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 then, 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 chig
non 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.
His dark fate looming before him, he could not ride away from this inn and have Cara accept that cold, empty fate for herself. He needed her to know there could be happiness and warmth and laughter. William leaned forward and covered Cara’s fingers with his. The satiny softness of her skin burned his larger, callused palm with a sharp heat.
She stilled and, for a long moment, examined their joined hands. Did she wish to commit this moment to her forever memory, as he did? Then she met his eyes. The muscles of her throat moved.
“You deserve far more in a future than the world you speak of. Not all families are like yours, Cara.” He infused earnestness into his tone. “There is laughter and teasing and happiness.”
A sad smile formed on her lips, with evidence of her earlier iciness, and he braced for the hint of that aloof lady from yesterday. But then she looked to the frosted window. Her eyes grew stricken. “The storm has ended.”
The absolute quiet for the first time in two days filtered through this stolen interlude. He followed her stare. Indeed, it had. And with the cessation of that thick snow, he could soon be on his way. The moment he rode out, they two would each live their lives and their time here would exist as nothing more than a too-brief moment in time. Regret and panic merged as one, clawing at him.
“I…” She shoved back her chair and hopped to her feet with such alacrity, her seat nearly tipped precariously and then righted. Did she see that their time had come to an end and she would be off with her maid and driver to the pompous betrothed who’d, no doubt, shape her into the lady Society expected her to be…crushing the fledging spirit that had stirred these past days. Ah, God, that inevitability gutted him until he wanted to snarl and howl. Cara’s hands fluttered about her chest. “Of all the places you’ve been, if you could go anywhere, in this moment, where would it be?”
He stood. The irony not lost on him. Since his return to England, he’d dreamed of being anywhere but here. And now… He couldn’t drum up a single place he’d traveled or longed to visit that he’d rather be just then. Cara probed him with a look, her eyes begging him for an answer he didn’t have. He searched his mind and gave her the place he’d show her, if the circumstances of life and fate had been altogether different. “The isle of Capri,” he said quietly. “It has water a shade of blue you did not know existed and skies to match. The sun possesses warmth that cleanses a person’s soul.”
The muscles of her throat worked. “I would very much like to see that place,” she said hoarsely.
Do not go. Dishonorable words he had no right thinking with the pledge he’d made his father eight years ago. “Cara,” he said quietly. She bowed her head and then silently fled. He stared after her, hungry with the need to call her back. William looked to the frosted panes. Yes, the winter storm had ended. And yet, an altogether different tempest raged inside.
Chapter 9
Cara despised mornings. Particularly the cold of winter mornings. She preferred to burrow deep into the feather down of her bed and snuggle under her coverlets, absorbing the warmth and dream. Dream of painting and dream of being far away from Mrs. Belden’s cheerless rooms, and even farther away from her father’s lonely halls. In the brief moments before she arose and greeted the truth of her existence, those fantasies belonged to her.
This morning, she despised above all others. But she despised it for altogether different reasons. Cara stood at the widow and stared at the smooth surface of the untouched white snow that gleamed from the sun’s bright rays reflecting upon it. A pressure weighted her chest and threatened to cut off her airflow. She leaned her forehead against the cool pane; the sun’s warmth penetrated the glass at odds with the cold. Those once jagged, fierce icicles dripped a steady stream into the ground below.
And this stolen interlude, this momentary reprieve from the cold world in which she lived, and peoples’ disdain of her, and her disdain for herself, was at an end. She was once more the Duke of Ravenscourt’s daughter; hated by all, reentering the hallowed halls of that loathsome man who’d sired her. A sheen of tears flooded her eyes, and whereupon her arrival at this place days earlier, they’d been a token of weakness that she’d despised herself for showing, now she embraced those drops which blurred her vision. Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs. Her forehead knocked noisily against the window.
This was what came of forgetting her station and flinging propriety into the wind for the company of a man. Nay, not just any man—Will. Only, he’d penetrated that carefully crafted veneer; a façade so convincing, she’d come to believe it herself. And now that he’d shaken the foundation of her artificial world, she could not reconstruct the wall and put the pieces of her former self back together. Cara cried all the harder.
