A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(12)

Her answer to his logic was a haughty glare, one he easily ignored.

Soren was glad for this conversation. Jesting aside, he wanted the air cleared between them. “Very well, you delivered the ‘cut direct,’ ” he conceded. “And you did this because I ‘betrayed’ you?” Now, there was another overburdened word. “You will pardon my ignorance. What exactly did my fifteen-year-old self do?”

“You mocked me. Just as you did at the dining table this evening.”

Soren already regretted his blunt comment when he’d told her Camberly would never marry her. It was the truth; still, he could have been gentler, less confrontational . . . although he would hardly consider his honesty a “betrayal.”

In truth, he’d always pushed her a bit. Some would say that it was the natural inclination of a York wanting to best a Holwell, but he knew differently. He’d wanted Cass to notice him. He did not like being dismissed. Her opinion had always been surprisingly important to him. He’d valued her approval. He still wanted to have it, and more. He would like to have her in his bed.

Marrying Cass Holwell would be no chore at all. She had everything that attracted him to a woman. She was fiercely independent and unafraid, two qualities he hadn’t seen in any other woman in London. He teased her about books but he admired her intelligence. He’d learned long ago a woman without wit could make for deadly dull nights. And she was very easy on his eyes. How could he not be interested in her?

“I didn’t mean to tease you,” he said. He didn’t like the word “mock.” “I don’t know what came over me at the table.” He wasn’t about to admit to jealousy. “Why shouldn’t you be a duchess? You could.” There, he’d apologized.

She was not mollified. “I don’t demand an apology for our dialogue at the dinner table, although you were rude. What you said to me in there is nothing less than what I would expect of you.” She sounded like the stuffiest of governesses.

“Oh. Well, then I’m sorry I apologized. I can’t seem to keep from offending you.” Yes, he was mocking her, and rightly so. She was throwing his apology back in his face—and she was the one who had wanted it.

Her hands clenched into fists at her side. “You think you are so clever. Or that I am so desperate for marriage I’d lower my standards to your level—”

“Wait a minute, Cass. Now you are the one growing very personal here,” he warned.

“Cassandra,” she barked.

“Cass-andra,” he fired back. Her picking on the nickname didn’t make sense to Soren. Who wanted to go around being Cassandrrrraaa? The name was a mouthful. But a bit of honesty between them was refreshing. He pushed for more. “And, because I can’t read your mind and you obviously have been nursing a grudge against me for, what? Say, ten years and more—?”

“You called me a dog.”

The words flew out of her, and once spoken, she pulled away, covering her mouth, as if to deny them.

“A dog?” Soren frowned. “I’ve never said anything of the sort about you.”

That brought her back. “Oh yes, you did. It was at the Burfords’ house party.”

“Which one? They had one every year.”

“It was the last one you attended.” Her voice was accusing, as if he was being deliberately provocative.

“Right before I left for Canada?”

“Yes.”

Soren searched his mind. Why would he call her a dog, especially since she was anything but ugly or four-legged? “I don’t remember saying anything so offensive.”

“You don’t recall trying to be clever for the other boys?”

“I recollect the other lads. I also remember that suddenly, you refused to have anything to do with me.” He’d forgotten that day in general until this moment. “You went off in a huff. That was your cut direct?”

“Because you called me a dog,” she insisted.

He was genuinely puzzled. “Cassandra, I’m sorry. I have no memory of saying such a thing.”

She walked right up to him then. “We were up in the schoolroom, the lot of us. You picked up a slate and drew something. The other boys snickered over it. Do you not remember now?”

“No.”

She looked as if she could not, would not believe him.

He held up his hands as if to show her he was hiding nothing, and then the details of that day came into focus.

That morning, on the way to the Burford party, his father had informed Soren he would not be returning to school. He was behind on Soren’s board and the headmaster was becoming threatening.

Instead, his father had decided to send Soren to his uncle in Canada. You can finish your schooling there, he’d said. We’ll purchase a commission for you when you are of age. You’ll do well.

Soren’s stunned surprise had quickly escalated to fury that everything he’d known was going to be stripped away because of his father’s recklessness with money. In a fit of rebellious anger, he had nipped a bottle of port when no one was looking. He and the lads had escaped to the schoolroom to drink their bottle in private. That day, he had felt he was being thrown away. His friends would continue their schooling and go on to Oxford and he would be in Canada, wherever that was.

And then Cass and some of the girls had come into the room, disturbing the masculine bond a stolen bottle had given them . . .