Page 52 of Earl for the Summer
“No, it’s not finished, and it’s a mess. A nonsense jumble of thoughts.”
Daphne did step away from him, then headed over to a burgundy settee before the fireplace. She sat and patted the spot beside her.
“I’m here. You’re here. Will you not try to tell me?”
He wore a little half-smile as he settled next to her. Daphne immediately reached for his hand, then turned so that she was facing him. He laced their fingers, then he turned toward her too.
“You mentioned that moment in the Bancrofts’ library when I found you and—” He grimaced as if he loathed even saying the man’s name.
“Yes, I remember that moment,” she said to save him from having to.
“That night, you told me that you no longer trusted yourself.”
Daphne began rallying her arguments. Yes, she’d said as much, but it didn’t mean she was wrong about what she felt for him. That other man, who neither of them wanted to name, had flattered her, charmed her.
But she’d been drawn to Cassian as if it had somehow been fated.
“I don’t trust myself either,” he said.
Daphne tipped her head. “Was your heart broken by someone?”
“No.” He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “I sometimes doubted I even had a heart until I met you.”
His crooked smile made her heart thud.
“I refer to my father. My nature. My blood. And the ways I am like him.”
Daphne heard the rasp in his voice, saw the sheen in his eyes. She forced herself not to offer easy reassurances because she sensed there was a great deal yet unsaid.
“I think I understand your fears.” Her parents influenced her and all her siblings, yet they’d been loving parents. If they had been cruel, uncaring, how might that have impacted each of them?
He flinched. “Daphne, I’m not certain you do…”
“Then tell me more.”
“Some of it is so dark that I don’t even wish to speak of it to you.”
Daphne bristled at the implication that she would not want to know him, all of him. Or that she was not equipped to hear such things.
“Because I’m an innocent? I’m not the delicate, prim creature you think I am, Cassian. Didn’t I prove that last night?”
Leaning closer, she tugged him toward her by the edge of his waistcoat, then kissed him. A single, too-quick taste.
Cassian seemed to want more. He wrapped his large hand around her nape and pulled her in for another kiss, then another, until he was stroking her with his tongue as his hand traced down her back, pulling her nearer.
When they were both breathless, she pressed her forehead to his.
“No matter how thoroughly you kiss me,” she whispered, “I’ll still want to know what’s in that letter. And about your father.”
“Are you certain you want to know?”
Daphne bent to kiss him, a gentle, lingering meeting of her lips and his. “I want to know, if you are willing to speak of it, but if it troubles you too much?—”
“You should know what I am.” He fell quiet, but for his harsh breaths. Then licked his lips and said, “He was a monster. His rages were frequent and for minor infractions, or for none at all. Some days, he might just look at one of us and find reason to strike out.”
Daphne bit her lip and swallowed against the sting of tears. She caressed his hand, waiting, knowing there was more.
“My mother wasn’t excluded.” He lifted his head, his gaze haunted. “To know that your mother is being harmed and to be too young, too frightened, to protect her. That hurt more than his fists.” He swallowed hard. “Words seem much less cutting than lashes, but they’re not. He told me I was nothing. God knows what he said to Julian. It gave him pleasure to see us broken.”
