Shackles of Honor

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Would Father send me to anywhere that he knew I would come to harm? That he knew I would be unhappy?” she asked him. She had been considering this ever since her discussion with Mason in the library.

  “Absolutely not,” came Ellis’s firm reply. “It’s all that gives me cause to restrain myself from complete rebellion.” Cassidy nodded, and he continued, “Further, Mother would never allow it! There must be good in this thing, Cass. Though neither of us can see it now…there certainly must be good in it.”

  “Faith in Father or flounder, you’re telling me,” she mumbled, repeating Mason’s words.

  “Yes. Though it would be the hardest thing of my life…I could do no less myself.”

  “Have you asked Father, Ellis?” Cassidy questioned. “Have you asked Father if arrangements have been made at your expense?”

  “No,” he answered. “But he offered the information to me for my own knowledge and peace of mind. He has seen your torment and is repentant in not telling you sooner. At least in part.”

  “And?”

  “And…I’m left to my own choice for a wife.” Cassidy sighed heavily, and, misunderstanding, Ellis said, “Do you hold great resentment for me, baby sister…in that I’m allowed to choose my own way and you’re not? I couldn’t bear your resentment.”

  Smiling, Cassidy turned to him and embraced him tightly, drinking heavily of the familiar scent of him. “Darling, Ellis. I could never resent you! You are my Ellis Bear, remember?”

  Ellis returned Cassidy’s embrace, chuckling at the memory. “Your Ellis Bear. How I could have hung you from the nearest tree when you called me that in front of all my friends from school that one summer.”

  “I was but six. You can’t blame me for being ignorant to the pride of young men at such a young age. After all, I had always called you Ellis Bear.”

  Taking her face in his hands, he chuckled and smiled at her for a moment before his expression went severe once more. “You will summon me, Cass. For any reason and need, you’ll summon me to your side, and I’ll come.”

  “I know,” she whispered, raising herself on her toes and kissing him lovingly on the cheek. “Now go. I need my rest, for Mother and I travel to Carlisle Manor on the morrow.”

  “And I go north to do business. I cannot bear this house without you for long.” Kissing her in return, he left her.

  Cassidy realized at that very moment that it was hardest to leave Ellis. For Ellis, with all his teasing and sarcasm, was her best friend and protector. Her heart would bleed with missing him.

  Chapter Three

  It was a cold and rainy morning as Mason readied the coach and coachman for their departure. Ellis had said his good-bye sometime earlier. Cassidy now stood at one of the front windows of the house watching her betrothed astride his magnificent bay. He shouted orders to the stablehands tending the team that would take the carriage to Carlisle Manor.

  “Trust in the man, Cassidy,” her father said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He will do you only justice.”

  Turning to face him, tears in her eyes, Cassidy said, “He has done you justice, for he’s more faithful to you than to me.”

  “You asked him your questions then?”

  “I did.”

  “And his response?”

  “Faith in your father or flounder,” she repeated his words once more.

  Cassidy saw the heavy moisture in her father’s eyes as he closed them from releasing tears and muttered, “He is wise beyond his years.” Then, looking to her, he took her lovely face in his strong, secure hands. “Forgive me one day, will you, darling?”

  “I’ve forgiven you already, Father, for I know the true intention of your heart, if not your mind.” She kissed his hand reassuringly. As she did so, her attention was drawn to the heavy gold-banded bracelet he wore. Though she could discern that there were words engravened thereon, Cassidy had never in her life been able to make them out. “I’ve always admired this bracelet on you, Father,” she said quietly. “And I don’t like jewelry on men as a rule.”

  “You sense that my heart treasures it. That is why you accept it where it is.” Then, kissing her forehead quickly, he added, “Go now. I want a moment alone with your mother before you depart.”

  Lifting the hood of her cloak up over her head, Cassidy left her father’s house and walked into the dark, stormy day to meet with the man who would take her now to his own.

  “This rain is bad, sir,” the coachman remarked to Mason.

  “Yes. Let’s hope it’s not with us the entire journey,” Mason answered.

