“Nobody thought it was worth teaching to a girl.”
He might have done the same with no more than a pat on the head and an admonition to run along. He might have opined the details were far too complex for her female mind to grasp. Instead of dismissing her, he explained, as if she were an equal partner in this venture. As if she had some personal stake in the yield of hay.
And she did, for now, as a member of the family.
How much longer? The question jumped into her mind yet again, refusing to be put down. It had haunted her ever since he’d so casually mentioned he could wait for her hunting party to be over before forging ahead. A sennight, nothing more.
Seven days, and then what? She’d never stopped to think what would happen afterward. Not until now.
Sir Bellingham would either accept her as a member of his hunt or not. She’d either see her years of training come to fruition or not. Whatever the outcome, the circumstances of her birth would remain unchanged.
Any number of gentlemen would still covet a connection with a duke, and what better way than to marry into his family? Caro could voice her intent never to marry from now until the sun set on the British Empire, but that would not stop Papa from pushing her toward the altar. And once she was there, she’d give up all control to a man.
A reprieve—that was all this week was. A stay of sentence.
In the end, she’d have to submit to her ordained role in society. She’d have to paste on a smile and pretend she enjoyed gossip, embroidery, and hosting teas. She’d have to pretend she cared whether the parlor was decorated in shades of antique blue or sunny yellow. She’d have to aspire to decorum. Sooner or later, she’d have to give up the joy of galloping across the pasture, the wind yanking strands from her coiffure to fly behind her.
She’d have to accept a gilded prison—unless she could find an escape.
A hand on her shoulder pulled her from her thoughts. “Where have you gone?”
“What? Nowhere.”
His chuckle warmed her as much as his hand. “That sounds like a clanker to me.”
“Courtesy ought to prevent you from taking note.”
“Is this where I point out that I am not a gentleman?” His riposte was light and teasing.
“Please don’t.” She hardly needed the reminder. Yet she felt more at ease with him than the gentlemen of her acquaintance, even those who enjoyed a rousing jaunt through the woods on horseback. She twisted in her seat.
“Then what were you thinking about just now?”
She could hardly tell him, not when her imagined escape of her fate involved engaging in some ruinous behavior. Not when that behavior required another participant. Not when the circumstances of Mr. Crosby’s birth made him the ideal candidate.
As soon as the idea struck, she rejected it. If she trod that path, two reputations would be in tatters. Caro would crush her marriage prospects, yes, but Mr. Crosby would find himself out of a job and without references.
“I was wondering if you’d take me out with you when you ride the estate.”
The fingers on her shoulder tightened. “I’ve already done that.”
“I mean on a regular basis.” She needed something to look forward to after this hunt. “You could teach me, the way Danvers taught you.”
“What? And have you take my job from me when you prove better at it?” Still that light tone. And the reply…He hadn’t said no. He hadn’t said you can’t. He hadn’t said it would be inappropriate. He’d treated her as an equal—but then, someone had once seen something in the natural son of a poor tenant and taught him.
Heart swelling, she pivoted farther to look at him straight on.
The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes deepened, and his gaze burned blue fire. How easily she might beg him to ruin her, and heavens, she’d enjoy every delicious moment. No, you’ll destroy him.
A suspicious rumbling drifted up from the region of his abdomen. Clearing his throat, he stepped back. “Your pardon.”
“When was the last time you had anything to eat?”
“Hours ago.”
“And you’ve been instructing me so patiently and not said a word.” She reached for the bellpull. “You should have dined with the family. Then you could have set Snowley straight the moment he started spouting off.”
“I suspect my evening wouldn’t have passed half so pleasantly in his company.”
Something burst inside her—a warm and liquid, breathless and heart-pounding rush that made her yearn and float at the same time. She wanted kisses and touches, yes, but she also wanted long days in the saddle by his side, learning the secrets of the land.
The air about them crackled with what might happen next—lips tangling, hands grasping, heads arching back, gasps and sighs…
Damnation, this was not good. But Mr. Crosby was not stepping away, and neither could she.
