“Blast! It is apparent you have built up your defenses in my absence.”
Cassidy felt an odd sort of triumph upon not bowing to his taunting and not provoking him in her own right. But then her resolve broke, and she added, “Further, I know of a certainty that I possess nothing after which you would seek.”
“Again I question your intelligence at that remark,” Mason muttered.
Cassidy inhaled deeply, ready to do battle, but something within stalled her, for she wondered whether his manner were almost that of flirting rather than criticism. She walked toward the manor in silence then, taking pleasure in watching her soon-to-be betrothed play with his dog in a rather boyish manner.
As they approached the manor house, Cassidy caught sight of her parents alighting from their carriage. “Mother!” she cried out, lifting up her skirts and breaking into a run toward her.
“Cassidy, darling!” Her mother threw out her arms, catching Cassidy in a loving, maternal embrace. “Oh, my darling! How we have missed you. Oh! How we have missed you!”
Havroneck was assisting Cassidy’s father from the carriage, and when Lord Shea turned and saw Cassidy, his eyes filled with tears. “My darling. My Cassidy!” he whispered as she released her mother and went to her father’s comforting arms. His leg was heavily splinted, and he was paler than Cassidy remembered.
“Oh, Father! It is so good to see you. So very good to see you.” Cassidy felt tears stinging her eyes as her father held her.
“And Mason. You look quite robust. Is business holding well for you?” Cassidy’s father addressed Mason as he approached from behind Cassidy.
Mason offered a hand to Calvert, yet Cassidy could feel the strain between them. “Business is fine, thank you, Lord Shea. Welcome to Carlisle.”
“Thank you, Mason.”
“I hope your leg is healing quickly and as comfortably as possible,” Mason offered.
“As well as can be expected.”
“We are honored to have you at Carlisle, especially under your painful circumstances. We’ll do our best to make your stay comfortable.”
“I’m glad to see my daughter’s cheeks ablaze with roses and a smile on her face,” Lord Shea commented. “You have provided for her well-being, and I thank you.”
“I intend to provide for her, but I must confess that I’ve been away for nearly a fortnight, so her pleasant countenance must, therefore, be attributed to her brother or my mother and father, sir.”
“All the same, I’m not blind, lad,” Calvert mumbled.
“Where is dear Ellis?” Cassidy’s mother asked.
“Still snoring in his bed, no doubt, Mother. You know he rarely races the sun in rising,” Cassidy giggled.
“Well then, show me the gown you have had fitted, darling! Is it just too lovely for words?”
“The gown is lovely, but I fear I pale it dreadfully,” Cassidy said, linking arms with her mother and walking into the house. Mason and her father followed closely behind them, and somehow the soothing hum of their low, masculine voices void of anger as they conversed was very comforting to her.
Chapter Nine
As Cassidy watched her mother flitter hither and thither about her betrothal ball gown, delightedly gasping at its beauty, an odd trembling began within her bosom. A farce. That was all it was. The entire ball, the betrothal, a farce to make the world think that Mason Carlisle had actually chosen for himself the girl he would wed. Would people realize it for certain? Undoubtedly there would be speculation. Would Mason act aloof and disapproving toward her before all of society as he did always? Or would he find compassion enough for her in his soul to play the part of the doting fiancé?
“Cassidy? Are you listening, darling?” her mother questioned. “I asked you how you intend to dress your hair tomorrow night.”
“I…ah…I suppose I’ll wait until I’ve dressed and then let Katie decide,” Cassidy fumbled.
“What is it, darling? The gown is gorgeous! It will become you like no other you have owned. You’ll stun the entire assembly!”
“Do you think so, Mother? Do you think the entire assembly will approve of me? For I care not for anyone’s approval if one certain person in attendance is indifferent to my existence.” Cassidy felt the tears welling in her eyes and wished with all her being that the terrible, twisting emptiness that tore at her heart each time she thought of Mason would cease to torture her so.
