Finally, her door opened and Ashley came in. Caro sat up as her husband crossed to her. In the flickering light of the single candle that Helene had left burning beside the bed, his face was as grim as she had ever seen it. Hope, which had leaped at the sight of him, crumbled into dust when she saw his expression.
Shivering, she pulled the bedclothes up to her neck as though to protect herself from his furious gaze, which she met with despairing eyes.
“What did Henry do to you?” he demanded.
Why, she wondered dully, was Ashley bothering to ask her when he had already heard Henry’s lies and no doubt believed them? “What did he tell you that he did?” she asked listlessly.
“I am asking you, Caro. Did he, er, touch you?”
“He tore the buttons from my riding habit,” she said dully, “and he threatened to force a cup of drugged chocolate down my throat.”
“That is not what I mean.”
A flush spread over Caro’s face as she comprehended what he did mean. “No, not that way.” She could not keep a trace of bitterness from her voice. “Like my husband, Henry prefers more voluptuous women. You were right when you told me that he was not interested in me. He wanted only to create a scandal. What did he tell you? That he had seduced me?”
Ashley, his face troubled, sat down on the bed beside her. “He told me nothing. He is dead.”
Caro was shocked out of her lethargy. “You killed him?”
“No, although God knows I wanted to when I saw you coming down that makeshift rope. I felt as though I lived a dozen lifetimes before you descended low enough for me to reach you. I went after Henry with murder in my heart for what he had put you through. He tried to escape from me by stealing a horse.” Ashley passed a weary hand over his eyes as if he were trying to erase a terrible scene from his mind. “It threw him, and he was impaled on a fence. That is why I have been gone so long. There were a great many questions to answer.”
“And now there will be a dreadful scandal,” Caro said bitterly. “Will you divorce me?”
“What?” he asked blankly.
“You said that you would not tolerate a wife who involved you in scandal.”
“Caro, no one will know that you were at Henry’s house today. I have seen to that. If there is any scandal, it will be over Henry’s responsibility for my brother’s death.”
“Henry did not want the title,” Caro said. “He told me that he did not mean to kill your brother, only to humiliate him by making him lose the race, but that William disobligingly took ill and died.”
“Oh, God,” Ashley groaned. “So that was it. What a damnable waste.” He shook his head sadly. “I cannot blame my cousin for hating William. He treated Henry so contemptuously.”
“I did not go to your cousin’s house,” Caro said, certain that her husband would never believe her improbable tale. “He abducted me.”
“Yes, I know. Poor elfin.”
“You believe me?” Caro’s voice quavered in surprise and relief.
“Of course. You had given me your word, and I knew that, no matter how reluctantly you did so, you would never go back on it.” Gathering her in his arms, Ashley lifted her onto his lap and hugged her to him. “Now, tell me what happened.”
When she finished her story, her husband’s arms tightened around her as though he never meant to let her go, and he said fervently, “You were very brave, elfin, but I would have infinitely preferred a scandal to your risking that lovely little neck of yours by climbing down from the window.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “But you would have divorced me!”
He brushed her tears away gently with his thumbs. “And you do not want that?” he asked softly, his eyes grave.
“No!” She could no longer hide her feelings from him. Her arms tightened around him. “Oh, Ashley, I love you so much.”
His lips descended on hers in a long, fierce kiss that left them breathless.
“If you love me so, elfin, why have you held me at such a distance in recent weeks?” The baffled hurt in Ashley’s voice made Caro wince. “You acted as though you preferred the company of every other man in London to mine.”
For the first time, it occurred to Caro that her behavior had wounded as well as puzzled him. “I wanted your company desperately,” she confessed, “but I did not want to be like Lady Yarwood and embarrass you by hanging on you when you cannot love me.”
He looked shocked. “Whoever gave you the nonsensical idea that I don’t love you, elfin? Or that I prefer more voluptuous women?”
Caro, remembering what he had told Lady Roxley, could not suppress two large tears that rolled down her cheeks. “You did.”
His hands tightened around her arms. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Why not?”
Caro hung her head. “I would be breaking my word that I will not vex you about your mistress.”
“Since I do not have a mistress, you cannot vex me about her and, therefore, you cannot break your word,” he said roughly.
“Oh, Ashley, don’t try to gammon me,” she cried, the aching of her heart echoed in her voice. “I know the truth. I overheard you tell Lady Roxley that she need never worry that I would steal your love from her.”
Her husband swore softly, his face tightening into grim, angry lines. “And, hearing that much, you ran away, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said miserably, wondering how he knew that. “I could not bear to hear any more.”
“You would have saved us both a great deal of misery had you stayed to hear me to the end. What I told my former mistress was that she need not worry that you would replace her in my affections because you already had done so.”
For a moment, Caro could only stare at him in disbelief. “Truly?”
“Truly, elfin.”
But she was still skeptical. “How can you possibly love me instead of Lady Roxley? She is so beautiful.”
“Believe me, elfin, it is very easy. She is a faithless, selfish creature, but it took me a long time to see beyond her beauty and manipulative charm.”
Still, Caro would not let herself succumb to the happiness that was welling in her. “But you did not love me when you married me.”
“No,” Ashley admitted. “We had known each other less than a fortnight. But I was very fond of you. Once we were married, affection quickly deepened into love. But it took me awhile to realize that. It was not until I went back to Bellhaven and saw you running so eagerly to greet me that I knew that I had lost my heart to you.”
“Oh, Ashley,” she breathed, “why did you not tell me that you loved me?”
“I thought that I did, although not in words perhaps, each time we made love.” His hand caressed the curve of her hip resting on his lap. “The nights have been so lonely for me without you beside me. Did you miss me, too?”
“Too much,” she confessed, embarrassment tinting her cheeks as she remembered her wild, unladylike response that had so shocked him. Now more than ever, she wanted to be exactly the kind of wife he wanted.
“What do you mean, ‘too much’?” he asked gently, lifting her chin so that he could look into her eyes.
“You drive me wild,” she answered candidly, “and when you do, I cannot, no matter how hard I try, act like a lady of the first respectability.”
Ashley’s eyes gleamed with laughter. “Elfin, a man does not want a lady of the first respectability in bed.”
“Even if she is his wife?”
“Especially if she is his wife.”
“What does he want?”
His mouth lowered, hovering over hers. “A woman like you, my elfin.”
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Lady Caro Page 20