  He dismounted, opened the carriage door, and offered his hand to Cassidy to assist her. She paused, intent at first on refusing him. But thinking quickly on her knowledge of her father’s wisdom, she placed her hand tentatively in his. His grip was strong and somewhat unsettling, and as she sat within the coach awaiting her mother, she removed her glove to inspect the hand he’d held, for it felt odd, as if a sort of lovely numbness were overtaking it.

  It was numerous long moments before her mother left the house to join her. Mason offered her mother his hand. Accepting it and entering the carriage, she turned and took Mason’s chin lovingly in hand as Cassidy had seen her do often to Ellis. Smiling, she told him, “You’ll be with him soon, darling, and all will be well.”

  Cassidy was perplexed at her mother’s words until something struck her memory from the day before. Had not Mason spoken to his horse about his anxiety over leaving his father unwell? Suddenly a great compassion for Mason and a great scorn of herself washed over her. Here was a man grieved at his father’s ill health, and she had met him with abhorrence at his temperament. How unfeeling and selfish she must appear to him.

  Mason mounted his bay once more, and with his signal, the carriage lurched forward. Cassidy glanced only once out the carriage window at her beloved Terrill. Her life was before her now. She felt secure in the knowledge that Terrill would ever be there for her—ever waiting with family, love, and memory.

  The weather during the trip was no less than brutal. The rain, unceasing and heavy, left mud puddles ankle-deep in the roads. This gave cause for greatly exaggerated swaying and bolting of the carriage. Cassidy’s head throbbed mercilessly from it. Thus far, Mason had not once ridden up beside the carriage to inquire as to how Cassidy and her mother were faring the trip. But from her seat facing where they had been, with back to where they were going, she could see him astride his magnificent bay close behind. The rain poured from his hat now and again when he tipped his head. She pitied his and the coachman’s being at the mercy of the elements.

  Mason Carlisle was tall on his mount and perfectly postured. Now and again the wind caught the cape of his coat, and he looked much like some sort of highwayman readying to attack. Cassidy found herself mesmerized as she studied him. He was astonishingly masculine—unsettlingly attractive.

  Near dusk, Mason rode quickly up and shouted something to the driver. The coach came to a fairly abrupt stop, and Cassidy’s mother asked, more to herself than to Cassidy, “What is he about, I wonder?”

  In a few moments the carriage door swung open, and Mason leaned inward, rain streaming from his clothing.

  “My man, Fieves, the driver…he is ill,” he panted. Cassidy felt a blush of humiliation rise to her cheeks as she thought of her own petty inward whining about their traveling conditions when the men without, Mason included, were enduring such weather virtually unprotected. “I’ve no wish to worsen his condition, Milady Shea.” He addressed Cassidy’s mother, though his eyes rested angrily on Cassidy for a moment.

  “Certainly not, Mason!” Cassidy’s mother exclaimed. “What say you?”

  “Fieves refuses to let me drive the carriage and come shelter within. Therefore, would it be acceptable to you if we were to stop at Tatiana’s Way…a town a mere five miles before us? We could weather the night at the inn there and make for Carlisle Manor in the morning.”

  “Of course, Mason! Of course!” Cylia agree
d instantly.

  “The…the accommodations may not be of the variety to which you are accustomed when you travel, milady.” Mason lifted a hand, removed his glove, and put a cold fist to his lips, blowing warm air there. He was obviously quite chilled.

  “Mason, I’m nothing if not able to weather as needs be,” Cylia assured him.

  “I apologize, Milady Shea…for the great inconvenience to you…both,” he added, closing the carriage door securely upon his exit.

  

  Within the hour, the coach stopped before a small, rather ominous-looking establishment. A man came out into the rain to greet them. Mason dismounted before him immediately, handing the reins of his own mount to a rough-looking man that appeared from around a nearby corner. Though Cassidy could not hear their words, she assumed the rather frightening man was a stablehand and the other man the innkeeper. Nodding and turning toward the coach, Mason opened the door, reaching inside and offering Cylia his hand.

