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She motioned to Winifred, who brought the cloth-covered object forward, setting it on the marquetry table that stood beside the king.

Charles’s eyes lit with the excitement of a child as he reached forward to remove the cloth covering. An instrument of sorts lay underneath, made up of a shiny flat brass plate and engraved with a strange-looking map inscribed in Latin. He drew in an audible breath of delight. “What have we here?”

“It is an astrolabe, Your Majesty,” Cassia said, though Rolfe doubted the king had even heard her for he was thoroughly engrossed as he peered at the object’s many curious designs and moving parts.

“It is used for determining the altitude of celestial bodies, an ancient sort of timepiece, I am told.”

“Yes, yes, I am well aware of its use,” Charles said, taking the astrolabe up and inspecting it more closely.

Rolfe leaned back against the mantelpiece, smirking. Had he thought she was merely setting the mood? With this little item, she’d thoroughly stacked the deck in her favor.

Anyone who had ever been close to the king knew of his obsession with time-measuring and scientific devices.

His famed clock collection had grown to such a size that he’d had to set aside an entire room in the palace just for their display.

A servant had been employed for the sole purpose of winding them all each day.

Charles was fascinated with such items, and with this astrolabe being such a rare specimen, Lady Cassia had most assuredly just bought her freedom with it.

The king set the astrolabe back on its polished wooden stand. He took up Cassia’s hand and kissed it earnestly. “Your kind gift is most pleasing to me, Lady Cassia. It will hold pride of place in the Royal Treasure room. I will cherish it, and you, always.”

Cassia beamed. “I am pleased Your Majesty is so pleased. I knew my father would have wanted it given to someone who would appreciate its intrinsic worth. Had he not come to such an untimely demise, I am certain you would have been his choice. Which brings to mind another matter I was hoping to discuss with you, Your Majesty.”

Rolfe came a step forward, awaiting his inevitable dismissal.

He didn’t know why it should displease him, but it did.

He hadn’t particularly wanted this assignment in the first place, playing nursemaid to this lovely but conniving little package.

In fact, he would have much preferred being left to his own in Sussex.

Perhaps it was that he’d never been removed from a task once he’d undertaken it.

Perhaps it was at knowing, having utterly beguiled the king, her lover, with the gift of the astrolabe, Lady Cassia would have her way.

Perhaps it was that he didn’t particularly like being made to look the fool by a woman again.

“Your Majesty,” he said then, breaking through the small circle of light that had somehow woven these two people together, “I believe what Lady Cassia is about to request is that I be relieved of my duties in protecting her and taking her from the city to her family seat in Cambridgeshire, as you had instructed me to do earlier this morning.”

King Charles looked at Cassia and raised one regal brow, feigning surprise at Rolfe’s pronouncement. “Is this true, Lady Cassia?”

The king knew very well that it was true, but, rascal that he was, he had decided to play along with her little farce.

Lady Cassia delivered Rolfe a furious stare, one that would have turned most men to jelly, before turning back to face the king.

“Yes, I’m afraid it is, Your Majesty. You see, I do not believe my leaving the city would accomplish anything other than causing more scandal to run rampant through the court galleries. ”

She stood then and began pacing before them, the whisper of her silk skirts the only sound in the silent room.

“Surely by sending me to the country, Your Majesty, you do not intend to somehow convince the members of the court to forget the crime of my father’s murder, and,” she added, her voice softening, “the supposition of my guilt thereof. ‘Out of mind as soon as out of sight,’ or so Lord Brooke is oft quoted as saying.”

The king’s voice grew softer. “Cassia, my only intention is to protect you.”

Rolfe noticed that something in Charles’s expression had changed.

The glint of humor that had previously danced in his eyes had gone.

Something else had changed as well. Up to that point, he had been addressing her formally as “Lady Cassia.” Now he gave into the familiarity of using just her given name.

A familiarity one would employ more in the bedchamber.

Cassia stopped pacing. “Were I to hie off to the country, would that not be suggesting my guilt more than my innocence? I have already been adjudged guilty, not by a court of law, but by the people of this palace. Your people. In their eyes, I have been deemed a murderess and thereby should be punished as one, a public spectacle for all to see, the last Montefort gone to ruin.”

Her voice cracked with emotion and Charles stood to move across the room, his hands clasped behind his back.

He seemed lost in thought as he stared out the window that faced onto the Pebble Court, while the rooftop of the magnificent Banqueting House rose in the distance.

Neither Cassia nor Rolfe spoke while he stood there, sensing his need for introspection.

They simply stood beside one another in the middle of the room, neither moving, awaiting the king’s next words.

Charles sighed. “I know well of what you speak, Cassia. My own father was judged unfairly. They severed his head from his body just outside that Banqueting House there. If you look carefully, you can see the second-floor window from here where he was made to come out to stand upon the scaffold in disgrace before the people. His people. They say the groan that rose from the crowd at the sight of the executioner holding his head aloft was louder than any cannon shot. To this day, the identity of that man, the blackguard who killed my father, is a mystery. I have vowed not to shed any more of the blood of those who were responsible for killing him, but were I to ever learn who it was who actually wielded the axe...”

The cold fury that tinged Charles’s words brought a heaviness to the room.

Rolfe felt the misery, the chilling grief of his sovereign in like fashion.

His own family, his parents and his two young sisters, had themselves been victim of the marauding Roundheads at the outbreak of the war while he’d been away in the Colonies.

It had been that event more than any other that had prompted Rolfe to take action, risking his life in the fight for his country’s renewal.

Charles paused. A moment later, he went on.

“Every day, I must walk by that spot, that damnable spot where injustice ruled over right, where evil reigned over good, knowing the blood of my father was spilled there by Puritan zealots greedy for power. And while they called themselves ‘Servants of God.’”

He gazed out the window a moment longer before turning back to face the two of them. The sheen of emotion shone in his eye. “You make a solid argument, Cassia. You would have made a brilliant litigator had you been born a man.”

“It is a misfortune of birth, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, nay, my lady, for had you been born a man, dear Cassia, our lives would not have been graced by your beauty.”

“As I said, Your Majesty, a misfortune of birth.”

Charles smiled despite her sour statement.

“Nonetheless, I have come to a decision in the matter.” He looked at her.

“I will only allow you to remain in London on one condition. I do not wish to see you detained in the Tower. There are too many there I do not trust. I cannot guarantee your safety there. So should you not agree to my terms, then I am afraid I will have no other choice but to send you away to the country.”

Cassia nodded. “Your Majesty?”

“I will only allow you to stay on in the city under the protection of Lord Ravenscroft. I assure you he is a most capable man, Cassia. I am confident he will see to your safety. In fact, I would trust no one else to it. Until such time that the questions surrounding your father’s death can be answered, everywhere you go, Rolfe will escort you.

He will at no time, or for any reason, leave your side.

I know you do not agree nor do you understand, but know I do this for your own protection. ”

Cassia looked at Rolfe. Her eyes were unflinching as she stared at him.

He knew she wanted nothing more than to dismiss him outright, send him packing as she had so many others before him.

This woman was not one to take kindly to being controlled by a man, any man.

But he also knew that if she placed any sort of value on her freedom, she could not in any manner refuse the king’s offer.

She had told Rolfe she was not stupid and he had seen enough to know that was true.

She really had no other choice but to agree.

Rolfe didn’t move, didn’t say a word to Charles’s decree. He merely stood by, watching the lady as she came to her decision.

“Cassia, dear,” the king asked, awaiting her reply, “have I made myself clear?”

Cassia waited a moment, and then, finally, she inclined her head.

“Yes, Your Majesty. It is understood.”