“Is her learning advanced for her age?” Miss Benedict inquired.
“In some areas, yes,” Caroline replied.
“Just in some?” Miss Benedict seemed inclined to take umbrage at this.
“For her years, she is excellent at reading and writing, arithmetic, geography, and the sciences,” Caroline replied. “It is only in the ladylike accomplishments that she has little training so far. But she is quick, and the matter is easily remedied.” Caroline caught her pupil’s gaze with mock severity. “If she works hard.”
Rosa gave her a mischievous smile.
“Ladylike accomplishments,” Miss Benedict repeated in triumph. “Well, there you are. Javan does not have many of those.”
Caroline’s gaze flew to Benedict’s. “You have been teaching, Rosa?”
His lips twisted into a wry smile. “Is it so hard to believe I have been educated, too?”
“Of course not,” Caroline said hurriedly. “Then it’s from you she developed her interest in botany?”
“It’s a hobby of mine,” Mr. Benedict allowed.
“Hobby,” his sister disparaged. “He is most learned, is even writing a book on the subject.”
“But even I know music and watercolors are more important to a young lady’s education than botany,” Mr. Benedict said. “Hence, the necessity of a governess.”
An idea arrived in Caroline’s head. “If you wish her to be a cut above the ordinary in painting, I believe I could arrange a few lessons with Lord Tamar, who is Lord Braithwaite’s brother-in-law and a most accomplished artist—”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Mr. Benedict interrupted. “You are tasked with teaching my daughter.”
Caroline flushed. “Of course,” she said stiffly. “I beg your pardon.”
She was spared further embarrassment by the entry of the servants to clear the plates and serve the pudding.
Abruptly, Mr. Benedict said, “How do you find the piano?”
It might have been an olive branch, or a way of showing her he was not angered by her presumption. Or he might just have thought of it.
“A little out of tune,” she replied. “But not enough to hurt the ears. Otherwise, it works perfectly. We have had only a couple of lessons so far, but I believe Rosa is enjoying it.”
Rosa nodded enthusiastically, and Miss Benedict began to plan her niece’s first recital.
*
When Rosa was in bed, Caroline read to her for a little, before handing the book over. They agreed Rosa should read by herself until her father came to say goodnight. Caroline was just crossing to the door which connected to her own chamber, when the passage door opened and Mr. Benedict came in. He paused at sight of her, as though surprised.
“Good night, sir,” she said civilly.
Unexpectedly, he changed direction, and opened her bedchamber door. “Good night, Miss Grey.”
There was something unspeakably intimate about walking past him into her bedchamber. It wasn’t just that he controlled the door, or that crossing the threshold brought her so close to him that she could smell the warm spice of his skin and the wine and coffee on his breath. She made the mistake of glancing up at him to prove she was not intimidated. His hard, grey eyes glowed in the candle light, flaming with a heat that seemed to scorch her. Her stomach plunged as she recognized the look for what it was. Lust.
Go in before I forget I was once a gentleman.
By the time he closed the door softly behind her, his heat seemed to have spread to her own trembling body. She released her breath in a rush, trying to laugh at herself or him, wondering which of them she truly feared.
*
With the knowledge of his presence on the other side of the door, Caroline’s foolish heart beat too quickly to allow her to settle to anything. Which was ridiculous, since this happened every evening. This time, was just more.
But she would not think of that. In desperation, she lit another candle and took out her sewing box. She’d retrieved two pairs of Rosa’s stockings which needed mending, and now, suddenly, seemed the best time to do it.
While she worked, the occasional murmur from the other chamber died away. She heard a faint rustle, his uneven footfall as he crossed the room. She held her breath, waiting for what, she couldn’t imagine, although she’d lowered her work into her lap and all her concentration focused on the connecting door. She even imagined a hesitation in his step…before it continued and Rosa’s door to the passage opened and softly closed, and his footsteps faded on into the distance.
She released her breath in a rush of relief. At least, she called it relief, though the feeling was made up of so many more conflicting emotions, including a bizarre disappointment, and a wish that things were different. That she was different.
Taking herself to task, she forced her brain and body to calm by concentrating once more on her mending. It wasn’t easy in the dim light, especially as the rising wind now rattled the window panes and made the candles flicker, but she didn’t make a bad job of it. After that, she began to patch together some old material she’d horded over the years to make a lining for her old boots. It might provide some protection from the rain until she could get to the cobbler in Blackhaven.
She had to stop in the end because her eyes were too tired to see properly. The rain battered against her window in a sudden squall. Caroline put another shawl around her shoulders to protect against the fierce draughts and huddled a little closer to the fire while she finished her letter home.
She had been waiting to hear from her mother that she had received the money she’d sent via Lord Braithwaite, hoping to hear good news of Peter’s health before she sent her own letter. She could only suppose the silence meant the emergency was over, but anxiety nagged at her. She finished her letter with an urgent appeal for her mother—or Eliza—to write back at once, even if only a few words to tell her Peter was recovering.
