Free Becket's Last Stand by Kasey Michaels Page A

statue and hang yourself around his shoulders like a limpet?"
     
     
"It wasn't that bad," Cassandra said quietly. "Almost, but not quite. We were sitting on the steps below the terrace and I just…I just turned to him and, well, launched myself at him, I suppose you'd say. It was very impulsive, not well thought out at all. But the entire thing seemed perfectly logical at the time."
     
     
"Oh, I'm sure it did, after Morgan filled your head with nonsense. Cassandra, that probably wasn't a good idea. You know what a stickler for propriety Courtland can be. You'll have to be less obvious. Launching yourself is not being less obvious. Next time, you might want to find a way to make him think the kiss was his idea."
     
     
Cassandra's eyes went wide for a moment. "You're giving me advice?"
     
     
"Why shouldn't I? It would seem everyone else has, yes? And this is a baby I'm carrying, and we all know how babies are made. You and Fanny may have called me Saint Eleanor a time or two behind my back when I tried to school you in proper deportment, but I am a woman, you know. And, speaking of Fanny, please tell me she didn't give you advice."
     
     
"Well, Fanny didn't say too much, as she and Valentine were in a hurry to get back to their estate. Something about a small fire in the kitchens, or something. A messenger arrived yesterday evening with the news, and they left this morning soon after Chance and Julia. But you know that, too, don't you? Nobody hid that from you?"
     
     
"Yes, I'm allowed that sort of information, since Brede Manor didn't burn to the ground, thank goodness. It's probably better to have Fanny and Valentine gone, in any case, if things become, well, complicated. No one will know Fanny is a Becket, and Valentine shouldn't be involved in anything that could end in violence. He has his place in Society to consider, his Earldom."
     
     
"Not to hear him talk about how much he'd like to be the one who personally puts a ball between Beales's eyes," Cassandra said, sighing. "All of them, all the men. It's all they talk about. Like little boys. They really want to see it come to a fight, Beales sailing into the harbor, his cannon run out, ready to deliver a broadside, or riding across the Marsh with one hundred well-armed men behind him, set to attack us. Do men never tire of war?"
     
     
"Are you including Court in this group of blood-thirsty avengers, Cassandra? I would have counted on him to be more subdued."
     
     
"I suppose he is. He seems more interested in protecting us than in destroying Beales. He and Papa closet themselves together every morning, going over their plans as if something changed during the previous night."
     
     
"And what are their plans? To defend Becket Hall, that is?"
     
     
Cassandra shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not going to be tricked into telling you things Jack says you're not to know."
     
     
"But I feel so helpless, lying here. I've rolled enough bandages to wrap every other man here from head-to-toe if the occasion arises, and I've been over and over our list of supplies, until I could tell you precisely how many sacks of flour we have stored away, how many dozens of candles. Anyone would think we were Troy, about to come under siege. And all with me stuck here, unable to help. It's so frustrating!"
     
     
"How should I be less obvious, Elly?" Cassandra asked, seeing that her sister was becoming agitated. If Odette were to enter the bedchamber now, Cassandra knew she'd be shooed out, probably with a flea in her ear and an admonition that she never return.
     
     
"Very well, I'll stop complaining." Eleanor took Cassandra's hand in hers. "I doubt you should listen to me, sweetheart, when it comes to attracting a man. After all, I watched Jack from afar for over two years, hiding my feelings like some silly ninny, before I finally got up the courage to…well, that's neither here nor there. Was Courtland really angry when you kissed him?"
     
     
"I'm not sure. I think he