She had thought she had chosen a husband wisely. She had been eighteen then. She was twenty-eight now. Perhaps the only wisdom she had gained in the intervening years was to know that when one chose a man to give security and stability to one's life, one ought to choose a protector rather than a husband.

Freedom was worth more than anything else of value life had to offer.

Yet for a woman it was so very elusive.

Baron Montford came to exchange pleasantries with Cassandra and to chat with his brother-in-law for a few minutes. He had three other gentlemen with him, including Mr. Huxtable, who still looked somewhat satanic to Cassandra. He looked very directly at her with his dark eyes while the other gentlemen talked and laughed. At some time in his life his nose had been broken and not set quite straight, she could see. She was very glad she had not chosen /him/ last night. She had the feeling that his eyes could see through her skull to the hair at the back of her head.

And then, just as those gentlemen were moving on in the opposite direction from the one the curricle was taking and Cassandra looked around again, she saw a familiar face – that of an auburn-haired, good-looking young man, who was sitting in an open barouche beside a pretty young lady in pink. He was smiling at something she was saying to a couple of scarlet-clad officers on horseback.

The Earl of Merton's curricle was almost upon them. The officers rode on, the young lady smiled at the smiling young man, and they both turned their heads to look about at the crowd.

Their eyes alit upon Cassandra at almost the same moment. The two carriages were almost abreast of each other. Without thought Cassandra smiled warmly and half leaned forward.

"/Wesley/!" she cried.

The young lady put both hands up to her mouth and turned her head sharply away – as several others had done to a lesser degree during the past fifteen minutes or so. The young man's smile faded, and his eyes regarded Cassandra with dismay, wavered, and then looked away from her.

"Move on," he said with some impatience to the coachman, who really had nowhere to go until all the carriages in front of him moved on too.

The Earl of Merton had a little more space in front of his curricle.

Even so, it seemed to take an excruciatingly long time for the two vehicles to have completely passed each other.

"Someone you know?" Lord Merton asked quietly.

"Take me home," she said. "Please. I have had enough."

It took him a little while to draw free of the crowd, but at last they were moving at a faster pace along a path that was blessedly free of much other traffic.

"Young, was it not?" he said. "Sir Wesley Young? I have only a slight acquaintance with him."

"I would not know," she said foolishly, spreading her hands in her lap.

"I have never seen him before."

"He just /looked/ like a Wesley, then, did he?" He glanced across at her, smiling. "Don't let him worry you. Giving the cut direct is something some members of the /ton/ delight in doing. Many others have /not/ given it. I believe you will find more and more people accepting you and treating you with open good manners as the days go on."

"Yes," she said. And she watched her hands begin to tremble and then shake. She curled one into a hard fist and gripped the handrail beside her with the other. She clamped her teeth hard together so that they would not chatter.

"Ah," he said as they approached the park entrance at Marble Arch, and for a moment his gloved hand covered hers on her lap, "you really /do/ know him, then."

"My brother," she said, and clamped her teeth together again.

He had come to visit her a few times during her marriage. He had come to the funeral last year. And he had hugged her tightly afterward and assured her that he did not for a moment believe that she had had anything to do with the death. He had told her he loved her and always would. He had urged her to return to London with him, to live with him until she was over her mourning and grief and was healed enough to return home to live at the dower house.

And then, after she had said no and he had gone, he had written to her – twice. And then suddenly silence, even though she had continued to write to /him/. Until a month ago, when she had written to tell him that her life had become so intolerable that she had to leave, that she would have to impose upon his good nature until she had her life in order and somehow found a way to move on. He had written back then to tell her that she must on no account come to London since her notoriety had preceded her. Besides, he would be unable to offer her any help in the immediate future as he had promised friends to travel to Scotland with them to explore the Highlands. He expected to be gone for at least a year. He was allowing the lease on his rooms to lapse.

He loved her, Wesley had assured her in that final letter. But it was impossible for him to change his plans – too many other people would be inconvenienced. And Cassie /must not/ – he had underlined the words twice and so heavily that the ink had splattered into tiny blots above and below – come to London. He did not want her to be hurt.

"Your brother," Lord Merton said. "You were a Young, then?"

"Yes," she said.

He turned his team out onto the street, slowing to avoid a crossing sweep, who jumped back out of the way and then reached out to pluck out of the air the coin Stephen threw.

"I am sorry," he said.

That she was a Young? Or that her own brother had just given her the cut direct? Or both?

It was only after the funeral, of course, that things had got really nasty, that the accusations had started to fly, that /murder/ had been spoken of rather /than accident/.

Cassandra wanted to be at home. She wanted to be in her own room, the door firmly shut behind her, the bedcovers over her body and her head.

She wanted to sleep – deeply and dreamlessly.

"You need not apologize for something you did not do," she said, raising her chin and speaking as haughtily as she was able. "I was surprised to see him, that is all. I thought he was in Scotland. I daresay something happened to cause him to change his mind."

Gentlemen did not go touring Scotland during the spring, when the whole of the fashionable world was in London for the Season. And gentlemen who were really not very wealthy at all did not go touring for a whole year.

Gentlemen who were traveling in a group would not find it difficult to excuse one of their number who needed to change his plans because of a pressing family concern.

She surely had not believed him when she read his letter – so much shorter and terser than the letters he had used to write. She had chosen to believe because the alternative was too painful.

Now she could disbelieve no longer.

"Tell me about him," Lord Merton said.

She laughed.

"I daresay, Lord Merton," she said, "you know him far better than I.

Perhaps /you/ ought to tell /me/ about him."

The streets seemed unusually crowded. Their progress was slow. Or perhaps it only seemed that way because she was so desperate to be home and alone.

He did not say anything.

"Our mother died giving birth to him," she said. "I was five years old, and I played mother to him from that day forward. I gave him something he would have lacked otherwise – undivided and total affection and attention. Hugs and kisses and endless monologues. And he gave me something, someone, to love in place of my mother. We adored each other, which is unusual in a brother and sister, I believe. But though I had a governess from a very young age, and though Wesley was sent to school eventually, we clung to each other all through our growing years – or until my marriage when I was eighteen and he was thirteen, anyway. Our father was so often gone."

He had been a compulsive and notorious gambler. Their fortunes had fluctuated from day to day. There was never any fixed home or security, even in the good times. There had always been the knowledge, understood even by young children, that desperate times were just the turn of a card away.

"I am sorry," Lord Merton said again, and Cassandra realized that he was slowing before her house. She had not even noticed turning into Portman Street.

He secured the ribbons, jumped down from his seat, and came around the curricle to lift her down to the pavement.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she said again. "No love is ever unconditional, Lord Merton. And no love is ever eternal. If you learn nothing else from me, learn that. It may save you from some pain and heartache in the future."

He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

"May I expect you tonight?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said. "I have some commitments this evening, but I will come afterward if I may."

"/If you may/." She smiled rather scornfully at him. "I am yours whenever you choose, Lord Merton. You are paying well enough for me."

She saw his lips tighten and understood what she was doing to herself.

She was showing him only darkness. Yet he was all light. And if light was stronger than darkness – though she was not at all convinced that it was – then it would not take him long to draw away from the aura of gloom she was no doubt casting over him.

She smiled a little differently, with facial muscles that were stiff with disuse.

"And if I may throw some of your own words from this morning back at you," she said, "you are mine whenever I choose. I choose tonight. I look forward to it with the greatest pleasure. I look forward to giving /you/ pleasure. And I will. That is a promise. I cannot bear to take without giving in equal measure, you see."