Shackles of Honor

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  Cassidy looked to Mason, who raised his eyes for only a moment to look at her, the cold expression that was so familiar to her freezing her confidence at once.

  “But before Mason presents his individual gift,” Lord Carlisle continued, “there is the issue of—Devonna…” Cassidy watched as the great lady reached into the hidden pocket of her gown and retrieved a small box, handing it to her son. Likewise, the great man, so ill and bedridden, reached back beneath his pillow and withdrew a similar, only larger box. “For you, my love. My one and only true and eternal love,” he whispered as he opened the box to reveal a spectacularly jeweled ring set in black silk. Next to it lay a large, gold, oval-shaped locket. Tenderly he placed the ring, which appeared to be more of a band of diamonds and sapphires, on Devonna’s finger. Then, quite unexpectedly, he closed the jewel case and tucked it beneath his pillow. “The other is for another occasion, my love,” he whispered.

  “Oh, LaMont,” Devonna whispered, studying the ring an awed moment before embracing him lovingly. “It was not necessary, you know, darling.”

  “Yes, it was. It is always the way. And even if it were not…you must always wear my ring, Dev,” the man told her. Then, turning his attention to Mason once more, he nodded.

  Cassidy’s heart began to pound wildly with a sort of sickened nervousness as he raised his eyes to her. His gaze was intent as he spoke. “It is tradition in the Carlisle family that you wear the Carlisle ring.” Opening the box, Mason held before her a very delicately carved band of gold inset with an artistically arranged pattern of rubies and diamonds. The design of the gems was not unlike that of some exotic flower. “It was crafted by an exceptionally talented jeweler over one hundred and twenty years ago for the bride taken by my great-great-great-grandfather. She in turn gave it to her son, that he might present it to his bride. And his bride, in turn, imparted it to her son, who in turn placed it on the finger of his bride and so forth. Now my mother gives it to me to place on your finger, signifying that you will one day be mistress of Carlisle. That you will one day gift it to your own son.”

  Mason reached out to take Cassidy’s hand, but she pulled it back, looking to Devonna. He inhaled a deeply impatient breath.

  “But it’s yours, milady! I cannot possibly take it from you. I wouldn’t feel…” Cassidy stammered.

  “It was LaMont’s ring, darling,” Devonna said, a radiant smile on her lovely face. “The token of the Carlisle line.” There was no trace of regret whatsoever about her. “Now it is Mason’s. And you are Mason’s. I give it freely and without any hesitation, darling, for it’s a thing. And a thing only. It is its significance that I adored, and I still have that, do I not?”

  But LaMont wanted Devonna, Cassidy thought to herself. “But…” she stammered.

  “Darling,” Devonna began, gracefully rising from her place beside her husband and going to Cassidy. Cassidy felt her own mother’s hand at her shoulder as well. “Things are not so completely different here as you think. I too denied the ring from LaMont’s mother—much for the same reasons, all the same reasons that you do now. But it’s a token of fidelity. Of promise. Of strength. And I give it freely and most joyously to Mason to give to you now.”

  It’s not nearly the same as your LaMont giving it to you, Cassidy thought again.

  Then LaMont chuckled, though Mason’s eyes were cold and nearly angry. Everyone looked to the great man as he laughed wholeheartedly a moment before speaking to Cassidy. “Just be glad, my newest dove, that my son is not the hotheaded rascal that I was!” Opening his robes then, he exposed his still powerfully defined chest, pointing to a spot just to the left of his heart.

  Devonna giggled. “In his determination to profess his sincere and endless love for me…the fool had my name tattooed across his breast!”

  Cassidy’s eyes widened as she did indeed see there, very clearly written over Lord Carlisle’s heart, the name of Devonna.

  “Nicely written, that one,” Ellis accidentally mumbled out loud.

  “Indeed,” Lord Shea agreed.

  “I’ve forbidden Mason to do anything so ridiculous and corruptive to his body, my dove,” LaMont chuckled. “But I’m sure he will let you prove your claim on him somehow.”

