Miss Weston's Masquerade by Louise Allen Page B

in her father’s library.
    Nicholas dozed on, seemingly unaffected by the jolting. Cassandra sighed. This was about as exciting as driving to Ware market on a Wednesday. Perhaps foreign travel wasn’t as stimulating as all the books said.
     
    After four long, dusty, uncomfortable days on the road, Nicholas could tell that Cassie was rueing ever challenging him to take her with him. The roads east would have been no better, it was true, but at least she would have been treated as a young lady, with all the status of travelling as the ward of the Earl of Lydford.
    Instead, at the end of the interminable roads, mercifully shaded with the poplars Napoleon had had planted to shelter his marching troops, all she could look forward to was a hard truckle bed behind a screen in the corner of Nicholas’s chamber.
    The inn at Briare had been acceptable, but the food at Nevers had been every bit as bad as he had been bracing himself for, swimming with grease and heavy with garlic.
    As the coach swung out of Maçon, bouncing over the cobbles behind a fresh team, he caught her eye. ‘Comfortable?’
    ‘Perfectly, thank you.’ Cassie, it seemed, had vowed not to complain, to give him no excuse to say I told you so . Instead, she smiled back, even as her fingers twitched over the additional flea bites she had acquired the night before in the inn, and turned to distract herself with catching glimpses of the river traffic on the Saône.
    She had courage, the infuriating brat. Fleas, garlic, dreadful roads – none of them wrung a word of complaint out of her. And she had never mentioned that kiss. I must have been mad. Nicholas resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands and yank out tufts of hair in an attempt to blank the memory of that innocent mouth under his, that surprisingly womanly body under his hands. He should be ashamed of himself. He was ashamed. True, in law, Cassie was old enough to marry, but that didn’t make it right.
    He opened the post road map he had bought in Paris and distracted himself by studying it. ‘Not much more of this,’ he remarked. ‘We should reach Lyons this afternoon.’
    ‘It isn’t so bad, not the actual travelling, anyway. At least your uncle’s carriage is well-sprung and clean, unlike those filthy hired coaches. Or the diligences,’ she added, as they swung out to overtake one of the public coaches lumbering along at four miles an hour with its creaking wicker sides and piles of luggage.
    ‘Well, you might be all right, but I’m as stiff as a post.’ He stretched his long legs as far as he could, then put his hands behind his neck to rub the sore muscles. ‘I need some exercise and a change of scene from these squalid hovels and dusty verges.’
    ‘I have to admit the scenery has been disappointing, although the river’s interesting.’ Cassie knelt up on the seat to look out over the wide river, glittering grey in the sunlight. ‘Everyone seems so poor,’ she added, her eyes following a group of ragged children waiting to besiege the diligence with outstretched palms.
    ‘The aftermath of the war. Napoleon stripped the country of its men and its resources. The women are handsome, though,’ he mused, admiring a slender young woman, her skirts kirtled up to show strong, tanned legs. She caught his eye as the coach slowed to negotiate the herd of pigs she was driving, and smiled, exposing a few blackened teeth. ‘Perhaps not,’ he added quickly, withdrawing back into the coach.
    ‘None of them seem to have many teeth left,’ Cassandra observed. ‘The guidebook says it’s caused by the frequent fogs, but I can’t see how, can you?’
    ‘No, but it is a powerful aid to virtue. Come, let’s play cards.’ He pulled out a pack from one of the numerous pockets lining the doors of the coach and began to deal. ‘Your piquet is becoming passable.’
    ‘A penny for your thoughts or can’t you decide what to do with that hand?’ he asked when she hesitated over a