He’d known Cassian was keeping his background private, but thought it was because he had not wanted to rub in his own prosperity to a man who had only the clothes he stood up in. That he was holding back out of natural reluctance to boast, that he didn’t want to be seen to buy. He’d thought Cassian had trusted him. He’d said as much to Martin because he’d wanted to proclaim the joy of what he’d found.
What a fool. What a lie. What an embarrassment.
‘Daize?’ Martin was standing, looking down at him with pity that stung like a handful of nettles. ‘I’ve seen that look on your face before, and may God punish every man who’s ever put it there. You didn’t deserve it from me and you truly don’t from him, and if you want company, I’ll wait for you. I swear not to be a prick about this.’
Daizell didn’t reach up for his hand. Martin’s sympathy wasn’t comforting and he didn’t want it. He wanted Cassian’s hand on his shoulder, Cassian’s comfort.
Cassian didn’t exist.
He swallowed. ‘I’d rather be on my own, I think.’
‘Christ,’ Martin said. ‘I’m glad I took that titled nonentity’s clothes; I wish I’d given him clap. I’m heading to Leamington Spa, then probably down to Oxford. I’ll leave a note at the Rose and Crown in Leamington, if you should want to catch me up. For God’s sake be careful, Daizell. Dukes are hazardous creatures.’
Chapter Thirteen
Cassian had retreated to their bedroom. It was a pleasant room for an inn, with a reasonably sized window, a reasonably comfortable bed, enough space for two men to share without being irritatingly on top of one another. Admittedly that was in part because neither he nor Daizell was particularly big, and in part because they enjoyed being on top of one another, but still, he was pleased at his own contentment in this small, bare room, decorated only with Daizell’s shades.
Cassian’s bedroom at home was three times the size. It had a luxurious bed that could fit five of him, a Canaletto and a lovely painting of his mother by Sir Joshua Reynolds on the walls, fine porcelain and beautiful furnishings and velvet curtains. It was a palatial room, and he was undeniably looking forward to sleeping in it again, but at this moment the thought of it had a very empty feel.
What was he going to do?
Daizell loved him. Daizell wanted to be with him, not just now but in the future, for as long as they could have. Daizell didn’t know who he was, because Cassian had lied to him every single day.
Cassian wanted time too. Not just the remainder of his dwindling month, but proper time, long time, all the time. He’d stopped himself from making Daizell promises he didn’t yet know how to keep, but he would make them, soon. He wanted to give Daizell everything, starting with himself.
They’d had day after day with nothing to do but enjoy one another, in bed and out, and with the inevitability of gravity, Cassian had tumbled headlong from liking to love. He craved Daizell painfully; he had wild thoughts of simply not going home that he knew were impossible but in which he allowed himself to indulge for shameful moments here and there. He needed cheerful, absurd, erratic Daizell with him, because when Daizell was present, he felt like himself.
And it was him that Daizell loved.Him, Cassian. Not the Duke, with his money and grandeur acting as compensation for his personal insignificance.
So all Cassian had to do was work out a way to tell him the truth, and also a means by which Daizell Charnage could be in his overly examined, ever-correct, scandal-free ducal life, and everything would be perfect.
There would be a way, he told himself. Daizell was ingenious, and Cassian was a duke, with all that entailed: wealth, power, authority. Between them, they’d come up with something, just as soon as Cassian admitted that he’d been lying to him from the moment they’d met.
He thought about how to do that, sitting by the window withKenilworthunread in his hand, feeling rather sick. Daizell would surely understand that there had never been a good time; that saying it too early would have killed everything that had grown between them. He was still thinking about it when Daizell came in.
Cassian looked around, starting a greeting, and leapt to his feet as he saw Daizell’s face. ‘What’s wrong? What happened? Are you all right?’
‘All right? Well. That’s a question. Here.’ He walked over, grabbed Cassian’s unresisting hand, and dropped something into it. Something small, cold, and gold.
‘My ring!’ Cassian hadn’t let himself believe this was possible. He couldn’t have borne imagining getting it back, only to learn it had been pawned or sold or lost. ‘You got it. You found it. Oh God.’ He pushed it on his finger with a shaking hand, feeling it slide into its rightful place, filling a gap whose yawning depths he only now let himself realise. The Severn ring, back where it belonged, and he would never, ever be so foolish as to lose it or risk it again. He gripped his right hand in his left, clutching the ring to himself. ‘I can’t believe it. Daizell, I owe you everything. I . . .’ He looked up and his throat dried.
He’d seen Daizell’s face as he walked in, wearing an expression he didn’t recognise or like. That had been quite driven out by the joy of having his ring back, and as he’d looked up, he’d expected Daizell would be smiling. That he’d put on that grim look as a jest, a pretence something had gone wrong, in order to enjoy Cassian’s happiness all the more.
He wasn’t smiling now. He wasn’t smiling at all.
‘Daize?’
Daizell met his eyes in a long, hard, stare. ‘Your Grace?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Cassian asked, and then, too late, the words sank in. He felt colour draining from his face. ‘Daize—’
‘You have the ring you hired me to retrieve,’ Daizell said. His voice was stiff and thick. ‘The Severn ring. So that completes my period of service to Your Grace. You owe me fifty pounds.’
‘No. Yes, but— Daize, listen!’
‘To what?’ Daizell demanded, the stiffness cracking like a thrown glass. ‘To you explaining why you’ve made a fucking fool out of me for weeks and lied to my face? How could you do that to me? Why? Jesus Christ, did you think Ineeded to feel stupider than I am? Or did you just not think about me at all while you got what you wanted?’
‘That’s not true!’ Cassian’s face was burning, his throat closing. He hated being shouted at. ‘You must see, I couldn’t just say.’
