The Earl’s Secret - Chapter One

Lady Persephone Holloway hated weddings.

This one, however, was an exception.

This was not the finalization of a contract that hardly involved the bride and groom. This was not two people who barely knew one another, who might, in the end, hate one another for tying themselves together in the one life they had to live.

This wedding was one that celebrated the love of two people who were choosing to be together because they couldn’t imagine a life apart.

This was a story that she could support, especially when the bride was one of her closest friends, dressed in a white gown so shimmering it was near to silver, a diamond broach gathered beneath the bodice on the front.

“She is beautiful,” Percy whispered in Faith’s ear. Faith sat stoically watching the proceedings, and Percy wondered if she was actually seeing anything, for she was barely blinking. “Faith, are you all right?”

Faith nodded, although her jaw was clenched so tightly that Percy was worried for her teeth.

“She will always be part of your life, you know,” Percy said. “She will never truly leave you.”

Faith nodded again, and Percy leaned over and squeezed her hand. She knew that while Faith only wanted her sister to be happy, Hope’s marriage also meant that there would be a great deal of distance between them. If only Faith would be open to marriage herself. But it seemed that was not to be.

Percy leaned into say something else to Faith, but stopped suddenly when a prickling sensation danced over the back of her neck. She was being watched. She looked up to find Mr. Noah Rowley’s eyes on her, his brow furrowed behind his spectacles, his mouth in a grim line of disapproval. Percy slunk back in her seat, feeling properly chastised, an uneasy swirl in her stomach.

Very well, then. If the scholarly Mr. Rowley felt that she should be silent, then silent she would be.

“It is not a true romance if it does not have a happy ending.”

Cassandra’s bold statement was met with the expected chorus of opinions. In a room of women who are all passionate about their preferences in their romance novels and never hesitated to share their true thoughts, her view would not go unchallenged.

But she maintained her position as she sat in the center of the room and placed her hand over her heart as though making a lifelong vow.

Although she supposed in a way, she was.

“Why did we just put ourselves through such tragedy for entertainment?” she continued, her spine straight in her perch on the middle cushion of the crimson French sofa, which was beginning to show all of its decades. “I apologize, Faith, for I know the book was your choice, but I was so invested in their love, and then for it all to end in such a tortuous manner… I simply cannot go through that again.”

“Cassandra,” Faith said, tilting her head to study her friend. “You are being overly dramatic. It is still a romance because they fell in love. Yes, they allowed external forces to come between them, but the story is still worth reading. Did we not learn something from it?”

“We did,” Cassandra said with a firm nod of her head. “Never trust a gentleman who is more in love with a ghost than his wife.”

Persephone, who they affectionately called Percy, started to snicker at that, while Faith rolled her eyes. Faith’s sister, Hope, sighed, and Cassandra knew that she likely agreed with her. The fair-haired, blue-eyed Hope lived up to her name, always seeing the best in everyone around her, while Faith was far more suspicious of anyone who entered her life.

One could tell their personalities by their choice in books – which made Cassandra all the more worried about what Madeline might pick the following week.

Percy held up a hand to halt a new argument.

“Before we delve deeper into this conversation, perhaps we should pour ourselves a drink.”

“An excellent idea,” Cassandra said, smiling wickedly as she walked to the sideboard, where her brother, Gideon, kept his alcohol. She had a feeling he knew that she and her friends often helped themselves to his supply, but each woman took a turn providing sustenance for their meetings so that there was never enough missing for him to have reason to accuse them.

She reached underneath and found five short glasses, lining them up in a row on the chipped wood of the counter above. She generously poured each one, and then served them to her friends before sitting back in her own place on the sofa, closing her eyes and taking a deep sip, welcoming the fiery warmth as it slid down her throat – just as the door opened, startling all of them.

“Gideon, I—oh, excuse me.”

The deep, bass voice echoed through the room and straight into Cassandra’s soul. It was a voice she knew well, one that she usually attempted to avoid.

For it brought nothing but trouble.

