Cara drew back and dropped her desolate gaze to the shadows that danced upon the floor, cast by the taproom hearth. This fledgling bond to another soul was a potent aphrodisiac, shown her by a stranger, no less. She touched her lips and heat burned through her. Though, was Will truly a stranger? How could he be when he’d been the first man to challenge her, and kiss her, and whom she’d shared those most pained, intimate memories of her mother with?
She forced her hand back to her side as regret turned inside her. Ultimately, however, that is what Will was. He was a stranger who would ride out on his horse to… She swallowed hard. To where she knew not because she knew nothing of him. Nothing beyond how he made her feel and what he made her wish for. And she could not, nay, would not, go through the rest of her life without knowing more of him than those insufficient pieces.
That forced her into movement. With resolute steps, Cara stepped into the taproom. From where he sat working alongside Martha, he stilled. His broad shoulders tightened the fabric of his black jacket. With the smooth elegance carried by kings, he shoved to his feet and turned.
His powerful frame filled the suddenly small taproom. Cara dimly registered the old woman rising and then dropping a curtsy. The glow cast by the hearth illuminated the knowing glimmer in the woman’s eyes as she slipped away. Heat warming her cheeks, Cara slid her gaze over to Will. Her attention slipped to the bulge of William’s triceps straining his coat sleeves—the cut and color best suited to a gentleman of polite Society than a man whose callused hands and tanned visage bespoke a life different than the foppish dandies about town. Oh, goodness. She fanned herself and then followed his gaze to that telling gesture.
Cara swiftly dropped her hand to her side. From under his thick, dark lashes, Will stared across the length of the small space, singeing her inside and out with the heated desire to taste more from his lips.
You are not to speak to anyone who is inferior to you, gel…is that clear?
But who is inferior, Your Grace…?
Everyone who is not kin to a duke, prince, or king… Now get from my sight. I’ve matters to attend…
A log shifted in the hearth and exploded in a spray of orange and crimson sparks. Years of the stiff, regal reserve drilled into her at the hands of those nurses and instructors hired by her father echoed around her mind. Cara smoothed her palms down the front of her skirts. Abandoning every last ostentatious thought she’d ever carried, she walked forward. With each step, the chains of propriety slipped loose until she came to a stop several steps away from him, free in ways she’d never been before—until him.
She tipped her head back to look at him. He studied her in that inscrutable manner. Cara curled her hands into fists as a sea of indecision lapped at her. Yes, he’d kissed her until their breaths had melded in the same, desperate rhythm but beyond that had any of their exchanges meant anything to him? Doubt needled her mind. She took several faltering steps away.
“Don’t,” he spoke quietly, bringing her hurried retreat to an immediate stop. Passion burned from the depths of his fathomless eyes. “I want you—”
And God help her, she wanted to know that burn. Her heart caught in a splendid way. “What do you want?”
“Ah, my lady, you’ve come to take the evening meal!”
No! Cara spun about and swallowed back the swell of disappointment over the innkeeper’s untimely interruption. What? She silently pleaded with Will. He wanted her to join him for supper? He wanted to discover more of who she was inside? What did he want? Mayhap he wants me to go…. After all, but for her mother, who’d really ever wanted her around?
Her skin pricked from the curious attention trained on her by Martha’s husband. Cara forced her lips to move. “I have,” she said stiffly. She shifted her gaze from Will and looked to the older man. “That is, I would very much enjoy taking my meal belowstairs.”
“Splendid,” he said with a burgeoning smile.
She took several steps, following the innkeeper, and then stopped. Her heart thumped loudly at the shocking proposition rushing through her head. Ladies did not humble themselves before men. Daughters of dukes humbled themselves before no one. “Will you join me?” she blurted. Heat scorched her cheeks. Never in the course of her life had she so humbled herself before another human being. She felt exposed and bare and wanted to throw her head back with exhilaration and flee all at the same time.
