Chapter 4 #2
Richard stood slowly. His gaze held hers, steady, unflinching. He leaned just close enough that only she could hear his reply.
“Is this another of your games?” he murmured, gravel low in his throat.
Her lips curved in a wicked smile. “Of course. Do you not like games?”
He did not answer, but his hand closed around hers with firm finality.
A shiver traveled through her arm at the contact, though she masked it with a smirk.
Together they moved into the cleared space at the end of the hall, where a small ensemble of musicians scrambled to tune and play, their bows trembling with nerves under the weight of so many eyes.
The first notes of a country-dance struck, bright and lively.
Caroline stepped forward, her gown swishing, her inked poems gleaming under candlelight.
She moved with elegance, but with a mischief that soon revealed itself: she deliberately misstepped on the turn, nudged his ribs with her elbow during the pass, even let the tip of her slippered foot graze his shin as though by accident.
Richard bore it all in silence, his expression unchanging.
But when she attempted a sharper nudge, he caught her waist with one arm—swift, unyielding—and lifted her clean off the floor.
Gasps echoed through the room. Caroline let out a startled cry, her feet dangling as he spun her once, twice, his strength effortless, his scar catching the candlelight.
The music faltered as the musicians stared, but Richard did not falter. He set her down gently, his hand still firm upon her waist, his voice low, rumbling like distant thunder.
“I know what you’re doing, my lady. You will not scare me away. I’ve been to war. Your kicks are like a kitten’s.”
Caroline’s cheeks flamed. Her heart raced wildly, too loud in her ears. She opened her mouth to retort, but no words came—only the betraying rush of heat flooding her skin. She dropped her gaze, a first.
Around them, the company was silent, suspended between scandal and awe. Richard released her, stepping back, his expression unreadable. But his eyes lingered on her, and in them was something new: a flicker of fire meeting fire.
Caroline, desperate to regain composure, pressed a hand to her temple. “I… am dizzy,” she announced, her voice too quick, too breathless. “Forgive me.”
Before anyone could stop her, she swept from the floor, her skirts whispering against the marble, her head high though her cheeks still burned crimson.
She did not stop until she reached the corridor beyond, where shadows cooled her flushed face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly; her fingers trembled against the wall. What was that? she thought, furious at her own reaction. Why do I blush like some silly girl?
She kept walking until she burst into her chambers, cheeks still flushed from the dance, her breath uneven.
The echo of music from the ballroom below seemed to taunt her with every beat.
She pressed a hand to her racing heart, furious at herself for feeling…
anything toward that man. That Devil. That scarred, unsettling Duke who somehow made her laugh and blush in the same breath.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in,” she called, too weary to pretend composure.
Her brother John entered, his usual grin tempered by concern. “You looked rather flushed downstairs, sister. Did you enjoy yourself?”
Caroline gave a short, incredulous laugh as she sank onto her dressing chair. “Enjoy myself? Oh, I had a lovely time being stared at like a prized mare and measured by the worth of my dowry.”
John chuckled, crossing the room to perch on the arm of her chair. “You wound too sharply, Caroline. But I noticed you smiling—at least once. Don’t deny it.”
“Even if I did have a good time with these dukes,” she said with a sigh, “the truth remains, brother—they only want me for the money and the children I’ll give them. I am the last girl of this family, after all. It’s so tiring… not to be seen.”
John studied her for a long moment, the teasing fading from his face.
Then, with the ease of an older brother who could not resist mischief for long, he smirked.
“I think the Devil sees you all right, sister. Perhaps you might save yourself the embarrassment of Father’s auction and simply marry him.
He’s one of the most powerful dukes in England; surely Father would approve. ”
Caroline blinked, startled. “The Devil?” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “He doesn’t look as bloodthirsty as he must have been on the battlefield… Hungry, perhaps—but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
John laughed outright, winking as he rose. “There’s the Caroline I know. Careful, or the Devil might take you at your word.”
He left her with a grin and a whistle, his footsteps fading down the hall.
When the door clicked shut behind her brother, the laughter she’d worn for his sake crumbled.
She sat at her dressing table, staring at her reflection in the wavering candlelight. “Tiring,” she whispered to the empty room. “He calls it tiring, as though it were nothing.”
Her hand drifted unconsciously to her abdomen. Children. Heirs. The words made her chest tighten.
Her mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace—soft eyes, delicate smile, the image of serenity. Caroline could barely remember her voice, but she knew the story everyone whispered: that the lady of Fernsby had smiled through her pain and died bringing Caroline into the world.
Sometimes, on nights like this, the guilt returned sharp as glass. “You killed her,” the gossip used to murmur. “You took her last breath.”
She pressed her palms to her eyes, forcing the thought away. “I will not die as she did,” she murmured. “And I will not be chained for the same reason.”
Caroline remained seated for a long while, staring into the fire. At last she rose, unable to rest, and fetched her sketchbook. The pencil moved of its own accord, driven by the restless energy in her chest. Lines formed—dark, swift, urgent. She did not think; she simply drew.
When she finally looked down, her hand stilled. A chill crept over her.
She stared at the page in horror, then snapped the book shut and shoved it beneath her pillow. “No,” she whispered to the empty room, heart pounding. “Not that. Not him.”
But the image—whatever it was—lingered behind her eyes long after she lay down.
Richard remained where she had left him.
He did not move to follow, though his eyes lingered on the doorway she had vanished through.
He felt the weight of every gaze upon him, yet none of it mattered.
His hand flexed at his side, remembering the feel of her waist beneath his grip, the heat of her body, the sound of her laughter.
For the first time in years, Richard Belford felt something other than endurance, other than the cold armor he had carried since exile. He felt intrigue.
The musicians resumed hesitantly, the company whispering, buzzing with scandal. Yet Richard stood silent, his scar catching the firelight, his eyes dark with thought.
The Devil of the Ton had faced battles and buried comrades. But tonight, he realized, he had met something far more perilous: a woman who could unsettle him with a laugh, a shove, a blush.
And he was not sure whether he meant to resist it.