Page 23

She’d dared to rap on Cassian’s bedchamber door after he failed to come down to breakfast. Then she’d explored the main rooms of the house, hoping to find him, but she never had.

She’d tried to tell herself it was not purposeful.

Surely, he was not avoiding her. Something important must have occupied him.

“He visited with his lordship this morning, and I believe he’s in Lord Windham’s study now.”

“Is Lord Windham unwell?” Lily asked.

It had been clear to all of them that the earl was suffering pain from his broken leg. By the end of dinner the previous night, he’d gone frightfully pale.

“I don’t believe so, Your Grace.”

“Do you think Captain Rourke would mind being interrupted in the study?” Daphne whispered.

Bartlett turned his bespectacled gaze her way. “No, not by you,” he said too softly for the others to hear.

“Thank you.” She beamed at him and then, when her sisters were consumed by the books they’d selected, she slipped from the library.

A passing housemaid directed her to the earl’s study, and a few minutes later, she was standing on the threshold, hoping Cassian wished to see her as much as she wanted to see him.

When she reached out, she realized the door stood slightly ajar.

After knocking, she pushed it open and stepped inside.

At the far side of the room, Cassian sat behind an enormous desk. He immediately laid a nib pen on a tray in front of him and slid a piece of paper into the desk’s top drawer, standing as he did so.

“Daphne.”

She couldn’t quite interpret the look in his eyes, but the stiffness with which he held his shoulders and flexed jaw told her he was filled with tension.

“If I’m interrupting?—”

“No, I’ve wanted to see you since the moment I woke up, but I…”

“Bartlett said you spent time with your brother.”

He nodded. “I did indeed, but I still wanted to see you.”

“And here I am.” Daphne heard the giddiness in her own voice and couldn’t seem to temper it. His nearness did odd things to her.

“You are.” He chuckled, and the tension in him seemed to ease.

Daphne glanced behind her. “Do you mind if I shut the door?”

At that, he stepped out from behind the desk and crossed to her, reaching out to shut the door himself.

“Why would I mind?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that made her heart race. Then he touched her, his hand on her arm.

She immediately stepped closer and lifted her hands to his chest. “You did seem worried about us being alone in a room together at the Bancrofts’ ball.”

“Only for your sake,” he said with a sudden earnestness in his tone. “I would have happily remained in that library with you for the rest of the evening.”

Her breath caught at the look in his eyes, the green seemed brighter, heated. Lifting a hand, he traced the edge of her jaw with his fingertips. “Actually, I was writing you a letter.”

Daphne stilled. “Why?”

For some reason, the idea that he was writing to her rather than just seeking her out for a conversation felt ominous.

“An attempt to explain.”

That sounded even worse. Her throat tightened. Her chest ached.

“Explain what?”

He dipped his head, then looked up at her again. “Matters that are hard to discuss.”

“That you’re leaving Berkshire?”

“What? No.”

Relief rushed through her so fiercely, she gripped the edge of his waistcoat. “Then what do you wish to tell me? Shall I read the letter?” She glanced toward the desk, even began to pull away so that she could move toward it.

“No, it’s not finished, and it’s a mess. A nonsense jumble of thoughts.”

Daphne did step away from him, then headed over to a burgundy settee before the fireplace. She sat and patted the spot beside her.

“I’m here. You’re here. Will you not try to tell me?”

He wore a little half-smile as he settled next to her. Daphne immediately reached for his hand, then turned so that she was facing him. He laced their fingers, then he turned toward her too.

“You mentioned that moment in the Bancrofts’ library when I found you and—” He grimaced as if he loathed even saying the man’s name.

“Yes, I remember that moment,” she said to save him from having to.

“That night, you told me that you no longer trusted yourself.”

Daphne began rallying her arguments. Yes, she’d said as much, but it didn’t mean she was wrong about what she felt for him. That other man, who neither of them wanted to name, had flattered her, charmed her.

But she’d been drawn to Cassian as if it had somehow been fated.

“I don’t trust myself either,” he said.

Daphne tipped her head. “Was your heart broken by someone?”

