Her Assassin's Heart - Book 2

Chapter 5

"So, Benjamin. . ." Cassandra looked into Lavinia's eyes, waiting for her sister to continue, but Lavinia seemed content to leave it at that. Her expression was thick and unreadable, but Cassandra had never been exceptionally good at reading other people.
    "What about him?" She said, turning away from Lavinia's gaze. For three days she had avoided deep conversation with Lavinia as though her life depended on it, but she had known from the start that her sister would find a way to broach the subject.
    "You and he. . ." Lavinia paused again, sighing. "You're not making this very easy on me, Cassie." There was wry humor in her tone.
    Cassandra ground her teeth together, glowering at the sunshine dancing on the freshly cut grass. "I've no idea what you're talking about." She said in her most refined voice.
    "Oh, come now, that's not like you. You know exactly what I'm talking about." Lavinia laughed. "Can you really be worried that he doesn't love you?" Her voice was suddenly serious.
    Cassandra turned to looked into the honest, brown eyes. "Worried?" She let out a bark of humorless laughter. "Love?" Biting down on her lip she looked up at the broad, blue expanse of sky above them. "That's the problem. I know what he feels for me, but there isn't—and there never will be—any Benjamin and I in that sense. I never—I just couldn't love him that way. He's told me how he feels, and if I were to give him the slightest encouragement, he'd never leave my side again, but I can't, Livy; I just can't. In my mind, the image of him as a friend is firmly implanted."
    "You don't have feelings for him?" A slight frown had formed between Lavinia's brows.
    "If what I feel for him is love. . ." Cassandra sighed sharply. "Then I don't see the draw to such feelings. They're boring and ordinary. Even lifeless."
    "Well, sometimes it's the ordinary that becomes the extraordinary. Love has a way of changing every opinion we thought we ever had." Lavinia paused, studying her sister with her large eyes. "But I see that the two of you are not well-suited. He's far too kind for you, if you will excuse my saying it. Honestly, I don't mean it in a nasty way, but you're like a wild thing: untamed, and he's far too settled and gentle. You would walk all over him."
    "Exactly!" Cassandra snorted. "I've never thought of any two people more unlikely to successfully fall in love."
    Lavinia smiled. "No, the more I think of it, the more I'm glad you don't share his feelings. You need someone who can outwit you, and leave you speechless and unable to respond. All your life, you've never been at a loss for words, and I fear that the only man who could earn your respect is one who would be able to back you into a corner where you don't know what to do. Not in a bad way, obviously, but someone who intrigues you."
    "That's just it," Cassandra said archly. "Men like that don't exist. We're not in a ridiculous novel, Livy, not everyone gets a happily ever after with a perfect match and the ability to disappear into the sunset with roses and finery. We live in the real world, and things are far more complicated out here." Lavinia laughed.
    "Of course! I'm not saying you need someone; I'm simply saying if you're going to have someone they need to be able to outdo you, or you'd never be able to think of them as equal to yourself. But he'd also need to be tender and be able to pull the softness out of you. A match without tenderness is the sadest sort I think."
    Cassandra rolled her eyes. "If such a man exists, I'm sure I should hate him more than love him." She snorted softly. "He sounds like a disaster waiting to happen."
    "So you say." Lavinia's lips curved upward in a slight smile, but there was a certain seriousness in the depths of her large eyes. "But Cassie, if ever you need it, you know you have a place you can come to, right? Ethan and I would be glad to have you stay with us if something happened here that made it unbearable." Shooting a glance at her sister, Cassandra wondered if there was more to the words than a simple invitation of help. There was something in the way Lavinia spoke that made her wonder for a moment if her sister weren't begging her to come away with them, and she realized suddenly how lonely it must be in a village without a friendly face. "We spoke with Papa about it, but he was against it. You're a great comfort to him now, and he is loathe to part with you, but if you should need a haven of sorts, you only need come. Of course, I would prefer to have news of your imminent arrival, but if it is too urgent to allow you the leisure of waiting, just come, and we can work something out from there."
    Cassandra looked into her sister's eyes, suddenly serious. The world around her was cutting her off, pulling her down, suffocating her with its propriety and posh superiority. She had begun to feel as though she no longer belonged in the circle of society into which she had been born, and here was a way out. A blessed means of escape, a ticket to freedom, a new road that led. . .she didn't even know where, and that thought almost frightened her to the point of trembling.
    Turning her gaze toward the vibrant green of the spreading garden, she drew a deep breath of fresh air, not realizing she hadn't been breathing. To get out of here, to step out of. . .all of this. To go somewhere without a plan, without a map of her future that told her exactly what moves to make, what would that feel like? There had always been a structure to guide her, but. . .she drew a deep breath, jerking away from the thoughts as though they were poison.
    She wasn't going anywhere. Her mother would never see her leave, and her father, well, he couldn't be left alone with that woman. She couldn't do that to him. As much as she was tempted, she had a responsibility to the man who had raised her. She had to pay him back for all the suffering she had caused him before. She couldn't be so selfish as to just leave him.
    "Let's go see what cook has planned for dinner." She flashed a smile at Lavinia who smiled in return, realizing the subject had reached its end for the present, and rose without hesitation to follow her sister.
    Cassandra's heart beat treacherously within her, and each thump sent knives of pain through her chest. For a moment, a single moment, she had let her head fly to the clouds, allowed herself to dream, and now it hurt all the more to come back to reality. The thought of getting away from all the insanity of London's nobility into a place where no one knew her. . .that was heaven.
    But who was she fooling? Heaven had no place for her. She was Cassandra Antrucha, breaker of hearts, temptress of fools, and this was the world she had created for herself. She straightened her shoulders. Lavinia could run off to her little Scottish village, but that would never been enough for Cassandra. No, refinement and class were in her blood, and they were going to stay there.
    A coldly imperious smile spread across her lips as they entered the kitchen. She wasn't some lost puppet without a string. That was never her way. She would rise from the depths no matter who tried to put her down, and one day she'd show them all. Her mother, the Morgans, all of them. She would be far more than any of them expected, and then, well. . .a tremor passed through her heart. Then she could live out the rest of her miserable days knowing she'd bested them all, right? That was true happiness, wasn't it? The empty ache in her heart revealed the truth, but she pushed it away. Feelings could hold no sway of her. She wasn't that weak. She never had been. That was the problem, though, she was beginning to feel as if perhaps she were the one who had gotten it all wrong, the one who'd been bested, and it was the coldest feeling in the world.

So...thoughts? What do you think will happen next? Is Cassie wrong about her feelings for Ben? She does seem a little defensive sometimes.... I've decided that I'm not gonna alternate chapters between different points of view like I did with HSF. Cassie and Lavinia are very different and I think their stories deserve to be told as such. I hope y'all enjoyed this! Keep an eye out for more! Inspiration is striking!!