{ Chapter 5 }
Caine peeked over his shoulder into the interior of the carriage.
Damn. Ara was still slumped in the corner, dead to the world. Even after he had been extra obnoxious with noise as he descended from the coach. He turned to his driver. “Tom, could you please carry Miss Detton into the townhouse and up to her room?”
“Oh.” Surprise shot across Tom’s face before he stifled it. “Of course, m’lord.”
Caine knew Tom was entirely curious as to why Caine wasn’t about to carry her in—or more sensibly, wake her. But Caine wasn’t about to do either of those things.
Ara hadn’t slept the rest of the night at the coaching inn. He had heard her pacing, and then the sounds of her bed creaking to no end. And he knew full well she was past exhaustion, as was evident from the deep, dark circles under her eyes when she entered the carriage in the morning.
So no, he wasn’t about to wake her now that she was finally asleep.
As for carrying her into the townhouse…he had sworn to never touch her again. He wasn’t about to break that vow mere hours after making it.
Caine moved to give Tom space to lift Ara out from the carriage and then looked up the stairs leading into the Gilbert Lane townhouse from the mews.
Mrs. Merrywent stood holding wide the rear door of the townhouse, her hands agitated, as a medium-sized, short-haired dog—black, with haphazard patches of brown and red and white—ran in front of her tapping feet, yelping. Patch. The yelping grew frantic when Tom, grunting from the awkward motion, stepped down from the carriage with Ara sound asleep in his arms.
“Quiet that mutt, Mrs. Merrywent,” Caine snapped in a loud whisper.
She bent her plump frame and picked up the dog, tossing him backward into the house. He was back to the doorway in an instant, yelps flying until Mrs. Merrywent set her fingers on his nose.
She shifted aside as Caine and Tom moved up the three stairs and into the hall outside the study in the back of the townhouse.
“Miss Ara, is she not well?” Mrs. Merrywent scurried after Tom until he stopped, and her hand went to Ara’s forehead.
“She is asleep, Mrs. Merrywent. Nothing more. Just exhaustion.”
Her head shaking, Mrs. Merrywent turned to Caine. “Good heavens, I have been worried to hades and back on her. Where have you been with her? It has been days, my lord—days of worry. Where have you been?”
Caine rubbed his eyes. He knew full well the woman was building herself into a tirade directed at him. “I will explain all, Mrs. Merrywent.”
Mrs. Merrywent rounded him, hands on her hips. “You have charged me to be her chaperone, my lord, and stunts such as this undermine the very job you pay me to do. If you thought to hire me, only for me to look the other way when it comes to you taking that sweet child to only the devil knows where, you had better rethink my employment. And you had better rethink your responsibilities as a gentleman. You had assured me—”
“I do not require a scolding, Mrs. Merrywent. I will wait in the drawing room and explain all once you have her settled.”
Tom cleared his throat. The man was still standing behind Caine, holding Ara, her head propped against his black coat. The noise hadn’t stirred her in the slightest. Ara was slight, but Caine knew Tom was uncomfortable carrying her. Not to mention the mutt was jumping on Tom’s leg, trying to get to its mistress.
Caine waved his hand, ushering Tom past him. Mrs. Merrywent harrumphed pointedly in Caine’s direction and then bustled in front of Tom, leading him through the hallway to the stairs in the foyer. Caine followed, stepping into the front drawing room to wait as promised.
His back to the large front window of the townhouse, Caine’s eyes swept about the room. It had been well appointed—whether by Ara’s or Mrs. Merrywent’s taste, he couldn’t be sure. Soft colors, a few nicely chosen pieces of simple-lined furniture. No trinkets.
The whole of it presented much better than the obtuse gold and shine that had been stuffed into each corner and splattered onto every surface in the room when he had purchased the house a month ago. Judging by the restraint of the current furniture, Caine doubted Ara and Mrs. Merrywent had spent even a third of what he had allotted them for new furnishings.
