Лиза Клейпас - Chasing Cassandra

Instantly she began one called Some Ducks Don’t Like Puddles . To Tom’s relief, Bazzle subsided.

After scrubbing and rinsing the child three times, Tom washed his hair with borax shampoo paste until the dark locks were squeaky clean. By the time they were done, Tom’s entire front was wet, and his own hair was dripping. He wrapped Bazzle’s now pink and white body in a length of dry toweling, picked him up, and carried him to the stool.

“I feel as if I’ve just wrestled a barrel of monkeys,” Tom said, breathing with exertion.

Garrett laughed as she used a towel to dry Bazzle’s hair. “Well done, Mr. Severin.”

“What about me?” Bazzle protested. “I was the monkey!”

“Well done, you,” Garrett told him. “Now, you must be patient just a bit longer, while I run a nit comb through your hair.”

“I will donate an extra thousand pounds to the charitable cause of your choice,” Tom told Garrett, “if you’ll brush his teeth as well.”

“Done.”

Tom turned away and ran his hands through his hair, and shook his head like a wet dog.

“Wait,” he heard Cassandra say, amusement shimmering in her voice. She hurried over to him with some fresh dry toweling.

“Thank you.” Tom took a towel and rubbed it roughly over his hair.

“My goodness, you’re nearly as wet as Bazzle.” Cassandra used another towel to dab at his face and throat. Smiling, she reached up to smooth the damp chaos of his hair with her fingers.

Tom stood still while she fussed over him. Part of him wanted to bask in the little attentions, which felt almost . . . wifely. But the ache in his chest had worsened, and his body was steaming in the wet clothes, and he began to feel not altogether civilized. He glanced over her head at Garrett, who faced away from them, meticulously combing Bazzle’s hair.

His gaze returned to Cassandra’s face, which would haunt him to the last minute of life. He had collected every smile of hers, every kiss, to hoard like a treasure chest of jewels. These few seconds with her were all he had, or would ever have.

Swiftly he bent and pressed his mouth to hers, gentle but urgent. There was no time for patience.

Her breath caught. Her lips parted tentatively.

He kissed her for all the midnights and mornings they would never share. He kissed her with a tenderness he would never be able to express in words, and felt her response in his blood, as if her sweetness had sunk into his marrow. His mouth pulled softly at hers, taking one last fervent taste . . . then slid away.

The skin of her cheeks was damp and sweet, as if she’d just come in from the rain. He brushed her closed eyelids with his lips, the surfaces fragile and silky, the sweeps of her eyelashes like feather dusters.

Blindly he let go of her and turned away, pacing aimlessly until he saw his coat and waistcoat draped over a steel table. He dressed without a word, and struggled to regain his self-discipline.

As the passionate longing cooled, it hardened into bitterness.

He’d been taken apart by her and reassembled differently. Outwardly, everything seemed to work well enough, but he wasn’t the same inside. Only time would tell the ways in which she’d changed him. But he was fairly certain he wasn’t the better for it.

He forced his mind back to what it should be focusing on: Business. Recalling he had a meeting to attend that afternoon—and would first have to go home to change into dry clothes—he glanced at his pocket watch and frowned. “My time is short,” he told Garrett brusquely. “Can you comb any faster?”

“Ask me that again,” Garrett replied equably, “and this comb will soon be lodged in a place it wasn’t meant to go.”

Bazzle snickered, evidently gathering her meaning.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Tom wandered around the room. He didn’t spare a glance at Cassandra.

“I suppose I should be going now,” he heard her say uncertainly.

“You’ve been an angel,” Garrett told her. “Shall we try again for lunch tomorrow?”

“Yes, let’s.” Cassandra went to Bazzle, who was still perched on the stool. She smiled into his face, which was nearly level with hers. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Bazzle. You’re a good boy, and a handsome one, too.”

“Good-bye,” Bazzle whispered, staring at her with huge, dark eyes.

“I’ll see you out,” Tom said gruffly.

Cassandra was quiet until they had left the tiled room and closed the door. “Tom,” she ventured as they headed to the reception area, “what are you going to do about Bazzle?”

“I’m going to send him home to St. Giles,” Tom replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“If you send him back, he’ll soon become as infested as before.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked curtly.

“Take him in as a ward, perhaps.”

“There are thousands of children out there, in his situation or worse. How many bloody orphans do you think I should take in?”

“Just one. Just Bazzle.”

“Why don’t you take him?”

“I’m in no position to do so. I don’t yet have my own household, nor will I have access to my dowry until I marry. You have the means and ability to help him, and you and he are—” Cassandra broke off, evidently thinking better of what she’d been about to say.

But Tom knew. And he became more offended with each passing moment. He stopped with her in the hallway, just before they reached the front waiting area. “Would you make the same suggestion to one of your upper-class suitors?” he asked brusquely.

Cassandra appeared bewildered. “Would I . . . you mean . . . to take in a child as a ward? Yes, I—”

“No, not a child. This child. This skinny, flea-bitten, illiterate child with a cockney accent. Would you ask Lord Foxhall to take him in and raise him?”

Taken aback by the question, and the signs of his temper, she blinked rapidly. “What does Lord Foxhall have to do with this?”

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t know.”

“The answer is no,” Tom said tautly, “you wouldn’t. But you suggested it to me. Why?”

“You and Bazzle have similar backgrounds.” She stared at him in confusion. “You’re in a position to understand and help him more than anyone else could. I thought you would have sympathy for him.”

“Sympathy’s not one of my feelings,” Tom snapped. “And I have a name, damn it. It’s not a noble name, but I’m not a bastard, and I was never filthy. Regardless of what you think, Bazzle and I aren’t cut from the same cloth.”

Cassandra digested that in the pause that followed, and her brows rushed down as she seemed to reach a conclusion. “You do have some things in common with Bazzle,” she said quietly. “I think he must remind you of things you’d rather not think about, and it makes you uncomfortable. But none of that has anything to do with me. Don’t try to make me out to be some kind of snob. I’ve never said you weren’t good enough for me—Heaven knows I’ve never thought it! The circumstances of your birth, or mine, are not the problem. This is the problem.” Glaring at him, she smacked her hand on the center of his chest and kept it there. “Your heart is frozen because you want it to be. It’s safer for you that way, never to let anyone in. So be it.” She drew her hand away. “I intend to find someone I can be happy with. As for poor little Bazzle . . . he needs more than your occasional offhand kindness. He needs a home. Since I can’t give him one, I’ll have to leave his fate to your conscience.”

She strode away from him, toward the footman waiting near the doorway.

And later that day, Tom—who had no conscience—sent the boy back to St. Giles.