Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T he following two days were not as memorable nor charming as that first dinner, as a distance reemerged between Caroline and Max. Breakfasts and luncheons were a brief and prosaic affair, with discussions of the latest news and the weather. At dinner, they talked of their respective days, never verging into more personal territory.

Caroline hated it, despite being the main cause of it. If he attempted to ask a more delicate question about her, she steered the conversation back to the weather or the gardens or the bonnet she was thinking of buying with her pin money.

Eventually, he stopped trying to ask anything that could be considered too private.

"Will you wear the rubies tonight, Your Grace?" Lila asked as Caroline prepared for dinner.

Caroline observed her reflection. "Not tonight. I shall go without jewelry, I think."

"Of course, Your Grace." Lila hastened to put away the beautiful ruby choker that had belonged to Caroline's great-great-grandmother and passed down the generations.

Like the legacy Max wishes to create, Caroline thought absently, hurrying to suppress the thought. She had to stop thinking about him at all, though it had been as difficult as not thinking about the rain in the midst of a downpour over the past two days.

In quiet, solitary moments, her mind returned to the reflecting pool and how he had gazed at her with such intensity; how close he had been, how freely he had complimented her smile and her laugh, how truly lovely the evening had been.

She would have been lying if she had said that the memory of it had not made her wonder what life would be like if she stayed, if she threw herself into the role of wife and duchess, if she made the decision to actually choose the circumstances that fate had handed her. At night, alone in her bed, she dreamed of it, whether she wanted to or not. Of a happiness she had not asked for, coming to her regardless. With him.

It is the relief of not being utterly alone anymore, that is all, she told herself vehemently. After all, Max was offering her the very thing that most ladies would have given everything they possessed to have—true freedom. A house of one's own, liberty to do as one pleases, never wanting for anything without having to pay a price for that privilege.

"Your Grace?" Lila said.

Caroline turned, smiling. "Yes, Lila?"

"Are you quite well? You… seemed to go somewhere, just now."

Caroline forced a chuckle. "I am tired from my afternoon walk. I intended to nap, but my books were too interesting, and now I am suffering for it."

Just then, the gong sounded, granting her a reprieve from further questioning.

"I might bathe after dinner if you could arrange that?" Caroline asked, determined to sleep restfully that night instead of tossing and turning for hours, unable to drift off.

Lila bowed her head. "Yes, Your Grace."

Satisfied, Caroline headed down to dinner, rehearsing all of the mundane questions she planned to ask Max, so there would be no risk of anything that might be mistaken for flirtation.

But when she walked into the dining room, she paused. For the past two nights, Max had been waiting for her, but he was not there.

Noting with some relief that two places had been set, close to one another at the top of the table, she proceeded forward and took her seat, draping her napkin across her lap.

Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty, then half an hour, the clock ticking on to an entire hour of waiting for her husband.

"Are you sure you don't want me to start serving?" the footman asked anxiously, at least once every few minutes. "It's not my place to rush you, Your Grace, but the cook is insistent that you eat while the food is hot."

Caroline frowned at her empty plate, her stomach growling furiously. And beneath that churning, gnawing sensation, the faintest shiver of hurt.

Max was not coming, and perhaps that meant she was going to have to eat alone again. Not just that night, but for the foreseeable.

"Very well," she said thickly. "Please, serve, and apologize to the cook for me. I should hate to insult her diligent efforts by leaving things to turn cold."

The three courses were delicious—fragrant chicken broth, roasted wood pigeon with pickled red cabbage, crispy potatoes, and golden parsnips, with a dessert of blackberry madeleines and fresh cream—but it all tasted like ash in her mouth. Nothing could be truly delicious when one had to eat in solitude and silence.

Prior to her wedding day, she could not remember a single night where she had dined by herself. Her mother or Evan or Daniel, when he was not abroad, had always joined her.

"Would you like anything else, Your Grace?" the footman asked.

Caroline shook her head and got to her feet. "No, thank you. I will retire for the night."

"Very good, Your Grace."

Hoping her dismay was not as obvious as it felt, she left the dining room and made her slow way back up to her bedchamber.

On the landing, however, she did not turn right as usual. She lingered, facing the wall and a painting of a bowl of fruit, as her disappointment transformed into simmering anger. It would have been one thing if Max had let her know that he would not be joining her for dinner, but simply not to turn up was something she could not permit.

Before she could stop herself, she had turned left and was marching down the hallway to Max's study with fire in her belly and venom on her tongue, ready to rebuke her husband for making her feel stupid.

She did not bother to knock, letting herself into the room. But before a single harsh word could leave her mouth, the sight in front of her doused her wrath, diminishing it to the steaming hiss of a surprised gasp.

Max was bent forward in his chair, his cheek flat against a small stack of letters, fast asleep. A position that would surely punish his neck when he awoke, but the serene peace on his face made waking him an impossible thought.

You must have been exhausted to be able to rest like that.

She noticed a blanket, folded on the armchair that she had moved into the room during her mildly vengeful scheme to annoy him. Picking it up as she passed, she approached her husband on tiptoe, freezing every time he stirred a little or mumbled in his sleep.

At his side of the desk, she carefully draped the blanket over him. The weather had begun to turn toward true autumn, and the fire in the study's hearth had gone out. The thick, coarse woolen blanket would be enough to fight off the chill that crept across her own skin, keeping him warm until he eventually awoke.