He spun, his nose almost touching the glass of the window as he stared out past the quiet street. He had chosen this house specifically for its calmness. Little traffic on the road, and a peaceful park across the street. Quiet and gentle. Ara deserved that after her ordeal, and it was exactly what he would have hoped for Bella to have, had she survived.
Caine’s eyes were fixed on a couple strolling through the wide park across the street when Mrs. Merrywent entered the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
His eyes did not leave the man and woman stopping by a row of shrubbery. “She is settled?”
“Yes. That mutt of hers is already splayed on her chest, his ears perked to the slightest threat. He did not take kindly to your man carrying her in, my lord.”
“I gathered that.” Caine turned from the window, looking to Mrs. Merrywent. “The dog—it helps her?”
Her eyes went to pinpricks, her head tilting. “What are you asking me, my lord?” Mrs. Merrywent always was an astute one. She’d had to be to keep his sisters in line.
“She is exhausted for a reason, Mrs. Merrywent, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what you are dreading happened.”
“What did happen, my lord?” Her hands landed on her hips.
The brandy had dried from his veins, but Caine’s head still pounded, and he could do without Mrs. Merrywent’s accusing tone. He sighed. “Ara was determined to help the girl she saw in the market. Helping the girl was the only way she was going to move from that place and not do something foolish.”
“That building—that was the place you found her a month ago?”
He nodded. When he had hired Mrs. Merrywent, he had told her every detail of Ara’s ordeal, so Ara herself would never have to retell the tale.
“I guessed as much. And what happened to the girl she wanted to help?”
Caine shrugged. “I bought the girl and we returned her to her home near Oxford. Ara insisted on accompanying the girl to her family. The mother and father were grateful to have their daughter returned. That is all that happened.”
“Then why is Ara so exhausted?”
“We were in separate rooms in a coaching inn last night, and she had a nightmare.”
Mrs. Merrywent’s hands clasped in front of her, her demeanor suddenly agitated. “She had a nightmare?”
“It was not just a nightmare, Mrs. Merrywent, it was terror.” Caine shook his head, the sounds of Ara’s shrieks still echoing in his ears. “Terror that did not let her go. I have never seen anything like it. I could not calm her. I had to shake her awake. And still then, it took far too long for the tremors in her body to cease.” His fingers went to his eyes, rubbing the memory from them.
“The crow and the wolves, my lord?”
His eyes snapped to Mrs. Merrywent. “Yes. So you have heard it as well?”
“Yes. Did you not know, my lord?”
“Know what?”
“How to calm the terrors?”
“Calm the terrors? There is a way?”
“Yes.” Her palm swung up, waving in the general direction of the rooms above. “Come, I will show you.”
She walked out of the drawing room without waiting for his agreement. The woman was far too impertinent. Unfortunate that she was invaluable. Even if her pay came from him, her loyalty was clearly with Ara, which Caine could not fault her for.
He followed Mrs. Merrywent up the stairs, hesitating in the open doorway to Ara’s darkened room.
Much like the drawing room, Ara’s bedroom had been decorated with restraint—simple, yet elegant. Several upholstered chairs dotted the large room, their fabric a soft, solid blue. Unadorned straight lines of a writing desk and a wardrobe completed the chamber.
His eyes rested on Ara. Deep a
sleep, she lay curled on her side, her arm hugging Patch to her chest. The dog’s head lifted, looking back and forth between Mrs. Merrywent and Caine, but he was not alarmed enough to give up the cozy spot.
Mrs. Merrywent waved Caine into the room, waiting to speak until he stood next to her, looking down at Ara.
“Here. It is this spot,” Mrs. Merrywent whispered as she brushed Ara’s blond hair away from the back of her neck. The tips of Mrs. Merrywent’s weathered fingers settled onto the skin just behind Ara’s ear where her hairline started. Mrs. Merrywent looked up at Caine. “When she screams, all one has to do is press and hold this spot, right behind her ear. It calms the terrors, if you can get to it before she starts a-thrashing. Once that starts, it is nearly impossible to get a finger on there to calm her. I have had to sit on her in order to do so. But it will calm her. It always does.”
