But it was too late. A gentleman came past Mary into the room, and then looked acutely embarrassed to find it occupied. He stopped abruptly and bowed.
Cassandra got to her feet and hurried toward him, both hands outstretched, her face glowing.
"Mr. Golding," she said. "It has been a long time, but I do believe I would have known you anywhere."
He was a small, thin, wiry man of middle years and unprepossessing appearance. His dark hair had receded from his forehead and thinned to an almost bald patch on the crown of his head and silvered at the temples. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles halfway down his nose.
"Little Cassie?" he said, setting his hands in hers and looking as delighted as she. "I would /not/ have known /you/ except maybe for your hair. But you are Lady Paget now, are you not? Miss Haytor told me that when I met her yesterday. I am sorry about your husband's passing."
"Thank you," she said, and she turned to present him to her other guests, her face still bright and happy and quite incredibly beautiful.
She explained that he had been her brother's tutor for a short while when they were children, though now he was secretary to a cabinet minister.
"I came to pay my respects to Miss Haytor," Golding said after he had made his bows. "I did not intend to walk in on you and your visitors, Lady Paget."
"Do have a seat anyway," Cassandra said, "and a cup of tea."
But he would not sit down, clearly intimidated by the company.
"I merely came," he said, "to see if Miss Haytor would care to join me for a drive out to Richmond Park tomorrow. I thought we might take a picnic tea."
He looked at Miss Haytor, clearly uncomfortable.
"Just the two of us?" she asked, the color still high in her cheeks, her eyes bright. She looked really quite handsome, Stephen thought. She must have been a pretty girl in her day.
"I suppose it is not quite the thing, is it?" he said, turning his hat in his hands and looking as though he would be glad of a hole opening at his feet to swallow him up. "I just do not know who else I could ask to accompany us. I suppose I could – "
Beginnings needed middles before they could find endings, Stephen thought, whether in this potentially budding romance between two middle-aged people who had been a governess and a tutor together in a long-ago past, or in his new relationship with Cassandra, his new /friendship/ with her that might lead anywhere as far as either of them knew now. But he wanted to discover where that anywhere was.
"If you have no great objection," he said to Golding, "and if Lady Paget has no plans for tomorrow afternoon, perhaps she and I could join the two of you on your picnic. The ladies could be each other's chaperone."
"That would be very decent of you, my lord," Mr. Golding said, "though I do not wish to impose."
"It is no imposition at all," Stephen said. "I only wish I had thought of it for myself. Now all we need, Golding, is to have two ladies agree to accompany us." He looked inquiringly from Miss Haytor to Cassandra and back again. "I ought to have asked you first, Miss Haytor, if you mind my being one of the party. Do you?"
He shamelessly smiled his most charming smile at her.
But he could see from her eyes that she very badly wanted to go.
"You are quite correct, Lord Merton," she said sternly. "If Cassie is with me, I will be able to chaperone her and see that she comes to no harm. Mr. Golding, I would be delighted to come."
They all looked questioningly at Cassandra.
"It seems," she said without looking at Stephen, "that I am going on a picnic tomorrow."
"Splendid," Golding said again, rubbing his hands together, though he still looked horribly embarrassed. "I will have a hired carriage outside the door at two o'clock, then."
"Perhaps," Stephen said, "since you are presumably supplying the tea, Golding, you will allow me to supply the carriage?"
"That is decent of you, my lord," Golding said, and he bowed himself out of the room without further ado.
"It is time we all took our leave," Meg said, getting to her feet.
"Thank you for tea and your kind hospitality, Lady Paget. And it has been very pleasant to meet you, Miss Haytor."
"It has indeed," Kate said. "I wanted us to share some teaching stories, Miss Haytor, but we have not had a chance, have we? Perhaps next time."
"I will look forward to tomorrow, ma'am," Stephen said, making her a bow before following the others out of the room. Cassandra was with his sisters.
He let Meg and Kate go out to the waiting carriage while he lingered in the hall to take his leave.
"I have always had a weakness for picnics," he said. "Fresh air. Food and drink. Grass and trees and flowers. Congenial company. They are a powerful combination."
"The company may not be very congenial," she warned him.
He laughed.
"I am sure," he said, "I will like Golding very well indeed."
She half smiled at his deliberate misunderstanding of her meaning.
"I meant myself," she said. "You must know that I do not want to go, that this new… relationship you spoke of last night is doomed to failure. We cannot be friends, Stephen, having once been protector and mistress."
"Lovers cannot be friends, then?" he asked her.
She did not reply.
"I have a need to make amends," he told her. "Instead of bringing some joy back into your life, I did the opposite, Cass. Let me make amends."
"I do not want – "
"We all want joy," he said. "We all /need/ it. And there is such a thing, Cass. I promise you."
She merely stared at him, her green eyes almost luminous.
"Tell me you will look forward to the picnic," he said.
"Oh, very well," she said. "If my doing so will make you feel better, I will say it. I will not sleep tonight for eager excitement to have the picnic begin. I shall say my prayers for good weather every hour on the hour."
He smiled at her and flicked her chin with one finger before hurrying outside and climbing into the carriage to take his place opposite his sisters, his back to the horses.
"Oh, Stephen," Kate said when the door had been closed and the carriage rocked into motion, "I did not understand this morning. Or perhaps I /chose/ not to understand. Are none of us to have a smooth road to matrimony and happiness, then?"
"But it was a rough road that led three of us to happiness, Kate," Meg said quietly. "Perhaps a smooth road does not do it. Perhaps we should /wish/ this rough road on Stephen."
But she did not smile or look particularly happy. Neither did Kate.
Stephen did not ask them what they meant – it was all too obvious.
They were wrong, though.
He was merely attempting to set right a wrong.
He was merely trying to bring some joy to Cassandra's life so that his conscience could rest in peace.
They rode on in silence.
/13/
CASSANDRA spent the following morning on Oxford Street. She was not shopping for herself, however. She had asked Mary if she might take Belinda with her in order to buy her a sunbonnet for the summer to replace the quaint hat that had once belonged to a stable boy. She did not offer to buy more clothes for the child. One had to be careful with Mary. She was very proud. She was also very protective of her daughter, whom she adored.
The task was accomplished at the very first shop they entered, and Belinda came out wearing a pretty blue cotton bonnet with a slightly stiffened brim and a frill to shield her neck and shoulders from the rays of the sun. It was tied beneath the chin with sunshine yellow ribbons, which were attached to the bonnet with clusters of tiny artificial buttercups and cornflowers.
Belinda was wide-eyed with the splendor of it and turned when they left the shop to admire her image in the glass.
They strolled along the street, hand in hand, until they stopped outside a toy shop. Soon Belinda's nose was pressed to the glass as she stared silently through it. She showed no visible excitement, no expectation that anything in the window or the shop would ever be hers. She demanded nothing. But she was obviously lost to the world around her.