And she’d been Braden’s wife. She had been greatly loved. The picture in Cassidy’s mind shifted to something quite different—salt-and-pepper hair contrasting with that pale gold like silver-gray water and leaves in autumn. Strong face and delicate one, side by side.
“How… did she and Braden meet?” Cassidy asked slowly.
“They met when they were very young. Her parents and my grandfather agreed that they should marry—”
“For the Cause?”
Rowena’s eyes grew hooded. “Yes. But Braden was fortunate beyond all his deserts. We were all fortunate.”
As much as Rowena hated arranged marriages, she didn’t seem to despise this one. “Milena was loup-garou.”
The statement had a visible effect on Rowena. She moved to the chair by the window and sat down, turned slightly away from Cassidy and the portrait. “Yes. But she understood how I felt. She was too kind and good to defy Braden, but she agreed with me. She would have put the beast behind her, except for Braden.”
“Then she… loved him.”
“She was devoted to him. She did everything possible to please him.”
Cassidy gazed at the portrait, feeling a peculiar constriction in her heart. Milena sounded perfect. How could an ordinary person live up to that?
“And Braden loved her,” she said.
“How could he not? She was an angel. And when he lost her…” Rowena looked up at Cassidy. “He hasn’t spoken of her since.”
So that was why Cassidy had never heard the name. Braden had been heartbroken when Milena died. Was that the reason he made himself so distant and hard—because he’d lost the love of his life?
“How did she die?”
But Rowena wasn’t listening. She was staring toward the door, anguish and loathing visible in her expression before she smoothed it out to formal courtesy.
“It is late, Cassidy,” she said. “You had best return to your room.”
Cassidy backed toward the door, unable to stop looking at Milena. An angel. The perfect lady, yet part of the Cause. So dearly loved. Everything Cassidy wasn’t.
Even closing the door on the portrait couldn’t erase Milena’s image from Cassidy’s thoughts. She was nearly back to her room before she realized that her own door was open and a pair of burly footmen were carrying out her emptied tub.
Only one other thing had changed during her absence. On the bed lay a garment that drew Cassidy like a bee to a blossom—a robe of rich patterned fabric in red and silver, with a matching sash. It was completely unlike any of Cassidy’s new gowns, more like the striking and unusual dress Milena wore in the portrait than anything else Cassidy had seen at Greyburn.
She ran her fingers over the sumptuous cloth. Impulsively, she pulled off her dress and the hastily donned undergarments and stockings and shoes. The robe settled over her like the mantle of a queen. She tied the sash and stepped in front of the mirror.
Almost, almost she could imagine herself as glorious and exotic as Milena…
She heard footsteps Just before the knock on the door.
“Pardon me, miss,” her maid said, averting her eyes, “but I’m to tell you that you’ll be wanted in the Great Hall within the hour.”
In an hour it would be midnight. “What’s happening in the Great Hall?”
“The ceremony, miss.”
“What ceremony?”
The woman’s face pinched up. “It’s not my place to speak, miss.” She looked so frightened that Cassidy decided not to press. “There will be no formal dinner, miss, but I can bring up anything you wish.”
Cassidy sighed. She had to learn the way things were done at Greyburn, however unusual they might seem at first. “What should I wear?”
Blank-faced, the maid fetched the hairbrush from Cassidy’s dressing table. “If you’d care to sit down, miss, I’ll brush out your hair.”
Cassidy obeyed. The maids tension seemed to flow through the brush and into Cassidy’s body, and she all but jumped when another maid brought in a tray of tea and biscuits.
She expected the maid to lay out some suitable evening dress, help her into the awful corset and button her up like a doll one more time. But the woman didn’t even pin Cassidy’s hair, but let it hang loose, still damp, down her back.