by Willa Ramsey
“I cannot promise you that.” She turned to Mariah. “Now, then—do you have any misgivings about this?”
“Not so long as you follow my instructions, Caro. Frederick is docile, but he is still a python, with all that comes with that. However, he does come out in the carriage with me now and again, as I said. That’s why I have the box. He will be fine.”
She turned back to Adam and puffed out her chest. “He seemed to like me, too.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mariah added.
“Lady Mariah, would you mind excusing us, please? I require a word with Miss Crispin.”
“Of course. Just promise me, Caro, that one day soon you’ll tell me what this is all about.”
They embraced, and Mariah left the mews and returned to the house with her butler, who had helped Adam carry the large box, with its small and round holes, down from the house and into the Crispins’ carriage. Outside the mews, a thick, dank mist hung low in the air, smudging the brilliant green of the trees and the red-coated silhouette of the Crispins’ coachman, who stood smoking his pipe under a lamppost.
It was nearly dawn, and about a quarter-hour from Caro’s meeting time with Chumsley.
“I am not comfortable with this,” Adam began when they were alone.
“It will be a very short ride. The trick will be saying my piece before Chumsley finds a way out of the carriage.”
“I’m more concerned with Frederick finding his way around your waist. Or neck.”
“He has never bitten anyone, Mariah said. Nor squeezed anyone.”
“And your family had never broken a tether before.”
She fixed her bonnet and picked up her reticule. “Fair enough.”
“I—” he began, rubbing his jaw roughly, his other hand on his hip. “Caro, you have my unwavering assistance. I will be with you on this until the end, as I promised.”
“Excellent.”
“But I can’t help but think there is something wrong here. That we are allowing the actions and judgments of others—including some who are entirely unworthy—to influence us.”
“You said yourself that you wanted to pummel him.”
“Precisely! And that’s what disturbs me the most about all of this.” He walked around in a tight circle, kicking at the straw.
Caro looked at the roof of the stable, her eyes moistening. “Do you not recall, Adam, that we are talking about the man who tried to drag me from my home last night?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “The issue isn’t that you want to do something to thwart him, Caro. I want to as well. It’s the manner of it. I despise feeling these intemperate impulses. I feel ill in my stomach. We could wait…”
“I haven’t stopped feeling ill to my stomach since the night of the wager, Adam. And this is not an impulse—it is a well-thought-out plan.” She took a pocket-watch from her reticule. “I have to go now, or I’ll be late.”
He offered her his hand as she opened the door to the carriage and climbed in. He gripped hers tightly, clamping onto it as if that might lock it to his, somehow. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said softly, reluctantly letting her go.
“A half-hour. That’s all I need. And Adam?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. I love you so much. Thank you for doing this.”
Her words struck him like a mallet on a bell, and their impact reverberated through his chest—loud and strong and pure. “I love you, as well,” he replied softly when he’d recovered his wits. “But please, Caro. Keep that bloody snake in its box.”
Chumsley bounded into the carriage, clomping with one boot, then the other, on top of the shallow box on the floor.
She cringed as she thought of poor Frederick underneath. Did such clomping irritate a python? She didn’t know.
He tipped his hat, the sheen of it worn off in spots. Then he sat next to her, on her side of the carriage.
She couldn’t help but recoil.
“What’s this, Miss Crispin? Did you not invite me here today? Come, sit close. It’s bloody cool out there this morning—strange enough, for August.”
He closed the door behind him, and they were off.
She decided to get right to the point. “Edmund—may I call you Edmund?”
“You may call me anything you like.” He inched closer. He was right up against her, and she struggled not to retch. “What shall I call you?”
“Never mind that. I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. His name is Frederick.” She reached down and lifted the top of the wooden box, its hinges creaking softly, to reveal the creamy-yellow snake, as thick in the middle as a young oak, snoozing contently in an irregular coil.
He leaned forward. “What’s this?”
“This is a snake, Edmund. A snake in a carriage.”
She’d never seen someone shoot up so quickly. He hit his head on the roof of the carriage as he frantically scraped the heels of his boots against the velvet seat-back, trying to get as high as possible, as far away from the floor as he could manage.
“What the devil is this?” he cried, his voice high, his Adam’s apple lurching.
She sighed. “We’ve already covered this, Edmund. This is a snake. A cousin of yours, perhaps.”
“Blazes, Caro. You know what I’m asking you—what’s the meaning of this?”
“It’s simple, really. I know about your wager, Ed. And I know the terrible things you said about me the night you made it. I also know that you show very little respect for ladies in general, and I wanted to make it clear to you that it will not be tolerated anymore.”
He banged furiously on the top of the carriage, as if to alert the driver. But Caro had ordered the coachman—a long-time employee of the family—not to stop on account of any banging or screaming he might hear, so they kept moving. Then Chumsley leaned forward and grabbed the door handle. When it didn’t budge, he put his other hand on it and rattled it as if his life depended on it.
She supposed that it did.
At this, Frederick finally popped his head out of the box, to see what all the ruckus was about.
