Vow: A Lords of Action Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  Ara was right. Miss Silverton was the perfect solution to his problems. Beautiful, an unmatched singing voice, and the woman could handle a decent conversation well enough when she wasn’t foxed. Most importantly, her dowry alone would easily support his estate for the next fifty years. His mother was elated that Caine was seriously pursuing Miss Silverton and that the upcoming visit to Notlund Castle with her and her family would hopefully result in an engagement.

  His mother was elated. He was not.

  Caine stared at Ara sitting behind her rosewood desk.

  Because Miss Silverton wasn’t Ara. She wasn’t a part of him like Ara was. And every moment Caine spent with Miss Silverton, he was keenly aware of that fact.

  Caine swallowed hard.

  “So my mother keeps reminding me.” He stepped into the room. “What are your plans for the remainder of the day?”

  Her look rose to him, her mouth a tight line. “I have a previous engagement this evening, Caine.”

  He knew she did. Knew very well she planned on attending the opera again with Mr. Flagerton that eve. He had known of every single moment Ara had spent with the merchant, and it was driving him nearly mad. Which was exactly why he was here.

  Caine walked fully into her study, pulling from his jacket a familiar red card and dropping it onto Ara’s desk.

  “What is that?” Her posture straightened as her eyes flickered down to rest on the folded card.

  “You know exactly what it is.”

  Ara’s mouth clamped shut and she picked up the card, her fingers holding it delicately along the edges, careful not to crimp the paper.

  She stared at it for a long moment. With a deep breath, she turned it over, unfolding it to the writing within. Caine’s purse was generous, and he had become such a regular at the virgin auctions that the Jolly Vassal made sure he received an invitation to every auction they held.

  “Tonight?” She looked up at him, the blood pumping into her cheeks, flushing them.

  “Yes. Tonight. Another auction at the Jolly Vassal. I cannot do this alone, Ara. I can ask Mrs. Merrywent to serve your role if you cannot accompany me.”

  “No. No, this is important.” She stood, going over to the bookshelves to pull a sheet of the simple white vellum she preferred for personal correspondence. “And Mrs. Merrywent is gone to sit with her dying aunt. Only I know what it was like to be them—what to expect with them in the carriage. I will cancel my plans with Mr. Flagerton.”

  Caine exhaled. “Excellent. I already have our usual men in place.”

  Ara nodded, already sitting with the quill flying fast across on the vellum. Caine could see Mr. Flagerton’s name across the top in Ara’s neat script.

  His fingers tapped along the edge of the desk.

  “That goes well—Mr. Flagerton?” Caine regretted the question the second it left his mouth—but not enough to rescind the inquiry.

  “Do you really want to know, Caine?” She didn’t look up as she finished with her signature and quickly sanded the sheet.

  “I want to ensure your happiness, Ara.”

  She looked up to him, her green eyes wary.

  “So yes, I want to know if he is a man worthy of your affections.”

  Her eyes dropped and she folded the note, sealing it.

  Finished, she looked up at him again. “You do not need to worry on me, Caine. As we both know, I am no longer your responsibility.”

  “You will always be my responsibility, Ara.”

  She stood, moving around the desk toward him. Caine almost had to step away from the force of the vibrating energy that came with her.

  “Do not do this, Caine.” She stopped as her voice caught and her gaze dropped to stare at his chin for a long moment. Her eyes crawled back up to his, the gold rings in the green quaking. “Do you not see how hard you are making this for me, Caine?”

  “Why, Ara? Why is it hard? You cannot ask me not to care—not after everything we have gone through these past six years.”

  She licked her lips, and Caine watched as she swallowed hard. She opened her mouth, but then closed it, giving herself a slight shake.

