Shackles of Honor

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Mason, I love you,” she whispered. But only after he’d closed the door behind him.

  

  Cassidy crept soundlessly into the east parlor. Somehow she still couldn’t believe the great LaMont Carlisle was gone from the earth. Could not believe he’d left so many who loved him so entirely. The wake brought many people to pay their respects to LaMont, Devonna, and Mason. Cassidy had never been able to say her own good-byes. Nor did she believe that her own father would understand her affection for the man she’d known for such a short time were he to witness her desire to say farewell. But LaMont Carlisle had known her soul. At once he had known it. And she knew he had known Mason’s. And he, he alone, told the truth of it all—of why and how she had been chosen for Mason. She felt his loss so greatly and knew that the loss someday of her own parents would be much more the horror. She wondered if she could endure it when the time came.

  Her mother and father were deeply devastated at the loss. It was obvious as they looked on in mournful disbelief at his wake. They left, saddened and in pain, as soon as it concluded.

  Now, quietly and with great trepidation, Cassidy walked softly to stand next to the casket, which would hold LaMont Carlisle’s remains while they took their long journey to join the earth where his mortal body would rest come the morrow.

  “Oh, you cannot be gone,” she whispered aloud, startling herself, “for you look as you did only just days ago, as you were resting and I came upon you for reassuring conversation.”

  She reached out and placed her small, warm hand over his large and very cold, cold one that lay atop his other and on his very, very still breast. The breast that would no longer rise and fall with the breath of life.

  “But no more will dear Jillian wait for company now,” she added, trying to comfort her own grief. “And they have each other. Though their pain is too great, at this moment, for them to be as grateful as they truly will be…they do have each other.” This too, the knowledge that Devonna and Mason had each other, helped to comfort her, for all the worse LaMont’s death would be were one left alone. Still, the tears spilled excessively from her tired eyes as she looked upon his face.

  “But then,” she sobbed quietly, “but then, how could you leave me?”

  Lovingly she brushed his cool forehead with the back of her hand. Suddenly, a footstep behind her gave cause that she should gasp and whirl around, expecting to find death at her own door.

  But there stood no hooded figure come to carry her to heaven. It was Mason who approached, the lines of fatigue and grief blatant on his face, giving him the look of having aged several years in the space of only a few days.

  “I…I am sorry, sir,” she began to apologize. “Only it was so…there were so many here this evening that I had no opportunity of my own to…to…” Frantically she brushed the tears on her cheeks with the backs of her hands, humiliated to have been found in such a weakened state as this. Mason had seen not but weak people all the day.

  “He could be no happier than to find you at his side were he looking down this night,” he mumbled quietly. He moved past her to stand himself looking down at his father’s body. “I’ll be glad when the deed is done tomorrow. It pains me insufferably to see him as such.”

  “I know,” she whispered in understanding. “I’ll leave you to your peace now,” she added, turning to go. But his words stopped her, and she looked back to him.

  “He loved you instantly, you know.” She nodded her head, surprised in his words, yet knowing them to be true. He raised a hand and took her chin gently in it, and his grief was all the more evident in his dark eyes as he said, “He called Mother his dove, for he loved her beyond anything in the world. And Jill, for she was his silken-tendriled darling. And even your mother, for he felt her to be the best of women. He counted them as treasures from heaven. But he meant it differently for you. For you were his last dove. His final hope.”

  Cassidy turned her head from him as tears flooded her cheeks once more. “What hope was I to him?” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

  “All his hope. All his hope. All his beautiful hope for the future. His hope for Mother’s happiness in you, her friend…and daughter. In you, the bearer of his posterity for her to love. His hope in your strength to persevere. His hope for me.” Raising her head from her hands, Cassidy looked to Mason as he gazed down grievously at his father again. “He died in hopeful contentment in you…his last dove.”

  “He was unwise to place such hopes in me,” she whispered.

  “My father was never unwise,” Mason nearly growled, turning to glare at her disapprovingly. “Many of the aspirations he had in you he lived to see fulfilled…and those giving assurance that all would follow.” Then, turning once more to his father, he begged, “I ask a moment with him now. You are right in that there were too many others today at his side for those of us closest to him to have opportunity.”

  She nodded silently and left him to his mourning. She cried bitter tears of loss for hours until the exertion finally led her to sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was done. LaMont Carlisle was laid to rest, Cassidy’s parents and brother had returned to Terrill once more, and life, deemed necessary, began anew adhering to routine and schedule. Mason was again gone each morning when Cassidy rose. Lady Carlisle was depressed without question, and often Cassidy’s attempts at cheering her left them both sobbing bitterly in each other’s embrace.

  Mason was ever scowling, ever working, writing correspondence, checking on properties, going to Haggarty on business. It was rare that he was home, even for a meal. And when he was, he had changed toward Cassidy. The relationship they had begun to develop just prior to his father’s death seemed to have been completely obliterated. He hardly looked at her and never blessed her with a smile or a wink. His company was never her own. Never did she find him reading in the library late at night—only once, and it was he that came upon her. It was in his study where he spent his hours at home working diligently on his own affairs.

