Tabby looked frightened. “Caesar’s army? Did he fight with Lord Montague? Will he be coming here too?”
Caroline laughed, and sipped the hot tea. The cream and sugar had blended perfectly. Tabby might lose Caroline’s dressing gown for days at a time, but her cups of tea were always perfect.
“We’re safe from Caesar, Tabby.”
The young maid crossed herself against invaders and their armies, looking over her shoulder to the sitting room beyond. “The seamstress is here with your wedding gown,” she whispered.
Caroline felt a rising need to flee but forced herself to hold her ground. Her marriage contract was signed; her future was sealed. Since her husband-to-be had chosen her gown, she would allow herself to be fitted. In an hour she would escape for her fencing lesson. She needed to be outdoors almost as much as she needed her next breath.
The madness of marrying so soon was daunting in the light of day. Since she had met her fiancé, Caroline knew she could not agree to it. Such impatience was folly at best, a disaster at worst. She would speak to her father before the morning was out. He would have to see reason and give her more time before the wedding.
Mrs. Muller, the seamstress from the village, entered her rooms then, bearing a long, trailing gown of silk and lace.
“Miss Montague, this is an auspicious day. The earl is a lucky man indeed.”
Caroline stood to greet her with a forced smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Muller. I hope he knows it.”
The older woman laughed, her bright blue eyes merry in her round face. “Of course he does, miss. What man would not cherish such a bride? He has sent this gown for your inspection. I’m to make it fit you as if it were your own, as if it had been made for you.”
Mrs. Muller helped Caroline don the skirt and the bodice, both a faded dark blue that complemented Caroline’s blond hair. The style was from the last century, with long, sweeping skirts that called for panniers to hold them up. Its silk was smooth, its design simple, with long sleeves that trailed from its bodice lace. As outdated as it was, as soon as she put the dress on, Caroline felt beautiful in it.
Mrs. Muller pinned the gown, making deft stitches where she could, leaving most of the changes to be made in her shop later that afternoon. Caroline stood as still as she could, her frustration mounting as each moment passed. The sun had come out, and its warm light pooled on the floorboards by the windows. She longed to be outdoors in her breeches, riding Hercules over her father’s fallow fields, and on out into the moors. She longed with every breath she took to be free.
Caroline sighed as the seamstress moved about her in silence. She wanted to shout, to break the quiet that was becoming almost brittle. Tension mounted her, closing her throat until she was close to shivering with it. It was all Caroline could do to stay still while Mrs. Muller stitched, for each flash of her needle and each new tuck of lace made her realize her life was now like this dress, ordered and fashioned by someone else.
When Mrs. Muller finished her work, she helped Caroline out of the dress. Tabby stayed with her and wrapped the old silk in tissue paper for its journey back to the village. With her maid distracted, Caroline said a quick good-bye to the seamstress. She did not waste a moment, but dove into her dressing room, pulling on the breeches and linen shirt she wore for fencing and riding. She buttoned a man’s vest over the shirt to hide the fact that she was not wearing stays.
As she slipped from the room out the servants’ hidden door, she heard Mrs. Muller tell Tabby that the veil that went with the gown was too long to fit her. The old lace could not be trimmed but came as one long piece. Caroline was not as tall as the last Countess of Ravensbrook had been.
Hearing that she was too short, Caroline bit her tongue and swallowed a scathing remark. It was all she could do not to slam the door behind her.
Caroline moved silently through the servants’ corridor, down their staircase, and out behind the main house. She made her way through the kitchen garden, careful to keep to the path. She did not stop to talk as she normally would have done, but she waved to the people she saw as she slipped by silently. They all raised a hand to her in greeting, and the men took off their caps.
When she made it to the stable yard without being seen by her mother or her fiancé or by any of her father’s guests, she released her breath in one long sigh. Paul would be waiting for her in one of the back riding rings, hidden from the main house behind the stables and a copse of myrtle trees.
“Well, young miss, it looks like you forgot your boots,” Martin said.
The old groom’s brown eyes held Caroline’s. He smiled down at her, his cheeks reddened by the sun and wind. She knew he saw beyond her bravado to her fears about her wedding day. He had run her father’s stables since before she was born and had set her on her first pony at the age of three. Tears rose in her eyes when she saw his sympathetic face and heard the familiar kindness in his voice. She ducked and hid when a new horse walked past, a mount being taken out of the stable for one of her father’s many guests.
“It’s a ride you need,” Martin said.
Caroline could not mask her desperation. “Yes.”
“Well now, miss, it’s not as bad as all that. All women marry, and your father has chosen well. Besides, you’ll still have Hercules here.” He patted the stallion’s neck fondly. The horse snorted and tossed his head, unwilling to be coddled by anyone but Caroline.
She ignored his well-intentioned comments. She almost wished she could be as dispassionate about the changes in her life as everyone else seemed to be. “I’ll ride in half an hour, Martin. I’m off to my fencing lesson first.”
“Paul’s waiting for you in the riding ring around back. Look lively now, miss. We wouldn’t want any of your father’s guests to see you in breeches.”
Caroline glowered. “God forbid they should see that a woman had two legs and two arms and knows how to use both.”
