Lord of the Rakes (26 page)

C
aroline was still in her sitting room, trying to sort out the papers Mr. Upton had left behind, when Philip burst in with Mrs. Ferriday at his heels.

“What is it?” He tossed his hat aside and grasped her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. “What’s happened?”

She was so startled, it took a moment to realize the emotion that widened his eyes was fear. Memory filled in the sequence of events.

“Oh, Philip. I’m sorry!” Caroline waved Mrs. Ferriday away.

“What? Why? Are you all right?” He was searching her face, as if looking for evidence of harm. His expression was so concerned, Caroline almost laughed, but at the same time a feeling of unexpected tenderness flowed through her.

“Yes, of course I’m all right.” She grasped Philip’s hand where he held her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Philip stiffened. “I’m sorry,” he said warily. “I got your note, and I thought there must be an emergency.”

Caroline smoothed her hair back, trying to remember what she’d actually written. Had she really worded things that badly? She’d been so confused and torn in her feelings. It was possible.

“I can see
something’s
happened.” Philip gestured to her table. “It looks like it’s rained papers in here.”

“I had my meeting with Mr. Upton.” She gazed down at the documents, more to avoid looking at Philip than anything else. Shame coiled low in her belly. He was going to be angry when he found out she’d brought him here for entirely frivolous reasons. Why had she written the note at all? She deplored the girls who set little tests for their beaux rather than asking them straight out what they meant and felt. And yet wasn’t that exactly what she had done? She had brought him here, not to talk, but to measure his regard, or lack of it. Now that he was here, proving he did care for her as something more than a bed partner, she was stammering and deflecting his questions like the worst of those evasive missish girls.

But she must tell him something. Caroline took a deep breath. “Mr. Upton said several things, about my trust. I wanted someone to talk to. I thought of you.”

“Me?”

The force with which he spoke the word jerked her head up. “I shouldn’t have, I know. We’re not on such terms, and now I’ve worried you.” She couldn’t stand the confusion spreading across his face and turned away. “I’m making a mess of this.”

There was a short pause, and she felt Philip move behind her. “You’re not.” He laid his hand on her arm, stroking her slowly, soothingly. “I’m simply surprised. Ladies generally do not consult a man such as myself on matters of business.”

“It’s just . . .” Caroline hesitated. Part of her was shouting at her to remain quiet. This was not anything Philip needed to know.

“Remember we promised to be friends, Caroline,” he said quietly. “Tell me, what’s the matter?”

He spoke with such steady kindness, it was impossible for her to keep silent.

“Mr. Upton warned me that if I don’t take an active hand in managing my affairs, the trust might fall apart.”

Philip blew out a long puff of air. “Is that all? I was afraid . . .” But he shook his head and didn’t finish the sentence. “Well, then you must postpone your trip until your business is more settled. Now that Napoleon’s no longer stomping all over it, I believe there’s a good chance Europe will still be there in a year’s time.”

Postpone her trip? Stay in London, perhaps for as much as a year, with Philip at her side and in her bed. The idea sang like a siren. Instead of a few short weeks, she could have a whole year of Philip’s presence and passion. A year of breakfasts and maybe more. Maybe they could find a way to be out in public together that didn’t compromise either of them. Fiona would know all about how such a thing could be managed.

“But I can’t,” she whispered.

Philip moved closer. He caressed her jaw in the way that had become so precious to her. She wanted to move away, but she lacked that power. She could only turn toward him and gaze into his storm-blue eyes.

“What the matter, Caroline?” The gentleness in his voice cut straight to her center. “Why can’t you stay?”

Her mind was a riot. She wanted more than anything to throw herself into his arms, weeping like a child. She wanted someone to know how confused and lonely she felt at this moment. She wanted
him
to know.

But, of course, that was not how a lady behaved with her lover. “It simply isn’t possible for me to stay.” Caroline sank into her armchair.

Philip crossed to the hearth. With that unique grace that suffused his entire body, he knelt at her side. “Tell me, Caroline. Please. Why do you have to leave?”

She stared at the hearth. The fire was laid there, but not lit. She wished it was. She felt far too cold.

“You’ve trusted me here, Caroline.” Philip rested his hand against her thigh. “Will you trust me here?” His fingers grazed her temple.

“But can I?” she whispered. She could not look at him, because she could not permit him to see the tears welling up in her eyes. He did not understand that he was asking her to reveal the secrets she had never told another living soul. Not even Fiona knew the entire story.

“Yes, you can.” There was no hesitation in Philip’s answer. He meant it; she was as certain of that as her next breath. Whatever she had to say, he would listen and he would keep her secrets.

But what would he think of her once he had heard them? That, she realized, was her true fear. She was not afraid Philip would betray her, but that he would disdain her.

Philip covered her hand where it rested on the chair’s arm. She felt his strength, his warmth and patience. She knew she should send him away, but she did not want him to leave her side. Not now, not ever.

Caroline felt her skin prickling up the length of her spine. She did not want Philip to leave. She did not want to lose him. A bare handful of days in this man’s company, a tiny number of hours with him in her bed and in her body and her thoughts, and it was enough to know she would never cease to desire him.

Tell him,
she ordered herself.
Make him understand what you really are and where you really come from. Make him understand that he
cannot
stay with you, before he thinks otherwise. Before you forget.

“I am . . . I am running from my brother.”

She waited, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was terrified Philip might laugh, or move away in shock.

He did neither. “Why?” he asked. “What has he done to you?”

