Page 39

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“ I understand you wanted to speak with me.”

Cassia looked up from the sketch she was just finishing when Rolfe strode into the room. She smiled at him.

It was good to see him, she thought, realizing then that she had missed him.

It had been days since she’d awakened to find herself there, in that house, with strangers around her—friendly strangers—but strangers still the same.

The only other people she saw were Mara and the children—Cassia smiled to herself at the thought.

Yes, the children. And other than them, there were various servants who attended to her needs.

But she hadn’t seen Rolfe since waking that first day.

On this day, he was dressed in clothes that were well-tailored to him. The coat of black camlet set off his broad shoulders, and his tan breeches were snug.

She set the drawing aside as he came farther into the room.

It was a sketch she’d made earlier that morning while sitting in the music room watching Mara with her son.

Robert was on the floor. Mara’s ice-blue skirts had been spread out around her like a crystalline pool as she taught him the proper method of plucking the strings of a small mandora.

With Robert sitting before her on her lap, Mara had intertwined his pudgy child’s fingers with her own, to help him to play a simple child’s tune on the small lute set before them.

Little Robert’s head had rested against his mother’s chin, and the look on his face, a child’s wondrous innocence as his fingers moved over the strings, was most touching.

It was precisely that wondrous expression she was hoping to portray in her drawing now. She’d actually completed most of the sketch that morning while they’d been in the music room. She was just adding the finishing touches to it when Rolfe had come striding into the room.

“Good evening, Lord Ravenscroft,” Cassia said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d perhaps vanished from the face of the earth to reside on another, like one of those Galileo observed in his telescope.”

Rolfe came forward, bowing before her. “I apologize for not having come to you sooner. I have been most occupied of late.”

And he had been. He was determined to find out what could have happened that night at the palace, how someone would have had the opportunity to try and harm Cassia, especially when she had been with the king. Thus far, however, his investigation had gone nowhere.

He glanced at the drawing. “I must say, Lady Cassia, you have an adept eye for noticing the most emotion-filled subjects.”

She brightened under the compliment. “Thank you, my lord.”

“But I thought you once said that you preferred not to draw the faces.”

Cassia regarded him. “Yes, you are right, but, I have never before drawn a child. Children are innocent. They know nothing of the falseness and trickery of the world. Therefore, they have no reason to hide their true face behind one that is false.”

Rolfe studied the drawing more closely. “Aye, but I notice you have also included Mara’s face in the drawing.”

Cassia took the drawing from his hands and placed it upon her lap, looking at it. “I have learned in these past few days, Lord Ravenscroft, that there are actually some people in this world who do not attempt to hide behind a false face.”

Rolfe nodded. “Mara is rather a remarkable woman, isn’t she? But as for her wearing a false face...” He laughed. “You might ask her how she appeared when she first met her husband, Hadrian. The black hair dye and spectacles made a world of difference from the lady you see before you today.”

Cassia stared at him, completely at sea. “I beg your pardon?”

“That is a story you’ll need to hear from her.

But I am pleased you are beginning to see that not everyone is quite as deceptive as you had come to believe.

Some, my lady, are not out only to take advantage, although, living at court as you have for most of your life, I can surely understand why you would presume differently.

That is precisely why I left London to live in the country.

Now what was it you wished to speak with me about? ”

Cassia nodded, sat up straighter. “I wanted to ask you something.”

He said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

“Will you please tell me ... what happened to me, that night at the palace?”

Rolfe knew even before he’d come to her room that this would be what she asked of him. He’d known it and he’d tried to be ready with an explanation, a reasonable explanation. But even as he’d begun climbing the stairs to her chamber, he’d not yet come up with any satisfactory words.

He lowered into a chair nearby. “Let me ask you first, what do you remember, about that night, I mean, before you woke to find yourself here?”

Cassia thought. “I remember that we were at the masquerade at Whitehall. We were trying to ferret out possible suspects in my father’s murder. I had just returned from visiting the queen. She was so very ill. I’m frightened for her, my lord. Would you happen to know her current condition?”

