Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Isolde was on her way back from the library when she noticed a light coming from one of the rooms. It was a room that featured several family portraits, positioned as if to tell a history of the Blackthorne family.
The last time that she had been in that room, the only time in fact, was with Cassian on their first day together.
The rest of the manor stood in darkness, as the hour was late and most of the staff would be in bed. In fact, they ought to have ensured that all the candles were put out beforehand, including the one in that room.
She paused when she saw the light flickering through the doorway. Logic told her that the room was empty, but she thought that she could sense someone inside.
Slowly, she edged toward the room and poked her head through the doorway. What she saw, while it was a strange sight, did not surprise her nearly as much as it should have done.
Cassian stood there alone.
His gaze was fixed upwards, focused on a portrait of him and his family when he had been a teenager. Isolde remained hidden as she studied him, searching his face for a clue of what was on his mind and why he was so fixated on that portrait.
The light was dim. It was hard to make him out clearly.
But the longer that she looked, the more aware she became of the crushing sadness in both his eyes and the way his shoulders were slumped as if a weight sat on them.
He looked at that portrait as if to do so brought him untold amounts of pain and misery.
He looked at that portrait as if to not do so might be the end of him.
Most of all, he looked at that portrait in a way that told her he was alone, while he was just as desperate not to be.
She hesitated… thinking to turn and leave him.
Their last conversation echoed through her mind, and that was the reason for her decision.
Cassian was so determined to cut her off, to change back to who he was, to be the monster he believed himself to be.
But he wasn’t that man, and she had to believe that she, more than anyone else, could show him the way.
So, she edged into the room…
“Cassian…” she spoke softly, not wanting to frighten him.
He turned to see her coming, but there was no anger there. Rather, he looked broken, utterly helpless, like a boy who was lost and did not know the way home. Their eyes met, and he let her see his pain, then he went back to staring at the portrait.
“My memories…” His voice cracked. “They’re starting to return.”
“Oh?” She walked towards him, careful not to get too close. “Anything important?”
“Some of them,” he said, still watching the portrait. “I remember my mother. She was…” He smiled softly, but there was no joy in it. “She was not a confident or warm woman, but she was not cruel. She loved my brother and me, I think, even if she was afraid to show it.”
“Why would she be afraid?”
“My father,” he said next, his tone hardening.
“You think I am a tyrant?” He laughed bitterly.
“It had to have been learned from somewhere. My memories are still sparse, like waking up from a dream that is more of a feeling than anything else. But I know now that he was the reason why I am this way.” He scoffed.
“Strange that, as I know I hated him. As a boy, I promised that I would never turn out like him.”
She was about to tell him that he had not turned out that way, but she held her tongue. Such points had been made already, and she knew they would fall on deaf ears.
“And your brother?” she asked instead, taking another step closer, less than five feet away. “What of him?”
A warm smile found Cassian’s face. “He was my best friend, even though he was much younger than me. With a father like ours, Julien looked up to me, and I loved that he did. I wish I could remember more than I do, but what I recall is…” His brow furrowed as he worked to remember.
“Laughter. I remember how we used to laugh and play and simply live as if we owned the world and nothing could hurt us.”
He spoke of happy memories, but there was hurt in his voice. It cracked often, and Isolde knew that his story was far from finished.
“Mostly, I remember the day he died…” The smile fell, and he focused on the portrait with burning intensity. “I told you already that it was an accident, yes? Mr. Pemberton told me this on the first day.”
“You did…” Another step closer.
“That is a lie,” he said darkly. “It turns out that I was the cause. I took him riding when I ought to have known better. A storm…” He winced.
“We were caught in it. I do not know why I let him ride on his own, but I… probably did it to spite my father.” He sneered.
“Either way, the storm was too much, and he was thrown from his horse.”
“Oh, Cassian…”
“He died because of me.”
“No,” she said with bite. “Do not say such things.”
“Why not?” Still, he looked at the portrait, his gaze fixed on his younger brother. “It is true. Had I done my duty, he would be alive and I…” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps my life might have been vastly different.”
Isolde knew what she needed to do. Cassian was hurting. He needed someone to hold him and tell him that this tragedy was not his fault. He needed to be shown that he wasn’t alone in this world.
But Isolde glanced at his hand, one she wanted to take so badly, and hesitated. Cassian needed comfort, but from someone he trusted, and she did not know if that was her.
“I know now why I am the way that I am,” he continued, his voice so low that she hardly heard it. “Growing up, I was so determined not to turn into my father. And with Julien, the light his life shone on me, it might have been possible. But when he died, that light went out, and I changed…”
“But you changed back,” she said just as softly. “Mr. Pemberton told me that you used to be…” She smiled and laughed gently. “That you were once happy and carefree. Just as you are now. Does that not prove who you really are?”
