by Wolf, Bree
He suddenly stilled and stared at her as though he was only now taking note of her presence. Then he moved closer and, for a second, Caroline had to fight the urge to step back. Oddly enough, she felt reminded of the night in the alley when he had advanced step by step, his gaze fixed on hers, a promise there that had simmered in her veins.
Holding her gaze, Pierce lifted his hands and she felt the tips of his fingers touching her temples before they ran farther back along her hair to where her mask was secured. He stood so close now that she could feel his breath mingling with her own.
And then the mask fell away, and Caroline felt naked now that he could read her face.
Pierce drew in a slow breath as his gaze swept over her features. “A part of me still couldn’t believe…but it is you.”
Caroline lifted her chin. “Why? You know who I am better than anyone.” Her courage faltered. That simple statement shocked her, and yet, it was true, wasn’t it?
The right corner of his mouth quirked upward, and his gaze softened as he looked at her. “I do know you,” he whispered as his hand rose to grasp her chin, tilting it back up. “What brought you here? Is this about the orphanage? Are you trying to—?”
“No!” Caroline snapped, jerking her chin from his grasp and taking a step backward. “No, you’re wrong. This has nothing to do with anyone else but me.” Her voice sounded shrill as a deep-seated frustration fought its way to the surface. “For once, I’m not crusading for a good cause. For once, I’m not ignoring everything I want in order to help others. For once, I’m…I’m selfish because right now all I care about is me.”
His gaze narrowed as he watched her, a hint of surprise on his features. Then he moved closer, his gaze still lingering on her face. “And what is it that you want? What brought you here tonight?”
Caroline swallowed. Perhaps she’d said too much for clearly he didn’t care. Perhaps she simply ought to leave. But the look on his face told her that nothing she could say would make him move out of her way. “I came for me,” she finally said, once more lifting her chin, defiant in the face of his callous reaction. “I came to see what it felt like to be someone else.”
His chest rose and fell with an agonizingly slow breath before his gaze dropped to sweep over her gown yet again. “And you had to dress like this?” he asked with a teasing note to his voice.
Caroline scoffed. “Are you truly telling me you do not like it?” she challenged, feeling her skin tingle under his lingering gaze.
A small smile appeared on his lips. “I never said I didn’t like it,” he muttered, a muscle in his jaw still twitching in displeasure. “However, I think it foolish of you to wear it here. Tonight.”
Caroline cocked her head. “And where else would you suggest I wear it? Here, tonight, is the only place and time I can do so without—”
His gaze narrowed as she broke off. “Is this change only for tonight?”
Was it? Caroline wondered, remembering that a part of her had hoped that tonight might see her life take a different turn, away from the restrictions and limitations of her old life.
His hands reached for her then, settling on her waist as he pulled her closer. She could feel the pressure of his fingertips through the fabric of her gown and her gaze rose to meet his. His eyes were dark, seeing more than they should, and she shuddered at the thought of how well he knew her. Still, he could not see that she’d come here tonight to find out if there could be more between them, and the thought frustrated her.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he finally said on a slow exhale, a touch of frustration in his voice that echoed within Caroline’s own heart. “Once I saw that it was you, I…” His jaw tightened as he looked up toward the ceiling. Then his gaze dropped and found hers once more. “Did you know that man out there was Coleridge?”
Caroline froze and, for a moment, she felt foolish for not having seen it then and there. Indeed, now that she knew, it was easy to see who the man had been.
Pierce nodded, and she could feel the tension that came to his arms.
“Do you think he knew it was me?” she wondered out loud. “I thought his voice sounded familiar, but I didn’t realize it was him.”
Pierce shrugged. “Is there a reason why he would seek you out?”
Indeed, there was, wasn’t there? Caroline swallowed hard, thinking back to the moment Coleridge had all but elbowed Kearsley out of the way. Had he known it was her? Would he tell her father what he had discovered? Had she made the one mistake that would now force her to reveal all that she had done?
“Caroline,” Pierce growled, a warning in his voice as he said her name. His gaze had narrowed as she’d been lost in her thoughts, and she could tell that something was bothering him. “Why would he seek you out?”
Inhaling a deep breath, Caroline lifted her chin. “Because he wants to marry me.”
Chapter Forty
Something Foolish
Shock slammed into Pierce at her words and, for a long moment, he could do little else but stare at her. Eventually, one simple word found its way to the forefront of his mind, but it resonated with all that he felt. “No.”
Her brows drew down in a frown. “Well, he does. He’s been speaking to my father, and as you can imagine, my father is delighted with the idea.” Her words were agony, and yet, he grasped on to the thought that her features looked tense, displeased.
“What I mean,” he snapped, “is that you will not marry him.” His hands pulled her flush against him, forcing her up onto the tips of her toes as he all but lifted her off the ground.
A gasp escaped her lips as her hands grasped his arms, seeking to steady her. “Of course, I will not marry him,” she panted, her breath coming fast and her hands trembling. “How can you think that? Have you forgotten the man he is?”
