Chapter Fifteen
When Cassandra met Seth for the first time, she was eight and he was twelve.
As a young girl without the opportunity to meet other children, she was curious about Matthew’s new friend.
A strange black-haired boy with bright eyes that overlooked her.
He talked too loudly and played too hard, running in and out of the house with mud on his shoes.
Matthew wouldn’t let her play with them.
No one wanted sisters on frog hunts. So, she decided she wanted nothing to do with frogs or boys.
But when she was twelve, and he was sixteen, she thought maybe boys weren’t too bad.
Especially not boys wearing the uniform of a Royal Military Academy cadet.
Seth exuded confidence, preening in her family’s sitting room, striking in a dark blue tailcoat with glimmering silver buttons and mirror-polished hessian boots.
Like a frog that turned into a prince from a fairy tale.
On the settee, her mother clasped her hand and whispered, “My, isn’t he handsome?
” Cassandra’s young heart filled with girlish daydreams of a soldier fighting valiantly for her honor, though she hadn’t known then what that meant.
When she was twenty-two and he was twenty-six, she learned what it meant for a soldier to fight.
War took the brightness from Seth’s eyes and replaced them with shadows underneath.
In some ways, he hadn’t changed at all. He still talked too loudly, was always filthy, and spent all of his time with Matthew.
In other ways, he was quite different. He had a beard.
His princely handsomeness replaced with rugged masculinity.
The same eyes that used to overlook her studied her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
One quiet night while reading, she caught him lingering in the doorway, watching her with the expression of a man that had glimpsed heaven, only to be turned away at the gate.
No one had ever looked at her that way. Flushing, she smiled at him, and the brilliant smile he gave her in return set the world to rights.
The light in his eyes restored, and her mother’s words came to her mind.
“My, isn’t he handsome?”
When those childhood dreams came knocking, they too had grown up, and she was as powerless to fight them as she was to act on them. In a moment of weakness, she had foolishly written them down.
All of them.
He had them in his pocket.
“Did you steal the key?” she asked as he fidgeted with the lock to the glasshouse.
“You believe I would do such a thing?”
“Yes,” she quipped. “I absolutely do.”
He shushed her and lowered his voice.
“I borrowed it. Does that make you feel better?”
The lock clicked open.
“Without permission?”
“Am I allowed to do something nice for you, or not?”
“I would prefer it if the nice things you do for me are legal.” Cassandra looked over her shoulder for the third time. “I’ve never broken into anything before.”
Behind her, the manor emanated dim orange light from a handful of windows. If anyone were to look out, they would see two shadows alone in a clearing next to a cathedral of wrought iron and glass, illuminated by moonlight.
“Well you’re doing a poor job of it.” He brought his finger to his lips. “The first rule of stealth is silence.”
“You sound like Caroline,” she grumbled.
Seth held a hand to his chest with a winsome smile. “She is my second favorite Cooper sibling.”
The double doors to the glasshouse opened, greeting Cassandra with a gust of warm, humid air that carried with it the scent of wet soil.
Inside, stone steps led through rows of raised beds with sleeping plants.
Blooms abounded, roses, orchids, peonies.
Young trees lined the walls as vine plants stretched skyward, trained along the support beams to give an orderly appearance.
Everything pruned with precision, not a spare leaf on the ground.
What she wouldn’t give to have something like this at Cooper House. Enough garden space to feed the estate year round. They had the water for it. With a frown, she reminded herself that Lincolnshire wouldn’t be her home for much longer.
As Seth closed the door, the glass fogged with condensation once more, cocooning them from the outside and sticking to her skin. Far too warm for her blanket and cloak, Seth removed them from her shoulders without a word and hung them both on hooks by the door.
Cassandra walked forward, stopping in front of a row of strawberry bushes in terracotta pots.
Rummaging through the leaves, Seth plucked a strawberry and handed it to her.
The fruit melted on her tongue, ripe and tart.
With a soft smile, he remained a few steps back and kept his hands in his pockets.
He watched her as she moved through the aisles, as if mentally cataloging every graze of her fingers over glossy leaves, every flower she took an interest in.