A light knock sent a jolt down her spine. The maid. Yes, that was right. She had rung for one.
Caro collected her scattered thoughts. “Come.”
“Ye wanted something?”
At the question, Caro swung toward the door. “Sadie!” And that came out far too harshly. Calm. “Why aren’t you with Gus?”
“Beggin’ yer pardon.” The girl dipped into a curtsey, but somehow her gaze remained stuck on a point past Caro’s shoulder. “Yer sister came to sit wif him. I think he’s tired of beatin’ me at that card game, and he’s lookin’ for a new victim. So I took his supper tray down to th’ kitchens and when ye rang, I thought I could answer soon as anyone.”
“Right. Well.” She pushed herself out of her seat, holding to the desk for support. For some reason her heart was still hammering. “You may go back to the kitchens and see if the cook will put together a tray for Mr. Crosby.”
And in the meantime, Caro would look upon this interruption as a reprieve. No matter what her emotions urged, despite the demands of her body, regardless what had transpired on previous occasions, she’d do well to maintain a respectable distance between her and Mr. Crosby.
Respectable. There was a word she’d never expected to apply to herself, but in this case, she needed to. Otherwise, she might give in to temptation and kiss him again. She might beg for his touch. And if she did those things, she might trust him to stop.
But she wasn’t at all certain she could trust herself to.
Chapter 19
As Caro watched, Gus listlessly thumbed three cards off the top of the pack and slapped them down on the tabletop. Four diamond pips winked up at him. With a glare at the offending card, he peeled off three more. “Are you sure you don’t want to play with me?”
“No.” The blasted boy only wanted to play for stakes. With his entire adulthood to indulge in such pastimes, she preferred not to encourage him. Besides, endless games of Patience might at least teach him that virtue. “You’ll have to wait for Sadie to come back from her half day.”
Gus tossed the pack aside, scattering his haphazard ranks of alternating red and black. “She cleaned me out.”
That explained the stakes—clearly he hoped to win his pennies back.
“Good Lord, how?” Caro collected the cards into a pile. “You’ve only just taught her.”
“She’s a damned sight better than most of the upper form.”
Ignoring his language, Caro contemplated the boy through narrowed eyes. Was Sadie such a natural or did she possess an effective pair of distractions somewhere south of her chin?
“Can’t we go out? It’s been almost a sennight.”
At Gus’s question, she spared a glance outside. The sitting room window overlooked a sun-dappled side garden where fragrant honeysuckle clung to a stone wall guarded by spears of hollyhock. The day fairly beckoned.
More than beckoned, it called to her like a siren. For the past few days, she’d voluntarily cooped herself indoors. If anyone had asked her why, she’d have claimed she was resting her ankle and directing the servants in preparation for her guests. They w
ere due tomorrow, after all, and she needed to be in top form for the hunting party.
In reality she’d been doing her damnedest to place herself out of temptation’s path, for Mr. Crosby stood dead in its center. As long as she stayed away from him, the ache he awoke in her body remained more of a dull annoyance, easy to ignore, at least during the day. She could do nothing about the wicked dreams he inspired, where he fulfilled the promise of his kiss and more. Where he filled her body and mind and soul. There, at least, she could give in to her desires but not jeopardize his position at the manor.
But she couldn’t spend the rest of her life avoiding him.
Gus must have sensed her wavering, for he added, “Can’t we go for a ride?”
Yes. She would need to let Boudicca expend some of her excess energy before the hunt. The mare had been cooped up even longer, but at least by now she ought to be out of season.
Still, Caro studied Gus’s coloring. Healthy pink stained his cheeks, and mischief sparked in his eyes. He showed no signs of having hurt his head, nor of any oncoming malaise. “Are you up to it?”
“My head hasn’t pained me all day. Please?”
