Fortunate Wager (15 page)

‘Thank you.’ She stowed the pins safely. ‘And no, I don’t know either, but …’ She moistened her lips again. ‘That is … if you are minded to, which I begin to believe you are, I do think I should like you to kiss me when you are awake.’

He felt his scalp creep, destroying the moment of intimacy. Ice puddled in his gut. ‘When I am awake? Have I kissed you asleep then?’

They were out of the town now, but the moonlight was strong enough to see she was blushing. ‘It is all right. You thought I was someone else.’

‘It is
not
all right.’ God’s tears, he was not safe to be out! What else might he have done to her in his delirium? He was appalled!

In an instant, he felt her shrink into herself, away from his disgusted anger at his lack of control over his nightmares. ‘No … Caroline … I did not mean….’ But he had hurt her badly –
again
– so he did the only thing possible to make amends. Quite instinctively he wrapped one arm around her soft, slim body
and tipped her chin up with the other hand. It was what he had wanted to do for some time.

Alexander was kissing her. Finally he was kissing her for herself and it was just as wonderful as Caroline had hoped it might be. One of his hands was in her hair. She felt it rubbing against the back of her head. It felt so nice that she reached up to tangle her fingers in his dark locks too. She smiled against his lips. How strange that something so simple could add such a dimension of delight. His hair against her palm, his lips nibbling at hers, and then his tongue creating delicate sensations of pleasure as he explored her mouth. Emboldened, awash with wonder, she copied him and felt him hold her more tightly still.

The fifteen-mile journey had never seemed so short. After the kiss came to a natural end, Caroline nestled against Alexander watching the familiar flat landscape slide slowly past the windows under the silver moon. ‘That was lovely,’ she said.

He squeezed her shoulders. ‘It was.’

There was contentment in his voice, but fatigue too. She smiled, twisting to look up at him. ‘I shall not be offended if you wish to sleep.’

A yawn shook him. ‘You are a woman to be prized above rubies,’ he said, ‘for churlish as it seems and wondrous though that was, I do not think I can stay awake.’ He eased himself into the corner squabs and tucked her into his side. ‘I am content, Caroline,’ he murmured.

‘And I, Alexander,’ she whispered. It was true. They lived in different worlds and nothing could possibly come of this, but just for a moment Alexander had loved her and Caroline felt herself to be the happiest person in England.

I am content.
The words echoed bitterly around Alex’s scull as his valet readied him for bed. He
would
have been content – more than content. Caroline was open and trusting and intelligent, and loyal and fierce and uncompromising, and she stirred a quite astonishing desire in him. But he couldn’t forget that he
had not apparently confined himself just to raving about Lizzy’s flight and his boyhood escapades when he was ill. And if he had done so once, he could easily do so again.

I should like you to kiss me when you are awake.
Dear God, his blood ran cold just to think about what he might have done! That he had stopped at kissing her was not far short of a miracle, the way his loins stirred now whenever he looked at her – whenever he thought of her even. How could he live with himself if she trusted him and he hurt her? The bleak truth was that he was not fit to spend time with any woman until the demons that took possession of his sleeping brain were vanquished. It was a good thing indeed that he was leaving Penfold Lodge.

He dozed fitfully, forcing himself awake when he would have slept deeper. He heard the household return, heard Caroline’s voice asking Mrs Penfold how she had enjoyed herself, heard her accompanying her upstairs and listening to the older woman’s gentle monologue. He heard Harry Fortune’s calls of goodnight. He heard the soft footfalls of the servants making the house safe, shutting it down for the night.

He was so, so tired. But every time he shut his eyes, ghastly images of what he might do in his sleep blazed across his brain. Eventually he let out a wild groan and staggered out of bed, lighting a candle to banish the visions. He crossed to the window, pulling aside the curtain to lean against the glass.

He had been there five, maybe ten, minutes – trapped in the dark circle of his blackest thoughts – when the door behind him opened softly.

‘What is it, Alexander?’

