“We will find our way through any difficulties,” she said aloud. “Whatever I have is yours, and Father will understand how right this marriage is once he sees us together.”
“Cass, this will be a difficult interview. Your father is very angry.”
Cass. His Cass. The nickname now sang through her.
“My father is always angry at the Yorks. It is part of who he believes he is. Truly, Soren, he is not a bad man. But he is a fighter. He needs something to push against, and right now, that is more me than it is you. He’s angry that I did not obey him. He feels I betrayed him.”
“All the more reason for you to stay here.”
“I’m not a coward. And if I avoid him, we will never reconcile. No, I must go. I also have some things to collect at the house. All I have to wear is what is in my valise. I need my books and clothing.” And the rest of her jewelry. She had a set of sapphires that matched her garnets in size. They were truly beautiful and very precious. “Where will I have it all sent?”
“I suppose to Pentreath.”
“I’m not going there,” she reminded him.
“Eventually you will. It is our family seat.”
“You told me we would live in London.”
He looked at her as if she was a child.
“Do you not remember?” she prodded.
“Yes.”
Cassandra reached for her gloves and began pulling them on. “Then I don’t want my things sent to Cornwall.”
“Except right now, we don’t have a house in London.”
“We will purchase one.”
He picked up her hat and offered it to her, a sign he agreed she would accompany him. “If we can,” he said. “It would be nice.” He set his hat on his head.
“When we were in the coach, you didn’t offer any objections.”
“I’m not about to discuss anything of this nature in front of others. Especially Bainhurst. And to be honest, Cassandra, I know you are to inherit your mother’s fortune at marriage, but I don’t know how much that is.”
“Forty thousand pounds.”
Soren appeared to choke. “Forty thousand pounds?” he repeated as if uncertain he’d heard correctly. “Forty?”
“Are you displeased?”
“I’m overjoyed,” he said. “That is anincrediblefortune. You are certain of the amount?”
“Of course, I am.” In fact, she was a bit annoyed at the question. “When I was sixteen, my grandfather’s solicitor, Mr. Calder, called upon me and Father. He insisted on telling me the terms of my grandfather’s will. The money that would have gone to my mother is to come to me when I marry. In fact, my father had not yet given me my mother’s jewelry, like these pearls, and Mr. Calder insisted he do so in his presence because those should have been mine outright.”
Soren took a moment to digest this information, his brow concerned. “Had your grandfather recently passed?”
“Oh, no, he’d been dead for a few years. He died when I was fourteen.”
“Who had charge of the money?”
“My father.”
“Has he kept your money separate?”
Cassandra frowned. “From what?”
