5 Chapter 5

Hell on earth. Who was that man, immaculate in fawn trousers and a great-coat, so exquisite it heightened Cass's awareness of what was beneath it, staring as if she was on offer in a whorehouse window? Sexual confidence sizzled so strongly in every line of his body it seemed to transfer itself to the beautifully tailored, softly colored clothes-ten guineas as she lived and breathed.

A right bad one. Cass you stay well away, her mother's whisper rang in her ears, although she couldn't exactly remember the last time she'd seen her.

The fifteen pairs of eyes looking at him were perfectly understandable. Only consider the candlelight gleaming on his unfashionably short sable hair. And those eyes. The cool appraisal, sizzling confidence. What wasn't understandable, when she certainly wasn't going to be the sixteenth, was her head swiveling his way as if it didn't belong to her but to one of them. Why was he looking at her-no, she was not mistaken-as if she were meat and he were something carnivorous? So the intense focus of the regard turned her insides to mush?

She waited for his stare to make its way around the room: over the books, the golden-tooled volumes, the shining silver candelabra, the ancient terrestrial globes, the women. Decorous, far prettier women, far younger than herself. And she thanked God when it did.

Then it swung back.

Stay well away? She'd like to. What was he playing at? Looking at her like this?

"Would you care for something else?" Belle, resplendent in a shimmering, oriental blue gown, her carefully pinned hair adorned with a matching rose, beckoned a liveried footman.

"I'm sorry?" Cass fought the urge to fan herself. What she'd care for right now? What was wrong with her?

"A little lemonade perhaps?"

Lemonade? Cass glanced at the tray of glasses glimmering in front of her face. When brandy straight, stiff was on the go? She wound a gloved hand around the nearest crystal stem. "Thank you. Yes, I'll have that."

"But, Cassidy." Belle laughed uneasily. "Is that wise? Think of the recital ..."

"Oh, I am, Belle. Rest assured. Nothing's closer to my mind. My heart too."

That flutter in her stomach needed settling. Maybe this wasn't the right remedy, it was certainly better than nothing. Already her palms were coated in a sticky sweat at the thought of the recital-Belle's idea, not hers-why add to it by having a manor house garden of butterflies flutter in her stomach?

"Trust me," she added, raising the glass to her lips. "The recital will go all the better for a little-"

"Oh! Oh, my sacred stars and heavens!"

Cass paused midsentence. Mid-slug too. Had a ghost just materialized on the Turkish rug? The blood rushed from Belle's face. Cass reached to take her hand, not something she'd normally touch with fire tongs, but there was a first time for everything and the thought that Belle might collapse made her charitable.

"Devorlane!" Belle bounded from the chair. "I can't believe it! Ten years! Oh my ... my ... "

Lord.

Definitely the word Cass's jaw hung open on.

"My darling ... Devorlane!"

Cass snapped her jaw shut and brought her gaze back. So? The long-legged, lean-limbed specimen, with the carnivorous stare and gleaming Hessian boots, was Devorlane. The famed Devorlane Hawley. Soldier. Duke. Satan's spawn by the looks of him. In fact if looks could kill Belle would be be dead on the rug. Buried too.

"Yes, Belle."

Or maybe that was just the impression given by the emerald eyes-ten carats if they were a day-sitting like ice-chips beneath long, straight brows? The slight hint of stubble darkening his shockingly sensuous upper lip? Not that she blamed him. Wherever the good fairies had been the day Belle came into the world, it certainly wasn't around any cradle of hers. Within a five mile radius either.

"Ten years," he continued. "An eternity to be without certain things. The things one holds dear."

Pardon her for smothering the yawn and fiddling with her skirt front, but when she'd been without so many things for almost the whole of her life, did this aristocratic specimen of blazing masculinity seriously expect her to pity him? Angling for her attention was more like it.

Well, despite the fact he was so damned handsome, no-one should be allowed to look like that, he wasn't getting it.

"Don't you think?" he added.

Thinking wasn't possible actually given the look he levelled on her. Fortunately the swirling patterns on the ornate rug were very interesting that way.

"Devorlane, how well you look. Why, the way Tilly went on and on and on about your leg wound, I imagined you might even be brought in here on a stretcher, in a wheel-"

"It's a scratch."

Despite staring nonchalantly at the rug, she felt his coldly burning stare swing to her. "Compared to other things."

What was that supposed to mean? That she was to be compared to a scratch? Or that she was a thing? Or ... ? The floor pitched in Turkish carpeted waves around her, as she shot to her feet.

"Cassidy! You're surely not leaving us?"

Was the act on a par with nicking the crown jewels? Something Cass had considered once or twice but never done.

"No ... Um ... I ... " She grasped her fan tighter, feeling the slats dig through the soft cotton of her glove. There must be some excuse she could think of. "Was just going to check the-the--"

Aspidistra?One stood over by the door.

"Cassidy?" Knowledge? Surprise? Something flickered under his sensuous eyelids. "Cassidy Armstrong?"

Cass's heart scudded across three beats. Cassidy Armstrong? My lord, what chance presented itself here?Was she seriously going to pass up the chance to learn what she'd come all the way to darkest Berkshire to find? Bolt because she'd never been at a house party as a properly invited guest, instead of one who rifled bureau drawers and forced open chests without thinking, who was always one step away from the noose?

Bolt? Because a man stared at her? A salacious devil who couldn't keep his eyes to himself? Was she stark, raving mad?

Wasn't it bad enough she'd just leaped to her feet fearing he knew she was Sapphire? When fear wasn't in her vocabulary? How the hell would he know her as Sapphire? How would anyone here know her as that? She'd never looked the same way twice. She wouldn't be Sapphire otherwise.

Well? Was it possible he was actually going to tell her the truth that eluded her? The one she'd held to for twenty-two years? Say, 'because you're Cassidy Armstrong, the rightful owner of Barwych?' She set the empty glass down on a side table-chipped, in need of restoration, but still worth a bob or two.

"How ... how do you know my name?"

"I made it my special business to acquire it from Tilly."