“And what if I don’t want to be that way?”
“Cassian…” She blinked. “Why would you say that?”
Finally, he turned to look at her, and she gasped when she saw his red eyes, the tears in them, and the abject horror and misery that he clung to like it was a raft in a storm. She had seen him angry. She had seen him upset. But this was something else entirely.
“The reason I was so…” He shook his head.
“… happy after my accident. Why I was able to laugh and joke as I did was because I couldn’t remember my past. It wasn’t about who I was, but why I was that way in the first place.
When there is no tragedy in your life, there is no reason to cut off the world and those you should care about.
There is no reason to use fear to push people away. ”
“And now?” she asked him. “Now that you remember?”
“Is it so wrong that I want to return to who I was?” He looked pleadingly at her. “If I can… if I can be that man, if I do not care for anyone but myself, then nothing can hurt me. That is who I must be.”
“But that is not you.”
“It will be,” he said as if he needed to believe it. “It is not about who I really am, Isolde. It is about who I must be to keep myself from hurting. I killed my brother…”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“And I look at you… I remember the time we had and…” He clenched his jaw in a scowl.
“To have never met you would have been easier. But now that I have, to cut you out entirely, to convince myself that I hate you…” He looked away.
“You will thank me one day, I promise you. The less you know me, the more you are kept from me, the safer you will be.”
“I don’t accept that.”
“I do not care what you don’t accept,” he said sharply. “And if you refuse to do as I tell you, I will make you. I will make you hate me so that you will want nothing to do with me.”
Isolde understood Cassian fully now.
Even before the accident, she knew who he had been and why.
He was not the monster people always said.
He was not the cruel, wicked duke who ought to be feared.
Rather, he was scared of hurting those he loved, and he thought that to frighten them and keep them at arm’s length was the only way to survive.
How lonely he must have been…
Caring not for what he might do, Isolde stepped forward and took his hand. He started and tried to pull away, but she held it and then pulled it into her chest.
“You can try to frighten me, you can try to terrorize me, but it will make no difference, Cassian.” She looked at him, and even though he refused to meet her eyes, she did not look away. “But you are not alone. I am here for you and there is nothing you can do to change that.”
“I ought to hate you.”
“You ought to.”
“I… I ought to send you away.”
“You can try.”
“I… I…” Slowly he turned his head. First, he looked at his hand wrapped in her own and brought to her chest. Then, he looked up and found her eyes. The pain was still there, but there was hope too. Disbelief that she wanted to help him. “I need time, Isolde. Time to think about what I must do.”
“You have it,” she said to him. “We are married, remember. You have nothing but time.”
“And if I decide to do this,” he continued. “If I… if I ask you to leave. If I demand it…”
She breathed in deeply as her heart raced.
“If the time comes when you make that decision, I will abide by it. But know that I do not want it. And know that even if you send me away, I will never blame you or hate you for it. You are not alone, Cassian. And the pain you feel… While you think it is a curse, I see it as a boon.”
“No…”
“It is,” she said. “Pain like that is what makes us human. More than that, it is what connects us. Everyone feels it. Everyone suffers from it. But it is what we do with the pain and the hurt that defines us. You made your choice once, but you have been given another chance. A chance to be a better man.”
Isolde spoke those words and she could see them taking effect.
And they weren’t just words that she felt that he needed to hear.
They were the truth. Time and time again, Isolde had wondered how she truly felt about Cassian.
Always, she was torn between the man he once was and the man he had become.
And always, she was wrecked by guilt, believing that she took advantage of him so that anything she felt was a lie.
Now, she was finally starting to see the truth.
Her lie, while awful, had helped to save him. And no one needed saving more than Cassian. He was a good man; he could be that man, and she was there to make him believe it.
“I will leave you for now…” Slowly, she let go of his hand. “But Cassian, please remember what I said. I am not going anywhere, nor do I want to.”
He looked at her as if he did not understand what she was saying or why. “Why… why are you so good to me, Isolde? Why do you even care?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she said.
“Not to me.”
She just smiled. “Think about it, and when you understand why, well, that might help you decide what to do. Good night, Cassian…” She took a step back. “I will see you soon.”
She turned and crossed the room, her heart racing as she went. She wanted so badly to stay with him, but she knew that now was not the time. It wasn’t just words that Cassian needed, but proof of concept so that he could see what it meant to care for another, and to be cared for in return.
And I think I know just how to do it…
When she reached the doorway, she turned back and saw him looking again at the portrait. He stood alone in the darkness, but he wasn’t alone, nor would he ever be again. And when he realized this, when he knew it for a fact, that was when he would finally begin to accept who he was.
That was when this marriage, this new life in which Isolde found herself, would finally start for real.