“It’s not what he has done, not directly . . . It goes back further than that.” She paused, searching for a way to begin. “When I was a little girl, my mother suffered what I now suppose was a serious disorder of the nerves. She kept to her bed. She wept all the time. If my father was with her, they quarreled. After a while, she stopped speaking altogether. Even to me,” she whispered.

Those had been terrible days. She’d sat for hours at her mother’s bedside, holding her cold hand, telling her everything she could think of, all the stories she knew Mama loved, all the tiny bits of gossip she’d picked up from the servants and from Fiona. Anything that might make her smile, or even just look at her.

“Father finally brought in the doctors,” she said. “They said she required complete rest and seclusion. Father followed their instructions to the letter. Even when she could get out of bed, she wasn’t allowed to do anything more than sit in the garden. It was supposed to be a cure, but it felt like imprisonment, and it went on, and on.”

Weeks turned into months, and months into years. The doctors came and went. They dosed Mama with assorted compounds, and advised yet more rest.

“Some days she was lively. She would sing and play and laugh, and even run through the house. I loved those times when I was young, but gradually I became afraid of them. There was a manic energy about her then, something not right shining in her eyes. She’d talk too fast and too much, and sometimes she stopped making sense entirely. And every time she had one of these . . . episodes . . . Father sent for the doctors, and it would start all over again.”

Philip said nothing at all, but neither did he remove his hand from hers. His touch gave her courage, and Caroline was able to continue.

“If it wasn’t for the Rayburns, I don’t know what I would have done. They were so kind. Once I turned fifteen, they made sure I was invited to all the country house parties and hunt balls and archery meets around the district. I didn’t want to leave mother at first, but she said I must go, and bring back all the stories. So that’s what I did. I’d spend hours with her, even whole days, reenacting every detail for her, trying to make her smile. She had such a beautiful smile.”

“Where was your brother all this time?” asked Philip.

“At school, for some of it. At Father’s side for the rest of it, learning how to take his place as the earl. He didn’t come to Mother’s room at all. He was ashamed. I was sure of it.

“In the end, it became too much for her. She stopped eating. She stopped speaking. There was no fever, nothing anyone could understand. She just wasted away.”

She clutched at Philip. She needed to feel his strong, living palm against hers, because she could recall too clearly the feel of her mother’s delicate cold hand. It had been so light. Nothing but bones.

“After we were out of mourning, neither Father nor Jarrett ever mentioned her. Her room was redecorated. Her portrait was taken down. The only trace of her left was me.” Caroline’s cheeks were wet. She did not remember beginning to cry. “Between the two of them, Father and Jarrett decided I also needed to be kept secluded. When I turned eighteen, the Rayburns tried to convince Father to let me come to London for a season. They promised I would be strictly chaperoned . . . but he said . . . I was in the room when he said it. He wanted me to hear. He said, ‘The girl has neither the character nor the morals to withstand London. I have no wish to spend the rest of my days nursing another invalid. She stays here.’”

Philip said nothing. Nothing at all.

“I had no money. I was underage, so I had to stay. I tried not to hate him, them. I tried not to be wicked, or ill. But I was so lonely . . . even with Fiona and her family, there were so many days and months when there was nothing but the house and the gardens.

“Father died shortly after I turned twenty-four, and Jarrett inherited everything. I went to him; I asked him . . . I begged him to allow me some freedom. The Rayburns came and argued for me. But he just looked at them, exactly like father used to.

“And he said it again. ‘She cannot endure the nervous strain. She stays here.’”

“Then, one morning, the new footman brought me a letter. Father always had all the letters delivered to him at the breakfast table, and he would hand them out to us. I’m sure Jarrett meant the practice to continue, but this one had come late or been dropped, or perhaps the man simply didn’t know. Perhaps it was Mrs. Ferriday’s doing. At any rate, that was the first letter I got from Mr. Upton. He congratulated me on reaching my majority and asked if he could answer any questions regarding my trust.

“That was the first time I’d heard about the trust. My grandfather had set it up for my mother, and Mama had left it to me. She tried to tell me something of it on her deathbed, but I didn’t understand. It was in her will, but my father never mentioned it. He had no wish for me to know I had independent means.”

“I imagine Mrs. Ferriday proved her worth after that,” said Philip.

“Ten times over. She carried all my correspondence, to Mr. Upton and to Fiona. She kept all my secrets and managed to get to town, to meet with Mr. Upton and to rent the house and hire the servants, and yet keep my name out of it. Fiona and Harry would have helped, of course, but I couldn’t risk their parents finding out the true state of affairs. They would wish for a reconciliation between me and Jarrett. I was afraid that if he had found out my plans before I was settled, he might have been able to stop me.” She closed her eyes against the memory of Jarrett in her room at Keenesford Hall, trying alternately to bully her and wheedle her into staying.

“So there it is.” Caroline took a deep breath. Her voice sounded terribly light and fragile in her own ears. Despite all her efforts, another tear trickled down her check, and she wiped at it furiously. “I’m sorry. I know I’m weak . . .”

“No.” Philip pulled out his handkerchief. He was wiping at her eyes, slowly, tenderly, just as he had their first night in the garden. “It is not true. There is no weakness in you.”

“You don’t know how afraid I have been, how uncertain—”

But Philip cut her off. “Fear is not weakness. When you are looking on something frightening, fear is common sense. What matters is what you do despite the fear. By that measure, Lady Caroline, you are the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

Caroline curled her fingers around his where they held the handkerchief against her cheek. Gratitude welled up in her, and so much more. She leaned her face against his hand. Her need for him right then seemed fathomless.

“There is something else here, some other cause behind this matter between your parents,” Philip said. “Something they never told you or your brother. It is that secret that haunts you both, not any illness or imagined weakness.”