He turned, unbalanced, his joints stiff with having been standing by the cold panes. She was across the room in an instant, helping him back to the bed where he sat with his head in his hands. ‘Go away,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You should not be here. Go away.’

She stooped and put another log on the banked fire. ‘I will when you tell me why you have been standing unmoving in
your window instead of recruiting your strength in sleep.’

‘Dammit, Caroline, you can manage many things, but you cannot manage this.’

She pulled her shawl more closely about her and sat beside him. ‘If you are regretting kissing me, you need not. I am not
expecting
anything, my lord. I know full well I would not fit in your world. So do not think you have compromised me or anything nonsensical like that.’

‘I am not regretting kissing you,’ said Alex through gritted teeth.

‘Good, for I enjoyed it tremendously.’

She had enjoyed it
. For a moment he wanted her so much he could barely trust himself to move. ‘Caroline, it is so improper for you to be here that I am lost for words. Will you please return to your room.’

‘Why do you not get back into bed? Then we shall be nurse and patient again and you may tell me what is bothering you.’

‘If I get back into bed, I cannot put my arm around you.’
Dear heaven, where had those words come from?

He felt a tremor run through her. ‘Would you like to?’

His longing for her peaked. He was so tired that all there was left in his head was the truth. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice breaking, ‘but I can’t because I am afraid of what I might do when I fall asleep.’

She chuckled and slipped off the bed. ‘Well if that is all, you shall get inside the covers and I will lie down on the outside and then you will do nothing at all because you will be held securely in place.’

Why had she not run away? Was she mad? Didn’t she know what men were capable of when their reason was clouded by lust?

‘I make the world’s most shameful declaration and you laugh at me. What sort of girl are you?’

‘A practical one. There, your bedding is straight again. That will be more comfortable.’

‘Caroline, please tell me everything I have raved about and everything I have done. Everything.’

‘I will once you are in bed. You are chilled to the bone and I would have you get better, not worse.’

Alex couldn’t quite believe he was doing as she directed but, oh, it did feel good to be lying down again with his head on the pillow, warmth tucked around him and a firm, soft voice taking charge. ‘You will be cold too,’ he said.

‘Then I will wrap myself in your dressing-gown. See, it is so big that it covers me from head to foot.’ Alex felt the edge of the bed dip as she settled herself next to him. ‘Now then – when you were ill, you relived chasing after your sister; you relived the time a bridge broke when you were crossing it; you talked about falling from a tree, tipping over your curricle….’

Those he had expected. ‘And what of when I kissed you?’

He felt her chuckle. ‘You thought I was Rosetta. It was very brief, Alexander, and it was only a kiss. You do not need to worry.’

Alex screwed his eyes tight closed in shame and clenched his fists under the covers. ‘Rosetta is in the past,’ he ground out.

He felt her lean towards him and kiss his forehead. ‘I know. You threatened to pepper poor Thomas with lead shot. Fortunately he didn’t hear you, or you might not have found your meat served with such alacrity the next day.’

Alex opened his eyes. ‘Caroline,
this
is why I am dangerous.’

She smiled at him in the candlelight. ‘Silly. I said you
threatened
– you didn’t actually do anything. In all your terrors and all your nightmares the only person you were ever endangering was yourself, tossing from side to side until you were like to fall out of bed. Once I had talked to you and soothed you, you went back to sleep.’

He relaxed, assimilating this as he worked one arm free of the sheets. She must be telling the truth. She would not be so unafraid if he had given her even the slightest indication that his raving self would overstep the mark. ‘But I
kissed
you,’ he whispered.

‘Only because I was there.’

They were silent for a moment while he traced her cheek. ‘You are here now.’

‘So I am,’ she said contentedly.

She was just as soft, just as unafraid, just as giving as she had been in the coach. Alex tumbled headlong into the honesty of Caroline Fortune’s kiss and knew, at last, that it was safe to sleep.

C
AROLINE SLID VERY
gently from under the weight of Alexander’s arm and wriggled out of his enveloping dressing-gown. She had slept as soundly as he, the candle had long guttered out, and soon the world would be waking.