  “What time will the carriage be by for me?”

  ~~~

  Ara rubbed her eyes. Damn, but she was tired.

  The earlier scene with Caine in her study had drained her—made her feel like she hadn’t slept in a week. Then the auction at the Jolly Vassal had gone deep into the night and given her far too much time to dwell on the man now sitting across from her.

  And now the first rays of light were hitting the sky. They had travelled with the windows of the carriage open, as a suffocating wave of heat had descended upon the land. But now she hoped the sunlight wouldn’t wake young Nelly, the girl from the brothel now sleeping on her lap, as they still had hours to travel to Nelly’s home.

  Ara had been trying. Trying to give Caine leave of her daily presence in his life, so he could pursue his ladies of wealth.

  He wouldn’t want to see her dour face every morning when she read the scandal columns reporting on his latest exploits—who he chatted to, which ladies he danced with—any more than she wanted him to see her reaction. She was determined to no longer be a hindrance on either his time or his estate.

  She had been trying, even as every day passed without seeing Caine cut just a little bit more from her heart. He needed to marry to ensure a secure future for all that depended upon him, she reminded herself. He was doing what his responsibilities demanded of him. She had to respect it, even if, once again, it was something she would never quite fully understand.

  Ara looked down at the head in her lap. This girl, Nelly, was unusually pretty and looked even younger than her fifteen years as she slept, her body curled onto the bench and her head bouncing on Ara’s lap with every rut. They were getting younger and younger.

  Ara tightened her hold across Nelly’s chest, holding her from slipping off the bench. The girl was well-spoken and appeared to have brains, even as scared as she had been when Caine dragged her into the carriage. They had escaped the East End without incident, and Nelly was determined to make her way to her home in Suffolk, positive her family would welcome her back in their arms.

  Ara hoped she was right.

  She looked up at Caine. He was wide awake, staring at her. Staring at her as he had been the entire night. At least in the dark she had been able to pretend his blue eyes weren’t searing into her.

  But now the rays of light, growing stronger by the second, gave her no shadows to hide within.

  She pointed with her free hand to the window, wagging her finger to get Caine to draw the curtains. She didn’t want Nelly to wake. Truly. Plus, it would offer enough dark to continue to avoid him for another stretch.

  Caine obliged, and Ara settled her head back against the cushions, closing her eyes.

  It was time to feign sleep.

  { Chapter 8 }

  “Tom is securing our rooms.” Caine held his hand out, palm up, to assist Ara from the carriage as his eyes swept over her head. “Your hat is not nearly big enough, so you will need to keep your head down in the public spaces. You will be posing as my sister—your hair color is similar enough, were anyone to ever question who was here with me.”

  Ara nodded. Whereas Mrs. Merrywent always accompanied them when delivering a girl to her home outside of London, her absence on this trip did create a bit of a problem for them traveling together. The last thing Caine needed at the moment was his name attached to a scandal. “Which sister?”

  “Rebecca. Her size is closest to yours. Why does it matter which one?”

  Ara’s boots crunched onto dried mud. The sun had been bright all day, baking the earth. “If I hear someone say her name, I know to bolt in the other direction.”

  Caine chuckled. “Your gift of thinking ahead rarely takes a rest—even when you are twenty-hours past a proper sleep.”

  She couldn’t help a grin as she shrugged. The last six years had honed her skill at averting possi
ble disasters.

  “Just keep your chin on your chest, and we will be fine. We are still six hours from London so should encounter no acquaintances.” He pointed across the green grasses leading from the coaching inn. “Come, let us wait over here where there is a fresh breeze.”

  Her joints cracked, muscles stretching. To move again after the last twenty hours in the carriage was glorious. She had been out of the carriage for just a short period of time at Nelly’s home, a quaint, two-story stone cottage with a smattering of red roses growing up trellises flanking the door. It did not take long for Ara to recognize that Nelly was key to the family’s upward mobility, and they were relieved to have her back in their arms. Ara guessed the family would never breathe word of Nelly’s five-day disappearance again—they would all pretend it never happened.

  Ara stepped behind the carriage. If only she had been so lucky. What would her life be like right now had she never been stolen, never been disowned by her father? Married? Children? Content? At peace?

  She gave herself an invisible shake.

