Page 46 of Ruthless, But for Her

Without pause, he scooped the boy up and whispered something into his ear at which point the young man giggled.

For her part, Cassia simply stared. The couple were obviously wary, though courteous, near Ashton, and yet their grandson seemed to have no such qualms.

They ate on the floor near the hearth, the pottage thin but hot, the bread better than she'd expected. The boy fell asleep against his grandmother before the bowls were empty and no one moved him.

When the fire was banked, the Robsons took the pallets nearest the hearth with the boy between them. Ashton laid his cloak along the wall by the opening where the ladder had come up. He gestured for her to come to him, so she did, lying down beside him.

“Are you warm enough?”

Cassia wondered how he would remedy it if she said nay. “Well enough,” she said.

“You will be more comfortable at the inn. They have a room, more private than most, with a bed and furs and a fire of its own. And a door that bars.”

He tended to her in a way no one had before—not even her father. Especially not her father, who had never given her the opportunity to choose.

“Thank you,” she said instead.

Ashton's brows drew together in question.

“For allowing me to make the decision to join you.”

His forehead relaxed. Ashton didn’t quite smile, but his face lost the hard edge it typically carried.

“The days you spend up here,” he whispered, “will be very different from a manor house in Cambridgeshire.”

Cassia lifted her head and pretended to look around. The ladder lay along the floor where the farmer had pulled it in. Above it was a shutter with no glass.

“Is that so?”

He did smile then, and she almost told him how pleasant it was to see him like this. So very different from the black sails sailor she met on the deck of the ship that carried her north.

When Ashton's eyes closed, she allowed her mind to mark the dichotomy that was Ashton of Mere's End. With others, he spoke little. Calculated everything around him. Smiled even less.

But with her? He was different. Then again, perhaps he was the same with other women. She had met men who could charm a lady and hide their true nature.

She had married such a man. Not by choice. And his charm had worn off the moment the marriage contract was signed.

The peat shifted and settled in the hearth.

Ashton's breathing slowed.

And she allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER 28

Ashton

She should not have adapted so well.

Never complaining about this journey. Riding as if she'd done it every day, which perhaps was true. Climbing a ladder to her bed. Nay, not her bed, but sleeping on his cloak, and then waking up without complaint and riding all morn once again.

As they stopped to water the horses, their brief meal consisting of bread, hard cheese and dried fish, he watched her stroke Maude's mane. Ashton admired very few people but Cassia…

“I meant to ask last eve. Who bred her?”

Ashton looked at the mare, then at Cassia.

“Why?”