To Charm a Naughty Countess Page 19

  “If that’s all he wants, he’s a fool,” said Emily in the same tone of certainty that she might use to pronounce a ribbon attractive or a joint of mutton undercooked.

  “He’s not the only one,” Caroline said. “If he wants too little, I want too much.” She tried to smile. “You’d think that would make us the perfect pair, wouldn’t you?”

  “My dear Caro,” said Emily, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “Nor I,” murmured Caroline. No, not even about herself.

  Eighteen

  When she left Emily behind in the Chinese room, Caroline went hunting for Michael. As she had known she would.

  She found him outside, as she’d also known she would.

  He was barely visible from the front steps of Callows, his dark hair and clothing blending into the sere ground around his stately home. Only the vulnerable flash of pale skin between his hair and his jacket’s collar showed that here stood a man, not a tree. A man with skin that must be chilled, for he wore no greatcoat or cravat.

  The cold began to seep through the thin soles of Caroline’s half-boots, so she started moving. She trod across the dry ground toward his heedless form, her resolve to give him a sharp correction already melting away. If, as Emily said, the guests had all enjoyed themselves last night, then surely Michael had earned himself a respite. He had never hosted a house party before; this must all be new to him and not precisely to his liking.

  Yet he had done it anyway, so badly did he want to find himself a bride. And thus far Miss Cartwright seemed quite, quite amenable.

  Caroline walked faster, something cold and wild whipping up within her that had nothing to do with the wind plucking at her hair and pinching her cheeks.

  She drew up a few yards away from Michael, wondering if he would turn to her. But he seemed not to have heard her approach; perhaps the sound of her footsteps had been covered by the loud whisper of the breeze.

  Though dressed as simply as any laborer, he surveyed his land with an undeniable air of dominion. The chilly air had snapped his high cheekbones with color, and his breath was frost as he studied his land with the deliberate attention he had once given her body.

  Caroline tried to swallow that thought, but that didn’t help dismiss it. It only roiled more deeply inside her, remembering how she had once seen his quiet dignity transformed into passion. How much of herself she had given to him without his being aware of the gift.

  How he had shaken apart then, and how he’d left her.

  That was done. Left behind in London. Perhaps here, they could find a new equilibrium.

  “Are you looking for my coquelicot carnation?” she said brightly.

  At once, she knew she had said the wrong thing. This stark, stretching land was too large for petty emotion, too vast for her own small jealousies. She was glad when Michael did not reply and hoped he hadn’t heard her.

  She settled her boots onto the earth, liking the sound of dry grass crunching under her heels. She seldom walked over grass anymore. In London, there was little to be found, and such as survived the fog was manicured into a living carpet. But she remembered grass such as this from her girlhood in a country parsonage.

  He turned to her at last. Blinked. “Caro? What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking for you.” He called me Caro again.

  He only nodded. “It must be time I came back inside.”

  Before he could turn back to the house, Caroline caught his forearm. “Wait. Stay.”

  Stern brows knit over grass-green eyes. “Did you not come to fetch me back inside? I know I am neglecting my guests.”

  “I did come for that reason, yes. But your guests can look after themselves for a few more minutes.” Now that she stood at his side, she wanted to join him in his peace. Here was no hoofbeat, no shout, no clamor. Only the wind through the dried heather, the faint gritty rattle of dust being reshaped, and reshaping, in the persistent push of a breeze.

  And if she listened very closely, the quiet rhythm of Michael’s breath.

  As a younger woman, she had found country life too small to contain her. Only in London, bright and chaotic, had she drowned out the tumbling unrest of her soul. For the nine quiet years of her marriage to an earl old enough to be her grandfather, she had felt herself in rural exile, and she had waited. Wished. Hoped. She had never quite known for what; she had only known that she had never found it. Not even in London.

  Except for a few fleeting minutes in the arms of a virgin duke.

  And again, now, under the pewter bowl of the Lancashire sky. She had not known her hunger for more could be soothed. In London, all she could ever do was distract it, exchange one appetite for another. But here?

  “This is different,” she said, gesturing at the sweeping lands to the west.

  “Yes.”

  “From—”

  “Yes.” He smiled. It wasn’t an interruption, but an agreement. This stretching space wasn’t different from any one particular thing. It was different from… everywhere.

  She took a deep breath and understood what fresh air truly was. It seemed to scour her lungs clean of the smoke and smells of London, leaving a space within her that was somehow larger. “What do you do here as the Duke of Wyverne?”

  “Whatever is needed.”

  “Without any restriction? You would… well, herd sheep?”

  “If a shepherd is ill, yes. There is nothing shameful in doing what needs to be done. If the sheep need to be penned for the night and my hands would be of use, why should I keep them wasted and soft at a desk?”

  Caroline could think of no reply except Because that’s not what other men would do. He already knew that, surely. And that didn’t matter to him. “Why, indeed?”

  He cut a glance at her, as though checking whether she was teasing him.

  “I’m not teasing you,” she said.

  He smiled. That smile—it changed him so. He looked younger, more playful. Utterly beautiful.

