Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By the time Cassian vanished into the shadows of the wrought-iron archway, Isabella’s tears had begun to fall again. Lady Kendrick wrapped an arm around her, guiding her away from the gawking eyes.
Her throat was tight with a mixture of shock and horror due to the event that followed.
Her husband had walked away from her even after she called out to him. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking except that he apologized for frightening her and left, and she did not know how to reach him.
The carriage Lady Kendrick rode in alone earlier rocked as it rolled away from Lady Darby’s estate, the lamps outside casting long, shivering bars of gold across the interior.
Isabella sat stiffly on the opposite seat, her gloved fingers curled tightly in her lap, her mind replaying the scene in the garden again and again, sighing simultaneously.
That broken, haunted look in Cassian’s eyes as he watched her. She could not scrub it from her memory.
“Well,” Lady Kendrick began, clearing her throat as delicately as one could after witnessing a young man flattened upon a bed of winter roses, “I suppose this is the part where I act like a sensible elder and inquire what on earth transpired back there. Though I confess, I did not expect to see bloodshed at Lady Darby’s ball.
A dreadful waste of a perfectly good marble bench. ”
Isabella blinked, seemingly returning halfway back to reality, but she could not even fathom reliving the horrible night by retelling what had happened, so Isabella touched her temple.
“Forgive me, Grandmother, my head aches. If you do not mind, may I… may we speak of it another time?”
The older woman softened immediately. “Of course, my dear. I do not require explanations tonight. Rest your mind. We are almost home.”
Isabella nodded, but her thoughts would not obey.
She saw again the moment Cassian had looked at her, his chest heaving, his hands clenched, blood spattered across his knuckles. It was not only fury she had seen. It was something deeper, something ragged and wounded. Something that frightened him. Not her but him.
She swallowed hard and looked out at the passing streets, but each time she shut her eyes, she saw his expression again, the way his face had collapsed when he realized she stood trembling behind him.
What had happened to him in that moment? she wondered. Her heart squeezed painfully.
By the time the carriage rolled into the courtyard of Everthorne townhouse, Isabella could no longer contain the restless urgency clawing at her ribs. The instant the footman opened the door, she hastened out, marching into the mansion.
“Michael,” she called the butler, who had arrived to receive her, lifting her skirts as she strode in, “where is my husband?”
Michael shifted slightly, his discomfort plain. “He is in his chambers, Your Grace, and…”
“And what?”
“He asked,” Michael said carefully, “not to be disturbed.”
Isabella let out a short, incredulous laugh that startled Lady Kendrick behind her.
“Not to be disturbed?” she repeated. “Is he under the illusion that we live in separate continents rather than separate wings?”
“Your Grace, I did not—”
“It’s quite all right,” she said, already marching toward the stairs. “He will be disturbed.”
Isabella ascended swiftly, her heart pounding harder with every step.
Avoiding her? After everything? Absolutely not.
If she had learned anything in the short weeks of their marriage, it was that her husband could bury his feelings with the precision of a soldier encasing himself in armor, and if she allowed him to retreat now, she knew he would sink behind that wall and never come out again.
She reached his chamber door, turned the handle without hesitation, and entered.
Cassian sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her.
His hair was still damp from the cold air outside, and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows as though he had been pacing or struggling not to.
The room was dim except for the low fire burning in the grate, casting long shadows across his broad shoulders.
“What happened out there, Cassian?” she asked quietly, closing the door behind her. “You left me.”
He did not turn. His voice was low, almost hollow.
“You are scared of me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration, one that sounded like he had physical evidence for it. However, it was the bluntness of the words that knocked the breath from her lungs.
“No,” she said, taking a step forward. “No, Cassian, I am not.”
“Yes,” he said, still staring straight ahead. “You are.”
“Cassian,” she whispered, “look at me.”
He did not.
So, she walked around the bed until she faced him, her palms cold, her heart hammering. When she saw his face, her chest tightened. He looked exhausted, shuttered, like a man who had walked into a storm and left pieces of himself behind.
“I am not afraid of you,” she said firmly. “How could I be afraid when you saved me? If anything, I’m the one who should be shoved away since I was seen in the dark with a man who wasn’t my husband.”