Mrs. Merrywent lifted her fingers from Ara, gave Patch a stroke along the white spot on the top of his head, and then ushered Caine out the door.
Caine waited for Mrs. Merrywent to close the door. “How do you know of this—how did you discover that spot?”
She shrugged. “I learned it by accident in those first weeks after you hired me. My hand just landed there once, and it worked. So it is what I do. She returns to sleep, peaceful. The oddest thing.”
“And the terrors stop—just like that?”
“Yes. Peculiar, but true.” Her head cocked to the side. “I had thought you knew about the terrors, my lord, about how to help her.”
“No, I did not.”
Of course he didn’t. He truly did not know anything of the girl on the other side of the door. He had been too consumed during the past month with his own grief for that.
He knew nothing, other than that he had just been a bastard to her.
Maybe it was time to change that.
~~~
Ara took a deep breath, steadying her thudding heart. A simple conversation. That was all that was necessary, and she could be on her way. Simple.
She stood alongside the doorway to the study where Caine’s butler, Mr. Riggers, had left her after announcing her to Caine. Mrs. Merrywent had disappeared to the back of the townhouse, hoping to chat with Cook during their short stop, as the two were old friends from when Mrs. Merrywent was governess to Caine’s sisters.
Ara couldn’t quite get her feet to turn the corner into the study. Odd that the butler had left her here, but there appeared to be much activity bustling about Caine’s household that Mr. Riggers was more concerned about.
She inhaled. Two steps in, talk to Caine quickly, and she could be on her way, her conscience at ease.
Two weeks ago, Caine had apologized profusely during the carriage ride back to London from that coaching inn. Heat spread up her neck at the memory.
Not that Ara blamed him for the events of that night. She had been a very willing partner in what they had almost done—until he had called her Bella. Once his dead love’s name was uttered, it had been easy to recognize how very misguided both of their minds had been in that bed.
She had fallen asleep in the carriage, the awkwardness thick between them. And since then, Ara had not seen Caine once. Avoiding her was fine. While she was entirely grateful for his assistance—for a home to live in and food to eat—she could live her life quite comfortably without the mortification of having to see the man again.
It was unfortunate that the matter of the finances concerning the household he had set her up in would not let the avoidance continue. The finances needed his attention, as the current state of her allowance did not sit well with Ara.
Just a quick conversation.
One last breath, and she picked up her feet, spinning around the corner. Her jaw slightly dropped when she saw the depth of the study. She had not realized his townhouse was this enormous. This room alone sat two stories high—much more of a library than a study. Thick, leather-bound volumes lined two of the walls, the tomes stretching neatly up to the mahogany coffered ceiling.
“You should not be here, Ara.” Caine’s low voice brought her attention downward, and she found him sitting in a wide leather chair, a tumbler of amber liquid in his fingers balancing on the armrest. His usual dark jacket and waistcoat absent, he wore only black trousers and a white linen shirt, gaping at the neck.
He didn’t look up at her, his eyes stayed on the low embers in the fireplace next to him. “It does not do that an unmarried woman visits the home of a bachelor.”
Ara took two uneasy steps in, hovering by the doorway. “But you are my guardian, and Mrs. Merrywent accompanied me. I thought that would be within the bounds of propriety.”
He shrugged.
She shuffled three steps farther into the room, still closer to the door than to Caine. “I came to ask you a question about the affairs of the household you have given me charge of.”
“What of them?”
“It is more than I need—the allowance. I am not sure what to do with the remaining funds. Should I forward them back to your man of affairs, tell him to adjust the amount needed to run the household? Or I could—”
Ara cut herself off as his head lifted and he finally looked to her.
Agony etched deeply into his brow, his eyes hollow with dark circles above the line of his cheekbones. She had seen that look before. It mirrored the one in the carriage when he learned of Isabella’s death.
Without hesitation, she sped across the room, her soft peach skirts flying forward to brush onto his knees as she stopped in front of him. Her right hand went to his upper arm, her thumb pressing through his linen shirt into his muscle. He jumped at the touch, looking down to her hand.