Alexander would be all right now, she thought, as she sped on silent feet up to her own room, and though there was an ache in her chest that he would soon be out of her life, at least he knew he had nothing to fear.

As for her, she would carry the memory of his kisses within her forever.

At the stable, getting the horses ready for the day, she distracted herself by regaling the men with details of the alderman’s dinner. There had always been this exchange of information between them: she described the goings-on in her world, they filled her in on the gossip in theirs. Frequently the two accounts tallied.

‘… and Harry might at last be making progress with Louisa’s father.’ She paused with her foot in Flood’s cupped hands, ready to be thrown up to Solange’s back. ‘I own I am concerned about Mr d’Arblay. Not that Louisa is likely to have anything to do with him for all he looks the gentleman and behaves so prettily around her, but he seemed out of all proportion annoyed last night.’

Flood gave her the boost to the saddle and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Him again. Well now … He never
has a feather to fly with and lives mostly on his lordship’s credit, but we knew that. What else? Takes care always to be seen with the right people and never with the wrong ones. Leastwise, not when the gentry are looking.’

‘The wrong ones?’ said Caroline, arrested by his tone. ‘What sort of wrong ones?’

Flood met her eyes. ‘Maybe the ones Jem Jessop is seen with. The ones with generous hearts who help out coves what are getting behind with the rent. The ones not always fussed about the best horse necessarily winning.’

Solange moved, wanting to be off. Caroline patted her absently. ‘You think he is deeper in debt than normal?’

‘Could be.’

‘
Was
Jessop on the hiring roster at the livery office?’

‘Now there’s a thought,’ said Flood softly. ‘A job in a lord’s stable would be a nice bone to throw a hungry pack, wouldn’t it? I’ll make enquiries. You’d best go, Miss Caro. I’ll send one of the lads down to the road if milord turns up again.’

‘I don’t believe he will. He was worn to threads last night. I daresay he’ll sleep in half the morning.’ She took a quick breath. ‘And then he will be off to Cheveley.’

There was a tiny silence. ‘Probably for the best, lass.’

Caroline nudged Solange forward. ‘I know, Flood. I know.’

Alexander flatly refused to go in the carriage to Cheveley, directing his horse to be brought to Penfold Lodge for the
three-mile
journey instead. ‘Will you accompany me?’ he asked Caroline. ‘You and your brother? I shall miss our rides together.’

Caroline’s heart fluttered. ‘Gladly,’ she said. ‘But will your hosts not think it strange? We hardly move in the same social circles, you know.’

‘I shall put it down to your being an incorrigibly conscientious nurse.’

Did he mean because she had lain alongside him that he might sleep in peace? He hadn’t mentioned those kisses this morning. He hadn’t looked at her in any particular way. She told
herself she was being ridiculous. ‘My brother, I know, will be more than happy to ride escort. Your mama has found herself a devoted slave in him.’

Alexander grunted. ‘She has a retinue of devoted slaves all over England.’

‘It is easy to see why. I like her very much.’

‘Everybody always does. She scatters her affection as broadly and thickly as a farmer sows his grain, and reaps a like result.’

There was just the tiniest touch of irony in his voice. Caroline considered him thoughtfully. ‘Her grace has a happy manner,’ she said, ‘but I do not believe she loves indiscriminately. She would not be as insistent on, say, Mr d’Arblay recuperating at Cheveley after a blow to the head as she is being with you.’

His shoulders twitched impatiently. ‘There’s nothing in that. Mama is enjoying one of her maternal phases.’

‘And you do not like being fussed. Permit me to say, my lord, that you would like it less if she knew of your indisposition and merely sent you a few lines to say that she hoped you would be better soon.’

Alexander glared at her. ‘I should thank heaven that she had at last learnt to act with moderation.’

Caroline rose. ‘And you would then dash off a note to your father, asking if your mama was quite well. You may bamboozle yourself, if you must, but you do not fool me. I have some errands to run for Mrs Penfold. I will see you in the stable yard in an hour.’ By which time she would have controlled this absurd impulse to cry. She was going to miss sparring with him.

