Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“What do you expect me to do with two dozen fruit trees?”
“Plant them.” Seth smiled. “I’ll help you.”
“Where?”
“There’s a sun room in the house I’m about to purchase, and a garden in the back.
Small, but it’s a start. I’ll move your plants there once we’re married, and then we’ll look for a permanent place for them.
Point to a spot on the map and I’ll buy some land.
Then I’ll build you a—” Her head lifted, a smile graced her lips, and covering the left side of her face, swollen speckles of purple bruising marred her cheekbone.
Blood rushed in his ears, every muscle tensed and his tone darkened. “Did someone strike you?”
With a controlled sigh, Cassandra pushed her hair from her face so he could see the inflamed skin. Someone had recently struck her, and hard.
“Who?”
“See? This is exactly what I didn’t want.” She huffed. “It’s nothing.”
“Someone hitting my wife is not nothing, Cassandra!”
“Seth, I don’t wish to talk about it. You’ll be upset, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s done, let it go.”
“Did Cooper—”
“No!”
“Someone assaulted you, Cassandra. Who?”
She gave a frustrated exhale and pursed her lips.
“Lady Honora slapped me at the modiste’s. She said something cruel. I responded in kind, and she slapped me. Knocked me right to the ground.”
Lady Honora? From his limited experience with her, she seemed to be the most level-headed of her peers, aside from Cassandra herself.
“She kept insulting me, and you.” Her footsteps fell hard on the gravel. “She said there’s a rumor going around that—oh, it’s just ridiculous. I have a title of my own, now. They’re calling me The Wager Wife.”
Seth’s blood ran cold.
Wager.
His fingers twitched as he tried to ask casually, “Why would they call you that?”
“The ton has it in mind that you and Colonel Bishop made a wager on my virginity during the target competition. Everyone thinks you compromised me because of that.” Her voice strained and Seth forgot how to breathe.
“I told her that you would never have done that to me, that you love me. I called her jealous, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor.”
Every word was a stab to his heart. He forced air into his lungs, swallowed thickly and told himself to focus. Say the right thing. Do the right thing. But he couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t say anything.
At his silence, Cassandra took a shuddering inhale and fixed her gaze squarely on his. Her hand trembled on his arm.
Or was he the one trembling?
“Tell me that she’s wrong.”
The words caught in Seth’s throat and silence filled the space between them, growing like the plague with each step. Cassandra dropped his arm and stopped walking. That spark of love and trust he had built so carefully diminished in her eyes.
“Seth! Tell me that you did not wager my virtue on a shot with Colonel Bishop!”
Heart sinking low, he faced her.
“I can’t.”
She took a step away from him. Then another. Her voice was a whisper above the wind. “So everything after that… the library… the field. When you kissed me… was that all because of a wager?”
“What? No! It wasn’t like that!”
“I’m such a fool!” She increased her pace with each word. “Colonel Bishop even said so! That you came to collect me, that you could bet on it, and you said nothing.”
“You weren’t in any state to have that conversation, you were fracturing.” He lengthened his stride to catch up with her.
A choked breath escaped her, and she sniffed.
“I knew I was going to make the shot, Cassandra, it wasn’t a gamble for me. I wasn’t going to do anything about it. He threatened you. I wanted him to leave you alone. Nothing between us has been because of that! You asked me to kiss you, you asked me to make love to you.”
“You had never shown an interest before. You made that bet with him and then you kissed me.”
“Those actions do not connect like that. You’re not listening to me, and you’re angry over nothing.”
“I’m angry because I was slapped in public defending you and I was wrong,” she corrected tersely. “If you weren’t going to make good on the wager then why did you make it?”
“To protect you. That’s all I ever seem to do these days!
” He caught up with her. “You want to know what I was thinking at the end of that target competition? How much I wanted to marry you. That I had to win because I couldn’t bear the thought of you with some random man off Lady Dorchester’s list.”
“You were on Aunt Valentine’s list, Seth!”
Seth paused.
Cassandra froze.
He took a deep breath.
“Was I on the list the whole time?”
“I thought you knew that.” She averted her gaze, hiding her face behind her bonnet. “Matthew had seen the list. I assumed he told you.”
That was the first day, he thought. Within a day of meeting him, after one conversation, the Marchioness of Dorchester considered him a worthy contender for Cassandra’s hand.
