Patricia Rice by Dash of Enchantment Page B

need to settle down and set up nurseries, not chase the wind. She
was a vision, you say?”
    “Aye, a vision. Floated down the aisle. Funny thing, that,”
Bertie mused, as if just discovering it. “She didn’t take Eddings’ arm, just
walked at his side, proud as any princess. Rupert caught a rare one there.
Scarcely fair, practically stealing her from the nursery. What was that talk
about you and her at Hampton Court?”
    Merrick ignored these wanderings, chasing after thoughts of
his own. “You think you know women, and then you find you don’t know them at all.
Take Catherine, f’rinstance. Known her all our lives. Like a sister. Not hard
to look at, just a country girl more our style, practically on the shelf, if
the truth be told.” Merrick poured another drink as he repeated Cassandra’s
outrageous remark. “Think she’d be happy to be wedded, set up a nursery, have
an establishment of her own. But more I think of it, Cass was right. She was
like a cat ready to pounce. Once she had me in the bag, whoosh, off she’d go,
haring into town.”
    Bertie gave an inelegant belch and reached for the decanter.
“Mixing the old metaphors, old boy. Cat can’t hare.”
    “Cat can’t wed,” Merrick answered inanely.
    “Yes, she can, too. She’d have you back in a trice if you’d
like. Go ask her, see if she won’t.” Bertie sipped contentedly at the expensive
French liquor.
    “And Cass, there’s another one.” Merrick went on with his
train of thought as if his friend hadn’t spoken. “To see her in that gambling
hell, you’d think her up to all the rigs. Then you look at her trailing around
the company like a stray cat, and you know she just ain’t been brought up
right, damn her unholy father to hell.”
    “ I don’t know
nothing of the sort. You’re the one
that said that,” Bertie reminded him callously.
    “And then it turns out she’s just looking for a meal ticket,
and the richer man won. I just can’t fathom that.” Merrick shook his head again
in confusion, but the fog was thicker. He took another drink before continuing.
“I thought to myself, now here’s a maiden in distress. Why else would she take
to the likes of me? And then I see that announcement and think, old Duncan’s up
to his tricks again, but I’ll rescue the lady. But she doesn’t want to be
rescued. Can you figure that? She sits there, just as cool and calm as you
please, smiling like she’s just discovered the sun, and saying it was all a
misunderstanding, thank you very much.”
    Wyatt ran a hand through his hair, still not grasping the
scene. “ Misunderstanding , by Jove!
She locks herself in the room with me, causes the scandal of the decade, and it’s
all a misunderstanding! Now, I ask you, Bertie, is that anything your sister
would have done at ten-and-eight? It don’t make good sense.”
    “Better off without her, old boy. She’d run you in circles.
Rupert’s the right one for the likes of that. Shame, though. Sure was a
fetching little thing.”
    “Mother was right about one thing,” Merrick said gloomily,
stretching his long legs out toward the fire. “Never marry a pretty woman. They
have no heart or soul and think only of themselves.”
    “Cat ain’t pretty and she’s got the heart of a shrew. What
say we round up a few others and make a night of it? Wine, women, and song,
that’s what we need.”
    Wine, women, and song. Merrick stared at the fire while the
words danced in his head. For one instant he had possessed all three in one
lovely package.
    With a sudden twist of his wrist, he flung the lovely
shimmering goblet and its fiery contents into the flames.
    ~*~
    In a far different corner of the city, a cadaverously tall
man glanced gloomily around the rag-patched walls of a room housing a frail
woman of nearly half his size and a small boy who hid behind his mother’s
skirts. The boy stared at the newcomer with fear and curiosity. Into this tiny
space between four walls was squeezed a pallet