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“... and if she would have me, I would be most honored to make her the Marchioness of Newbury, and the future Duchess of Manton.”

Cassia scanned the crowd, wondering who it was the marquess had just proposed marriage to, expecting to see a blushing bride-to-be come forward from the assemblage.

But everyone seemed to be staring at her.

Why? Why were they all watching her?

Suddenly, she realized they were waiting for her to respond.

Good God, he’d been proposing to her!

“Cassia, haven’t you anything to say?” her father said lowly into her ear.

His breath chilled her and Cassia felt as a rabbit standing before the sights of the hunter while his bevy of hounds stood panting, ready to pounce should she attempt to flee.

“I ...”

She looked around at the faces surrounding her. Why did they suddenly look so like the bloodthirsty hounds?

“I am most honored, but I am afraid I must refuse. I cannot marry you, Lord Newbury.”

A collective gasp rose from the crowd.

The duke looked outraged, fit to kill, her father even more so. It was eerily silent in that crowded ballroom.

Would no one say something? Anything?

“You’ve done it now, girl,” her father growled, and grabbed her by the forearm, yanking her after him as he stormed from the ballroom.

Later, while the coach rolled along the empty streets toward Seagrave House, her father didn’t say a word.

In the faint glimpses of moonlight through the coach window, she could see his fist clenched tightly to the ivory knob atop his walking stick.

As soon as the coachman opened the door, Cassia rushed up the stairs, past Clydesworthe at the door and past Lynette, making straight for her bedchamber door.

Once that door was safely closed behind her, she released a heavy breath. But her respite wasn’t for long. Suddenly she heard him coming, his familiar shuffling gait, that walking stick banging on the floorboards as he drew nearer to her bedroom door.

“Do you think we’re finished, girl?” he said, throwing the door to her chamber wide. “Did you really think I’d let you get away with making me the fool again, Judith?”

Cassia backed away as he started toward her.

Suddenly, he was transformed into a horrifying creature, one with long yellow fangs and eyes that glowed red in the darkness.

Cassia wanted to run but her feet were somehow rooted to the floor.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come.

Then she could feel his hands on her, clawing at her, shaking her.

He had pulled his fist back. Dear God, he was going to kill her ? —

“Lady Cassia, wake up. You’re having a dream.”

Two arms closed around her.

“No! Let me go! Please don’t hurt me!”

But instead of a hard fist, Cassia’s face felt the softness of cambric as Rolfe pulled her against his chest. She buried her face against him.

“It is all right now. You are safe. You were just dreaming.”

His voice offered her comfort as the darkness of the nightmare began to fade. Cassia relaxed, breathing in the scent of him. The soft touch of his hand running over her forehead quickly soothed her back to sleep.

Rolfe held her there and continued speaking softly to her. He did not move until he was certain Cassia was asleep.

Where in perdition was Winifred? He’d just come back from Whitehall, having relieved Quigman of his post at the bottom of the stairs when he had heard Cassia crying out.

He knew the instant he’d flung open her bedchamber door that she was locked in the grasp of a nightmare. She was sitting up, ramrod straight, her hands up before her as if to ward away the demons of her sleep. Her eyes, though wide with fear, were blank and dark.

Having just spent the better part of the evening learning about the private hell Cassia had been living, Rolfe had no doubt as to what she’d been dreaming.

He cradled her as he laid her back on the bed.

The instant his hands left her body, she curled into herself, forming a tight ball, almost as if she unconsciously feared the return of the dream.

He noticed then that the room was so cold he could see the fog from his breath.

Rolfe looked and saw that the window had been propped open again, just like the other night.

He wondered if she kept it open as a means of security, to ease her mind, a last escape route she should need it.

He reached over to pull the window shut, turning when he heard someone enter the room behind him.

“What do you think you are doing?” a voice hissed. “You cannot come in to my lady’s bedchamber like this.”

The stout Winifred, holding a cup of tea in one hand and the bottle of laudanum in the other, stood framed in the doorway, silhouetted against the candlelight behind her. She was glaring at him.

“I might ask where the hell you have been?” Rolfe growled. “It’s cold as ice in here. She will catch a death.”

The maid was nonplussed. “My lady prefers to keep the window open at night. I’ll stoke the fire to warm the room.” She crossed the room to set the tea tray down.

“It would take a blasted inferno to warm this room. Where have you been?”

“I went to fetch some tea for Lady Cassia. She was having a restless night. Tea sometimes helps her to sleep.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that for I could hear her crying out all the way down the hall. Don’t ever leave her alone like that again.”

He grabbed the laudanum bottle and tossed it into the fire. The glass shattered against the hearthstone. “And you’ll not continue to numb her with that.”

“The physician said it would help her to sleep.”

“Lady Cassia needs to face her nightmares, not spend the rest of her life dulling her mind against them. It is the only way she’ll ever be released from them. Don’t let me see you giving that to her again. And keep that damned window closed.”

With that, Rolfe turned and left the room, leaving a gaping Winifred standing in the middle of Cassia’s bedchamber behind him.