by Darcy Burke
Vivid dark brown eyes capable of melting the stockings off a girl, intently met hers. “Yes.”
She didn’t believe him based off of his cravat alone. She quietly walked up to where he sat, leaned toward him and gathered the ends of his crooked cravat from around his throat. She adjusted the linen back into place for him. Her fingers accidentally grazed the stubble beneath the warmth of his chin, causing her heart to thud. In that moment, she felt different. She felt like a wife adjusting the cravat for a husband.
He glanced down at her hands but said nothing.
She quickly took back both hands. “It was crooked.” She took several steps back, returning them to a more respectable distance. “You never visit on Mondays.”
He swiped his face. “I needed to speak to you.”
This was new. “Of course. About what?”
He shrugged. “About anything. About everything. Like we always do.” He smiled. It looked forced. “It’s been a while. How have you been? Good?”
She eyed him. They had seen each other only last week. He clearly needed to talk, but was acting as if he didn’t. “What is it? I can tell something is wrong.”
He sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Ah. One of those days. He needed a diversion and that was why he came. “At least you were greeted by the cat,” she drawled, trying to wrestle him into a better mood. “I don’t even get that sort of attention from Abigail. She prefers Alex over the rest of us. In fact, I never wanted a cat. My sisters did. I always wanted a dog. Dogs seem more loving to me. Cats are too independent for my liking.”
He eyed her. “Why would you want an animal to be dependent on you?”
She eyed him back, sensing this conversation wasn’t putting him a better mood. “Because having someone love you is a good thing.”
He stared. “Is it?”
It was time to change the subject.
Knowing her choppy French usually cheered him up, she brightly offered, “Il est…bon de vous…vous voir, monsieur.” She prayed she had said it was good to see him as opposed to good to be him. “Did I say that right?”
He half-smiled and nodded. “Oui,” he offered in a low tone. “Vous avez fait.”
Him and French together was like drinking chocolate whilst basking in the sun on a bench in Hyde Park. So divine. “I made you smile,” she pointed out.
“You always do.” His smile faded. He sighed again. Rising from the chair, he straightened to his muscled height of six feet and towered over her barely five foot four height. “I heard you were leaving for Bath in a few days to see your grandfather.” He poked at her shoulder. “I’m annoyed with you. You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”
She pulled in her chin and stepped away from that poke. “Begging your pardon, monsieur, but I only found out yesterday.”
“Bath is too many days away for me to just get into a coach and see you.” He gestured toward her in agitation. “What about our weekly visits?”
And she thought she was a touch obsessed with their visits. “We can resume them upon my return. I will only be gone a few weeks.”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t have you leaving. You’re the only person I can bloody relate to in this godforsaken town. The only person who doesn’t judge me or make me feel ignorant or worthless or—” He fell silent.
Her lips parted. She had never seen him like this. Not ever. “What happened?”
He blew out a ragged breath. Retrieving a gold coin from his waistcoat pocket, he held it out. “I want you to hold onto this for me. It’s important you take it.”
Her breath hitched. He was giving her the coin. The one he had won off the king and had carried in his pocket since 1824. The coin that defined everything he was: lucky.
She veered her gaze to his. “Why are you giving me your lucky coin?”
Grabbing her hand, he flattened it into her palm. “Because if you have it, it won’t disappear. Hold onto it for me and keep it safe. Once I am ready to take it back, I promise, in return for the inconvenience, you can have anything you want. A new book. Earrings. You name it.”
She swallowed, the warmth of that large hand lingering against her bare skin. She grazed her fingers against the firm heat of his skin, her heart pounding. He was protecting it. “Are you worried you might sell it?”
He hesitated. “Just…just hold onto it. And don’t give it to me until I ask for it. All right? Because its history has to be protected, not bartered.” He shook her hand firmly to emphasize that point and released it, leaving the coin in her palm.
She pressed it between both palms, cherishing that his lucky coin was hers to cradle. She knew what it meant to him. “I will keep it safe. I promise.”
“Thank you.” He edged back. Clearing his throat, he set his shoulders. “So uh…are you close to your grandfather?”
Sensing he wanted to divert his thoughts from what he had just done, she pressed his coin tighter into her palm. “Yes. Out of all my siblings, I am the closest to Grandpapa.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I never actually met the man. Your brother talks about him on occasion but I don’t know much more. What is he like? Tell me something about him.”
Oh, now, she could easily go into a lecture. “Well…above all else, Grandpapa is very soft spoken, reserved and sweet. So unlike us Hawksfords. So unlike Mama. Heaven only knows where she got her wild spirit. She never talks about it, and I’m too afraid to ask. But whenever we do visit her father, he makes us all join hands to pray before meals, before walks and before we go to bed. I find it to be rather uplifting.
