The next day, Catherine was in her room, reading a book when the guard came in.
"Lady Kenna to see you, your Grace." he said. Catherine's eyes grew wide. She wondered what on earth she could want now.
"Send her away, I don't wish to see her." she said, waving her hand at him, but Kenna simply pushed past him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." she said. The guard took a step forward. She waved him away and he walked out.
"How dare you burst in here like this." she scolded. Kenna ignored her.
"I demand to know what your holding over Bash. I don't know why, but it's obvious you must have threatened him." Kenna said.
"Demand!? No one. And I do mean no one demands anything from me. Especially not you...And not that it's any of your business, but I am not holding anything over his head." she said with venom in her tone.
"You expect me to believe that he actually wants to marry you?" she asked.
"I could care less what you believe. But yes. He proposed to me of his own free will. What possible purpose would I have for forcing him to do so?" she was actually a bit curious what was going through her mind.
"Who knows what your motivations are for any of the schemes you pull. All I know is that there is no way the two of you are actually in love, and knowing the two of you, I can only imagine it must be you pushing him into it. I know you can be quite deadly when you want." she said. Catherine was fuming.
"You don't think it's real?" she asked walking to her desk and pulling out the paper Bash had given her the night before. "Read it." she said handing it to Kenna.
"Bash changed his name?" Kenna looked confused.
"Tell me now he doesn't mean it. Who would go through so much trouble for someone they didn't love?" Kenna looked sick at the thought. "That's right, love, he loves me and I love him. You can push us and dig into our business all you want, because there is nothing to find. Although, I would avoid it if I were you, because I am loosing patience with you by the second! And as you've said, I can be quite deadly when I want." Catherine's voice grew louder throughout her speech. "Now get out!" she said ripping the paper out of her hand and pointing to the door.
"Catherine, I was wondering...Kenna what are you doing here?" Mary said coming into the room.
"Mary, good. Can you kindly remove your lady before I do something I'll regret?" she said.
"I don't know what is going on, but you should leave now Kenna. I'll discuss this with you later." she said sternly. Kenna looked back and fourth between them and then stormed out. Mary watched as she left and closed the door behind her. "What on earth was this all about...?" she asked as she turned around to see Catherine leaning on her desk, trying to catch her breath. "Catherine, are you alright?" she said rushing to her side. "Here." she said helping her to the chair to sit. "You need to breath."
"That little wench needs lo learn her place. I don't know how you put up with her." she said as her breath started to even out.
"What did she say to you?" she asked.
"She had the nerve to accuse me of threatening Bash so he'd marry me." she said still seething.
"What?" Mary seemed a bit shocked.
"Yes. And she just barged in here without being invited. Like she owned the place." she added.
"Okay, okay. I'll have a word with her. Just please calm down." she said.
"I'm alright." she said patting her hand.
"I had hoped these spells would've stopped by now." Mary said feeling her forehead. Catherine shrugged her hand away. She hated it when she overreacted.
"They might, if people would stop testing my patience." she spat. "Now what did you want to speak to me about?" she tried to change the subject. Mary sighed.
"I just wanted to ask you about your wedding. To see if needed help with it. Now I see perhaps I should take over all together. You're under far too much stress already." she said.
"Oh, honestly, if there's anything I can handle on my own, it's planning a party. Besides, on Francis's orders, it's going to be small anyway." she said.
"You can make all the final decisions, but I absolutely insist on doing all the running around. No reason to add unnecessary frustration." she said as she stood. "I'll start preparations as soon as a date is decided on."
"Mary." Mary didn't answer, but kept walking. "Mary." she repeated as the door closed behind her. Catherine breathed out in frustration.
After she'd cooled off a bit, Catherine went to meet Bash in the garden. She was pacing infront of he bench when Bash arrived.
"Is everything alright?" he asked.
"No, it's not. I just knew she was going to start trouble. I knew it." she said as she continued to pace.
"Who's causing trouble?" he said trying to stop her from pacing. She stopped only long enough to answer him.
"Who do you think? That little ex-harlot of yours." She said. Bash raised his brow.
"Ah." he said simply.
"Yes. She bounded into my room demanding answers as if we owe her any explanation. After all the awfulness she put us both through. That selfish little..." She started getting mad again. Bash grabbed her gently by the arms and held her firmly in place.
"Catherine. You can't let her get to you like this. Who cares what she does. Just forget it. She's not important. Not anymore." he assured.
"But she..." she started.
"It doesn't matter. Soon we will be wed and we will have our child and we will be happy, and nothing she can say or do is going to change that." he told her.
"The worst part is, she was doing it to protect you. As if she had some sort of claim on you. She, she betrayed you, and now she cares?" she started sounding more upset than angry.
"What's really the problem here Catherine?" he sensed there was more to it.
"If I hadn't gotten pregnant, would you have gone back to her? If she asked you to." She asked.
"That's ridiculous. Of course not." he said.
"You loved her..." she started.
"No. I didn't. I thought that I did. But that's only because, until you, I didn't really know what love was. Baby or not, I still wouldn't want anyone but you. You should know that by now." he said pulling her in by her waist.
"You're right, I should. What ever was I thinking?" she saud with a smile as he kissed her forehead.
They went back inside, hand in hand. As they walked down one of he corridors, a messenger stopped them.
"Oh, there you are my lord. I've been scouring the castle for you." he pulled a letter from his pocket. "An urgent letter for you from Anet." Bash took the letter and thanked the messenger.
"What could possibly be so urgent?" asked Catherine.
"I don't know." he said opening the letter. He read a few lines. "It's from my sister Louise." he kept reading. As his eyes skimmed the words, his expression grew troubled. "She says she was almost killed. Her guard caught three assassins at the chateau."
"Is she alright?" Catherine asked, mostly for Bash's sake. He read some more. All of the sudden his expression changed from troubled to angry.
"Apparently they weren't after her, they were after my mother. They weren't aware she went to Spain..." he read a few words directly off the letter. "...orders from the culprit found on their person...letter enclosed..." he picked up the second letter. "This letter has your signature on it...Did you send assassins to kill my mother?" He looked at her, anger in his expression of the likes she'd never seen on him. Her hand went to her chest.
"You can't possibly think I did this. I won't hide the fact that I loath your mother, but I would never do that to you." she said.
"This is your signature, is it not?" he held the letter out for her to see.
"Well, I'll give them credit, it looks real enough, but this is a forgery. I've never seen this document before in my life. I swear." she said
"They might be able to forge your signature, but it has your seal on it as well."
"She's gone out of our lives. What reason would I have to go after her now?"
"They didn't know she'd gone to Spain, that tells me this was set up before she left. You threatened her before."
"Bash. No. No. You can't...I didn't. This is probably just Diane trying to break us up. I had nothing to do with this. I've never lied to you. You must believe me." she reached for his arm. He pulled back.
"I need time to think."
"Think about what?"
"Weather or not I made a big mistake."
"Mistake? Bash what do you mean, mistake?" he started walking away. "Bash!" she called after him as he disappeared down the hall, her heart sinking into her stomach.
(Yes. Another cliffhanger. Please don't hate me.)
(I'd like to make some fan art for my story. So if you guys would let me know which scenes you'd like me to do, I'll post them on my social media accounts.)
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