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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

R olfe headed for the kitchen with a mind for a pot of coffee.

He’d just received a sheaf of documents, delivered from his steward, Penwiddy, back at Ravenwood in Sussex, and he expected he’d spend the afternoon addressing them.

He paused in the hallway when he noticed the door to the morning parlor slightly ajar.

A slippered foot dangled just over the edge of a chaise in his view. Unable to resist, he drew nearer, pushing the door just slightly inward.

On the other side, the morning parlor, an aptly named room for it faced onto the eastern side of the house with tall windows that caught the earliest sunlight, burnishing its pale-yellow papered walls in gold.

The furnishings there were delicate, carved, and suited more to feminine tastes, with a pale Turkish rug stretching underfoot.

It was the perfect setting for visiting with friends while chatting over tea or answering correspondence, a quintessential ladies’ retreat.

Standing in the doorway, Rolfe drank in the sight of Cassia there, reclined upon the tufted chaise, hence the foot dangling over the edge.

Her head was lolled off to one side against an embroidered cushion in a way he found quite endearing.

Yet he frowned. It was no small wonder that she should have trouble keeping awake during the day.

He knew well that she did not sleep in the night for he often heard her pacing, most especially since he’d come back that night from his visit with Cordelia at Whitehall to find Cassia crying out in her dreams. More often, when she wasn’t pacing the floor while Winifred snored, he would hear her sketching madly, her charcoal pencil scratching across the vellum while the flickering light from her bedside candle sent a shaft of light flickering beneath the door that separated them.

Cassia had not questioned his removal of the laudanum.

Her subsequent insomnia seemed to confirm that Winifred had indeed heeded his order not to bring another bottle into the house.

Still, Rolfe knew that the maid would have continued to minister the laudanum to Cassia, regardless of his orders, had her mistress wished it.

But for whatever reason, she hadn’t.

Rather than dull her mind each night, and rather than face her nightmares clearheaded, Cassia instead staved them off by filling the dark and silent hours with her pacing and sketching until the first lights of the dawn began to break.

Then, somehow, the security of the daylight allowed Cassia to finally take herself off for a few peaceful hours.

That, coupled as now with an occasional midday rest, seemed to provide her the respite she needed.

Rolfe entered the room. Quietly, he drew nearer the side of the chaise.

As he did, he noticed that the book Cassia was reading had fallen from her sleepy fingers.

He bent to retrieve it from the floor, and spotted a sketch she had drawn lying beside it on the rug.

He picked it up, and gave it a quick study.

It was a drawing of a woman with soft curving lines, her body draped all around with light, almost gossamer-like cloths. She wore a curious sort of crown upon her head, and Cassia’s use of light and shadow gave the drawing dimension and mood.

The other thing Rolfe immediately noticed was that the lady depicted was faceless, just like Cassia’s other drawings.

He tucked the sketch inside the book, then stood back when he heard Cassia begin to stir.

She blinked, opened her eyes. She looked at him, saying nothing.

Did she think him a dream?

“Excuse me, Lady Cassia. I did not mean to wake you. I was just retrieving your book from the floor where it had fallen.”

He glanced quickly at the red-leather spine. This particular book was one that told of the ancient myths and legends. Even her choice in reading material was intriguing.

Cassia rubbed at her eyes, then smoothed a hand absently over her hair as she sat up on the chaise. “Goodness, is that the time? Thank you, Lord Ravenscroft. I was doing a bit of research and it seems I must have dozed off.”

He allowed her a moment to fully awaken before he found himself posing the question that nagged at him as he handed her the book with the drawing.

“Why do they never have faces?”

He sensed Cassia stiffen the moment he’d posed his question. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your sketches. You draw such lifelike, thought-provoking sketches, yet I’ve noticed you never draw in your subject’s face. I was just curious as to the reason why.”

Cassia picked absently at a speck of lint on her gown, avoiding his gaze.

Then she said, “I believe it was Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas who likened a person’s eyes to the window of their soul.

Well, I would venture further to say that a person’s entire face is the window of their soul.

