Ordained

Chapter Ninety-One

It was hard not to laugh as Cassius led her through the manor. Spiralling down staircases she had never noticed until they were below the house. "Where are you taking me?" She asked in a whisper, as if the low ceilings could hear her.

"Trust me Emmie." He grinned, behaving like a naughty school boy rather than the lord of the manor. Her nickname had been used by friends and family alike a million times over the years. When Cassius said it though, it made her heart skip every time like it was something new and exciting. It made her feel silly when she reacted so strongly to him, but at the same time, she loved it. Blushing, she was glad the hallways were less brightly lit than the corridors above.

Cassius led them through a maze of passages until they came to a large storeroom. The dirt floor had been cut down into steps, the room far colder being half-submerged in the earth. Hanging from the ceiling were a variety of woven baskets; reaching up with his long limbs Cassius easily unhooked one from the racking above their heads. "Hold this please." He asked, handing it to her.

It was oddly fun, it felt like there were somewhere they shouldn't be, and that childish sense of excitement of knowing you might get in trouble chased away her remaining embarrassment from earlier. "Where to next?" She asked.

He gave her a winning smile. "Now we need a ladder."
"A ladder?" She asked, eyes wide but still grinning.

He nodded, holding out a hand for her to take. She hesitated but eventually accepted the invitation, taking his hand. "Come." He commanded mischievously.

Emmeline followed him out of the building through a small back door that faced the stables. Part of her wished she had been paying better attention to which way they had come, wishing she had known about this shortcut to the stables before.

Cassius headed for a barn besides the stables, clearly unconcerned by the surprised looks given to them by the staff they passed. "Are we supposed to be here?" She asked quietly.

He just laughed loudly. "I'm the Duke, Emmie. We can go wherever we wish." He tapped the tip of her nose with his index, laughing again when she pouted. Despite his assurances, she still hesitated by the barn door when he strode inside. Moments later he returned with straw sticking to his trousers, an oddly triangular ladder under one arm and a pair of secateurs in hand.

"What are we doing Cassius?" She asked, amused at his antics. He just shook his head as he passed her, dropping the secateurs into her basket and heading for the orchard.

The Marcellus orchard was just as splendid as the rest of the gardens. Highly ordered lines of fruit and nut trees stretched for miles it felt like. Cassius looked surprisingly at home as he loped along the lines till he found what he was looking for. "This first." He gestured to the row before them.

Apples. Emmeline smiled as she realised what he was doing. "Are we picking fruit Cassius?"

Cassius was already propping the ladder against the trunk. "I thought this might take your mind off earlier." He explained, pressing his hand to her cheek for the most fleeting of seconds. "Plus I can make sure you have enough to eat. We can't rule out that it is something in the kitchen making you unwell, so this way we know nothing can contaminate the fruit."

It was touching and she blushed anew at the thoughtfulness of his actions. "I don't know how to pick fruit." She admitted, her eyes full of humour.

"Luckily for you, my Emmie. I am an expert." He boasted confidently, tapping his chest as if he had a medal there for fruit picking. She snickered as he disappeared up the ladder into the branches.

"Would you pass me the basket?" He asked a minute later. Emmeline laughed; she could only see the bottoms of his legs sticking out from the tree as she passed it up to him carefully.