She did not move from the bed. “Is it time already?”
Cassian craned his head over his shoulder as he stepped into his trousers. “It's almost five, yes, the ship leaves at seven.”
Sitting up, Cecilia raked her hand through her tangled hair and asked, “Would you want me to see you off?”
While donning his shirt, Cassian turned and let the lapels hang loose. He crossed to the bed in three large strides and sat on the edge. His hand reached for her but dropped halfway, leaving him only to gaze over her, and the expression in his eyes was one she could not name.
It almost looked like…regret. But for what?
“Stay here,” he murmured instead. “It won’t change anything if you come or not.”
Cecilia swallowed, and her voice was faint, “Is there anything that can get you to stay?”
This time, he did cup her cheek. “…No, sweetheart, there is nothing here for me.”
That cut her deeply.Not even me?
Cassian’s eyelids fell to half-mast while his thumb traced over her cheekbone. Once again, as with the evening before, he appeared conflicted.
“That is not what you were going to say,” she challenged him weakly. “What was your first thought?”
Cassian softly shook his head, as if to say,how can you see through me so easily?The slow stroke of his thumb over her cheek felt both endearing and torturous. “You know, to date, you have not told me all the things you wished to do in bed.”
“That’s because I never had to,” she mumbled, while wrapping her arms about her middle and holding the sheets to her chest. “You seemed to know what I wanted without me telling you.”
“Is there anything you want me to do now?”
“How about two things?”
“What’s the first?” he asked.
“Kiss me goodbye?”
He pulled her in, and the first touch of their mouths was gentle, the touch tender and velvet soft. It did not take long for the kiss to catch fire, and even with the heat overflowing her senses, the connection was emotional and wrapped a part of her heart in a blanket of loving warmth.
Heart overflowing, she kissed him back with all the love she no longer cared to hold back. When he eventually drew away, she saw wonder reflected in his smoky gaze.
A horse neighed in the courtyard, and his head whipped to the window overlooking the gardens. “What is the second one?” he asked.
She breathed. “Come back to me.”
His mouth parted, but he shut it quietly and only offered her a smile. Taking her hand, he kissed her knuckles, “Later on today, go and open the folio on my desk. Be happy for me, Cecilia.”
Five minutes later, with a last kiss, she watched his back vanish out the door.
Cassian hovered at the bottom of the steps outside Fitzroy Manor, looking up at the windows where Cecilia still lay in bed.
Behind him, the carriage waited. His trunks were loaded, the annulment papers signed and tucked in his case. Everything was ready. He needed only to climb in and leave. It should have been simple.
Except his feet wouldn’t move.
She was up there in their bed, warm and perhaps sleeping, curled into his pillow the way she’d been when he’d kissed her temples minutes ago. For ten minutes he had stood outside the door, before he’d forced himself to walk away.
He could go back. The thought whispered through him, seductive and poisonous. Climb those stairs. Slip into bed beside her. Pretend he hadn’t just signed away their marriage. Pretend he was capable of staying.
But he wasn’t. He could never be. Not with the fear instilled within him, screaming at him. Not when he believedshe’dabandon him instead. Like everyone always did.
Nine years old, locked in a shed for four days while his father traveled and the staff assumed he’d gone too. Four days of darkness and hunger and the bone-deep realization that no one was coming. He’d been forgotten. When they’d finally found him, something in him had shifted.