However, it has been my experience that most people actually wear a variety of faces, changing it as the occasion calls, often in effort to hide their own true face.

So I do not think my sketches would be an accurate depiction if I were to draw in the face a person has chosen to masquerade behind. ”

“And do you also hide behind a false face, Lady Cassia?”

She looked at him, blinking. Then, after a moment, she simply said. “Doesn’t everyone, my lord?”

Rolfe did not see Cassia for the rest of that day, although thoughts of her occupied his attention long after their conversation. Penwiddy’s sheaf of papers merely blurred before him as he passed the afternoon pondering the puzzle of her.

Soon, the clock was striking the hour of eight o’clock that evening, signaling that they were in danger of arriving late to the masquerade at the palace.

With Cassia’s current notoriety, Rolfe had hoped they might blend in with the other arriving guests, and therefore wouldn’t be forced into making a singular appearance.

Their presence might be noticed and they would not be able to investigate the other guests as easily.

When yet another quarter hour passed as he waited to leave, Rolfe decided he’d best see to what was keeping her.

He was just starting up the stairs when his eyes caught a movement at the top of the stairwell.

“I was just coming to see if you?—”

Cassia stood on the landing above him. She was a vision.

Her gown was made of a shimmering white silk, and cut in the style of the ancient Romans.

The drawing he’d seen that morning, he realized then, had meant to depict her costume.

In her hair, which she’d braided into a sort of coronet atop her head, she’d woven a strand of creamy pearls set with brilliants.

This was set off even more so by the mystery of her face which was covered from her nose to her eyes with a mask made of white silk, her dark eyes barely discernible beneath it.

Her neck and throat she’d left unadorned, and she’d powdered her skin with some sort of sparkling powder that glittered beneath the light of the candles, all in all giving her an otherworldly appearance.

The result was breathtaking.

Rolfe realized he was staring, and regained his senses. “I’m afraid my memory of mythology is not as clear as it once was for I’ve no idea which character it is you are portraying.”

He saw Cassia’s mouth curve slightly beneath her mask as she started down the stairs toward him.

“Isn’t it obvious, Lord Ravenscroft? I am Dice , one of the Horae , the daughters of Zeus and Themis, and one of the three goddesses of the Seasons whose task it is to guard the gates of Heaven.

Along with my sister goddesses, Eunómia and Eiréne , we see to peace and order.

” She had come to stand before him now and she blinked up at him beneath her mask.

“My name means ‘Justice,’ and I am also known as the goddess of the season of winter. Rather fitting, don’t you think? ”

Rolfe could but admire her ingenious creation. “I see you’ve decided the time is ripe to turn the tables on society.” He bowed before her. “Well done, my lady.”

Cassia fastened a cloak under her chin, then took Rolfe’s outstretched hand as they headed for the door to leave.

“At first I fancied depicting a sacrificial virgin, but then thought the better of it. So many of the young ladies who will be in attendance tonight are such in reality that I do not think it proper to mock them in costume. I then considered going as Lady Macbeth, or even Cleopatra, but their method of murder was more along the lines of poison, and well, I could not think of any notorious women murderesses who had wielded a dagger. It took some time, and a little research, but I finally settled upon what I thought to be a most suitable character.”

She slanted him a glance. “And pray, my lord, who is it you are portraying all dressed in black as you are and looking most sinister?”

“It is said that during the Civil Wars, there was a secret alliance of those who worked closest to the enemy in their efforts to see King Charles restored to the throne. I believe they were known as the ‘Nightmen,’ both for their dark attire and for their practice of passing about unseen in the night.”

“It almost sounds as if you speak from experience, Lord Ravenscroft,” she quipped.

Rolfe merely shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. “Nobody knows the true identities of the ‘Nightmen,’ or if they even truly existed.”

They proceeded toward the coach, and Cassia said, “Perhaps I am not the only one who dons a false face, my lord.”

When they arrived at the torch-lit gates of Whitehall, they were made to wait in the long line of carriages that were also arriving. They finally disembarked among the crowd of costumed guests making their way slowly to the brilliantly-lit Banqueting House.