to have the dower house as your own residence in the event of your husband's predeceasing you. And a sizable money settlement. /And/ a generous widow's pension from the estate. None of which you ever got from him during that year, even though you wrote a number of times, asking when you might expect all the legalities to be settled. Perhaps he did not clearly understand."

"It will do no good to appeal to him," Cassandra said. "Bruce made it quite clear that he considered my freedom a generous exchange for everything else. No charges were ever brought against me in his father's death because there was no proof that I had killed him. But a judge or a jury might well find me guilty regardless of the lack of conclusive evidence. I could hang, Alice, if it happened. Bruce agreed that no charges would be pressed provided I left Carmel House and never returned – and provided I left all my jewels behind and forfeited all financial claim upon the estate."

Alice had nothing to say. She knew all this. She knew the risks involved in fighting. Cassandra had chosen not to fight. There had been too much violence in the past nine years – ten now. She had chosen simply to leave, with her friends and with her freedom.

"I will not starve, Allie," she said. "Neither will you or Mary or Belinda. I will provide for you all. Oh, and you too, Roger," she added, tickling the dog's stomach with the toe of her slipper while his tail thumped lazily on the floor and his three and a half paws waved in the air.

Her smile was tinged with bitterness – and then with something more tender.

"Oh, Alice," she said, hurrying across the room and sinking to her knees before her former governess's chair, "don't cry. /Please/ do not. I will not be able to bear it."

"I never thought," Alice said between sobs into her handkerchief, "to see you becoming a /courtesan/, Cassie. And that is what you will be. A high-class pr – A high-class pros – " But she could not complete the word.

Cassandra patted one of her knees.

"It will be a thousand times better than marriage," she said. "Cannot you /see/ that, Alice? I will have all the power this time. I can grant or withhold my favors at will. I can dismiss the man if I do not like him or if he displeases me in any way at all. I will be free to come and go as I choose and to do whatever I will except when I am… well, working. It will be a /million/ times better than marriage."

"All I ever wanted of life was to see you happy," Alice said, sniffing and drying her eyes. "It is what governesses and companions do, Cassie.

Life has passed them by, but they learn to live vicariously through their charges. I wanted you to know what it is like to be loved. And to love."

"I know what both are like, silly goose," Cassandra said, sitting back on her heels. "/You/ love me, Alice. Belinda loves me – so does Mary, I think. And Roger loves me." The dog had padded over to her and was prodding one of her hands with his wet nose so that she would pet him again. "And I love you all. I /do/."

A few stray tears were still trickling down her former governess's cheeks.

"I know that, Cassie," she said. "But you know what I mean. Don't deliberately misunderstand. I want to see you in love with a good man who will love you in return. And don't look at me like that. It is the expression you wear so often these days that it would be easy to mistake it for your real character showing through. I know it well enough, that curl of the lip and that hard amusement of the eye that is not amusement at all. There /are/ good men. My papa was one of them, and he certainly was not the only one the dear good Lord created."

"Well." Cassandra patted her knee again. "Perhaps I will quite inadvertently choose a good man to be my protector, and he will fall violently in love with me – no, not /violently/. He will fall /deeply/ in love with me and I will fall deeply in love with him and we will marry and live happily ever after with our dozen children. You may fuss over them all and teach them to your heart's content. I will not refuse to employ you just because you are over forty and in your dotage. Will this make you happy, Alice?"

Alice was half laughing, half weeping.

"Maybe not the twelve-children part," she said. "Poor Cassie, you would be worn out."

They both laughed as Cassandra got to her feet.

"Besides, Alice," she said, "there is no reason that all your life and happiness should be lived through me. /Vicariously/ is a horrid word.

Perhaps it is time you began to live on your own account. And love.

Perhaps /you/ will meet a gentleman and he will realize what a perfect gem he has found and will fall in love with you and you with him.

Perhaps /you/ will live happily ever after."

"But not with a dozen children, I hope," Alice said with a look of mock horror, and they both laughed again.

Ah, there was so little opportunity for laughter these days. It seemed to Cassandra that she could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had felt sheer amusement during the past ten years.

"I had better go and dust off my black bonnet," she said.


***

Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, was riding in Hyde Park with Constantine Huxtable, his second cousin. It was the fashionable hour of the afternoon, and the main carriageway was packed with vehicles of all descriptions, most of them open so that the occupants could more readily take the air and look about at all the activity around them and converse with the occupants of other carriages and with pedestrians. There were crowds of the latter too on the footpath. And there were many riders on horseback. Stephen and Constantine were two of them as they wove their way skillfully among the carriages.

It was a lovely early summer day with just enough fluffy white clouds to offer the occasional welcome shade and prevent the sun from being too scorching.

Stephen did not mind the crowds. One did not come here in order to get anywhere in a hurry. One came to socialize, and he always enjoyed doing that. He was a gregarious, good-natured young man.

"Are you going to Meg's ball tomorrow night?" he asked Constantine.

Meg was his eldest sister, Margaret Pennethorne, Countess of Sheringford. She and Sherry had come to town this spring after missing the past two, despite the fact that they had had newborn Alexander to bring with them this year as well as two-year-old Sarah and seven-year-old Toby. They had decided at last to face down the old scandal dating from the time when Sherry had eloped with a married lady and lived with her until her death. There were still those who thought Toby was his son and Mrs. Turner's – and both Sherry and Meg were content to let that sleeping dog lie.

Meg had backbone – Stephen had always admired that about her. She would never choose to cower indefinitely in the relative safety of the country rather than confront her demons. Sherry himself had never had much difficulty engaging demons in a staring contest and being the last to blink. And now, because all the fashionable world had been unable to resist attending the curiosity of their wedding three years ago, that same fashionable world was effectively obliged to attend their ball tomorrow evening.

Not that many would have missed it anyway, curiosity being a somewhat stronger motivating factor than disapproval. The /ton/ would be curious to discover how the marriage was prospering, or /not/ prospering, after three years.

"But of course. I would not miss it for worlds," Constantine said, touching his whip to the brim of his hat as they passed a barouche containing four ladies.

Stephen did the same thing, and all four smiled and nodded in return.

"There is no /of course/ about it," he said. "You did not attend Nessie's ball the week before last."

Nessie – Vanessa Wallace, Duchess of Moreland – was the middle of Stephen's three sisters. The duke also happened to be Constantine's first cousin.