air hard to find and the cold making it harder again. Her throat ached and her back had been bruised as Hanley had forced her down, but she was alive.
Alive.
Then she was crying, huge throaty sobs, her hands entwined in the fabric of his jacket.
‘Your...gr-gr-grandfather tr-tried to s-save me.’
‘I know, sweetheart. Don’t try to talk just now. I will take you back to the house and a bath will be drawn.’
A bath. Warmth. She gritted her teeth together to try to stop the dreadful shaking and felt the heat from his skin beneath her cheek.
* * *
Nat lifted Cassie, making certain that he averted his gaze from the dark red bruises that were gouged into her throat and from the cut beneath her eye. If Hanley had not been unconscious, he would have hit him yet again. Her hair was tangled with weed from the lake, the mud at the bottom smeared across her face and shoulders.
So damn close.
Another moment and they could not have saved her. He looked over at his grandfather, worse for wear from his upending, and saw the same thoughts in the opaque eyes. With a smile, he bent his head. In homage and in gratitude. Without William’s quick-thinking actions...?
He shook away the horror.
Cassie was still crying, but her sobs were softer now. Her breathing had eased a little, too, and the pale white of her skin was rosier.
Her colour was returning and her fright receding. He was glad Kenyon was there to help his grandfather walk, the back of his head already showing signs of a bruised swelling. Maureen had taken his other side and she was speaking to him in the quiet and restful tones of one who seldom panicked.
A family that would be there for each other when the times got tough. A group of people joined by blood and love. He kissed his wife’s cold forehead as he strode up the steps of St Auburn and the startled servants came running.
* * *
He found his grandfather in the library an hour later, sitting and looking out of the window with a heavy bandage around his head.
‘William.’ Today the word did not sit upon his tongue with the ease that it always had. ‘Grandfather,’ he amended and saw the old man turn.
‘Is your wife recovered?’
‘She is having a hot bath. The maids are with her and the warmth will stop the chills.’
‘And Hanley?’
‘Hawk has taken him back to London where he will be dealt with.’
‘I would kill him if it were left to me.’
The sentiment made Nat smile. ‘In that we are alike.’
‘Are we?’
This time Nathaniel knew it was something else entirely of which William spoke. ‘You never wanted my mother and father anywhere near you. You sent them from St Auburn and refused to ever see them again.’
‘My Margaret had just died. I was not thinking straight and afterwards...’ He hesitated. ‘Afterwards it was too late. But now I see what I have missed.’
‘You saved Cassandra. Without your bravery Hanley might have drowned her without a whisper.’
The earl shook his head. ‘I hit him as hard as I could and it barely touched him.’
‘But the noise when you fell alerted us. I owe you everything.’
His grandfather used his cane and came to stand next to Nat. ‘We are both hard-headed and stubborn, Nathaniel, and we both love our wives with all our hearts.’ The old eyes were watery as he placed his hand forward palm up. ‘And our children.’
Pleading lay in the gesture. For family, it said, and for forgiveness, it asked.
Stepping forward, Nat brought his grandfather into his arms, tightly wrapped in an emotion that he had thought would be impossible.
‘Thank you for saving her, Grandfather.’
‘It was my pleasure, Nathaniel. And thank you, too, for saving me.’
She was wrapped in the warmth of wool and settled onto the generous blue sofa in the downstairs parlour.
Cassandra had had her hair washed and her body powdered and her feet were swathed in slippers of the finest lambswool, a present from William and one he had bought for his wife just before she had died.
She felt blessed. Jamie was cuddled into her side, and Nathaniel sat on a leather chair only a few feet away.
‘If you had not been there, Grandfather, this could have all turned out far differently.’ Her husband’s words held a reverence and respect that was heartwarming.
‘Which just goes to show that there is life in the old boy yet.’ She saw William’s hand rest lightly on Nathaniel’s shoulder. They had spoken privately, she knew, before coming downstairs and the feud that had parted them seemed all but gone.
Reginald also had turned out to be a surprise. He had offered Cassandra a more than generous amount to be put into the coffers of the Daughters of the Poor plus the free use of a property that he owned in Aldwych as a place to set up further employment. Compensation for his poor choice of friends, he had told everyone. He had also decided to leave the Venus Club.
When Cassie glanced over at Nathaniel she saw that he was watching her closely.
‘Good things come out of bad,’ he said and smiled, though when his eyes settled on the marks at her throat an edge of anger was still visible.
Protection. It was so very relaxing. She closed her eyes and slept.
* * *
Much later when she awoke she found that she was back in their own chamber, but Nathaniel was not in bed with her. He stood at the window, looking over the land of the Lindsays, a moon hanging in the sky. The calmness that was so much a part of him made her smile and she simply watched.
‘You cannot sleep, Nathaniel?’
The effects of the toddy the housekeeper had made for her had almost worn off now, and Cassie felt as if the shadows and mirrors she had lived with all her life had been thrown away somehow, the strong lines of hope exposed by love instead.
‘I could not live if you left me, Sandrine. I could not find a way to keep on going. Today when I thought...’ His voice broke, and he turned away, but not before she saw the moisture on his cheeks and the terror in his eyes. ‘I never slept with another woman after Perpignan. It has always been just you.’
Pushing back the covers, she joined him at the window, winding her arms about his coldness and infusing warmth.
‘Love
