Cassandra's Conflict by Fredrica Alleyn Read Free Book Online

again her heart was beating rather too fast and she felt ridiculously pleased to see him. He smiled at her, almost as though he was equally pleased to see her.
    'Katya always makes a terrible drama out of everything. Now you can see why she would not make a good mother substitute.'
    'I expect it's difficult to take on two little girls,' Cassandra said.
    'Ah, you play the diplomat! Very good, my dear. But tell me, what was the truth of it all? Did Helena want attention or was it an accident?'
    Cassandra took some steadying breaths and looked straight at her employer, determined to be truthful with him from the start. 'I thought it was an accident. It isn't easy to balance plates on knees even when you're an adult.'
    'Good!'
    'Also, she was very upset. Usually when children want attention they make scenes, but they don't shed real tears, just tears of fury.'
    'So Katya lied?' he asked softly.
    'No, I'm sure she thought it was deliberate.'
    'Are you?'
    Cassandra was confused. Actually she wasn't sure. It had seemed to her that Katya had been furious about something else and had taken it out on the little girl, at the same time taking a perverse pleasure in the child's distress, but she knew she couldn't possibly say that. 'Perhaps there are undercurrents between the two of them that I don't know about,' she said at last.
    The baron nodded his approval. 'Well said. Perhaps there are many complexities of emotion in this house that you have yet to learn about, but that will all be part of your education, won't it? You plainly have an abundance of commonsense as well as all the other more obvious virtues.'
    His eyes travelled down her body and then back up again, quite slowly and without any attempt to disguise his appraisal. Cassandra was amazed to find that she didn't mind, that she even stood slightly straighter beneath his gaze. When he looked into her eyes again his expression was neutral. 'I think you will do very well,' he commented, almost to himself, then he put out a hand, touched her lightly on the cheek and turned back to the house. 'There is a timetable in your room. Study it and then commence your duties. You will dine with us at nine tonight. The children should be asleep by then, and if they do wake one of the nursery staff will see to them. Dress is formal.'
    Left alone in the garden, Cassandra felt totally confused. She'd expected a long talk with the baron while he outlined the way in which he wanted her to structure his daughters' days; instead, he'd spent no more than five minutes with her in which nothing had really been said and yet she felt strangely changed.
    Now that he'd gone she could still feel the gentle touch of his fingers on her cheek, and recall the way his eyes had scrutinised her, and how her body had tightened beneath his gaze in a way it had never tightened when Paul had looked at her.
    Even now her nipples felt hard against the fabric of her bra, and she was more aware of her body than she'd ever been. The long skirt that she was wearing seemed to be brushing insistently against her legs and without realising what she was doing she moved her hands down over her hips and thighs, just as Katya had done when she came down the stairs towards her that morning. It felt good, and she lifted her face to the sky and let the sun's rays touch her face, warming it until the glow began to spread down her throat as well.
    From an upstairs window, Dieter von Ritter watched the tall, slim young woman as for the first time she began to be aware of her body as something that needed more than food and clothing and his own body stirred. When he'd let his eyes travel over her he'd been picturing her as she'd been on the screen, her unawakened body pale and slim and, best of all, unaware of what was to come.
    That had been all he'd expected to get from the examination, a quick frisson of pleasure, but it had become much more. She'd seemed to come alive beneath his very gaze. He'd seen how the pulse beneath her ear