  Never think on what could have been. It was a dangerous game only made more precarious by her current exhaustion.

  Mind reset in the present, Ara followed Caine’s lead across the grasses to the crest of a hill. For as tired as she had been in the carriage, the warm breeze blew away the sludge in her mind, and her eyes perked open.

  The hill rolled downward, where sheep dotting the pasture were busy with the last greenery they could munch before night fell.

  The bottom half of the hazy sun dipped below the trees of a far-off forest, and minutes passed, the orange streaks in the sky turning to glorious purples and golds.

  Caine stood silent next to her, and Ara took the moment purely for herself, watching the world transform from sparkles to shadows.

  The last vestiges of the sun disappeared behind the trees, and Ara exhaled at the beauty. When was the last time she had felt such peace settling her body, fleeting though it was?

  “It has been so long.” The muttered words slipped out in a whisper, answering her own question.

  “So long for what?”

  She couldn’t peel her eyes away from the wispy clouds scattering the sweeping lines of pinks and purples. “Since I have seen a sunset.”

  She felt him look down at her, the air crackling as it did every time he stared at her this close.

  “I do not see sunsets like this in London—not true sunsets,” she said, her voice soft.

  Caine was quiet for several breaths, assessing her, but Ara refused to let her attention slide from the vista.

  “Ara, are you telling me you have not seen a sunset in six years?”

  She stayed silent, her eyes grasping at the streaks across the sky as the dark blue-grey of the night chased the colors down into oblivion. Satisfied she had squeezed every last drop of beauty from the sky, she looked up at Caine.

  “It was my favorite thing in childhood—the sunsets off the fields behind our house. It looked like this, the hills, the trees. My mother, when she was alive, would take me to her favorite spot and we would sit there together, just the two of us. I used to dream that when I was grown, I would have my own little cottage where I could set up an easel and paint the wonder that is the end of the day. Birds chirping, the wind sending the rushes into a rustle, the colors in the sky, my five children running, chasing goats in the pasture below.”

  “Five children?”

  “Yes, that seemed to be the proper amount.” Her chin jutted sideways. “Yet now that I think on it, I do not know where I would have stuck them—the cottage I imagined was quite small. That was an oversight.”

  Caine smiled. “And I did not know you painted.”

  “I do not. I have never even held a paint brush in my fingers. But it did seem like the perfect life when I was little—so adventuresome, the painting. And each and every painting would be a masterpiece, of course.”

  “Of course.” He nodded, the smile holding on his face. “You never told me that story.”

  She shrugged. “It never occurred to me. I had forgotten myself until seeing this just now.”

  Caine’s brow furrowed. “So I ask again, Ara, you have not seen a sunset since you lived in Marport?”

  Ara nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She hadn’t heard—hadn’t thought of the name of her village in so long. And she thought she had dodged the question. Of course she hadn’t. When Caine wanted to know something, he got what he wanted. He always had with her.

  Her eyes dropped from him to watch a wobbly lamb trotting after its mother in the field below. She had just wanted to preserve the moment in time, the moment of peace. And there was no sense in looking backward, when backward only filled her head with painful memories.

  Pretend it never happened. All of it.

  She forced a smile onto her face. “I have not been out of the city, except when we have travelled with the girls to return them to their homes. And there has been scant time to take in a sunset on those trips. So no. No sunsets.”

  He didn’t reply, and Ara was grateful. It was just a sunset, after all. Nothing to dramatize.

  “M’lord.” Tom paused to cough his arrival. “The rooms have been readied for you and Miss Detton.”

  Ara looked over her shoulder to the coachman standing a discrete distance away. Tom looked even more tired than she felt, and a pang of guilt ran across her belly. Tom had helped to save her life those many years ago, and his devotion to her and Caine had always gone far beyond what was expected of a normal driver. Caine had already paid him plenty, but when Ara had taken over his household accounts, she had doubled Tom’s pay. It still wasn’t enough.

  “Thank you, Tom.” Caine looked down at Ara, the blue in his eyes darkening with the deep greys of the sky. “Let us get you upstairs to your room, and then I will deliver some food. Just remember, head down. If you want to feign an ache of the head, and clutch your forehead, that would also do us well.”

  Ara turned with him, stretching her shorter legs to match his long stride. “I do believe I can pretend quite admirably, Caine.”

  She swallowed a sigh.

  If he only knew how well.

