Chapter 19

Nineteen

By the time Monday night arrived, frustration had settled like a stone in Grant's chest. Dinner with his father had loomed like a ominous black cloud for the last two days, and it had cast its shadow over everything, it seemed.

Saturday at the clinic, plenty of patients had come in for one thing or another, but he had not seen Amir or his father. The boy's sutures needed checking; without proper care and attention, they would fester. Surely, Mr. Mansouri would have sent for him had Amir turned feverish, or the wound red and infected. Still, he and Hannah waited an extra half hour past their regular closing time to give them a chance to show. They hadn't.

Then, arriving home, a message from Hugh had been waiting. Mrs. Lydia Montrose had denied any knowledge of where her niece could be. In the aunt's opinion, the ungrateful girl had captured a wealthy man's heart and had squandered it by running away. The only helpful thing she provided was Youngdale's address, but when Hugh had called on him, the staff said their master was out and that Miss Isabel had not been seen as of late. With no solid legal reason to force entry, all Hugh could then do was place someone as a look out. Unsurprisingly, Sir had volunteered. But there was still no sign of Youngdale. Sunday night, Grant returned to Duke's for a match, but he had not been among the spectators either. It was as if he'd disappeared. Or was lying low.

And, of course, there was Cassie.

As Merryton pulled along the curb outside twelve Grosvenor Square, Grant regretted every single decision he'd made for the last fortnight. But none so much as the one he'd made Friday night in Hugh's study. Though, kissing Cassie hadn't been as much a decision as it had been a compulsion.

Grant had cursed under his breath the entire walk back to Thornton House. Storming inside, he'd barked at his butler to lock up for the night, taken the stairs to his room like a tempest, and slammed the bedroom door in his valet's face. But one look at the bed in which he'd so recently imagined laying Cassie down on, stripping her gown from her body, and making love to her, and he'd ached with the solitary need for release.

He wasn't often in a foul temper, and so the servants were sure to talk, but he did not care. He'd lost control in Hugh's study. Hell, if he'd been assured of their privacy, he would have laid Cassie onto the carpet in front of the fireplace and taken her there and then.

Had that happened, when the sun rose, he would have had no choice but to go to Fournier and offer for Cassie's hand. In truth.

That was something he could not do. That he would not do.

Cassie's footman allowed him in, and Grant held himself rigidly while he waited. He'd forced all his frustration from the last few days to stay lodged where it had accumulated, right in the center of his chest. He would make no more mistakes.

He was staring holes in the parquet flooring when a throat cleared softly. Cassie had come to stand in front of him. He straightened but didn't look her directly in the eye as he murmured a good evening. She held still and quiet as her maid helped her into her pelisse, thankfully covering up the emerald satin gown she wore; a hasty assessment had shown it displayed a healthy amount of decolletage. Grant refused to let his eyes linger.

Without more conversation, they got underway, the two of them alone, enclosed in the interior of his carriage. He breathed evenly and kept his attention on the window. Flakes of wet snow collected on the glass. The silence intensified with every passing minute. His fingers drummed on the black superfine encasing his thighs. He needed to say something.

Grant turned away from the window, and she was waiting for him. Their eyes connected, and he could not look away. Not without appearing cowardly.

"Mr. Youngdale hasn't been located."

Cassie lifted her chin, and he saw her disappointment. She wanted to speak about the kiss. He could not think of anything he would like to discuss less.

"Hugh suggested he could be keeping Isabel in an undisclosed location. Or perhaps the aunt was lying, and she is helping Youngdale after all."

He kept his words flat. Emotionless.

Cassie took a bracing breath. "Shouldn't we speak of what happened the other night?"

His eyes clashed with hers again. He then squared his shoulders. "No. It was a mistake. Let's leave it at that."

Cassie stared at him as if a realization was dawning, one that now slid through her like oil. She made no reply, and Grant again looked out the window. "The marquess is going to test the veracity of this courtship. Are you prepared to keep up your end of the bargain?"

"My end? You rule over all of this charade, Lord Thornton. Not me."

He looked at her again, the void between them yawning wide and hollow. Good. It was what he needed.

"Can you make the marquess believe you are interested in my suit or can you not?" he asked.

