long he was gone. But he pretended a journey home so as not to dishonor her, and I assume the bloodline wasn’t corrupted all that much.”
The bloodline, the first mention of the identity. Whittaker should have wondered. He’d been too stunned to consider the identity of his brother’s true father. He did not want to know but now suspected the man might have been his uncle. Mama had been with her brother-in-law and his wife around that time, and they were close in age. But surely Whittaker’s uncle would not cuckold his own brother.
No wonder Mama encouraged him to marry young. She must have seen how he felt about Cassandra, that irresistible pull to be close and closer still.
His eyes burned. His throat closed. He stood like a mute beneath the gallery, the mist swirling around him like his sins creeping through his bones to conquer his very soul.
“Then why?” he managed to choke out. “Why do you come between us now?”
“You both blame yourselves for her injuries. That’s no way to start a marriage. If I do not keep you apart, you will never grow beyond that blame and your marriage will be poisoned from the start.” Bainbridge’s tone softened. “I let my first daughter marry unwisely the first time and had to watch her suffer for years. I will not allow that to happen to Cassandra.” He touched Whittaker’s shoulder, a comforting, fatherly gesture this time. “You both need to find someone with whom your passions do not run so high. And if I keep you apart, you will.”
“Cassandra may, but I never will.” As he spun on his heel and strode off for the stable to awaken a sleepy hostler to saddle his horse, he heard Lord Bainbridge laughing like a man with a secret he enjoyed keeping to himself.
6
Though Cassandra closed the door loudly enough for the men below to hear the latch click, she opened it again with a gentleness only someone close at hand would recognize as being other than the normal night sounds of a settling wooden building or the whisper of a cat slipping through the night. Behind her, everyone slept. Below her, Father and Whittaker talked in low voices that nonetheless drifted upward on the swirling mist, taut with anger on Whittaker’s part, scornful on Father’s. She missed a few words here and there, but not enough to miss the gist of the dialogue.
Father believed she and Whittaker could never be happy together because their passions ran too high. They were both quiet people, comfortable with silences between them, yet never lacking in conversation when they chose. But always that fire blazed between them, a rope of fire insisting they touch a hand or a cheek, a look that promised so much more. More and more they succumbed to temptation until a fire in fact stopped them from committing the ultimate act of betrayal to their upbringing and faith. Now she bore the scars of her folly. Father was right, and Whittaker must have agreed or he would not have walked away with such determination.
He strode out of her life like he could not wait to get away, ultimate proof that he was glad to be rid of her without a fight about promises broken. She was now free of him and his disapproval of her aeronautics.
So why did her chest ache like someone had removed her heart by force?
She slumped onto a chair. It bore no cushion, and one of her not yet wholly healed burns rubbed the edge. She sucked in her breath to stifle a cry of pain that would awaken everyone. They’d spent enough sleepless nights because of her, certain for the first week that she would have to have both legs amputated. “Let me die if you must,” she had pleaded with the physicians. “I’d be better off dead.”
They hadn’t amputated, though the pain and wounds grew worse. She figured they agreed with her—she would be better off dead than a lady without legs. She could not imagine life spent in a bath chair or being carried when the chair would not fit through doorways or go up steps.
She had healed, though,
The bloodline, the first mention of the identity. Whittaker should have wondered. He’d been too stunned to consider the identity of his brother’s true father. He did not want to know but now suspected the man might have been his uncle. Mama had been with her brother-in-law and his wife around that time, and they were close in age. But surely Whittaker’s uncle would not cuckold his own brother.
No wonder Mama encouraged him to marry young. She must have seen how he felt about Cassandra, that irresistible pull to be close and closer still.
His eyes burned. His throat closed. He stood like a mute beneath the gallery, the mist swirling around him like his sins creeping through his bones to conquer his very soul.
“Then why?” he managed to choke out. “Why do you come between us now?”
“You both blame yourselves for her injuries. That’s no way to start a marriage. If I do not keep you apart, you will never grow beyond that blame and your marriage will be poisoned from the start.” Bainbridge’s tone softened. “I let my first daughter marry unwisely the first time and had to watch her suffer for years. I will not allow that to happen to Cassandra.” He touched Whittaker’s shoulder, a comforting, fatherly gesture this time. “You both need to find someone with whom your passions do not run so high. And if I keep you apart, you will.”
“Cassandra may, but I never will.” As he spun on his heel and strode off for the stable to awaken a sleepy hostler to saddle his horse, he heard Lord Bainbridge laughing like a man with a secret he enjoyed keeping to himself.
6
Though Cassandra closed the door loudly enough for the men below to hear the latch click, she opened it again with a gentleness only someone close at hand would recognize as being other than the normal night sounds of a settling wooden building or the whisper of a cat slipping through the night. Behind her, everyone slept. Below her, Father and Whittaker talked in low voices that nonetheless drifted upward on the swirling mist, taut with anger on Whittaker’s part, scornful on Father’s. She missed a few words here and there, but not enough to miss the gist of the dialogue.
Father believed she and Whittaker could never be happy together because their passions ran too high. They were both quiet people, comfortable with silences between them, yet never lacking in conversation when they chose. But always that fire blazed between them, a rope of fire insisting they touch a hand or a cheek, a look that promised so much more. More and more they succumbed to temptation until a fire in fact stopped them from committing the ultimate act of betrayal to their upbringing and faith. Now she bore the scars of her folly. Father was right, and Whittaker must have agreed or he would not have walked away with such determination.
He strode out of her life like he could not wait to get away, ultimate proof that he was glad to be rid of her without a fight about promises broken. She was now free of him and his disapproval of her aeronautics.
So why did her chest ache like someone had removed her heart by force?
She slumped onto a chair. It bore no cushion, and one of her not yet wholly healed burns rubbed the edge. She sucked in her breath to stifle a cry of pain that would awaken everyone. They’d spent enough sleepless nights because of her, certain for the first week that she would have to have both legs amputated. “Let me die if you must,” she had pleaded with the physicians. “I’d be better off dead.”
They hadn’t amputated, though the pain and wounds grew worse. She figured they agreed with her—she would be better off dead than a lady without legs. She could not imagine life spent in a bath chair or being carried when the chair would not fit through doorways or go up steps.
She had healed, though,
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