As he had prophesied, Alex’s mama was indeed in full-blown rapture on his arrival at the Duke of Rutland’s estate at Cheveley. He lifted his eyebrows in a
What did I tell you?
fashion at Caroline. But Mama was also immensely civil to both Caroline and Harry, introducing them to various of Rutland’s house guests and including them in the conversation. Watching, Alex realized it hadn’t occurred to him that they would do other than acquit themselves sensibly, and so it proved. It seemed no time
at all before the customary half-hour was up and they said they must go. The words hit Alex like a jabbing uppercut to his midriff.

Conscious of an audience, he took Caroline’s hand in a formal hold and told her he would always be grateful for the care he had received at Penfold Lodge.

‘Indeed, you were most welcome, my lord.’ Her words were as conventional as his own.

Alex lifted her fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to them. Was it his imagination or did her hand tremble slightly? He held her eyes a tiny moment longer, then let her go.

Mama was talking already about plans for this week and what day they would leave for Abervale. Alex let the flow trickle past him, watching until Caroline and her brother left the room. When the door shut, he felt as if a small piece of the day had gone with them. He nodded to the company and was shown to his allotted bedchamber where he found his valet expressing satisfaction at being back in a proper nobleman’s residence.

‘… rising at a civilized hour, no more eating in the kitchen as if you were a commoner, a proper upper servants’ room….’

Alex stared out of his window at spacious, wooded grounds without a horse or an honest working man in sight. He was doing this for Caroline, he repeated. He needed to give himself time. He was in no doubt about his own feelings, but he needed to be quite, quite sure that he was safe both in and out of company before he took the next step. A few days, that’s all it would take. And meanwhile he could deal with this unexpected sense of loss. He would make the right adjustment in his head and pick up his old life again. In the background his valet was still blathering. That settled the matter. Alex would start by going downstairs in search of a glass of Madeira and informed male conversation.

Caroline discussed training schedules with Harry ready for next week’s racing, retired at a decent hour, took Solange out for an
early gallop – trusting that the Lord would overlook it being Sunday in view of the seriousness of next week’s race – and then accompanied Mrs Penfold to church.

Unfortunately, her mother caught up with her in the churchyard. Even more unfortunately, she knew Lord Rothwell had removed to Cheveley. And even more unfortunately than that, she had discovered from some undisclosed source that her troublesome, plain, second daughter was somehow on visiting terms with the Duchess of Abervale.

‘So, Caroline, it has been quite a while, has it not? I daresay you will be pleased enough to come home again tomorrow. I shall give orders to Cook to make up a batch of her best macaroons – which I flatter myself are
quite
the most superior in all Newmarket – and then if it chances to happen that her grace and Lord Rothwell should call to thank you for your aid with the nursing, as I daresay they will, we shall not be in the least disgraced. Selina has a new cerulean gown which may catch his lordship’s eye and there is enough of the material left over to add a flounce to one of yours to give it a new touch.’

Caroline saw her freedom and next week’s vital plans disappear behind the iron bars of a proper-young-lady’s existence. ‘You are all care, Mama,’ she said with a regretful sigh, ‘but I am afraid poor Mrs Penfold is so worn out with the extra work that I have promised her faithfully to remain a week or two until she has fully recruited her energies.’

Mrs Fortune’s eyes sharpened as she directed them to where Martha Penfold was in conversation with a friend. ‘She does not look worn out.’

Caroline’s own eyes widened. ‘It is Sunday, Mama. Naturally she makes an effort when she is at church. But I know as soon as we are back at Penfold Lodge, all she will be fit for is to lie on the sofa and have me read passages from the Bible to her.’

‘Well, it is very inconvenient. By the time she is recovered, the Duchess and Lord Rothwell may have left the neighbourhood completely.’

Caroline thought she could probably vouch for it.

It was Monday afternoon of the Second Spring Meeting and in three days’ time Solange would have to race. Caroline pulled her cap low over her brow and sat in a slumped, round-shouldered fashion astride the mare as she guided her through the racing crowd. Harry rode Rufus next to her – the better to calm Solange – and Flood walked close on her other side.