Finally, she thought she might be tired enough to sleep. It was late. Even the servants had retired and the house would have been quiet save for the storm raging outside. On impulse, she walked to the window and drew back the curtain and the shutter. The night sky was filthy, thick, scudding clouds obscuring the moon and stars. The rain had let up, in a temporary kind of way but the wind, lashing and bending the trees, was, if anything, even fiercer.
Caroline began to close the shutter again, when something below caught her eye. A dark, male figure moving from the house through the untamed garden toward the encroaching woods. Their intruder? Had he been into the house again? So far as she knew, neither Mr. Benedict nor Williams had found the entrance to the suspected secret passage, despite a thorough “examination for woodworm”. But there was nothing furtive about the man outside. He simply ploughed his way through the wind and rain. Why? Where on earth could he be going? Certainly, it was a wild night for a tryst.
“True love,” Caroline murmured disparagingly, but still her hand lingered on the shutter, holding it open, for though she could barely make out the shape, let alone the features of the brave figure, he moved in a slow, uneven manner. With a limp.
Her breath caught, just as a flash of lightning lit the sky and the lame man below. He wore no coat or hat but walked determinedly through the storm in his shirt sleeves.
Something was wrong. It had to be. No one in their right mind would go out in this weather, even for a secret tryst, dressed like that. There had to be an emergency, and it was her instinct to help.
Thunder rumbled and cracked. Without hesitation, she snatched up a candle and ran out of the room, along the corridor and downstairs, veering along the passage that led to the side door. It stood open, the wind holding it right back against the wall. Shocked by the cold and the force of it, Caroline only just managed to spin around to protect her candle flame. Hastily, she used it to light the lantern by the coat stand. She paused only long enough to haul her cloak about her and seize up the lantern and Mr. Benedict’s old great coat that hung on the stand. Then, dragging her hood up, she ran ou
tside and pulled the door closed behind her.
Helped by the wind, which blew her along rather faster than she would normally have run, she hurtled toward the wood, in the direction she’d last seen Mr. Benedict. Several things bothered her. Why hadn’t he taken the lantern? Why had he not even donned the greatcoat or closed the door? How could he even see where he was going?
Another flash of lightning showed the white of his shirt vanishing into the wood. Holding the lantern in front of her, she hurried after him as the thunder crashed overhead. The force of the rain was almost painful now, blasting against the side of her face when she swerved into the wood.
“Sir!” she called. “Mr. Benedict, wait!” Holding the lantern high, she paused, searching between the trees. There. Only a few yards ahead. The wind must have whipped her voice away, for he didn’t appear to have heard her. At least he was following the track. She ran after him, calling again.
Still he didn’t turn. Exhausted, she caught up with him and in desperation, grasped his drenched arm. “Sir, please, what is—” She got no further, for he whirled around, throwing off her detaining hand, and shoved her roughly away.
Shocked, she stumbled back against a tree, too winded to speak. But surely, he had heard her voice? Surely, he could see who she was by the light of the lantern which she’d somehow managed to hold on to?
He flew after her so ferociously that she threw up her arms in defense. He merely knocked them aside with one hand and the lantern finally fell to the ground, casting the light upward over his scarred, agonized face. He thrust one arm over her throat and drew back his other fist to strike.
Lightning burst across the sky at almost the same moment as the thunder crashed.
“Don’t you dare,” she said furiously, even while something inside her seemed to die at the very idea that he would hurt her.
Abruptly, his face changed. The weird light and shadow cast by the fallen lantern remained the same, but the strange, blank agony vanished, leaving him bewildered. His fist opened and fell to his side. He released her neck and instead, dragged her into his arms.
“Dear God,” he whispered. “What am I doing here? What are you…?” He swallowed convulsively. Water streamed off him. His clothing was utterly soaked, leaving little barrier between them. His breath heaved. “Jesus, not this… I dream, I sleepwalk…” His lips dragged across her ear, her cheek, interspersing his words with short, desperate kisses of remorse. “Know I would never hurt you, not knowingly…”
She threw back her head, trying to tell him she wasn’t hurt. “Sir, you did not—” The rest of her words were lost as his kiss landed on her upturned lips. Stunned, she didn’t move.
“I wouldn’t,” he said unsteadily against her mouth and then his lips sank deeper as though trying to convince her, or himself. In spite of the cold and the rain and the thunder bellowing across the night, heat flamed through her body. She was aware of every hard inch of him, not just his urgent, pleading mouth.
“I’m not,” she whispered against his lips. “Sir, you did not hurt me.” Certainly not in the way he meant.
His lips left her trembling mouth. For an instant his forehead touched hers. “Thank God,” he muttered. And then, without stepping back, he gazed around, as if really seeing where they were for the first time.
“Oh, Christ,” he uttered, and choked on something very like a laugh. He bent and swept up the lantern, still miraculously alight, and as he straightened, she thrust his overcoat between them like a shield.
“I brought you this,” she said, as though offering a gift on a social occasion.
Again, his breath caught, but he made no move to take it from her. She shook it out and flung it up over his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do it. Impatiently, he thrust his arms through the sleeves. “Thank you,” he muttered. “Come, let’s get back to the house.”
