Page 49 of My Duke, The Stranger
“You did well tonight, Your Grace,” Mr. Pemberton said. He stood in front of Cassian’s desk, hands folded behind his back, and an expression on his face that almost looked proud.
Cassian scoffed. “It was not such a hard thing. All I needed to do was act like a tyrant. It seems to be what is expected.”
“Oh, it is a little more complicated than that,” Mr. Pemberton assured him. “I know you have spent the last day studying the various business contracts you were involved in, and to recall the details so effortlessly is no small task.”
“I suppose so…”
“I wonder, is it possible that some of it is coming back to you?” Mr. Pemberton raised an eyebrow at Cassian. “You did mention before that bits and pieces were returning.”
“Not in the way that you think,” Cassian said. “And not nearly quickly enough.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Should I not be? How much easier things would be if I woke tomorrow and my memories had returned. Perhaps they will…” He curled his lip distastefully at the thought. “Let us pray on it.”
“If you say so…” Mr. Pemberton looked at Cassian as if he did not believe him.
The man knows me well. Better than I know myself, I dare say.
While it would indeed be easier if Cassian’s memories returned to him in one fell swoop, he was not so sure that he wanted such a thing. In fact, the more that he considered such a situation, the more that Cassian was forced to concede that it might be for the best if his memories never came back.
He had seen how Mr. Collins and Mr. Hart had looked at him this evening, and how they had acted around him. They were scared of him, cautious not to say or do the wrong thing, and constantly seeking ways to compliment and worship him as if such things were expected.
Worse too. As Cassian acted in the role of the person they knew him to be, he had noticed how effective it was. A harsh word spoken. A snarl here, a sneer there. They thought of him as a monster and did not blink when he proved it was true.
Is that really who I want to be?Did he really want to return to such a beast as that? No, he wasn’t sure that he did, even if it would make things that much more simple.
“A drink, Mr. Pemberton?” Cassian reached into the right drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of brandy. “I think we have earned it.”
“I am quite fine, thank you,” Mr. Pemberton said simply.
Cassian laughed. “Ah yes, ever the bastion of decorum…” Cassian looked around his office, one that felt familiar to him now. Some of those were his recent memories, but many were vague images that niggled at the back of his mind as if trying to break into his consciousness. “I do have minor recollections of you having never joined me for a drink before. This office…” He gestured to it. “I see it like a shadow, me here drinking and smoking, you in the corner watching and saying nothing.”
“It is not my place to join you, Your Grace.”
“Even if I asked it of you?”
“You never did.”
Cassian winced at the simplicity of the comment. Although he could not fathom why he would have never asked his steward, a man who was a friend, to join him in a drink, he knew it was the truth. Further proof that such a man was not one he should yearn to return to being.
“I am asking now,” he said with a warm smile.
“I do appreciate it, Your Grace, but I do not drink.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t have a taste for it.”
“Lucky…” Cassian chuckled as he poured a glass. “I suppose then it’s just me alone, as is my way. I do not remember much, but I remember that.”
Mr. Pemberton watched him take a sip of his brandy, and as he did, there was a look that passed behind his eyes that suggested there was something he wished to say.
If it were the old me, I wonder if he would dare, as the topic is clearly sensitive. But as it is the new me…
“Forgive me for saying so, Your Grace,” Mr. Pemberton began carefully, to which Cassian chuckled. “But Her Grace also did a rather commendable job this evening.”
Cassian’s laughter died on his tongue.
