Her Assassin's Heart - Book 2

Chapter 3

Ok. First off, everybody check out the lovely cover up there made by the amazing Abontilao27!! Isn't it great?? I really love it!
Next, a reader pointed out that giving Ethan a Scottish accent would make him come to life even more. What do you guys think? Should I write in the accent or not? I had originally planned to do so, but I didn't want it to get on anybody's nerves or anything. I'd love to hear what you think!!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

    A soft breeze gently teased her, pulling gently at her hair. Biting her lip, she sighed softly and leaned her head back against the window frame, a thoughtful expression playing across her face. Suddenly raising a brow, she inspected the blade of the letter-opener in her hand for what seemed to be the thousandth time, her features hardening into a determined frown.
    Today marked the third week since they'd received the letter from Ethan and Lavinia, and Cassandra had been filled with excitement the whole time. Until today. She ground her teeth together, gripping the handle of the knife hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Where she would carry it, she didn't know, nor did she care at the moment. She would find a way, and if Lord Daniel Martin approached her again, no matter the circumstances, she would use it.
    She had been right to think Robert Smithers wouldn't be the only one, but she hadn't expected others to come so soon. Apparently, her appearance in the Drummond ballroom had reawakened a carnal desire for her in the upper-class men. Well, she intended to quench that desire. With a knife. If they wanted to come to her in a way befitting a wild dog on the streets, she would treat them as such. Perhaps the cold, hard steel of a blade would make them see the error of their ways.
    Tucking the knife into her pocket, she determined to have any of her future gowns made with an easily accessible sheath for it. She had originally considered going to her father, but what would be the point? Yes, he would be angry, but he couldn't protect her from every male member of the gentry. It would be best not to worry him needlessly. She could take care of herself.
    "Ah, there you are, Cassandra, dear." The sound of her mother's voice grated on her already strained nerves, and she sighed heavily. "I've been looking all over for you. Really, you shouldn't hide away from society, how will they see you if you don't show yourself?"
    "What if I don't want them to see me, Mamma?" Cassandra turned toward the door, raising a brow at her mother.
    "Nonsense. Don't be ridiculous, Cassandra. You must try to salvage your reputation—"
    "By flaunting myself like a deranged peacock?" Cassandra interrupted with a snort. "I'm tired of chasing after your dream for you, Mamma. I'm not going to be your little puppet anymore; I don't care what you say."
    "Cassandra Antrucha!" Lady Antrucha flared. "You are a thankless child! Were that I had never borne you into this world! Have I not taught you and instructed you in a way that will someday give you position and prestige? You have already half ruined things by letting that Brodi boy fall in love with your sister. Where was your head when that happened?"
    "My head?" Cassandra laughed mirthlessly. "My head was focused on the things you taught me to see. My attentions were absorbed with the young men you wanted me to encourage!"
    "Of course, but that doesn't mean you let one of them get away!" Her mother snapped. "What is your point in life if you aren't the center of everyone's existence? You used to be the most discussed young lady in the ton. You were so like your mother in her younger days, they said, and now, you've brought shame to me, and you're discussed in a much different way. I can hardly stand to go out anymore. If I had known what sort of daughter you would turn out to be, I would have given you to the gypsies. You may as well be one of them now for all I care about you."
    "I'm glad I'm not important to you anymore, Mamma." Cassandra drew herself upright, her eyes ablaze as she glared at the miserable excuse for a woman in front of her. "Because if I were, I might feel some obligation to do as you want me to do. I might even fall back into my old ways, but now," she shook her head. "I am completely and blessedly free."
    "You will never amount to anything without me at your side, showing you the proper way to go." Lady Antrucha sneered.
    "And do you know what? I've never been more glad." Cassandra bit back. "All my life, you've hovered over me, persistent that I be as admired as you were. If I didn't have at least a dozen suitors falling over themselves to get at me, I was somehow less than human in your eyes. I've spent far too long caring what you think about me, and because of that, I nearly lost the friendship I had with my sister, but you see, I'm nothing like you. Not anymore. I don't care what the ton thinks of me." Lady Antrucha's features turned deathly white, whether from rage or a pathetic attempt at sorrow, Cassandra didn't know, nor did she care.