  ~~~

  An hour later, Ara’s fingers worked down the jade buttons lining the front of her hunter green riding jacket. She had waited patiently for the food Caine had promised, but now she had slipped into exhaustion again and the bed she could see in the spacious adjoining room beckoned to her.

  She loosened and pulled off her tall black riding boots, peeled down her stockings, and just as she stripped the jacket from her arms, a knock echoed into the room.

  Shoving her arms back into the sleeves of her jacket, she buttoned the front as she opened the door. Caine stood in the hallway balancing a wide covered platter in his arms. He lifted it up slightly, a small twinkle in his eyes. “As promised.”

  Ara stepped to the side in her bare feet, her hand on the door as Caine moved past her and set the silver platter on the table.

  “Since Tom told them you were feeling ill, I could only order for myself, so I have just the one platter—and according to the barkeep downstairs—a gluttony issue, as well.”

  Ara moved to the table and lifted the silver dome off the oval platter, her eyes going wide at the piles of food—potatoes and thick slices of meat and pies and beans, with sugar plums and ratafia cakes wedged onto the ends of the plate. She glanced at Caine. “You told him all of this was for you?”

  “I did.”

  She chuckled. “Then he judged you accordingly.”

  “May I eat in here as well, since we just have the one platter? Tom did sneak me an extra fork. I would like to dive into the pies before they go cold.”

  “By all means.” Ara pointed at the extra wooden chair by the marble-lined fireplace as she settled herself down on the chair already at the small round table.

  Caine dragged the chair to the table, sitting down opposite Ara. Both silently dug into the food, minutes of silence fil
ling the air as their mouths remained stuffed. Apparently, Ara hadn’t been the only one starving.

  This wasn’t the first time they had eaten together—countless meals they had shared—but this was the first meal they had taken together since Caine had decided to land a rich bride.

  She had missed it. Their easy dinners. Chatter about the Vakkar Line, the politics of the day, his sisters’ latest antics, what he was concerned about with his lands, the mines, and the families that lived on them, and of course, how each and every one of the Baker Street house girls were doing. The men that were courting some of them, what the younger girls were learning, and debating how best to move each one forth into the world with the confidence to live a happy life.

  She had missed it.

  And she would miss it.

  It was also, most likely, the very last meal they would ever share. Caine was leaving for Notlund Castle in two days.

  Chewing a particularly juicy bite of mutton, Ara glanced up at Caine. He poked at one of the sugared plums, his intake of food slowing, and she wondered if she was out-eating him again. She did that. Forgot to eat during the day, and then she would stuff as much food as possible into her mouth when she was sitting across from him.

  Luckily, she hadn’t ballooned to unusual proportions as of yet, and Caine had always been amused by her appetite.

  Was it any wonder she loved the man?

  A sneak attack, the reality sliced straight through the middle of her mind, firing tendrils outward until her mind was consumed with the thought.

  Dammit. She had sworn to herself she wasn’t going to admit to the fact anymore. Wasn’t going to let it seep into her brain to ruin her time with Mr. Flagerton. Wasn’t going to make her pine away for something so very unattainable.

  She had sworn.

  But there it was. The plain truth taunting her, as her subconscious liked to attack at the most inopportune times. She needed a better place to lock away unwanted thoughts in her mind.

  “What is it, Ara?” Caine looked across the platter at her, the four candles in the room lighting the left side of his face and cutting shadows down across his hard jawline. He leaned back in the chair, finished with the food, and eyed her with concern. “You are pondering something serious.”