  A person could not lie to oneself forever about the fact that Mason Carlisle’s manners were impeccable. Cassidy watched as he politely and protectively escorted her mother to the inn, helping her remove her dampened coat as soon as they crossed the threshold. He was ever the perfect gentleman, bowing slightly as her mother obviously thanked him, though Cassidy could hear no words from them above the storm. His attention then turned back to her, for she remained seated in the coach, not out of expectation of his doing the same for her but rather because she had been so entranced in watching him assist her mother that all thought of her own comfort had been obliterated.

  As he approached, walking tall and straightly erect even for the heavy downpour upon his head and mud beneath his feet, she felt herself shake her head quickly and put up a gloved palm toward him, indicating that she did not want his assistance.

  “I am perfectly capable of…” she began. But no sooner had the words escaped her trembling lips, for it was ever so damp and cold, that she gasped as he rather roughly took hold of her arm, pulling her from the doorway of the coach, gathering her none too gently in his arms, one placed firmly around her back, the other beneath the bend of her knees. Never since she was a child had anyone carried her in such a manner. She was angry with him for his boldness, yet pleasantly disturbed by being so completely in his power.

  “Come along, Fieves,” he shouted over his shoulder to the coachman. “Get within and warm yourself with something.”

  Cassidy, trying to gracefully spit out the rainwater that had found itself into her astonished and gaping mouth, reached up, securing her hat to her head, and looked back to see Fieves climb down from the coach and begin to follow them. It was in looking back that she noticed her other arm lay firmly on Mason’s shoulder, her hand resting at the back of his neck. She thought of moving it, for it certainly gave the appearance that she was embracing him somehow, but there was nowhere whatsoever for her arm to go save across the broad expanse of shoulder. He stopped abruptly in the next instant and turned to look directly into Cassidy’s face.

  At once Cassidy was mesmerized by him. Never had she been so close to him; never had her face been an expanse of mere inches from his handsome features. In that very brief yet somehow lingering moment, Cassidy studied his face, his very countenance, with more scrutiny and detail than ever before. His eyes were truly fascinating, for the dark of their brown was deep and rich—filled with secretiveness and something else hidden. Cassidy checked herself immediately when her eyes fell to his lips, moist with the rain.

  She was startled when a grin spread across his face and he mumbled, “A poignant moment, perhaps.” The richness of his voice was soothing and yet unsettling at the same time.

  “I beg your pardon?” she stammered. Realizing that she still struggled not to stare at his mouth, she tried to look indifferent and somewhat fierce.

  “I suggest that this moment may in reality be of some significance,” he said in a lowered voice.

  “How so?” She felt his hand tighten at her rib cage as he held her and scolded herself inwardly as her entire body tingled with some newish pleasure.

  “Significant in that this very threshold will be the first over which I pass with you in such close proximity as this, Miss Shea.” His mocking grin broadened as Cassidy gasped with indignation.

  “I should slap your face for such a remark,” she scolded him as he stepped over the threshold and into the inn.

  “Why so?” he inquired, letting her feet drop to the floor and then releasing her.

  “Because…because…”

  “’Twas a true enough observation, was it not?”

  She had no response to him. No quick wit would inspire her mind, and she simply stood glaring up at him.

  Grinning once more, he removed his hat and coat, handing them to a rather largely curved woman who appeared.

  “Come now,” he said to the woman, still looking at Cassidy triumphantly. “We need warming, and something for our…appetites.”

  The woman giggled flirtatiously, and Cassidy, though knowing there was something of a riddle in his words, was lost to the meaning of it. Obviously, the serving woman was not.

  

  “He’s a fine figure of a man, that one,” the serving girl who had previously taken Mason’s hat and coat whispered as she sat down in the chair across from Cassidy. Gesturing toward Mason, who sat in conversation with Cylia and Fieves at a table some ways across the room, the serving girl asked, “Is he yours then?”

  Cassidy wished her mother had not chosen that moment to inquire about Fieves’s well-being. They had been sitting for some time, she and her mother, having enjoyed a warming broth and sweetly buttered bread. And now she found herself in unwelcome conversation with the repugnant female. She was completely shocked by the question and took several moments too long to answer. “I…I have no claim on him to speak of,” was all she could mutter. The girl smiled, obviously well pleased with Cassidy’s answer. Cassidy was immediately angry with herself for some odd reason for not telling the girl that Mason Carlisle was bound to her by a promise.

