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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“ G ood morning!” announced a friendly woman with bright red hair who came through the door. “Or should I say good afternoon? Goodness, I did not realize how late was the hour.”

Cassia had a little difficulty in levering herself up on the mattress as her body was still quite weak, it seemed, to do even the simplest of things.

The woman, whom she recognized from the masquerade ball, and who she since had learned was called Mara Ross, the Marchioness of Kulhaven, came forward into the room.

She brought with her a tray that gave off a delightful and inviting aroma.

“What is the time?” Cassia asked as she took the cup of herbal tea Mara held out to her. She set the saucer on her blanketed lap and took a small sip of the flowery brew. It immediately lifted her spirits.

“I believe it is just past the noon hour.” Mara narrowed her eyes at the drapery. “It is rather dark in here, don’t you think?”

She crossed the room and pulled aside the heavy damask draperies. Brilliant sunlight came flooding in, casting away the shadows and lighting up the whole of the cozy bedchamber.

“I would have come to you sooner,” Mara went on, now fluffing the pillows beside her on the bed, “but I thought it best to allow you to get your rest. Have you been awake for very long?”

Cassia shook her head. “I only just awoke before you came in. Is it really that late? I don’t think I’ve ever slept this late, or this much, in my life.”

Mara smiled at her. She handed her a china plate that was heaped with buttered eggs, a couple cheese wedges, and two thick slices of ham.

She followed this with a small basket holding an assortment of flaky biscuits.

There was enough food to feed a family. Even so, Cassia felt her stomach begin to rumble.

“Sleep is good,” Mara said, pushing back the coverlet a little so she could sit at the edge of the bed beside Cassia.

She reached out without a word and placed the back of her hand on Cassia’s forehead.

She nodded, seemingly pleased. “Sleep helps the ailing body to heal, and it does wonders for the mind, you know. There is no better medicine. Now, I don’t want you thinking all six of those sweet biscuits are for you.

I plan on eating at least two of them, one for me and one,” she patted the flat of her middle, “for the child I currently carry.”

Cassia quickly swallowed the forkful of eggs she’d just taken. “You are expecting?”

Mara immediately beamed. “Yes. It seems my husband need only look at me and my belly soon begins to swell.”

“How many children do you have?”

“At the moment, two. Robert, our eldest, who is three, and Dana, who is nearly a year now.”

“But you are so slim. I remember my mother once telling me if it hadn’t been for birthing me, she’d still have a waistline small enough to be spanned by the width of a man’s hands.”

“Oh, tosh!” Mara laughed at the statement.

It was a pleasant sound. “What utter nonsense. It wasn’t birthing you that caused her waistline to grow.

It was more likely all the confectioneries she gobbled up afterward during her lying-in.

Don’t let appearances fool you, either. I was nearly the size of a barn when I birthed Robert, and twice as big with Dana.

They say girls are smaller babies and easier to birth, but don’t you believe it.

I would have sworn there were two of them in there.

And as for my being slim, have you ever spent your days chasing after a precocious three-year-old who it seems inherited the stubborn determination of his father, and a toddling little miss who feels she must touch everything that exists in this house at least once every day, all this with each of them running in the opposite direction at the same time? ”

Cassia was mystified. Surely this woman sitting before her now was not of this lifetime, or of the same planet for that matter. She had to be a figment. “You mean to say you care for the children yourself?”

Mara looked bemused by the question. “Yes, of course. They are mine, aren’t they?

Well, I should say I do not exactly tend them by myself, you see I have my husband, who just loves to spoil them, and my maid, Cyma, but she was my maid when I was a child so she’s more a grandmother to them.

Though she hates to be told it, and would rather die before she would ever admit it herself, she is getting on now and she just cannot keep up like she used to.

Little Robert has recently taken a great liking to playing Robin Hood, but Cyma is not too fond of bows and arrows and the like, even if they are only made of wood and cloth. ”

Cassia thought of her own upbringing at court. “But you have no nursery maid to tend to them? I do not think I even saw my mother for more than an hour each day until I was well out of the schoolroom.”

