Mary Balogh: Seducing an Angel

His temper was up again. He pointed a finger at her and drew breath to speak. But someone else had appeared in the doorway. For one horrible moment Stephen thought it was an early guest, though not so very early at that. But it was William Belmont.

"Lord," he said, his eyes passing over the people gathered just inside the doors. "I got home half an hour ago and Mary told me you had called, Bruce – and that she had told you that Cassie was here. Mary usually has a bit more sense than to give away information like that, especially when you are the one who gave her the boot a month ago. You have a bloody nose, I see. Courtesy of Merton, I suppose? Or of Young?"

"I have nothing to say to /you/," Paget said, his brows snapping together.

"Well, I have something to say to /you/," Belmont said, looking about again. "And since it looks as if you did not do the sensible thing and ask to speak privately to Cassie when you got here, then I have something to say to everyone present."

"No, don't, William," Cassandra said.

"But I will," he said. "He was my father, Cassie, as well as your husband. He was Bruce's father too, and he ought to know the truth. So ought everyone who is preparing to welcome you into their family as Merton's bride. Cassie did not shoot our father, Bruce. Neither did I, though I /was/ there, you know, and got my hand on his wrist to wrestle the gun from him. He had started to cuff Mary around because I had told him earlier in the day, before he started drinking, that I had married her and that Belinda was mine. Cassie and then Miss Haytor had been drawn by Mary's screams, and then I came into the house and was drawn by his raised voice coming from the library. He had his pistol pointed at Cassie. But when I went for him and tried to take the gun, he turned it quite deliberately and pointed it at his own heart and pulled the trigger."

"Liar!" Paget cried. "That is a filthy lie."

"Miss Haytor had already told the same story before I came here a few days ago and gave my identical version," Belmont said. "And if you think I would be prepared to tell that story against my own father, Bruce, in order to protect my stepmother, then you know nothing about family loyalties. Or about nightmares. He killed himself while in a drunken rage. And if we are wise, we will acquiesce in the official verdict of accidental death and treat Cassie with the proper respect due our father's widow."

Paget's head had dropped, and his eyes had closed.

"We are perilously close to the beginning of the ball," Stephen said quietly. "The earliest guests will be here within a quarter of an hour, I daresay. Paget, let one of my brothers-in-law show you to a guest room, where you may bathe your nose and straighten your clothes. It does not matter if you are not dressed quite as you would if you had planned to attend a ball. Stay and attend this one anyway. And smile and look glad for Cassandra. Tell anyone who looks willing to listen that the accidental death of your father was tragic but that you are happy to see your stepmother moving on with her life. Tell them it is what your father would have wanted."

"Are you /insane/?" Paget asked viciously.

But Con had moved up on one side of him and Monty on the other, and both were smiling.

"You chose a good moment to arrive in London," Monty said.

"I daresay," Con said, clasping a hand on his shoulder, "Lady Paget wrote to you to announce her betrothal and beg for your blessing, did she, Paget, and you did even better than she asked and came in person.

You even rode nonstop, did you, in order to arrive in time for the ball?"

"And got here just in time," Monty said with a grin, "though you did not have a moment to spare to change into your ball clothes. It is an affecting story. The ladies will all be in tears if they get wind of it."

"We had better think of an explanation for the nose, though," Con said as they led him from the room between the two of them. "It ought not to be hard. A man meets with all sorts of accidents when he is in a hurry to wish his stepmother well in her new marriage."

Stephen reached out and took Cassandra's hand in his. She was looking very pale, and her hand was cold. He smiled at her and looked at William Belmont.

"You will stay too?" he asked. He had asked before, but Belmont had refused, since Mary was quite adamant in /her/ refusal to attend such a grand affair, even if she /was/ Mrs. William Belmont and sister-in-law of Lord Paget.

"Not me," Belmont said. "I am going home for my dinner, which was ready half an hour ago. Bruce adored our mother, you know, but he would never see the truth. He was afraid of it, I expect. He spent most of his adult years as far away from Carmel as he could get. As I did too, of course.

I ought to have done more for you than I ever did, Cassie. I am sorry for it now, though apologies are cheap, aren't they?"

And he turned and was gone.

Stephen lowered his head to look into Cassandra's face.

"All right?" he said.

She nodded. Her hand was beginning to warm in his.

"Such melodrama," she said. "Oh, Stephen, I am so sorry. You must be cursing the day your eyes first alit on me in the park."

He smiled slowly at her and kissed her briefly on the lips, though he was aware of his family close by, all buzzing in reaction to what had just happened.

"I bless the day," he said.

She merely sighed.

"Stephen," Meg said briskly, "it is time the receiving line was formed.

Your guests are going to start arriving /at any moment/."

Stephen grinned about him.

"And a man gets to celebrate his betrothal only once," he said.

His sisters proceeded to hug both him and Cassandra.

"You will have children with /Stephen/," he heard Vanessa whisper to Cassandra while they were in each other's arms. "They will never make up for the ones you lost, but they will warm your heart. I promise you they will. Oh, I /do/ promise."

HOW could she possibly stand in a receiving line, all things considered, Cassandra wondered over the next hour, smiling and greeting large numbers of guests and thanking them for their good wishes on her engagement?

But she did it.

How could she possibly dance all the rest of the evening, smiling all the while, and how could she possibly converse and laugh between sets just as if this really were the happiest evening of her life and she had not a care in the world?

But she did it.

She even almost enjoyed herself.

She /did/ enjoy herself apart from the needling twinge of guilt over the fact that she was deceiving everyone. Except Stephen, of course. And his sisters. And she guessed that they had told their husbands.

It felt like a wonderfully celebratory occasion, and the ballroom was the loveliest she had ever seen, and Stephen looked happy and more handsome than ever. He looked as he /ought/ to look at his betrothal ball, she thought rather wistfully.

Perhaps she did too.

They danced the opening set together.

"He stayed," Stephen said while they waited for the music to begin. "Are you surprised?"

Bruce had indeed come to the ball. He was even dressed appropriately He really had just arrived in London, it seemed. His bags had still been outside Merton House in his traveling carriage. He had gone to Portman Street and then here without first stopping at a hotel.

"Appearances were always important to Bruce," she said. "He stayed away from home for years, I believe in the hope of distancing his reputation from Nigel's if scandal should ever break – as it did not until after his death. He probably sent me away at least partly in the hope of distancing himself from the rumors beginning to circulate about me.

Perhaps tonight he has realized his mistake. Perhaps he has understood that his best hope for lasting respectability is to stick staunchly by the official verdict on his father's death. And he can do that best by standing by me and making it appear as if he came to London to give his blessing on my betrothal to you. Poor Bruce."