Heavens, if he’d been reduced to begging, he must truly be desperate. And Boudicca had gone days without proper exercise. She might be about ready to burst out of her stall and make another bid for freedom.
Gus blinked at Caro with large, liquid eyes that would be the envy of any puppy. “You always said when you fall, you have to get right back on.”
Damnation. But Caro wanted to be out of the house just as badly. “No jumping.” She got to her feet. Her ankle supported her weight without the least twinge. Thank God. “No racing. And if you feel ill, you will tell me immediately.”
Before long, Caro perched in the saddle, keeping a firm hand on the reins as her mare tried to dance sideways across the stable yard.
At the mounting block, Gus scrambled atop a fifteen-year-old gelding that would as soon munch oats in his stall than ramble across the grounds. No doubt the boy would prefer a more spirited animal, but Caro did not trust his obedience to that extent.
“She wants to run,” he observed of Boudicca.
“Of course she does, after her confinement.”
“Are ye going to let her?”
“She needs to learn to mind. And she’s not alone. We’ll stick to the woods.” And off the paths. She didn’t want either boy or equine to act on any wild notions. That by avoiding the trails they stood less chance of meeting anyone else—the estate agent, to choose a random example—was a mere bonus.
She didn’t intend to end up at the folly. Indeed, she set out without any particular destination in mind. But somehow, by guiding Boudicca through underbrush that forced the mare to pay heed to where she placed her hooves, Caro found herself at the cottage, all the same.
Gus reined in beside her. “What’s this, then?”
“It’s whatever you want to make of it, I suppose.” Lord, she’d replied without forethought. Why had her brain dredged up a similar response to the one she’d given to Mr. Crosby?
A place you can be whatever you choose. No, not now. Not ever, for that matter.
“Perhaps pirates hid their treasure here,” she hurried on.
“We ain’t anywhere near the ocean.”
“Smugglers, then,” she shot back. It was all the excitement she could inject to what was fast becoming a mundane outing.
The look he tossed her clearly stated, Do you think I’m all of five? “What would they smuggle?”
Blast the boy for his quick wits. “Nothing much these days,” she admitted, “but when we were at war with France…”
Gus sat back in the saddle. “Makes about as much sense as pirates.”
“Could be a lair for thieves.”
“It’s probably where the servants meet their sweethearts.”
Caro spluttered. Please don’t blush. Please. “What do you know about that?”
“Enough. Peter Babcock—he’s a couple of years ahead of me—he bragged the serving wench in the village near school let him touch her bubbies.”
How on earth did Sadie manage with this one? “Gus!” Caro schooled her features and her voice into a semblance of severity. “That is not an appropriate topic of conversation.”
“The other boys liked it well enough.” Gus shrugged. “If you ask me, he was making it up.”
She opened her mouth for another admonishment, but Gus’s attention had already wandered. His gaze was fixed on a spot somewhere past her left shoulder.
“I say, what’s that?” The next thing she knew, he’d slid to the ground and made his way over to the side of the cottage. Propped against the wall was a spade. Gus crouched and pulled a sheet of paper from beneath the blade. “Maybe there’s something to your pirates, after all.”
“What on earth?” Caro dismounted and twisted Boudicca’s reins around a bush. “Let me see that.”
Gus handed over the page, and Caro peered at the lines that crisscrossed it. Something familiar about the pattern. She’d seen something like it before, and recently. Yes, that was it. The outer lines described the boundaries of the estate. A large square showed where the manor house stood, and light shading marked the woods. And among that shading, a scattering of X’s dotted the area.
Gus craned over her arm. “Don’t it look like a treasure map?”
“Yes, it does at that.” Could Mr. Crosby have drawn this plan? Was he here? A glance over her shoulders revealed nothing but trees glowering beneath a suddenly watchful quiet. She touched a smaller square, which had to denote the cottage. “If it is, there might well be something not too far from here.”
Gus retrieved the spade. “Let’s go, then.”