She jumped when he threw his arm around her waist, but there seemed to be nothing either loverlike or threatening about the gesture, merely a desire to hurry her. In fact, she understood there was nothing loverlike about any of his actions, even his kisses. He was merely acting from shock at waking from his dream here, in such weather, and from fear and remorse at what he’d done or might have done.
“Does this happen to you often?” she managed over the noise of the wind.
“Not now. Only occasionally. But what are you doing out here?”
“I saw you from my window. I thought you were running to some emergency and I wanted to help.”
“Well, you did. God knows where I’d have ended up if you hadn’t wakened me. I’m grateful, though I shouldn’t be.”
The storm seemed to be grumbling its way past, but the rain still lashed into them and the wind fought them most of the way back to the house.
“Which way did you come out?” he asked.
“By the side door. You’d left it open.”
He swore beneath his breath, releasing her at last as they reached the door. Stupidly, she missed the strength of his arm, even soaked and dripping as it was. Ushering her inside, he locked the door behind them, then blew out the lantern and picked up the candle she’d left burning in its holder on the table. There wasn’t much of it left.
“Come,” he commanded, and she followed along the passage to the closed door that Rosa had once pointed out to her as her father’s study. He threw the door wide. “Go in and wait for me there. It will be warmest.”
She obeyed, drawn in spite of herself to the fire still burning merrily in the grate. Kneeling on the rug before it, she shook out her cloak and bonnet and gazed around her.
Well-lit by several lamps, the room was dominated by a large mahogany desk, covered with papers and books. Glass cabinets scattered about the room displayed live plants and dried specimens of leaves and flowers. There was also a large couch, on which she suspected he’d been sleeping before he’d walked out of the house, for a blanket seemed to have half-fallen off it.
Caroline sat right down on the rug and drew off her wet boots, then thrust her soaked stockinged feet out toward the fire. The warmth was delicious, almost sensual.
She wondered why she was waiting here, what he wanted to say. To explain, perhaps, about his sleepwalking. Perhaps it would solve a few of the mysteries surrounding him.
Chapter Six
Much quicker than she expected, soft footsteps sounded in the passage outside. Caroline dropped her stretched out foot to the floor and whisked her skirts down to cover it.
Mr. Benedict strode into the room, still shrugging himself into a coat for the sake, presumably, of respectability in her company. Beneath it, he wore a dry white shirt, without a necktie, and a pair of smart buckskins—probably the first garments he had found.
He limped over to the cabinet by the wall, and from the decanter there poured a measure of amber liquid into two glasses. He crossed to the fire and casually held out a glass to her.
“What is it?” she asked, accepting it.
“Brandy.” His lips twisted. “Blackhaven’s best, I was assured by the rogue who brought it. I assume it has never paid a penny in duty.”
“I don’t believe it’s quite proper for me to drink brandy,” she said, eyeing it doubtfully.
He threw himself into the armchair by the fire. “My dear girl, you have just been out alone in a storm at night with a man to whom you are in no way related, the same man you are now closeted with behind a door quite firmly closed. It’s a little late to preach propriety to yourself. Drink up—it will warm you.”
He raised his glass to her and knocked most of the content down his throat in one swift tilt.
“I could make you hot tea, if you prefer,” she offered.
“I don’t,” he said bluntly.
She sipped the liquid, enjoying the unexpected burn on her tongue and throat.
He watched her for a moment, searching her face. “Tell me truthfully,” he commanded. “Did I strike you? Did I hurt you at all?”
She shook her head. “You pushed
me away when I tugged your arm to make you halt. But you did not strike me. I am not hurt.”
Without warning, he reached down, placed a finger under her chin and tilted it upward, gazing at her neck. “I had my arm across your throat. Is it sore?”
She shook her head, and he released her.
Distractedly, he picked up her discarded boot from the floor and frowned over it. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“I wouldn’t have crept up on you if I’d known you were asleep.” She regarded him curiously. “Were you dreaming?”
“Yes. But not about here.”
“A nightmare?”
“That, certainly.”
“Do you always have the same dream?”
“Variations on a theme. Why do you ask?”
“My nephew walks and cries in his sleep and does not seem to know you when you take him up and carry him back to bed. Afterward, he can’t remember his dreams.”
“Lucky nephew.” His gaze fell away to the boot, which he began to examine, more as an excuse to avoid her gaze, she suspected.
“What do you dream of?” she asked curiously.
He turned the boot up and discovered the hole. “Escape.”
That made sense. He had been getting away from the house. “Escape from where?”
“You really don’t want to know.” He thrust his hand inside the boot, which he cast aside with sudden displeasure. “Your boot is soaked through. The sole is so fine I could pierce it with a finger, and there is a hole in it already. You have a day off on Saturday, do you not?”
They had never discussed such things. “Do I?”
“Yes. Oblige me by going into Blackhaven and ordering a new pair. They may send me the bill.”
Caroline bridled, and his lips curved in mockery.
He reached behind him for the decanter. “I won’t have you catching cold and failing to teach my daughter. I require you to have new boots.” He raised the decanter to her invitingly, and when she shook her head, merely sloshed brandy into his own empty glass.
“Thank you,” she said at last. “If we may count it an advance on my salary.”
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