  Lady Carlisle had sent Cassidy to Mason’s study to retrieve a pen and ink that she might compose a letter to a friend. Cassidy entered the study apprehensively. She had never before been within it. The study was marvelous, for it was filled with his essence—the scent of him, his belongings. Carefully she looked about, trying to make a memory of every inch of her lover’s lair. Then, hastening to his desk, lest she were caught by Havroneck or Mason himself, she reached for an inkwell and pen sitting thereon. But something caught her eye, a parchment lying on the floor near the desk. It was handwritten and slightly crumpled. Picking it up, she read aloud quietly.

  In the late hour of night, I watch you…sleeping. Seemingly at peace…sleeping peacefully.

  The moonlight through yon frosted window streams…falling softly…softly falling ’cross your beloved face…caressing your hair.

  And I whisper, “Would that I were the moonlight and could sleep in such a space.”

  Sleep in your hair, softer than dove feathers…fragrant as Heaven.

  What price would my will but pay to touch such silken tresses? To feel, just for a moment, such priceless silk ’gainst my cheek?

  To inhale such a perfume as is held in your hair?

  “Would that I were the moonlight…and could sleep in such a space.”

  My unheard whisper floats through the moonlit air…the air that you breathe. The very air giving you life.

  My whisper, my words, my own exhalant filling your lungs…but not your mind…

  And exiting once more having become your sweetened breath.

  “Would that I were the moonlight,” I whisper again, as I lean near to your mouth and respire the sweet warmth of your sigh…

  Wishing that such could fill my lungs forever.

  For sweeter than life is the knowledge that you live…that you breathe. Breathe sweet, warm respiration so near to me.

  And being near to you, as I am now…unnoticed as you slumber…the moonlight i
lluminates the smooth beauty of your neck

  …of your face. Of one shoulder that has slipped from the diaphanous cloth of your gown.

  And I whisper, “Would that I were the moonlight,” and could so caress the ethereal elegance that is your skin.

  To feel such perfect satin against my palm would certainly find me a man glad to die for such experience.

  You stir then…and I am feared to be found out. So still am I…as you turn your face toward me,

  the scintillation of your eyes yet hidden, as you sleep on.

  And I study the beauty that is your face. Desperate to touch you and daring not to do it.

  And with the moonlight looking on, taking from you what I cannot, in your peaceful slumber you moisten your lips.

  Your lips, red as the berry, and ever more sweet.

  Would that I were the moonlight and could taste your lips.

  Would that I could sip their craved confection and mingle their so recently replenished moisture with that of my own mouth.

  You stir once more, turning from me as your own hand, graceful and small,

  slowly caresses the downy swell upon which your flushed cheek rests.

  And I whisper, “Would that I were the moonlight and could sleep in such a space.”

  And I leave you to your sleep…to your breathing…to your beauty…

  to the moonlight, which loves you and holds you in soft embrace each night.

  Would that I were the moonlight and could sleep in such a space. Infinitely.

  “What have you there?”

  The booming sound of his voice gave Cassidy cause to gasp. She whirled around to face him, holding the verse in her hands at her back. “I…I…” she stammered.

  “Have you been going through my personal documents?” he bellowed angrily, striding quickly to his desk and shuffling hurriedly through the papers strewn hither and thither.

  “No. I…I…” she began.

  “What hide you there?” he asked, pointing to her and motioning for her to turn around.

  “It fell from your desk to the floor, and I merely—”

  Taking her arm rather tightly, he snatched the paper from her hand and looked at it, his frown deepening. “What are you looking for?” he accused. His wrath was all too evident in his eyes.

  “Nothing! I only came in for an inkwell for your mother, and that paper had slipped to the floor. I only meant to return it to its place,” Cassidy defended.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “You’ve read it then,” he stated rather than asked.

  “I…did not intend to at first…but something in it caught my eye and—”

  “Did it occur to you that perhaps this was something I wished to keep to myself?” He was completely enraged and battling to keep his wits about him. His chest rose and fell heavily, and his eyes nearly burned into her soul.

  “You’ve a gift of poetic verse. For I was—” she began.

  Instantly he tossed the paper back onto his desk and shouted, “You believe that I should’ve written this?”

  “It is in a masculine hand. A descriptive poem of a woman who—”

  “It is a boyish thought scribbled in a fatigued and weakened moment!” he barked. “I was merely sorting through some old…papers and came across it. Here!” he snarled more harshly. “If you’re so inclined to think it poetic and palatable…you may have it—as proof that I was once as nonsensical as any other boy!” Snatching the paper from his desk, he pushed it roughly into her hands.

  “No boy ever wrote such verse,” Cassidy mumbled. Was this poem she held in her hand yet another testament of the enduring love that Mason once held or even now held for Gabrielle? There was no other explanation for its existence. No explanation for his anger over having found her with it.

  “I see that I am to lose every whit of my privacy heretowith!” he boomed, pointing toward the door in a gesture of dismissing her.

  Lowering her head, Cassidy hurried in the direction of the door. Pausing for a moment before leaving him, she added, “Thank you for letting me keep this, for I know that I was not its intended recipient.”

