He wouldn’t abandon her until he’d seen her safe, despite the household full of servants awaiting her bidding. Silas was such a white knight. Caroline should have long ago realized that he’d choose a fragile damsel like Fenella, not a great, argumentative, gallumping creature like Caroline Beaumont.
She was too tired and disheartened to insist further. Once he’d escorted her inside, she could send him home. Silently, she left the coach and let him take her arm to help her up the steps. His touch was poignantly tender. He clearly hadn’t forgotten her strange turn at the Oldhams’. She wondered what he’d say if she confessed that the sight of him dancing with Fenella had literally made her sick.
“Shall I stay until you’re settled?” he asked softly in the doorway after she’d told the footman to wait inside. “I’m not convinced I shouldn’t fetch a doctor.”
Not long ago, he’d been angry. She didn’t sense any anger now. Instead he seemed…sad. That wasn’t an adjective she’d ever thought to apply to him. She recalled with stinging regret how his essentially joyous heart had helped her come to terms with her new life.
A joyous heart he’d obviously decided to give to Fenella.
She bit her lip, using the sting to control her tears. “No,” she forced out, then belatedly remembered her manners. “Thank you for bringing me home.”
He studied her, the light from inside her house casting fascinating shadows over his face. Then he caught her hand and bowed over it. “You mightn’t believe me, but I’ve only ever wished you well.”
“I believe it,” she said on a thread of sound. “You’re making this sound like goodbye.”
Keeping hold of her hand, he watched her from under those expressive brows. “You’ve learned to fly, Caro. It’s inevitable that while you take to the skies, you leave some of us behind on the ground.”
She guessed he meant that as a compliment, but it didn’t sound like it. It still sounded like farewell, and she could hardly endure the pain of it. “Silas—”
“Good night, Caro. I hope West knows what a damned lucky devil he is.”
For the first time, he took the courtly gesture a step further and pressed his lips to her gloved knuckles. Heat jolted her while unfamiliar yearning jammed her voice in her chest along with her cramping heart.
Abruptly he released her and ran down the steps to his carriage. As the vehicle rumbled across the cobblestones and out of view, she stood on her doorstep, staring after him until she shivered with the cold.
Chapter Four
Caroline lay in her beautiful mahogany bed—a bed she’d never shared with Freddie, he hadn’t brought her to London—and stared dry-eyed into the thick darkness. She felt restless and jumpy and achy.
She’d craved for the relief of tears, but by the time she sent her maid away, her misery had calcified into a hard, painful monolith inside her. So she remained awake, revisiting the night’s events and loathing herself. And thinking over her time in London and before that, the barren years of Freddie’s illness. Back further to the unhappy young wife—bored, unfulfilled, smothered by an isolation that crushed every drop of life out of her.
It wasn’t a very impressive history.
She wasn’t a very impressive person.
But until now, at least she’d prided herself on her sharp wits. When it turned out she was the greatest fool in London. In England. In the world.
With a groan, she turned over to bury her hot face in the cool linen of her pillow. Tonight had battered her with the devastating truth that she’d struggled so hard against acknowledging. Three simple words tortured her. Not the three that had haunted her since she’d looked across a crowded ballroom. Silas. And Fenella.
That was bad enough. But worse by far were the three now tormenting her.
I love Silas.
Of course she did. She’d loved him for months. Perhaps from the moment he’d smiled at her across his sister’s drawing room and said something teasing to Helena about her ability with calculus contrasting with her ineptitude with tea. Caroline had laughed—he’d made her laugh so often since. She loved his generous spirit. She loved his perceptive, acute mind. She loved his curiosity and his humor.
She loved his quirky, expressive face, and his hazel eyes bright with private amusement. She loved his tall, loose-limbed body with its broad shoulders and narrow hips and strong swordsman’s thighs. She loved his competent, powerful hands and his firm, smiling mouth.
She wanted Silas Nash in her bed. She wanted him to press her deep into the mattress as he thrust inside her.
Panting, she rolled onto her back and slid her hand down her belly to her mound. It didn’t help. Her touch couldn’t answer this desire. Only Silas could do that.
At last the tears broke, trickling down her temples to the pillow. Everything was such a blasted mess. Her love for Silas didn’t change the path she followed. After a lifetime of pandering to other people, she refused to surrender her newly acquired freedom.
Not even for love’s sake.
Just thinking about her life with Freddie slung crushing chains of fear around her chest. She gasped for air, staring up at the ceiling and telling herself she was free.
Surely there was no need to be so frightened. As long as she didn’t yield to this unacceptable love, she’d remain free. She’d sworn on Freddie’s early grave that she’d never marry again. Her marriage had been a ten year prison sentence, and while she was sorry Freddie was dead, her strongest and utterly shameful reaction at his passing had been overwhelming relief. Both that Freddie’s sufferings were over and that she was no longer obliged to serve him.