Silence met her inquiry. That painful moment may have been a minute or a year for as long as it was. Only, as he studied her in his assessing way, she ached to call back those revealing four words. The sting of his rejection would wound her in ways her father’s antipathy never had or would. For her father had seen her more as an inanimate extension of himself, that could be used to advance his wealth and prestige. William had seen the cold exterior and challenged her at every turn, defying her to be something other than that ice princess, daring her to be more.
Cara bit the inside of her cheek hard and hurried after the innkeeper when Will placed himself in her path. Her breath caught painfully at the raw strength of him. This was no satin knee-breech-wearing dandy. Will was the manner of man who would put warriors of old to shame. He lowered his head and, when he spoke, his words came out as a low, gravelly whisper, so faint she wondered if she dreamed his response.
“I want to join you, Cara.”
The innkeeper hurried over to pull out a chair for her and she claimed her seat.
The whisper of reason cut across her private yearnings. “I should not be here,” she said faintly, as the innkeeper rushed off. Will froze with his hand on the back of his seat. “We should not be here,” she corrected. For with each meeting in this taproom, and each stolen exchange in the halls and countryside, she risked ruin.
He hesitated and, for an agonizing moment, she thought he’d leave; knew when no one had ever been there, largely because they’d not wanted to be with her. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked instead.
Cara tipped her head and blinked slowly. Decisions had been made for her through the years. Expectations thrust upon her. Now, this man would give her the freedom of her own decision and it was heady stuff, indeed. Her reservations melted away. Her father and his plans for her could go hang. She smiled hesitantly up at him. “I do not.” She drew in a breath and, just as she’d begged for his kiss last evening, now she’d be willing to cast out the remainder of her pride, just to be near him. “I want you to stay.”
In one fluid motion, he pulled out the chair and claimed the spot across from her. He motioned the old innkeeper over and held up two fingers. “Two tankards of mulled cider.” As the older man rushed off to collect the requested drinks, Will folded his arms at his chest and looked back at her. Never taking his gaze from hers, he looped his ankle over his opposite knee.
Cara studied the broad expanse of his muscled chest; the way his muscles strained the fabric of his jacket. She gulped. No lord she’d ever met possessed this man’s masculine, powerful rawness. With a silent curse she jerked her attention up, praying he’d not observed her scandalous appreciation of his form.
The ghost of a smile played about Will’s lips, proving the Lord was otherwise busy this evening. “You wished for my company, Cara. Now, what would you care to discuss.” He rolled his shoulders and his muscles once more strained the fabric of his expertly cut jacket.
A slight frown pulled at her lips as she examined that jacket for an altogether different reason—that evidence of his wealth. What was his story? “Who are you?” she asked, the words spilling from her lips.
He cocked his head. Then, his expression grew guarded and he eyed her with the wariness of a pickpocket who’d brushed his side. “You already know who I am. My name is Will—”
She slashed a hand through the air. “I know your name, but not even the full of your name.” And if he left now, how would she ever again find him?
I won’t, you blasted ninny. We belong to very different worlds. And in the world already shaped and crafted f
or me, my father would have me belong to another. And panic added an extra rhythm to her heart. These two days were not enough. They could never be enough. And yet, they had to be.
He took a slow, infuriatingly casual sip from his tankard. “So, you intend to divulge your identity this night, as well, my lady?”
But why? Why did it have to be enough? Why could she not steal more for herself, for the first time, ever?
Will quirked an eyebrow.
Her cheeks warmed. How was he so unaffected when her world teetered back and forth in this confounding way?
Another splash of heat burned her neck and climbed up her cheeks. “That is different,” she muttered.
“Perhaps,” he said, noncommittally.
She steeled her jaw. Regardless, the information she sought of Will moved beyond a mere name. She wanted to know who he was under this sometimes darkly dangerous, sometimes gentle, stranger. The innkeeper’s wife rushed over, interrupting their exchange. She set down two plates of…? Cara wrinkled her nose. Something. There was definitely some kind of food heaped upon the plate.