She was about to leave when a few sentences of the top letter caught her eye, prompting her to linger. She knew she should not pry, but she could not help it.

There has never been anything we have not been able to talk through, it said. I am at my wit's end with worry, Dickie. Please, write back to me, visit me, anything—just let me know that you are well, and you are safe. The gossip has died down, your name is no longer being discussed, and Caroline's reputation has been saved, so there is no reason for you to stay away any longer.

She could not see the rest and suspected she had already seen too much. So, adjusting the blanket to better cover his back, she tiptoed back out of the room. As she did, a smile formed upon her lips. Max had not left her to eat by herself; he had slept through it all.

And though the blanket was a small gesture, she hoped he understood what it meant—that she was grateful for all he had done, even if she struggled to show it.

Max winced awake, his neck on fire, his back aching terribly. He sat back in his chair and stretched out his arms, disoriented for a moment. There was hazy sunlight streaming in through the window behind him, not the gloom of dusk that he had expected.

Is it… morning? A jolt of horror pierced through him, his eyes darting desperately toward the carriage clock on his desk. He was not mistaken. He had slept through the entire night at his desk. Moreover, he had slept through dinner with his wife, despite his promise that they would share their meals together.

He was about to stand, hoping to find her and apologize when he realized that something was wrapped around him. A blanket that had been sitting on the armrest of the armchair by the fireplace when he had come to undertake his work, not covering him as it was now.

She would have knocked. She would have let me know of her irritation by playing the violin in the next room or clanging saucepans outside the door.

But he had not been disturbed. Indeed, it seemed that someone had tucked him in, regardless of his odd and uncomfortable resting spot.

"It must have been Caroline," he said quietly as if to convince himself. "No one else would have disturbed me."

Smiling at the revelation, a strange tightness clenching his chest, he jumped up and headed out to find his wife, to thank her for the kind gesture. And, of course, to apologize for the condition she must have found him in.

He had made it to the entrance hall, ignoring the throbbing pain in his spine, when he heard a commotion. The desperate cries of his staff in something of a panic. He could not quite hear what they were saying, but it did not sound good.

Quickening his pace, he hurried in the direction of the ruckus, cutting through the drawing room to get to the outside. He burst into the gardens with his heart racing, almost colliding with the perimeter of a small crowd that had gathered around the ancient apple tree.

"It is not safe!" Mrs. Whitlock shouted, near the front of the congregation. "You must come down at once! You are too high!"

Max's attention shot up to the twisting boughs and the browning leaves that were shivering down to the ground, knocked by the movement of a figure who was climbing up and up. Oblivious to the fact that the branches at the top were nowhere near sturdy enough to bear a person's weight.

Horror seized him as he realized it was not just any person, but his wife. She had tied her skirts around her legs, making them appear like blooming trousers, her slender arm desperately reaching for something.

"Please, Your Grace!" Mrs. Whitlock shrieked. "Let one of the men take your place! You must come down!"

"I can almost reach it!" Caroline replied.

Tell me she has not gone up there to try and fetch me an apple, Max prayed with silent urgency as he pushed to the front.

But upon arriving at the trunk of the enormous, ancient tree, he understood that his wife's antics had nothing to do with him. There was a furry, frightened creature stuck up in the highest branches, hissing and swiping at the woman who was trying to rescue it.

"Stop that!" Caroline urged. "I am not trying to hurt you, so please, do not try to hurt me!"

Her words might have been endearing if she had not placed herself in such extraordinary danger. Max had gone up that tree enough times to know that it was barely safe for even the most seasoned climber, and it had rained in the night, the boughs and branches still slippery with the lingering moisture. He could tell from the sheen of the bark.

"Your Grace." Mrs. Whitlock looked at Max in dismay. "I have tried to get her to come down, but she will not. She is determined. Why, when she said she saw a cat stuck in the tree, I did not expect her to… If I had known, I would never have let her out into the gardens."

Max put a hand on the old woman's shoulder. "All will be well." He peered up at his wife. "Caroline, come down. I will fetch the cat."

"I almost have him!" Caroline shouted back. "Honestly, there is nothing to worry about. I am perfectly?—"

A splintering crack pierced the otherwise silent air, making a few of the staff members jump in fright. And with good reason.

Caroline tumbled down. The branch that had been holding her had snapped, while the cat looked on as if that was exactly what it had hoped would happen.

Before he could even think, Max leaped into action, clambering up the tree with the grace and ease of a monkey, pulling himself up to the solid vee at the top of the trunk. Caroline continued to fall, unable to gain purchase on any of the branches that her hands shot out to try and grasp, her slender body bounced and jostled as she tumbled through the tangle of twigs and leaves and tree limbs.

Max caught her at the point where the tangled branches ended, and she would have no way to prevent falling directly to the ground: A distance that looked deceptively small but would break a limb at best, and be lethal at worst.

His arm slipped around her waist, pulling her hard against his chest, while his other hand gripped a narrower branch for dear life. With his aching back screaming in protest, he tilted back until he was half sitting on the widest bough with his wayward wife safe in his breathless embrace.

To add insult to injury, the cat chose that moment to weave down through the branches, as though it had never been in any trouble whatsoever. As it passed Max and Caroline, it seemed to decide that it liked the idea of being rescued and leaped up into Caroline's arms, rubbing its furry white head against the underside of her chin.

"You see," Caroline said, panting. "There was nothing to worry about."