“Darling, Mason is not indifferent to you. He’s just…just proud and afraid,” Cylia said softly, hugging her daughter.
“Afraid of what, Mother? Whatever on this earth could strike fear into a man such as he?” For a fleeting moment she remembered the look of near panic that had given itself to Mason’s face at the cliffs earlier.
“Oh, you would be surprised at what can strike fear into a man’s soul. No threatening danger, not even impending death, can strike terror in a man like a woman can.”
“Why will you not tell me, Mother?” Cassidy pleaded, not heeding her mother’s words. “Why can’t you give me some sort of knowledge as to what brought you and Father to barter marriage between myself and Mason with the Carlisles? I feel as if I’m walking blindly to the very edge of my existence and shall fall off into nothingness lest someone explain to me my purpose.”
“Oh, my darling!” Cylia cooed softly. “You’ll never, never know how hard it has been for me to keep this from you. But…but…none of us feel that the time is right yet to reveal all. I…I hate keeping it from you, but I fear you would misread our intentions if you were to know now. You must know your promise of happiness. You must! Otherwise, a far worse suspicion than you own now will eat at your dreams.” Cylia sighed heavily and continued, “Cassidy, I…I…I understand your being upset with us. But please, try to realize our position. We did not want you to grow up with the heavy burden of this responsibility weighing on your shoulders always. It—”
“As Mason had to do?” Cassidy offered reproachfully.
Cylia sighed heavily. “I hear the scolding in your voice, darling…but, yes, exactly. We did not want you to have the worry heavy upon your mind for so long.”
Cassidy could feel anger rising within her bosom. It seemed to swell like the winds before a great storm. Yet she understood her mother’s point of view, however warped it was in reality. “But the burden is all the greater, all the more painful now, Mother. For had I known…had I been allowed to know him before he simply appeared at dinner one day, despising and resenting me…had I known, then perhaps I would have been able to…able to…”
“What are you trying to say, Cass?”
Suddenly Cassidy’s emotions—anger, frustration, and hurt—erupted all at once. Tears burst from her eyes, and her voice cracked with the strength of her feelings. She spoke, at long last, aloud to her mother what her mind and soul had been wanting to scream for weeks.
“I’ve had no chance to win him, Mother! Had I known all these long years…had I been allowed to see him, to have him see me…then perhaps I could’ve won him for myself! As it stands now, he despises and resents me, and I will never win his love! I will never win even his approval, for I feel he blames his fate on me.”
Cylia’s eyes widened with astounded understanding, and she whispered, “You…you mean to tell me that you love him so desperately already?”
Cassidy winced at the words as if someone had only just cut her flesh with a rough-bladed knife. “How could any woman not love him, Mother? He’s all that a man should be—strong, intelligent, capable of great compassion. He owns a wit about him that is unique, though circumstance has made me unable to often witness it firsthand. He is handsome, desirable, passionate.”
“No man is as perfect as that, Cassidy,” her mother reminded.
“No, indeed. And I would not want a man who was. In truth, it is his imperfections that deem him perfect to me. But now he’ll never belong to me…not fully as I desire him to. He’ll ever resent me for unwillingly forcing his life into a direction that
he would have more gladly run from than accept.”
“I don’t believe that, Cass. He seems already to have formed a very strong attachment to you. In fact, if I must speak it plainly, I believe that he—”
“Do not speak the like of untruth such as that to me, Mother! For you are not I. You’ve not been here where I stand, have not felt his frustration and anger…and…” Cassidy struggled for the words to describe what she felt, for at that moment she realized she was very uncertain of what name to call Mason’s emotion toward her. It seemed no longer to be anger and resentment, nor did it seem that of indifference and acceptance. “Why did you not tell me before, Mother? Why? Why was I not given the chance to win him?”
“You miss the point, Cass. You’ve already won him, for Mason Carlisle would marry no woman he did not want to marry. He will be your husband of his own will, Cass, of his own choice and desire…and no one else’s.”
