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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I t was nearly midnight and Cassia sat in the library at Kulhaven House, putting the finishing touches on a sketch she’d just spent the past two hours drawing. It depicted Mara and her husband, Hadrian, sitting just as they were still now, caught in a game of chess before the parlor fire.

Mara wore her hair loose in brilliant burnished curls around her shoulders, and was at the moment studying the position of the remaining pieces on the chessboard.

Her chin was at rest in the crook of one hand, while her husband sat back in his chair across from her, wine glass cupped in his left hand as he waited for his wife to make her play.

But he wasn’t really watching the game. He was watching her .

Silently. Intently. And it was the look in his eyes as he watched her, the expression Cassia had noticed when she’d first glanced at them across the room, that had spurred her to sketch the intimate scene.

Rolfe had gone out, leaving the house soon after supper on a matter he said needed looking into.

They hadn’t spoken again about what had taken place in Hyde Park, of the horse bolting and the discovery of the cut-through saddle strap.

But nearly everyone else in the household was.

Upon hearing of the near-tragedy—the third near-tragedy to occur in the past two weeks —Hadrian had immediately summoned every servant in the household, including the groomsmen, to stand before him.

He was most intimidating, standing there, staring them all down as he asked— ordered —them to explain how such a thing could have happened.

No one had dared admit to placing the thornapple burr under the saddle, nor to cutting the billet strap either.

Nor had anyone seen anybody unknown lurking about who might have done it.

It was all just a mystery, a puzzling one at that, and only added to the already puzzling mystery of her father’s murder.

Mara had been so upset by what had happened that she’d had a great big wolfhound named Toirneach—the Gaelic for thunder—brought inside the townhouse from his usual warm place in the kitchens to stand guard.

He had been Mara’s dog as a child and having nearly lost him during the Civil Wars, she now took him with her whenever they traveled.

The brindle-colored beast now lay at Cassia’s feet, warming her toes quite nicely.

Cassia looked up to check the last few details for her sketch, the placement of the chess pieces, the small indentation at the corner of Hadrian’s smiling mouth, so like Rolfe’s, she realized.

Her pencil stilled. Mara had glanced up from the chess board, and had been caught by her husband’s intense stare.

Her lips curved into a gentle knowing smile.

Without his ever having uttered a word, she knew that it was time for them to retire.

Hadrian set down his wine glass, stood, and held out his hand to his wife.

“Cassia, I believe my wife is in need of her rest now. It has been a tiring day what with her taking the children on the outing to the Tower and then with what happened to you in Hyde Park. Is there anything we can get for you before we retire upstairs?”

Cassia shook her head. “I will only be down a few minutes more myself. I just want to finish this sketch before I go off to bed.”

Mara looked at her. “You are certain you will be all right?”

“Yes, quite certain. I’ve Toirneach here to look after me.” She reached down and scratched his grizzled head. “No one would dare come near me now. You head off to bed. I will be going to my own shortly.”

They started to turn. “Good night then,” Mara said, looking back one last time. “And if you need anything?—”

“I know, I’ll just summon the maid. Thank you both for making me feel so welcome here.”

They walked from the room, Hadrian’s arm possessively circling his wife’s waist, her head resting softly against his shoulder.

After they’d gone, Cassia wondered to herself what it would be like to be so much a part of another human being as these two were, so that words weren’t even necessary between them.

A look, a smile, a lifted brow, and one knew precisely what the other was thinking.

That connection, that unconditional, unquestioning love was something completely foreign to her.

Was it simply a rare and beautiful thing, a gift meant only for those lucky enough to be given it?

Certainly it must be uncommon, extraordinary even, for so many poets and writers wrote about its wonder, its sheer and incomparable bliss.

And how had Mara and Hadrian come to find it?

Did they know the instant their eyes had met that they had been meant to share their lives?

Perhaps, when one was born, it was decided right then whether they should be one of the fortunate few to be granted that all-too-precious gift.

Certainly, if that were the case, then Cassia must herself be one of the unfortunate many who never would find it.

None of the men she’d come across in her lifetime had ever made her feel that connection, that wholeness.

None ... excepting one.

Cassia closed her eyes, remembering the way she’d felt when Rolfe had kissed her that day in the park, when she’d felt his mouth on her, his hands touching her.

It had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

Could he be? Could Rolfe be the one person she was meant to spend her life with, her life’s partner, the one fated to be with her forever?

Or was she just weaving dreams with a silly girl’s thoughts?

Cassia wondered what would have happened had the intruder not come upon them as he had, when he had interrupted their passionate and completely improper embrace. How much further would she have allowed it to progress before common sense would have returned to her? And would she have wanted it to?

No man had ever affected her like this before, making her forget who she was, having her abandon all of the propriety she’d been taught since birth and had set herself to live by.