Martin laughed and waved as she left the stables for the riding ring beyond.
Paul bowed as she closed the gate behind her, and she smiled. “No need to be so formal just because I’m betrothed,” she said.
“You will be a countess, miss.”
“I still plan to trounce you. You won’t find me putting on ladylike airs.”
“But you are a lady,” Paul said.
“A lady who likes to fence.”
She moved in then, raising her rapier. Paul was ready for her and parried her first thrust. She worked against his skill while he led her into each move. As her muscles warmed in the heat of the sun, her mind unclenched and her fears of the future began to fade. She would get a reprieve from her wedding. No man in his right mind would ask her to wed him after knowing him for only two days.
She had gotten the upper hand with Paul, a difficult feat, for he never gave an inch. She held the blunt-tipped blade at his throat, not an acceptable move in fencing but one of her favorites.
Paul smiled appreciatively. “I yield, miss.”
“You’re a brave man to stand against me,” she said.
“I’d rather face you than the French,” Paul answered, and Caroline laughed.
“You need to work on the way you hold a blade,” Lord Ravensbrook said.
Caroline turned to find Anthony just beyond the riding ring. He stood with one polished boot raised on the lower rung of the fence. His obsidian hair fell to his collar in rich waves. His dark eyes held her as if she belonged to him already.
“I have been told I have a great deal of skill with a blade, my lord, both with a rapier and a dagger.”
“Then you’ve been lied to. I think we discovered your prowess is lacking when we met last night.”
She felt a frisson of irritation at that gibe, but she swallowed it down.
“Do you fence, my lord?”
“Not with women or youths who do not know enough to hold the proper form.”
“And which am I? A woman, or a youth?”
“Dressed as you are, I cannot tell.”
Caroline
laughed, her eyes gleaming with mischief. She knew she had scored a point. In spite of his words, she saw his eyes roaming over the curves of her hips and thighs, the softness of her breasts beneath her vest. He might call her boyish, but he was lying.
“Perhaps you will spar with me here.”
“I do not tutor amateurs.”
“Is that so?”
“Not in fencing, at any rate.”
She wondered what else he might seek to tutor her in. From the desire in his eyes, she could begin to guess.
Caroline did not look away from him, and his dark gaze did not leave her. She did not move to safety but stood just a few feet from him, drawn to him by the heat in his eyes. She knew better than to come any closer. Like a fire in winter, he warmed her from a distance, but that heat would burn if she came too near.
Anthony stepped into the riding ring. He did not stop until he stood close enough that his waistcoat brushed the front of her vest. Caroline did not back away, though all her instincts sounded a warning that she was out of her depth. She held her ground, taking in the scent of leather and spice on his skin, the same scent that had almost been her undoing last night.
Her rapier was still in her hand. Anthony took it from her, his hand caressing hers. She let him take the blade, curious to see what he might do with it.
He tested the rapier for weight, then tossed it to Paul, who waited to be dismissed. Anthony nodded to him, and her teacher withdrew. Caroline did not look at Paul or speak but kept her eye on the man she was destined to marry.
“I have disarmed you,” Anthony said.
Caroline smiled. “You have taken one blade, my lord. I wear many others.”
“Perhaps I should search you for them and see where they lie.”
Caroline shivered with pleasure at the thought of his hands on her body. She could feel the heat of him through his clothes and hers. She wondered for a moment if she had completely lost her mind.
“I think I will keep my blades where they are for now.”
Anthony stared down at her, his gaze hot with desire. She wondered where the superior man from the night before had gone, the man who had driven her to such heights of fury. She did not have long to wonder, for his eyes grew cool once more, and his tone look on an air of command. The warmth between them faded, almost as if it had never been. But Caroline remembered it.
“Go inside and change into a gown. And put your knives away.”
Disappointment rose in her breast. She wondered which man was real, the warm man full of desire or the commanding, arrogant bastard who lived to rule her life. Caroline shrugged, feigning indifference, as if his superior tone did not affect her.
She stepped away from him, giving herself room to breathe. His eyes narrowed, but he did not move to follow her. She raised her chin to look him in the eye.
“My lord, you have an unfortunate tendency to give orders when none are needed. I am behind the stables of my father’s house. I am free to come and go here as I please, with no interference from you.”
“No wife of mine will wear breeches. No Countess of Ravensbrook will fight at hand-to-hand combat with a servant. Go change into a proper gown.”
Caroline stared at the man who would be her husband, the man who would control her for the rest of her life, if she let him. His chestnut eyes gleamed with fury, his beautiful face dark with ire. Her anger rose to meet his, and she did nothing to tamp it down.
“I am not your wife yet.”
She did not open the gate of the riding ring but climbed over the fence, springing easily to land safely on the other side. Before Anthony could follow her, she moved to Hercules, where he waited for her in the stable. She did not look for the mounting block but slid her boot into the stirrup, raising herself into the saddle with no other thought than to escape. Caroline wheeled the great horse from the shadow of the stable yard and into the sunlight. She set Hercules’s head for the road that led away from the house, toward freedom. Moving as one, she and her horse cleared the ornamental gate that contained her mother’s flower garden.
