My Darling Caroline

by Adele Ashworth

  She whimpered softly, and her head fell back. He kneaded her fullness, then gently caressed her nipple to a hard tip against his fingers. He stroked her, teased her, watched her, savoring the rush of raw pleasure she gave him willingly each time she lifted her hips to plunge down on him, faster and harder and making him weak with yearning.

  “I need you,” he admitted hoarsely, almost inaudibly.

  She clutched his shoulders and opened her eyes, her face softening with sensitivity. “You have me.”

  He pulled his hand from her breast, took hers, and held it firmly against his chest. Then he reached around and grasped her bottom, holding her as he moved against her, faster in rhythm, knowing she was almost there as she licked her lips and quickened her pace.

  Suddenly her eyes widened, her gaze searing his.

  “I need all of you, Caroline…”

  And with those words she found her release, dropping her head back, crying out his name to the open air, squeezing her eyes tightly shut from the deep penetration of his sex, clutching his hand, her breathing hard, fast, unsteady.

  Watching her reach her crest again was his undoing. He met each of her thrusts with his own, deeper, harder, holding her tightly, and only seconds later, when he knew he’d succumbed to the heat of surrender at last, he pulled her hand to his lips.

  “Caroline…My wife…”

  He exploded inside, a roar of completion escaping from deep in his chest as he poured his seed into her, fully, totally, grasping her, embracing her as he could.

  She hugged him against her, gradually slowing her movements, allowing her weight to collapse onto his hard frame, kissing his face and neck and finally his lips, passionately, then sweetly as his breathing slowed.

  He cupped her head with his hand, feeling her silky hair between his fingers, dropping tiny kisses on her temple and cheek, she doing the same on his neck and shoulders and chest.

  He held to her for a long while, listening to her slow, steady breathing and the breeze from outside as it caused trees to sway against the glass. Dusk was falling around them, making the surroundings inside and out seem dark and lush, removed from civilization, reminding him exactly why he’d come to the green house.

  “It’s getting late, sweetheart,” he quietly said at last, shifting his weight to gently and completely slide out of her.

  She moved her hips to accommodate him but snuggled into his body even more. “I’m not ready to leave.”

  He softly, soothingly, brushed his fingers through her hair. “Well, my darling, I’m certain if Rosalyn, or Charlotte, or her—how did you put it?—her robust and exotic-looking husband walked down here to see what’s been keeping us, I wouldn’t want to be caught in such a state of undress.”

  She sat up.

  He grinned. “Clothed as you are on top of me, and naked as I am, it looks suspiciously as if you took advantage of your husband.”

  She giggled adorably, eyes sparkling impishly as she covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “I did do that, didn’t I?”

  He nodded, boasting, “But not without allowances on my part.”

  “Your word against mine.” She leaned over and kissed his chin, then moved to her side and off him to sit on the bench next to his long, hard body. Suddenly she looked down at him and laughed.

  “You didn’t find it so amusing when it fit so snugly and enjoyably inside of you, my lady Caroline,” he stated with forced gravity as he stood, towering over her, hands on hips.

  She glanced up to his face, trying to hide her amusement. “It has nothing to do with your particular anatomy, Brent. I only find it funny that men can be so filled with egos, so pompous and sure of their superiority. But seeing you like this makes me realize just how vulnerable all of you really are to us.”

  He gave her a calculating glance and reached for his breeches, stepping into them quickly and pulling them over his hips. “I had always believed, Caroline, that women were born with the ability to manipulate the men in their lives. I now understand, after being with you, it’s not manipulation on the part of the woman, but vulnerability on the part of the man.”

  She looked at him curiously, and he grabbed his shirt out from under her bottom on the bench, putting it on and buttoning as he talked.

  “Men innately have a vulnerability to the women they adore, but they must appear superior in mind and body because that’s how they stay in control of their lives. What all men are taught to believe, through schooling or family or culture, is that by using physical or mental control they can easily manipulate women, all the while believing that sexual control, or appearing weaker, is the inherent way women fight this manipulation in return.”

  He sat heavily on the bench, his eyes never leaving hers as he reached for his boots. “But it’s just a complicated game, Caroline. I now understand you aren’t manipulating me any more than Charlotte manipulates me or her American husband, or your sisters manipulate their husbands, or Stephanie manipulates your father—”

  She laughed at that.

  “The point is, it’s not manipulation, and it never has been. Throughout time, men and women haven’t been manipulated by each other but vulnerable to each other, because they need each other on an emotional level.”

  He stood again in front of her, fully dressed. “Your power as a woman, Caroline, is not the power to manipulate me, but the power of being what and who you are.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m sure I’ll live to regret this admission but I’m nothing but butter in your hands, little one. And I’m probably the only man in the history of time to confess that to a woman.”

  Smiling, she stood and reached up to cup his face. “I don’t think of you as butter, husband, I think of you as…chocolate.”

  He raised a brow quizzically, protectively crossing his arms over his chest. “Chocolate?”

  “Mmm…You melt from my touch, but you’re sweeter, marvelous to taste, rarer and more cherished than any other delicacy.”

