Chasing Cassandra

Near the middle of October, Tom had arranged to purchase an estate north of London, which comprised two hundred and fifty acres. The seller was Lord Beaumont, a viscount drowning in debt, like so much of the landowning nobility these days. Since few people could afford to buy large tracts of land, Tom had bought the estate at a bargain price, with the intention of developing it with shops and accommodations for approximately thirty thousand residents. He’d always wanted his own town. It would be satisfying to see that it was planned and laid out properly.

Of course, the viscount’s family despised Tom for having bought their ancestral land. Their disdain hadn’t stopped them, however, from introducing him to one of their younger daughters, Miss Adelia Howard, in the hopes he would marry her and replenish the family coffers.

Amused by their obvious struggle to hold their noses at the prospect of him as a son-in-law, Tom had accepted an invitation to dinner. The meal had been long, stilted, and formal … but the well-bred Adelia had impressed him. She seemed to share his understanding of marriage as a businesslike partnership, in which each party’s roles were separate and defined. He would make money and pay the bills. She would have the children and manage the household. After a sufficient number of offspring had been produced, they would pursue their separate pleasures and pretend to look the other way. No romantic foolishness about cozy cottages and walking hand in hand through country meadows. No poetry, no treacle.

No moonlight waltzes.

“I’m the best prospect you’ll ever have,” Adelia had said with an admirable lack of melodrama, when they’d talked privately at her family’s home. “Most families like mine wouldn’t dream of mixing good blood with common stock.”

“But you wouldn’t mind?” Tom asked skeptically.

“I would mind it far less than marrying a poor man and living in a pokey little house with only two or three servants.” Adelia had glanced over him coolly. “You’re rich and well-dressed, and you look as though you’ll keep your hair. That sets you above most of my potential suitors.”

Tom had realized that, like a peach, the soft bloom of her exterior concealed a hard, tough core—which made him like her all the better. They would have done well together.

It was an opportunity that wouldn’t come again for a long time, if at all.

But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to offer for her yet, because he couldn’t stop longing for Lady Cassandra Ravenel. Damn her.

Perhaps he’d ruined waltzing for her, but she’d ruined far more than that for him.

For the first time in his life, Tom had actually forgotten something: what it was like to kiss other women. There was only the memory of Cassandra’s sweet, yielding mouth, the lush curves of her body molding perfectly to his. Like a melody that kept repeating itself throughout a symphony, she was his idée fixe, haunting him whether dreaming or awake.

Everything inside demanded that he chase Cassandra, do whatever was necessary to win her. But if he succeeded, he would destroy everything that made her worth having.

Unable to resolve the paradox on his own, Tom decided to consult the known authority on such matters: Jane Austen. He bought a copy of Persuasion as Phoebe had recommended, hoping to find an answer about how to deal with his personal dilemma.

As Tom read the novel, he discovered to his relief that Miss Austen’s writing wasn’t florid or syrupy. To the contrary, her tone was dry, ironic, and sensible. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stand the story or any of the characters. He would have hated the plot if he’d been able to find one, but it was only chapter after chapter of people talking.

The so-called heroine, Anne Elliot, who’d been persuaded by her family to end her engagement to Captain Wentworth, was appallingly passive and restrained. Wentworth, for his part, was understandably aloof.

Tom had to admit, however, that he’d felt a few moments of kinship with Anne, who had such trouble identifying and expressing her feelings. He understood that all too well.

And then he reached the part where Wentworth poured out his emotions in a love letter: You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. For some reason, Tom had felt a genuine sense of relief when Anne discovered the letter and realized Wentworth still loved her. But how could Tom experience a real feeling about someone who’d never existed, and events that had never happened? The question left him puzzled and fascinated.

The deeper meaning of the novel, however, had remained a mystery. As far as Tom could tell, the point of Persuasion was never to let relatives interfere with one’s engagement.

Soon, however, Tom found himself returning to the bookshop and asking the bookseller for recommendations. He returned home with Don Quixote, Les Misérables, and A Tale of Two Cities, although he wasn’t sure why he was compelled to read them. Maybe it was the sense they all contained clues to an elusive secret. Maybe if he read enough novels about the problems of fictional people, he might find some clue about how to solve his own.

“BAZZLE,” TOM SAID absently as he read contracts at his desk, “stop that infernal scratching.”

“Yes, sir,” came the dutiful reply. The boy continued sweeping around the edge of the office with a broom and dustpan.

There was much about Bazzle that Tom had come to appreciate during the past few weeks. It wasn’t that the boy was particularly intelligent—he was uneducated and knew only enough math to count small currency. Nor was Bazzle a handsome lad, with his short jaw and slum-pallor complexion. But the boy’s character was solid gold, which was miraculous for anyone who’d come from dangerous and disease-ridden slums.

Life hadn’t been kind to Bazzle, but he took each day as it was and maintained a sort of dogged cheerfulness that Tom liked. The boy was never late, sick, or dishonest. He wouldn’t take so much as a crust of bread if he thought it belonged to someone else. More than once, Tom’s assistant Barnaby had dashed off harum-scarum on some errand, and left the remains of his lunch—a half sandwich, or a hand pie, or a few scraps of bread and cheese—lying unwrapped on his desk. Tom found the habit supremely annoying, since uneaten food tended to attract vermin. He’d hated insects and rodents ever since his days working as a train boy, when the only room he’d been able to afford had been a freight yard shack crawling with pests.

“Have Barnaby’s leftover lunch,” Tom had told Bazzle, whose spindly frame needed some bolstering. “There’s no use wasting it.”

“Ain’t a thief,” the boy had replied, after a quick, hollow-eyed glance at the discarded food.

“It’s not stealing if I tell you to take it.”

“But it’s Mr. Barnaby’s.”

“Barnaby’s well aware that any food he leaves behind will be disposed of before he returns. He’d be the first to tell you to have it.” At the boy’s continuing hesitation, Tom had said curtly, “Either it goes into the rubbish bin or your innards, Bazzle. You decide.”

The boy had proceeded to devour the hand pie so fast that Tom had feared it might come up again.

On another occasion, Tom had tried and failed to give Bazzle a cake of paper-wrapped soap from the cabinet of supplies near one of the building lavatories.

Bazzle had eyed the soap as if it were a dangerous substance. “Don’t need it, sir.”