  Mason still said nothing, only reached forward and took Cassidy’s hand once more, raised it, and placed the ring firmly on her left ring finger. There seemed to be an instantaneous, fierce, wild sensation that began where the ring sat and moved out and about Cassidy’s entire body. For in that very instant, Mason’s gesture, whether done out of duty or desire, was finalizing. He meant to marry her. She was assured of it now. He did not release her hand but, placing her palm against his own, interlaced their fingers, saying, “It is done. Cassidy Bliss Carlisle, you will be the wife and possession of Mason LaMont Carlisle. And I, in turn, will be the husband and possession of Cassidy Bliss Carlisle. Claim me how you will.”

  Cassidy’s mind was whirling. What words could she possibly say to match Mason’s traditionally poignant ones? Then she felt her father slip something into her free hand, and she raised it to her own eyes, recognizing it at once. It was a gold band approximately half an inch in width, closely, but not exactly, the duplicate of the one her father had always worn on his left wrist. He had once told her that it was his most cherished of earthly possessions. She had never wondered at its significance until that moment when her mother’s gasp of surprise broke the quiet silence in the room. Obviously her mother had been ignorant of the nature of the gift, which her father had provided.

  “I give you this then—as a manifestation that I accept you and you have said that you accept me.” Unlacing their fingers, she unlatched the band, for it was hinged in the middle, and, her hands trembling violently, placed it on Mason’s wrist, latching it finally. For a moment Mason’s eyes lingered on Cylia, who nodded and smiled, and again Cassidy knew that secrets were kept from her for whatever reasons.

  “And what of the engagement present, Mason?” Devonna asked. “It’s as yet unknown to any of us. Will you give it to your beauty now?”

  “But…I thought…” Cassidy began. The ring. Was not the ring her gift from him? Panic entered her heart once more as Cassidy looked quickly to Mason, wondering if he would indeed explain at length the gift he had already given her, his benevolent gift to Thomas and Katie.

  “I will,” he said unexpectedly, his eyes still penetrating her soul as they looked at her. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and produced another jewel box, only this one rectangular in shape. He held it out in offering to her.

  “But,” Cassidy began to argue. Her objection was interrupted by a stern expression of warning from Mason, and she knew he did not want her to mention their earlier discussion or the result thereof.

  “Go on, darling. It’s meant for you and you alone,” Devonna prodded lovingly. Still Cassidy paused in reaching for the case that Mason offered her.

  So, with an impatient sigh, Mason himself opened the box, and everyone, including Cassidy, gasped at what lay within. There, suspended on the loveliest of gold chains, was a plate of gold that boasted finely crafted trim, which surrounded a cluster of rubies and diamonds set in the same pattern as the ring Mason had only moments before placed on her finger. The entire setting could be no more than an inch in diameter, but it sparkled and glistened like a million stars in the night sky.

  “Beautiful, Mason! It is simply exquisite!” Devonna exclaimed in a whisper.

  “Whoever did you find to craft it for you, my boy?” LaMont inquired.

  “I will add that one to the rest of the secrets I own,” Mason mumbled significantly. “Is it acceptable to you then?” he inquired of Cassidy.

  She felt unable to speak for a moment. Never, never had she imagined that he would gift her with something so obviously well thought out, not to mention extravagant. “Of…of course,” she finally sputtered awkwardly. He grinned mischievously, and she knew at once he was feeling quite triumphant and amused at astonishing her
so.

  “Then you further accept me,” he spoke, removing the necklace from its box. He moved to stand behind her. Her body thrilled when his fingers fumbled with the clasp as he secured it about her neck, and she felt the cold of the gold plate touch her skin just below the hollow of her throat. The warmth of his hands and of his breath was exhilarating on her neck. Cassidy could not keep the goose pimples from running rapidly over her arms at the feel. After he fastened the clasp, he went to stand before her once more. He reached forth and took the cluster that hung from the chain in his fingertips, tugging at it gently to eliminate the slack. Then, he very slowly laid the necklace’s treasure against her skin once more.

