Sunday morning ride

[Casandra Lightheart]

She was in a very good mood right now I had been a while since she had really gone riding and she was with a man she liked very much she looked over at him and smiled as they continued to ride she knew where she wanted to go and headed to the falls.

[Marqués del Stry]

Following her from the Inn and into the forest. He had a slight feel of the land being that this was the direction in which they had come for the party. The Eastern Forest. It was something he would have to explore more at a different time.

The horse, Windrider, was not too hard of a handle. Looking over to Casandra as he continued to lead the horse after her own, he said, "Your animal companion Kjay and Windrider will be welcomed. The stable hands will take good care of your horse. I trust you will be wanting to keep Kjay with you?" There was room enough in her quarters if that was the case.

The rush of the waterfall could be heard in the distance. "You have picked a lovely location."

[Casandra Lightheart]

She smiled softly as she heard him.

"Yes of course Kjay will stay with me."

She too wanted to expolre further but she knew where the falls were but had not yet seen them.

"I hope your right."

When she heard the Falls she urged the palamino into a run knowing Wind would keep up.

[Marqués del Stry]

Keeping up with her pace he still had time to take in the landscape around them. It was only unfortunate that the season was colder and many of the trees were losing their leaves - others just held the darker colors.

The place had to be lovely in the warm months.

When Casandra urged the horse forward in more of a run the Marquès was quick to follow. A flick of his wrist on the reings and he and his horse were off.

[Casandra Lightheart]

Rider would try jumping around just a bit testing Marques. She was laughing her hair streaming out behind her s she road, she looked like she was born to ride her body moving naturally in the saddle with the motion of the horse.

"Can you keep up Amadeo."

She called out to him over her shoulder.

[Marqués del Stry]

When the horse start to buck and pull at the tether the Marqués pulled on the reigns, wrapping it around his hand and holding tight. Pulling in at the thigh. Had to let the horse know that he wasn't easily pushed aside and that if he wanted to go in a direction, then that was the direction they were going to go.

"I'm right behind you Casandra." An for the most part he was. "Very spirited horse of yours."

[Casandra Lightheart]

She smiled and laughed softly as they come up to the falls. She reigned in the palamino and came to a stop at the waters edge and sat there looking at the falls quiet just listening.

[Marqués del Stry]

There they were: the falls. The water rushing down off the ledge and crashing on the rocks below. The sound of it was calming and the horse stomped once as he was reigned in. "It is a lovely setting."

Bringing th horse around to her he assumed this was the spot and dismounted. Keeping a hand on the reign he went to her side and offered a hand. "do you like the water?"

[Casandra Lightheart]

She took his hand and dismounted.

"I did not know it was so beautiful and yes I love the water."

She moved to the saddle bag and took out a couple hobbles for the horses and began to hobble both of them and removed their bridals before turning back to him.

"It is so peaceful"

[Marqués del Stry]

While Casandra was busy with the horses, the Marqués went to get the picnic items which were attached to the back of the horse. "The change in seasons does bring about a peace."

Basket in tow he headed back. Upon reaching her side he kissed her cheek so as not to take away from the view she was enjoying. Then he ushered to the land around them for her to find a spot for them to sit. "Who taught you to ride?"

[Casandra Lightheart]

She would look at him and retuen his kiss to the cheeks with a soft kiss to his lips.

"I learned to ride at school, I honestly can't remember the teachers name."

It was the truth she looked a bit lost in thought before she turned to him with a smile.

"What about you who tought you to ride?"

She found a spot on a large rock that streched out over the water.

[Marqués del Stry]

"As a child." He responded as he followed her to the spot of her choosing. "They were the best way to get around the land. Mi padre had us on horse after we were able to walk. The art of riding was another in the things to learn."

If he was not holding on to the food supplies he would have held her hand. "My family was not born into the title. It was the work of my great-grandfather that granted him the things that we have now." He guessed that her status was inherited.

[Casandra Lightheart]

She listened to him.

"I don't remember my father."

She took the blanket from him and spread it out onto the rock and then the basket and set it on the blanket and then moved to wrap her arms around him.

"See you earned it, I did not."

She sighed. She had not inherited the tital either she would tell him the story if he asked she was ready to open up to him.

[Marqués del Stry]

Her reaction to the fact that his family was not born into money took him slightly by surprise. Was it a problem that his family had worked up to the title that they had? With her arms around him he embraced them and turned his head about to face her.