  “That news makes me gladder than I’ve been in a year,” the girl whispered. Cassidy watched as the young woman rose and walked, rather provocatively, toward the table where Mason, Fieves, and Cassidy’s mother sat.

  “Anything I can get for you further, sir?” the girl asked Mason.

  “No. Thank you,” he answered kindly, smiling pleasantly at the girl.

  “Well, let me know if we can provide you with anything else refreshing.” With a smile that made Cassidy’s skin crawl, the girl let her hand rest for a moment on Mason’s shoulder before she walked even more suggestively into the kitchen and out of sight.

  Cassidy angrily stripped off her shawl. She felt hot—fiery hot—as if she were indeed taking ill.

  “Did you see that revolting display?” Cassidy’s mother inquired as she returned to the table. “That trollop fairly drooled over Mason just now! And whatever could she possibly be talking with you about, sweet?”

  Cassidy fought to keep her expression to that of indifference as she answered. Still, her blood was virtually boiling with anger and jealousy. “She asked if he were mine.” Cassidy knew at once that, though her expression was steadfast, her voice had betrayed her.

  “And you answered what?” Cylia’s tone was already reprimanding.

  “I told her I had no claim on him to speak of.”

  “Cassidy Shea! Did I raise you to be such an ignoramus as that?” Cylia sighed heavily and attempted to calm herself when several guests at a nearby table glanced at her curiously. “For pity’s sake, my girl! He is to be your husband!”

  “Yes! How well I know it! And again I say that I do not know why!” Cassidy struggled to keep the tears from freeing themselves of her eyes as she whispered angrily, “Yet I have no claim on him, Mother! No claim to his family, home, heart, desire…none whatsoever! How can everyone possibly expect me to act as if he is my property somehow? For he is most obviously not mine.”r />
  “In the very least you have claim over his name! Over his honor!” Cylia again calmed herself, straightened her posture, and smiled sweetly, nodding her head at the guests nearby that once again glanced her way. “I love you, Cassidy, more than my own life. And I know you as well as I know myself.” Her mother’s eyes captured Cassidy’s own with an intense understanding. “I’ve seen him piercing your heart already, darling. Already he’s there causing you discomfort and doubt as your growing attachment, your promise of love for him, increases.”

  Cassidy’s eyes widened with indignation. “What utter rot are you going on about, Mother? I despise the beast,” she claimed, though she knew that she had only just spoken the most enormous lie of her lifetime.

  “Do not make to deceive me, Cassidy, for you fail miserably at it. You always have.” Cylia reached for Cassidy’s hand that lay on the table and squeezed it reassuringly with her own.

  “What shall I do then, Mother?” Cassidy asked. “Do you desire that I go to him now, my skirts swaying this way and that? Shall I plant myself promptly in his lap? Perhaps I should offer myself to him just now. Perhaps I should ask him to share my room and—”

  “That is quite enough, Cassidy,” Cylia interrupted firmly. “I did not mean that at all, and I’m sorry to reveal to you my understanding of your feelings toward him. But—”

  “I have no feelings toward him. He is a dragon demanding sacrificial appeasement, and I’m the virgin being offered to him.”

  Cylia shook her head slightly. “There’s no reasoning with you when you’re in this present frame of mind. I will say this to you plainly then. I know you’re falling in love with him, Cass…if you’ve not fully fallen already. And you must champion yourself…for your own sake. Claim him as he has done you. You agreed to this arrangement, and I know with all my heart that never would you have done so had you not had your own motivations toward him. He is yours as fully as you are his, your very own dragon. But you’ll no doubt find…that he’s not a dragon but a knight. Honorable, worthy, and ever your protector from the true dragons of the world.” Cylia, being the grand lady that she was, regained her composure instantly. “Now…would you like to sit up by yourself awhile? I intend to retire immediately.”