  “A kiss then. To seal the promise,” Ellis announced from behind her. Cassidy turned her head and glared at him, horrified that her own brother would make such a suggestion.

  “Yes! Yes!” Devonna chimed in. “Seal it that way, Mason darling.”

  Cassidy watched Mason’s chest rise and fall heavily as he strove to contain his indignant anger. Yet he looked to his father, who nodded encouragingly, and then to Cassidy’s father, saying, “Sir?”

  “By all means, my boy. Permission given,” Cassidy’s father chuckled.

  Mason turned his attention to Cassidy. The fire in his eyes was not that of anger but of what she could not fathom. Cassidy felt her mother’s hand at the small of her back, urging her daughter forward and into the arms of the man that would be her husband.

  An odd expression of triumph overtook Mason’s features as he looked in turn to each person in the room. “A kiss you shall have then. All of you. The kiss of promise of what will be. Unquestionably.”

  Before Cassidy could act, she was bound tightly in his arms, and his mouth hovered a breath from her own. Cassidy knew he did not intend the sweet, quick kiss that was often acquainted with such engagement ceremonies. Rather, he intended to prove to all in the room that he, and only he, still controlled his actions, if not his destiny. Upon seeing the determination in his eyes, she decided not to struggle or pull away from him. But when, in the next instant, his mouth was heatedly thorough as he kissed hers, her knees feeling oddly weak at the taste of it, she clung to his shirt with her small hands for support, savoring and returning his affection. Even standing in his father’s chamber, her father, her own mother, and his not a foot from them, his kiss sent her senses blazing. Oh, how completely she loved him. How deeply rich was her heart’s need for his love in return. How wonderful was his kiss! How magnificently warm and moist was the flavor of it.

  “Here, here! Well done, my man!” Ellis’s amused voice called out suddenly. “Give them all what for!”

  With one final, demanding gesture of the kiss, Mason released Cassidy and looked to his father. “It is done. Of my own free will, Father. And of hers,” he said, his voice deep and booming like his father’s.

  “Well done at that, Mason,” LaMont chuckled as he caught sight of Cassidy steadying herself for a moment on her mother’s arm. “Now, all of you young people go back about your business. Devonna, Calvert, Cylia, and I must sit together awhile.”

  Ellis took Cassidy’s arm, and they left the room together, followed by Mason. After Mason closed the door to his father’s chamber, Ellis put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, done, my man. I always say…if you’re going to do something, do it thoroughly!”

  “My father would not have accepted anything less than thoroughness,” Mason told him, grinning triumphantly.

  Ellis chuckled, kissed Cassidy quickly on the cheek, and very sarcastically said, “I leave you two lovebirds about your business then.” And with merry amusement in his eyes, he was away.

  All day Cassidy had awaited the opportunity to thank Mason for his kindness to Katie and Thomas. All day she had struggled and fidgeted, going over and over in her mind what she would say to him, how she would articulate her thanks and great admiration. And now, it was all for naught. She could think of nothing so well-spoken to say to him, for now there were the jewels on her finger and at her throat, finely crafted at great expense. How then to thank him?

  “It looks rather like,” Mason mused out loud, “a shackle one might find on a condemned man in the bowels of the darkest prison, does it not?” He made a tight fist, turning it this way and that as he studied the gold band at his wrist.

  Cassidy was hurt that he would view her gift as such. “It’s like the one worn by my father. I…it means a great deal to him. He values it above all other worldly possessions,” she stammered.

  “And,” Mason said, his eyes searching hers probingly, “do you know why it is that it is his greatest treasure?” he asked her.

  “No,” was the only answer she could give him, for she did not know the true answer. “No.”

  “Well, Bliss,” he whispered triumphantly, “I do.”

  Cassidy felt humiliated and vexed simultaneously. Why was it that he should know so many things that she did not? Why should Mason hold a knowledge of her father that even she did not hold?

  “Tell me then,” she demanded. “If you know, then tell me.”

