Page 95 of Ruthless, But for Her

“I was married once.”

That snapped Cassia out of her reverie.

“You were? I... I knew you were a jarl and that... well⁠—”

“That I was forced to flee my home, give up my title and watch it burn. Aye. But it was a pile of stones to me, by then. After my wife died of fever, little mattered. If it weren’t for the care of my people, I might have willingly gone with her. We couldn’t have children.” He shrugged as two figures came into view. “The boys gave me a second life. But if you told me that the day I buried her, I’d have not believed it. Sometimes, there’s a plan for us we can’t yet see.”

“Trunks are already at the door,” one of the men, the Irishman who she’d only met the day before when Ashton told her Leif would escort her home, told Leif. “None saw us.”

“They would be abed by now,” she assured them all. “My offer stands. I would have you⁠—”

“Nay, lass,” Leif chuckled. “This is no place for men such as us, not if we wish to keep our heads.”

Reluctant to part with the only thing tying her still to Ashton, she struggled to find parting words. Having thought on it, Cassia decided now that she and Ashton had exchanged the only proper goodbye two people could have, after what they’d shared.

None at all.

A glance. A wave. No other words sufficed.

“I will leave you to it, then,” she said. “Thank you, sirs, for your escort.”

They bowed as if Cassia were the queen of England. She would have smiled but was unsure if she could have managed it. Her heart was heavier than it had ever been.

“If you ever have need of the Black Sails, use this.” Leif took a small carved token from the cord at his neck and handed it to her. He had but two remaining.

“What is it?” she asked, certain it meant more than a keepsake, especially as the Irishman’s eyes widened at the exchange.

“It’s something you can show to any ship that flies without a flag, in any port on this coast. Word finds us faster than you’d think.”

Leif apparently didn’t wait to be thanked twice. He turned for the tree line, his men behind him, and disappeared into the darkness as if they were never there.

Cassia stood in the same spot for too long until the cold forced her inside.

Apparently, Leif’s men had attracted more notice than they assumed.

Her father reached her first.

“Sweeting.” He pulled her into an embrace before she’d even set down her cloak. His hands were shaking.

She hadn’t expected that.

One by one, beginning with Nell, the servants embraced her as her father had done.

“Come inside. You must be freezing. Nell, have them build up the fire in her room,” her father said to the poor woman who’d not stopped crying since Cassia entered. “Come, come.”

He didn’t ask what had happened. He didn’t ask if she was hurt, or hungry, or whether she wished to speak of it at all.

He fed her, even though Cassia had eaten on the road. He told Nell not to speak of it with her, even though Cassia could not imagine speaking of anything but the world she’d just left.

Instead, Cassia let herself be led.

Cassia had rehearsed what she would say the whole ride from the coast. What to say to her father, to Nell. What parts to keep for herself. But instead of asking her, her father filled in the details he had. What Nell had told him. What he’d learned while looking for her. Everything but the truth.

The room closed in around her...small and familiar.

CHAPTER 54

Ashton