Page 62 of Unmasking the Earl

He rolled his eyes. “You haven’t changed.” He smiled, his heart filling with warmth. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“You have clearly had her investigated, so you must be interested in her.”

He shook his head. “She was associated with Wycherley. I wanted to find you, so I made it my business to find out about everyone he was acquainted with.”

“Tell me about Lady Lucy’s pedigree, then.”

“Touché.” This conversation was definitely not going the way he’d planned. “Let’s just say Miss Blythe intrigued me.”

“Past tense? We’ve only been reunited half an hour, and already you are obfuscating.”

“My feelings don’t matter. I fear her heart still belongs to another.”

“And yet you’re hoping she’ll reappear outside with Matthews when he brings back your luggage, and that she’ll stop and take tea with us so you can look your fill on her exceedingly pretty face.”

Ah. So that was what his sister was preparing for.

“I was, in fact, hoping he would bring Maxim along, not Miss Blythe,” he demurred. “I’m not keen on the idea of going back to that pox-ridden inn to fetch my horse.”

“Besides, you said she will never win that other man,” Georgiana persisted.

He gave her a quelling look. “I have no intention of discussing young ladies with you.”

Georgiana’s face was all innocence. “Is there any reason for you not to attempt to get to know Miss Blythe a little better?”

He certainly knew Cassie a lot better now than he had at breakfast, but he wasn’t going to tell his sister that. He would marry Cassie, of course.

Take Cassandra Blythe as a wife?

Despite what they had shared, the reasons for an earl not to get more deeply involved with her were glaringly obvious. She was impulsive, headstrong, with no regard for Society’s rules. What if she continued to behave with thoughtless impropriety, as she had with Wycherley, as she had with Ned himself, and dragged him and his family into disrepute?

The hypocrisy didn’t escape him. He, the very man who had despoiled her, was thinking her possibly unworthy to be his wife because she’d let him do it.

Why had she let him do it?

Not that it mattered. She had, and if he possessed even an ounce of the honor he was so concerned about, they must marry. And that was that.

Which meant he must somehow disabuse her of her annoyingly persistent obsession with Mr. Julian Carnforth.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“You’ve been gone an age!” cried Portia the moment Cassie stepped through the front door. “Have you found the earl’s missing sister? What’s happened to him? Who was that servant who collected his things?”

Cassie smiled and removed her bonnet, feeling like she’d lived two lifetimes since seeing her good friend that morning.

“Yes, we’ve found her. Could we have some tea? Telling you all about it is going to be a thirsty business, and I’m exhausted.”

“Oh, I’m so happy! What’s she like? But you don’t look as pleased as you should. Has something upset you?”

Bother it. Portia was far too perceptive. As was Ned.

Cassie was suddenly struck with the uncomfortable realization that she must be far less subtle and poised than she’d thought.

Only Julian was still unable to divine her feelings. How obtuse was the man?

Or perhaps it was she who was being obtuse…?

She had spent the better part of the morning with another man, lying naked in a wheat field, surrendering her innocence to him. And liking it. Immensely. The entire time, she hadn’t once thought about Julian. Nor could she ever imagine doing with Julian anything like what she’d done with Ned.