Page 72 of Unmasking the Earl

“Good God, man, I’ll get it for you if you’re so helpless!”

Ned eased himself carefully off the bed, mindful of his head, and placed the pot on the floor in front of his rival.

He lay down on his bed again, turned his back on the scene, and tried to ignore the nasty noises coming from the other half of the cell. Of all the damned luck, to be locked in a flea-ridden bedchamber with a retching milksop who thought himself a paragon of virtue. The man who possessed the one part of Cassie Blythe that Ned had not touched.

Her heart.

After a moment, the sounds subsided, and a weak voice said, “Don’t think she’ll ever take you. She loves me. Always has. You told me that yourself.”

Ned rolled onto his back and groaned. Yes, he’d certainly implied it, and now he regretted it enormously. “You don’t know that she still loves you,” he insisted. “By her actions, if not her words, she has given me every reason to believe she does not.”

“You have dishonored her!” Carnforth was outraged.

He refused to dignify the accusation. “I have every intention of making her my wife. If she’ll have me.”

Of course he was going to marry her. How could he even consider a future without Cassandra Blythe in it?

“I still say she won’t have you,” countered Carnforth. “You are not at all well suited. Cassie needs a quiet existence, with no drama or crises. I am more than happy to rusticate in the country with her if she’s tired of Oxford.”

“Then you don’t know her at all,” Ned asserted. “Cassie is young, energetic, and resourceful. She needs stimulation, adventure, and likes to experience new things. She would tire of you in no time.”

As true as the words were, he realized how ungracious they sounded. And petulant. But there was no point scrapping with Carnforth for her, like two dogs over a bone. Cassie had already stated she would make her own choice. Which was only right. The decision to marry Ned should come from her.

And if her choice didn’t fall his way, well, he would just have to find a way to make her change her mind.

Chapter Thirty-Two

An hour later, having consumed a tankard of weak ale, a hard-crusted mutton pie, and a sliver of cheese, Ned sat on the edge of his bed, glaring balefully at the man who was threatening to take Cassie away from him. Well, he could make his own threats. He said, “Does Cassie know you always intended to marry Lady Lucy? I’m sure she’d find that most interesting.”

Carnforth, who hadn’t touched his food, cradled his head in his hands. “Don’t plague me, sir, I beg you,” he said. “I still feel most unwell.”

“To prefer Lady Lucy over Cassandra…” Ned made a deprecating noise. “You are a complete fool.”

There was a scraping sound as a key was turned in the chamber door, and a new voice said, “Who’s a complete fool? Pray tell.”

Ned groaned aloud. There were two things in the world he really didn’t need right now. One was having to listen to the righteous prating of Cassie’s would-be husband, the other was to have Francis Wycherley come and gloat over him. Not when he was in no position to rearrange that gentleman’s face.

“How good of you to visit,” Ned said sourly.

“I need to speak with you, Stranraer,” said Wycherley. “Sooner rather than later, I think.”

“Have you, perhaps, come to apologize for turning my life upside down? For stealing my sister away and letting us think she was dead? For cheating on her with other women and breaking her heart? For allowing her home to burn to the ground and disfiguring her beautiful face? Destroying all her hopes of future happiness? All roads lead back to you, Captain.”

There was a long silence, then Wycherley said, “All true enough. But you must believe me, I was, and still am, very much in love with your sister. Perhaps even more so now that I’ve seen how stalwart of spirit she is, and how brave.”

Ned thought about that for a moment, his mind still clouded with the pain and fug of his injuries. The immediate temptation was to correct Wycherley and say the word “misguided” might have been better. However, he now understood only too well that people didn’t always behave intelligently when it came to matters of the heart.

“You cannot understand how the family has suffered, not knowing what had become of her, fearing her dead, or worse,” he admonished.

“You knew she was alive,” Wycherley countered, “or you would not have entered my employ as a servant, snooping about in the hope of finding clues.”

“I thought you had run away together and had started the fire to delay pursuit.”

Wycherley looked genuinely horrified. “Great heavens, no! How could you have so poor an opinion of me? Of your own sister?”

Ned ran a hand through his hair, and his manacles clinked and chafed. “When confronted by the worst, one’s imagination takes flight. Yes, I assumed she must still be alive, but was being hidden away until a babe was born. I was determined to find evidence and force you to marry her.”

Wycherley made a deprecating noise. “You considered an arsonist and despoiler of innocents a suitable husband for your sister? If I were truly as bad as you imagined, you would have been damning her to a life of misery.”