Caroline heard Anthony shout behind her, but she did not pause. She loosened her grip on the reins, and Hercules thundered away from the house. She did not stay on the road long but turned Hercules toward her father’s fallow fields and the moors that lay beyond. Her escape from her fiancé and his strictures filled her heart with sudden joy and overflowed into laughter. Exhilaration filled her as the wind lifted her long golden braid from her shoulders. Perhaps she would be free in truth. After that display, Lord Ravensbrook might take himself back to London. She could marry some other man.
Caroline brought Hercules to their favorite spot on the moor, close by the river where a willow tree grew. Her grandmother had planted that tree years ago, and it still stood out of place in the wilds of Yorkshire. As she drew up to her haven of peace, the cold light of reason began to dawn on her. Anthony had signed a marriage contract with her father, and her father needed Ravensbrook’s money. She would not be able to turn the man away. She would have to marry him, for she had given her mother her word that she would.
She climbed down and stroked her horse, noticing he was the same color as Anthony’s eyes. Caroline felt her future following her, coming to seal her in like a great fist. She was trapped, and she knew it.
She leaned her cheek against Hercules’s satiny neck. “I forgot your treat,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
The great horse tossed his head, dismissing any need for treats. Still, Caroline clung to him, so he lowered his head again and breathed gently into her hair. She sniffled and rubbed his forelock.
“You’re right,” she whispered to him. “It is too fine a day for self-pity.”
She took Hercules’s bridle and turned him loose on the tall grasses that grew at the river’s edge. She did not tether him, for she knew he would not leave her. She sank down next to the river and watched the water flow beside her, making its slow, inevitable way to the sea.
Chapter 5
Anthony watched as Caroline rode away like a fury. Just as she showed surprising skill with a blade, she rode her stallion as if she had been born in the saddle. For the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours, Anthony questioned why Lord Montague had let her grow so wild. It was time to rein her in.
Once his stallion, Achilles, was saddled, Anthony pounded after her. He found his fiancée seated by the river under a willow tree. He had spotted her from a long way off, but she did not look up at him until he was almost standing over her on the riverbank. She did not rise to greet him but watched him from where she sat on a mossy stone. Anthony dismounted and took in the sight of her. Her golden hair was coming down from its braid, slipping in loose curls around her face.
He thought of the list of grievances he had to rail against her: leaving her parents’ house without a word to anyone; fighting a servant while wearing breeches for all to see; defying him openly and in public, only to run from him on horseback, leaping over fences and hedges to escape him. Never mind the fact that she had ridden out of her father’s stables without a groom. Anything could happen to a lone girl on the moors. And now that she was betrothed to him, Carlyle and his people would always be watching her.
Anthony tried to reprimand her, for he must take her in hand for her own good as well as his, but his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed hard before he could speak. “You ride well.”
She smiled at him then, and he felt as if he had earned a reward. He savored the brief moment of peace, for he knew it could not last.
“I am even better at fencing.”
Anthony opened his mouth to tell her again that no wife of his would fight with a blade when he noticed her stallion walked loose without his bridle. The great beast did not look at him but only at his horse. Achilles, the horse Anthony had ridden in the war, stood watching the other stallion, as still as death. Neither approached the other to test for dominance, and neither struck out with his hooves. The two stallions blew at eac
h other, each silently taking the other’s measure. Anthony waited by his stallion’s head, careful not to let go of the bridle. But the moment of danger passed. There seemed to be no rivalry between them.
Anthony moved to sit beside Caroline on the riverbank.
“Let’s hope they stay so easy with one another,” he said.
“As long as your horse minds his manners and doesn’t get in Hercules’s way, I am sure they will get along splendidly.”
“Is that so?” he asked.
“Most decidedly. After all, Hercules barely knows this interloper.”
“I assure you, Achilles is quite friendly—as long as he is shown the proper respect.”
“Respect must be earned, my lord.”
They did not speak for a long moment but sat together and watched the river slide by in companionable silence. Anthony decided to try again.
“I was told you understood your duty and were willing to do it.”
Caroline cast a sharp look at him. “I am willing to do my duty, my lord. I am not willing to become someone I am not.”
“Are you willing to be my wife?”
“I am willing to take a husband. I gave my father my word.”
“You will like having me for a husband, Caroline. I will see to that.”
Caroline sighed and stood. He felt their moment of truce end as abruptly as it had begun.
“I can’t marry you after knowing you for only two days, my lord. Surely you can see the sense in that.”
“I know this is unusual, Caroline. I would prefer to have met you at assemblies, to have courted you with flowers, to have taken you for drives in the park. But I do not have the time for such pleasantries, and neither does your father.”
Caroline stared into the river at her feet. “I hate balls and assemblies. And flowers wilt and die.”
He smiled. “So perhaps our lack of courting is less of a hardship than I supposed.”
“It’s not flowers I want, my lord. I want to know who you are before I become your wife.”
Anthony sighed. “Caroline, my parents were married for twenty years and never knew each other. Time and familiarity does not make an alliance.”
How to Tame a Willful Wife Page 3