Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

C aroline stretched out her arms, yawning loudly. Almost half of the candle beside her had melted away as she had sat diligently at her writing desk, penning letters to her family and friends. Each one was a fairytale of how pleasant it was at Harewood Court, how surprisingly content she was, and how she was not at all upset anymore about the events that had come to pass.

Only her letter to Anna had some truth in it, explaining that she was ‘the tiniest bit' lonely and might welcome a visitor if Anna was not indisposed. Max was her brother, after all, and Harewood Court had been home to her briefly too, before her marriage to Percival. If anyone could help Caroline learn to like the manor, it would be Anna.

"Goodness, is that the time?" Caroline murmured, rubbing her tired eyes.

She scraped back her chair, ready to retire for the night, when a gentle knock rapped on the chamber door.

Poor Mrs. Whitlock, Caroline mused, charmed once again by the sweet housekeeper. She must have been out there all this time, waiting for the candle to go out.

"Come in. I am not yet abed," she called, picking up the candle holder as she padded over to the elegant four-poster, letting the candle light her way across the sturdy oak floor.

The door creaked open on ancient hinges, and as Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed, she immediately shot up again.

Her heart lurched into her throat, eyes wide in horror at the figure standing there. He held a lantern, and in that anemic light, the dancing shadows cast his ludicrously handsome face in an eerie, moving mask that made every fine hair on her body stand on end.

"I am not decent!" she yelped, grasping at the blankets to cover herself.

She had changed into her nightgown a few hours ago, but the fabric seemed too little and too flimsy to be any sort of armor against her husband on their wedding night.

Max frowned at her. "You told me to come in."

"I did not know it was you!" she retorted, gasping for breath. "I assumed it was the housekeeper. Indeed, you are not supposed to be here."

He took a step further into the room. "I am not supposed to be in my own home? Has it been claimed by another in the brief time I have been away? Please, show me to the conqueror."

"This is not funny, Your Grace!"

One corner of his full lips quirked into a hastily smothered smile. "I did not say that it was. Would you like me to close the door and knock again, announcing myself this time?"

"No, I would like you to close the door and stay on the other side of it," she said hotly, still bundling herself in as many blankets and coverlets as she could get her hands on.

"Are you that cold?" That half-smile graced his lips once more, annoying Caroline. "It would be easier if I fetched someone to light your fire. Or, while I am here, I could light it for you."

She glared at him. "I am not cold. I am indecently attired. Do you not listen?"

"I listen, but you are hardly in a state of undress," he replied, walking to the fireplace to start up a blaze, despite her obvious disapproval. "Now, when you burst into my guest chambers unannounced— that was a true state of undress on my behalf."

Embarrassment smoldered like a furnace from the pit of Caroline's belly to the apples of her cheeks, her skin prickling as if she had a fever as flashes of that night exploded into her mind. Detailed memories that she had willed herself to forget but had never quite been able.

A figure of perfection… Such defined muscle… Such golden skin… Sculpted by the heavens themselves to inspire awe and amazement.

She shook the wayward thoughts away, choosing frustration and still-simmering anger as her vassal to chase away any semblance of admiration for her husband's exceptional upper body.

"Did you find him?" she asked curtly, staring at his back as he crouched low and began to stoke a fire.

The blankets and coverlets were beginning to suffocate her, sweat beading on her brow.

"Alas, no," he replied. "He is akin to a mole when he is in trouble, burrowing deep after ruining perfectly good lawns."

Lawns? What was he talking about?

"Then why have you returned now?" she continued.

"Because I was tired, and I could not find him," Max said bluntly as if it should have been obvious. "Finding someone who does not want to be found is twice as hard in the dark, and I am not going to spend good coin on an inn when I could have my own bed."

Caroline gulped, hoping he meant a different bed, in a different chamber, far from her. Handsome and divinely formed and breathtaking as he was, physically, she would not be sharing a room with him. Ever.

