Page 23 of Her Tempting Traitor
Curse the Prince to hell and back!
This is no’ helping.
Damn.
Exhaling, Cassian straightened and tightened his hold on the cane. He needed it less and less these days, but since he wasn’t sure where he was going to find his son, it had made sense to come prepared for a long hike.
The breakfast room was the logical place to start at this hour.
As he approached, he heard voices and picked up his pace. If Gus was there, he’d find some way to suggest they spend a few hours together, even if it meant joining the lad in thestables with Sir Richard’s dratted animals. Cassian was determined to know his son better, and ensure his son knew he loved him…before the worst happened.
And he was certain that it would.
So perhaps Cassian was moving a bit too quickly when he stepped into the breakfast room as what he saw made him stumble in surprise. The voices had not been coming from Gus at all, but from Sir Richard and his wife.
While the footman—poor Fairwall again—in the corner stared resolutely at the ceiling, Zilphia sat on her husband’s lap. Nay, to call itsittingwould miss the opportunity to use the worddrapingorlounging. She wore a pink silk frilly robe over what Cassian hoped to God was an actual gown…although the bodice was skewed enough to leave no doubt what Sir Richard was doing as he nibbled up the side of her neck.
Giggling, Zilphia plucked a piece of peach from her husband’s plate and tried to feed it to him. “Dickie, sweet pea, you—oh. Oh my, yes, there.”
It wasn’t until Cassian realized one of his host’s hands was hidden up Zilphia’s skirts that he realized exactly what was happening.
His gaze snapped to the footman, whose cheeks blazed a bright red, and back to the couple.
Jesus. How to extricate himself from the situation before he was noticed?
“Oh!” Zilphia gasped, and Cassian realized he was too late. “Good morning, lad. Dickie,” she admonished, caressing her husband’s shoulder. “Dickie! Cassian has joined us.”
Without lifting his lips from his wife’s throat, Sir Richard grunted, “Morning. Eggs? Bacon? A man needs bacon if he’s going to keep up his strength.”
Whatever he did then caused Zilphia to giggle again, then sigh, wrapping her arm around her husband…and Cassian mumbled something about not being hungry.
Deciding he didn’t need to be concerned about rudeness—the two lovebirds wouldn’t care if he beat a brass drum through the room!—he backed quickly out of the room.
Back in the hall, he breathed a sigh of confused relief and turned on his good foot, suppressing a shudder. He was happy for Sir Richard, happy the couple still found suchhappinessafter all these years…but such abandon was difficult to comprehend.
His marriage with Artemesia had always been…polite. Courteous. She’d often said she was proud of him, and Lord knew he was proud of having been deemed worthy of marriage to a knight’s niece. She’d been soft and quiet and supportive and beautiful, all the things he’d dreamed of in a wife, when he’d dared to dream as a lad.
But only now, years after her death, he was realizing he never really knewher. He knew Artemesia-the-wife, and Artemesia-the-bedmate, and the few times he’d been allowed to return home in between missions, Artemesia-the-mother. Those had been the visits home he remembered most vividly; watching in awe as she’d parented this little human he’d helped to create but whom he barely knew.
The first time she’d placed wee Gus in his arms—three months after the lad’s birth, because he’d been deepundercover in Egypt and hadn’t been able to abort the mission—Cassian had found himself holding his breath.
“He will not break,” Artemesia had whispered proudly. “He is a strong lad who will make us both proud.”
Unable to drag his befuddled gaze away from the sleeping angel in his arms, Cassian had groped blindly for his wife’s hands and whispered hoarsely, “Thank you. Thank you for raising him.”
Because he’d known, even then, that he wouldn’t be there for Gus.Hadn’tbeen there for Gus, not even when the lad had needed him the most.
But no matter what the future held, his son would know how much he was loved. Howproudhe’d made his parents. How little Cassian wanted to leave him.
Ye’re doing it again.
Fook.
His hosts’ transparent happiness in their marriage was unusual, aye, but should not make him maudlin. Setting his jaw, Cassian strode toward the foyer. Or rather, hetriedto stride, remembered he was missing a fooking foot, came down too hard on his cane, cursed himself, and set off again at a slower pace.
His doctor agreed that he was healing at a remarkable rate, but needed to be patient.
Cassian, on the other hand, believed that the old bastard had no personal experience with the loss of a limb, and therefore could take a long walk off a short pier.