  “You enjoy tasting me?”

  She sighed loudly, shaking her head, then dropped her arms and turned away from him, walking quickly to the table to put the lid back on the box of notes he’d given her. “Only a man would be concerned with sex before love.”

  “Are you telling me you love me, Caroline?”

  The quietly spoken words left his mouth before he considered them, and although part of him wanted to take them back quickly or add to them in humor, the rest of him desperately wanted to hear the answer from her lips.

  Slowly she raised her head, her eyes piercing his, probing for enlightenment from his nearly blank expression. Then she grinned cunningly, lifted the box, and nonchalantly walked to her desk. “You’ll never hear me say it first, Brent.”

  She was alluding again to the first discussion of love they’d shared, and by doing so, purposely holding back a part of herself, an admission of feelings they both knew existed. He instantly and irrationally found himself annoyed.

  “I suppose you want to hear it first from me,” he baldly retorted.

  She shrugged but didn’t look up as she began stacking books into piles. “Oh, I’m quite certain you’ll never say the words, since you wouldn’t know love if it slapped you in the face—”

  “Don’t push the issue, Caroline,” he interjected quickly, matter-of-factly, his voice hard and controlled.

  She was visibly startled by his response, the sudden coldness in his tone. She’d only been teasing, talking jovially, and because of the inane, confusing feelings burning inside of him, she’d sparked his anger unwittingly.

  But he should have known that of all the women in the world, his wife wouldn’t take his words and manner lightly.

  As she pulled her body upright, back rigidly set, he watched nervousness cross her features in the flash of an instant; then she placed her hands on her hips and stared hard at him.

  “Are you in love with me?” she asked in a deadly calm voice.

  He wasn’t prepared for the directness of the question,
and until he knew how to control every complication, until he could organize his feelings and put them into words, the only possible way for him to answer was to be blunt and take the easy way out.

  “No,” he insisted flatly as his heart began to pound.

  Her eyes wavered just slightly as the only sign that she was bothered by his reply; then she reached over and lifted the box of notes into her arms. “With that answer you’re not only foolishly protecting your male pride, you’re telling me I may have just conceived your child from the same type of casual, meaningless coupling you experienced with the courtesan. That thought disgusts me.” She raised her chin defiantly and turned toward the door. “You’re lying to both of us, Brent, and I have nothing more to say to you.”

  There was nothing he despised more than being dismissed by a woman at her convenience. His mother and sister had done it for years, and he absolutely refused to have Caroline start with him now.

  “You’ll need to stay away from the greenhouse for a while,” he coldly demanded, keeping his growing fury intact.

  She stopped abruptly, turning back to him in shock.

  “Why?” she asked in a slow, deep whisper.

  He stood stiffly, undaunted. “Because I said so.”

  For a second, the smallest second, she looked as if she could kill. “That’s it? You give me something, then take it away at your discretion with no reasonable explanation?” When he said nothing, she steadied her voice and clenched her jaw. “Isn’t that just like a man, punishing me by control because I won’t give you the satisfaction of telling you I love you first.”

  His eyes narrowed to rocks of hard, freezing ice as he started to move in her direction. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything so incredibly stupid, Caroline.”

  He watched her hesitate, then lose her composure completely as her body sagged, her eyes widened to pools of hurt and confusion, which in turn gave him the most unusual, dishonorable sense of confidence. He didn’t like the feeling much, but he was enraged by her audacity, words that if he considered them honestly hit very close to the truth. None of it mattered, however, because the fact remained that she needed protection without his illumination, and that excuse, at the very least, was rational.

  “I’m telling you to stay away because I’m your husband, and my word is final. I don’t need to explain anything.” He stopped directly in front of her, gazing down to her colorless face. “Now you may leave.”

  She stared at him, fragile and lost, hugging her box of notes, letting tiny teardrops spill from her eyes onto her cheeks without notice. Then she lowered her gaze to his stomach. “You’re no husband,” she choked in a whisper, “you’re the devil.”

  Her words stung him deeply, quickly turning his anger to guilt, then regret, and finally sorrow. He reached for her, but she slapped his hand aside.

  Without looking at him and with remarkable ease, she lowered her body and placed the box on the floor. “I don’t want anything from you.”

  Without pause, she turned and gracefully walked from the green house.

  Chapter 19

  Charlotte knew she was carrying. She’d probably conceived at Miramont, the place of her birth twenty-eight years ago, but she would have her son in her home, in America, where he would grow up free of the complications of class to become anything he chose, where his future would begin with nothing more than bright opportunities and promise.

  The thought made her smile as she looked over the garden, the scent of flowers surrounding her, the afternoon sun warming her back as she sat on the stone bench.

  Carl should be the first to know, she decided, but she didn’t want to tell him before they sailed, for the man would become a hopeless puppy lost without direction from the knowledge that his wife who had such trouble getting pregnant with his child now finally carried his son.

  She knew it would be a boy. It had to be a boy. Then maybe, if God blessed her with a girl…

  Charlotte sighed, hugging her dark-gray woolen pelisse even closer to her body as she dropped her gaze to the ground.

