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She had never seen her father during the years that followed. She'd rarely thought of him unless her mother had spoken of him, until the day she'd first set eyes upon him just four years ago in her twenty-first year.

It had been early summer, near the end of May in 1660, and the weather had been ominously harsh.

Rain had lashed the boat that had brought them on the crossing over from France, wind gusting.

And he had been waiting for them on the dock at Dover, arms crossed over his chest, his face empty of any welcome expression.

When she and her mother had returned to London in order to take their place at the new court of soon-to-be-crowned King Charles II, her father’s only words had been “Good day, Judith,” to his wife, and a curt silent nod in his daughter's direction before he'd turned and started for the waiting coach, leaving them to follow behind.

It was then that life had first changed for Cassia, back when her mother had still been alive, before she'd died in childbed just six months ago. It was then she had begun to learn of the monster her father truly was.

Not that she hadn't already been told, this cruel and vicious man her mother had been forced to marry.

All the time they had been living in France, far from England's shores, her mother had used the time to prepare her only daughter for their inevitable return.

She had filled Cassia's head with her fear and disdain for that man she called her husband, telling how he— the Marquess , she would call him, never “Halifax” or “Seagrave” or even “my lord”—had all but purchased her when she'd been just sixteen, her head full of fairy tales and dreams. He had bought her outright for the amount of her dower, she’d said, as if she had been a finely-blooded brood mare up for bid on the auction block.

As a child, Cassia could remember thinking how horrible her father must be for condemning her mother to this life sentence with him, a man she could barely tolerate looking at or speaking of without rancor in her voice.

Their marriage had prevented her mother from wedding the man she truly loved, a man she referred to as her “Dearest Edmund” with a smile in her eyes.

It was the only time her mother had ever really smiled, for, otherwise, her eyes had been dark with the deep animosity, the fierce hatred she harbored for the man she called her husband.

It was that same hatred, passed down from her mother, that had caused Cassia to resolve at the tender age of twelve never to allow herself to wed with any man whom she did not already love, and never ever to wed with a man like her father.

But as she looked down at her father now, she could only think of how peaceful he looked, how the harsh lines that always made his face look so severe were suddenly at rest. He must have been handsome at one time, she mused, his full hair once dark, now peppered with gray, his features classic and aristocratic.

Suddenly, he no longer looked like the monster she'd always believed him.

He no longer inspired in her the fear he had by simply being in the same room.

Lying there as he was, his body so still, his face so frighteningly pale, he looked just like any other man.

Cassia lifted her hand and placed it gently atop his chest. The blood on her hand from the carpet left a distinct mark on the starched white cambric of his shirt.

She couldn't detect even the slightest rise, the faintest beating of his heart beneath her palm.

It didn't surprise her, really; it was simply a confirmation of what she'd already known.

He was dead.

She reached forward and carefully lowered the lids on his unseeing eyes.

As she pulled her hand back, she spied the ever-present bulge of the gold enameled watch he wore in the small pocket at the front of his waistcoat.

She tugged at the red silk ribbon he'd taken to tying about it to keep from having it snatched by a footpad in the street.

The watch slid slowly from inside. She lifted it up, running her thumb over the design engraved upon its case, a small sprig of an unknown flower.

She turned it over. The curving hands upon it showed the hour at nearly a quarter to eleven.

Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes had passed for which she had no memory. Thirty minutes in which a man—her father—had been murdered, by someone, who she did not know.

Perhaps even herself.

She tried to think back, to remember what had happened in that short space of time, but all she found was unknowing.

She started to push the watch back in its place, wanting it to appear as if nothing had been disturbed—which was ridiculous, of course, since her hand had left a definite bloody mark on his shirt front.

She heard a key begin to rattle in the door across the room, and turned.

“I tell you, Mr. Clydesworthe, something is wrong. Very wrong. I heard him yelling, screaming at her, calling her such vile names you'd never believe. Then there was a loud crashing noise, like glass shattering, and now nothing, no sound for so long and?—”

The door pushed open.

Cassia looked up from her father's dead body.

The maid, Lynette, and the butler, Clydesworthe, froze the moment they saw her kneeling beside her father’s body, the knife jutting out from his neck, the room around them in disarray, her hands and gown stained with his blood.

Lynette raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.

Clydesworthe made the sign of the cross before himself, saying softly, “Dear Lord above, she's finally killed him.”