His jaw flexed, as though hating the image her words conjured, then he shook his head.
“You saw me.” His eyes lifted then, full of torment. “You saw what I am when I lose control.”
Realization dawned on Isabella, and she took a step forward, toward him.
“You defended me,” she insisted. “Perhaps you did not need to strike him the third time—”
“Do not make excuses for me.” His voice cracked like ice. “I lost control. I always lose control. I warned you what darkness lived inside me, and tonight, you witnessed it.”
Her breath caught. “But Cassian—”
“You deserve better than a man who cannot trust his own hands,” he said, rising abruptly. “Better than a man who could hurt you without meaning to. Better than—” He broke off and looked away. “You should stay away, Isabella. For your own sake. If you were wise, you would.”
Her eyes stung. “You think I am afraid of you?”
He said nothing.
“You look at me,” she whispered, “and tell me what it was you saw in my face that made you believe that.”
His silence sliced her open.
“You are… you are angry with yourself,” she murmured. “You are frightened of yourself, Cassian. Not me.”
He flinched. She reached for him, but he moved his shoulder back.
“I am not good for you,” he said hoarsely. “I told you that.”
“I am not a woman who frightens easily; you know that.”
“I do not want to hear your reassurances,” he said sharply. “Not when you trembled.”
“I trembled because Lord Falchester grabbed me!” she cried. “Because that wretched man laid his hands on me. Not because of you.”
He shook his head. “You saw me hit him. Again and again,”
“Because you feared what he might do to me!”
“Because I lost myself,” he said, voice raw. “Because the moment I saw him trapping you, pulling you—” He stopped abruptly, breath unsteady.
Her heart broke for him, but he had already closed the door inside himself.
“Cassian,” she whispered. “Please. Look at me.”
He turned slightly, but his eyes were shuttered, distant.
“You should leave,” he said. “You should rest. You deserve peace, Isabella. Not… me.”
She stared at him, stunned. How easy it was for him to decide he could live without her, deciding for her that he was not worthy of her.
“If you are so eager to live like a ghost,” she said, her voice shaking, “then perhaps you deserve to be one. I shall not attempt to make you into what you’re not. If you think yourself a monster without control, then so be it.”
He flinched as though struck.
Isabella felt tears rise, hot and blinding, but she absolutely refused to let him see them fall.
So, she spun away, choking back a sob, and fled from the room before her heart could shatter loudly enough for him to hear it.
Cassian did not rise when the door shut behind Isabella. He merely sat there motionless, rigid, his hands braced on his knees as her retreating footsteps faded down the corridor.
Good, he told himself. Let her leave angry.
Anger would keep her safe from him. Anger would keep her from returning.
She would not try to soothe him again. She would not look at him with those wide, wounded eyes that cut him deeper than any blade ever had, and she would not try to reach inside him where no one had any right to look.
This silence and distance were what they should have had from the beginning.
He should never have allowed himself to glance at her twice that night of the fencing competition, or perhaps, he should never have spoken to her, should never have let her into his workshop.
He should’ve frightened her off that night as she stepped over the threshold, he never let anyone through with her wide eyes and stubborn chin and her infuriating, disarming goodness.
He should have—
Cassian exhaled sharply and pushed his fingers through his hair, rubbing his palms against his eyes afterwards until stars burst behind his lids.
“It does not matter. None of it matters,” he groaned to himself.
He was better off alone. The world was safer that way.
He repeated the self-deprecating words until they became a chant echoing in the hollow of his skull, seeping into the very fiber of his being.
Sometime during the long hours of the night, the fire reduced to embers, and the room grew cold, the moon disappeared behind the winter clouds, and still Cassian sat, staring at nothing, the words thundering on.
You are better off alone. She is better off without you. It is better this way.
When the first pale threads of dawn crept through the gap in his curtains, Cassian blinked at the light as though waking from some fever even though he hadn’t slept a wink. He’d just merely laid in the darkness, hoping he would become one with it. Or perhaps something close.
His head ached, his throat burned, and the room smelled faintly of liquor. He ran a finger through his hair and exhaled, throwing his legs off his bed, then he looked down.