Chapter 27
It was past noon when Cecilia slowly crawled to waking.
Her eyes fluttered, and she shifted on the bed to find it empty.
She faintly remembered Cassian telling her he was due at Westminster for another session of the House of Lords meeting.
This time regarding the lands entailed upon the Dukedom and what would become of them.
Her body felt sore, as if she had ridden a horse from one end of London to the other, but the feeling of utter bliss still rested in her bones. Cassian had proven his vow right and had given her four peaks back-to-back.
The last time, he had lifted her clean off the floor and taken her against the wall in a scandalous position she had not even known existed.
Her throat felt thick and she clutched the coverlet, overwhelmed by the memories he had roused in her. How good he made her feel. How much more she needed from him.
When he’d given her the last climax, she’d felt a euphoric wave of utter, unending pleasure that had sunk her into deep sleep the moment her head had hit the pillow.
She reached for Cassian’s pillow and hugged it to herself, a habit she found she’d started doing whenever they did share a bed.
“Your Grace,” Joan, the housekeeper, knocked. “His Grace asked me to rouse you before the afternoon. Shall I send up a bath?”
Rising, Cecilia rubbed her eyes, “Yes, Mrs. Joan, thank you.”
Half an hour later, she found herself dressed in a soft day gown and seated in her study, sifting through letters.
She’d opened all of the letters, finding them to be invitations to balls and soirees, even someone asking her to patronize a young woman with few opportunities.
With Cassian’s departure looming, she would likely be attending them alone now—and the thought planted a cold, unwelcome knot in her stomach, one she forced herself to push aside for now.
“I’ll look into this one,” she told herself.
The next letter was from Pru, the local friend she had made at the Harvest Festival, and a wide smile crossed her face.
I feel myself at a loss on how to navigate balls and gentlemen and the coy flirting other ladies have mastered, Pru wrote.
Please be my companion at the upcoming balls and help me to not embarrass myself.
I am chronically all fingers and thumbs, and I am prone to tripping, falling and spilling something on myself or others.
A smile crossed her face. “Don’t worry, Pru. I will be your buffer.”
She had promised Pru she would help her find a suitor—if not Lord Rothbury himself. That could occupy her life in the short term at the very least.
The letter underneath Pru’s was marked Italy, Verona Italy, exactly, and the worn envelope spoke of the long trip across the sea. It was addressed to Cassian and was sent from an Isabella Alessandra Farnese—
She immediately recognized the name.
It was the same woman whose letter Cassian had kept hidden in his drawer. She stared at the thick letter, wondering what was inside and if she should open it.
It is his property; I would be invading it if I opened it without his approval.
Dropping the letter, she forced herself to attend to the other letters, wrote a reply to Pru, told Rosie she would attend her cousin's debut ballerina at Covent Garden, and told Emma she would love to share tea next week.
Even as she forced herself to mind her business, the worry about what this Isabella had to say brewed in the back of her mind. The letters she had found had been dated years ago. She had not seen anything new, so why was Isabella contacting her husband now?
Had Cassian contacted her first? Is this why he wants to go back to the Continent so badly? Back to her?
Cecilia tried to digest the information pragmatically—but felt as if she were being utterly ripped apart. The very notion of him running away from England to marry Isabella felt like a knife under her ribs.
Pushing away from the table, she carried Isabella’s letter to place it on his desk, and then went back to the rest of her work.
Who in God’s name is this woman?
It felt churlish of her to obsess over the unknown lady when there were bigger and more pressing concerns for her to be worried about. But she couldn’t help it.
The identity of this Isabella had lodged in her mind for reasons she didn’t completely understand. But it would not leave her alone, festering like a splinter that she could neither remove nor ignore. She simply had to know.
Do I ask Cassian directly, and if I do, will he tell me the truth?
Arriving home, Cassian shucked off his jacket and rested a glass of lemonade on his desk. He then dropped a folio beside it and, taking a seat, spun it open. Inside was the approved annulment agreement Ben had gotten back from the archbishop, right in time for Cassian’s departure.
It was rather backhanded and going against a half-promise he had already made to Cecilia, but it was necessary. For her sake.
“Now, I just need to convince her to sign it,” he murmured to himself. “She is as stubborn as a bull, but this is the best way for her.”
