A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(5)

Fortunately, the duke and Lady Bainhurst liked to hear themselves talk so there hadn’t been much call for her or Willa to offer a response. Besides, women in need of a husband were expected to listen more than “jabber,” something her stepmother was always upon her about.

You have too many opinions, Cassandra, she liked to say. We’ll never find a husband for you. Two daughters I’ve easily married off, but you? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

This Season, Cassandra was truly making an effort to be all that she should be. She’d had offers in the past, but her suitors had been penniless younger sons or worse, tradesmen. Her father had rejected them all—

The duke’s next words snapped her out of her worried woolgathering. “. . . Take my good friend Dewsberry. There are few men who are better riders. He has a gift for understanding horses.”

Willa, bless her heart, dared to ask what Cassandra feared. “Is Lord Dewsberry here?”

“Of course,” the duke answered. “Such a good man.”

“Yes, he is,” Lady Bainhurst chimed in brightly. “And quite handsome, don’t you agree, Miss Holwell?”

So. There it was. Her intuition was once again correct.

Cassandra looked at the duke’s classic male beauty and dropped her gaze to her lap before choking out, “I suppose.”

It was a lackluster response but then, look at what she was losing. It was now apparent to her that the duke was more interested in Willa. Why else would he be hobnobbing with them in a room full of far more important people?

As for herself? Camberly was playing matchmaker.

At that moment, the butler stepped into the room.

Expectantly, everyone looked in his direction. “Minerva, Duchess of Camberly,” he announced. “Escorted by the Earl of Dewsberry.”

Willa leaned back toward her. “You are uncanny.”

“I wish I hadn’t been right,” Cassandra answered under her breath as she and Willa rose politely with the others in deference to the duchess.

The butler stepped aside and Soren came forward with the aged dowager on his arm.

“Shouldn’t you be the one escorting your grandmother?” Lady Bainhurst said to the duke.

“I’d much rather be right here,” he answered.

Yes, here . . . with Willa, Cassandra thought.

Her friend must have sensed her bitter disappointment. Willa gave her hand a commiserating squeeze, a beat before shooting a dazzling smile up at the duke. And she did have to look up because she was so petite and he so tall; they would always appear the oddest of couples.

Yes, Cassandra was that jealous, and it was unflattering. Still, she couldn’t control it . . . because she and Camberly would have made a far more handsome couple. They were both tall. He’d spend his life bending down to kiss Willa.

Lady Bainhurst added insult to injury by sidling closer to Cassandra. “You know Dewsberry is in the market for a wife? The two of you are both Cornish, are you not?”

“We are.”

Cassandra could also add, I’d rather be staked to a seven-foot-high stone pillar and let birds peck my eyes blind than wed Soren York. But that would have sounded churlish.

She’d save those words for Soren.

He now escorted the dowager around the room so she could personally welcome her guests, but Cassandra knew they would end up here. She could admit that, as Lady Bainhurst had pointed out, Soren was not unattractive. Nor was Her Ladyship the first woman to say this about him.

It was true he lacked the duke’s flair, but Soren bore himself well. He’d been a military officer, which, considering how adventuresome he’d been as a lad, seemed a proper career for him.

He had blue-gray eyes that often saw more than they should, and yet revealed nothing about himself. His hair had been white blond in their youth. Time had toned it down to a light brown, and someplace throughout his adventures, someone had broken his nose. It was obvious when he was in profile.

Cassandra could also concede that his shoulders were as broad as Camberly’s . . . perhaps even broader—still, he was not the man for her. They had nothing in common save for both being from Cornwall, a place she hoped never to see again.

Her father was watching Soren, as well. Was he surprised a York escorted their hostess? These had been doors her father had knocked on and knocked on for years without admittance. His feelings were clear when, upon seeing the duchess and Soren close at hand, he moved so that he would not have to show respect to a York.

If the duchess noticed, she gave no sign. Instead, she tapped Soren’s arm to direct him toward the settee. “And here we have three lovely English roses,” she announced as she approached.

Cassandra, Willa, and Lady Bainhurst offered proper curtseys. Cassandra refused to make eye contact with Soren. It was the one thing she could do without being impolite, and she knew he would know he was being ignored. He was no fool.

However, Willa and Lady Bainhurst were under no such strictures. “How wonderful that you are here with us this weekend, Lord Dewsberry,” Lady Bainhurst said, offering her gloved hand.

Soren gallantly bent over it. “It is my pleasure as well.”

He had a deep voice with a distinctive sound. It was a bit gravelly, a bit husky, definitely masculine, and unforgettable.

Cassandra wished she wasn’t going to have to listen to it for the next few days.