“Every year during Christmas, he also sends us a leather-bound Bible and marks certain pages in it for us to read. I think it adorable, but Mama grumbles thinking he is preaching to us about our way of life. It has turned into a little religious war of sorts between him and her. Every year, when that Bible arrives at Christmas wrapped in the same brown paper my grandfather has been using since I kicked out a foot, Mama scribes him a curt thank you and then quietly tucks away said Bible on the shelf with all the other books as it if were a stale fruitcake no knife could ever cut through. Do you know we have well over twenty Bibles in the library, all side by side, and none of them have actually been read by the people who ought to read them? Only my sisters, the governess and I have ever read them from front page to back page. I like the Bible. More than I thought I would. The only objection I have with its content is that women aren’t portrayed all that well. For some reason they’re all whores. Why is that?”
Caldwell choked, coughed and then sputtered into laughter. He laughed and laughed and…laughed, letting it roll around them as if he had no intention of ever stopping.
She gurgled out a laugh, pleased he found her to be that funny. “What?” she teasingly prodded, hoping to keep his laughter going. “Am I the only person to have ever asked that question? They couldn’t have all been whores. But then again, I suppose that would explain the rapid growth of our world’s population.”
He staggered and laughed harder, tears now coming to the edges of his eyes. He swiped his mouth with the tips of his fingers, trying to return to a state of calm, and choked out, “I needed that. I really did.”
An exasperated smile tugged her lips. “Good. I am always happy to oblige.”
He leaned in and nudged her. “And this is exactly why you can’t leave. I need my Thursdays.” Caldwell puffed out a breath. “Do you really have to go? Can’t your mother travel to Bath without you this one time? None of your sisters are going.” He lingered.
She glanced up at him. It was as if he genuinely needed her in the same way she needed him. She swallowed. Maybe this was it. Maybe now was the time to let him know how she felt. How she had always felt.
She fumbled her fingers into her bodice. Dragging out the folded parchment, she unraveled it and paused, realizing the ink had smeared. A shaky breath escaped her. It looked how she felt. With quaking hands, she held it out. “I know it’s smeared, because I forgot
to blot the ink, but can you read it?”
“Of course.” He took the letter. Angling it toward himself, he scanned the letter, pausing to read each sentence. Reaching the end of it, his gaze veered to hers.
He said nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Heat burned her face. “I wasn’t thinking now. I simply didn’t want to be promised to another.”
He quietly folded the letter and pushed it back into her hands. “You shouldn’t have written that. You’re too young. And your father is a goddamn fool for already discussing prospects. You have time. Lots of it.”
She hated knowing he still thought she was a child. She pushed the letter back into his hands and stubbornly met his gaze. “I’m old enough to know when I love someone. And though I haven’t had the courage to say it, I am saying it now: I love you and I have for some time.”
He blanched. “Caroline.” His hands stilled against the letter. “You’re only sixteen.”
She lowered her gaze, fingering his coin. “So you never thought about us getting married?” she asked in between tight breaths. She dared not look at him as she awaited his response.
Silence pulsed.
The clock ticked in the distance.
When he still said nothing, she lifted her gaze to his, feeling unbearably vulnerable. “Say something.”
His brown eyes softened. Tucking her letter into his inner waistcoat pocket, he searched her face. “You and I are far more to each other. We are friends.”
She swallowed, knowing full well what that meant. No Persuasion.
Tears blinded her from seeing his face. Whilst she endlessly cherished their friendship, including the two of them playing cards and reading the gossip columns to each other in absurd theatrical tones, what she wanted more than anything was the passion that Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth shared. One untainted by family or society or time or age or…pimples.
She tightened her hold on his coin. “Is it my face? Or my parents?”
His brows flickered. “Caroline. No. This isn’t about…” His expression grew tight with strain. “Things between men and women are tactless and messy. A romance between us? You don’t want that. It would end in a short breath. But in ten years from now, as friends, you and I will still be good friends. In the way we are now. In the way we should always be.”
She swallowed and stared up at him, miserably.
Maybe he didn’t love her in the way she loved him, and maybe he didn’t see her in the way she wanted him to, but she had to take heart knowing that in his time of need, in his time of whatever crisis he was enduring, he had thought to come to her. It was humbling to know that out of all the people he could have gone to, and out of all the people he could have entrusted his coin to, he had entrusted it to her. Not her brother. Her.
She touched his arm. “I will safeguard your coin until you ask for it again.”
He smiled brokenly. “Thank you.”
Oh how she wanted to soothe away the sorrows that clearly drowned the real smiles she was used to seeing. “I have never seen you like this. What is it?”
His features twisted. He shook his head. “You would think the worst of me.”
“I would never.” Her fingers dug into the wool of his morning coat. “You and I are friends. Real friends. And we always tell each other everything without judgment. Don’t we?”
“Yes.”
She shook his arm gently. “Then tell me.”
He hesitated and glanced toward the open doorway, as if to ensure they were alone. “I’m ruined.”
She released him, her eyes widening.
He raked trembling hands through his hair, digging his fingers into the sides of his head. “I need ten thousand pounds by the end of the month. And I don’t have it.”
She gasped. That sort of money could pay the rent of many for years.
He dropped his hands to his sides. “My uncle was only able to assist with a thousand. So it’s really only nine, but between my aunt’s debts and my own, I’m…” He fell silent. “I’m ruined.”
