Page 94 of Ruthless, But for Her

She was right. He had not asked either. But he'd needed her safe more than he'd needed her to forgive him for it.

He turned and called out to Leif, loud enough for the deck to hear. “Bring her about. We're for Grantchester.”

Every man within sight of him turned toward Ashton, but all quickly looked away. Only Sorren and Leif held his gaze.

Grantchester. Back to a man who had given her to Roland, even though she’d begged him not to.

His quick nod was all the confirmation Leif needed.

The Einar came about, the black sail catching hard as she found the new line.

“We are bound for Grantchester. Are you certain⁠—”

“I'm certain,” she said before he could finish.

He didn't argue further. There was nothing left to say. When she turned back to the rail this time, he let her.

CHAPTER 53

Cassia

“Iwould escort you further if not for the notice we’ve already drawn.”

Cassia understood. Already in the day she and Leif and his two men had traveled, they had attracted more notice than any of them would like.

With the sun having set long ago, nobody stirred. Not her father or Nell or the porter or the cook. All at Grantchester Manor was as she left it except...somehow it appeared smaller.

“Of course. I thank you for your escort home,” she said to the ship captain, thinking, as she had all day, of Ashton who could not bring himself to escort her himself.

Even so, she could not get the sight of him, standing at the rail as their small party rode inland and the ship grew smaller behind them, out of her mind.

“Lady Cassia.”

She turned her attention to the ship captain.

“He stood at the rail till we lost sight of the shore. Six years I’ve sailed with him. I’ve never once seen him do that for anyone.”

It was the first time he’d spoken of Ashton since they’d disembarked. Then again, Leif wasn’t much for talking. He was like Ashton that way.

Or maybe it was just that everything had reminded her of Ashton—the man who’d taken her captive, insisting she was not a prisoner.

The man who taught her how to speak her mind.

The man who’d shown her how to kiss properly. And how much pleasure was to be had between a man and a woman.

The man she loved.

Cassia probably could have named it well before she left, but every step she took away from him convinced her that it was true. She’d read about it. Hoped to find it, as her parents had, in her marriage.

Instead, Cassia had had to reconcile herself to a loveless marriage.

Then she’d met Ashton.

Love felt precisely as it had been described in the books she’d read. Impossible. When she was a girl, she had thought that the word meant unattainable. She understood now that it meant something closer to unbearable.

The manor gate stood open ahead, unguarded, exactly as she’d left it.

“Thank you,” she said to Leif. “For telling me.”