Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

C aroline's entire body hurt such that she thought she was going to die. That she wanted to die! The way she ached. The way it felt as if her chest was about to cave in, as if her lungs were about to collapse, as if her heart might burst. Surely, even death could not be as bad as this?

She wept openly. She let the tears pour down her face, not caring how it might look, for she was alone, so why not let them come? Alone in this world so suddenly, not so much as a soul to turn to. Alone where she sat, the walls of the carriage slowly closing in around her so that she felt suffocated, so that she could barely breathe.

The world was not ending, but it felt as if it might. And what was more, she welcomed it.

It was only five minutes ago that she left the Dukedom of Thornton for what she knew would be for the last time. Once His Grace had stormed from the room, she had somehow managed to stumble back to her room and collect her things—not that she took much, only the little money she had and a cloak to keep her warm. It was more than she felt that she deserved.

From there, she had made her way outside without being spotted. Walked to the stables and asked for a carriage to take her. When asked where she wished to go exactly, she had frozen, for she had realized suddenly that she had nowhere to go. No friends. No family. Nothing in this world whatsoever.

"An inn," she had managed to say through her ever-present sobbing. "The closest inn to the estate."

The stable hand had looked at her curiously. "Perhaps I should ask His Grace if?—"

"No!" she had cried, forcing herself to act more composed. "He is aware of my leaving. A carriage, thank you. And be quick about it."

Two minutes later, and she was tucked into the back of a carriage, feeling it rattle as it raced from the estate to places unknown. Alone in said carriage for the first time, Caroline was given time to think… to understand the true hopelessness of her plight and how epically she had failed.

It was always going to come to this, and as she sat in the back of that carriage crying for what was lost, Caroline realized that this was all her fault. Oh, she might have liked to have blamed His Grace somehow, perhaps Lady Tattershell too for telling him who she was, but those accusations felt hollow and underserved. This was on her and her alone, and her only regret was that she hadn't told His Grace herself.

She thought of that kiss and what it meant, still feeling him on her lips, the love that she knew he bore for her but was unable to give because he no longer trusted her. And rightly so.

She thought of Esther and Isabella, what they would think when His Grace told them the truth. Esther would be shocked. Isabella might not believe it at first. But eventually she would, and she would come to understand that she had been lied to, thinking that their friendship was not real, for how could a real friend lie like that?

She thought of all the times that she could have and should have told His Grace the truth. Even just now, when he gave her a chance to explain why she had done what she had done, and she had baulked for fear had held her back. She was a coward, she knew, running as always because it seemed easy. While deep down she could wonder if perhaps things would be different had she told him earlier who she was, she also knew that was never really an option. This here was the end that she should have always expected.

As to why she could not tell him the truth? Why she was so afraid? Who she was and what she was doing? That was a story perhaps even sadder than this one.

Caroline hadn't been left at the altar by a man who had fallen in love with a maid. And her father hadn't decided to ship her off to a nunnery to save the family name embarrassment. That concocted tale, told the first night she met Esther, was almost pleasant compared to the truth.

Caroline Dunn's father, Lord Edgerton, was as cruel and despotic a man as Caroline had ever known to exist. While she couldn't remember the early years of her life, she was told once by her mother that for a time there, her father was in fact loving and kind and generous. That she had in fact loved him when they married because he was a different man to the one whom Caroline knew. But that seemed almost irrelevant, really.

Caroline grew up in a house of horror, a constant state of fear, a world in which she truly feared that any day might be her last. Having fallen into extreme debt even before Caroline was born, her father took up drinking as a means to soften the burden and embarrassment of what he had become. The constant nights of drinking changed him, making him petty and abusive and cruel, traits he would demonstrate by abusing Caroline and her mother.

It became worse the older Caroline got. It became more dangerous. It became so bad that two years ago, on a night that was ordinary compared to some, Caroline bore witness to her father murdering her mother right before her eyes. An accident, he had claimed in a drunken stupor, she had made him do it—he had pushed her hard, she had tripped, her head had smashed into the side of a table, and that was where her mother lay. Dead.

It was a scene that still lived in Caroline's nightmares, and she had known that if she stayed under that roof any longer, she might be next.

So, she fled. She ran away. She determined to leave her old life behind, knowing that if her father ever found her, for the fear that his secret might get out, he would likely do to her what he did to her mother.

Sitting in the back of that carriage, still weeping for the agony and pain that radiated over her entire being, Caroline wondered if she should have told His Grace this when he had asked. Surely, if he knew the truth…

No. The truth? It was laughable to think he would believe her. What was more, she feared her father so much that she worried what he might do if he found out where she was. Esther. Isabella. His Grace. They were in danger so long as she was around them, and this running was her only option.

None of this made her feel better, of course. And so, she cried and cried and cried. For a brief while there, a week it was, Caroline had been as happy as she ever was. In the throes of love, loved in return, able to ignore reality because when one was that happy it was hard to think of anything else.

But that was the past now, and there was nothing she could do but run.

As to where she would run? That was a decision to be made tomorrow. Tonight, she would find an inn. She would lie in bed and cry until she could not keep her eyes open any longer. And tomorrow when she woke, she would be forced to consider what to do next. Where to run. How she might restart her life. All while begging forgiveness for what she had done and those she had hurt.

"Whoa there!" The carriage came to a sudden stop. Caroline started, falling forward from her seat and onto her knees. "Who goes there?!" It was the coachman, shouting into the night.

"Thank God, you stopped!" a voice responded. "I have been walking for hours! Please, you must help me!"

"Begone!" the coachman commanded. "And out of the way, you!"

"Please!" the traveler begged. "A lift to the nearest village is all I ask! I have money!"

"I said—wait! What are you doing? Get off! No! Wait—" A loud thud cut through the coachman's commands, followed by another that sounded like something heavy falling into the mud by the door.

Caroline listened to the commotion, feeling caught between panic and apathy. With how she was feeling, it was hard to worry about much of anything, and she wondered if perhaps she was imagining it.

Only then, the door to the coach flew open. Stepping out of the dark and into the light, Caroline saw the face of the traveler, and his malevolent smile of triumph spreading from ear to ear was the stuff of nightmares. Caroline's face paled at the sight. She gasped and scrambled backwards. Tried to cry out but her words caught in her throat.

No… it couldn't be… it was impossible…

"Hello, Caroline, dear. My, you have grown."

"N - no!" she stammered as she pressed herself against the back of the carriage as if she meant to sink through the wall. "No! Please! It can't be!"

"I've been looking for you. For much, much too long now." Still smiling wickedly, his eyes gleaming with malice and a sense of violent delight, he climbed into the carriage and closed the door behind him. "We have much to catch up on."

It was Caroline's father. Impossible to imagine, but somehow, he had managed to find her.