    "Ungrateful, unkind child!" Her mother suddenly hissed, lowering her considerable bulk onto a nearby sofa. "I will have the fame and fortune, that should have been mine long ago, through you yet. Just wait and see. You'll regret this. I never did anything without you in mind. My innermost thoughts were reserved for you and your welfare, and this is how you treat me in repayment?!"
    "No, Mamma, you're mistaken. It wasn't me and my welfare that absorbed your time, it was your own. You care nothing for me but what you could gain, else you wouldn't have found it so easy to admonish me and threaten me in one breath." Cassandra arched a brow. As Lady Antrucha drew breath to reply, a light tap sounded on the door. "Come in." Cassandra called, her eyes never leaving her mother's wrathful expression.
    "Sorry to disturb you, milady." Eliza opened the door, dropping a quick curtsey. Cassandra noticed the maid's eyes were a-sparkle with some unspoken secret. "But Lord Antrucha asked me to tell you that Lady Lavinia and Lord Ethan are here."
    Cassandra's heart swelled, and a smile thrilled through her at the thought of her sister. Almost laughing with joy, she lifted her skirts and ran toward the door, pushing all thoughts of her mother out of her mind. A hand suddenly reached out, gripping her wrist tightly and stopping her before she made her exit. Her gaze fell onto the withered, claw-like hand gripping her, and then she raised her eyes, looking directly into her mother's hate-filled expression.
    "This isn't over yet, girl. Mark my words, you will regret this day!" Lady Antrucha hissed through gritted teeth.
    "I quite agree, Mamma." Cassandra wrenched her arm free with ease. "I'll regret that I didn't say more of what I thought of a spiteful, old hag whose own plot to force misery onto an innocent girl and the man she loved caved in on her and turned her into an even more sour wretch who had nothing better to do than attempt to intimidate her own daughter, but you see, Mamma, I'm far too much like you to be frightened at empty words. Unlike you, however, I intend to be happy in my life." Then, without another thought toward the woman in the drawing room, Cassandra raced out of the room.
    Pushing open the double front doors before the footmen could approach, she fairly flung herself onto the front steps. Ethan was giving Lavinia his hand as she stepped out of the coach, and then Lord Antrucha was enfolding his daughter in a loving embrace.
    Cassandra paused for a moment to give them some space, and standing there, she took in every change that had occurred in her sister since they'd last seen each other. Lavinia had closed her eyes, relishing the feel of her father's arms about her, and Cassandra could see that Scotland had made her sister beautiful in a way that the finer society of London would never notice. Her cheeks were rosy, her features were serene, and even more than that, she was completely free. Even looking at her, Cassandra could see that Lavinia had stepped out of her old box and become the woman she had always been meant to be.
    "Cassie!" Lavinia broke into a wide smile at the sight of her sister. Pushing away her thoughts, Cassandra folded her sister into a tight embrace.
    "I'm so glad to see you!" She laughed. "You must tell me everything!" She pulled away to look into Lavinia's sparkling, brown eyes.
    "That will take a good deal of time." Lavinia grinned brightly, and Cassandra thought she caught a hint of some secret her sister was hiding. The same secret, she thought, that had underlay the jovial tone in the letter they had received.
    "Ethan, do you mind if I steal your wife or borrow her until the dinner gong rings?" She turned to her brother-in-law who was clasping hands with her father.
    "If I did, I donnae imagine it would make much ay a difference tae ye. Sae, nae, I don't." Ethan grinned, but Cassandra was already pulling Lavinia through the large doors.
    "I can't tell you how glad I am you've come!" She said as she fairly dragged Lavinia up the stairs toward her old room. "There's so much to talk about." Pushing open the door, she stepped aside so her sister could enter first. The room was much the same as Lavinia had left it, but there was a second wardrobe. "Mamma wanted to empty it out to use for a guest room, but Papa said it was still your room, and he wanted it to be here whenever you came home again." Cassandra said softly, fingering the curtains of one of the windows.
    Lavinia smiled softly. "How is Mamma?" She asked after a moment. Cassandra scoffed.
    "Much the same as usual." She gritted her teeth, recalling her last encounter with Lady Antrucha. "Oh, Livy, how did you stand it before? She infuriates me now."
    "Oh, Roger, yes, put the bags there on the bed, Lady Cassandra and I will see to them." Lavinia's voice recalled Cassandra to the present, and she looked up to find two of the footmen carrying bags across the room toward the bed. "Thank you." Lavinia smiled warmly at them as they left. "How have you been since we last saw one another?" Lavinia's smile never wavered as she opened the bags laid out on the bed and began to unpack.