Cassie breathed thinly, her temper beginning to visibly flare. And why shouldn't it? He was being unforgivably callous.

"I will make him believe it." She ground out each word. At the chilled glare that followed, Grant had the notion that she was devising something in that crafty mind of hers.

Neither of them spoke another word as the carriage bore them across the Thames, toward Lindstrom House in Kennington. For as long as Grant could remember, he'd considered the place a prison. Though it faced the distinctive and landscaped Oval, it was the wild lawns out back of Lindstrom House where Grant had preferred to spend his time when he'd been younger. There were some outbuildings where he'd taken shelter if the weather was cold or rainy, and he'd kept them stuffed with supplies—hampers of food, pilfered bottles of his father's good whisky, books, and blankets to keep warm.

Almost always, one of his brothers would find him and drag him back to the house, where he'd receive a lecture from the marquess regarding his irresponsible behavior and commands to strive to be more like Lawrence or Harold, or at the very least, like James.

As the carriage stopped, Grant realized he was about to lead Cassie into a house that had, from the beginning, seemed to swallow him whole whenever he entered it. Not once had he possessed even a shred of true confidence within these walls, and if he was going to pull off these next few hours with any semblance of success, he would need all the confidence he possessed.

Grant handed Cassie down onto the pavement out front of Lindstrom House and noted that her slippers made deep impressions in the snowfall. By the time they made it to the front step, they would be soaked.

"I can carry you, if you'd prefer to keep your feet out of the snow," he said, though immediately wished he hadn't offered. He could not put his hands on any part of her body again.

"Carry me? Don't be absurd," she snapped, and then started forward without him.

Half thankful and half vexed, he followed, flecks of snow shuttling into his eyes. The front door whisked open before he could bring down the knocker, and upon entering, the voices of his brothers and their wives barreled into his ears. They were a loud lot and always had been. His father's longtime butler, Harding, greeted them with a bow.

"Welcome, my lord. My lady," he said, taking a second bow toward Cassie. The footman, a new one Grant did not know, divested her of her snowy pelisse and gloves, and then took Grant's outer trappings.

"The marquess and his guests are in the drawing room," Harding intoned.

The butler started away, expecting them to follow. With an arm gesture for Cassie to proceed, she gave Grant her back and crossed the entrance lobby. Gray was the overarching theme inside Lindstrom House. A cold pewter. Grant recalled yellows and greens when he'd been young and his mother had been alive, but after her death, the marquess had tried to eradicate all traces of her. Any memory of her would be salt in an open wound. When Sarah had died, it was the closest Grant had ever been to understanding his father.

A moment before Harding announced them, Grant braced himself. Then slipped his arm under Cassie's, hooking it. The touch sent a bolt through him, and surprise was still bright on her face too when they entered the room together.

His father stood, along with Lawrence, Harold, James, and Penelope's husband, Alfred.

"Lady Cassandra, may I present my father, the Marquess of Lindstrom; his heir, Lawrence, the Earl of Cranfield and his wife Lady Cranfield; Lord Harold Thornton and his wife, Lady Priscilla; Lord James Thornton; and Mr. Alfred Farrington and his wife, my sister, Mrs. Penelope Farrington."

Had he been in any typical humor, having spat out that mouthful of introductions, Grant would have made some quip about his family having more members than the Houses of Parliament. But he couldn't find it within him. A heaviness had settled in his chest and stamped out any humor at all.

His siblings and their spouses, and his father too, greeted Cassie in turn, who continued to clutch Grant's arm. He was almost positive she was tightening her grip due to nervousness. Even still, he was entirely too aware of her arm against his.

"We wondered if the snow had hampered your carriage," Harold said.

Grant frowned. "It's nothing. A dusting at most."

"It's going to increase," Harold, ever the fusspot, argued. "I think we'd be better off leaving for Town sooner rather than later."

The marquess scoffed. "Stop stewing over the weather and act like a man, for God's sake."

Harold's wife, Priscilla speared her father-in-law with a look of animosity. It had never been much of a secret that she did not care for the marquess or his unrestricted ridicule. Just as it had never been much of a secret that the marquess did not care for Priscilla. Or Prissy as he tended to call her, both behind her back and to her face.

