Miriam pushed the bowl toward her. "Please eat something. You need your strength now that you are awake." She sounded sincere, worry bleeding into her tone in a way that made it obvious she had been fretting over Cassandra’s condition.
She was right, of course. Should there be another threat, it would be harder for Cassandra to make a swift escape while starving and drained of energy. She could not afford to be weak, not when she had already learned how quickly circumstances could turn against her.
Cassandra picked up the spoon, her eyes fixed on the contents of the bowl.
She took a mouthful of broth first and swallowed. It was plain, but warm, and the heat settled pleasantly in her empty stomach. It did not stop her from taking another spoonful. Then another.
She had not realized just how famished she had been until that moment. Before long, she was devouring the meal with an urgency that surprised even her, momentarily setting aside her earlier misgivings as hunger took precedence over caution.
The two women sat beside her at the table, one on each side, eating from their own plates contentedly, though neither consumed their food with nearly as much gusto as Cassandra.
Their eyes occasionally wandered toward her, as though they were still uncertain what to make of the strange young woman who had suddenly found herself in their care.
Halfway through the meal, Cassandra noticed the furtive looks Miriam was casting in her direction. The young woman was trying to be inconspicuous, but she was not nearly as successful as she might have hoped.
Curious, Cassandra tried to imagine what could be going on in the woman’s head. She attempted to see herself the way Miriam probably did, as a stranger whose circumstances made little sense.
She was still wearing the same clothes she had on when she went to visit Ashford house. Although the dress was now wrinkled and stained in places from her desperate attempts to evade her pursuers, there was no denying that it was a fine garment.
It was made from rich materials, the sort worn by women whose families possessed comfortably filled purses.
They probably suspected she was the daughter or wife of a well-off family, perhaps the wife or daughter of a wealthy businessman. They would not guess her to be a noblewoman though.
Her mannerisms suggested that she was a woman of genteel breeding, but they would never make that leap, not after the situation from which they had rescued her.
Noblewomen were not frequently chased down by vicious groups of men. They were pampered and cherished by others, most especially by their husbands and families.
"What happened to you, and why were those thugs chasing after you, if you don’t mind me asking?" Miriam asked, finally voicing the questions that had clearly been occupying her thoughts.
Telling her the full truth was out of the question, so Cassandra carefully considered her next words, crafting her response as convincingly as she could.
"I don’t know those men." Which was true. "I was traveling in my carriage when a band of ruffians suddenly descended upon me." She allowed her voice to tremble the barest bit as she explained what was, in all accounts, supposed to have been a distressing ordeal.
It was not difficult to conjure the appropriate reaction, especially after she had experienced an even more terrible kind of fear not long ago. "They took me by force and tried to ransom me to my father. I was thankfully able to escape from them, but they gave chase. If it weren’t for your help, I can’t imagine what would have become of me."
Gratitude was too tame a word to describe what she felt as she stared back at Miriam. The same was true of Josephine and Clara, who had risked themselves to help her escape.
Their kindness had given Cassandra something she had not expected to find so soon after returning to the past: strangers who were genuinely kind and selfless.
She could only hope that Whitmore never discovered what they had done. The thought of what might happen to them if he did made a knot of unease form in her chest, even as the warmth of the broth spread through her.
And she hoped, more than anything, that Josephine and Clare managed to leave unscathed.
"How awful. I knew that you had been through quite the ordeal, but this is worse than anything I could have imagined." Martha touched a hand to her chest, a series of emotions dancing in her brown eyes.
Sadness and sympathy were plain upon her face as Cassandra recounted an altered version of what had happened to her. Her plate of food was left half-finished, her appetite now a thing of the past.
This reaction from Martha was all it took for Cassandra’s entire being to burn with another wave of guilt for lying, but it wasn’t enough to deter her.
Sentimentality, she reminded herself, was what had gotten her into this mess to begin with. Had she only behaved like a heartless shrew from the start, perhaps—
But no. She could not waste time she did not have thinking of all the things she could have done differently when she ought to spend it coming up with a way to return to the capital.
Once she was safely back in the palace, she would devote herself to more pressing matters. John and the conspiracy were no longer the biggest issues occupying her mind. Her family had firmly planted themselves at the top of her list of priorities, and so had Mr. Whitmore.
And she would treat each of them as they ought to be: problems to be dealt with. As for her family, she would take great pleasure in ruining them.
For all they had done to her in the past and for the fate they had been content to force her into, she would take everything they held dear and snap it with her hands like one would snap a twig.
She would take their pleasures, their comforts, and everything they valued, and reduce it all to ash. She would do so with little care, since they had never deigned to show her any.
They had thought her the perfect victim, but she would show them the error of their ways soon enough.
"Where were you traveling from, if you don’t mind me asking?" The question came from Miriam, who hadn’t spoken another word as she listened intently.
"No. I don’t mind. I was traveling from Caldor. I live there with my family," Cassandra responded, knowing that they would surely have more questions for her.
It was their right, after all, given that they had invited a mysterious stranger into their home. Hence, she wasn’t the least bit surprised when, only a few seconds later, Miriam was already asking her next question.