A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(18)

Instinct took over. She opened the nearest door and jumped into the darkness, shutting the door behind her, but she’d been a second too slow to react. She’d been seen.

“There, that door,” Lord Bainhurst shouted. “Letty.”

“Not that room—” the tattler countered, but it was too late.

Cassandra grabbed the door handle as it began to turn. She tightened her grasp, using both hands and all her strength to prevent the door from opening.

Behind her, she heard movement.

“What the devil—” a male voice said. Wait, not just any male voice—Soren’s voice. She recognized him immediately. She’d sought refuge in his room.

Everything happened at once.

“They are down the hall, my lord,” the tattler tried to explain.

“They are in here,” Lord Bainhurst declared right outside the door. “I saw Letty run inside.”

How anyone could mistake Cassandra for the shorter Letty Bainhurst, she did not know. She also didn’t have time to consider the matter before the full force of Lord Bainhurst’s body slammed into the door. The door withstood the blow, but Cassandra was no longer worried about Bainhurst, not when strong hands roughly grabbed her and turned her around.

“Soren—” she started, releasing her hold on the door and raising her hands to warn him—

Another blow bounced the door open. It hit Cassandra, who fell forward into Soren’s arms, and he was naked. The man did not have a stitch on him.

Light and Lord Bainhurst’s body spilled into the room.

Soren’s reactions were swifter than her own. To her surprise, he physically lifted her, something that had never happened in her adult life, and swung her out of the way of harm. He positioned his body as a wall between her and Lord Bainhurst. It was a gallant gesture, and would have been more so if he’d been clothed.

“Aha—!” Lord Bainhurst declared, finding his balance right before Soren cut him off by grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket. Soren shoved him back into the arms of a group of men who had accompanied him and now gathered in the doorway.

However, Cassandra wasn’t as concerned with them as she was at the sight of all of Soren.

She’d never seen all of a living man before.

Certainly, she had admired the male form with vague intellectuality when she’d studied sculptures of it. But those had been art.

Soren was flesh and blood, and he looked better than any sculpture she had ever seen. The light from the hallway emphasized his buttocks, his back, his thighs. They were muscular and strong. Well-formed. Impressive. She couldn’t judge all of him, the “bits” so to speak, because he had his back to her, but what she could see was most admirable.

Unfortunately, everyone else could witness he was naked as well.

And Lord Bainbridge was so worked up in a jealous rage, he had not yet registered that Cassandra was not his wife. He jumped to the worst of conclusions and he did so at the top of his voice.

“Dewsberry? You scoundrel. Hand over my wife.” Doors up and down the hallway began opening as Lord Bainhurst’s shouting woke the other guests.

Cassandra had to do something to save Soren’s dignity. She noticed his breeches hanging over a chair and she reached for them. How humiliating this must be for him. As it was for her. She truly felt overheated.

She offered his breeches to him.

In the face of Bainhurst’s blustering, he felt her gentle nudge and reached for his clothing even as he blocked with one strong forearm Lord Bainhurst’s attempt to run into the room again.

“Bring her out here,” His Lordship demanded. “Let us all see her for the scheming adulteress she is.”

“My lord, return to your bed.” Soren’s voice was steel-edged. If he had used that tone on Cassandra, she would have obeyed him instantly.

However, Lord Bainhurst was not of a like mind. He was frothing with anger. Two gentlemen attempted to reason with him but he shook them off. “I call you out, Dewsberry,” he shouted for all to hear.

“Oh, I will happily meet you, Bainhurst,” was Soren’s cool reply.

“And I will happily run my sword through you. You blackguard. You wife thief. You coward.”

He was beyond reason, and Cassandra realized there was only one solution. She knew Soren was trying to protect her identity from prying eyes, but if she didn’t act, the scene would grow worse, if that was possible.

She stepped away from Soren’s protective presence and presented herself to Lord Bainhurst. “I am not your wife.”

It took a moment for the furious lord to change the direction of his anger, but everyone else in the hall—and she was quite shocked at how many had gathered—was startled to see her. They stood in their night caps and bedclothes, their sleepy expressions giving way to salacious curiosity.

“Where’s Letty?” Lord Bainhurst demanded.

“I don’t know,” Cassandra answered with a calmness she was far from feeling. Indeed, she was close to tears.

He scowled and looked past her. “Dewsberry, where is my wife?”

“She is not here, you fool.” Soren stepped forward to stand beside Cassandra. He had, thankfully, found an opportunity to put on his breeches. However, he was still naked to the waist. And his feet were bare. She knew imaginations around them were jumping to the worst possible conclusion.