He held up a warning hand. “Whoa. I’m trying to understand your feelings.”
“You can’t. Everyone likes you.”
“They like you, too.”
“That is a lie and we both know it.”
Cassandra hated arguing with him. He thought she was being ridiculous. He believedhewas making the best decision.
But it wasn’t one she wanted. Every fiber of her being rebelled against it. She had to make him understand. Not only was he her husband, he was now the only family she had.
“Soren, when I’m in the country, I feel as if I’ve been buried alive.”
“Did you feel that way at Camberly’s?”
“At the house party? Three hours from London? You know it isn’t the same.”
“Cass, you are—”
“Cassandra.” The word exploded out of her.
Her best intentions—to let him call her whatever he liked as long as he was happy—were suddenly a denial of herself. Her hands had balled into fists. “I prefer to be called Cassandra. I’ve said this before. You ignore me.”
She waited, ready for him to belittle her desires.
A tense silence settled between them.
He spoke. “I must return to Pentreath.”
“I will stay here.”
“You can’t. There is not enough money. But the most important reason for you coming with me is that you are my wife.”
“Then why don’t you want to please me? Why would you want me to be sounhappy?”
“Why must you becoddled?”
That charge upset her. “Coddled?” She warned him back with a raised hand. “I’ve just saved you from ruin and I don’t receive a say concerning my future?”
“No,” he answered. “I want you with me and I must return to Cornwall. I must return to my son.”
That was not an answer she could have anticipated.
The world seemed to reel a moment in her mind and when it righted itself, she looked to him, believing she’d misunderstood. “Son?”
“I was married before.”
That news shocked her even more. She moved away from him. There was a chair by the desk next to the window. She sat, folding her hands in her lap, and leaned back against the hard wood. It was solid, unlike anything she was feeling right now.
Soren had a son. He’d been married. “Why didn’t anyone tell me these things? Why didn’t you?”
“Cassandra,” he said, her name both a plea and an impatient demand for her to be sensible.
But she wasn’t feeling particularly sensible at the moment. “You had time. I danced with you—”
“You actually were trying to do everything in your power not to dance with me,” he reminded her.
She conceded the point. “But you could have mentioned a son.”
