Kasey Michaels - Becket's Last Stand

“Jacko’s not the only one,” Cassandra said, grabbing the dish of sugared treats from the table between the couches and placing it in her lap. She’d lost what Odette called her baby fat last year, but it wasn’t because she had given up her love of sweet things. “Lisette won’t walk over to Becket Village without Rian or Jasper going with her. Jasper is so huge, nobody will even look at him, even though he’s really the kindest creature in nature, according to Lisette. I think…I think Rian and Lisette are going to have to leave Becket Hall when this is all over. Lisette, just by being here, opens old wounds for some people, even though none of it, what happened, what might happen next, is her fault. After all, she saved Rian’s life. That should mean something to our own people, shouldn’t it?”

Mariah and Julia exchanged glances Cassandra couldn’t interpret. “What does Ainsley say?” Mari¬ ah asked.

Cassandra shrugged, popped another piece of the chewy candy into her mouth. “He doesn’t say anything. You know Papa. He just sort of looks at people, and they know he doesn’t approve. So no one will do anything terrible. But Lisette feels the dislike, she has to, poor thing. And you’ll be leaving, too, won’t you, Mariah? Once this is over?”

Mariah smiled. “Lining us all up like ducks, Callie? Why?”

Cassandra didn’t realize she was being so obvious. “No reason. I know Elly would never leave Becket Hall, not of her own volition, and Jack seems happy with that. But Papa?” She shook her head. “He had another letter from Mrs. Warren last week, you know.”

Once again Mariah and Julia exchanged glances, this time smiling at each other. “Marianna Warren? Really?” Mariah commented. “They only met the one time, and that was years ago. So they keep up a correspondence? I didn’t know.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Oh, of course you do. Spence writes to her ship captain—Abraham, is it? And that’s where you and Spence will be going, I already know that, I guess. This place known as Hampton Roads. Papa has several maps of the area. They’ve been arriving from America for years. And…and he’s purchased land there, a huge parcel along the water. For his ships, you know? He doesn’t think I know that part, but I do.”

She waited for her sisters-in-law to react, which didn’t take long.

“Ainsley’s thinking of leaving Becket Hall? Leaving Romney Marsh?” Julia shook her head, looking astonished. “He won’t even travel to London. He goes nowhere.”

“Fearing arrest for piracy so long ago in the islands, no thanks to Edmund Beales,” Mariah said, and then sighed. “Ah, but once Beales is gone? Any real chance of trouble from that quarter would be gone with it, and Ainsley would be free to go anywhere without fear of exposing all of us to the same charge. But he’d go to America? Not London? I never imagined, and I doubt Spence has, either. My goodness. Delightful to think we’d be living close by, but still shocking.”

“How do you feel about that, Callie?” Julia asked her. “Chance and I would never leave England. I know, because we’ve discussed it. We want our children to grow up here. Are you asking to come live with us rather than relocating to America? Because you’re most definitely welcome, unless you want to live with Fanny and Valentine, or stay here with Elly and Jack and—oh.” She sat back on the couch, grinned at Mariah. “It’s Court, isn’t it? You’re lining up all your ducks, but you don’t know where Court fits in that line, do you? And you think we know?”

Cassandra put down the candy dish and twined her fingers together in her lap. “I don’t think he’ll stay here, that’s all. Becket Hall doesn’t need so many masters, or it won’t once we’re free to travel anywhere. Jack and Elly love this house, love Romney Marsh, and Papa would want someone to live here in any case. Fanny’s settled, Chance and Morgan are settled. Rian and Lisette will go somewhere else, they really have no choice, do they? You and Spence are already planning your own move to Hampton Roads.”

“Which, counting to eight on my fingers, leaves Court, and you,” Mariah said, nodding her head. “Oh where or where will you go? I imagine Ainsley assumes you’ll go where he goes. But will Court be equally happy to go there, as well? Especially when offered the opportunity to at last rid himself of his shadow?”

“I’m not his shadow!” Cassandra said, knowing that wasn’t true.

“Ah, Callie,” Julia said, leaning over to kiss Cassandra’s cheek. “You’ve been nowhere but here. You know so little of life, of men. And you’re young, too young to be thinking of marriage to anyone.”

Cassandra looked above the fireplace, at the portrait of her mother. “Mama wasn’t any older than me when she married Papa. He was at least a dozen years her senior. I know, because Court told me.”

“And now we’ll tell you something you already know,” Julia added quietly. “Court sees you as his sister. Perhaps, some day, he’ll change his mind, see what the rest of us see. But not now. There’s too much going on now, with Beales out there somewhere. This isn’t…this isn’t a happy time. Truly the wrong time.”

“But it has to be now, Julia, don’t you see?” Cassandra explained tightly. “Edmund Beales will be gone soon, out of our lives, and everyone will scatter to the four winds, I just know it. We won’t all be held here anymore, in this limbo Odette calls our lives all these years. If Papa leaves—if Court and I end up on opposite sides of the ocean before he admits to himself that he can’t live without me? What will I do? Whatever will I do?”

Morgan’s voice came at them from the doorway. “Oh, alas. Alas and alack! What will I do? Whatever will I do? Poor Court, poor me! ” She crossed the room in her usual graceful, long-legged strides, a raven-haired beauty of lush proportions, and then plopped herself down next to Julia. “Callie, I never thought you were such a dolt. You want him, then you go get him, that’s what you do.”

“That’s what you’d do, Morgan. Oh, wait, that’s what you did, isn’t it? Poor Ethan is still trying to figure out what happened,” Julia said, laughing.

“I crossed an ocean to get to Spence,” Mariah said. “Of course, I mostly wanted to box his ears for him, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?”

“The whys don’t matter,” Morgan said, rubbing her hands together, clearly eager to enter into a conspiracy. “It’s the how we’re concerned with, if Callie really wants to bring Court to heel.”

“Yes, how? I’ve tried almost everything, and he still refuses to think of me as anything but a baby,” Cassandra asked, leaning forward on the couch.

“True, true. And you’re all grown-up now, aren’t you? We just need Court to finally accept that delightful change. This might take some serious thinking, although I am already entertaining one possible idea, and it will take our minds off this tense waiting, waiting for Beales to show himself,” Morgan said, reaching for the depleted sugar treats in the candy dish. “Ladies? Can we please entertain suggestions from the floor? You start, Julia. I’ll leave my idea for last.”

“And, knowing you, Morgan, that’s probably a good thing,” Julia said, looking at Mariah and winking. “It will at least delay, if not spare our blushes.”

Cassandra looked to the other women, one by one. “You think I could do that?” she asked, her heart pounding.

“Do what?” Morgan asked innocently, popping a sugar treat into her mouth.

“Seduce him, of course. That is what you’re suggesting, isn’t it?” Cassandra asked, and then waited while Mariah slapped Morgan’s back, to help dislodge the candy stuck in her throat.