Chapter 54

Light snow powdered the lawn and much of Chessington's driveway, making white fingers of the tree branches and sprinkling the stone lions, as if by a pastry chef. Cass thrust her fingers deeper into the pockets of her coat-anything to mask what crept up her spine.
"Ow, for the love of soddin' Christ, Saff, just another week or so?"
Ruby's imitation of her was so startling, it dragged Cass from her contemplation. Not of the stone lions. If only.
"Whot the bleedin' hell is goin' on here? Yer mind tellin' me that?"
That spoon she'd nicked this morning from the mustard pot, right beneath Belle and Eudora's noses at the breakfast table was something. The tiny, scrolled silver one that, pushing her fingertips deeper into her coat pocket, she could reach. Just. It made a very shiny bright companion for Eudora's silver brooch and Tilly's lorgnette. Even better, the worn tip was razor sharp. As for the thrill she'd got taking it? Good as sex.
"Nothing."
"Nothin' my sacred fanny aunt's arse, tits, and uncle too. Have yer fallen fer him? Is that soddin' it?"
"Him?" Cass's fingers clenched tighter. Her? Fall for him? To do that she'd need to be with him. And she wasn't. No. Where she was was somewhere else. She squeezed the spoon, pressing the edge into her fingertips. "Sorry?"
"Mister Toffee-Snout." Ruby jerked her chin at Devorlane Hawley's retreating back. "Oh, yer have, haven't yer, and that's whot all this soddin' bleedin' nonsense is about? Admit it."
"Leave off, Rube, Cass wouldn't fall for no man what's holding her a bleedin' prisoner," Pearl said.
Cass drew her gaze back. Her own absence from Barwych must be noteworthy, certainly in terms of Pearl being left with Ruby. The cheap, gaudily colored woolen shawl, the patterned poke bonnet that actually made Pearl look jaunty, for Pearl anyway. Cass bit her tongue. Fallen? Her sacred fanny aunt's arse too. This? The fact she couldn't take her eyes off him? This was because she was here, no more, no less. And she didn't like it.
"Well? Would you, Cass?" Pearl shivered inside her shawl.
"Me?"
Yet if she hadn't fallen, if she didn't like it, why was her gaze magnetized by the sight of him striding across the lawn towards the driveway, her heart racing like a damned pony's? When she finally had these precious snatched moments to speak to Pearl and Ruby alone-her first since she'd come here that Belle, or Tilly, or somebody wasn't there with them.
Whoever he crossed the snow-crusted lawn to speak to, he'd soon be back.
"Absolutely not. Let's not waste time saying so. He'll be back in minute. Look, I'll be leaving here quite soon. Any day now I should think."
"I bleedin' hope so." Ruby blew on her hands to warm them. "Yer got any idea whot it's like trailin' over here every other day just ter see yer all right wif them soddin' hoities? Specially in this bleedin' cold."
Cass did, which was why she suffered another guilty pang, as well as a flushing of heat. Ruby had said hoities, hadn't she? Because she meant Tilly, Belle, and Eudora, who were all indoors this morning. Of course she meant Devorlane Hawley too, although Cass's classification there would have been different. Hotties. Where had she even learned such a word? In Starkadder's obviously. It couldn't be here.
Pearl's eyes widened. She clutched Cass's arm. "You mean you found something out, Cass? About who you are? How good is that, Rube?"
Cass's throat tightened. Yes, she had. The journey had been anything but in vain. If only what she'd found out wasn't how wantonly addicted it was possible to be to a man. Still, this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
"No." She shook her head. "But Lord Hawley asked me to stay till Christmas to-"
She pushed a tendril of hair back from her face. While these were her friends, did she want them knowing what she had been helping him with when it was private? And his pride was higher than a mountain? How, since that awful night a few weeks ago, she'd been helping herself? To various things. How he'd asked her no such thing about staying.
Fortunately he hadn't pressed her about the missing cuff link. Probably because he hadn't even noticed it was missing. But if he did and he did speak to her? Well, it was a start.
"Whot? Christmas?" Ruby's jaw dropped. "Are yer orf yer soddin'-"
"What's the problem? Tomorrow, isn't it? I can be home soon after. It's what I said, isn't it, about the day or two?" She could be home now. But what if he didn't follow her, like these other times.
