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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

C assia moved the charcoal pencil in a soft arch across the vellum page, lightening the pressure of her hand as she used the flatter edge of the tool for shading. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing the image that was taking shape before her.

This was the first time she was attempting to draw something from memory. She found this new method of working difficult, for she was used to having a subject in front of her to refer back to. Still, she was determined to see this sketch through.

While she worked, her hand swept in quick strokes across the page, her thoughts wandering as they often seemed to do of late.

She puzzled again over the letter her father had written, the last words she would ever see from him in this lifetime.

Once again, she found herself desperately trying to find the meaning he’d hidden behind those cryptic words.

Only she could know where the document was.

What was it that only she could know? What was she supposed to find? And where was she supposed to find it?

He’d written as if she thought on it long enough, she would figure out where the document was.

But the truth was she’d looked everywhere, searching through every chest and drawer and cabinet.

She’d even looked beneath the rugs, thinking perhaps he may have stashed it there, but each place, each time, she came up empty.

Cassia tried to think back on the few pleasant conversations she’d had with him in the months since her mother had died, when he’d not fallen so far into the brandy bottle that he’d still been comprehensible, when he’d actually spoken to her without anger.

But nothing would come to mind. Oddly, it was as if, she had completely blocked that part of her life from memory.

Setting the pencil aside, Cassia peered down at the sketch she had drawn, inspecting it closely with her ever-critical eye.

While her thoughts had been occupied with her father’s letter, her hand had taken on a life of its own, filling the sheet with strokes and shading.

She had started out intent on drawing a small child she had seen earlier that day playing with a puppy in the street below her bedchamber window.

The child’s laughter that had initially caught her attention and had filled her with such quiet pleasure, she’d wanted to commit that feeling to paper to remember later.

But what appeared before her now was not the image of that child.

Instead, it was the figure of Lord Ravenscroft, and his body as she had seen him at his bath starkly revealed on the page.

It was exactly as she remembered him. Everything she’d seen, the clean muscular lines, the curve of his buttocks, his broad shoulders. It seemed that her mind’s eye had seen it and had committed it to memory.

Cassia wondered what Winifred would say if she should happen to see this drawing among her others in her collection.

She wondered if the maid would recognize Lord Ravenscroft as the subject, if her eyes would go wide and she would cluck her tongue disapprovingly at her mistress.

Perhaps it was better that this drawing remain unseen.

Cassia took up the sketch, ready to crumple it into a ball and toss it into the hearth, but something held her back. She regarded it again.

It really was a fine drawing, one of which she should be proud.

No one else had to see it. No one except her.

She opened the top drawer of her writing desk, and placed the sketch far back at the very bottom of the drawer, beneath her blank sketching papers and the wooden box that kept her extra charcoal pencils.

Closing the drawer, she turned to gaze out the window beside her.

It was still early, but the fog that usually wound its way through the narrow lanes and alleyways had already dissipated, burning off with an uncommonly warm autumn sun.

Cassia had propped the window open a bit while she’d sketched, allowing in the fresh morning air.

She enjoyed its invigorating chill, and even closed her eyes as a slight breeze wafted over her face.

And then, inevitably, she found herself wondering again about the document her father had mentioned.

She knew it had to be somewhere in the house, somewhere she hadn’t yet looked.

She’d gone through her father’s bedchamber, checking it thoroughly, and had found nothing, nothing at all.

She had avoided returning to his study to sift through the papers in his desk a second time, even though she knew the document had to be there, somewhere.

There just was no other place it could be.

But going into that room only seemed to bring back the memories of what had happened there, memories that came to her at night, in her dreams.

Cassia turned from the window, knowing what she must do.

She hesitated before the door to her father’s study. She was being silly, she knew, but a small part of her actually feared that when she opened that door, she would find him standing before his desk, walking stick in hand.

Waiting for her.

It really wasn’t a room that should inspire the fear in her it did. It was a small space situated on the bottom floor at the end of a narrow hallway. It led toward the back of the stairwell. It was the only room, excepting a small storage closet hidden under the stairs, that opened onto it.

Telling herself she had nothing to fear, Cassia grasped the door handle, took a deep breath, and pushed inward to enter.

“Hello, Cassia.”

Cassia drew a startled breath at the sound of the unexpected voice on the other side.

It took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t her father back from the dead as she had secretly feared.

No, it was Geoffrey and he was sitting behind her father’s desk, his suit of bright aqua sateen making him look markedly out of place amidst the dark interior of the paneled room.

He certainly looked comfortable, she thought as she continued into the room. Too comfortable. Her initial unease lessened as she realized that it really hadn’t been the room that had frightened her, just the memories of what had taken place there.

Geoffrey, she noticed, had his feet propped upon her father’s burr-walnut desk, and a crystal goblet of what appeared to be her father’s Burgundy wine cupped in his hand, as if he had every right and reason to be there.

“Geoffrey,” she said, “Clydesworthe did not tell me you wished to see me.”

Geoffrey took a swallow, downing the last of the wine, then set the goblet down with somewhat more force than was necessary. Cassia realized he’d begun imbibing even before his arrival there.

“Most probably because old Clydesworthe doesn’t even know I’m here.

He was nowhere to be seen when I came to the door so I just showed myself in.

I am still a member of this family, you know, the only other one left, besides you that is.

I shouldn’t need an invitation to come calling.

You should get rid of that miserable old man, Clydesworthe, Cassia. I know I would if I were ...”

Geoffrey’s words dropped off as he suddenly got lost to his thoughts, staring off at the carpet pattern before he spoke again a short time later.

“Always giving me that look of his, Clydesworthe does, as if he wants so badly to tell me what a worthless lout he really thinks me. Sent me away and packing the last time I came to see you, like he owned the place, this place that should by all rights be mine.”

Cassia frowned. Geoffrey’s words were becoming slurred, and his tone was not at all pleasant. “I am sorry, Geoffrey. I was not feeling well that day and?—”

“Ah, yes, poor Cassia, your head must have been splitting in two, trying to think of how you were going to spend all that money, all your father’s money, now yours. Money you know by rights should be mine as well.”

“Geoffrey, you know very well that I had no idea my father had done such a thing before you and Mr. Finchley came here the other day. It was as much a shock to me as it was to you. You know I never wanted it this way, Geoffrey. Had I a choice, I would that you were the heir.”

Geoffrey sneered. “Well, I’m not the heir, damn your father and his moralistic forethought.”

He stood, circling the desk as he leaned upon it, twisting the end of his thin beard.

“I was never worthy enough to be your father’s heir, even though I should be.

‘Heir presumptive’ he used to call me to all his friends, as if he always knew how he was going to steal my inheritance right out from under me.

Perhaps he should have referred to me as the ‘heir assumptive’ instead, for he knew even back then what he would do, how he would deliver me this one final humiliation. ”

Geoffrey railed on, “You know I am the one who stayed on here in this godforsaken country all those years, paying court to him, seeing to his every command, all while you and that whore of a mother of yours danced around the Continent after Charles and his exiled court. But even so, I was never going to be enough for your father, the honorable Lord Seagrave. Instead, he chose you to be his heir, his daughter, the daughter he never knew.” Geoffrey leveled a look on her.

“The daughter he never wanted. He couldn’t even leave me his pocket watch as a pittance, even though he knew I always was fond of it. ”

Cassia tried to divert his attention. “His watch? Of course, something like that should have been given to you, Geoffrey?—”

“But, no, he left me nothing, except to look the laughingstock while you, his daughter who most probably did murder him reaps all the rewards of my rightful inheritance.”