Soothed by the combined scents of domesticated nature around her, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
It almost felt like being home.
“Do you like it?” Seth asked.
She turned to smile at him.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
“Neither have I,” he whispered.
She stopped and met his gaze, not looking at their surroundings, but at her.
Every moment she was with him, everything started making more sense.
Seth cared for her. He knew she would find comfort in a garden at midnight, with a blanket around her shoulders.
He had seen her back at Cooper House, but never made a move like this.
Never crossed that line, even when he had ample opportunity.
Why now?
“Seth?”
“Yes, sweetheart?” The endearment rolled off of his tongue easily, as if he hadn’t the slightest inclination to hold himself back.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, maybe too quiet, as he didn’t respond.
He only stepped closer, a step away from her arm’s reach. Instead of answering her question, he gave one of his own, “Why were you on the hunt this morning?”
She swallowed.
“Matthew asked me to go. He’s worried about you.” Cassandra skimmed her hand along a variety of mint, worrying a velvety leaf between her finger and thumb. “We’re… family. He thought that if both of us are around, you’ll feel more comfortable.”
“A lot of good that did,” Seth ground out.
She flinched.
“Are you angry?”
“Not at you.”
“At Matthew?”
“He needs to stop. The more he tries to manage me the worse it gets. I’m starting to think that half of the reason he brought you here is to keep me in line.”
“To keep you in line?”
“It’s not the first time he’s put you in my path as a distraction,” he told her. “Since we arrived, he’s been meddling—”
“Did Matthew force you to dance with me?” she blurted out.
Seth furrowed his brows.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Lady Samantha mentioned it the other day.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You had to be asked multiple times—”
“I asked you to dance because I wanted to. Nobody would ever have to force me to—”
“Because you wanted to stop Colonel Bishop from dancing with me, more like,” she accused.
It was his turn to flinch.
“I don’t like him touching you.” He stepped into her space and loomed over her. Without a trace of trepidation, he moved closer still. His voice was rough as he said, “But that wasn’t the only reason.”
“Then why…?”
Both hands came to rest on the table behind her, his arms at either side of her, but not touching.
Tension thickened the air further when he lowered his face to hers.
His tone turned reverent. “Because I wanted you in my arms. When I saw you laughing from across the ballroom… it was impossible to focus on anything else. I had never heard you laugh before.”
“Surely you’ve heard me laugh.” She huffed.
They had known each other for years! Admittedly, her laughter had become rare as of late, but never?
There must have been one instance that proved him wrong, but try as she might, she couldn’t bring anything to mind, not with him surrounding her, clouding her ability to think.
“Not like that, not with me.” There was a new depth to his eyes, so near to hers, dark in the low light, it made her heart race and the tiny hairs on her body awaken. “You have a beautiful laugh, Cassandra.”
He raised his hand, but instead of touching her, he reached past her to pluck a flower from the table. With a gentle, sensuous movement, he trailed his hand down her arm and tucked the bloom in between her fingers.
Another gardenia.
Secret love.
“Is that why you kissed me?” Cassandra twirled the stem between her thumb and forefinger, spinning the white flower.
“That, and I couldn’t wait another fortnight to be rewarded for my heroic deeds.” He sighed dramatically. With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he took a step back, pulled the worn page from his pocket, and presented it to her.
Hesitantly, she reached for it and he laughed, running a hand through his hair.
“No tricks.”
She held the page in the same hand that held the flower, and she wondered why she didn’t feel relieved. It had given her nothing but stress having her private thoughts in his possession. He strung her along, made sport of her, and now that the game was over. It all felt… anticlimactic.
“I was never going to read it,” he admitted. “I should have given it to you right away.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted your attention,” he said with a slight raise to his shoulder, a sheepish grin on his face. “I didn’t expect you to actually kiss me.”
“You kissed me,” she corrected.
“You kissed me back.” He reached forward to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. The touch of his skin on hers ignited a familiar heat within her. Eyes trained to her mouth, he whispered, “Do you regret it?”