"I don't care if it's next soddin' year, in twelve soddin' months time, Saff, yer never came here ter agree ter terms like that. Yer came here ter look at papers. And if yer'd done whot I damn well told yer wif the laudanum in the first soddin'-"
"Well, I did. I mean I tried." Her breath hit the freezing air in a crisply starched puff. "But you have no idea how difficult that was."
"My sacred arse."
"So you said already."
"Why was that, Saff? That yer agreed?"
"Well, he ... he ... "
No. She wouldn't say. How could she? To be truthful about what she was doing here? She didn't know. Not the way he'd behaved toward her the last few weeks.
"See, Saff, whot I'm smellin' here is rats."
Actually it was insulting. Didn't Ruby think her capable of interesting a man? Just because she hadn't, didn't mean she couldn't. Why, look at Gil-perhaps not right now though.
"Big, fat 'uns." Ruby's gaze fixed itself, so Cass felt it boring holes in her skull. "Don't say I never warned yer. I am worried about yer. Known yer too long not ter be. But yer want ter get yerself banged up-"
"Banged up? Don't be ridiculous." Well, it was, wasn't it? Especially as they hadn't been doing anything since that evening, when his words had as good as slapped her face.
She would have liked to. God, how she would have liked to. Surely Ruby didn't think that was why she stayed when she had these papers to look at?
"In jail, Saff."
"Oh that?"
If he'd dashed down the driveway to meet Lord Koorecroft, perhaps she might have admitted it was unusual for him to take himself off like this. But the post-boy? Was Ruby barking mad? It wasn't as if she'd done anything to him, past or present. Apart from sticking these emeralds in his pocket that night. Hardly the crime of the century. In fact she could argue that in his treatment of her, he did things to her.
"How's that going to happen, Ruby, eh? Will you stop being stupider than you already are?"
"Stupid? Yer ain't ever asked yerself why a toff like him would ask a woman like we are, ter stay here till Christmas Day? Well?"
"Because I have Lord Armstrong's papers to look at. And there are things that have come to light I need to prove. Things he said. Tilly said. About me."
"Whot fings?"
When she'd always set such store by her dreams Ruby must understand this.
"That my father was a tinker." But Cass would find the truth, wouldn't she? That he wasn't? It was there. It had to be. Then she would take this back. Like old times. She had just found it difficult to look, to concentrate when so much undermined her she was actually sleepless for it. And her hands, her palms were calloused. It all came back to the fact she could do this, couldn't she?
"Soddin' gut rot. Yer?"
"I'm glad you think so but-"
"I don't fink. I knows. And I knows yer don't need ter prove that ter anyone. His soddin' toffee-nose-ship most of all. Cos I knows yer. Tinker's daughter, my arse. But maybe that's whot this is really all about? Provin' yerself?"
"Me?"
"So yer can live in his world?"
"What?"
She's hoped to, yes. Take her rightful place at Barwych. Except the underlying shock in Ruby's voice said more. That she wanted to find out so she was good enough to breathe the same air as him on a more permanent basis. It was a consideration, if you wanted to consider being with a man who didn't want you, a rou? an addict. But she didn't. How could she?
She'd helped him. With things she couldn't explain to Ruby, to anyone, he was so private about them. Explain what it did to her either, seeing him as she sometimes did, knowing he didn't want her. Knowing that being freed from the constraints of being his mistress hadn't helped her set her mind to the task of these papers.
"Because this here ain't our world. Yer should know that. Yer used ter, which is why yer was so safe ter be wif."
"I'm still safe to be with. What the hell's wrong with you? I've not changed."
"And when yer talked about comin' here and startin' again, I believed yer. All them years I believed yer. But now, me and Pearl ain't waitin' around ter be banged up wif yer, because if yer asks me, that's whot he's really after. I'm sorry, Saff, it's not whot's wrong wif me. It's what's wrong wif yer. This is where it ends."
What?
Ends? Had she just heard that? Why the blazes was Ruby taking that tack? Equally, Ruby was accustomed to taking all sorts of things. Why should this be different? Before Cass could part her lips to say so, Ruby swung on her heel.
"Come on, Pearl."