Page 59 of The Damsel
He turned to leave, but she rounded the low table between them and took hold of the sleeve of his coat. When he turned to face her, Robert found a soft smile upon her lips.
“I knew she’d made the right choice in you,” she said. “Cassandra has been hurt, and erected her defenses as a result. It is the only way she knows to survive.”
“It was you who encouraged her to find a bedmate that night at the White Cock,” he said, giving voice to what he’d suspected all along. “You who pushed her to move past the pain of what Bertram did to her.”
“Yes. I wanted her to be free from her fears over intercourse and intimacy. But, I think she has found so much more in you.”
Robert liked to think so, too, even if she insisted upon fighting him. Perhaps that was the reason she resisted him. The walls she’d erected around her heart would not allow her to love him, to let him love her.
“Do not give up,” Millicent said, seeming to sense the direction of his thoughts. “Cassandra has been let down by every person she’s ever cared for except her father, and the man is dead. She will fight you every moment, but you can get through to her. Fight for her, Robert. Fight, and do not let go no matter how much she may tell you she wishes otherwise.”
She released him, and he continued on his way through the drawing room doors.
“I won’t,” he declared before clearing the room.
As he exited the house, he clung tight to Millicent’s words, along with his own hopes. The question of whether he would fight for Cassandra was no longer one he wrestled with. He had no choice in the matter, and deep down he’d known that from the beginning.
The only thing left to be settled was how long she would hold him off before giving in. Robert had plenty of practice with patience, and this time he was more determined than ever. Never again would he stand back and allow what he wanted most to be snatched out of his grasp. He would take hold of her and keep her out of the fire, no matter how determined she was to throw herself into the flames. He would hold on to her and never let go.
Chapter 10
After arriving in London and situating herself in The Pulteney
Hotel, Cassandra had conducted her own investigation into the death of Lady Downing. Her instincts told her Sir Downing had pushed his wife down those stairs, but she needed to be sure.
So, she’d gone to Millicent, who had let her in on the servant gossip circulating about the suspicious happenings on that fateful night. Then, under the cover of night, she had stood outside Downing’s townhome and watched for any sign of movement. The moment a servant emerged, setting off on some errand or other, she had followed. Cornering the man near the mews, she’d used the threat of her knife to prod him into spilling the truth. Everything he’d told her aligned with Millicent’s story—the shouting and sounds of things being thrown about, the sight of Sir Downing at the top of the stairs as she lay broken at the bottom. Paying the servant for his silence, Cassandra had let him go and shifted her focus to the murderous bastard who would now feel her wrath.
There was no room inside her for anything but vengeance and justice, her heart pounding out a cadence of bloodlust that thrummed through her body in a continual drumbeat. She’d spent the past two nights lurking outside Downing’s home in Berkeley Square, watching for any sign of movement from within. His wife had been dead for over a week now, but aside from his all-black attire the man showed no signs he mourned her.
The house proved silent and still in the daylight hours, but the moment the sun went down, he would emerge, intent upon celebrating the loss of his leg shackle. He’d frequented an opium den the first evening, smoking the potent substance before falling into a wide-eyed stupor.
He’d been easy pickings then, but the sheer number of people inside the place had stayed her hand. She could not risk anyone bearing witness to what she would do once she got her hands on him. The second and third nights had seen him ensconced in a brothel in Soho Square, where he’d spent hours indulging in orgies, sharing an abundance of whores with his drunken friends. Red-faced from drink and glassy-eyed from overindulging, he’d stumble out onto the street as dawn broke the horizon and make his way home on unsteady legs.
After a third night of following him through the same series of actions, she now returned to her hotel for a few hours of rest. She would make her move on Downing tonight, putting an end to this once and for all. Her fingers had itched for the hilt of her dagger or the butt of her pistol, but she’d stayed her hand and waited for the opportune moment. Patience proved difficult, because she was as desperate to be away from London as ever.
She missed the solitude of her home in Suffolk, the quiet and peace she had found there.
She missed Robert.
Gritting her teeth, she shook her head with a swift, jerky movement as if to knock him loose from her thoughts. But, he seemed permanently latched onto her mind, and other parts of her she’d rather not examine too closely. The trouble was, she didn’t want him trying to expose her soft, vulnerable parts. She could not afford to let him get any closer, to give him access to the things she’d locked away within herself. Letting someone get so close once had almost been the death of her, and she barely survived day to day as it was.
She would get through this. She would finish her business with Downing, then find some way to remove Robert from her thoughts for good. Perhaps taking a new bedmate would do the trick—it had certainly helped her move past the terror and fear Bertram had subjected her to. There must be someone else who could speak to her darker urges, who would enjoy playing the submissive role and turning complete control over to her. While a part of her felt no man would do it as well as Robert, she told herself it couldn’t be true. In a world overrun with men, Robert couldn’t be the only one she could find satisfaction with.
Letting him go had been the right thing to do. She was entrenched in darkness, awash in the sort of pain she feared might never go away. Despite her earlier doubts, she’d come to see that he was truly a man above reproach. She would tear him to shreds. Good, pure, honest … he deserved better than a woman like her.
Approaching The Pulteney Hotel, she pushed down the hood of her cloak as the heavy black of night gave way to the morning. Exhaustion sapped the strength from her limbs, and made her eyelids heavy. She’d come without any servants, which meant she’d be free from Lila’s fussing or Randall’s questioning. She couldn’t tell her driver and accomplice what she’d been up to, even though he’d had her back through it all without question. This had felt like something she ought to do alone.
Sweeping through the vestibule, she made her way up the stairs and to her suite of rooms with trudging steps. Her sleeplessness had grown worse than ever since leaving Suffolk, and she refused to acknowledge that it might be due to the absence of a certain man in her bed.
Pushing open the door to her suite, she faltered on the threshold. She blinked and squinted to make certain she wasn’t seeing things— that thinking of Robert so much for the past few days hadn’t conjured illusions of him. But, as she came into the room and closed the door, it became clear that what she saw was real.
He’d gotten into her rooms somehow and now sat on the bed, elbows resting on his knees as he gazed down at an object in his hands. Her throat constricted as she realized it was her mask … the one she wore while acting as the Menace. The contents of the sack she’d brought from Easton Park had been strewn over the floor, rifled through by the man who now gazed up at her with steely determination flashing in his eyes.
She clenched her teeth until her entire face began to ache, a whirl of conflicting emotions brewing deep inside her. Most acute among them, though, was anger. How dare he break into her private suite and go through her things? How dare he seek to expose the very thing she’d worked to keep a secret from theton, but from him most of all.
A muscle in his jaw ticked as he came to his feet, his intense gaze still fixed upon her.
“And here I thought the greatest of my worries would be stopping you from murdering Sir Downing.”