“No.” He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “I sometimes doubted I even had a heart until I met you.”

His crooked smile made her heart thud.

“I refer to my father. My nature. My blood. And the ways I am like him.”

Daphne heard the rasp in his voice, saw the sheen in his eyes. She forced herself not to offer easy reassurances because she sensed there was a great deal yet unsaid.

“I think I understand your fears.” Her parents influenced her and all her siblings, yet they’d been loving parents. If they had been cruel, uncaring, how might that have impacted each of them?

He flinched. “Daphne, I’m not certain you do…”

“Then tell me more.”

“Some of it is so dark that I don’t even wish to speak of it to you.”

Daphne bristled at the implication that she would not want to know him, all of him. Or that she was not equipped to hear such things.

“Because I’m an innocent? I’m not the delicate, prim creature you think I am, Cassian. Didn’t I prove that last night?”

Leaning closer, she tugged him toward her by the edge of his waistcoat, then kissed him. A single, too-quick taste.

Cassian seemed to want more. He wrapped his large hand around her nape and pulled her in for another kiss, then another, until he was stroking her with his tongue as his hand traced down her back, pulling her nearer.

When they were both breathless, she pressed her forehead to his.

“No matter how thoroughly you kiss me,” she whispered, “I’ll still want to know what’s in that letter. And about your father.”

“Are you certain you want to know?”

Daphne bent to kiss him, a gentle, lingering meeting of her lips and his. “I want to know, if you are willing to speak of it, but if it troubles you too much?—”

“You should know what I am.” He fell quiet, but for his harsh breaths. Then licked his lips and said, “He was a monster. His rages were frequent and for minor infractions, or for none at all. Some days, he might just look at one of us and find reason to strike out.”

Daphne bit her lip and swallowed against the sting of tears. She caressed his hand, waiting, knowing there was more.

“My mother wasn’t excluded.” He lifted his head, his gaze haunted.

“To know that your mother is being harmed and to be too young, too frightened, to protect her. That hurt more than his fists.” He swallowed hard.

“Words seem much less cutting than lashes, but they’re not.

He told me I was nothing. God knows what he said to Julian. It gave him pleasure to see us broken.”

“I’m so sorry, Cassian.” Daphne wrapped her arms around him, tucking her head against his neck, kissing the spot where his pulse beat hard. “None of you should have suffered such cruelty.”

“He told me once that his father was the same. That terrified me. It was as if he was condemning me to be the same too.”

“But you’re not and never will be.”

Turning his head, he kissed her, then cupped her face between his palms.

“I am torn.” His voice emerged husky and low. “Between wanting protect you from my shadows and…”

“And?” Daphne prompted when he fell silent again.

Cassian caressed her face. “Believing that I could make a life without them.”

“ We could make that life.” Daphne clasped one of his hands and then drew it down to hold between her own. “You need not do it alone.” Suddenly nervous, she added, “But you have a decision to make, Cassian.”

He smiled and lifted their joined hands to kiss the top of hers. “You make me more hopeful than I have any right to be.”

“You have a right to be hopeful, to love and be loved,” she whispered. Swallowing hard to steel her courage, she admitted, “You have a piece of my heart, Cassian, and I’d gladly give you all of it, but I have to know you’re as certain as I am. Because if you walk away again?—”

“Daphne—”

“No, we must be honest now. No pretense. I want us to share our hopes and our fears. And my fear is that I could so easily give myself to you in every way, and yet you would still hold something back. Or worse, give into your fears and walk away. That would break me.” She looked into his eyes and saw the storm of emotions he was battling.

“I know I can’t decide for both of us. I want you so very much. Now you must decide what you want.”

For a long stretch, they sat silently together. She could feel him battling, and she prayed he’d choose hope rather than fear. But she sensed he needed time.

So she kissed his cheek, released his hand, stood, and made her way toward the study door. All the way, it felt as if a thread connecting them was drawing taut, pinching at the center of her chest. But she knew that they must be of a like mind in this.

She could wait for him to decide, but she could never again give her heart to a man who she could not trust to love as thoroughly in return.