Chapter Twenty-Seven - Cassie

Pandemonium reigned. If only there had been a king by that name. He certainly couldn’t have done a worse job than her father. Common sense told Cassie that tyrants only prospered as long as they had the upper hand and now his power was being called into question by all.

Four long years had passed since that horrible day in the royal court and she was on her own, Isabel having finally left the kingdom not for the south but for the one closest to their lands. She’d heard it was a love match. Imagine that, her strait-laced sister becoming romantically involved with a usurper prince. Messages were sporadic yet they filled Cassie with hope.

And maybe she would see Adam again one day.

He’d bested Sir Purcell in that tourney and then escaped. She supposed he would be a man now, approaching his majority of twenty-one.

Please don’t hate me.

It was a daily litany, a superstition she dare not ignore since Will had seemingly deserted her.

Fortunately, no-one had yet sought her hand in matrimony.