He quickly changed into softer clothes, returned to his desk, and as he shifted the folio, a vagrant letter caught his eye. He spun it over to read the sender.
Instantly, his blood ran cold.
“Isabella…”
He stared at the name of his old lover. Again, guilt closed over his chest at knowing how muddled he had left the poor girl.
Dropping the letter, he slumped into the chair and rubbed his eyes. “I was the worst sort of coward when I left.” His eyes fell on the letter, and he murmured, “And if I don’t open this letter, I’d be worse of a heel.”
With a hollow feeling in his stomach, he broke the seal of the envelope.
My dearest Cassian.
Forgive me—I scarcely know how to begin. It has been so many years since I last saw your face, and yet it remains more vivid to me than the moment we first met. Vividly do I remember how the sunlight over the water made you smile.
I have tried, day after day, year upon year, to hold onto your promise, but now I feel that I have allowed myself to be a fool, and many years have been wasted.
I wonder if you truly loved me and are trying to arrange your affairs so you can return, but I think this is wishful thinking.
The truth, I believe, is that you have moved on and have no desire to return to me.
I have waited, Cassian. Not idly, but faithfully. And though I fear I may be a stranger to you now, I would rather risk the pain of knowing than endure the silence any longer.
I shall be in Wiltshire for a time, staying at my brother’s house. He has extended his hospitality to you, should you wish to come, if only to give me the answers to put my heart to rest.
I do not know what life has made of you in these years, nor whether you think of me at all. But I must believe that what we shared was not so easily undone by time or distance.
Yours in hope
Isabella.
Something sharp and jagged had scooped a crater inside his breastbone. Her request was reasonable; it was only right that he give her an answer to the promise he had defaulted on.
The shame flared hot and bright. Even worse, the cutting guilt of having not thought of Isabella in so many months cut him to the bone.
Would I have ignored her for years, knowing she believed my promise?
“Cassian?” Cecilia’s small voice trailed in from the doorway.
His eyes flickered to her, and his gut lurched with emotion. Then back to the letter on the table, and a conflicting feeling punched straight through his chest—and something inside him shattered into a thousand pieces.
The memories blasted through him. Buried him in a darkness worse than that of the week he’d been trapped inside the outbuilding. Pain and frustration almost suffocated him.
Pushing from the table, he brushed past her. “I can’t do this now.”
She spun on her slippers, and her confused question came at his back the moment before he could round a corner. “Do what?”
Overwhelmed, he headed out to the outbuilding, craving the handle of his sledgehammer in his hand. He wanted to break something and mirror the sharp feeling cutting through his gut.
He strode quickly to the tool shed, found the hammer, and headed to the ramshackle building outside. Starting from one of the back doors, he began to slam the hammer into rotten wood and crumbling walls.
I’m a cad.
I’m a coward.
Maybe father was right, I am a nuisance.
Caught up in the demons in his head, he didn’t realize the wall he was slamming the hammer into was a load-bearing wall near the door. He swung with all his might—and something went crack. To his horror, a fissure swiftly splintered the wall and raced up the ceiling, spider-cracking out until—
He lurched away as the overhead came crashing down, the rubble clogging the doorway far enough that only a foot and a half was left of the door’s space.
Instantly, his lungs seized, and horrible memories of being crammed into small spaces rammed into his chest and had him staggering back.
The room was small, and the mirrored wall was not too far. His back slid down it, and he lifted his chin and tried to breathe the panic away. But his chest grew too tight, and the clammy fingers of past pain gripped his nape.
The darkness closed in at once. And he allowed it to overtake him.
It was almost an hour before Cecilia decided to go and find Cassian while holding a lamp. Maybe he had calmed down by that time, and he could explain what he meant by I can’t do this now.
His words were haunting her as she trod through the darkness and the tall, dew-misted grass. She worried about Cassian; was the looming trip getting to him? Was he worried about going off to the Continent, leaving his life behind, and simply wandering around like a vagabond?
Surely, someone who knew all the luxuries of wealth would be taken aback at having less?
She got to the front door of the outbuilding, but it was locked. Circling around to one of the three other backdoors, she found two shuttered but the third open.