Page 31 of Ruthless, But for Her

“You believe my husband was made deputy because of you.”

“I believe he was made deputy because de Grey wanted the sea the way he’d already taken the land. Roland is the way he gets it.”

“And I am⁠—”

“You are the way I find out just how far he intends to reach.”

She stopped walking entirely.

“So I'm not a woman to you. I'm a question.”

“You're both.”

It wasn't the answer he'd meant to give her.

He gave it anyway.

CHAPTER 18

Cassia

She had nothing to say to that.

Why it should matter... Why she should care... Cassia would prefer not to think on it at all. Instead, she turned from her companion and looked toward the swirling North Sea.

Until now, she had traveled by ship only a few times. Each had been close to the coast, none as far out as where her gaze wandered now. Where the unthinkable could live beneath those waters, where the unthinkable could happen above them.

She'd read of the open sea in books, but she knew nothing of it beyond the words. Even so, she would have liked to venture there, if only to experience what it must feel like to sail with no land in sight.

“Shall we turn back?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

She said it without looking at him. Though her stomach signaled a meal might be welcome, she preferred to remain outdoors.

Spying a flat rock, large enough for them to sit, she paused, about to inquire if they might stop for a brief respite.

But before she could ask, Ashton had extended his hand out to her, leading her toward the makeshift seat.

Scrambling onto the stone, Cassia sat, arranging her skirts beneath her.

They didn’t speak. After all, what could she say?

She sat with a man who had abducted her, and now, she waited for another man, a man she loathed, to claim her. The only adventure Cassia would see in the coming days rested inside a trunk, back in her bedchamber.

A bedchamber, inside a stew house, of all places. Unbidden, she laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Ashton sat beside her, his quizzical look understandable.

“This place is so beautiful.” Cassia stared straight ahead. “And yet dangerous, too.”

“Aye. But that is not why you laughed?”

She laughed because she hated crying. She did it often enough, too often lately.

“Nay, it is not. I would be scared to go out there.” She pointed into the distance. “But I would do it anyway.”

Ashton shifted, one leg bent beneath him, until he faced her more than the sea.