What was even stranger was that she found she really didn’t care.

What was it about this man that caused her to forget everything she’d ever been taught? How did he make her abandon all reason?

She smiled to herself. Winifred would be aghast if she were to know what her young charge was now thinking.

But it had felt so right being held in Rolfe’s arms. How she wished she could be certain, if she could know he felt the same for her, or was he just another who found importance in the number of ladies he could conquer?

Rolfe had been sent to her by the king to guard her, a duty he had vowed to stand by until the end.

But once that assignment was complete, once the mystery was solved, what would happen then?

No matter how she tried to ignore it, Cassia could not deny the possibility, the probability that Rolfe would leave as suddenly as he’d come, to return to his life at his estate in Sussex, awaiting his next assignment.

“Lord Ravenscroft, I was wondering if I might have a word?”

Rolfe looked up from the document he’d been reading to see Cassia framed in the doorway.

He was glad for the interruption. He’d spent the past few hours trying to make sense of the collection of thoroughly tedious explanations for the expenses on everything from the candles supplied by the local village to the charges for the re-tiling of the roof on the eastern wing.

He was glad to note, however, that the renovations at Ravenwood were finally drawing to a close.

“Yes, Lady Cassia?”

After what they’d shared in the park the previous day, and knowing, as he did, that they were now husband and wife, Rolfe found it strange, and a bit ridiculous, that they should address one another so formally. Still, he continued the practice.

Cassia came into the room. At Mara’s suggestion, she had abandoned the strict mourning black, as a way, Mara had convinced her, to truly put the events of the past behind her.

The gown she wore now was made of pale Persian blue silk, with the full skirts caught up over a pearl gray underskirt.

Puffed sleeves slashed over a white muslin chemisette were tied off at intervals with darker bow knots.

The deep rounded neckline showed off the elegant cut of her shoulders, and just a hint of the swell of her breasts, to advantage.

“I was wondering, my lord, how long we would be staying here, at this house.”

Her question brought him instantly out of his thoughts. It wasn’t what he had expected. “Is something amiss? Do you not care for being here?”

Cassia took a seat in the chair across from him and folded her hands in her lap.

“No, that is not at all why I asked. I find Mara and Hadrian both to be most hospitable and the children are ...,” she hesitated a moment, looking down at the carpet, smiling, “...the children are a blessing. They make me feel alive. But I feel I cannot delay the search for my father’s murderer any longer.

I have fully recovered. Judging from the saddle strap, my being here is no longer a secret.

Obviously, the person responsible for my father’s death is still in London.

The longer I go without finding him, unmasking him, the closer I come to being charged with the crime.

I must find out who it is before it is too late. ”

Rolfe sat back in his chair. “You needn’t concern yourself with that. I have people working on it as we speak.”

“At the risk of sounding rude, Lord Ravenscroft, do you not think this should be my problem to handle? I mean you were only sent here to guard me, not to try and set my world to rights. I do not wish to impose?—”

“It is not an imposition.”

“But it is my problem.”

“It is my problem now as well.”

“By what right, sir?”

“By the right that I am your husband and ...”

Everything in the room suddenly stilled. It seemed not even the clock to tick.

Cassia looked at him, narrowing her eyes as if trying to understand. “Excuse me, Lord Ravenscroft, but what did you just say?”

Rolfe drew a breath. Idiot! He had dreaded this moment for so long.

He’d tried to prepare for it, mentally rehearsing what he would say, but the proper time had never presented itself.

And now he’d just bungled it by simply blurting it all out.

He looked at his hands and struggled to think of how to respond.

Finally, he just looked at her and said, “I said that I am your husband. We are married. And as your husband, it is my duty to find out who killed your father and who also attempted not once but thrice to kill you.”

Cassia looked nonplussed. “Stop teasing me with such nonsense, my lord. I don’t know what game you are playing here, but I must tell you it doesn’t suit you, not at all. You know very well I have not married you. I do not find your jest at all amusing.”

“I assure you it is no game, Cassia. We are married. When you were ill, the night of the masquerade, in fact, I secured a special license. We were wed right here, in this house, with Hadrian and Mara and several of their servants standing by as our witnesses.” He reached inside his coat and removed a folded document from inside.

“Here is the Certificate of Marriage, signed and sealed.”

Cassia took the parchment and read it over.

In the space where the bride should have signed, someone had written in her name with a notation that she’d been unable to do so herself due to an incapacitating illness.

Cassia set the document on the desk with a trembling hand.

She stared at Rolfe, not moving, not saying a word.

Rolfe began to think she would deal with this little bit of news as she had everything else since the day he’d first met her by putting up that damnable distant wall of hers.

This time, though, he was mistaken.