“You broke the rules, Nina,” Cassian ground out. He then looked to Orion. “You were told to stay away.”
“I am no longer a child to be told where I can and cannot go by my mother,” Orion argued. “Nor am I sorry that I returned.”
“It was prohibited,” Cassian reminded him.
“Why?” Orion countered, his voice growing louder. It was much different than the tone he used with her. “Why is it dangerous for me to visit?”
Nina looked from Cassian to Orion and back again. They were both growing angry. She didn’t have much experience with arguments, only petty bickering amongst the women. This was not petty but serious.
“Please stop!” she yelled. “I will have him here.” She raised her arm and pointed to her brother. “You will not tell his mother for if you do, I will tell her the secrets I know of you.”
He glared at her, but Nina would make good on her threat. Lord and Lady Wharton would not be happy to learn that Cassian had been the lover to the Nereids when he returned from university. It had ended, and the nereids had pursued Cassian, but any interaction had also been forbidden and could have seen her brother removed from Nightshade Manor.
“You would not,” he dared her.
“Yes, I would.”
She held her ground, faced her brother and looked him in the eye so that he knew she was serious. She was so tired of being treated as a child and it was time that she made decisions for herself and for what she wanted. “He will visit as often as he wishes, and you will say nothing!”
Cassian stared at her a little longer, as if he were trying to determine if her threat was real, which it most certainly was. After the longest of moments, he finally nodded, then glared at Orion.
Why did Cassian suddenly seem not to like Orion? They were friends before and Cassian had promised Nina that Orion was not a threat.
“What if he harms us?” Cressida asked with distrust.
Cassian relaxed. “He will not. On that you have my promise. I worry only for my sister and not in the same manner you fear from the distant past.”
“You are certain?” Zephyra asked.
“Yes. I am completely confident. However, I am counting on the five of you to act as chaperones.”
“We are only friends,” Nina insisted.
“You are still my innocent sister and should not be alone with a gentleman.”
“We are not in London,” she argued. She knew how matters would be if they were anywhere else. But they were in a secret grove, and she was not a miss who could be ruined in the eyes of Society.
“It matters not the location. A miss should always have a chaperone.”
She looked to the dryads. “Does this mean you will be hovering about each time Orion visits, like you are now.”
“You may not see us, but we will be here.” Basilia’s eyes twinkled with warning, intrigue, and humor. It was an odd combination that Nina didn’t understand but decided not to think on it too long.
“Then we are in agreement,” she said to her brother. “You will say nothing, and neither will I.”
Cassian drew in a deep breath and glared down at her. “We are,” he uttered through clenched teeth and then stormed off.
As much as she wished to hope that this was the end of the conversation, Nina knew that it was not and anticipated a very unpleasant exchange when he returned to the cottage after having dined at the mansion.
Eight
Orion remained with Nina for only so long as he dared, learning what he could of her and her life. There wasn’t much else of note once she had come to live in the grove other than she had learned to hide in the trees, but that was all. She’d simply existed and learned all that she could of the outside world without ever experiencing it. As the hour neared when he feared that his mother may return to Nightshade Manor, he took his leave and promised to visit Nina the next day.
He did not know how, but he would find a way to sneak into the grove and back out whenever possible and decided that he would need assistance in doing so. He didn’t dare ask Cassian, as the man would just as soon blacken his eye as offer help.
As his male cousins did not know of the grove, and he wasn’t going to tell them, that left his sister and female cousins.
Did he dare trust Petra?