  She made her voice brisk. “You see your body as a tool, then, making yourself as useful as possible, whether as a duke or a laborer.”

  “While I’m here. In London it was—”

  “Yes.” Now it was her turn to cut him off. She couldn’t let him complete the sentence, not with her control so tenuous. The mere mention of London had freed treacherous memories of his big, roughened hands sliding over her bare skin. Her belly clenched, hot, at the thought.

  She hadn’t left all her appetites behind her, after all. But she would not indulge them again. She couldn’t cheapen herself by taking the bits of him that he would allow her. If she couldn’t have all of him, she’d best have none of him.

  The wind blew harder, plucking coils of her hair from its pins. It rolled the locks into snakes and teased them high. Caroline brushed it back from her face, letting the breeze nip at her cheeks.

  “You look as though you belong here,” Michael said.

  She laughed. “Windblown and covered in dust, you mean?”

  “Not that.”

  Surprised, she met his gaze. That painfully sweet smile played on his lips again. She tried to think of something brilliant and witty to say, but his own words were so simple and true that she could only return them in kind. “You look as though you belong here too. I thought that as soon as I stepped outside and caught sight of you.”

  “I’ve never belonged anywhere else.” He looked away to the rocky northern horizon.

  I’ve never belonged anywhere. The words danced on the tip of Caroline’s tongue, but she swallowed them down. They left a lump in her throat, made her eyes water. Or maybe that was just the wind.

  Standing at his side, soaking in the space, she could almost forget that there was a giant stone edifice behind her, that she had filled it full of London dandies and ladies and schemes—anything to make herself indispensa
ble, if only in some small way, if only for an instant. She could almost pretend she did belong here.

  “It calms me, to stand here.” Michael spoke low as he looked over the Fylde again. “I remember what I’ve done it all for.”

  “Your plans to find a wife?”

  His mouth twisted. “Such as they are. It seems they were too grand even for a duke. Yet I meant well. There was so much to…” He trailed off, shook his head. “I always trusted the land, but it didn’t return the favor this year.”

  “Deuced cold, isn’t it?” Caroline wrapped her arms tightly around her body, wishing she had tugged on gloves and a pelisse before venturing outside.

  He smiled at her small joke. But he still looked bleak, so she tried to offer friendly comfort. “The land needs you, Michael. This long winter has been terrible, but it won’t last forever. With all your ideas—the canals you’ve had built—why, once spring comes, your land will obey your every whim.”

  “I hope. I suppose every relationship has its low times.” He lifted his hand to shade his eyes against the sunlight, pale through thick gray clouds.

  “Yes. They all do. But you are fortunate to have such a purpose, Michael. I could only wish to be needed as much as Wyverne needs you.” Too raw an admission, but she couldn’t call it back now. She tried to paper it over with smooth, flowery words. “I admire you for that, you know. For trying to make the most of your gifts.”

  “Do you? Then I wonder why you’ll have no part of them.”

  His voice had gone cold as the wind; Caroline’s lips felt numb as she answered. “What do you mean?”

  Dropping his hand to his side, he fixed her with unsparing green eyes. “You want to be needed? Then be a duchess, Caroline. You’ll have hundreds of people needing you every second of every day. Be a duchess, and take the responsibility for thousands of acres that won’t grow. Find a way to squeeze guineas from ice and turn moorland into farms. Be a duchess, and you’ll never again wonder what to do with your time; you’ll only wish you had more.”

  Staring north to the low gritstone mountains, he added more quietly, “Be a duchess, Caroline, and you’ll have the satisfaction of holding your fate in your own hands. You’ll know that you can bring about your own success or your own downfall. For the sake of those who rely on you and the history that’s entrusted to you, you’ll do anything within your power to help them lead good lives. You’ll try anything to atone for your failures.”

  He turned, piercing her with a needle-sharp gaze. “Be a duchess, and you’ll never be free of the burden. And it will make you stronger than you ever imagined you could be.”

  He watched her, solemn as she had ever seen him, and Caroline could only stare and marvel. So this was what Wyverne meant to him; this was how Wyverne had shaped him.

  She wanted to comfort him, to smooth the crease between his brows, kiss the anxious crinkles at the corners of his eyes. She wanted to rub her thumb down the faint lines that slashed from nose to the corners of his mouth, working them into the curve of a smile.

  But it was not her place to reshape Michael. It was up to Wyverne to do that.

  “Do you want me to be a duchess?” It was as close as she would come to begging. She had already humbled herself enough by following him across England.

  His mouth tightened. “You are accustomed to doing what you like, are you not? You once told me so.”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously. “But—”

  “So you’d better decide. Do you want to do what you like, or do you want to be needed? I don’t know of a life that offers both.”

  She took that in. Would a life in pursuit of her own desires make her fully ornamental? Completely expendable?

  Had that already happened to her?

  No, she rebelled at the idea. Surely want and need were not always exclusive. Surely life could include both, even if neither of them had figured out how.

  She lifted her chin. “Have you made your own decision, then?”

  “About what?”