Chumsley shot straight back to the ceiling again. He reached for the small window nearest to him, but when he pulled the curtain back saw that it had been blackened out.
She reached onto the seat next to her and picked up the can of boot polish. She waved it at him and smiled.
“You’re mad, you know. Daft. And you are a bloody whore, you know that?”
She looked down at Frederick. “Did you hear that, Freddie? Eddie here doesn’t believe that we’re quite serious today.” She reached down and slid each of her hands under his smooth, rubbery belly, preparing to lift him the way that Mariah had taught her.
“No—no! All right! All right, Caro! I’ll do whatever you say—just put that thing back. Put it back!”
She wanted to lift the snake out, to force Chumsley to shrink back still further, to tease him about being afraid of such an adorable little tongue. That’s what she would have done—had this happened to her a month ago, or a year ago. That was the purposeful, stubborn Caro she had been her entire life. But today she heard Adam’s voice in her head, and that voice told her that what she’d already done was enough; it warned her that lifting the snake was too risky.
It told her, in wonderfully deep and raspy tones, that the person she had come to love would appreciate it if she left the snake in its box.
So she pulled her arms back out.
“Promise me, Chumsley, that you will never speak recklessly of a woman’s virtue, or try to seduce her in bad faith. That you will never tell anyone I was the subject of your wager.”
“I promise.”
She shut the lid to the box and pulled the key to the door from her reticule.
“Second from the left, fourth floor.”
“What?”
“Second from the left, fourth floor! That’s your bedroom window, is it not? If you break your
promise, Chumsley, you should know that Frederick and I know where it is.”
She tossed him the keys and watched him scramble out. Then she rang a hidden bell in the wall of the carriage—the signal for the driver to return her to Mariah’s—and sat back, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty
“You might not be aware, Adam,” Caro said as they turned from the kitchen door of Mariah’s house and headed back to the mews. She wiped her hands together, sending straw and dirt to the ground. “But there are many advantages to having a mother and father who work for a monarch.”
“Pray tell,” he replied, as she reached out and took his gloved hand in her own. It never ceased to amaze him how a touch from Caro could skip through him, as quickly as a stone on a country pond. They descended the slate steps together, still wet from the morning rain and mist.
“For one, I’ve procured us a special invitation to Carlton House. And I’m taking you there right now.”
“What?”
“Just to the gardens, as I thought you would enjoy seeing them. His Royal Highness isn’t there, of course, but one of the stewards has promised to give us a tour.”
“Indeed? How very thoughtful.” He leaned over and pulled of bit of straw from her hair. “That would be a real pleasure for me, I am sure. But would you mind riding back to your house, instead?”
She looked stricken. “Are you sure? I wanted to thank you for helping me with my scheme.”
“You are a treasure, Caro. Truly—I am most appreciative. But there’s no need to thank me. And I told your mother and father that I would stop by and see their progress on our drawings today. In truth, I’ve been dying to see them. Would you mind?”
He watched her chest expand slowly and contract, her brows knit, and her lips purse. “Yes, of course.”
His own lips turned upward, into their wickedest smile. “That took strength, didn’t it?”
She exhaled. “How could you tell?”
He laughed. “I know you, my darling. And I know that when you’ve devised a scheme, you fully intend to go through with it.”
“I left the snake in the box, sir!”
“Yes, you mentioned that already.”
She closed her eyes. “I am trying, Adam. I am trying to listen to more advice. I’m trying to be more…cooperative.”
“I know. And I know it is difficult for you, as you are quite used to living by your own rules, and doing things for yourself. I promise I will not try to take all of the stubborn out of you—especially since that is part of why I fell in love with you.”
When they reached the carriage, Caro told Edwards to take a couple of hours to himself, and when he’d gone the two of them got to cleaning the boot-black from the windows.
“Perhaps it’s too risky for us to be alone in your carriage in the middle of the day,” Adam said when they’d finished their cleaning. “There are many more people up and about now.”
“True. But we’ve earned it, haven’t we? Strayeth and Chumsley have received their lesson, and with the families of the ton leaving London this afternoon and tomorrow, the season is over and the wager is, too. We’ve done it.”
“You’ve done it, Caro, and I suppose I agree—we do deserve some celebration. What shall it be?”
A proposal, perhaps? Her chest flared; she would welcome it if Adam asked her to marry him, right there in Mariah’s mews. Indeed, she wanted it about as much as she wanted him pressed up against her right there in the mews.
Which was quite a great deal.
But they had time for both, she knew. They had time for many things, now; the wager was over.
She climbed into the carriage and pulled a small basket from under the seat. “There must be some burgundy in here, if I know anything of my parents.”
He stepped inside and as the carriage took off, he gestured to the space next to her. “May I?”
“You may.” She straightened herself up, holding two goblets and a bottle of the wine. “My ideal celebration would simply be spending time with you, you know.”
He sat back. “Is it, indeed? You are out in society so much more than I am, I’ve wondered, at times, if my love of smaller company would be tiresome for you.”
