"Yes," Stephen said.

"She did not tell you, did she," William said, his eyes narrowing, "that she shot him during one of those times? You did not tell him that, did you, Cassie?"

She shrugged.

"I think we should all sit down," she said, and instead of taking her usual chair, she sat on an old, lumpy love seat, and Stephen sat beside her, his sleeve brushing her bare arm.

William motioned to Alice's usual chair, and Mary sat down on the edge of it, looking decidedly uncomfortable. He perched on the arm and took one of her hands in his.

"The trouble with my father," he said, looking at Stephen, "was that he never looked drunk, did he, Cassie? Unless you looked at his eyes, that was. And he very rarely drank at home, and almost never alone. When I told him about my marriage during the morning, though, he was probably sober. He must have started drinking after I had left. He did not like what I had told him above half. And once he started drinking, he could not stop. By the evening… Well. I heard him yelling and went to see what was happening."

"I had been sent with another bottle," Mary said, her voice almost a whisper as she gazed at William with unhappy eyes. "It was not my job. I /never/ got sent. But Mr. Quigley had just scalded his hand on the kettle, and Mrs. Rice was tending it, and it was late and there was not many servants still in the kitchen, and someone told /me/ to take it. I ought not to have gone. I knew you had told him, Billy, and you said you was coming for me before night, and… And Mrs. Rice said to be careful because his lordship was drinking again."

"It was not your fault, love," he said. "None of it was. I ought not to have gone off to secure a room at the inn for us because he had said we could not sleep together beneath his roof. It was left to Cassie to hear you screaming and go to your aid. But she only got cuffed for her pains.

And then Miss Haytor went to try and help. All I heard when I came in was him shouting. I did not hear any screams. But by the time I opened the library door he had his pistol in his hand. It would not have been wise for anyone to scream."

"I think," Cassandra said, and she realized suddenly that her hand was clasped firmly in Stephen's, "it would be best to say no more, William.

The death was officially ruled an accident. Your father was cleaning his pistol and it discharged. No one will ever prove otherwise. I do not want – "

"Who knows what he would have done with the gun if I had not come in,"

William said. "Maybe he would have shot one of you. But when I went to wrest it out of his grasp, he struggled for only a moment. And then he turned it quite deliberately and shot himself with it. Through the heart."

There were a few moments of total silence in the room. Cassandra saw that Alice was standing in the doorway.

"It is what I told you at the time, Cassie," she said. "I /saw/. You did not. Mr. Belmont was between you and Lord Paget. And Mary had her hands spread over her face. But I saw. Lord Paget shot himself."

"I suppose," William said, "there was a great deal of self-loathing in his condition. Perhaps he suddenly realized that he had a gun in his hands. Perhaps he realized he was about to commit murder with it.

Perhaps a small window of sobriety opened in his mind. How ever it was, Cassie, it was neither murder nor an accident that happened. He shot himself."

Stephen had the back of her hand pressed against his lips. His eyes were closed.

"I fled," William said, "because when it became known that I had married Mary, it would have been assumed that I had quarreled with my father and shot him. I might have been charged with murder. /Mary/ might have been charged as my accomplice. I fled because I was muddleheaded and thought it would be best to let everything calm down for a while. I thought that without me there and without anyone knowing about my marriage, his death would be ruled an accident – as it was, officially. I told Mary not to tell anyone about our marrying. I told her I would be back for her within a year. I am a bit late on that promise, sorry, love. But I assumed /you/ knew about the marriage, Cassie. I assumed he had told you or that Mary had. I had /no idea/ anyone would blame you for his death and think you did it. /With an axe/, no less. Has the world gone mad?"

"You thought I was trying to make you feel better, Cassie," Alice said from the doorway. "You did not want to believe that Mr. Belmont had killed his father, even though you thought he had done it to defend you and to defend Mary. You thought I lied to make you feel better."

"I did," Cassandra admitted.