She tightened her grip on him. “Caine, what has happened?”
He looked up, his blue eyes a fierce growl, but then his focus settled on her face, softening with weariness.
“Tell me.”
His eyes shut. “My brother. He has passed.”
Ara stifled a sad gasp. She knew from Mrs. Merrywent that Caine’s older brother had been dying of consumption for some time. Caine had never mentioned his brother, so Ara had assumed there was little affection between the two. Clearly she had been wrong.
Her heart constricting at seeing his pain, Ara stared at him. The way he reacted to her hand on his arm was warning she should do no more. But she could not curb her innate impulse—her need to comfort this man.
Without a word, she reached out her other hand, slipping it behind his neck. She gently tugged him forward. The cords of muscles along his neck reacted, resisting her.
She slipped her gloved fingers up into his hair, pulling with smooth force. After a willful second, he relented, letting his body move forward. Ara didn’t stop the pull until his head was clasped to her chest. Even though he sat and she stood, his height made the top of his head reach the curve under her chin.
His body remained tensed, ready to escape, so Ara wrapped her right arm around his shoulders, holding him fast to her.
Her heart crushed for not only his loss, but also for the very fact that his body instinctively refused simple compassion.
But once there, he stayed in her arms, his breath hot on the bare skin above the lace trim of her bosom. No tears. No words. But slowly, his arms came up, wrapping around her waist, holding onto her as if she were the very last buoy in a vast ocean aching to pull him under.
She stood silent, clutching him for what seemed like forever, when it truly could have only been a few minutes.
His arms loosened around her waist, but before he could pull himself away, Ara cleared the lump from her throat.
“I am so sorry for your loss, Caine. Can I do anything to help you?”
His arms dropped from her body as he shook his head, leaning back in his chair. His fingers went to his eyes, rubbing. “I am sorry, Ara. That was unseemly of me.”
Her brow furrowed. Why in the heavens was he apologizing to her at the moment? “Unseemly?”
His eyes cast downward as his head dropped,
his voice rough. “My show of weakness. I did not know what you were doing. I should not have allowed that.”
Weakness? What did that mean? The hug? Did he think a hug was weak? Ara couldn’t fathom the thought.
Caine’s head remained down, so she knelt before him, balancing on the heels of her boots as she looked up to him, finding his blue eyes that were attempting to stay averted from hers. “Are you telling me you have never been hugged before?”
He looked to the side, staring at the highly polished, gleaming planks of the floor. “Of course I have been hugged, Ara. Do not be obtuse.”
“No, I mean in comfort, Caine. Compassion. You were never injured and hugged as child? Never lost a pet or a toy and held onto your mother’s skirts?”
He shook his head, looking at her like an extra eyeball had appeared on her forehead.
“Not even by a nanny?”
“Affection was not something that was appropriate in our household, Ara.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his blue eyes—usually so sure of everything—darting about awkwardly. “We have always been sufficed with bows and curtseys and handshakes.”
Her hand went on his knee, squeezing as she stood, trying to move past the moment for his sake. She hadn’t meant to make this any harder for him, and her questions obviously made him uneasy. One more thing she did not understand of his world. “I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable. But again, please, is there anything I can do for you to help?”
He shook his head, but then his eyes caught sight of his desk. He sighed. “The correspondence. It is too much, too many notes of condolences that need to be replied to. Too many notes of congratulations on the title.” His eyes came up to her. “Congratulations, Ara. My brother is not even in the ground yet, and they are congratulating me.”
“Let me. I can go through them, respond with politeness no matter how insulting to your brother’s memory they are. It is a simple thing I can do for you.”
His eyes narrowed on her, suspect, but after a moment, he nodded silently, his head heavy.
Hours later, her eyes bleary and her forefinger stained with ink, Ara looked at the piles in front of her on Caine’s desk. The “answered” pile was now much taller than the “still-to-be-answered” pile. Good progress. Caine had been in and out of the study all day, seeing visitors in the formal drawing room at the front of his townhouse.
Vow: A Lords of Action Novel Page 5
