Something sharp and jagged had scooped a crater inside his breastbone. Her request was reasonable; it was only right that he give her an answer to the promise he had defaulted on.
The shame flared hot and bright. Even worse, the cutting guilt of having not thought of Isabella in so many months cut him to the bone.
Would I have ignored her for years, knowing she believed my promise?
“Cassian?” Cecilia’s small voice trailed in from the doorway.
His eyes flickered to her, and his gut lurched with emotion. Then back to the letter on the table, and a conflicting feeling punched straight through his chest—and something inside him shattered into a thousand pieces.
The memories blasted through him. Buried him in a darkness worse than that of the week he’d been trapped inside the outbuilding. Pain and frustration almost suffocated him.
Pushing from the table, he brushed past her. “I can’t do this now.”
She spun on her slippers, and her confused question came at his back the moment before he could round a corner. “Do what?”
Overwhelmed, he headed out to the outbuilding, craving the handle of his sledgehammer in his hand. He wanted to break something and mirror the sharp feeling cutting through his gut.
He strode quickly to the tool shed, found the hammer, and headed to the ramshackle building outside. Starting from one of the back doors, he began to slam the hammer into rotten wood and crumbling walls.
I’m a cad.
I’m a coward.
Maybe father was right, I am a nuisance.
Caught up in the demons in his head, he didn’t realize the wall he was slamming the hammer into was a load-bearing wall near the door. He swung with all his might—and something wentcrack. To his horror, a fissure swiftly splintered the wall and raced up the ceiling, spider-cracking out until—
He lurched away as the overhead came crashing down, the rubble clogging the doorway far enough that only a foot and a half was left of the door’s space.
Instantly, his lungs seized, and horrible memories of being crammed into small spaces rammed into his chest and had him staggering back.
The room was small, and the mirrored wall was not too far. His back slid down it, and he lifted his chin and tried to breathe the panic away. But his chest grew too tight, and the clammy fingers of past pain gripped his nape.
The darkness closed in at once. And he allowed it to overtake him.
It was almost an hour before Cecilia decided to go and find Cassian while holding a lamp. Maybe he had calmed down by that time, and he could explain what he meant byI can’t do this now.
His words were haunting her as she trod through the darkness and the tall, dew-misted grass. She worried about Cassian; was the looming trip getting to him? Was he worried about going off to the Continent, leaving his life behind, and simply wandering around like a vagabond?
Surely, someone who knew all the luxuries of wealth would be taken aback at having less?
She got to the front door of the outbuilding, but it was locked. Circling around to one of the three other backdoors, she found two shuttered but the third open.
“Strange,” she muttered, “there is no noise coming from inside. Has he left?”
Stepping inside, she jerked to a stop at a pile of rubble in the doorway, a gaping hole above where the entablaturehad crumbled to nothing.
Fear leaped into her heart. “Cassian? Cassian, are you behind here?!” she yelled out. “Cassian, are you here at all? Please, if you are, shout out to me!”
Nothing came from behind the wall or rubble, and she began to fear the worst. Had it come down to crush him? Was he under some of this brickwork and rotten wood?
“Cassian!” She barely held back the panicked screech bubbling in her throat. “Are you there? Are you hurt?!”
For another moment, no sound came from inside, and her heart began to roar in her ears. “Cassian! Please—” she reached out to yank a rock, but leaped away when stones made loose by the movement began to tumble and pitch towards her.
Oh god.Was he injured? Had the rubble landed on him? Was his body broken? God forbid something had impaled him? Was he dying beyond that wall of rubble?
“CASSIAN!” She screamed, with her knees feeling weak. “Are you in here!”