  Her only problem, and the reason she still remained at Miramont, was in smoothing relations with her obstinate brother. He spoke to her and Carl on occasion, but the talk was laughably formal and stiff. He wouldn’t put his guard down, wouldn’t relax and enjoy their presence for a second, and for the first time since she’d arrived seven weeks ago, she was beginning to fear the wounds might not heal between them before she left.

  That troubled her so deeply that for the last two days she’d been brooding. Because of her sensitive mood, the emotional instability caused by her condition, Carl had practically demanded she take a walk to clear her head. Poor man. He would feel so horrible when he learned she’d snapped at him because she carried his child. Then he’d probably faint.

  She laughed softly at the thought and glanced up. As if knowing he was the problem to address, her brother suddenly stood before her, blocking the sun with his large body and staring down at her as if she’d done something naughty. It certainly brought back memories.

  “You find my wife’s flower garden amusing, Charlotte?” he asked easily.

  She sighed, leaning back against the wall. “No, I find it beautiful, which is why I’m here. I find men amusing which, as it happens, is also why I’m here.”

  “Ahh…Men.” He sat beside her on the stone bench, feet spread wide as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “It’s a wonder any of us does anything right.”

  She smiled lightly. “I can think of one or two things.”

  He grinned; she could see it etched on the side of his face as he stared at the ground. He was trying to break the ice, she supposed, and this was probably a perfect opportunity to push a little, as no one else was around. She hadn’t seen or really known her brother for more than six years, but they’d been very close before she’d left, and she wanted that closeness back. He was her only brother, and still, through all the anger and hurt, she loved him deeply.

  “Is something troubling you?” she inquired innocently, knowing fully well, as did everyone at Miramont, that he was definitely troubled.

  He exhaled loudly. “I just—I was thinking…” He paused, then sat back and stared vacantly at the roses in front of them. “You knew she went to the greenhouse, didn’t you?”

  It was Charlotte’s turn to grin, watching him struggle uncomfortably with his thoughts. “Of course I did, and had you taken ten minutes to think about it rationally, you would have figured it out as well.”

  “Explain yourself,” he ordered.

  She shrugged. “Love is blind.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Women, women, women…”

  Charlotte almost broke out laughing from his perplexed demeanor. She’d never before seen her brother, the great Earl of Weymerth, look so confused.

  “And you said those things the night of the party because you knew how I would react and what would happen between us,” he maintained awkwardly.

  She sobered, softening her voice. “Yes; at least I thought I would try to make it happen.”

  “Did it not occur to you, madam,” he formally charged, “that perhaps she had a lover, or was already comfortably warming my bed, and your words would only make matters worse?”

  That shocked her. “Brent, a stranger could have looked at Caroline, talked to her about you for less than five minutes, and concluded without any doubt that she was a virgin.”

  The lines on his face tightened, his lips thinned grimly, and she knew she was close to igniting his anger. That was the last thing she wanted to happen now.

  She looked to her lap, conceding. “Perhaps that’s not true. I probably noticed because I’m a woman and was once in her—”

  He cut her off by taking her hand and squeezing it.

  “Thank you,” he whispered gruffly.

  That so surprised her she instantly felt the urge to cry. “You’re my brother,” she quietly affirmed.

  She clung
to his hand, both of them silent, and after taking a minute to put a grasp on her tumultuous feelings, and knowing instinctively the man had approached her because he needed her advice as a woman, she decided just to be candid, bringing the issue front and center as delicately as she could.

  “Caroline loves you as much as you love her, and I’m quite certain that somewhere inside that thick head of yours, you know that. What you need to do now is admit it to yourself, then go and tell your wife.”

  He stood abruptly, and slowly, stiffly, started pacing the ground in front of her. “She hasn’t spoken to me in two days, Charlotte. That hardly seems a shining example of love.”

  She sighed, confident that Caroline avoided her brother because of a conflict over the greenhouse, since the woman hadn’t gone near the structure in that same length of time. That, she reasoned, would be the only item of importance to cause such a gigantic rift between them almost overnight, but she was unwilling to pry. If he so desired, he would eventually give her the details.

  “You know, Brent,” she disclosed, becoming somber, quiet, “four years ago I didn’t speak to Carl for twenty-two days because he shot the cat at a party one night and gambled away the ruby brooch you gave me for my sixteenth birthday.”

  She heard him grunt in annoyance, but she continued before he could utter a caustic reply.

  “It was the only thing I carried to America that held any value or deep personal meaning, and in the blink of an eye it was gone.” Grinning suddenly from the memory, she added, “He had to practically give one of his silly little ships away to get it back for me, but he did because I didn’t sleep in the same bed with him for almost a month. I’ve never seen him so scared.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile once more, and that gave her encouragement. “The point is, I forgave him eventually, as I’m certain Caroline will do. And I’m just as certain Carl and I will spend our lives forgiving each other for this or that because the word forgiveness, as I’ve learned so well through the years, is just another word for marriage.”