“Met who?” His father glowered in the show of anger William had expected.
“I do not understand, William.” His mother spoke with a slowness of one trying to muddle her way through a conundrum.
“I met a young lady. Lady Cara Turner, the Earl of Derby’s daughter,” he said quietly, ignoring the shocked confusion in his mother’s eyes. An image of Cara as she’d been with his face clasped between her delicate fingers flashed to his mind. He reached into the front of his pocket and withdrew the crimson heart she’d given him. That last link she’d had to her mother, she’d entrusted with him. He gripped the precious gift. “And I fell in love with her.” He held his father’s hard stare. “I had every intention of honoring my pledge to you, but not any longer. I cannot marry Lady Clarisse.”
Silence met his admission. William braced for his father’s booming fury but his mother shattered the quiet, interrupting whatever words were on her husband’s lips. “Did you say the Earl of Derby’s daughter, Lady Nora?”
He shook his head. “Lady Cara.”
His mother gave him a gentle look. “But William, the earl’s only daughter is Lady Nora.”
William must have heard his mother’s words wrong. A buzzing filled his ears and he gave his head a clearing shake. “You are mistaken.” His words came as though down a corridor.
The duke folded his arms at his chest and snorted. “Your mother isn’t wrong on any matters of the ton.”
She nodded in agreement. “He is correct, I am invariably right on all these matters.”
William tried to make sense of her confounding words. Why would Cara lie to him about her identity? The air left him on a shuddery hiss. And how in blazes was he to find her if she’d given him a false name? He shook his head hard, dispelling the doubts planted by his mother. “You are wrong,” he snapped. Cara wouldn’t have deceived him. His insides twisted in an agonizing grip. Why would she? It did not make sense.
“I am not.” His mother wrinkled her nose. “Well, at least not about the earl having a daughter named Nora and not having a daughter named Cara.”
“You are certain?” he demanded.
The duchess gave a hesitant nod.
William scrubbed one hand down his face and, with a panicked energy running through him, spun on his heel and began to pace. “Is this a ploy to make me abandon my intentions to wed the lady?”
That shameful question had wrung gasps from his parents. “William,” his mother chided.
He increased his frantic movements. Nothing else made sense. Why would Cara have given him a false name? Why—? He stopped abruptly and stared at the crimson heart in his gloved palm. Pain stabbed at his belly. He shook his head. “She would not lie.” She would not have given him this gift and let him ride off, knowing they’d never again meet. William closed his eyes hard and fought to make semblance of what his mother was saying.
“How did you come by Clarisse’s pendant?”
His mother’s quietly spoken question brought his eyes open. He stared numbly on as his mother came closer. She bowed her head over the ruby necklace in his palm and he folded his hand closed. Sharing this part of Cara seemed… Then his mother’s words registered. “What?” He opened his hand. “This is Cara’s.” No! It was impossible.
“No,” his mother said gently, slipping the broken pendant from his grip. She turned it over in her hands. “This belonged to Cynthia.” Her closest friend who’d died… His mind shuttered. Oh, God, it could not be. His mother peeled her lip back in a snarl, her eyes flashing a hatred he’d not believed her capable of. “Her husband forbid her from wearing—”
“Anything but diamonds,” the words left him on a slow exhale.
She nodded slowly. “Yes, yes, that is correct. How do you—?” His mother widened her eyes in shock. “It is her. She is your Cara.”
Cara mia.
“I don’t understand,” his father boomed.
Neither did he. William’s mind spun. The woman he’d spent years running from was now the only woman he wanted or needed. She was cold and cruel to her servants and devoid of all feeling…and I have spent the last eight years avoiding the responsibility expected of me. His stomach churned with nausea as he went over every last, rotted word he’d uttered to her.
Don’t you see, I am that woman…?
Bile climbed up his throat until he thought he’d be sick. She’d been telling him with even her words, her identity, and he’d been so consumed by age-old resentments over a vow his father had expected of him, that he’d failed to see that which was truly before his eyes.