But if it was true, what Alice had told her and what William now confirmed, then Nigel had committed suicide. He would have been denied a proper burial if the truth had been known.

Would she have minded?

Would she mind?

He might have killed someone that night. Instead, he had killed himself.

She was too numb to analyze her thoughts and feelings.

"It was a damn fool thing to run the way I did," William said. "Pardon my language."

"It was," Stephen agreed. "But we all do foolish things, Belmont. I would advise you not to compound the error now, though, by dashing out to tell the world the truth. The truth is ugly and might not be believed anyway. I would suggest that everyone retire for the night and that I go home. Let decisions be made tomorrow or the next day."

"That is very wise advice," Alice said, looking at him with approval.

"You were not here, Alice," Cassandra said, "when I told William that Lord Merton and I are betrothed."

Alice looked from one to the other of them.

"Yes" was all she said. She nodded her head. "Yes."

And she withdrew and presumably went back upstairs to her room. William stood and drew Mary to her feet and led her out of the room, his arm about her shoulders.

They were /husband and wife/, Cassandra thought. They had been for longer than a year. Since the day before Nigel died. /By his own hand/.

Alice had not been lying all this time.

"Why did you tell me," Stephen asked, standing and waiting for her to get to her feet too, "that you had killed your husband?"

She felt almost too weary to stand.

"Everyone believed it anyway," she said. "And part of me wished it had been me."

"And you wanted to protect that miserable apology for a man?" he asked her.

"Don't judge William too harshly," she said. "He is not a bad man. Mary loves him, and he is Belinda's father. Besides, he /married/ her, a mere maid in his father's house, because she had borne his child. And he came back for her even though he must have still feared that he might be accused of murdering Nigel. I believe he must be fond of her. I did not want him charged with murder, Stephen. He is /Belinda's father/."

He framed her face with his hands and smiled at her. And what a /ghastly/ moment, she thought, in which to realize that she was bone deep in love with him.

"If there is an angel in this room," he said, "it is certainly not me."

He bent his head and kissed her softly on the lips.

"Will you stay the night?" she asked him.

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "I /will/ make love to you again, Cass. But it will be on our wedding night and in our marriage bed. And it will be a loving to end all lovings."

"Boaster," she said.

It would be never, then, she thought with some regret. She would never make love with him again.

"I will ask you on the morning after our wedding night," he said, "if it was a boast."

And his smile caused his eyes to twinkle.

He set one arm about her waist and led her toward the front door.

"Good night, Cass," he said, kissing her again before opening the door.

"You are going to have to marry me, you know. You are going to be horribly lonely otherwise. You are about to lose all your family to matrimony."

"Except Wesley," she said.

He nodded.

"And except Roger," she said.

"And except Roger," he agreed, grinning as he stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him.

Cassandra set her forehead against the door and closed her eyes. She tried to remember why she could not marry him.

/19/

"I AM going out for a walk," Cassandra said, though she made no move to put words into action. She was standing at the sitting room window, looking out on a day that had not quite made up its mind whether to rain or to shine, though it seemed more inclined to decide upon the former.

She had not slept well – hardly surprisingly.

Now this morning everyone had become insubordinate.

Mary had refused to stop working in the kitchen or to stop addressing Cassandra as /my lady/.

"You are my stepdaughter-in-law, Mary," Cassandra had tried to explain, but to no avail.

"/Someone/ has to cook our breakfast and make our tea and wash the dishes and all the rest of it, my lady," Mary had said, "and it had better be me since I daresay neither you nor Miss Haytor nor Billy knows one end of a frying pan from the other. And I am no different today than what I was yesterday and last week and last month, am I?"

William had been working on the sitting room door when Cassandra came downstairs, and now the door shut tight without having to be given an extra yank. Since then he had mended the clothesline outside so that it was no longer in danger of falling to the ground, taking a load of clean washing with it. And he was in the process of cleaning every window in the house, inside and out.