"Now, Lady Cassandra, what will you have? Peters, bring the lady a glass of wine."

The footman stationed near the table of decanters leaped to his task.

"Perhaps you could allow the lady to choose her own drink," Grant said, his jaw tight.

His father waved away the suggestion even as Cassie's hand on his forearm flexed. Then, as if realizing that she still clung to him, she released him and stepped away.

"Ladies prefer wine, son. Or sherry. What of that, my lady, would you prefer sherry? Peters! Sherry."

The footman had already poured the wine but now lowered the carafe and reached for the sherry.

"I'll have a whisky," Cassie said. The room silenced.

Instantly, Grant recalled the intoxicating taste of whisky on her tongue as it curled around his Friday night. He swallowed a groan.

The marquess did not say a word as Peters splashed a finger of the good single malt into a glass. Penelope and her husband Alfred exchanged an amused look as Cassie took the whisky. In contradiction, Lawrence and his wife, Mary, could not mask their matching sneers. It was a rare thing for Lawrence or Mary to differ in opinion from the marquess, and right then Lindstrom was arching a brow in distaste.

"It isn't often a lady in Lindstrom House partakes in uisge beatha," James said, shifting his entertained grin toward Grant. Thought she was in confinement, James's wife Vera was the luckiest of them all for getting to sit out this dinner party.

Grant was scowling at his brother when he felt Cassie's hand glide against his. Startled, he stared at their joined hands, their fingers lacing together. He looked up and saw the glint of mischief shining in her eyes.

"I find that I prefer to toast good news with the water of life, Lord James," she said with a fetching grin as she affected an adoring gaze on Grant.

"And what good news do you bring, my lady?" the marquess asked.

A prickle of premonition arrived too late. Grant could not open his mouth and deflect her answer fast enough.

"I have accepted your son's offer of marriage, Lord Lindstrom," Cassie said as she stared into Grant's eyes, watching for his reaction.

He stopped breathing, but sound tolled through his ears—the rush of blood and shock and not a small amount of panic. Offer of marriage? The infuriating little hoyden! She'd promised to convince the marquess of her interest in his suit, and this is what she had settled on?

As he met her acerbic smile with a menacing grin of his own, voices began to feed back into his eardrums. His brothers' stiff congratulations and Penelope's genuine exclamation of surprise were pops of sound that grated on him. But his father's voice was the loudest. Even though Cassie had just shoved Grant one step closer to giving the old man what he wanted, he didn't offer well wishes but more criticism.

"Glad to see you've finally drummed up some sense, boy. That perpetual keening over a woman, dead nigh on a decade, was becoming rather tiresome."

The scornful remark was nothing new for Grant and so it did not lash at him as it had the first several times the marquess voiced it. However, Cassie's triumphant gleam snapped off, and she jerked a look of horror toward the marquess.

"How could you say something so cruel?"

The pleased grins all around turned to stone and cracked. The pressure of Cassie's fingers increased around his as she glared at his father. Grant gently squeezed her hand.

"Don't pay him any mind. He says what he thinks without concern for how it might sound," he told her. She blinked, the color rising in her cheeks. It wasn't embarrassment. No, he knew this particular shade of pink. It lit her face whenever she was provoked, and Cassie was truly appalled at Lord Lindstrom.

"You clearly do not know your future husband as well as the rest of us, Lady Cassandra. He's a stubborn, melancholy profligate that I expect you to take in hand."

She rocked back onto her heels, stunned anew. Grant should have warned her what his father was like. The threat to cut him off financially had not been a manipulative tool. It had been sincere as a bullet to the heart. Now at least she would believe him.

Coming through the drawing room doors, Harding announced dinner. Everyone leaped to flee the unexpected tension. Penelope came toward them, interest bowing her lips.

"Lady Cassandra, why don't you walk with me?"

Cassie's fingers loosened from Grant's and fell away. He shouldn't have felt the loss of them as keenly as he did, especially given the stunt she'd just pulled. It had been hasty and ill-judged, and she was going to regret it once her temper receded.

