Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

M ax awoke with a start, the dream of Caroline's kiss still lingering on his lips. Thunder growled nearby, heavy rain rattling against the windowpane, while lightning flashed through a gap in the drapes, illuminating the entirety of the unfamiliar bedchamber for half a second.

But it was not the storm or the dream that had wrenched Max out of his slumber. It was the scream, still shivering through the air.

"Your Grace!" It came again, jolting Max out of bed.

He wore nothing but a loose, light pair of trousers that had been bought for him many years ago by a friend—a gift, all the way from India. The friend had called them ‘mogul's breeches,' but Max just called them his sleeping attire.

"Your Grace!" The scream came again, followed by the thud of frantic footsteps in the hallway outside.

Max sprinted the distance between the bed and the door, throwing it open as he burst out. He was greeted by a panicked and wild-eyed Mrs. Bowman, who stood with clasped hands and rain-plastered hair, dripping water onto the floorboards.

"Mrs. Bowman?" Max felt his heart seize in his chest. "What is the matter? Why are you calling for me?"

"I thought you would be in your wife's room," she replied between harsh, desperate breaths. "I couldn't find you. It's… Her Grace. She's gone out. I tried to stop her. I followed her out, but I couldn't see in the dark and the rain, and I… I… She wouldn't listen to me, Your Grace. I couldn't get her to come back."

A sick feeling churned in Max's stomach as lightning splintered the darkness outside, casting its fierce white light against the side of his face, and highlighting the true terror on Mrs. Bowman's.

"Did she leave in the carriage? On horseback? On foot?" Max concentrated on keeping his breathing steady, needing his mind clear.

Mrs. Bowman shook her head. "On foot, Your Grace. She was howling about something, but I couldn't hear her. It's so… loud out there, Your Grace, and she'll catch her death. She was only in a nightgown. I don't think she even had a housecoat with her."

"Come with me, Mrs. Bowman." He grasped her by the arm and led her along the shadowed hallway and down the stairs to the entrance hall, which did not look nearly as airy and charming with a storm raging outside.

The door was half open already, a puddle spreading across the ceramic tiles, but Max did not hesitate to pull the poor housekeeper out onto the porticoed porch.

"Which direction?" he demanded to know, his throat tight with worry.

Mrs. Bowman raised a shaky finger. "Toward those trees there. Toward the river, Your Grace."

"Pardon?" His heart all but stopped.

"It's not safe when it's raining like this, Your Grace," Mrs. Bowman implored, weeping now. "The bank could crumble. The river swallowed up a bunch of trees last winter when it rained like this. And it's so dark she mightn't see the water ‘til it's too late. Oh, Your Grace, what if?—"

Max was running before he could hear what else the housekeeper had to say, his bare feet sinking into the sodden earth, his skin soaked to the bone before he had even made it fifty swift paces. Thunder roared above him and as he sprinted on, he counted the time between that grumble and the next, to let him know just how close the ensuing bolt of lightning would be.

He did not flinch as the lightning flared, turning the entire world a brilliant white for an instant. Instead, he scoured the ground ahead of him, spotting other footprints in the boggy earth. Smaller than his, slower than his, trailed by muddy smears where Caroline's skirts must have been dragging behind her. Sure enough, they were headed toward a smudge of swaying black shapes in the near distance.

What is she thinking? He cursed under his breath as he raced on, not entirely convinced that he was awake. Surely, this all had to be some terrible dream, tacked on to the end of what had been a very lovely dream about kissing his wife in the warm sunlight of the belvedere.

Breathless and slicked with mud, having slipped at least twice on his way to the trees, Max called out into the torrential downpour. "Caro! Caro, where are you? Caro!"

He prayed with all his might for her to shout back, as he finally reached the trees. He leaned heavily against the slippery bark and squinted into the gloom, his heart in his throat as he saw the frothing, churning menace of the river a short distance ahead of him. It might have been more of a pleasant brook in nicer weather, but it had become a seething mass of fast-moving water, as treacherous as it looked.