Dismissing the woman with a look, she propped her elbows on the wooden table and leaned forward. For the first time in the course of her adult life, she asked something she never had before. “I want to know about you.” She gestured to the table of evergreen branches and satin ribbons. “You speak Italian and know songs in Welsh. You will sit down and help a woman with inane decorations for the holiday season. How do you know all those things?” How, when she knew so very little about the world beyond the tedious, proper lessons ingrained into her? Envy sliced through her; a desire to have lived a life of more—and more terrifying, a desire to live that life with him.
*
William studied Cara from over the rim of his glass. She asked who he was. What would the lady say if he were to tell her he was, in fact, heir to a dukedom? That title, nothing more than a chance twist of fate, had defined his future. It mattered to all women who saw nothing more than the title. What would she see? “I have spent the past eight years traveling,” he said at last.
Cara scrambled forward in her seat. “Traveling?” she whispered with the awe of a woman who’d discovered herself in possession of the queen’s diamonds. Then her eyes formed round moons. “With the hue of your skin, you’ve the look of a man who travels distant, warmer seas.” She paused and flared her eyes. “Are you a pirate?”
He chuckled. “I am not a pirate.” How could he have imagined the pinch-mouthed miss who’d coldly ordered her servant about would now boldly speak of his skin and dream of pirates?
Her eyes hinted at her slight disappointment. The lady longed for excitement and hungered for more in her constraining world. How very much alike they were in that regard. Something pulled at him under the weight of that realization. Cara prodded him with her gaze. “Where have you been, Will?”
He rolled his shoulders. “Ireland, America, Canada. France, Italy.”
In an endearing little move, she rested her elbows atop the table and dropped her chin on her hand. “I’ve been nowhere outside of Mrs. Belden’s and my father’s dratted estates.”
William quirked an eyebrow. “Mrs. Belden?”
She wrinkled her nose like she’d had a sniff of Martha’s latest fare. “A finishing school,” she mumbled. “This is my last year.” By her earlier telling reaction about that finishing school he’d expect more than the forlorn sag of her shoulders.
She was to be married to a man chosen for her by her unfeeling father. Was it any wonder she should wear her sadness like a cloak upon her person? He raged at the mercenary world they belonged to.
Cara picked her fork up and stabbed at the piece of flank. She continued to wear that resigned look in her eyes. Desperate to restore her to the exuberant young lady she’d been prior to the mention of Mrs. Belden, he nodded to her dish.
“Is it dead?”
Cara blinked several times and then looked to the questionable contents upon her dish. She snorted. “I daresay it is too soon to tell.” They shared a smile and then she inched closer to the edge of her seat. “If you are not a pirate…” She gave him a hopeful look.
“Which I am not,” he repeated, grinning.
“Then what is it that has you traveling so much?” She’d clung to her questioning which was only heightened by the excited light in her eyes.
It was not what he’d been in search of, but what he had been fleeing from, that accounted for his travels—a woman. An arrangement awaiting him. Darkness settled on his thoughts, but he promptly shoved it back. He’d not let thoughts of Clarisse sully this moment.
Martin came over and William gave thanks for the timely interruption that saved him from formulating a response. “Here you are, my lady.” He set down one tankard of cider before Cara and then another for William. “My…” The old man cleared his throat and then turned with a surprising agility and left.
With Martin gone yet again, Cara this time remained stoically silent. Had she correctly interpreted his absolute lack of desire to talk about his circumstances? How wholly selfish of him, when he wished to know everything about the paradox that was Lady Cara. She fiddled with her tankard, looking anywhere and everywhere. This uncertain side of her, so at odds with that coldly aloof stranger who’d marched through the doors and put demands to the servants and servers here. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at him squarely. “I want to know more about you.” All the audacious boldness in that admission was ruined by the becoming blush that stained her cheeks.