Pierce froze. Indeed, it would seem that he had…if only for a moment. The second the words had left her mouth, he’d only seen Coleridge as his rival for her affections, a man threatening Pierce’s claim on the woman in his arms. Only, he didn’t have a claim on her, did he? He had yet to reveal all that he longed for when he looked at her.
“You’re not marrying him?” he ground out, fighting to suppress the panic that assailed him at the thought of her and Coleridge married. For many reasons, it would be a disaster, a tragedy, and he would fight to keep it from coming to pass.
Staring at him, she shook her head. “How can you think I would?” She swallowed, and a deep sadness came to her eyes before she lifted her hands and pushed away from him. “Is that how you see me?” she whispered then, all but removing his rigid arms from around her waist.
Pierce fought the urge to pull her back against him, the need to feel her overwhelming his thoughts. “Then why were you in Hyde Park with him that day?” The image had burned itself into his mind, and it had tortured him relentlessly, causing him many sleepless nights.
Caroline exhaled an exasperated breath. “Because my parents were delighted with his attention toward me. Because refusing him would have meant to take a stand and…” She swallowed and her gaze dropped to her gloved fingers. “I wasn’t quite ready to give up on everything I’d worked for so hard these past years.” Her head remained lowered, but her eyes rose to look up at him. “I needed time to think.”
“About his proposal?”
Caroline scoffed, her eyes now narrowed in anger. “Did you even hear a word I said? Why are you asking me the same thing over and over again?” Her shoulders drew back, and her hands flew up to settle on her waist. “No, not about his proposal, about how best to proceed.” She fixed him with an angry glare. “All of a sudden, I knew the man he was, and yet, no one else did. Everybody treated him as though he were a true gentleman and I felt sickened inside. And so I thought, why not use the time with him to my advantage?”
Pierce frowned, and a cold shiver ran down his back at the thought of what his little mouse might have done now. “What did you do?” He took a step closer, his gaze fixed on hers.
“Whenever you talk like that, I cannot help but fear that—”
“That I’d do something foolish?” she snapped. “Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear. Quite obviously, I cannot be trusted to act like a reasonable adult.” This time, she was the one to take a step toward him and her right hand flew up, her forefinger pointed at him accusingly. “Yes, I take risks, but I do so willingly, not because I don’t see them. I’m not blind. Everything I do is part of a well thought out plan. Yes, sometimes things go wrong, and then I need to improvise. But I’m not a fool.”
“I never said you were!”
“But you implied it!” Furious, she jabbed her finger into his chest. “You’ve been implying it ever since we first met. Yes, I’m grateful that you helped me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not capable. Sometimes we all need help.” Her brows rose challengingly as she regarded him. “As do you.”
Overwhelmed by her fire, Pierce stared at her, torn between the urge to yell back at her and the deep need to kiss her senseless. “Me?”
“It was I who found Daphne that night and brought her home,” she pointed out. “If I hadn’t left the house in the middle of the night to do what I thought was right, who knows where she would have ended up? Coleridge might even have found her when he left your house. Have you ever thought of that?”
Panting, she stood before him, and Pierce had never seen her so beautiful. It wasn’t the gown or the glimmering pearls in her dark hair. It was the way she stood tall, the way she held her own and all but told him to go to hell if he could not respect her for the woman she was.
A smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. “You’re magnificent,” he mumbled, enjoying the way the angry scowl on her face all but froze and then slipped away, replaced by something he couldn’t quite grasp. “I’m sorry,” Pierce told her then. “I was wrong to suggest you weren’t capable. I never meant to. I was angry because I…” He inhaled a deep breath as her blue eyes watched him, watched him find the right words. “I was afraid that something might happen to you. Your convictions place you in danger, and…and it kills me. I cannot bear the thought of losing you.” His heart beat so fast that Pierce felt certain any moment now it would trip and fall.
A soft watchfulness lingered on her features as she regarded him like a scientist would regard a new specimen, curiosity resting in her blue eyes. “I’m afraid for you as well,” she told him then. “Has that ever occurred to you? The night you realized that it had been Coleridge who’d killed Daphne’s parents, I was terrified you would do something foolish.”
“I remember,” Pierce whispered, recalling that night in exquisite detail. “And you stopped me.”
A small smile tugged on her lips as she no doubt remembered how she’d gone about stopping him. “I did.”
“Then why am I not allowed to do the same for you?” Pierce asked as he moved closer, no longer able to bear the distance between them.
Her chest rose and fell with a slow breath and, for a moment, Pierce forgot what they were even speaking about. “I don’t mind you worrying about me,” she told him with a soft curl to her lips. “I don’t mind you coming to my aid. I don’t mind you stepping in my way when I’m lost in fear or anger and I can’t think straight.” Her blue eyes held his as she moved to grasp his lapels, pulling him closer. “But you cannot keep me locked away for fear something might happen.”
Pierce sighed, knowing she was right.
“No one can live like that,” she whispered. “I’m my own person, and I need you to respect me for who I am. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I say or do, but you need to accept that I can make my own decisions.” She sighed. “I thought we were in this together. You helped me with the orphanage, and I wanted to help you as well.”
His hands snaked around her waist, holding her close. “How?”