  He only sighed with irritation and turned from her.

  

  These unpleasant episodes seemed to be Cassidy’s only experiences with Mason since the death of his father. Still, this latest meeting, harsh and hateful as it seemed, haunted her. For the poem was unique, very passionate—not unlike Mason’s kiss, as she so clearly remembered it. Cassidy would often read it, hidden away in a box of sentimental tokens in her room, and reflect on it. Had he written it when he was away at sea and thinking on Gabrielle? Had he written it more recently? It spoke of love and of longing.

  Does he still feel the heartache he felt when he penned the verse? she wondered. The poem was a small comfort to her, for it was of him in his own hand, of his heart…that heart with which he had once loved.

  Even Mathias seemed to notice the change in his master, though the dog was the one soul on earth, other than Lady Carlisle, that Mason still acknowledged. Dear Mathias. The sweet-spirited dog seemed to sense his master’s abandonment of his betrothed, for he had taken to following Cassidy about as he did Mason when his master was at home. Often she would awaken to find him sitting at the foot of her bed, panting contentedly as he looked at her, apparently waiting for her to awaken.

  Katie was ever comforting as well, but she was busy with her new responsibilities as wife, and even Lord LaMont Carlisle’s death had not seemed to dampen her joy in having her Thomas.

  Cassidy wrote to Ellis and begged him to visit her, but she was disappointed in so many ways upon receiving a letter from him one day. Havroneck had handed it to her immediately, and she paused just outside Lady Carlisle’s sitting room to read the disappointment.

  Darling Cass,

  Sweet sister of mine…how I wish that I could dash to your side in your time of such great trial and loneliness! Alas, Father has me, in fact, sequestered on business here in Haggarty. There are other reasons that I cannot now attend you. I feel as a coward, a failure to you! Please know that I will come as soon as I am allowed.

  I suppose Lord Carlisle’s death and the title and responsibility falling to Mason has urged Father to be certain that I am ready to do the same, should similar hellish events transpire in our family. I think it’s why he is so demanding upon me at this time.

  So I will away to you as soon as possible. And if it will help your mind to be occupied to have something of Ellis to ponder…I admit it to you now…my eye has been captured by a member of your tender gender. Who? you ask. Ah, dear brat…that is for me to know!

  Soon at your side, darling.

  Love Ever,

  Ellis

  Her disappointment and loneliness were deep as she refolded the letter and tucked it in the pocket of her dress. Intending to ignore Mason’s command and set out on a walk alone and without notifying anyone, Cassidy paused as she heard Devonna’s voice coming from the sitting room. Devonna’s and then Mason’s. Carefully she slipped closer to the door until she could hear them more plainly. Wincing at her own lack of virtue yet again, she listened.

  “I know you’re frightened, son,” Devonna urged kindly. “But…but you must understand that a woman—especially when she is out of her own element…alone, as she perceives it—a woman needs certain reassurances…certain strengths that begin to evade her the longer the situation draws itself out.”

  “I’m frightened of nothing, Mother. And well you should know that,” Mason growled. “Besides that fact, I’ve no time for…for fulfilling these needs of my strength that you perceive the girl having. Father’s responsibilities—”

  “Oh, hang your father’s responsibilities, Mason!” the woman suddenly exclaimed. “They’re your excuse now. You hide yourself away from the girl, hoping that if you keep yourself so intent on your business affairs, you will not be tempted to—”

  “I’m tempted at nothing!” he shouted.

  “Do not dare to rai
se your voice to me in such a manner, Mason,” Devonna scolded firmly and in a completely controlled intonation. “You will hear me out…for I do know you perhaps better than you know yourself. I’ve touched a sensitive, tender place with you…else you would never have spoken so disrespectfully to me. I know that your temperament is often quick…but to raise your voice to me as such in this given situation is unacceptable. So you grit your teeth and hold your tongue as tightly as you can, and let me finish!”

  Mason was silent.

  Devonna sighed heavily and began in a lowered voice, “She is alone here, Mason. Alone save for the company of you. You…the most attractive and sought-after of men. You, from whom women compete for favor as if you were the very last man available to them on this earth. You, who have strength in being familiar with your surroundings and acquaintances. You, who she still feels resents her and with whom she is hopelessly and incurably in love.”

  Cassidy gasped audibly, clamping her hand quickly over her mouth save she should give herself away. She was betrayed! How could Lady Carlisle reveal her knowledge of Cassidy’s love for her son? How?

  “That is ridiculous, Mother. She—”

  “Hear me out, Mason. Do not insult me by assuming that I am naive to the situation in which we all find ourselves!” Devonna inhaled deeply and then continued, “You’ve held her in the strength and protection of your arms, have you not? I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve seen in your eyes a passion that—”

  “I do not see what that—” Mason interrupted angrily.

  “Do not interrupt your mother. You have made love to her, and I say to you, bravo for doing something right where the girl is concerned!”

  “I cannot believe my ears! What is the point of this conversation, Mother?” he nearly shouted. “I’ve business to attend.”