by Julie Daines
Perhaps that was true—if Jack let her. She wouldn’t know unless she asked him. “All right, then.”
* * *
The next morning, Caroline set out in a post chaise with Ormonde on her lap, thinking there was nothing like a journey of two hundred miles to play with one’s resolve. For two days, she alternated between longing and dread as the coach rattled and bounced across England. She’d never been to Suffolk, which couldn’t compare to the west counties, though she had to admit the scenery here was pleasing.
The village smith gave her directions. Jack's house wasn't far, set only a small ways off the road, hiding behind overgrown trees. It was small, sixteenth-century, with a miniature moat that probably made the rooms damp. Surrounded by a neglected garden, it looked impossibly romantic. Caroline, her preference for Mayfair elegance and new water closets forgotten, ordered her maid to remain in the coach with Ormonde.
Waiting on the step for someone to answer her knock, she rehearsed a matter-of-fact request to see Dr. Edwards, when the man himself answered the door.
“Jack!” Caroline said, startled at the sight of him. Had he no servants?
“Caroline?” He looked at her a long moment. “Will you come in?” His face was inscrutable.
“I’d rather walk with you outside,” she said, her nerve failing.
“Allow me to fetch my coat.”
Ormonde barked. “He’s tired of being in the carriage,” Caroline said.
Jack nodded. “Fetch him out. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Ormonde gave up prancing around Caroline’s skirts the moment Jack reappeared, groveling ecstatically at his boots. Jack bent and rubbed his ears. “I’ve been racking my brains trying to think why, but I’m afraid to guess, Caroline. Why are you here?”
She swallowed, her fingers tangling in Ormonde’s lead. “I was wrong. You hadn’t been gone a day before I realized what I felt for you was more important than the reasons for my refusal.”
“But now it’s been ten.”
“It took some time coming all this way,” Caroline said. “And I had to think it out in my mind. What I wanted was—has always been clear, but convincing myself I could choose to please myself and to make you happy took longer. If I still can? Make you happy, I mean.” She was no longer sure.
“Yes, but we can leave that matter aside.”
Why? His impassive face frightened her. “I must have disappointed you, but I came hoping it was not too late to prove I’d grown wiser. I want to marry you, if you’ll still have me.”
“And your brother?” He was looking, from what she could tell, at a fence post.
“Kit won’t like it, but that’s not important.”
“It’s not nothing, though. I thought about it all the way home,” Jack said. “You’re right. We hardly know each other.”
She hadn’t expected her own words turned on her, not like this. She looked down at her empty hands, realizing she’d dropped the lead and that Ormonde was now happily digging at the end of the garden. “I spent years engaged to a man I merely liked,” Caroline said. “When he died, I discovered I knew him less well than I supposed. But there were signs—I should have known his character better, that his feelings for me were weak. Yours aren’t. Or they weren’t, ten days ago. Mine—mine are too strong to ignore. They have overpowered everything else. I may not have known you long, but I’m willing to stake my hand on you.”
“You didn’t give me bad reasons, Caroline.”
“But they weren’t good enough.”
He picked up her hand, turning it over in his own. “So you say. Plenty of people would claim otherwise. I’ve been thinking these last days, too.”
Her heart plummeted, a heavy stone in ice-cold water. “You know I was wrong—or you did. Come away with me.”
His eyebrows jumped. “Are you suggesting—”
Caroline nodded. This was no time for pride. “I have a special license. Grandmama got it for me. We can marry today if you like.”
“If I like?” Jack took a step back, laughing and running a hand through his hair. “Caroline, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious. Besides, I can’t leave Grandmama for long. She wants me back in a week.” Her frantic pulse made it possible to pretend this wasn’t ridiculous. “Say yes, or I’ll have to abduct you.”
“Turned rogue, have you?”
Before she could reply, he took hold of her. Gratifying, yes, but she couldn’t see his eyes. Until she was sure—
“You weren’t all wrong.” Jack’s voice was thick. “I want you to know me well. Not to feel like you’re staking your life and your fortune on a desperate gamble.”
“Desperate?” Caroline protested, breaking off when he raised an eyebrow at her.
“I should have come back to Bath,” he said. “Because I have another proposal for you.”
Caroline waited, scarcely daring to breathe.
“A rascally female is no fit match for a diligent country doctor, but—”
Caroline nudged him with her hip. “Come to the point.”
“It seems a pity, when you have the license, but I think we should wait for banns.”
Her heart swung wildly. Perhaps from now on it would live in her throat. Caroline looked at him, afraid she couldn’t have heard right.
His smile teased her. “I’m a country physician. I’ve a reputation to consider.”
“Jack—”
“I’ll look mighty shabby, eloping with an heiress. And I must admit I’ve no wish to pack you off so soon after our wedding to your Grandmama. Marriage is for keeps. I don’t suggest a long engagement, but two or three months? That’s not a long time when you’re betting your life on me.”
Two or three months? She was deliriously happy, yet because she’d been prepared to race to church now, a respectable engagement seemed anticlimactic.
“Lady Lynher will be well by then,” Jack went on. “I think she’d like to attend the wedding.”
True, but—
“If she’s willing to leave Bath, I’ll arrange for her to travel to Chippenstone this week. Percy and Henrietta will bring her. The journey can be accomplished in comfort, and she will be well tended. Chippenstone is little more than a mile from here, the house of my friends. In three month’s time, you’ll have gotten to know me and the county. I’ll show you the surgery and the village, and you can decide what to do with the house. You’ll meet my friends the Bagshots and my sister and—”
“Yes, but is there a wood we can get lost in?” Caroline asked.
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Can you doubt it?”
“I accept,” Caroline said, but before she was done, he had kissed her. It might have lasted forever, if not for Ormonde. Giving up on his rabbit hole, he bounded up to them.
“Does he have a basket?” Jack asked.
“With my maid. In the coach—” Caroline broke off, blushing. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder.
“Hmm.” Jack had no such qualms. “Didn’t you tell them what you were about? They look scandalized.”
“Let them.” Eventually, she’d have to face them, but they could wait. After all, her personal concerns were no one’s business but her own. “My only quarrel with your plan is it seems very tame, compared to an elopement. And a sad waste of the license.”
“Tame?” He frowned at her. “I shouldn’t think so. Three months of romance? And then a lifetime ever after?”
“I’m convinced.” This was perfect.
“Come inside,” he urged her. “And bring your servants, before they fall over from curiosity. My man can get them some supper. I’ll take you to Chippenstone tonight, but first I must see how you light up the rooms. I’ve hated being here without you.”
Caroline took his hand. “Yes, and I’ll teach you my family motto: Quod autem habeo, hoc tenete,” she quoted.
Jack puzzled it out, then he laughed. “I should have known.”
“What I hold, I keep fast,” Caroline sa
id. “Don’t say I haven’t warned you.”
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About Jaima Fixsen
Jaima Fixsen is the author of the popular Fairchild regency romance series. She would rather read than sleep, and though all her novels take place in the past, she couldn't live without indoor plumbing or smart phones. When she isn't writing or child wrangling, she's a snow enthusiast. She lives with her family in Alberta, Canada, and most of all just tries to keep up.
Visit Jaima online:
Website: JaimaFixsen.com
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