“Would you have been happy, Mother, with Father as your husband only? ‘Husband’ is such a general word these days. Marry a man, and he is your husband. He can hate and despise you like the worst of pestilence, but so long as you are legally married to him, he is your husband. Father loves you, Mother. I’m not blind. You wouldn’t be so happy with him if he did not.”
“What you are saying, daughter…is that you want Mason for your lover. That you want his love more than you want his name.”
Cassidy was puzzled by the sudden look of understanding and somehow regret evident on her mother’s face. Cylia turned from her slightly and seemed to be looking off into some long-ago past and pain.
“I understand, more than you can know, exactly what you are feeling, for it was arranged that I marry your father. And, oh, how desperately I loved him. From the day we first met, I loved him. I knew I would never love another…that he would be my life’s breath forevermore.”
“But that was different, Mother. Father loved you at once. It is quite different.”
“No,” Cylia muttered. “You are wrong, Cass.”
Cassidy frowned as she continued to stare at her mother. Finally, after long moments of silence, Cylia spoke again. “Your father loved another when we were betrothed. In many ways, the situation was very like yours is now, only worse, for your father indeed loved another.” She shook her head for a moment as if she’d only just realized the existence of some great irony. “He didn’t love me at first, though I don’t believe that he resented me…for he knew it was not my fault he was stripped from the arms of the woman he most wanted in the world and served up to me like the sacrificial lamb. But he did not love me. He was my husband, yes. Legally we were bound. But his heart was not mine for some time after we were married.”
Cylia looked to Cassidy, large tears brimming in her eyes as she smiled understandingly. Cassidy could only stand stricken silent, for she knew nothing of what her mother was telling her.
“Your father is a uniquely honorable man, Cassidy. For though he played the part of the attentive husband in public, he did not make means to do so in private. He did not move to touch me for the first six months we were married. Truly,” she added when Cassidy’s expression turned to that of skepticism. “I nearly went mad, for I felt that would he at least find me desirable physically…then I might have some small hope of winning his heart for my own. I know now that he did desire me…did secret a passion for me even in those first months. And this in itself created heartache for him, for he felt weak and disloyal to his lost love for feeling so toward me.”
Cylia let several tears escape as she smiled and shook her head at the memories, dabbing gently at her eyes. “Hmm,” she breathed somewhat resentfully. “The torment I endured at the hands…or rather sharpened tongues of the elite gossips of society. It was rumored that I was barren, for I had not yet succeeded in conceiving progeny for Calvert Shea. Everyone knew it could not possibly be the fault of the most sought-after young man in society. No one knew that my inability to carry a child was due to the fact that my husband was battling between duty to a lost love and duty to the family blood line.”
Cylia turned and smiled warmly at Cassidy. “And then, one night…yes, a full six months after we had been married, your father burst into my bedchamber late one night. I remember I was very frightened, for he looked angry and so disheveled. Furthermore, he stood before me in nothing but his trousers, and for a young girl in my day this was quite an alarming experience.”
Cassidy swallowed hard, thinking to herself that this was an alarming experience to any young woman.
“I remember I sat up in my bed and pulled my quilt tightly about my shoulders, saying simply, ‘Whatever is the matter, Calvert?’ He was battling still with his duties, and he strode determinedly toward my bed and dropped to his knees on the floor beside it. ‘I am the lowest of men, Cylia,’ he began. I shall never forget his words of that night, for they were my salvation in many ways. ‘I am the worst of men, Cylia. For it is thus that I confess to you that she is gone from my mind! That I have abandoned her so quickly for love of only you. Think you now, What weak man is this before me? For I do love you, Cylia. Think you, What man is this to burst in upon me in the middle of the night and tell me that after long months of seeming indifference he truly loves me? After all this…all this through which I have put you, Cylia…I now, coward that I am, come to you this night confessing these things to you. How weak you must perceive me to be,’ he said. ‘But the truth of it is that you have driven her from my mind, my beauty. Am I thus fickle in your eyes, Cylia? I have kept myself from you these many and long months for I feared you would think me shallow, untrustworthy, and insincere had I come to you with my feelings before now.’”
