“Being a noble isn’t all parties,” I say, looking down my nose at him. “There are many things I have to do.”
“Oh? You work for that silky underwear?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I don’t want to talk about that. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Sure.”
“I do! My father is marrying my best friend. You saw her. The blonde girl.”
Cassian’s brow wrinkles in genuine concern. “She was your friend? Man, that sucks.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumble. “He’s fifty-three and she’s twenty-one. Younger than I am. It’s gross.”
He laughs softly. “On the one hand, yeah, I agree with you. On the other, lucky old devil.”
“He’s not lucky, he’s perverted and so is she.”
Cassian’s eyes sharpen with interest. “Perverted? Something else I should know?”
There’s nothing Cassian should know, but there’s also no one else I can talk to about these things. Everyone at Court is too proper to discuss sex, and they’re so in awe of Daddy that they wouldn’t dare discuss him with me.
I take a deep breath and then confess, “I’ve heard her call him ‘Daddy’ when they think I’m not listening. That’s what I call him. Isn’t that the most disgusting thing you’ve ever heard?”
“The dirty little kinksters.”
“I beg your pardon? What’s a kinkster?”
“You’re so naïve. She calls him ‘Daddy’ because he dominates her. In a cuddly way, I’m guessing. Otherwise, she’d call him, Sir. Oh, and he probably spanks her.”
I put a hand over my face. “Don’t tell me that. And my father isn’t cuddly. He’s bad-tempered and strict. I had to fight for weeks to get him to even look at me when he came out of prison.”
“Oh, that’s it. You’re jealous.”
I glare at Cassian. “You’re taking everyone’s side but mine. I hate you.”
“Not all of me, Lady Aubrey. There are about nine inches you couldn’t get enough of.”
“Go to hell.” I urge Cinnamon into a canter, and we break away from him, but a moment later, I hear him thundering behind us. He keeps trying to get alongside me, but I maneuver Cinnamon and keep cutting him off. I rather enjoy myself, and I’m smiling and out of breath by the time we make a circuit of the woods and walk back into the stable yard.
I dismount and start unbuckling Cinnamon’s tack and taking off her saddle. I turn around to lead her back into her stall, and Cassian’s standing right behind me. My breath catches in my throat as I look up into his tanned, handsome face.
He winks. “You can call me ‘Daddy’ if you like.”
“Move before I throw up on your shoes.”
He leans closer to whisper in my ear. “That’s fine. It’s perfect just hearing you moan my name, Lady Aubrey.”
I wish his seductive tone didn’t make tendrils of need snake through my body. He reaches out to slip a possessive hand around my waist and draw me closer. I sway toward him. My heels leave the ground. I’m mesmerized by his blue eyes.
Someone calls his name from across the yard in a shrill, angry tone. A woman is standing on the front step of Cassian’s house. She’s maybe sixty or sixty-five years old, but stooped and scrawny, like a much older person, and glaring at us like we’re a couple of thieves.
Not at us. At me.
Cassian drops his arm and steps back. Without another word, he turns and heads toward her. I suck in an unsteady breath and feel cold at the loss of Cassian’s body.
As I lead Cinnamon back into her stall, I wonder who that woman is. I suppose it’s his mother, but there isn’t much family resemblance. She didn’t seem to like me. Why shouldn’t Cassian kiss someone if he wants to? He’s a grown man.
She was probably angry because she knows who I am. That silly noblewoman who paraded about on Onyx.
I practice putting Cinnamon’s mane into a new style of braid while she rests, and then take her out to the dressage arena. We work through our moves for just over an hour and then I turn her out into a field. I take a moment to lean against the fence, watching Cinnamon nibble the grass. It really is a beautiful place, the fields surrounded by trees. It reminds me of where Mama and I used to live, just outside Dijon. Our cottage had a garden much like the one that surrounds Cassian’s home, full of bursting flowerbeds and bushes of mint, rosemary and lavender. A lump forms in my throat at the memory of Mama on her hands and knees weeding the soil while I ran up and down on the grass with a kite on a string. A strong urge to put on a pair of gardening gloves, get down into the dirt and feel close to her almost overwhelms me. I look over my shoulder at Cassian’s garden. He’s got everything he needs here. Home. Stables. A beautiful place to live. I hope he doesn’t have to give it all up just because Varga and his Party members used to keep their horses here.