His throat muscles worked. “What a bloody fool I’ve been,” he breathed. In sending him away, she’d set him free. He closed his eyes. How could she not know he was only free when she was in his life? And he’d left her. Alone, at the blasted inn.
“Wh-where is she?” his mother put forth with the same unease cloying at his thoughts.
He attempted to right his tumultuous thoughts. Where would she go? Off to that miserable bastard who’d sired her; the only good he’d done in the whole of his loathsome life? Then understanding dawned. William spun on his heel and stalked off.
“William,” his father thundered. “Where are you going?”
He squared his jaw. “To collect my betrothed.” And when he did, he intended to spend the rest of his life filling her days with joy and making atonement for being such an odious beast.
Chapter 13
These were sorry days indeed when a lady willingly chose to spend Christmas at Mrs. Belden’s miserable halls.
Properly attired in her ivory satin gown, Cara lay on her side, her breath frozen. Once again, she stared at walls but altogether different ones than the thin, whitewashed panels of the Fox and Hare Inn. This room sterile, yet perfect. There was no water stained ceilings or cold winter breezes stealing through the window. She flipped onto her back and flung her arm across her brow. A sad smile pulled at her lips. She’d have traded all of her father’s properties gladly for the possession of that miserable, little inn. There had been more beauty and happiness in that aged establishment than in any place she’d had the misfortune of calling home in any of her eighteen years.
In one great twist of irony, she’d almost had every happiness she never believed herself deserving of, or even possible… Her throat worked. Will was her William. That man she’d despised all these years for being a future duke and emotionless nobleman her father would wed her to. She caught her lower lip hard. He’d never been any of those things she’d silently accused him of being, whereas she? She had been the very cruel, cold, and calculated person he’d taken her as. And for that, she’d freed him.
A shuddery sob spilled past her lips. She rolled onto her side again and hugged her arms tight about herself. Her skin still burned with the feel of another pair of arms folded about her. True to the selfish, needy lady she’d been for the course of her life, she wanted more of him. Wanted all of him. She swiped a hand over her face. “Enough,” she whispered. Cara shoved herself up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The mattress groaned with the slight depression of her weight. The sunlight filtered through the open curtains and she squinted at the stream of light as it drew her back to another sunny day inside a copse of juniper trees. For all the agony of losing him, happiness danced within her heart at the fleeting joy she’d known.
A knock sounded at the door. “My lady?” Alison’s happy voice sounded from the other side of the door.
Cara cast a glance over her shoulder and her lips twisted in a wry smile. Ah, the summons. One week too late. Or mayhap, just in time. Had her father’s carriage arrived when it ought, she’d have traveled on to his miserable, cold, and lonely estate. She would still be the same shallow, selfish creature who shut out the thoughts and feelings of others and protected herself. She gripped the edge of her bed. Mayhap this was the one gift her father had given her.
Another rap. “My lady? You have been summoned below.”
Of course the su
mmons was due. Her father would invariably remember he had a daughter somewhere when he had use of her. Did he even now realize that the long-standing arrangement between him and the Duke of Billingsley binding their children had been severed? There could never be triumph in thwarting her father’s wishes when it had also shattered her heart.
“My lady?” Some of Alison’s usual cheer faded to a cautious concern.
With a sigh, she came to her feet. “Just a moment, Alison.” She made her way across the room, pausing beside her vanity. A miserable creature with red eyes and wan cheeks stared back at her. Cara attempted to pinch some color into her pale skin. Her eyes remained rimmed with red, a testament to her tears. Abandoning all futile efforts to be the cool, unaffected lady she’d been before William, she made her way to the door and pulled it open.
Alison smiled. “You are…” Her happiness dimmed as she took in Cara’s face. Her gaze lingered on Cara’s cheeks. “You have been summoned to the Green Parlor, my lady.”
So her father had managed to remember her, at last.