"Very well," she said stiffly. "I can understand that, I suppose, but why bother to knock on my door and disturb me? You did not deem me important enough to speak with all day, so why change that now, when I too am weary? Heavens, you did not even know if I was asleep or not! So, what is it you want at such a late hour?"

She realized what she had said a moment too late, hoping he did not take her question the wrong way. She was about to add something in the vein of, "If it is an apology or a ‘thank you' that you seek, you shall not get it," but he got there quicker.

"I saw light beneath your door as I was passing to my own chambers," he said, breathing on the kindling until it exploded into a flame. The smaller twigs and slivers of wood caught quickly, but he did not rush to put any larger logs on. "I hoped we might have a civil discussion, for clarity's sake. But I see that you are still in no temper for civility—or humor, as it happens."

Caroline sniffed. "I have yet to hear you say something amusing."

"I am your husband," he replied, turning to look at her.

Her eyes widened, her breath stuck in her throat, thrown by the intensity of his gaze. In that moment, those blue eyes of his were almost as dangerous as Dickie's, combined with that infuriating half-smile. If there was to be no discussion, would he move swiftly on to something else—something expected on a wedding night? There was assuredly a glint in his eyes, but she could not tell what feeling it stemmed from, or if it was just the reflection of the rising flames.

"I am well aware. What has that got to do with anything?" she muttered, steeling herself.

His eyebrow arched upward. "You asked me to say something amusing, so I did."

She understood the jest, both infuriated by the fact he thought that was at all entertaining, and mildly embarrassed that she had not understood the joke quicker. She blamed it on the unwelcome distraction of his eyes, and him putting the memory of the night at the Grayling Ball back into her head.

"Caroline," he said more softly, surprising her with the lack of honorifics. "You can be cross with me if that makes you more comfortable, but do not insult my character by thinking I would knock on your door at night to demand anything of you. You are not in any danger here, with me. There is no reason to fear me. My jests might be horrifying, but I am not."

Caroline wrapped herself tighter in the blankets, regardless of how stifling they were. "That is easy for you to say—I do not know you. Ergo, I do not know your character or what manner of man you are. Why, in the carriage, you nearly lost your temper with me. That would suggest a good reason for fear."

"I have had as vexing a day as you, Caroline," he replied. "Perhaps, we might give one another some grace. I lost my patience, yes, and I am sorry for that."

He was clearly expecting an apology from her too, but she would not give it.

After a stilted moment or two, he shook his head. "Caroline, our marriage is one of convenience, but it should not make us both miserable. You are a duchess now—you are at liberty to do whatever you please, within financial and respectable reason."

"What does that mean?" Caroline replied.

He shrugged. "Invite your friends to a garden party. Arrange a ball. Spend half the year at the townhouse in London if that is your wish—spend the entire year in London if you like. Purchase a dog. Read everything in the library and buy more books when you are done. Request a tutor to teach you whatever it is that interests you. Whatever you wish to do, as long as it does not put us into poverty or disrepute, you may do it."

"At what cost to me?" Caroline asked, a waver in her voice.

"All I ask is that you do not behave as if I am your enemy. There is no need for us to quarrel all the time," he replied with a shrug. "Let us be civil. Let us live separately under the ruse of togetherness. In truth, we do not have to see one another at all, aside from the odd social occasion to keep up appearances."

Caroline blinked in astonishment. "And I would still be free to do as I pleased?"

"As long as you do not purchase an elephant from India or take twenty paramours or decide you want to add spires to my manor, then yes." He paused, his eyes gleaming in the bronzed glow of the now-roaring fire. "Two months."

"Excuse me?"

"That is all the time we have to tolerate one another for," he explained. "When that period is over, I will have acquired a residence for you that is yours and yours alone. Then, we can live truly separate lives."

Caroline might not have had the loving husband she had always dreamed of or the grand wedding she had imagined since she was a girl, but his offer was, by far, the greatest wedding gift she could ever have expected. Indeed, she could not wait.

"You have a deal," she said.

He turned back to stare at the fire, his broad shoulders and muscular back rippling beneath the fabric of his tailcoat. Gentle waves of his golden hair curled at the nape of his neck, his demeanor brooding even without the heat of his piercing blue eyes.