    "Well, I suppose." Cassandra frowned, her memory dancing across the last months. "There hasn't been much to do. I don't understand how I used to find life so full and busy."
    "It'll take time to adjust to the newness, but soon you'll be comfortably dancing through the routine you've made without a thought for the change you've undergone." Lavinia smiled.
    "Oh, Livy. I don't want that. I don't want comfort and quiet. I want to be shook up and thrown into confusion and. . .I don't just want to sit here going through some dull routine; I want adventure." A smile tugged at her lips.
    Lavinia laughed. "I forgot whom I was talking to for a moment. You never wanted to live quietly, but really, Cassie, I don't think you know what you're asking for. Ethan and I were thrown into adventure, and it's not always thrilling in a way that excites you." Lavinia raised a brow.
    "I don't care. I don't. I'd rather something happen than simply sit here doing nothing of importance. I've always wanted something more. For a while, I thought I was happy with all the attention the ton lavished upon me, but there's still something missing, Livy. I feel as though I haven't tasted life, as though I'm going to be left behind if I don't reach out and take what I can." Cassandra lowered herself onto the edge of the bed.
    "Cassie," Lavinia said slowly. "Life won't leave you behind. You just have to hang on for the ride. There's something in store for your future, but you can't rush it. The only advice I can give you without going out my depth is it's never profitable to worry about the future; you can't change it. Enjoy the life you have now, because when things change, for better or worse, you'll be stuck with that change, and there's likely nothing you'll regret more than wishing you were somewhere else doing something else."
    "Of course, you're right, but I can't help being impatient. I was never good at waiting." Cassandra sighed dropping her hands in her lap with resignation. "Now, we didn't come up here to talk about me," she raised a brow. "What have you been doing with yourself lately?"
    "Oh, heavens," Lavinia bit her lower lip. "It feels like it's been nine years instead of nine months since I was married. I've learned so much and—and done so much. Ethan and I have a little cottage in a village near the sea, and we have such good neighbors." Sighing, Lavinia sat on the bed, frowning gently.
    "Do you ever miss it here?" Cassandra said softly.
    "Miss it?" Lavinia looked up quickly. "I miss you and Papa, of course, but no, I can't say that I miss London. Life is so much simpler and more fulfilling in Scotland. Up there, I'm simply Mrs. Brodi, and no one cares that I spent years learning to proper mannerisms of a fine lady; none of that matters."
    "So Ethan has been good to you?"Cassandra queried.
    "Oh, Cassie, no man could be as good as he has been. He works tirelessly, constantly looking out for my best interests. He's been amazing. Life adjustments haven't been incredibly easy for either of us, but without him, I don't know where I'd be." Lavinia looked down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. "It's harder in some ways for him. The village people know of his family title and that he should have been a nobleman. They never speak of it, but they don't accept him fully as one of them. He's an outsider even while he works just as hard for his living as any of them. They don't trust him. Heaven only knows how long it took them to lend a hand to me. They're scared, I think, that we think we're better than them in some way because of our past." Lavinia seemed to be making a point of not looking at Cassandra. "And then there's the money. Ethan's been working so hard recently. There've been what seems to be endless piles of bills, all of them stacking up on one another until it feels like we're swamped with them. Because of that, he's thrown himself almost fully into his work, so it seems like I hardly see him anymore. This trip was such a relief in so many ways. We shan't be here long, but the rest he will have is worth all the exhaustion of travel." Lavinia heaved a sigh. "It feels so good to be talking about this." She smiled, but through the glad expression, Cassandra could see the months of worry and difficulty in her sister's eyes. "I'm so glad we came. I've missed you, Cassie."
    "And I've missed you." Cassandra enveloped her sister in a hug, determining to talk to her father as soon as convenient about some money she could slip into her sister's luggage or something. She knew neither Ethan nor her sister would willingly accept any sum of money that was not due them, but she would find a way to force it upon them, no matter their protests. "Why don't we finish your unpacking and then head down for dinner? Papa and Ethan will wonder what's become of us." She grinned. Oh, yes. She would make a way. Her hours spent learning to be glib-tongued weren't for nothing.