“This is most unfortunate,” her mother said.
“Indeed,” her father added.
“You love him,” Tristan stated. “What experience do you have with love to know it from infatuation?”
Cassie stiffened. “What experience do you have, dearest brother? Have you ever loved a woman longer than a night?”
“Cassandra!” her father barked. “I’ll not have such filth coming from your mouth.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “How am I the shame of the family for wanting one man when he is like a tomcat?”
Tristan smirked. “’Tis the way of things.”
“It’s bloody unfair.”
“Cassandra!” Her father stood, shoving back his chair.
“Leave us,” her mother said.
The men turned to her in confusion.
“I wish to speak to my daughter alone. There is nothing more that either of you need say that could be helpful. What is done is done. This is a matter of the heart now and a conversation between mother and daughter.”
Once her father and brother stormed off, her mother waved her to her chair and a hot breakfast was placed before her.
“What more is there to say?” Cassie asked.
“Eat first. Heavy discussion is best done on a full stomach.”
Cassie took a grateful sip of tea, the warm brew soothing her turbulent insides. “Thank you. I feel chilled through and through.”
Her mother nodded. “Do you want to marry him? One thing I always swore was that my daughter would have a choice in her husband.”
Cassie raised a brow. “Did you?”
“Yes, but it took some arguing. My father wanted me to marry someone else.”
“How did you meet Father?”
“At a ball. I’d had a terrible argument with my mother and father. I was supposed to meet their suitor of choice, and I was reluctant, to say the least. I can’t even remember his name now. Somehow, your father charmed me from my mother’s side, and in one dance, I knew.”
Cassie sat up straighter. “Knew what?”
“He was exactly the man I wanted.”
Cassie blinked. “Then you understand.”
Her mother nodded, her eyes glistening with what Cassie suspected was not anguish but the happy tears of memories. “I do. I would have done anything to marry him. But I didn’t have to. He had a better title. My parents were instantly supportive. And we would have supported you and Sidney if we’d known. You could have come to me.”
“If I got the reaction I was hoping for, I would have. But I didn’t know if he returned my feelings,” she swallowed, “and now I never will.”
“Do you think he cares for someone else?”
Cassie froze. Did he? Oh, God. She had no way of knowing. She never thought—oh no. He never spoke if it, but why would he? He’d be private and stoic as he was with most things. Now she felt even worse.
Tears pricked her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Her mother reached across the table and touched her hand. “There are many ways for love to be born. It may take some time and work, but the best things always do. You will need your strength and determination not to give up. You have an abundance of both those things. I have faith in you.”
Cassie smiled her thanks, but inside her heart crumbled again. She wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for days. “If he does love someone, I can’t marry him. I can’t bear to—to take love away from someone else. Please don’t force him.”
“We aren’t. He was insistent from the start.”
“He was?”
“He is very honorable.”
Damn his honor. She wanted his love.
Chapter 7
Sidney finally made it to London, dusty, exhausted, and guilt ridden. He left his rented horse with a groom, to be returned to its registered stable, and entered his family home on shaky legs. He went straight to his room, intent on sleeping for a thousand years. Tomorrow… He’d beg for an audience with the Bishop of Canterbury.
Only a skeletal staff remained in the London residence. The others would have moved to the country house or sent home for the holiday season. He might be alone, but his staff didn’t have to be. They had families, whereas he had no one. He was a lonely bachelor, orphaned at the age of seventeen when an illness took both his parents. He had no siblings, but he did have cousins. He should have his aunt and uncle and their passel of children live here instead of him. There were so many wasted rooms that could be filled with people, conversation, laughter.
Like Cassie’s home. Perhaps that is why he liked visiting so much. Her home was never lonely. Even with just two adult children, their household seemed to bustle with life and color.
Cassie provided the most color. She filled every room she entered with vigor, brightening every corner like a candle. What would she look like here, walking the darkened halls? He didn’t see the need to spend on candles and oil for empty rooms.
Maybe he’d become cheap. Only purchasing the bare necessities. Would Cassie change that? She’d never come across as spoiled, but she wanted for nothing. What would she make of these walls, the wood paneling, green and brown cushions and sofas, paintings of dead people? Some he knew, some he did not. To Sidney, the house was a moratorium of the past. He hadn’t changed a thing, and neither had his mother. It was old, and it smelled old. The smell used to be familiar and somewhat comforting but now… It was cold. Empty. Lonely.
Sidney considered his room. It was exactly as his parents had left it. He’d moved in and continued the tradition of stagnancy. His enormous bed was shrouded in heavy velvet curtains he never used. The large hearth was enough to warm the room on the few occasions he slept here.
Sidney was always moving, visiting friends, staying out all night, or staying at Tristan’s. He practically had a permanent room at Tristan’s.
How had the Summers terrace townhouse become more of a home to him than his actual home? And how was he to feel about taking Cassie from such a warm, comforting place to this mausoleum?
He laid back on the bed and covered his face. Would he ever stop feeling guilty?
As he lay there, his eyes grew heavy, his body weighted by sore muscles and bone-weary tiredness. He let sleep claim him. Drifting on a sea of feathers, sinking into the dark void until images appeared in his mind.
Visions of Cassie, no less.
She wore the green dress, peacock feathers nestled in her fallen hair. Red waves of silky locks fell around her shoulders. Entranced by her pagan beauty. Music filled his ears as he was pulled toward her by an invisible tether of need. He ached for her, and in this dream world where there were no repercussions, in fact, he was certain that no one existed except the two of them. He could have her, and he could tell her how much he wanted her without fear that baring his heart might bring down the world around him. The world where he wasn’t alone, where he had family again, in Tristan, in Lord and Lady Summers.
They filled a void he never knew he had, but it was always there, a dark force, a boundless emptiness. He hadn’t been close to his parents, but at least he’d had people to go home to until one day… They weren’t there at all.
But now Cassie would be. For all the years to come.