How naïve he’d been with his talk last evening of a loving family who cared. That was not her world. That was his. And she hated him for making her hunger with this desperate ferocity for a sliver of it—but not just with any gentleman. With him. A man whose last name she did not even know. A man who’d forced her to look inside herself and confront that she’d become a person she detested, and wished to be…someone different.
Cara allowed the tears to freely fall and then drew in a shuddery sigh. “Enough,” she whispered. She dashed her hands across her cheeks. Will would leave. Today, no doubt. And she would board the earl’s carriage and be off to the father who’d forgotten her and the brother who may as well be a stranger for how well she knew him. Another sob burst from her lips and she stifled it with a hand. “I-I cannot.” To return to her father and Mrs. Belden would mean her eventual descent into marriage with that someday duke—just another man like her father. One who’d crush what little remained of her spirit and force her into the Societal mold expected of a lady. She stared blankly at the earl’s driver in the distance as he made his way from the stable yards to the inn. “I-I cannot,” she whispered to herself, fisting her hands at her side. She needed more time. And with jerky movements, spun on her heel, quietly pulled the door open, and collided with Alison.
Despite her wan complexion, Alison wore her perpetual smile. “My lady.” She dipped a curtsy, but then her cheer dipped as her eyes went to Cara’s cheeks. “My lady?”
Cara averted her face from the girl’s concerned stare. “Alison, you should be abed.” And once more she was the selfish Lady Clarisse, for she wished Alison to the rooms so that she might have another taste of that beautiful freedom she’d known these days. That precious gift withheld from women.
“I am fine, my lady.” She eyed Cara’s rumpled gown with a frown. She made a tsking noise. “Come, my lady.” With her usual boldness, she stepped past Cara. “The earl’s man has fetched your trunks. Allow me to help you into another gown.”
Of its own volition, her hungry gaze moved beyond Alison and into that hall. Then some of the fight slipped from her being and seeped out her feet. She gave a curt nod and moved with wooden steps back into the room. Her maid entered and closed the door behind them, closing off that path to freedom.
The young woman cleared her throat. “I-I…” She shifted on her feet, looking anywhere and everywhere except at Cara. “I am so sorry,” Alison murmured. “I sh-should have been seeing t-to you and I understand you must speak to His Grace about my failing to see to my responsibilities.” She gulped loudly.
What would the young woman say if she discovered Cara had not been hidden away in her miserable, private rooms as the other girl supposed, but rather taking her meals in a public place, without the benefit of a husband or chaperone or father? It was the level of impropriety that would ruin her for anyone…
“It is fine,” she said at last. The look Alison gave Cara proved that she knew her failing to attend her responsibilities was
not fine. Or to the duke it would not be. “We will not speak of it again.” Someone will inevitably find out. There were the innkeepers. Though they did not know the truth of her identity, the earl’s driver, in fact, did. He’d seen her in the tavern. Alone. Speaking to Will.
While Alison rushed about the room, tidying the space and collecting a change of garments for her mistress, a defiant smile pulled at Cara’s lips. Would it truly be such a very bad thing if the pompous nobleman her father would see her wed discovered that the proper, propriety-driven daughter of a duke had been alone at an inn, with a man? Her lips burned. A man whose kiss she’d begged for and still craved. A kiss she would continue to crave until she was an old woman, alone, with nothing more than the sweet memories of these few days.
In an uncharacteristic silence, Alison helped Cara from one gown and into another. Then with skillful fingers, she set to work pulling at and arranging her curls into some semblance of a proper chignon. As she tugged at the strands, tucking them into the butterfly hair combs, questions spun through Cara’s mind.
How could her maid not know while she’d been healing in her rooms, Cara’s entire world was flipped on its ear by a stranger who’d challenged her at every turn?
“There you are, my lady.”
The girl’s wan pallor indicated how much energy her efforts had cost her. Guilt pulled at her. “You need to rest,” Cara said softly, leading her back to her rooms.
The loyal maid widened her eyes.
“What is it, Alison?” Cara asked.
“You are… you are…”
She gave her head a shake, urging a suddenly taciturn Alison to finish those words.
“…being kind.”
You do not apologize. You do not speak to servants. You are not kind to them. They are your inferior in every way. Is that clear, Clarisse…?
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 178