Cassidy could not speak. What could be said? Her mother smiled and reached forth, caressing her daughter’s cheek affectionately. “These things…this confession has astonished you, has it not, darling?” she whispered. “But I knew that very night that your father spoke the truth. That his love for me was true and sincere, for the effervescent passion…the immediateness and sincerity of it…that was instantly and mutually between us that night was testimony to me of the truth of his words. Though the excruciating hurt of those first months still hides away in the depths of my memory…it has been healed by truth and love.”
“Why did you keep this secret from me, Mother? Why didn’t you ever speak of this to me before?” Cassidy was truly amazed at the story her mother told.
“What reason, until now, did I have to tell it to you, darling? For your father and I have loved each other desperately for these many years past, since long before you and Ellis were born. I only tell it to you now as comfort, for I feel your situation with Mason is quite the opposite of what mine was,” Cylia explained.
“How so, Mother? Mason has loved another and gives her up merely for sake of duty. Though I admit to you now that I don’t believe he will keep himself from me for six months following our marriage—for I’ve no doubt his duty compels him to determine to further the family blood line with expedience—I don’t see how the situation differs so greatly. Only that I may not win my love as you did.”
Again the warmth of her mother’s smile struck a small chord of comfort somehow in Cassidy’s mind as she spoke. “You’ve already won him, Cassidy. Mason Carlisle—and I’ve known him these many years, watched him grow, seen his strong will…his irreproachable determination—Mason Carlisle would never have sacrificed a woman he loved to marry another.”
“His duty alone would be cause enough for him—” Cassidy began.
“Yes. Cause enough for him to fulfill his first duty had he truly loved this woman. His first duty having been fulfilling a promise made to her. Mason does not love Gabrielle, Cassidy.” Cassidy gasped at her mother’s knowledge of Gabrielle. “Though he may in actuality love her, in a manner…he’s not in love with her. Furthermore,” and she cast her eyes downward a moment guiltily, “Devonna and I are good friends, and we have spoken about…I will tell you this—that your father never laid hands on me,
in any manner, prior to our kiss before the minister on the day we were wed. And…and from what Devonna and I have observed, my darling…you have already tasted of your lover’s kiss.”
Cassidy was suddenly embarrassed that her mother should suspect that she had been held warmly in Mason’s strong arms—that she had been kissed, however briefly and lightly, quite blissfully by him. Still, she did not want her mother to be deceived. “He…he only kissed me briefly in teasing. He…he does not desire more from me, Mother.”
“Poppycock, my darling,” her mother exclaimed with a giggle and a smile. “Fish rot and poppycock.” Cylia walked to the looking glass that hung nearby on the wall. As she pushed gently at her hair, ascertaining its need of repinning, she added, “Think on his kiss, Cass. Think on it a while longer, and then tell me the same, if you can, in truth.”
A moment of hope glimmered brightly within Cassidy, but only a moment. Mason was a young, handsome, and very masculine man. Cassidy knew herself to be no ogre. It was merely his physical desires needing quenching that wove the appearance of passion toward her. That insipid red dress, Cassidy thought to herself.
With a sigh and a heavy desire to change the subject of conversation, Cassidy smiled at her mother and said, “I never before imagined you at my age and desperately in love with Father, Mother.”
“Yes, though it’s hard to believe as you look upon me now,” Cylia began, “I was once young and not too unpleasant to look upon.”
“I never doubted that for a moment, Mother,” Cassidy assured her. “Let us quit this dismal chatter and go down for breakfast. Perhaps all the commotion of your arrival has stirred even his royal highness, Prince Ellis.”
“Not the quaking of the earth in destruction could rouse Ellis before he is ready, my love,” Cassidy’s mother told her, smiling.
Cassidy nodded, knowing full well the truth of her mother’s observation.
Breakfast was laid out perfectly, as always. “It’s lovely, Syndle,” Devonna commented upon entering the morning room.
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