Chapter Eight #2
By the time he was finished, her tears were gone and she was looking at him in awe. Her hand came up to touch her face, where she knew the freckles were, stunned by his words.
“No one has ever said that to me,” she muttered. “I’ve only had others tell me I was a witch, and girls I thought were my friend tell me that I was ugly.”
“Don’t you know why?” he asked with feigned incredulity.
“Because they are jealous, my lady. Don’t ever believe them.
I have known my share of women to know exactly how they are when faced with a creature that outshines them.
Jealousy overtakes them. That is the only reason they said such things to you. ”
Shocked, she pondered that for a moment because the concept had genuinely never occurred to her. “Do you really think so?”
“I really think so.” Eyes glimmering, he shook his head faintly. “Do not ever cover yourself up again when you see me, please? I consider it a privilege to see you as God meant you to be seen – one of his best creations.”
There were those words again, giving her hope.
This man she’d only known a couple of days had given her more hope than men she’d known a lifetime, her grandfather included.
That hope reminded her of why she was out by the river in the first place.
Weakly, she gestured to the pile of dragonwort she had collected.
“I came out here to collect an herb that was part of a recipe I found,” she said. “I have some old Arabic treatises and one says to use dragonwort to… well, it helps with the skin.”
“Helps it do what?”
Now, she was embarrassed with her admission. “Helps to fade skin spots.”
“I see,” he nodded, looking over to the pile of herbs next to his sleeping dog. “Have you tried it before?”
“Never. I never saw any reason to before.”
He looked at her, a glimmer of mirth in his eye. “But you have a reason now?”
Her cheeks turned bright red and she lowered her head. “I thought… it could not hurt.”
His lips tugged with a smile. “Who is this reason, Lady Dacia?” he asked, teasing her gently. “Is it anyone I know? You must tell me so that I can fight him for your affection.”
She grinned. He saw it. But she put her hand to her flaming cheek and turned away, back to her herbs.
“It does not matter,” she said.
Cassius was smiling broadly. “It matters a great deal,” he said. “I will challenge him. Give me his name immediately.”
“He will not fight you.”
“Why not?”
“He is too lazy.”
Cassius started to laugh. “A lazy lover? What a horrible man.”
Hearing him laugh made her giggle. “I did not say it was a man,” she said. “If you must know, it is Argos. He likes me so much so I thought I should make myself more presentable with recipes to fade these spots.”
Cassius continued to smile as he looked at his dog, now on his back in the sun. “Argos likes you just as you are,” he said. “He does not need for you to fade anything on his account. But if you feel as if you want to, then do as you please. He wants you to be happy.”
Dacia bent over, collecting the herbs and putting them in her pockets. “It might make me feel as if I could go without my veils and not be stared at.”
“If you are being stared at, it is because you are beautiful. Not because you have freckles.”
She turned to look at him, smiling at the compliment for the very first time, and Cassius could see that she had big dimples in each cheek. It was absolutely charming. More and more, he found himself enamored with her.
Attracted to her.
Suddenly, he was very glad he was staying on.
“I will thank you for saying so this time and not call you a liar,” she said. “I may even come to believe you someday.”
“I hope you do,” he said. “And I am glad we are on speaking terms again because it seems that I am going to be staying on a little while, at the request of your grandfather. I should like our continued association to be pleasant.”
Her smile faded as she looked at him curiously. “Oh?” she said. “Why should he ask you to stay?”
Cassius didn’t want to tell her all of it. He didn’t want to frighten her. “Because of the attack last night,” he said. “He seems to think I can help with your neighbor problem, so I have agreed to remain until it is solved.”
“That could take more than a week or two.”
That didn’t displease Cassius in the least to hear that. With a cock of his head, he simply shrugged his shoulders in a coy gesture that was both sincere and flirtatious.
He was quite adept at such things.
“Only if I’m lucky, my lady,” he said softly. “Only if I’m very lucky.”
The way he said it made Dacia blush furiously once more.
She was about to reply when they both heard the cry from the sentries go up.
Thinking that it was, perhaps, another raiding party sighted, Cassius grabbed Dacia by the hand and raced with her back to the postern gate where the gate guards were preparing to lock it.
They just made it through, with Argos right behind them, before the men slammed the two iron gates shut and bolted them.
They soon discovered that what the sentries sighted wasn’t a raiding party.
It was much, much worse.
Amata had arrived.