Free Becket's Last Stand by Kasey Michaels

such a sad complainer, aren't I?"
     
     
"If someone put me to bed for— what is it now, seven months?— I would be much more than a sad complainer. I would be carted off to Bedlam, that madhouse in London."
     
     
"Bethlehem Hospital, yes," Eleanor said, smiling at last. "And I shouldn't be anything but happy that this baby is still where he or she belongs, waiting patiently to grow and be born. Odette swears it's a boy, you know. I'm at the point where I don't care what it is, as long as it's healthy, and arrives before Christmas. Now, tell me what's going on downstairs The entire place is a shambles, I just know it is."
     
     
Cassandra shook her head. "Jack and Odette would have my head. You're not to do anything save to lie here and think pleasant thoughts, remember?"
     
     
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid. And, since I'll worry anyway, why don't you tell me what's going on concerning that terrible man?"
     
     
"Courtland?" Cassandra said with a grin.
     
     
Eleanor picked up a small pillow and tossed it at her sister. "We'll get to him in a moment. You know who I mean."
     
     
"I can't tell you anything about Edmund Beales because nobody knows anything about him other than that he's out there somewhere, looking for us as desperately as we're looking for him. You know that Chance and Julia and the children left this morning for London, don't you?"
     
     
"They came to say goodbye, yes. And Alice gave me a drawing she'd made of Odette, Lord love her. It's a good thing Odette can't really turn little girls into toads. Only Chance is staying in London, however, sending Julia and the children on to Coventry with their London servants and some others to watch them until this is over. You, I understand, were supposed to have gone with them."
     
     
"Papa relented," Cassandra told her, quietly glorying in her victory. "He realizes I'm a woman now, and capable of making my own decisions."
     
     
Eleanor pushed herself up against the raft of pillows behind her. "I imagine that's why you're considering Court a terrible man right now. He wasn't happy for you to remain?"
     
     
Cassandra shrugged as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "He hasn't said. Actually, he's not speaking to me at the moment, which is fine with me, for I'm not speaking to him. He told me to never put up my hair again. Who is he to tell me how to wear my hair?"
     
     
"Yes, indeed, who is he? As if his opinion matters a jot to you one way or the other. After all, you don't care a snap for him, correct?"
     
     
Cassandra allowed her body to list over to one side until she was lying on the covers, her head on Eleanor's knees. "He drives me insane."
     
     
"That seems only fitting, as turnabout is fair play," Eleanor teased, stroking Cassandra's tumbling curls. "Morgan and Mariah were in here earlier, visiting, and looking extremely guilty and altogether too pleased with themselves. What have our conspirators advised you to do now?"
     
     
"You know? " Cassandra sat up, pushed her hair out of her face. "Morgan said not to tell you because you're so…poor spirited, and would probably ring a peal over all our heads."
     
     
"Poor spirited? Is that what she calls being sensible?" Eleanor said, reaching for her cooling cup of tea. "Although, to Morgan, anyone a step below the rank of hellion is too boring to contemplate. Are you all so certain I disapprove?"
     
     
"You don't? Really?" Cassandra allowed her shoulders to relax. And then she made a confession she hadn't shared with Morgan or the others, because it was all just too embarrassing. "I kissed him two days ago," she said, watching Eleanor's face closely for her reaction.
     
     
"Is that so? My, and Morgan suggested this course of action?"
     
     
"Well, no…not directly. She just said— they all said— that Court has to stop seeing me as a child. So I…I just…"
     
     
"Ambushed him?" Eleanor suggested, handing Cassandra the empty teacup. "What did you do, jump out from behind a