“To be quite frank, there is no one else I would entrust them to. You know, I have always failed to see why so many people go through the effort of having children—scads of them—just to turn around the moment they are born and pawn their upbringing off on another. They are learning someone else’s morals, someone else’s values, and the parents then wonder why their children’s behavior is abominable.

I cherish my time with my children. It goes by so fast. Too fast. I love to watch their faces when they are concentrating on something so hard and so seemingly simple as the opening and closing of their own hand.

You cannot buy that kind of wonder, of watching their curiosity at exploring a new world through their eyes.

And all too soon that wonder is gone. I have even been known to get down on all fours and go crawling after the baby as she giggles for me to catch her. ”

Cassia tried to summon up the image of this lovely woman with her silk skirts hiked up to her stocking garters, crawling underneath the furniture after a laughing infant. She just could not fathom it. “I didn’t know parents did such things with their children.”

Mara shrugged. “Unfortunately, like your own mother, most parents do not, for fear of mussing their gowns or loosening a hairpin from their stylish coiffures. But I am of the opinion that gowns can be pressed and hair can be redressed. How can you possibly replace the experience of spending that time with your children?”

It was a question Cassia found she could not answer. She’d never really been around children. In truth, she wouldn’t know what to do with them.

While they chatted, she finished eating her breakfast, surprised when she’d soon cleaned the plate. “I should like to meet them someday, your children.”

Mara laughed. “How about today? If you are feeling up to it, of course. Little Robert is just dying to know what it is I am hiding behind this door. I think he believes I’ve unleashed a dragon in here complete with fire blowing through its nostrils or something like that.”

Cassia smiled. “Actually, that is a fairly accurate description of how I have felt.”

“I’m just glad you are doing better now.

” Mara stood from the bed, smoothing her skirts.

“Well, it looks as if I have eaten more than my two allotted biscuits. I do apologize. It seems whenever I am expecting, I just abandon my manners. In fact, my husband is most fond of telling me I’d eat the house down around him if I had the chance.

I’ll leave the last one to you and allow you to rest now.

Perhaps later in the afternoon I’ll bring in the children, that is, if you are still feeling up to it. ”

She started for the door then stopped halfway. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Rolfe, er, Lord Ravenscroft brought something for me to give to you.”

She moved to a tall chest near the door and removed something from inside. She turned. “He said you might appreciate having these when you felt a little better.”

Mara set Cassia’s sketching papers and several of her charcoal pencils atop the coverlet beside her.

Cassia was stunned. She looked up at her. “Lord Ravenscroft brought these?”

“Yes. Apparently he went to your house to fetch them for you late last night after I told him you were doing much better. He told us that you are fond of drawing and thought it might help to pass the time while you are further convalescing.”

She turned again for the door.

Cassia hardly noticed her leaving. She was blinking, nearly stirred to tears by what she’d just been told.

Rolfe had taken it upon himself to bring her sketching paper and pencils for her.

He had gone to Seagrave House himself to fetch them.

Such a small gesture, seemingly insignificant, but to her, it was the loveliest gift she’d ever received.

She had never known anyone to do something so thoughtful and she really wasn’t certain how she should feel about it.

Part of her was delighted, and yet another part of her was instinctively cautious.

Her drawing had always been her own private escape, a mental hideaway where she could go and lose herself and forget about the rest of the world.

In the short time since he had come into her life, Rolfe had somehow managed to uncover that hidden thing about her.

How was it that he had so quickly seen right through to her innermost thoughts?

She had been drawing for as long as she could remember.

Many people had looked at her drawings. From her mother, who had simply placated her with compliments.

Her father, who had told her she should devote as much time as she did to her “scribblings” to finding herself a husband.

Winifred, who would have told her anything she had drawn was a masterpiece.

Even Cordelia, who had busied herself with the art of needlepoint while Cassia had concentrated on her sketching, no one had ever noticed how deeply Cassia cared about her drawings.

Yet, somehow, Rolfe had, and after having only seen a few of them.