William leaned back in his seat and the wooden chair groaned under his shifting weight. Drink in hand, he continued to assess her. “You want to know about me?” he asked, cautiously. For the span of a heartbeat, he believed she’d discovered the truth. That somehow she’d deduced that he, William Hargrove, was, in fact, a marquess and future duke. But then she gave a hesitant nod, hinting at her reluctance in such daring questioning. “What would you know?” he asked slowly. More…why did the lady care? Why, unless this mystifying pull that had sucked at his thoughts and self-control gripped her as well. And what madness was it that he wanted her to feel this off-kilter captivation from his presence, too?
She wetted her lips. “I paint.” Cara whispered it the way a young woman speaking of a tryst with a lover might. Her admission brought him up short. Then, wasn’t the lady always doing that to him? “Or I used to.” The lady prattled when she was nervous. Tenderness filled his heart over that intimate discovery. Then a serious glimmer darkened her eyes. He ached to lean across the table and take her in his arms, shoving back that solemnity she’d demonstrated at their first meeting, two days ago. “My father let my governess go for daring to encourage such unladylike pursuits,” she spoke softly, her tone befitting one who’d only just remembered that dark, sad memory.
Once again, the urge filled him to hunt down her blasted tyrant of a father and knock him on his noble arse. He gripped his tankard hard.
Then she started and gave her head a sharp shake. “Do you paint?”
He shook his head. “I do not.” William grinned and gave her a wink. “Not well.”
A sharp, startled laugh burst from her lips and once again the air froze in his chest. When she laughed, small silver flecks danced in her eyes and an aura of unjaded innocence etched in the planes of her cheeks in the form of a faint dimple. And he wanted her always to be this way. For this was Cara; not the brittle, angry lady who’d stomped into the inn yesterday.
“I have three siblings. Two brothers and a sister,” he said gruffly.
“Do you?” Surprise lit her eyes.
William nodded. Siblings he’d seen but only a handful of times in the past eight years. How much of their lives had he missed in his thirst for adventure? Regret rolled through him. He took another drink, grimacing at the bitterness of the mulled cider.
“Are you the eldest?”
He nodded. “I am.” The ducal heir. Oh, he wished Oliver or David had been granted that right. For th
en, in this moment, he’d be unattached to the woman his parents would bind him to and free to find that elusive sentiment of love.
“I have an older brother.” That slight mocking emphasis she placed on that last word, said more than any charges she might level about the man.
He’d wager all his happiness that her childhood had been a lonely one, with a disapproving father and detached brother. But still he clung to the hope that her upset stemmed from an overprotective, needling sibling. “Are you close with your brother?”
She eyed him as though he’d gone mad. “There is no warmth in noble families, Will.” Regret contorted her features. “Every aspect of a lord and lady’s life is devoted to rank and status with little regard for one another’s hopes or dreams.” The woman spoke with the sage tone of an ancient master instructing a young student.
Words stuck in his throat. What would the lady say if she knew he not only belonged to the cold, merciless world she spoke of, but that he’d also been the recipient of love and affection in a household filled with exuberant laughter? “I cannot believe all families are as you describe. Surely there is, at the very least, some happiness to be found?” For the alternative was a dark, cold, lonely world for her in a way that twisted at his heart.
Cara shook her head. She picked her fork up and shoved it about her plate of beef and potatoes. “You would be wrong,” she said with a matter-of-factness that again wrenched his heart. She motioned to herself. “The only purpose served by children is to advance one’s rank and status and so those emotionless entanglements are formed.”
With her one-sided cynical views of all noble families, in this her words proved accurate. He stared blankly at her golden curls arranged in a loose chignon on the nape of her slender neck. His parents, even as they knew a grand love, had been bound by an arranged marriage, with love only coming later. As such, they would bind him to Lady Clarisse with some misbegotten expectation on his mother’s part that he would also find love in a like way.
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