Chapter 15 #2
The words echoed in the air and in her ears, carrying with them the jagged edge of the truths she had hidden inside for years. Cassian’s expression had not shifted one iota, and with her heart sinking to the depths of her feet, Cecilia, utterly mortified, turned and ran.
“Stop,” Cassian ordered.
She kept her back to him, “I would prefer to go and salvage the little dignity I have left.”
She heard the rustle of cloth and the soft padding of feet. Cassian gently turned her around, and the expression on his face was not the smug satisfaction she expected, but rather calm understanding.
“Believe me or not, I know that feeling,” Cassian told her. “The only difference is that my enlightenment came much earlier than yours. You do know you are allowed to be your own person and not merge into the hoi polloi expected from you.”
His words were cold comfort, but she took them anyway.
“You may not know what you want, but I know you already know who you are, and that’s just as important,” Cassian added as he crossed the room to liberate a bottle of wine from a cupboard.
He lifted the bottle. “Do you care to share a drink with me?”
The shame of her admission still burned. “No. Thank you, but no. I require an evening alone.”
He shrugged and poured a drink. “I still want you to tell me what you’d like me to introduce you into intimacy with…” he looked over his shoulder, “…unless you want me to choose this time.”
Cecilia wanted to collapse into her bed. “I trust your judgment.”
This time, she did leave, but at a walk instead of a run.
Cassian did not expect to see Cecilia that evening and was proven right when he ate dinner alone.
“She requested a tray to her quarters, Your Grace,” Andrews told him. “I believe she took a dram of laudanum as well.”
Drifting back to his room, Cassian set his glass of sherry on the desk he used in lieu of the massive one inside his father’s old study. He paged through the documents on his desk, but his attention strayed to the drawer on the left-hand side.
His thoughts drifted to Cecilia while he tugged the drawer open, pried up the old Italian translation of Tristan and Iseult, the better version of Romeo and Juliet, in his opinion.
His blunt fingertips drummed on the cover while his mind brought up the memory of a tall and statuesque woman, her thin black robe clinging to her curves and nipped-in waist. Her coal black hair down to her waist, cat-like amber eyes outlined with kohl, and the lushness of that painted mouth.
Contessa Isabella Alessandra Farnese di Verona was a difficult woman to forget.
But she is my past. The only woman who commands my attention now is Cecilia.
And that jarring fact was as unfortunate as it was becoming truer by the day.
A knock on the door had him looking up as Andrews settled a tray of coffee on his table. Cassian stifled a small laugh at how well this man knew him.
“Is there anything you would need from me, Your Grace?” His manservant asked.
“Not tonight, Andrews,” he said. “Have a good night.”
With a bow, the butler left, and Cassian turned back to the book. Flicking the cover open, he saw the letters Isabella had written to him while he’d been in the Italian city.
They’d been in the book so long, the ten letters were compressed into thin sheets.
Tesoro mio.
My darling. Cassian stared at those words, wondering if he dared going down that memory lane. Sighing, he closed the letter and shut the book.
Guilt rose up in his stomach, clawing at his chest at the way he had left Italy, and doing so, had left the woman he’d promised to return to, in the dust.
It’s been three years. She’s probably forgotten you by now.
Shoving the book inside the drawer, Cassian dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. In circumstances like this, he’d do his best to ignore the reality of the situation and run off to Whites or Vauxhall, or even attend a prizefight.
Now, he had no option but to think of the past; his stomach churned at how he had considered his actions. Promising a woman to return and not doing so was beyond shameful; even more so was that he had claimed to love her.
And now I am going to run off on Cecilia. Don’t you think there is something wrong here? Something wrong in me.
It had taken months to calm the internal chaos caused by his foolish entanglement with the Contessa, and he’d vowed to never again let his emotions override his rationality. He had lied and deceived an innocent woman.
His brain was far more reliable than his emotions, and now it was warning him that if he did not carefully toe the line with Cecilia, he might end up in the same boat.
Except this time, it would no longer be a shame-faced lie to say that his feelings for a woman were quickly growing far and beyond simple desire.
And it would not be just her that would be left in the aftermath of that wreckage.
Shaking his head, Cassian fixed a cup of coffee, pulled the stack of letters to him, and flicked a ledger open. If he had the time, the least he could do was be productive.
If Cecilia is going to follow through with this… what should I start her with?