She shot to her feet so quickly that the remnants of her drink spilled out and splashed over her dress, but she disregarded that as she locked eyes with the dark, unreadable ones of the man in front of her – the man she had allowed to get under her skin, not to mention a few other places he should never have been – one too many times.

His broad, full lips curled into a smirk as his eyes wandered from her face down the entirety of her body to the kid slippers that covered her toes and back up again. His scrutiny was more fiery than the liquid that was dripping over her and she shivered from the intensity of it.

“Having ourselves a good time, are we ladies?” he asked, although he kept his eyes on Cassandra.

“We are having a private meeting,” she said, straightening her shoulders and meeting his gaze full-on, refusing to cower before him. “One to which gentlemen are not invited. I believe Gideon is hosting a gathering of his own – one that you are likely welcome at – in the drawing room. This is the parlor.”

“So it would seem,” he said, his eyes sweeping around the room, missing nothing, including the books that each of them held in their laps. Cassandra gripped hers tightly in her hand as she moved it slightly behind her back so that he wouldn’t comment upon it. She had nothing to fear from the man, she reminded herself. The worst he could do was tell Gideon what they were doing in here, and the truth was, she didn’t think her brother would overly care.

“Lord Covington,” Hope said belatedly, standing with a slight bow, one which they all followed – even Cassandra, as much as it aggravated her to do so.

She could tell he was completely aware of her feelings as his grin stretched wider and his eyes turned darker.

“Lady Cassandra,” he replied, slipping his hand into his jacket and producing his handkerchief with a flourish, “I believe you might be in need of this.”

Cassandra’s hands balled into fists as she wanted to deny it – deny him – with everything within her. But she could feel the close gaze of her friends and she knew that she was best to simply take it from him and then hope he would leave.

“Thank you,” she said through gritted teeth, crossing the room toward him and practically ripping it from his fingers before lifting it up to her body. Then she realized that two could play this game.

Ensuring that no one else in the room – except Lord Covington or Devon as she had always known him – could see her actions, she smiled coyly as she brought the handkerchief to her neck, slowly wiping away drops of the drink from her collarbones and then down to her cleavage. She dipped his handkerchief, noting it was embroidered with his initials, D.A., into the valley of her breasts, watching his nostrils flare as she did so.

She fixed an innocent look upon her face as she lifted the handkerchief and held it out toward him.

“Here you are,” she said, annoyed by the breathy tone of her voice as she realized that her plan had unintended consequences when warmth washed over her, her teasing affecting her as much as she had meant to affect him.

His ungloved hands brushed against hers when he accepted it back, causing a most unwelcome tingle to rush up her arms and down her spine. He crushed the handkerchief in his hand as he nodded to her and then the rest of her friends before he turned on his heel and swiftly left the room.

Leaving quite the shocked air behind him.

Cassandra’s shoulders stiffened for a moment, knowing what she would be facing when she turned around to her friends.

“Well,” Percy said with wide eyes. “That was… interesting.”

Madeline, the only one of the women who knew the full story of Cassandra’s history with Devon, was wearing a knowing smile as she crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Cassandra’s response. Some help she was.

Cassandra cleared her throat.

“Shall we return to our discussion?”

Faith lifted a brow.

“Perhaps you should first tell us of what just transpired between you and the earl.”

Cassandra should have expected this, although she wasn’t entirely sure how to explain. Behind closed doors here in their book club room they were not the most proper of women, but they were still, for the most part, innocent young ladies who would be rather shocked if they knew the full truth.

“Lord Covington is my brother’s closest friend,” she said, lifting a hand as though it didn’t mean anything.

“Of that we are aware,” Faith said. “But I can hardly see how him being the friend of your brother could lead to such… tension.”

Cassandra walked over to the sideboard and repoured her brandy before taking her seat, giving herself a moment to collect her thoughts by sipping from the glass.

“He and my brother spent much of their youth torturing me,” she said, hoping her tone was nonchalant. “I have never been particularly pleased with the part he played in encouraging Gideon.”

“How long did this torture last?” Percy asked, clearly understanding there was, perhaps, more to the story.

