And Tristan had saved his life.
Sidney could never forget that.
They’d been drunk, taking a shortcut through Ford Park to another brothel, when thieves had come upon them. Sidney remembered four foes, but someone had caught him from behind with a cudgel. When he woke up, Tristan had fought them off alone and took a knife wound to the side for his efforts. Tristan had then, somehow, got them both safely to Mrs. Mooney’s House of Playful Pleasures, where they were promptly tended to by the house doctor.
Sidney didn’t remember most of the night, but he remembered the slash to Tristan’s side as Mr. Rose changed the bandage the next morning. Tristan swore him to secrecy, and Sidney never told a soul about that night.
He closed his eyes behind the paper. The way Cassie made him feel, like a boy in his first rush of love, seemed obvious to everyone but Cassie. He did his best to stay away. To keep the relationship between them as calm as a duck pond, but every day the strain grew.
Every day she appeared more lovely, and keeping his distance, keeping his admiration from his gaze, seemed insurmountable.
Thankfully, he’d soon be traveling to Star Frost to visit his cousin. Physical distance is what he needed. Tristan would never forgive him for lusting after his sister. As a brother, he didn’t show it, but Tristan adored Cassie. She was the perfect mix of minx and sweet, according to Tristan. He loved to toy with her, but when alone, Tristan had nothing but praise for Cassie, and no man would ever measure up to Tristan’s standards for her.
Not even Sidney. Sidney assumed. Every lout who had dared to propose to Cassie after her season, Tristan had politely warned away. With polite threats.
Sidney was sure that Tristan had never considered Sidney a threat, and Sidney wanted to keep it that way. Cassie had been labeled an incomparable beauty during her season, and Tristan had come to blows more than a few times with drunken youths who couldn’t hold their liquor, or their lascivious tongues, regarding Cassie. Sidney had done his fair share of punches too.
In Cassie’s honor.
But deep down, he knew it was jealousy.
He wanted to be the one holding her, swinging her around the dance floor, but he’d tethered himself to country reels and cotillions to keep the distance between them.
To keep the peace between him and Tristan.
Cassie huffed in annoyance, and Sidney lowered his paper just enough to see her over the top.
She glared at her brother, infuriated by her exclusion from the smoking room. The blue of her dress made her eyes shimmer, even in the hazy room. Her cheeks flagged with pink, and his mouth went dry. She radiated energy, restrained aggression toward her brother, and a fieriness that never ceased to amaze him, as if streams of fire could shoot from her manicured nails.
She was a goddess, and he, a helpless mortal man, doomed to worship her from afar.
“You better run away before Father catches you in here. Mother will smell the smoke on your dress,” Tristan said to her.
She moved to stand in the open French doors. Light haloed around her curls, setting them on fire with glowing red light. His lungs froze. The paper slipped from his hands; thankfully, she wasn’t looking at him.
“While you wile away your afternoon, I’m taking charity baskets to the vicarage. It was supposed to be you, but Mother says you’re too busy. I see doing absolutely nothing is taking much of your time and energy.”
Tristan snorted. “I’m preparing for the masquerade by resting. As Viscount Rivenhall and future Earl of Summers, I’m quite the catch. Also, I’m supposed to look after you tonight. That will be difficult enough without being”—he yawned—“tired, to boot.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“I’ll take you,” Sidney blurted. His heart hammered as her gaze met his, and uncertainty flashed in her eyes. She blushed.
“Don’t be so noble,” Tristan said. “She’s safe to go on her own.”
“There are twenty charity baskets,” Cassie argued. “I can’t carry them all myself.”
“Take the cart,” Tristan returned.
She flinched, her gaze jumping back to her brother. “You know I can’t drive the cart.”
“A groom—”
Sidney rose from his seat. “I’ll drive you.”
He saw that wince of fear, and it pierced his gut. He recalled the frightful day she’d turned the cart on herself. The way she’d sobbed in her father’s arms as the horse was put down. She’d broken her arm, but they don’t shoot girls for broken arms. Only horses who will never walk again. Sidney knew she’d never forgiven herself, and she never drove the cart again.
“A groom will suffice,” Tristan said in exasperation.
“Then I should do just as well,” Sidney returned. “Besides, I need the fresh air, and I’m bored.”
Tristan scoffed. “How can you be bored?”
“You’re boring,” Cassie said.
Sidney chuckled. “Shall we?” His stomach did a flip as he offered his arm to her.
Cassie gathered her warmest cloak and gloves and met Sidney at the front of the house. Her stomach did a nervous tremble as he handed her up to the seat, but that could be because horse-drawn carts still frightened her. The day she turned over the cart, she’d been ten and seven. She’d driven the cart many times with Old Bill leading the way. Perhaps she’d been overconfident, perhaps she’d been driving too fast or the turn too sharp, but over they’d gone, flipping and sliding down a small hill. She still had nightmares of Old Bill’s screams, and her own, as her arm turned the wrong way, and she was stuck for what felt like an eternity.
Farmer Walter and his son had come upon her, and her father was fetched. But Old Bill would never leave that spot again. Farmer Walter had mercifully shot him, and he was buried there at the bottom of that hill.
Cassie’s arm had been set by the parish surgeon. She could hardly recall her own pain, but she could still hear Old Bill’s in his piercing cry, and she carried her guilt like a scar. A wound that never healed right.
“Thank you,” she said as Sidney handed her up.
“It’s no problem. We’d been sitting there for some time, and I know how you fear the cart.”
Cassie was silent as he came around the other side and climbed up. He flicked the reins and then rolled down the drive.
“Tristan thinks I just need to get over it, but I can’t.”
“Understandable,” Sidney replied.
“Is it, though? Could it be as simple as driving the cart again, like he says? I don’t see how that would erase…” She shivered.
“Erase what?”
Cassie swallowed the ball of painful memories rising in her throat. “What happened. I’d forget it if I could, but I don’t see how.”
“Time has a way of dulling memories, but you shouldn’t force yourself to do something uncomfortable. I don’t see how driving a cart will significantly better your life.”
“I used to enjoy it. I felt…capable. But I can’t let what happened, ever happen again.”
“Those things are out of your control.”
“That is exactly how I felt. Out of control, and a poor creature died because of it. It was my fault it happened.”