Rolfe frowned. He’d spoken to Cordelia about this earlier that day. “It is much the same, I’m afraid. What else can you recall about that night, Cassia?”

“I seem to recall that you were angry with me.”

Of everything that Cassia could have remembered about that night, his asinine outburst when she had returned with the king was the one thing Rolfe would have preferred she’d forgotten. “I wish to apologize for the way I behaved that night. I had no right to pass judgment on you as I did.”

Cassia simply continued. “I remember that you had taken me to the Privy Garden.”

“It wasn’t long after that when you collapsed.”

She looked at him. “I collapsed? But why? Had I taken ill?”

“Not exactly.” Rolfe stared directly at her. He could think of no delicate way in which to tell her, so he just said the words. “I’m afraid, Lady Cassia, that we suspect you were poisoned.”

Cassia’s mouth fell open. It was a possibility she’d obviously never considered. Even Rolfe still had trouble believing it.

She stared at him, stunned, for several moments. “Poisoned? Are you saying that someone tried to kill me?”

“Quite possibly. You collapsed while we were in the Privy Garden. You had just returned from being with the king in the queen’s apartments.

I brought you directly here. Mara quickly determined that somehow, someone had given you a dose of something.

She never quite arrived at its origin, but, with the help of her maid, Cyma, the two of them were able to counter the effects with an herbal treacle they made.

But the thing is, whoever it was who gave you the poison has no way of knowing they were unsuccessful.

No one, with the exception of me, my friends, and your servants, know of your whereabouts.

I have instructed Clydesworthe to tell any callers that you simply aren’t accepting visitors. ”

Cassia closed her eyes. “But why ... why would someone want to poison me?”

Rolfe came forward and knelt by the side of the bed. He took her hand. “Can you remember anything else about that night? Can you think of when you could have possibly been given anything? Did you have something to eat or to drink, perhaps?”

Cassia shook her head. “No, no, I didn’t speak with anyone except you, the king, and ...” She peered up at him then, drawing in a startled breath. “The queen. When I was visiting with Queen Catherine in her apartments, she offered me some of the tea that had been brought in to her.”

Rolfe considered this. “Who brought in the tea?”

“I don’t know, a palace maid or a footman, I suppose. I do remember now that she had been surprised by it. She’d said she hadn’t requested any.”

This was a possibility that had never entered Rolfe’s mind. He’d thought that perhaps someone had slipped something into Cassia’s wine glass when she hadn’t been looking. He hadn’t even considered when she’d been away from him visiting with the queen.

“And Catherine’s condition has also been growing worse for some time,” he said. “The physicians have been unable to attribute her illness to anything. They are increasingly dumbfounded.”

Cassia closed her eyes against the new possibility this brought. “What if the poison hadn’t been meant for me after all? What if someone wasn’t attempting to harm me, but instead was planning to harm the queen?”

It had taken every ounce of persuasion Rolfe could muster to convince Cassia to stay with Hadrian and Mara at their townhouse while he went to Whitehall to speak with the king.

She was still weak from her own battle with the poison.

She couldn’t walk down the steps to the breakfast parlor without growing weak, let alone manage a carriage ride through the city and a long walk through the palace hallways.

And besides, Rolfe had told her, he could not completely rule out the possibility that the poison had actually been meant for her.

There was still that near-miss with the carriage to consider.

And Geoffrey’s threats. He had to assure Cassia’s safety at all costs, regardless of whether it appeared she hadn’t been the prime target.

But they both agreed he must inform the king of their suspicions.

Rolfe was made to wait for nearly an hour after informing the guard posted at the palace entrance of his urgent need to speak with the king. No, he could not return in the morning, he’d told him. He had to see the king immediately, that same night.

The guard had eyed Rolfe with impatience, thoroughly caught between his desire to send him on his way, and the slightest possibility that he could indeed have some urgent news for the king.

The risk of losing his position at the palace overcame.

He directed Rolfe to a small antechamber just inside the palace doors to wait, its only furnishing a chair Rolfe was not too eager to sit in.

So there he waited, pacing the space. Where in perdition was that guard?