"The sigh was not something I was expecting," he said. "Are you missing your father?" He moved his hand along her arm, feeling to see if she was cold or not out here in the open cool air of fall.

[Casandra Lightheart]

"I don't have any memory of my father to miss my mother told me he died when I was very young, others think that she lied to me I will never know the truth she took it to her grave."

She was a bit chilled but it was not anywhere near dangerous.

"I'm sorry the sigh itself was because I did nothing to earn the title It was handed to me."

She looked at him and smiled sadly.

"There is so much about me that you don't know, so much I want to tell you but I'm scared, some of it is hard to talk about, I don't know where to start or what you would think when I was done."

[Marqués del Stry]

This was the beauty of dressing in layers - the ability to remove clothing and still be clothed. He moved from her, but only enough to have freedom of movement. Crossing his arms he pulled upwards on his dark sweater and took it over his head. The white shirt underneath lifted and fell back to place once the sweater was fully removed.

A shake of his head before he shook out the sweater. "Aqui, put this on." He made sure to say so with a smile. "I am very adept to the cool.". The Marquès would hold it out for get until she took it. This was not a mere request.

"Casandra, though you born to it makes no difference. And we all have things in our lives that we have done, currently are engaged in, or otherwise associated with that may be considerd, how you say, disagreeable.". Hoping that he had the right word.

"These are things that make us who we are. You should want a person to care for who you are, not only what you pretend to be."

[Casandra Lightheart]

She watched him remove his sweater she was going to refuse it but how could she say no. She took and and pulled it on over her head then pulled her hair free of it.

"I am glad that you agree that you should care for who a person is and please it is not that I pretend to be anything but I was not born a Lady of Claremount, I was born to a seamstress."

She looked to him for his reaction.

[Marqués del Stry]

"And my ancestor was a merchant trader." a wave of his hand as in dismissal. Then he chuckled. "It is good to have skills of a trade. If anything were to happen to your holdings you would then be able to make a living for yourself in honest work. We do not have to stay in the positions life puts on our feet. We can mark out our own paths."

He hoped that he was being a comfort, if but only a small one. "Tell me then how you went from seamstress to Lady of the land."

[Casandra Lightheart]

She breathed out a sigh of relief and sat down on the blanket drawing him with her she moved so they would be sitting side by side before she started talking she opened the back et and set out the simple meal of fruits and cheeses and handed him the bottle of wine and the glasses.
"Where to begin."

She looked lost in thought.

"My mother was seamstress for a girls school about a days ride from Claremount. I was assigned to one of the richer girls in the schools and even though she made my life a living hell with her teasing I never regretted it. It provided me the opportunity to receive an education. My mother told me to not sit at the back gossiping with the other servants but to listen and learn."

She took a piece of cheese and ate it before taking the glass of wine and sipping from it then began again.

"Through those classes I learned to read, write, do mathematics, music, riding, dancing, so many things.

"I think that I was picked on so bad because I didn't fit in with either group, the servants thought I was trying to act like I above them and the ladies thought I was below them because I had no money, at night I would tell my mother what we had learned that day while we made dresses I loved but was sure I would never ware."

"It was the year that the lady I was assigned to was graduating and there were all these balls to go almost like more energy was directed at them, learning all the young ladies were talking of finding rich husbands nothing was ever said of love, they had lists of who they were going to try to catch first and who to avoid."

"In the list of men to avoid was Lord Cosmo Claremount, he was the only child and his parents death was always questioned it was roumored they were murdered because someone thought that they were suposed to be planing an assasination against the Lord of the neighboring lands."

"I met him by accident during one of the first balls of the season, I really tried to be a wall flower, but the more I tried to look plain the more I stood out. He was being ignored by all the ladies with breading and was often standing alone with his man or with the small group of other less desierables, Oh Amadeo he was so handsom tall, long blond hair piercing blue eyes that could search your soul. I bumped in to him when I was getting a drink for my lady and I spilled it on him, I was so scared it would not have been the first time I had been slapped; but insted he just smiled at me with his lopsided grin and told me not to worry about it that he had other clothing and went and got another drink for me to take to the Lady."

She was smiling sadly her eyes looked at something a long way off as she told a story that she had not spoken of in so long but it just seemed right to tell Amadeo no one else but Venis had ever bothered to ask so she had never spoken of it.

"Well at some time during the year the man that my lady was after got another girl pregnant and they were forced to quickly marry, the only man left that had money and not just a title was Cosmo, but we had already fallen in love when two people go unoticed they seem to find eachother. The Lady Onya took it upon her self to do everything that she could to make him love her but nothing worked when ever she tried to talk to him he would always look at me."