“Not so fast.” Something else about the map jogged her memory. She traced a line from one X to the next. Yes. That was more or less the path Mr. Crosby had led her on when he’d showed her the holes he’d filled in. “I’m fairly certain that any treasure is long gone.”
Gus cast the spade on the ground, and the horses startled. “That’s a load of rot.”
Caro folded the map and stuck it inside the jacket of her riding habit. “I’d best hand this over to Mr. Crosby.”
In person, perhaps, if he happened to be anywhere nearby. The cottage seemed the likeliest spot, if the map proved to be his doing. Gus trailing, she stepped toward the door. The wooden plank yielded at the slightest pressure. Odd. When she’d left the other day, she’d made certain to latch it.
“Mr. Crosby?” Adrian? That was the agreement, but in front of Gus, she’d have to play by society’s rules.
No answer, but the slightest movement in the corner caught her attention—or perhaps it was a gasp. A figure hunched on the floor by the dry sink.
“Sadie?” Caro crossed to her. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s me half day,” Sadie replied, as if that were sufficient explanation. “Thought me time were me own.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“Ye didn’t think I’d go back to Fletcher, did ye?” More lay behind the girl’s response than simple belligerence. Clearly Sadie knew something she didn’t wish Caro to discover.
Caro’s glance flitted to the space of floor before the hearth. The bedding was still there. “You’ve been coming here, haven’t you? Not just today. You’ve slept here.”
Sadie crossed her arms. “And if I have? Ye’d find another place as well if ye had a drunken lout sniffing about yer skirts.”
Gus bounded in front of Caro, fists raised, ready to take on all comers. “Who’s the drunken lout? I’ll belt him one. Plant him a right facer, I will.”
Caro set a quelling hand on his shoulder. “I imagine he’s rather large for you to take on at the moment.” When she turned back to Sadie, her eye caught something she hadn’t noticed before. Dirt stained the girl’s hems. “You wouldn’t have been doing any digging just now, would you?”
“I’ve no idea what ye’re talking about.” Sadie
punctuated this statement with a toss of her head.
“We found the spade outside, along with the map.”
“Map?” Half a shrug. “I can’t read.”
“There are no words on it, only symbols.” Caro reached into her habit to produce the evidence, but a new thought occurred. Along with a different tack. “You were hiding, weren’t you? Was it from Fletcher?”
“O’ course not. I heard ye comin’, didn’t I? Did ye think I wanted to be caught?”
Caro took a step closer. “Caught at what?”
Sadie rolled her lips into her mouth.
“If you tell me what you’ve been up to, I promise not to send you back to Fletcher.”
Sadie released her breath. “What would ye have done in my place? Ye’d have looked for a way out any way ye could get. Thought I’d found one, too, only that coarse old bugger didn’t come back for me.”
Caro resisted the urge to clamp her hands over Gus’s ears, though he probably wasn’t hearing any words he didn’t already know. “Who?”
“Barrows, that’s who.”
“Lucas Barrows, our former estate agent?”
“He promised to marry me. Said he’d laid by a proper sum, and we could live like the nobs.” Sadie clapped a hand over her mouth. “Beggin’ yer pardon.”
“We knew he was stealing from the estate. He’s gone to prison for that.”
“Prison. Oh.” Sadie’s cheeks took on a much darker shade, and she twisted her hands in her apron. “I figured he’d scarpered. But, oh…Please don’t send me t’ the magistrate. I didn’t take nofink. I promise.”
“But you knew he’d hidden his gleanings about the estate.”
“Please, me lady. I didn’t find nofink. He didn’t leave nofink to take. I been lookin’. I admit that. I was hopin’ he’d left somethin’ I could use and pay me own way, but I swears I didn’t find anythin’.”
“Sadie.” Caro reached out for the girl. “I understand.”
In a very real sense, she did. Caro was well acquainted with the urge to run free, to escape the cage life presented her. Sadie didn’t possess a mare, but she’d seen a chance to flee, and she’d taken it.
To Tame a Wild Lady Page 16