“I spoke to Coleridge,” she replied, a daring look in her eyes that only intensified when he tensed at the mention of the man’s name. Still, when he remained silent, swallowing the anger that surged in his blood, his little mouse continued. “He thought he was courting me,” again, he tensed, and the smile that played across her lips in that moment made him think that she didn’t mind, “and so he asked about my favorite pastimes, trying to win me over.” She swallowed, and her lips thinned in distaste. “At first, I was loath to have his company forced on me, but then I came to see it as an opportunity.”
Pierce frowned. Still, he could not help but be proud at how her mind worked.
Caroline shrugged. “He asked me questions, and so I asked him some of my own.”
“Questions about what?”
A devilish smile came to her lips. “I learned that, in all likelihood, he’d been at a house party that night, and I suspect that Lord Kearsley and Lord Amhurst had been with him as the three of them still seem to be close friends. The way he spoke of them, I believe that they have his trust.”
Pierce stared at her. “You learned this by speaking to him? It took the Bow Street Runners I hired a week to collect that information.” He scoffed before another thought sent new fear to his heart. “Did he suspect anything?”
Caroline paused before she shook her head. “At least not that I’m aware of. However, he seemed to be very interested in speaking about you.”
“Me?” Pierce’s eyes narrowed. “Why me?”
Caroline shrugged. “I cannot be certain, but he always found ways to mention you. He fished for information about your friendship with Lord Pembroke and, at some point, I thought he might suspect that we…knew each other in a deeper way than simply through my cousin and your friend. Perhaps he got wind of your investigation and suspects something.”
Pierce nodded. He would need to be more careful until he had all the information he needed to prove Coleridge’s guilt. “You said you suspect Lord Amhurst was there that night as well?”
His little mouse nodded. “It would not surprise me. Why?”
“I’d wondered about him myself,” Pierce admitted rather sheepishly, “but have so far been unable to confirm it.”
A brilliant smile came to her lips. “Do you see now that we’re at our best when we work together? And not step in each other’s way?”
Nodding, Pierce sighed. “I admit your way proves highly effective. There, was that what you wanted to hear?” he asked, slowly lowering his head toward hers.
Her gaze darted to his mouth slowly closing in on hers before meeting his eyes once more. “It might make me petty, but, yes, that’s what I wanted to hear.”
Pierce chuckled as he slipped one hand into her hair. “From the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he whispered against her lips, “I knew there was something extraordinary about you. However, I admit not even in my wildest dreams would I have believed that a woman like you could exist.”
“Is that a compliment?” she asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.
“Nothing but,” Pierce whispered and then his lips brushed against hers.
“Wait! There’s something else,” she suddenly exclaimed, her hands pushing against his chest and her head craning backward as she tried to escape his kiss.
Pierce growled under his breath, refusing to let her extract herself from his embrace. “This better be important,” he snarled with a longing glance at her mouth.
Caroline chuckled. “Oh, I believe it is.” For a moment, a faraway look came to her eyes as she gathered her thoughts. “We spoke about friends and family,” she began, and Pierce could not help the tension that settled on his limbs once again. “I spoke of Rebecca and her wayward ways, exaggerating in order to justify my deep concern for her well-being. I told him that I did not understand her, that she acted without thought, that I was disappointed in who she’d become.”
Pierce frowned. “Why would you do that?”
A sly smile came to her lips. “Because I wanted to know if he had such a person in his life as well. Because I thought that would be a good person to speak to; someone who knows him well, but does not feel bound to
him by loyalty because of their differences and his disapproval.”
“That is brilliant!”
His little mouse rolled her eyes. “Don’t sound so surprised!”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“Well, then?” Pierce pressed, a familiar need to move, to do something beginning to hum in his limbs. “Is there such a person?”
A slow smile claimed her lips. “I believe there is. I don’t know his name but, at one point, Coleridge called him his cousin. He said he’d had such promise, they were like brothers, but then he proved false.”
Pierce frowned, trying to remember all the Bow Street Runners had uncovered about Coleridge and his family. “Yes, I believe there was a cousin. A young man by the name of Ruthledge, Oscar Ruthledge. I think he’s Coleridge’s aunt’s son. Years ago, they were close and Ruthledge…let’s say…indulged as much as Coleridge himself, but then a while back, they started going their separate ways.”
“In what way?”
“As far as I know, Ruthledge has all but retreated from society and spends his days with a bottle in his hand.”
His little mouse frowned, a suspicious twinkle in her blue eyes. “When was that? When did he change his ways?”
Pierce felt his breath lodge in his throat. “I think it was about two years ago.”
“Two years,” Caroline echoed, a look of hopefulness coming to her face. “Do you think he was there that night? With Coleridge, Kearsley and Amhurst?”
Pierce nodded. “It would make perfect sense. Perhaps Ruthledge felt regret afterward or he never wanted to participate in the first place. Perhaps despite his familial connection to Coleridge, the man has a sense of decency in him and now he does not know how to live with what he saw…and so he drowns his sorrows.”
“We need to find him!” his little mouse exclaimed, her fingers all but digging into his arms in her eagerness to see justice done.
