Page 48 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

Across from her, Lillian raised her eyebrows, and Cassandra went scarlet.

“We were not married yet,” she said. “We were betrothed. It is different.”

“How is it diff—” Annabelle began, but before she could finish, someone interrupted from the door.

“My niece certainly does ask a lot of questions.”

They all looked around to see Christopher standing in the doorway. He was looking at Cassandra, smiling widely, his appearance so altered from the day before that Cassandra nearly gaped.

Christopher was no longer gaunt. The rosey, tanned look had returned to his cheeks. His eyes no longer looked sunken. He was still thin, and his hair was still more colorless than it was, but the change in his face was so startling she could not help but think of actors on the stage when they put on a coat of makeup.

“Lady Cassandra,” Christopher said, coming into the room and bowing. “I was wondering if I might take a moment of your time.”

“It is Her Grace now,” Lillian said, and Cassandra almost laughed out loud at the look of surprise on Christopher’s face. “Not Lady Cassandra.”

“Quite right,” Christopher said quickly, throwing Lillian a curious and slightly disgruntled look. “Your Grace.May I have a moment of your time? I thought it might be nice to speak just the two of us, after all the excitement.”

For some reason, a chill crept up her spine.

“Can it wait?” she asked, nodding at Annabelle. “I am in the middle of tea.”

Christopher barely glanced at his niece. “I would prefer not to wait too long,” he said.

Cassandra looked at Lillian, whose eyebrows were disappearing into the top of her head, then sighed.

“Very well,” she murmured.

She rose, and Christopher escorted her out the door. Once they were in the hallway, he offered her his arm, which she reluctantly took.

He did not say anything to her for several minutes, until they had made their way all the way down several flights of stairs to the library. Christopher steered her inside, letting the door fall closed behind them. They were now alone among the quiet ofthe library, the musty smell of books strong, the dust tickling her nose.

In the dimness, Christopher turned to face her.

“My dear Cassandra,” he murmured. His eyes glittered. “I thought we ought to take a moment alone to acknowledge the strange turn of events. Because it is passing strange.”

“Yes,” Cassandra said, standing up a little straighter. “I must admit, it was not the course of events that I might have chosen, but I am not unhappy with the results. Forgive me if that is harsh for you, but you abandoned me, Lord Christopher.”

She stared at him very bluntly. “You ran off to Holland days before our wedding. Even if you had not been presumed dead, I would have had every right to call off the wedding and marry the man of my choosing.”

Christopher coughed, and she could tell that he was taking a moment to collect himself, that he had not expected this from her.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, “you are perfectly right. And I also wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to you for my behavior. It was ungentlemanly.”

“Yes, it was.”

He stared at her, but recovered quickly. “In fact, I should have apologized last night, when you first received me.”

She said nothing. Yes, he should have, but she knew that her opinion was evident in her silence.

“It is, of course, a grave insult to a young lady for the gentleman to call off the wedding,” Christopher continued. “Although that was not my intent. I had every plan to be back in time to wed you. I think I merely felt… nervous. You can understand, I am sure, Lady Cassandra.”

Cassandra considered her words carefully. “I can,” she ventured at last. “But unlike you, I did not have the luxury of acting on my doubts.”

Christopher’s eyes flickered, and she knew that he had attached to that word:doubts.Good for him to know that she had doubted him.

“And marriage to my brother,” he began slowly. “It is… tolerable?”

“More than tolerable,” she said, raising her chin. She thought, briefly, of the moments of tenderness that already existed between them, of the garden that he had created for her. He had just been starting to open up. And now…