A mother figure who had loved Cassandra since she was a babe.
Even as a nobody, he had made the cut. Cassandra was the one who rejected him.
As she had multiple times.
“I’ve never been good enough for you, have I?” he asked. Eyes trained ahead, her townhouse short minutes away. “You said it yourself. You never failed to remind me of it. But I didn’t care. I had to have you.”
And it cost him everything. His friendship with Cooper, his freedom, fresh air, starry skies and peace instead of this torment.
He had traded it all for her when she wouldn’t have made the same sacrifice.
When she would have married someone else.
Had gone to Hampshire with the goal of marrying anyone else.
“Between you and me, I’m concerned about the lengths that she may go to accomplish that goal.”
“Did you trap me in this, Cassandra?”
“Trap you?!”
But it all made sense. “You asked me to make love to you, and you asked me to stay, knowing that Cooper was going to come for you in the morning. What I did was reprehensible, but what you’ve done—”
“I didn’t trap you, Seth!”
“You knew I wouldn’t be able to resist you. I’d already told you that. So why did you ask me to stay? Because you love me?” He scoffed. “You’ve never said so. You don’t act like you do. Only ramblings in a diary that you climbed a tree to prevent me from seeing.”
“I couldn’t be with you,” she said, voice on the defensive, but he was tired of having the same argument.
“You could have,” Seth grit out. “You could have the whole time, but you didn’t want to see me as an option until I was your only option.”
“I wanted to marry you! I told you that I would!”
“Yes! The second time! Why did you agree to marry me the second time, and not the first?”
Cassandra remained silent.
Seth grit his teeth.
“Because I had nothing the first time, but as soon as you found out that I was wealthy the nightgown fell to the floor. Probably would have happened to anyone, though.”
She flinched, and it was as if he had slapped her himself.
“All of this has been a mistake.” Eyes on the ground, she whispered, “I wish I never met you.”
Seth’s heart plummeted to the ground and shattered.
“You—Cassandra, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that!”
But she was already running ahead, leaving Lady Dorchester far behind.
“You didn’t mean it like that.”
He rushed after her.
“I didn’t mean it at all!”
She turned the corner. They were nearing the end of the park. Soon, she would be on her street.
And she would be gone.
“I was slapped today, for defending you! My brother hates me, for choosing you! You aren’t the only one who has made sacrifices, we’re both in our own personal hell, Seth!”
“Cassandra, stop and listen to me!”
“I’m done talking to you!”
He bounded after her, reaching for her. He had to get her to stop.
Needed her to look into his eyes so she could see that he didn’t mean it.
He couldn’t have her carry this for another four days and marry him with that between them.
Catching up to her, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him.
She twisted, eyes aflame. Her face was red and swollen, etched with hurt.
And then something prickled at his awareness. They were being watched.
No.
Targeted.
Behind Cassandra stood the man with the familiar face from minutes ago. Sneering at them with hatred. A pistol in his hand pointed straight at Cassandra’s back. Without a thought, Seth dove over her.
“Get down!”
“What are you—”
BANG!
A cacophony of voices screamed. Dozens of feet ran around them. Through the chaos, Seth sheltered Cassandra beneath his body and shielded her head with his arms.
“Stay down!” he yelled as she tried to move him off of her. Holding himself on his elbows, he searched Cassandra’s face. Droplets of blood joined the bruise on her cheek. Her eyes met his, hollow and in shock. She labored for breath under him.
“Are you hurt?” he slurred. On his side, a pain throbbed.
“Seth.” Fear racked Cassandra’s voice. “You’re bleeding.”
And then, agony.
Iron flooded his mouth and his nose, and pain.
Sudden and hot and wretched lightning stabs radiated through his chest, his shoulders, his lungs.
He couldn’t breathe. A numbness covered him.
His vision blurred. Sounds muffled, as if he were underwater.
Hot and cold. His heart beat a percussive storm in his chest.
Eyes wide, Cassandra pushed at him, but he couldn’t move. His eyes focused on her bonnet on the ground, changing color from pink… to red… to…
“Seth!”
He tried to say her name, but his lips felt strange.
Why was it so dark?
“No, no, no! No! Stay with me! Please!”
An angel of mercy ran her hands over him, her white gloves saturated with crimson. Hair wild. Crying. Her mouth moved and the last thing Seth heard before the darkness took him was Cassandra.
Screaming.