“Thank you,” she replied. Except, by the flare of shock in Alison’s eyes, it only served to remind Cara once more of a nobleman who was kind to all, regardless of station or lot in life. A man so very different than her father—or her. Averting her eyes so her maid could not see the blasted sheen of tears misting her vision. “Alison, will you see that I’m all ready to depart?” Again.
The girl nodded and rushed into the room.
Cara continued down the corridor, her footsteps echoed off the corridor walls. How very sadly similar this day was to another not even a week prior. Only, no laughter chimed from the rooms of other students or excited prattling filled the corridors of young women excited to return home for the holiday season. She’d been so very condescending to her fellow students; mocking their happiness, jeering their love of the inanity. She winced. What a foul creature she’d been. Cara paused at the edge of the Green Parlor and layered her back against the ivory damask wallpaper.
“You deserve more…You deserve to love and be loved. You deserve to laugh and know there is no shame in feeling…”
She caught her lip hard as desperate fear pounded at her breast; the sickening possibility that once the warm memory of William faded, and she returned home, with the inevitable prospect of making a match with some other lord her father approved of. Cara stared angrily at the opposite wall and balled her fists. She did not want hurt and resentment to transform her into the cold, hateful creature she’d been. “I will not be that woman,” she mouthed.
No. She would not be manipulated as a pawn on her father’s chessboard of power. She’d not wed any gentleman just because her loathsome sire ordained the match. Cara froze, as a giddy fluttering danced about her belly. Since her mother’s death she’d been groomed and coached by the most distinguished instructors in the kingdom; molded into a shell of a person Society approved of. That control she’d turned naively over, unwillingly as a child. A slow, triumphant smile that would have appalled her father, should he see it, turned her lips up in a wide grin. Too long she’d given her happiness over to others. William had shown her there was no shame in a lady feeling. As such, she’d never have him, but she would have some control of her life.
Squaring her shoulders, she took a step, and then stopped. A small kissing bough made of juniper cones hung at the center of the doorway. Cara blinked. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears as she recalled a different juniper and then her skin burned hot with awareness and she slowly lowered her gaze. Then the rapidly pounding organ in her chest ceased to beat altogether.
Arms clasped at his back, William stood in the center of the parlor. Except… Cara tipped her head. The elegantly clad gentleman in his midnight claw hammer coat and buckskin breeches bore no hint of the rough stranger in coarse Holland cotton breeches and a rough cap. “Clarisse.” His gruff baritone washed over her like the warmth of a summer sun’s rays.
She slid her eyes closed and allowed the husky sound to envelope her in a soft caress. Then his greeting registered. Her eyes shot open. Not Cara. Clarisse. She smoothed her palms over her skirts. “Y-you called me Clarisse,” she said taking a step away. Of course, he would eventually discover the identity of the lady he’d thrown snowballs with outside the Fox and Hare Inn. She’d just not expected it would be but two days later. She continued her retreat.
William dropped his arms to his sides. He sent one chestnut eyebrow winging up. “Is that not your name?”
“It is.” Her back knocked against the wall and she gave thanks for the support that kept her upright, even as her legs went weak at the confusion of William’s presence here. Now. She cast a glance about, wetting her lips. Surely the proper Mrs. Belden would never permit this unchaperoned meeting between a duke’s daughter and an unmarried gentleman.
“I explained we were betrothed,” he said quietly, correctly interpreting the path her thoughts had wandered. He folded his arms before him. “Did you think you’d leave that inn and I’d not ever find out the identity of the woman who threw my world off-kilter?”
Oh, God. Agony wrenched her heart. What game did he play? “W-we are not betrothed.” She despised the breathlessly weak quality of her rebuttal.
Through narrowed eyes, he watched her retreat. “Ah, but we almost were,” he said tormenting her with that softly spoken statement. And this time, with his long, graceful strides he ate away the distance between them.