"Caro!" he bellowed, panic amplifying his voice.

He could not lose her. He would not; not after they had just agreed to stay at one another's sides.

"Caro, answer me!"

"Max?" a small, shivery voice answered.

His head whipped this way and that, desperate to find the source of that all-too-familiar voice. But the rain kept running into his eyes and the darkness did not help, made all the more disorienting by the river and the trees.

"Max, is that you?" the voice came again.

Lightning flashed as if the heavens had decided to be generous, and in that brief flare of blinding light, he saw her. Soaked through and trembling with her knees to her chest, her raven hair plastered to her skin, huddled into a deep hollow at the bottom of an oak tree, was Caroline.

And in her arms, a mewling, hissing, deeply disgruntled cat who seemed to be trying to fight her way out of Caroline's vise-like grip.

"Caro!" He ran to her, skidding to his knees in front of her, using his body as best he could to keep the driving rain off her and Powder Puff.

Caroline peered up at him… and promptly burst into tears. Gripping the cat with one arm, she lifted up and slipped her other arm around him, hugging him so tightly that he could not breathe and did not want to. Instead, he pulled her closer, curving his shoulders and bending his head over hers so she would not have to feel the relentless sting of the rain against her.

"What were you thinking?" he murmured, so relieved that he did not have the strength to be angry.

"I went downstairs for a… cup of warm milk to… help me sleep," she replied in scared gasps. "Powder Puff came with me, but… someone had left the door open. There was a thunderclap… and… she bolted. I didn't want her… to get hurt, so I… chased after her. She tried… to climb the tree, but I managed to stop her, but then… I couldn't get back. Every time I tried, she tried… to jump out of my arms."

Even as she spoke, Powder Puff wriggled and strained, as if eager to take her chances in the storm.

"Enough of that, you wicked little beast," Max said sharply to the wayward cat. "You could have cost Caro her life tonight, so I suggest you stay still before I decide to take you to the nearest village and leave you to survive with the other strays."

Powder Puff scowled at Max, far more perceptive than any feline had a right to be. But she did not struggle as Caroline held her tighter, merely lashing her tail in displeasure.

"Let us return to the house," Max said more gently to Caroline, scooping her up into his arms before she could say a word. "Do not release your hold on that wastrel for a second."

Caroline nodded, eyes still wide and frightened as she curled into his chest. "I promise; I will not." She managed a nervous smile. "As long as you promise the same."

"I promise," he conceded, dipping his head to press a kiss to her brow.

As he pulled back, she whispered, "Are you very angry with me?"

"I am not angry," he replied. "But why did you not wake me?"

"I did not think."

He nodded in understanding. "It is a habit of yours. I had forgotten that."

Almost from the very moment they met, she had acted impulsively, reacting to situations in a manner that others would consider rash. And though he knew he ought to chide her for not growing out of that particular habit, he could not, for if she had been anyone other than herself, then they would not be where they were at that moment.

I would never know what it feels like to kiss you.

After they had left the belvedere and gone to take tea in the drawing room, he had waited for their kiss to feel like a mistake. But all through tea and cakes and then all through dinner, the feeling still had not come. When he had kissed her cheek and retired for the night alone, there had been no regret either.

But as he wielded his wife across the stormy lawns to Cedar House, he was filled with another feeling: a sensation of being unanchored, cast adrift in an unknown ocean, uncertain of where he—rather, they—were headed.

Shivering from head to toe despite the roaring fire that licked in the grate, Caroline recalled another night when she had been bundled up in a thousand layers of blankets. Back then, she had wanted nothing more than for Max to leave the room and give her some privacy. Now, that was the last thing she wanted.

"Do you want more tea?" Max asked from where he sat beside the fireplace, adding more logs.

Caroline did not answer immediately, observing him in the bronzed firelight. He had donned a shirt, but the residual rainwater made the thin fabric cling to his skin, while the glow behind him silhouetted the hard muscle and athletic physique. A body so strong that he had carried her across a quagmire of a field, in the driving rain, without so much as a grunt of strain.

