She sighed into his neck. “I can’t wait until Isabelle comes back, so I can ask her more about babies. There’s so much I still don’t know. What else am I not supposed to do?”
Her resignation both relieved and touched him. “When the babe is so new, it’s safe enough to Change,” he said. “Your body shields the child from harm. But soon it will not be wise.” He stroked her hair in apology. “You shall have to remain in human form.”
“I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little longer.”
“And I want you to rest,” he said gravely. “Let the servants wait on you—”
“Do we have to have servants at all?”
He was startled into a laugh, though he should have been well beyond surprise. “I can alter myself only so much, even for you,” he said. “And Greyburn is a major employer of people in this parish. It would be cruel to dismiss them. But perhaps—” He muffled his words in the fragrant fall of her hair. “Perhaps there are better ways to deal with humans than those my grandfather taught me.”
“Maybe you could learn to trust them.”
“Maybe.”
“No more ceremonies in the Great Hall?”
“Perhaps we can find a way to… improve them.”
“Maybe you’ll even start to like humans.”
“Anything is possible. I believed you were all but human when I fell in love with you.”
She pulled away, hands clasped in his. “What about Rowena and Quentin?”
Mingled regret and anger played havoc with his unbalanced emotions. “They are both very likely beyond my reach, are they not?”
“Not forever.” She hugged him, stirring a comfortably definite appreciation for her physical attributes as well as her other fine qualities. “We’ll see them again, some day.”
When it was too late for the Cause. But Braden was able to accept the trade: love and Cassidy in exchange for the loss of two pawns in a game for which the rules must be changed. On the day they were reunited, he hoped he could greet them as a devoted elder brother and not the tyrannical shadow of Tiberius Forster.
The Cause would not die, as long as he had hope. And Cassidy at his side.
“There’s something you should know about Isabelle and your uncle Matthew,” Cassidy said. “They went with Rowena to Liverpool, but I think… when they come back, there’s going to be another marriage.”
He remembered what Telford had told him. Another courtship had gone on right under his nose, and he’d been oblivious. It was time for him to reach out to his uncle, welcome him back into the family. And if that meant welcoming Mrs. Smith…
“Isabelle always stood by you,” he said. “She was a loyal friend. They shall both be welcome at Greyburn.”
Cassidy stretched the length of him, wrapped her arms about his neck, and planted a warm, wet kiss on his mouth. “Oh, Braden, I’m so happy.” She nuzzled his cheek. “Tell me… out of all the things I’m not supposed to do now, does that mean we can’t—” She murmured into his ear. His body reacted as if to a shout.
“I believe that will still be acceptable,” he said, sliding his hands to her waist.
“Good, because I’m not always going to obey you, Braden. If you’d said no—” She kissed him again, and he lost all sense of duty and dignity in the most wonderful way imaginable.
“Ah, Cassidy,” he whispered. “I love you.” He cradled her face and stroked every curve and line until he knew its shape and expression in a way more profound than mere sight could ever allow. At last he could openly mourn his blindness, but he found that he had no need.
“My love,” he began softly.
“My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer.
No beauty she doth miss
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty’s self she is
When all her robes are gone.”
He bore her back onto a blanket of bracken and rain-softened grasses, warming her with his body. She responded with all the ardor of her generous spirit, and the heat they made burned away the damp and cradled them like a bed of down. He worshipped her body, not with lust, but with love and tenderness and gratitude. Her every caress released another knot of sorrow and pain, until he felt himself truly free for the first time in his life.