"Good," he replied, that single word as binding as a handshake. "In that case, I shall bid you goodnight and leave you to roast in all those blankets."

He left quickly, closing the door as if he had never been there at all.

"I think she missed your company, Your Grace," Mrs. Whitlock said from across the lantern-lit kitchens. Milk warmed on the stove, plumes of steam rising from the saucepan.

Max laughed tightly. "I think she missed me as much as she would miss a stone in her shoe, or an itch between the shoulders that one just cannot reach."

His mind wandered disobediently back to his wife's bedchamber, and the glimpse of her in her nightgown. It had been no more than a second or two, but she had looked quite ethereal in the white garment—a vision of purity, intensified by her angelic beauty. A truly rare and undeniable beauty.

It was ironic, in truth, that most of society's gentlemen would think him the luckiest man in England. He , of all people, had married the year's most sought-after debutante. A feat that countless suitors had attempted and failed with gifts and charm and proposals of courtship and poetic wooing.

He had just been in the right place at the right time. Or the opposite, in his opinion.

"Have patience with her." The housekeeper tossed a little bag of herbs into the bubbling milk, releasing rich and exotic scents into the air. Heady and spicy with the promise of knocking Max into a much-needed and fathoms-deep sleep.

Max cast the housekeeper a pointed look.

The old woman chuckled. "Very well, have more patience with her. She is young, she is away from her home and her family, she is likely still in turmoil over what has happened, and you leaving her alone all day gave her an opportunity to dwell. Dwelling is dangerous territory, Your Grace. One can stew over things too much, coming to some bizarre conclusions."

Max waved a dismissive hand. "I believe I have unruffled her feathers for now."

"It is not my place to hear about such things, Your Grace." Mrs. Whitlock smirked and turned back to the bubbling milk, removing it from the stove to let the spices steep a while longer.

"I did not mean… I… That is…" Max took a breath, a note of reluctant humor in his voice as he proceeded, "That was uncouth of you, Mrs. Whitlock. I might expect gossip from the maids, but not from you."

The housekeeper smiled slyly. "One must have some entertainment in their advancing years. Apologies, Your Grace." She paused. "I assume you didn't find any trace of your brother?"

All of Max's recovering cheer abandoned him. "No. Not a sign. I went to Greenfield House, but the staff have not seen him. They were quite dismayed, in truth. They had a pleasant wedding breakfast prepared and had decorated—a sorry state of affairs indeed." He expelled a frustrated breath. "He has likely gone to London, tucking himself away. But he will emerge in due course; he will have to."

"Do you think she would have been any happier today if she had married him?" The housekeeper's question made Max sit up straighter, his brow furrowing as he tried to imagine it.

His brother had seemed content that morning, even whistling as he ate his breakfast. He had not seemed like a man who was dreading what was to come, so much so that he would flee and leave a young lady's reputation in greater tatters.

But perhaps he was calm because he knew he would not be marrying. Did he know, however, that I might step in?

That was the part that vexed Max the most.

As for how Caroline had felt that morning, before arriving at the church. He could not possibly know, nor had he thought to ask. But the very fact that she had been at the church at all suggested that she was reasonably happy to proceed with the match with Dickie.

"Who is to say?" he replied. "It cannot be changed now."

And the sooner I have her out of my manor and my life, the better for us both.

Just then, through the open garden door, the sound of a whinnying horse reached Max's ears.

He went to the door and made his way across the courtyard beyond until he reached the low boundary wall. Bracing his hands against it, he squinted out into the darkness, the moonlight fading in and out as it hid behind scudding clouds.

The sound rang out again. Max's gaze darted in that direction, and as the moonlight dared to peep out for a moment, he saw a horse and rider at the very edge of the orchard. Too far away to shout, too far away to run to, but close enough that Max knew exactly who it was.

As the moon shrouded itself once more, the horse and rider were plunged into darkness, and when that silvery light illuminated the spot again, man and beast were gone.