"Caro?" he prompted.

She blinked. "No, thank you."

"Can I get you anything else? I doubt Mrs. Bowman will sleep tonight, or that she will deny you anything. You gave her quite the fright."

"I will apologize for the hundredth time tomorrow," Caroline promised, a twinge of guilt pinching her chest.

She had not meant to worry the housekeeper. She had thought the kindly woman had heard her when she had shouted back that she was going to retrieve her cat. Still, Caroline knew her actions had been foolish. Every time the thunder rumbled, and the lightning flashed in the far distance, she cringed at what could have happened if Max had not come to rescue her.

"I am sorry to you too," she said quietly.

"Five more apologies to go before you reach one hundred," he replied with a smile. "I have forgiven you, Caro. Do not worry."

But there was something in his expression that did worry her. A haunted look that had yet to leave his eyes. She could easily guess why—he must have been reliving what happened all those years ago, whether he wanted to or not. The only difference was he had been in a position to help her, where he had not been able to help his parents.

"This one, however," Max said, reaching out to stroke Powder Puff, who slept soundly on the rug in front of the fireplace. "It shall be a long while before I am able to forgive her, and I shall not hold my breath waiting for an apology."

Caroline chuckled. "It is a small mercy that she did not climb the tree, for I daresay I would have tried to climb up after her."

"Do not say that." Max shuddered. "I dread to think."

She smiled, wrapping the blankets tighter around herself. "I will do my best to start thinking more before I act."

"When it comes to the cat, I would very much appreciate that." He sighed and stretched out his arms, stifling a yawn. "Are you certain I cannot get you anything else? Are you feeling warmer, at least?"

Caroline nodded. "I am feeling much warmer, but I think I would just like to rest now. It has been a long enough night for all of us, and if we stay like this, it will be dawn before we know it."

"Of course." He got to his feet and as he stood there for a moment, just looking at her, she doubted she had ever seen him more breathtaking.

His hair was still damp from the rain, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, his eyes gleaming with the reflection of the firelight. He did not look real, and if it had not been for the cold in her bones, she might have thought she was still in the tree hollow, suffering from delirium.

"Well then," he said, bowing his head. "Goodnight, Caro. Rest well. And if you should begin to feel poorly, do not hesitate to wake me."

He began to move toward the door, but the impulsivity that Caroline had promised to rein in suddenly broke free of its bridle. "Stay," she whispered. "Please, stay with me."

Max halted. "Stay here with you?"

"I do not like the sound of the storm," she told him. "Just… stay until it has properly passed. Please."

He heaved out an unsteady breath and walked back to her, offering his hand. She took it without hesitation, emerging from her cocoon of blankets and allowing herself to be led to the bed.

There, he pulled back the coverlets and she climbed in, peering up at him shyly as he tucked her in and proceeded to pile at least six blankets on top of her for additional warmth.

"I will be by the fireplace if you need me," he said with a half-smile.

But Caroline shook her head and patted the empty space beside her. "I remember Matilda telling me once that it is easier to keep a person warm by being close to them." She hesitated. "If it would not be too uncomfortable for you, do you think you might sleep beside me?"

"If Matilda deems it to be appropriate, I cannot argue," he said, though his voice carried a nervous edge to it.

Nevertheless, he grabbed a blanket and lay down beside Caroline, on top of her pile of coverlets so there could be no accusations of improper conduct.

She turned into him as he pulled the blanket over himself, and though he froze for a moment, she allowed herself a smile as she felt his arm slip under her, holding her closer to his side. Nor did he protest when she rested her head on his chest and draped her arm over his stomach, absorbing as much of his heat as she could.

And as they lay like that, his breaths fading to a sleepy whisper, she stopped shivering, knowing she was safe in the arms of a man who had risked his own life to save hers. A man who had, in truth, saved her twice.

Closing her eyes, she sent up a silent message to fate.

If he kisses me again, then I will know what my heart wants. If he kisses me again, I will know that we are destined.