She put both goblets in one hand, their stems crossing awkwardly, and grabbed his lapel with the other and pulled him close. “This is not ‘smaller’ company, Adam. This is the biggest and best company of all.” She kissed him then, hard and fast, and he wrapped his arms around her. When they heard the dull scratch of crystal coming together against its wishes, he pulled hastily away from her, snatched the goblets, and deposited them at their feet. Then he kneeled on the floor and turned toward her, his fists coming down on either side of her. He lunged forward and pressed between her knees, easing her back against the cushions.
They kissed languidly, savoring the reward—the victory—of this closeness. Several days had passed since Edie’s dinner party, and in those days she had recollected and relived, again and again, its wonderful, sundry sensations. She had imagined in vivid detail what it would feel like when she found herself once again in Adam’s big, all-encompassing embrace.
She felt sheltered by it, now; enclosed and liberated all at once, as he reached underneath her and scooped his hands under her bottom, lifting her toward him, squeezing her roughly with both hands, sending tendrils of sensation curling through her from below.
She put her hands on his chest, and he reluctantly lifted his head. “What is it?”
“To be clear, I love a good party and always will. And I absolutely need to meet with the girls from Hellkirk’s regularly, of course…”
He leaned forward as she spoke, his low chuckle vibrating through her where he pressed his cheek against her neck. “Mmm-hmm.”
“This is most important to me, Adam.”
He took his tongue and pressed it into the indentation at the base of her throat before running it up the length of her neck. “I am well aware of that. Do go on. I want to hear what else is most important to you.” He opened his mouth and let his teeth rest lightly around her throat.
She let out a soft squeal.
“You were saying?”
“I was about to say that this feels pretty important, too.”
“Good.” He gave her throat a nip—just a touch of pressure with his teeth—before lifting away to deposit kisses in the rounded rift of it. He let his tongue touch down first each time, before closing his lips around several inches of her skin, sucking it lightly into his mouth until she arched her back, her breasts pressing against him.
“Perhaps this would all feel even more important if done with less talking.”
He laughed and pulled her waist toward him still further, kissing her neck in the same way, over and over, taking a leisurely path toward her chin. “Don’t be so sure, my love. I suspect that with you, talking can be quite nice, too.”
Now it was her turn to show him what was important, and she put her hands around his waist and under the tails of his coat, encircling as much of him as she could manage. Then she pulled at the back of his shirt, loosening it from its tuck inside his breeches.
“Careful, love,” he said, bringing one hand around his back to still her. “How disheveled are you willing to become here, today? Because if I am to be undone, you are most definitely coming undone with me.”
When Caro didn’t immediately answer—staring back at him with a ravenous stare to match his own, he got up and sat on the opposite bench, pulling her with him by the waist. She landed in his lap, her legs off to one side, her soft, gloved hands cradling his head. Her thumbs grazed his cheekbone—a subtle, wifely gesture that pushed pleasure through him like a flood. In response, he gripped her waist still tighter and pressed her onto him.
She leaned into him, tilting her head and putting her warm—and now raw—lips on his own. Her hands left the safety of his jaw and traveled lower, trailing along his throat until they were on his chest, dipping under his lapels and then his waistcoat, too—unti
l only the thinnest of silks separated the skin of her fingers from that of his chest.
“This is unbearable, Adam,” she whispered, breaking their kiss. “We cannot disrobe any further here, yet that is all I find myself thinking of.”
He laughed again, removing his hands from her waist and resting them on top of hers, still inside his coats. “I am very happy to hear that, love. Although, I must admit, there is something else on my mind at the moment.”
She leaned back, removing her hands. “Aren’t you supposed to be thinking only of my bosoms, and such?” she teased. “I know you’re not exactly a rake, but still—think of my feelings.”
“Caro—my lovely, lovely Caro—we men are not all so incapable of controlling our appetites. No more than all young ladies are simpering delicates who think only of marriage.”
She blinked at him. “Fair enough.”
“But do let me assure you, I find you utterly irresistible—”
“Brilliant,” she interrupted, reaching for him again. “Likewise.”
“—so irresistible, in fact,” Adam continued, grabbing onto her arms and stilling her again, “that I feel I must procure a lasting agreement from you as soon as I possibly can. Something that transcends what is happening between us right here, and yet ensures that it can happen again and again—as often as we should wish it.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Is there a particular question you’d like to ask me?”
He let his head go back and laughed. “You are not a sentimentalist, are you?”
She sat back and attempted to look impatient, her lip betraying her amusement. “Go on, then. I’ll hear it from you if I must,” she teased.
“Thank you for indulging me,” he teased back.
She gave him a courtly roll of her hand, suggesting a gentleman’s formal bow.
He looked across at his Caro—his beautiful, bold lady—and she looked back at him with a mixture of impatience, insouciance, and hunger. He had been looking forward to this moment for some time, and he found that now it had arrived, he was far more amused than anxious, far more certain than not. Indeed, it was hard not to be subsumed with a deep, enlivening optimism for their future together.