Cara remained fixed to her spot. She’d spent almost the whole of her life retreating—from pain, from strangers, and herself. Cara pressed her hands to the wall borrowing artificial support from the cold, hard plaster. “How did you find…” She allowed her words to trail off.
He gave her a droll smile. “How did I learn you’d given Lady Nora’s identity as your own?”
Guilt twisted at that lie. Even if it had been a deception to set him free, it spoke to her honor. Cara managed a nod.
William reached into his pocket and she studied his slow, precise movements as he withdrew a familiar necklace. Her throat closed as he held up the shimmering, crimson ruby she’d never separated from—until now. Until him. “Imagine my parents’ shock when I went to them asking to be freed of my obligations to Lady Clarisse Falcot, because I’d lost my heart quite desperately to another woman.” He looked from the necklace in his large palm to her. “Only for my mother to question just how I’d come by your mother’s necklace. I would have come yesterday so you did not wake up alone.” Again. “On this Christmas day.” He let the gold chain dangle between his fingers and the shimmering ruby twisted and danced. “But I had your chain repaired first. You lost it before, Cara.” He took a step toward her. “I will not have it lost again.”
She sought to decipher some of what he was feeling in his smooth, modulated tone. Was he angry? Embarrassed? His face may as well have been set into an unyielding mask. “Why are you here?” she pleaded.
She stiffened as he shot out his other hand and then slowly, in a hypnotic, gentle motion ran his knuckles over her jaw. “How could I not come for you, Clarisse?”
Emotion clogged her throat. Why was he doing this? “Do not call me that.” Her words came out as a ragged entreaty. “I despise that name.” Chosen by her father, she hated it for that alone.
William flicked his gaze over her face, his eyes lingering on hers. Pain sparked in their blue depths, but then was quickly gone. Did he see the evidence of the tears she’d cried for him? Once, that weakness would have shamed her. No longer. Because of him. He’d taught her there was no shame in one’s tears or hurts.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “Cara.” His use of her name, the only soul other than her mother who’d uttered it and with such tenderness, gutted her. He’d been clear in his hopes for his future and that hope had not been a cruel, unkind lady who’d sneered at servants and shamed her own half-sister. “Why did you not tell me?” he demanded, his tone harsher than she’d ever remembered, even from that day of their first meeting.
Filled with a restiveness, she ducked around his arm and rushed away. “What would you have me say?” she rasped. “That I was the very same woman you spent years avoiding?” He flinched. “And with good reason.” She’d not allow him that silent guilt. Jaw quivering, she angled it up. “You were correct in all your suppositions about me, William.” There’d been very little redeeming about her as a person.
“I was wrong.” Emotion roughened his tone. “I love you.”
Her heart soared, as his words lifted her, in ways she’d not been since their stolen moments at the Fox and Hare Inn, but then it swiftly fell back into place. “You do not truly know me,” she said softly. He’d been more accurate in his first impressions, when he’d correctly gauged the ugly inside her. Cara gave her head a little shake. “Not after three days. The girl you remember, the one who ordered her servants about and was incapable of warmth and kindness, that is who I’ve been longer and you deserve more than that.”
Anger emanated from his frame as he stalked over and took her by the shoulders. The ruby heart pendant he held in his hand burned through the fabric of her gown. “Do not presume to tell me what I deserve or desire. I want you, Cara.” He gentled his grip and drew her close. “I love you.” His words emerged with the strength and resolve better suited to conquerors of old.
Cara wrenched away from him. “Do you know the type of person I am?” she cried.
He swept his lashes down, silently urging her to continue.
She backed up several steps, putting distance between them. “I-I am the kind of woman who had her half-sister sacked because the sight of her reminded me of my despicable father and his inability to love me.”
He stilled and, coward that she was, Cara slid her gaze over to the bright-burning hearth in the corner, unable to confront the evidence of his disgust. “I have no friends because I’m unkind and cold.” Just as he’d said. Tears blurred her eyes and she blinked them back.
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