He followed Cassie and Penelope to the dining room, where the seating was arranged to make sure no one sat directly next to their spouse. Cassie was placed to the marquess's right, and to her right was James. Grant took a chair across the table, diagonal to her. While the wine was poured and the soup course delivered, her mouth remained a grim slash, her eyes furtively taking stock of Lord Lindstrom. For once, she was directing her discontent toward another man, and Grant found he was rather enjoying the show.

"Lady Cassandra, has my brother ever told you the story of his first patient?" James asked after the serving of the roast and a rather dull monologue from Lawrence about a finance bill moving through the House.

Cassie lowered her glass of wine and tossed a droll glance toward Grant. "He has not."

"It's nearly as tedious as that finance bill," Grant said with a shake of his head. This story never failed to amuse James, and every time he told the sodding thing, he injected more fanciful imaginings.

"The bill is an integral piece of legislation, Grant, though I don't expect you to know or care," Lawrence muttered.

"Monsieur Quack," James began, affecting a French accent and ignoring their oldest brother.

Cassie arched a brow. "Who?"

"Grant's first patient. Our pet duck."

"James—" Grant sighed, but his brother held up a hand.

"He loved that duck."

"I bloody hated the creature," he said. But James continued as if he'd said nothing.

"And when Monsieur Quack received grave wounds while fending off an attack by a vicious dog?—"

"It was a broken wing from our aunt's decrepit poodle."

"—he spent all night tending to it, doing everything he could to save the poor thing."

Grant tossed back the rest of his wine. "I set the wing. It took ten minutes."

"It was then that we all knew he would be a marvelous physician," James concluded. Then with a wink toward Cassie, whose lips were pinned together against an amused grin, "Or perhaps just strangely attentive toward waterfowl."

Groans from around the table followed the well-worn finish to James's story. However, Cassie released a genuine laugh. The sound charged through Grant like a wallop of victory.

The marquess cleared his throat and put an end to the fragile good humor. "Here is another story, Lady Cassandra. When my youngest son expressed an interest in medicine, I told him to do as he pleased. You see, I didn't believe he had it in him to see through university let alone lower himself to actually work as a doctor."

Cassie's smile slipped, as did everyone else's.

"Imagine my surprise and horror when he hung out his shingle," Lindstrom went on, fingers tapping the table—a signal of his mounting displeasure.

Cassie cut her gaze toward Grant, but he didn't wish to meet it. No doubt it would be full of pity and disbelief at the marquess's derisive remarks. Instead, he kept his attention on his father, whose forehead creased with an expectant look.

"It is high time you put all that nonsense behind you, son. A new marriage is a fresh start, and I doubt His Grace will approve of his sister marrying a man who takes his profession more seriously than he does his title."

His father's disapproval had become so engrained in him that it often felt like an extra layer of skin. Not only did Lord Lindstrom despise the fact that his son worked, but he was also embarrassed by it. While the boy in him longed for his father's approval, the man in him did not require it. Both parts of him took an indecent amount of pleasure in the marquess's humiliation.

However, as he had not sufficiently warned Cassie of his father's shortcomings, she once again balked at the old man. "Give up his profession?"

"Yes, quite right," he said.

"Or at least give up Miss Matthews," Mary said. "It is untoward for the young woman to be working alongside you, Grant, and well you know it."

"The girl is ruined. No one will have her now," the marquess went on, cutting his hand through the air dismissively. "But Lady Cassandra, surely, you do not desire to be the wife of a doctor. And well you shouldn't!"

Cassie didn't desire to be his wife at all, Grant thought, but she had just turned their courtship into a betrothal out of some fit of pique. Here was one such consequence—being subjected to his father's edicts.

He was oddly curious as to how she would handle it.

"Being a physician is entirely respectable." She brought her hands to the table, laying them flat on the lace cloth. "As is being the wife of one."

Grant hitched his chin, unable to peel his eyes from her. By her solemn expression, Cassie was entirely serious. The marquess, though, bayed laughter.

"I thought I told you that you would have to take him in hand, my lady," he said, busily cutting the meat on his plate instead of looking at her. "You must stand up to him or his selfishness will taint your position in society far faster than you might imagine."