The grey mare was palpably nervous, with little shivers of tension running under her skin. Caroline was aware that her own unfamiliar lack of assurance was communicating itself to the horse. She castigated herself silently; she
must
be more composed. The crowds were not as strange to her as they were to Solange. She had been to meetings countless times before dressed as a boy and she had even raced at them. The trouble was that the last of those times had been some three or four years ago, before what curves she possessed had developed, and when her understanding of society’s standards had been less informed than it was today. The freedom and sense of adventure of coming here with Bertrand and Harry was gone. All she could see now were people who might penetrate her disguise at any minute, exposing her to the world’s censure, possibly earning Harry a ban for using his sister as a jockey – and degrading her in Alexander’s eyes.
Alexander
. Even through her fear of discovery, Caroline’s heart lurched. Considering how hard she had wished him gone when he was first deposited on their doorstep, his absence from Penfold Lodge these past forty-eight hours had left the house feeling like a shell and herself only half alive. It was amazing how you could make yourself so busy you barely had time to sit down, yet still miss someone.

Solange fidgeted restively. Caroline hunched lower in the saddle. It wasn’t surprising that the mare was nervous. All around them jostled the nobility and the gentry in their well-cut riding coats and faultless breeches, their horses glossy and their bearing confident. There were also curricles and phaetons cutting across their path, vendors of food and drink shouting
their wares, noise everywhere. Somehow Caroline must find within herself the well-spring that enabled her to connect with Solange. In her mind’s eye, she depopulated the heath, losing the bookmakers and legs gathered around the betting post, wiping from the picture the important-faced race judges and hurrying grooms. She concentrated on the mare’s broad shoulders, on the feel of her honed muscles.

‘Better,’ grunted Flood.

Caroline continued to breathe deeply and evenly, keeping her eyes on Solange’s neck, knowing she was doing it right at last. She could feel the horse becoming calmer with every pace.

‘Fortune!’ said a surprisingly glad voice close by them. ‘What’s this? More of your training?’

And now Caroline really daren’t look up.

‘Good day, Rothwell,’ said Harry cheerfully. ‘Yes, as you can see, I am doing my level best to rob you.’

‘I will try not to hold it against you,’ said Alexander with a laugh. ‘It is a good idea. Don’t want her bolting from the crowd on Thursday before she’s even got to the starting line.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ replied Harry.

‘I see you’re riding Rufus. Now, why do I get the impression that your sister has been discussing breeding programmes with you?’

‘Ah well, she knows her stuff, does Caro. Good meeting today, isn’t it? I won’t keep you. Daresay I’ll run across you again later.’

Alexander lowered his voice, but Caroline was so attuned to him she could make out the words clearly. ‘Is your lad well? That’s the least at ease I’ve ever seen him.’

Harry laughed. ‘Oh, Brown is like Solange. Not overly keen on people. He’ll be all right on the day.’

‘I bow to your experience. Is your sister …’
Was that a catch in his voice?
‘Is your sister in good health?’

‘Never better. She’s bamboozled Mama into thinking Mrs P needs her. So she is fixed at Penfold Lodge for the present, happy as a grig. It makes the place more homely, you know?’

‘Indeed I was very comfortable there. I … I am glad she is in good spirits.’

They moved on. Caroline didn’t know whether she was happy to have been close to Alexander, glad he was well, pleased he had asked after her, or terrified in case he recognized her. A mix of all, she thought, and though every step they took increased the distance between them and made her safer, she felt an absurd impulse to cry.

‘Hey, Alex!’ called Giles d’Arblay’s voice from quite a long way behind.

Caroline gave a start at the same time as Solange’s muscles bunched.
Oh, you idiot
, she berated herself,
one lapse of concentration and see what happens!
She threw herself flat along the horse’s neck, crooning encouragement into her ear as Solange tried to plunge left into Rufus, then right into Flood’s rock-like reassurance. All Caroline’s own agitation was subsumed in the need to keep her mount tranquil.