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‘You should have ignored him, but it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. That sort of man is like champagne.’ Cassian’s brows came together. ‘In what possible way?’ ‘Constantly giving off gas, and if too much builds up without an outlet, it explodes.’
I suppose she’s an innocent: one would have to be, to be so very stupid.’
‘Cassian wasn’t. He didn’t even have a name.’ Cassian swallowed. ‘And then I was, and I could be, because of you, and if I’d told you the truth that would have ruined it.’ He tried a smile. ‘My uncle likes to say, if the truth shames you, the fault lies with you, not with the truth.’
‘I want to be happy with you,’ Cassian whispered. ‘Or sad with you, or angry with you, but with you.’
‘I can’t be thrown away again. I don’t know why people find it so easy to throw me away.’ He blurted that out, feeling the horrible childishness of it: the bewildered realisation that his mother cared only for his father, and his father for nobody at all. ‘My parents, and everyone I thought was my friend, and Martin, and then you – no, let me finish. I can’t keep only mattering when other people care, because they always stop caring. I can’t be disposable all my life.’
But never mind Leo or Miss Beaumont either: what are we to do about us?’ Daizell flopped back on the bed. ‘That – I want to say, it’s up to you. You’re the one with responsibilities, and power, and money.’ ‘No. That won’t work. You can’t feel as though it’s my life and you’re an addendum to it, still less that I have all the power. I don’t want all the power.
But I don’t want to be an appendage, or an addendum, or whatever the word is. I want to be useful. Needful. Tell me the truth, Cass. Can I make your life better?’ Cassian grabbed his hand. ‘You already have. If you left me today, you would have still made my life better, and I will always remember that. But please don’t leave, because I want you to keep on doing it. You make my life so much better,
‘Stop. I cannot countenance violent retribution, Lady Wintour.’ ‘Oh, come off it!’ Loxleigh said furiously. ‘Uh, that is—’ ‘No. I must decline to witness any such thing.’ Cassian gave it a couple of seconds, as Sir Francis and Sir James shot him looks of desperate hope, and concluded, ‘So let me leave the room before you start.’