Cassie leaned forward, her hands pressing against the table. "I think everyone here would be better served if someone were to stand up to you."

Someone at the table dropped a utensil onto their plate. All other noise ceased. The marquess set his fork and knife down. Slowly, he looked at Cassie as if he'd never seen her before.

Grant tensed, ready to intercede.

"That is an interesting observation, Lady Cassandra. Do explain your point." His father's solicitous tone was anything but genuine.

"I can see now why Grant has said so little about you," she started, undaunted. "Your willingness to disparage him so vocally to me upon our first meeting can be nothing compared to how callous you are toward him in private."

The marquess scoffed. "I have nothing to hide."

"Perhaps you should hide better your dislike for your son. It is entirely unbecoming, not to mention unfounded. He has helped countless people as a physician, and rather than be embarrassed by it, you should be proud."

Cassie pushed to her feet and with mounting wonder and admiration, Grant marveled at the picture she made as she glared down at his father, who looked as if he'd gotten a piece of gristle stuck in his throat.

The marquess touched his napkin to his mouth then tossed it onto his plate. He pushed back his chair and stood to meet Cassie's challenge. "Why you saucy little chit?—"

Grant's fist came down onto the table like a pistol shot, rattling china and crystal all around. He was on his feet before his father could utter another sound.

"You will address her as Lady Cassandra, or you will not address her at all."

The marquess curled his lip, and Grant's reflexive ambition to always push his father one more inch took over. He met Cassie's wide eyes and added with a smirk, "Besides, I am the only man in this room permitted to call her a saucy little anything."

She struggled not to grin, but when James leaned back in his chair and chuckled, she gave in. Cassie covered her mouth and retook her seat. Down the table, Penelope cleared her throat and in a low, theatrical voice, said, "I am the only man permitted to call her a saucy little anything."

Priscilla snorted a laugh while taking a sip of her wine, which only caused James to laugh louder. The alarmed mood around the table shifted back toward normalcy, the tension breaking and vanishing in a wink. This was how it always was with this family, and as Lawrence admonished Penelope to show more reserve, and Harold asked Alfred, seated next to Priscilla, to pat his wife's back before she choked, even the marquess could not stop himself from rolling his eyes in capitulation.

Grant's attention sealed on the woman across from him as he retook his seat. Cassie's laughter joined that of his siblings, and as he had the previous night, he relished the sound of it. That she'd so swiftly stood up to his tyrant of a father should not have surprised him. But that she would defend him at all, after everything he'd done, left him curiously humbled. He didn't deserve it. Perhaps in this instance, his father had been correct after all.

The rest of the dinner unfolded without any more cross words or arguments, unless a debate about whist being the superior card game to vingt-et-un counted as cross words. The marquess had wisely forgone speaking to Cassie, allowing James to rule most of her attention, though several times Grant caught her furtive looks across the table.

The marquess had stood to announce brandy in the billiards room and sherry for ladies in the drawing room when Harding joined them.

"My lord, I've reports that the roads to Town have become all but impassable. Several of the drivers are saying the snow has turned to ice. Perhaps it would be prudent to prepare guest rooms?"

As if magnetically, Grant's eyes went to Cassie just as hers landed on him. Words weren't necessary to know what was going through her mind. To be stuck here, in this house, under one roof for the night was more than just not ideal. It was dangerous. He swallowed hard, past a pulse of panic in his throat.

"Bring my driver. I will speak to him myself." Grant started for the door. Merryton would simply have to try to take them back across the river and toward home.

"Don't be a fool," Harold called. "You'll only be stranded in your carriage all night should you go off the road."

Grant slowed his stride. As overly nervous as his brother usually was, he had a good point. He could not risk an accident that would put Cassie in danger. Not even if the image of Cassie, sprawled in a bed in a guest room down the hall from him, gave him the first twinges of arousal.

"Prepare the rooms, Harding," Lindstrom snapped.

"I've been telling you for years to lease a house closer to Town for the winter months," Lawrence complained loudly to their father as everyone shuffled off toward their respective after-dinner rooms.

With a last wary glance toward Grant, Cassie linked arms with Penelope and followed them.

Hellfire. This was going to be a disaster.