Chapter 4: A Visitor in the Night
The ticking of the clock in her sitting room was a metronome for her confusion. Daisy sat, a needle poised over the torn hem of a morning dress, but her hands were still. The silver locket was a cold moon against her skin beneath her bodice. He loved her too much, and it broke him.
Elara’s words had taken root, growing thorns that caught on every memory. The brutal taking in his study. The shocking intimacy of his mouth between her legs afterward. The ice and the pain and the pleasure so intertwined she could not separate them. And before that, the bath. His hands in her hair, his voice soft as he asked about her home. Were those the actions of a man incapable of feeling? Or of one terrified of it?
The fire had burned low. Shadows clung to the corners of the room, the portraits of the long-dead queens seeming to watch her with a pitying comprehension. She set her mending aside. The silence of the castle at night was a living thing, a held breath. She walked to the window, pushing the heavy velvet drape aside. The moon was a sliver, offering little light. Her own reflection was a ghost in the glass, pale and wide-eyed.
She didn’t hear the door open. She felt the shift in the air, a subtle draft that made the candle flames sway. She knew it was him before she turned. His presence had a weight, a density that changed the atmosphere of any room.
Lord Valarius stood just inside the threshold, still in his day clothes, his coat unbuttoned. He held a ledger in one hand. His expression was the familiar mask of detached indifference, but the lines around his eyes seemed deeper in the candlelight, the set of his mouth tighter.
“You’re awake,” he stated. His voice was neutral, cool.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Her own voice sounded small.
He entered fully, closing the door with a soft click that felt definitive. He placed the ledger on a small satinwood table. “The east wing accounts. For your signature in the morning.” A transaction. Always a transaction.
He didn’t move toward her. He simply looked at her, his blue eyes scanning her face, her loose hair, the simple night robe she wore. The scrutiny was different tonight. Less possessive, more searching. The silence stretched, fraught with all the things Elara had said.
“Elara spoke with me,” Daisy said, the words leaving her before she could cage them.
His face hardened instantaneously, a shutter slamming down. “The housekeeper’s chatter is of no consequence. Do not waste my time with it.”
“She told me about your wife.”
The air left the room. His stillness became absolute, the kind of stillness that precedes a storm. A muscle feathered in his jaw. “You will not speak of her.” The command was low, venomous, a blade unsheathed.
“Why?” The question was a breath. “Because you loved her?”
He crossed the distance between them in three swift strides. He didn’t touch her, but he loomed over her, his body a wall of tense, furious energy. “You know nothing. You are a child playing with stories that will burn you.”
“I know you look at me and see a ghost,” she whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs. “I know you fuck me like you’re trying to exorcise it. And I know you leave because you’re afraid of what happens if you stay.”
His hand shot out, closing around her upper arm. His grip was bruising. “You presume too much.”
“Do I?” She didn’t pull away. She tilted her face up to his, meeting the storm in his eyes. “You said you didn’t know how to keep me. Was that a lie?”
The reference to his raw confession in the study struck him like a physical blow. His fingers tightened, then loosened marginally. The fury in his eyes fractured, revealing a glimpse of pure, unguarded torment. It was there for only a second before the ice rushed back in, but she had seen it.
“Silence,” he hissed, but the word lacked its former force.
He released her arm as if her skin had scalded him and turned away, running a hand through his hair. He stood before the dying fire, his broad shoulders tense. “Get into bed.”
It was not the command of a lover, but of a lord dismissing a servant. The familiar script. Her frustration, her newfound understanding, coalesced into a reckless courage. She didn’t move.
“No.”
He turned his head, looking at her over his shoulder. The expression on his face was one of genuine, shocked disbelief. “What did you say?”
“I said no.” Her voice trembled, but she held her ground. “Not like that. Not as if I’m a chore to be completed. If you want me, you’ll have to look at me. You’ll have to acknowledge it’s me.”
A dangerous, disbelieving laugh escaped him. “You think you can set terms?”
“I think you are a coward.”
He moved then, so fast she had no time to react. He was on her, his hands gripping her face, forcing her to hold his gaze. His breath was hot on her lips. “You foolish girl. You have no idea what you’re inviting.”
“Then show me.”
The challenge hung between them. His eyes searched hers, scouring for mockery, for game-playing. He found only a desperate, defiant sincerity. The resistance in him crumbled, not into tenderness, but into a kind of ragged hunger.
His mouth came down on hers. It wasn’t a kiss of passion, but of conquest and surrender fused into one desperate act. It was hard, consuming, his tongue claiming her mouth with a bruising intensity. He tasted of brandy and bitterness. She kissed him back, her hands coming up to clutch at the fabric of his coat, holding on as the world tilted.
He broke the kiss, his breathing harsh. “You want me to look at you?” he growled. “Fine.” He grabbed the collar of her night robe and ripped it open, the delicate fabric tearing with a sound like a gasp. Buttons skittered across the floor. He pushed it from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet, leaving her naked in the fire’s guttering light. His gaze was a physical touch, raking over her—the curve of her breasts, the mark from his teeth on her belly, the shadow between her thighs. “I see you. Is this what you wanted?”