You could hear her voice change as she spoke the ladies name for the first tome it was close to hatred.

"I was invited to go to Claremount for a lunch and of course I accepted the offer, it was only later that I learned that Cosmo had talked to my mother and was going to ask me to marry him.

"He came in a carriage to pick me up; his man and another lady were there so that no one would be able to question that thins were appropriate. Half way to the castle we were set apon by three men at first it just seemed to be two and Cosmo and his man set off after the first two who were actually a distraction."

As she told him this part of her story she began to sob her voice breaking.

"The third man killed the servant riding with us and then turned to me he threw me to the ground and was trying to rape me, while this was going on Cosmo and his man had cought up with the other two men and learned what was really supposed to happen. Onya in her desperation to get what she wanted had hierd the three men to make sure that we were all sperated and that I was raped to make me unaceptable for marriage, in a fit of rage Cosmo killed the man that was attacking me but he got in a lucky thrust with his knife. Cosmo died in my arms five minutes later but not before telling his man that he named me to suceede him and from then on I was Lady of Claremount."

"I continued onto Claremount holding Cosmo all the way there, when we arrived I watched as his body was carried into the house where he was laid in his bed his man Giovani had gone to the priest and before the night was up the papers were drawen up and it became legal I was now Casandra Marie Lightheart Lady of Claremount."

"I went to get my mother the next day dressed in silk with my hair in a very pretty updo, on my finger was the ring that Cosmo was going to give me that very day he died."

She was still crying but noy they were just tears she was no longer sobbing and her voice was clear and strong again.

"I created a huge commotion when I walked in to that school, Onya tried to confront me and I slapped her hard across the face and threw the signed confession of the men that she had hiered at her and went to get my mother. I took her by the hand and told her that I swore she would never wok another day in her life for ungrateful people and that I was taking her to my home. I left that school and never looked back."

She looked up at him.

"Now you know how I came to be a lady."

[Marqués del Stry]

When she started to cry the Marqués withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. It would not do to see her cry, especially in this weather. He could understand some of what she was saying about being a servant and learning with the high standing ladies. Leo was his servant but he received the same education as himself; though he was never treated badly. In his growing up he had seen instances, like she had spoken of, at schools.

"You did work to get the title, it was not simply handed to you," He put his arm around her in a comforting manner. "I am sorry that your appointment came with sadness. He must have loved you very much."

[Casandra Lightheart]

She took the handkerchief from him and wiped her eyes with it.

"Thank you for listening besides Venis you are the only one that has ever asked me about that, and yes I think he loved me very much I know I loved him as much as a seventeen year old girl can understand love. "

She leaned against him glad that some part of her past was in the open.

"Claremount breeds horses, so I had a lot to learn when I became a lady, but as you have seen I do love to ride."

[Marqués del Stry]

He was glad that she felt able to tell him a trail of her past. "I suspect you had to learn a lot of things, many of them rather suddenly." such was the task of having a sudden responsibility cast upon a person.

"You are a very adaptable person, you should be proud of all you have done and your title." He did have a curiousity because he remembered her saying that she no longer worked. "Do you still sew? Is your mother still with you?"

[Casandra Lightheart]

"I sew when I want actually I sew a lot of my clothes Ifind it relaxing, No My mother died shortly after I moved her to Caremount it was a blessing though she ws i a lot of pain and had been sick for a while."

She thought for a moment and smiled up at him.

"I learned a lot before hand that prepared me for what I had to do. After Cosmo and my mother died I spent a lot of time with the stablemaster and the healer learning everything I could from both of them."

[Marqués del Stry]

While she spoke he did not want the food she had brought to go to waste and he had been eating the fruits. Only ideally picking here and there at the cheeses. "It must have been lonely for you there, for you, after he died. Though it sounds like his servants stayed on even after he died. That must have provided you with some company."

He could only think of the thought of being in a large place all alone. "When someone you love dies, if often makes the person into someone that is different." He held a cracker in his fingers. "I can assume that the death of Cosmo had some effect on you?"

[Casandra Lightheart]

She was now eating as well her face was still a bit red and puffy but the tears had stopped.

"His servants became more like my friends when my mother died, only a few still call me Lady most just call me Casandra a couple call me Cas. They kept me from going crazy with grief."

She took a grape and ate it followed by a sip of wine.

"I did become different when he died but I had so much to do that it helped me past my grief."

"What about you what was it like for you growing up?"

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