  “About how you’ll spend your life.”

  “There’s nothing to decide. As I was born the heir to a dukedom, I’ve always known how I would spend my life.”

  “No, that’s how you spend your time.”

  He narrowed his eyes. On another man, this might have seemed a glare, but Caroline could tell it for an expression of careful scrutiny. “I do not perceive the difference.”

  “My point exactly. You are a duke, first and foremost—but you’ve also become a duke solely.”

  All right, perhaps those narrowed eyes were a glare after all.

  She continued, “You said that part of caring for a dukedom is being responsible for others, for their livelihood.”

  Michael dipped his head, a sliver of a nod.

  “So your tenants cannot do without you. You are a very important fellow here in Lancashire.”

  “Are you trying to make me out to be some sort of arrogant overlord?”

  “Quite the opposite.” She took a breath, letting the cold air slice her words free. “If you’re so important that your life is the center of others’ livelihood, how do you preserve your strength? Have you considered what you need? Do you ever take a moment for rest or renewal or pleasure?”

  Her voice tottered on this final word. He only looked at her, his face still stern. His eyes seemed to have forgotten how to blink.

  “Michael, I ask because increasing your own happiness might also make you better able to cope with the demands of your title. Does it please you to have people pressing at you all the time?”

  “We’re meant to be talking of your preferences, not mine. You’re the one who said you wanted to do as you liked. I never made such a claim for myself.”

  “But you must consider it. How could you ask your future duchess to shackle herself to a life you don’t enjoy yourself? Or do you enjoy it? Because there is little enough of pleasure in the picture you’ve painted for me.”

  He considered. “Life isn’t only about pleasure or happiness, Caro. We have discussed this before.”

  “And come to no conclusion, if I recall correctly.”

  But they had, hadn’t they? That conversation about pleasure seemed so long ago, but it was only a matter of weeks. Weeks only since the first tentative touches of their bodies, the first movement closer than friendship. The first time she had sought to pull him out of the rigid confines he’d constructed, to bring him closer to her.

  It had worked, but only for a short while. Then he had closed himself away again.

  He must have remembered this too, because his deep eyes studied her for a long moment before looking westward over the Fylde again. “There is pleasure of a sort in fulfilling a duty. I could not forgive myself if I shirked it.”

  “No, I know you could not. But now you seek help with these duties, a duchess to stand at your side.”

  He bristled. “I would not ask anyone to fix my errors, Caroline. I have always sought to resurrect the fortunes of Wyverne myself. I would not even seek a marriage for money if there was any means of extending my own credit further.”

  A sudden lift of the wintry breeze ruffled his dark hair, blew open the worn cotton of his shirt collar. He must be cold, but he seemed not to notice. Tall and strong and spare, he studied the sweep and flow of the quiet land. Its fallow moors, its rocky crags were his to protect.

  But for all the uncaring land took from him, it could give him nothing back. Why could he not see this?

  Caroline wanted to slide her arms in a living sash around his lean waist. To rest her face in the hollow between his shoulder blades until the tension that always tugged at them melted away. To press her warmth against his and whisper, You are not alone.

  Stubborn man, though. Alone he had made himself, year upon year. His proposals had been nothing but matters of business; his heart remained shuttere
d away.

  Even now, as his burdens grew, he trusted no one to help him carry them. Only when they grew unbearably heavy did he seek a marriage for money.

  “Would you seek a marriage for any other reason?” she asked.

  But the breeze flung her words away, and they never reached his ears. After another minute, she turned and walked back to the house.

  Nineteen

  When Caroline reentered the massive front hall of Callows, she momentarily forgot the manners instilled by a lifetime among the polite world.

  This was, perhaps, understandable. Because the first person she saw upon reentering the great house, still stamping her chilly feet and rubbing together her chillier fingers, was her grand-nephew by marriage. Her late husband’s heir. Her most persistent, least beloved suitor.

  Lord Stratton.

  Her head reared back. “What are you doing here?”

  Considering she hadn’t invited him, she could have said much worse to him than that. Stratton’s defiant expression told her that no one else had invited him either.

  Considering that, she definitely could have said much worse.

  “Surely you didn’t think you could escape me.” He tried on a silky smile. “I’m so delighted to have caught up with you, Caro.”

  She shut her eyes for an instant, swallowed a shiver of distaste. “This is very odd behavior, Stratton, showing up without any type of summons.”

  “We family members need not stand on ceremony with one another.” He stepped forward, taking her hand. “What’s yours is mine.”

  Family members. Ha. Like a bloodhound, he had the scent of her hundred thousand pounds in his nostrils, and he couldn’t stay away from it. Money was life itself to Stratton.

  Annoyed, she yanked her hands from his grasp. “That is not at all true. What’s mine is mine, and I want nothing to do with what’s yours.” Since he was exactly her height, she stared him straight in the eye. “Might I add, Stratton, that unless you are secretly related to His Grace, the Duke of Wyverne, then you are not in a situation or a household in which family relationships apply. I am nothing more than His Grace’s appointed messenger in the matter of arranging his house party.”