  “It’s not my place,” he mocked. “But I will wear my shackle…for it’s very significant, is it not? And you will wear the Carlisle ring like she who went before you. And you will own the fine jewel that I’ve placed about your neck this night. And Katie and Thomas will wed and live happily ever after. In that you may find comfort.”

  Gasping, Cassidy buried her hurt of the negative remark about the bracelet and remembered her intention. “I…I do thank you so deeply for that benevolent act, sir. I—”

  “Do not thank me for doing what should have been done long ago. You shouldn’t have had to bring their situation to my attention. I should have been aware of it already,” he mumbled, his tone that of self-scolding.

  Unconsciously, in an effort to cause him to realize the importance of his action, Cassidy took the sleeve of his shirt tightly in her fist. “You cannot be expected to know everything about the personal situations of everyone under your management. People prefer to keep their personal and private lives as just that…personal and private. You had no way of knowing of their dilemma.”

  “Tom didn’t feel he could come to me, approach me, and discuss his need of higher position and wage. Am I so unapproachable?” he asked. The frown of sincerity astounded Cassidy. Of course he was unapproachable! He was breathtaking to look upon, in addition to the radiance about him of pure perfection and dominance.

  “Of course!” she answered rather disgustedly. “Quit feigning ignorance. It does not become you,” she told him, only then realizing that she still held tightly to his shirt. She released him at once and made busy smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt.

  “What does become me, then, Bliss?” he asked, his voice low and mocking in tone.

  He was baiting her. Cassidy knew from the intonation in his speech, the amused glint in his eyes.

  “Not one thing,” she answered nonchalantly.

  Immediately she looked up at him when he burst into uncharacteristic laughter. Cassidy stood in awe! Never had she seen him react so. His smile was broad, displaying his perfectly straight, dazzlingly white teeth. His eyes narrowed with mirth, his entire countenance was different. Cassidy had a brief vision appear before her eyes of Mason as a youth—strong, rebellious, roughened, adorned in the jewelry of pirate booty.

  “You send me to bed in merriment, Bliss. I cannot remember the last thing said to me that struck me so amusing!” Shaking his head, still chuckling quietly, he moved past her and down the corridor toward his own chamber.

  Once inside her own chamber, Cassidy closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as several tears trickled down her face. “Oh, Mason,” she whispered to herself. His name felt like a warm confection on her lips. “Please find something in me to love. Take me in your arms and hold me close to you that I may ever know you are real and not some beloved dream from which I shall awaken one day, finding nothing in life worth living for.” She drift
ed to sleep eventually with the name of “Mason” on her lips and the memory of his kiss thereupon.

  

  Morning after morning Cassidy awoke to find Mason gone. Always he was off somewhere to do business of some sort. Her mother and father lingered at Carlisle for a few days longer than Ellis’s week. But once they had gone, Cassidy did not feel the first stages of panic and loneliness as she had before. Could it be that she was beginning to accept her place at Carlisle?

  The trip to Carlisle had been hard on Cassidy’s father. He needed to be home healing in his own bed, and she understood the need for her mother to accompany him. Ellis had business to attend to as well, and Cassidy understood as she watched Ellis ride away early one morning that the illness of Mason’s father had put great responsibility on his son’s shoulders. That is why Ellis had more time of his own, more time for her, she realized. For her father was, even with his leg splinted, still able to tend to most of the business at hand.

  Katie and Tom wed as planned. The ceremony was delightful, and their love for one another was so very evident that it had sent Cassidy into weeping immediately. She was ashamed of her instant weeping because deep within she knew it spawned from selfishness at her own lot in not having Mason’s love, rather than intense joy for Katie and her Tom.

  Mason attended the wedding, of course, as did his mother. Cassidy had sat between them in the Carlisle pew of the little country chapel, and when she had begun to weep, Mason had rather indifferently handed her his handkerchief. Dabbing at her tears with it, her deeply discouraged emotions only intensified as she breathed in the smell of him that clung to the handkerchief. “MLC” were the initials perfectly embroidered on one corner of the cloth, and Cassidy ran her thumb lovingly over them once, glancing up to ensure that Mason did not see her do so.