He shed his own clothes with violent, efficient motions, not bothering with finesse. Coat, waistcoat, shirt, boots, breeches. They were a trail of authority leading to the man beneath. And there he was, fully aroused, his body a testament to both power and need.
He didn’t carry her to the bed. He backed her toward it until her legs hit the mattress, then he pushed her down. He followed her, covering her body with his, but he kept his weight on his elbows, his face above hers. His eyes remained locked on hers, a blue flame.
“Say my name,” he demanded, his voice a rough whisper.
Her mind went blank for a second. She had only ever called him ‘my lord’. “Valarius,” she breathed.
It was the wrong thing. A spasm of pain crossed his features. “Not that. The name my mother gave me. Say it.”
She remembered the formal documents, the marriage contract. A name she had never spoken. “Cassian.”
A low groan escaped him, as if she had plunged a knife into him and found a secret core of warmth. He lowered his head, his mouth finding the pulse at the base of her throat. He didn’t bite. He kissed it, his lips moving softly against her skin, then laving it with his tongue. “Again.”
“Cassian.”
His hand slid between their bodies. His fingers delved into her wetness, stroking her firmly, making her gasp. “You’re so ready,” he murmured against her throat, his breath hot. “Does knowing my pain make you this wet, Daisy? Does it excite you?”
“No,” she moaned, arching into his touch. “It’s you. It’s only ever been you.”
He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock pressing insistently. He still held her gaze, refusing to let her look away. He pushed inside, a slow, relentless invasion that made her cry out. He filled her completely, a perfect, aching fit.
“Cassian,” she sobbed, the name a plea and an anchor.
He began to move, a deep, rhythmic cadence that was unlike any of their previous couplings. There was no brutality here, only a devastating, focused intensity. Each stroke was measured, profound, designed to be felt in every nerve ending. His eyes never left hers. He was inside her body, but it felt as though he was inside her soul, watching every flicker of pleasure and pain that crossed her face.
One of his hands cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her honey-gold hair. The other hand braced beside her shoulder. He bent his head, his forehead touching hers, their breath mingling. The intimacy was staggering, more vulnerable than any act of sex.
“You feel like heaven,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the words. “It’s a torture.”
He increased his pace, but the connection held. His thrusts became harder, deeper, driving the breath from her lungs. The coil of pleasure built low in her belly, tight and incandescent. She was completely open to him, physically, visually, emotionally. There were no shadows to hide in.
“I’m going to come,” she gasped, the confession torn from her.
“Look at me when you do,” he ordered, his own control fraying, his hips pistoning against hers. “Let me see it.”
The climax ripped through her with a silent, seismic force. Her eyes flew wide, locked on his as her body convulsed around his driving length, wave after wave of unbearable pleasure tearing a broken cry from her throat. He watched it all, his expression one of awed agony.
It shattered him. With a ragged shout of her name—“Daisy!”—he buried himself to the hilt and spilled into her, his own release a series of powerful, shuddering pulses. He collapsed onto her, his face buried in the curve of her neck, his body heavy and spent.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their slowing hearts, the crackle of the last embers, and his harsh breath against her skin. His arms tightened around her. He didn’t move to withdraw. He held her, his entire body shaking with a fine, relentless tremor.
She felt the wetness on her neck before she recognized it as tears.
He was crying. Silently, desperately, his body wracked with the effort of containing it. The great Lord Valarius, Cassian, broken and weeping against her skin. Her own tears came then, silent companions to his. She brought a hand up, tentatively, and stroked his hair, the blonde strands soft between her fingers.
He didn’t pull away. He breathed her in, a deep, shuddering inhalation, as if trying to memorize her scent.
They lay entwined in the dark until his breathing evened, until the tremors subsided. The tears stopped. The silence returned, but it was a different silence. It was full.
Slowly, with an immense and palpable effort, he pushed himself up. He withdrew from her body, the separation feeling like a loss. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, a silhouette of regret against the faint glow of the hearth.
He did not look at her. He stood, found his breeches, and pulled them on. He collected the rest of his clothes in a heap in his arms. He walked to the door, his steps soundless on the rug.
He paused, his hand on the latch. His shoulders were rigid.
“The ledger is on the table,” he said, his voice hollow, stripped of everything. “Sign it before breakfast.”
He opened the door and left, closing it softly behind him.
Daisy lay in the tangled sheets that smelled of him, of sex, of salt tears. The cold air of the room settled on her damp skin. She reached beneath her pillow, her fingers closing around the cool silver of the locket. She pulled it out, opening it in the near-darkness. The pale curl of hair seemed to glow.
She now knew whose it was. Not a rival. A ghost. A beloved ghost whose memory was a prison for the living.
She closed the locket and held it tightly in her fist, staring at the door where he had vanished. He had looked at her. He had wept. And then he had gone, leaving her more alone than she had ever been.