“It has never ended,” Cassandra said, allowing her ire at the man to flow into her words. “Although I haven’t seen him in some time. I have tended to avoid him since I… returned.”

“Sometimes they say mocking is a form of flirtation,” Hope said in her soft voice. “He could have a particular penchant for you.”

“That is a lovely way to look at it, Hope, but I can assure you that he most certainly does not.”

Hope shrugged as she took a small sip of her drink. Cassandra knew Hope would never admit to another soul outside of this room that she enjoyed it, preferring her lemonades when drinking in public. But then, she was as sweet of a woman as one could ever find and would never want to disturb her mother nor cause any discord.

“Lord Covington is nothing more than a nuisance, and a nuisance that I would prefer to avoid,” Cassandra said, picking up her book to note to the rest of them that she was finished with their current conversation. “Now, can we discuss how much better this book would have been had the hero not been killed in the end?”

They seemed to accept her explanation – or at least respect her obvious preference to not discuss it any further – for now, at least. It wasn’t until the women had concluded their book discussion for the day and departed, leaving just Madeline and Cassandra, that Cassandra knew she would have to face the truth.

“So tell me,” Madeline said, as she settled back against the sofa, her brown eyes flashing in amusement as she looked at Cassandra impishly, “just what are you going to do about Lord Covington?”

“There is nothing todo about him,” Cassandra said, walking around the room and collecting their glasses. Of course the maids would be in to clean, but Cassandra didn’t want them knowing exactly what she and her friends were doing in here. It was one thing to discuss books that none of them were supposed to be reading, and quite something else for them to be drinking brandy while doing so.

Her mother was aware of their book club, but as far as she knew, they were reading An Enquiry Into the Duties of the Female Sex and discussing just how they should be conducting themselves in order to attract proper husbands.

“Cassandra, the moment he stepped into the room, the air was filled with an obvious edge,” Madeline said. “Perhaps what was between you was never completely resolved.”

“It was,” Cassandra said with vehemence in her voice, more so to convince herself than Madeline. “It was a mistake. One that should never have happened.”

“One that left you ruined.”

“No one knows that.”

“Except you. And him.”

“What does it matter?” Cassandra asked, lifting her hands. “Only my mother and Gideon were aware that I made an immoral choice. Although they never discovered the full extent of it, they ensured I paid for it. No one else knows anything for certain, so therefore, no slight on my honor.”

“The man you marry might find out.”

“It would be too late by then,” Cassandra said through gritted teeth, for it was a battle that she had fought within herself for far too long.

That was the very thing which had held her back from marriage – the knowledge that she would have to hide the truth from her husband until her wedding night, and once he found out, there was no consequence that could turn out in her favor.

It would hardly be a way to start a marriage, and for that reason, she had resisted for a long time. Of course, it had been rather difficult to explain to her mother just exactly why she had refused any suitor who showed interest in her.

She was the daughter of a duke, the sister of a marquess who would one day be one of the most powerful men in the country. And here she was, avoiding any gentleman interested in her.

“There is one other thing you are forgetting,” Madeline said, lifting one of her dark eyebrows, with that expression that terrified most men, intimidating them from coming too close.

“Which is?”

“That you cannot help yourself from being attracted to him, that no other man has ever been good enough for you.”

“That’s not true,” Cassandra said staunchly.

“It is,” Madeline said, though her voice held nonchalance as though she had no desire to argue with Cassandra about it. “I don’t understand why the two of you did not just marry and be done with it.”

“Because we can hardly stand being in the same room together, let alone in front of an altar,” Cassandra said. The truth was, she had barely spoken to Devon after… it… happened, as she had refused to allow him close to her once more. “And I could never trust him again,” she finished softly.

She had told herself to move on, had assumed that she would in due time – that soon enough, another man would enter her life, one who was appropriate, who she could tolerate, who would be her friend and her husband.

But no other stirred her soul. Not like Devon had, even if it was not always in the way she would prefer.

She just had no idea what she was supposed to do about it.