“You’re entitled to your opinion. Having been the one persecuted to the point of madness, I happen to side with your father in this instance.” She stared out of the window, too, watching two men consumed with rage act like children. “But you’re right. I would have married Lord Murray had a villain not opened my eyes. I would have been lonely and miserable, forever mourning a lost love.” She straightened and stepped back from the window. “It might be difficult for you to believe, but I have always loved you. To the depths of my soul. But I am tired of playing the victim. Tired of being the monster who ruined your life. Sick to the stomach of being the obedient daughter hoping for evidence of her parent’s love.”
She turned and marched towards the bedchamber door.
“Where are you going? You’ll prove too much of a distraction if you stand in the courtyard. Your father will use you to gain an advantage.”
Weary of the whole damned affair, she left the room and descended the stairs as if her ghosts were snatching at her heels. The hall was deserted. Those men who had slept off their night of drunken tomfoolery had their noses pressed to the windowpanes, too, while placing bets on the bout.
“The sword is an extension of oneself,” Lord Tregarth said as he attacked her father with skill and precision. “Every blow I deliver comes from the heart.”
Her father was not as fit as Tregarth, nowhere near as agile on his feet. It didn’t help that the thick morning mist shrouded the men’s legs up to their knees, so one had no hope of gauging a man’s movements from his footwork.
Tregarth attacked again in a sequence of moves set to trick one’s opponent into making a mistake. Her father struggled against the force of the offensive. He slipped on the flagstones, managed to remain standing, but Tregarth delivered a well-timed swipe to the face.
“Aargh!” Her father’s cry rent the air. He dropped his sword, and it clattered on the flagstones. A thin red line marred his cheek. Drops of blood trickled from the wound.
Tregarth straightened. “That is for the cut my son bears on his cheek. From now on, every vile thing you do to him, I shall visit on you tenfold.” The lord lowered his sword and stepped back.
She couldn’t bear to witness her father’s shame and disgrace and so raised the hood on her cloak and hurried along the narrow passageway leading to St James’ Street.
It was a five-minute walk to Jermyn Street, but the need to escape came upon her, and so she took to her feet and fled. The sound of booted steps pounding the pavement sent her heart shooting up to her throat.
“Cassandra! Wait!” Benedict called, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop running. “Cassandra!”
She ran until her lungs burned, until she could barely catch her breath, until her husband closed the gap between them and grabbed her arm.
Benedict whipped her around to face him. “Did you not hear me call out to you?”
“I—I heard you.” She heaved and tried to calm her frantic heart. Tears sprang from nowhere. Not like the tiny droplets heralding the first sign of rain. Huge drops. Huge drops that turned to streaming rivulets running down her cold cheeks.
Benedict drew her into his arms and held her close. “Forgive me. I never meant to cause you distress. I’m a hypocrite who cannot follow his own blasted advice.”
She sobbed, sobbed almost as hard as she did the day she thought she’d lost Benedict forever. But the pain in her chest was nowhere near as intense. Nothing would ever match the heart-wrenching agony she’d experienced that day.
“You spoke the truth,” she mumbled somewhere into his cravat. “And I would rather hear your honest opinion than hear lies.”
“The ridiculous thing is I no longer care what happened in the past.” Muscular arms enveloped her in a warm cocoon. “For years, I continued our bitter war with words when I could have defused the situation, helped to calm our ragged emotions.”
Cassandra looked up at him. “Every harsh word I spoke came from the pain of losing you. I only agreed to marry Lord Murray because I hoped to escape my father’s clutches.” Even then, she was preoccupied with trying to please the heartless earl. “But I could never have loved Murray, not the way I love you.”
He brushed away the tendrils of hair stuck to her wet cheeks. “I know. I feel the depth of your love in every kiss. When I enter your body, you hold me as if you never want to let go.”
“I never want to be without you again. All this trauma, all these lies and secrets, I’m frightened of what they will reveal. I’m scared our parents’ hatred will drive a wedge between us. God, Benedict, I’m terrified of waking up one morning to find this has all been a twisted dream, a cruel nightmare. To find you still despise me, still blame me for ruining everything.”
He cupped her cheeks, wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Never, not when you rejected my suit, not when you hurled your abuse, did I despise you.” He bent his head and kissed her mouth. “I have loved you from the first moment we met. Nothing will temper the love burning in my chest. I love you more now than I ever have. Let us return home, let me spend the rest of the day showing you just how much.”
A joyous euphoria flooded her body. “You still love me?” The sudden surge of emotion left her unsteady on her feet.
A smile touched his delectable lips. “I’m so in love with you I have to stop myself from dancing in the street.”
She swallowed down tears of happiness. “We never had a chance to waltz at your father’s ball. Perhaps you might like to dance with me now.”
Benedict scanned their surroundings. “You wish to waltz here?”
Costermongers were pushing handcarts along the muddy thoroughfare. A coach passed by, the roof laden with luggage. Two gentlemen stumbled out of Boodle’s Gentlemen’s Club, hats askew, and couldn’t decide which way to walk home.
“I want to dance with my husband. When I’m with you, no one else exists.”
And so that’s what they did. They danced the waltz on St James’ Street, laughed so hard they mistimed their steps, stopped only to steal a quick kiss. But kissing Benedict always fired lust in her veins, and so they raced home, desperate to find all the possible ways to express their devotion.