Her breath caught in her lungs. “I don’t understand. Why do you owe so much?”
“Since my aunt’s husband died, she and her children have been struggling over in Paris quite a bit. My uncle Hughes has been assisting them, but it isn’t enough to make a difference and so I…” He winced. “I wanted my finances to be in order to better help them. So I took whatever money I had been saving and borrowed an additional ten thousand from someone I shouldn’t have.”
Her lips parted as she attempted to even her breathing. “You borrowed ten thousand pounds? From one man?”
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“To do what?”
Opening his eyes, he admitted, “My father used to breed racehorses in my younger years, when my mother was still alive. So I took it up knowing the sort of money that could be made. I was doing incredibly well. I had bidders on every thoroughbred. Only…a fire overtook the stable I was renting in the country. Some idiot on the grounds had padlocked the gates. When someone was finally able to make it in, all thirty horses were dead. I wasn’t there when it happened but—” He grabbed his head. “I was set to make a profit of almost forty percent and now I have nothing to pay the man back with. Nothing.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. “What do you intend to do?”
He dropped his hands back to his sides. “There isn’t a damn thing I can do. If I don’t come up with the money by the end of the month, I will be escorted straight to Marshalsea. A warning was issued to me as of yesterday.”
Marshalsea. Her father had told her of that sordid prison. Their coach had driven by it many times. It was a place of chipped, red-brick walls looming high into the sky and padlocked iron gates where people with debts walked in and never walked out. Because their stay was determined not by the amount they owed, but by the whims of the wardens and the creditors. “You are a titled man. They cannot sentence you to such a place.”
“Tell that to the man I owe,” he muttered.
Her eyes widened. “Have you spoken to my brother about this?”
He shook his head. “God, no. He was the one who told me not to invest.”
She caught his arm. “Go to my father. He likes you. He will help you.”
He stared. “I’m not about to beg your father for money.”
“Pride has no place in this conversation. You are like family to us and he has the financial means to right this. Go to him. He is in his study.”
He threw back his head. “I’m not about to— I don’t want you to worry. That isn’t why I told you. I will manage. I always do.”
“Manage?” she echoed. “Ten thousand pounds isn’t exactly a shilling, Caldwell.”
He leveled his head but wouldn’t look at her.
She swallowed. She shouldn’t have said that. “That was vulgar of me. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Don’t apologize. I was irresponsible and deserve to hang for it.”
“No. You don’t. You didn’t take it all to a card table. You invested it as any gentleman does. How could you have predicted a fire?”
His gaze veered to hers. “I couldn’t.”
“Exactly. It isn’t your fault. At least breathe knowing that.”
He said nothing.
Trying to offer him a measure of comfort, Caroline grabbed hold of him and hugged his warmth as tightly against herself as she could. The scent of soap and freshly starched linen overtook her breath. She sagged against him, digging her hands into his clothes. She had never dared to embrace him before, but something told her he needed it.
He stiffened against her before slowly wrapping his muscled arms around her. He pressed her against his muscled frame, a breath escaping him.
She nestled her cheek against his embroidered waistcoat and achingly wished he could love her in the way she loved him. “Know that I will always love you. No matter how much or how little you have. No matter how hard you fall. I will be here for you. Always.”
Anothe
r breath escaped him. He tightened his hold.
It was as if he needed to hear those words.
She tightened her own hold on his large frame.
“Write to me during your stay in Bath,” he whispered.
“I will write every week,” she whispered back.
“We should practice your French more. Write a few conversational sentences in every letter, and I will respond with any corrections. Now don’t worry about me. I have survived crazier situations than this.” He smoothed a hand down her braid. “Enjoy your time in Bath.” Prying himself out of her arms, he hesitated and met her gaze. He lingered, searching her face.
She swallowed, sensing he wanted to say something. “What is it?”
His shaven jaw tightened. “You aren’t really a child anymore, are you?”
Her breath caught and she almost burst. It was like hearing him say ‘I love you.’ She searched his face. “No. I am not.”
He averted his gaze and edged back. “I have to go. I have a few letters to write.” Swinging away, he shoved both hands into his coat pockets. Glancing back at her one last time, he disappeared out into the corridor.
That was when she knew something between them had changed.
And she couldn’t tell if it was for the better or worse.
She fingered the cool surface of the coin he had given her. A coin he had once boasted he would never part with at any price. It was now her duty to ensure its legacy, even in the face of Caldwell’s ruin. A shaky breath escaped her as she pressed a loving kiss to it, wishing it were his lips.
Booted footsteps from behind made her turn toward the doorway.
Her father, the Earl of Hawksford, widened his gruff stance, his aged features and stark white hair reminding her of the long, wild life he had lived. His green eyes grudgingly observed her as if he knew everything that had been said.
She awkwardly lowered the coin from her lips. “Were you listening?”
He stared. “He had no right discussing his personal affairs with you.”
She glared. “Coming from a man who discusses everything with me, including what nude portraits he plans on importing from Italy, I find that laughable.”
