Chapter 5
Richard strode across the Fernsby estate, his boots crunching upon gravel paths, his long coat trailing with his measured gait.
The morning after the scandalous dinner dawned crisp and bright, the air tinged with the scent of dew-damp grass.
The silence of the countryside suited him more than the false chatter of ballrooms; here, only the caw of crows and the rustle of leaves disturbed his thoughts.
Yet his thoughts were not still. The memory of the night before gnawed at him—Caroline’s laughter, the daring gleam in her eyes, the heat of her body in his arms when he had lifted her.
He clenched his hands, forcing the images away.
He had not come for amusement, nor to be undone by a slip of a girl with too-sharp wit.
He had come for marriage, heirs, duty. Nothing more.
A sudden sound broke the morning calm.
Frantic splashing.
Richard halted, every sense sharpening. The sound carried from the small lake beyond the line of willows.
He quickened his stride, then broke into a run, boots pounding across the grass.
As he reached the bank, his eyes took in the scene with one sweep: Caroline, thrashing in the water, her muslin gown soaked and dragging her under, her cries hoarse with panic.
Without thought, he tore off his coat and plunged in. The shock of the cold bit into his skin, but he did not falter. His strokes were strong, efficient, cutting through the water until he reached her. Her hair streamed in dark ribbons across her face, her arms flailing.
“Hold still!” he barked, his voice deep, commanding even here.
She gasped and clutched at him, nearly pulling them both under. With a grunt, he wrapped an arm around her waist, his other sweeping hard toward shore. She struggled, not against him, but against her own sinking weight—and against the sodden paper clutched fiercely to her breast.
“Let it go,” he growled, dragging her forward.
“No!” she cried, choking on water, clinging to the sketch as if it were life itself. “I won’t–”
He cursed, tightening his grip, and powered them both to the shallows. They collapsed onto the bank in a tangle of limbs, Caroline coughing violently, her gown plastered to her body, her knuckles white around the dripping sheet of paper.
Richard knelt over her, his chest heaving, droplets streaming down his scarred face. Fury and relief warred within him. “Are you mad?” he thundered. “You could have drowned!”
She shivered violently, lips blue, yet still she clutched the paper, curling around it protectively. “It—it mustn’t be lost.”
His eyes narrowed. With a swift movement, he seized her wrist, prying at the paper. “Show me.”
“No!” she cried, twisting, but her soaked fingers betrayed her, and the paper slipped enough for him to glimpse it.
And he froze.
The sketch, blurred with water, was brutal. His own likeness stared back at him—scarred, monstrous, towering over a dead bride in his arms. Around him, children wept, their faces twisted in terror. It was a vision of him not as man, but as nightmare.
His jaw clenched, a storm igniting in his chest. He crushed the paper in his fist, water dripping from its folds. His voice was low, dangerous. “Is that what you think of me?”
Caroline’s eyes widened. She scrambled up on her knees, reaching for the ruined sketch. “No! You don’t understand—I draw without thinking, it’s–”
“Without thinking?” he cut across, his scar livid in the morning light. “This is how you see me. A monster. A demon to terrify children and brides the same.”
Her lips trembled. “I sketch what comes into my mind—it means nothing—I swear it–”
His fury burned, hot and raw. The girl he had dragged from drowning moments ago now stood before him as his accuser, branding him with ink as cruelly as society branded him with whispers.
His chest rose and fell with harsh breaths, and for the first time since his return, anger cracked through his iron composure.
Caroline’s hands trembled as she tried to reclaim the sodden sketch, but Richard held it fast, his knuckles white.
The paper dripped between his fingers, the ink bleeding into grotesque streaks, yet the image remained vivid enough to scorch his pride.
His scar felt as though it burned anew, bared cruelly in the daylight.
“Do you mock me even in your private hours?” His voice was low, gravel harshened by fury. “Is this your entertainment? To draw me as a beast, cradling corpses? To brand me in ink as London brands me in whispers?”
Caroline shook her head violently, curls clinging wet to her cheeks. “No, no, you mistake it—I draw everything, anything. Thoughts, fears, fragments. It is not truth—it is imagination–”
“Imagination?” His laugh was a bitter bark. “Your imagination paints me carrion, terror to women and children alike. Do not insult me with excuses.”
She flinched at the venom in his tone, but pride flared in her eyes even as she shivered. “Better ink on paper than men who truly prove themselves monsters in flesh. My sketches wound no one.”
His eyes blazed. “They wound me.”
The words fell heavy, heavier than his fury.
For a moment silence spread between them, broken only by her ragged breathing and the drip of water from her gown.
Caroline’s throat tightened. She had not thought—truly, she had not—that her idle sketch might pierce him so.
Yet here he stood, a man forged by exile, undone by her careless pen.
She reached, her hand brushing his sleeve. “I am sorry. I never meant–”
“Do not say you never meant it.” His arm jerked away, his voice sharp. “Ink does not lie as neatly as your tongue.”
Tears pricked at her eyes, hot and stinging. She hated them, hated showing weakness before him. Anger rose to shield her, words spilling before she could weigh them. “At least no one wants to marry you for your body alone!”
The statement hung, naked and raw, between them. Her cheeks flamed, her lips trembling as the realization struck—what she had revealed, what she had implied.
Richard went very still. His eyes, gray as winter stone, flashed like steel struck by fire. Slowly, deliberately, he closed the ruined sketch in his fist and let it fall, sodden, into the grass. Then he stepped forward, closing the space between them with the inevitability of a storm.
Caroline stumbled back until her shoulders struck the rough bark of an oak. Her breath caught as his arm braced beside her head, his massive frame caging her in shadow. The wet fabric of her gown clung to her trembling form, her heart beating a wild rhythm beneath it.
His voice was a growl, low and dangerous, vibrating through her very bones. “Plenty of women would.”
Her lips parted, her pulse leaping. She hadn't meant to wound him, she only meant that no one would marry him just for an heir, but she had somehow managed to. Her cheeks flushed crimson, her chest rising and falling as his words sank into her.
The silence between them crackled like fire catching dry wood.
Richard’s gaze dropped to her lips—pink, trembling, parted.
Caroline’s pulse hammered so fiercely she thought he must hear it. Trapped between the oak’s rough bark and the hard wall of his chest, she felt every ounce of his fury—and something more, something hotter, more dangerous, coiled beneath it. Her lips parted, though no words came.
Richard’s scarred face loomed close, his eyes burning into hers, as though he could scour the truth from her soul. His voice was a rasp against her skin, low and perilous. “Do you doubt it, Caroline? Do you think no woman would want me?”
She tried for bravado, but her breath caught. “I... I do not think...” Her words faltered, trembling. “You are not like other men.”
“No,” he said, his mouth curving in something between a snarl and a smile. “I am not.”
The silence crackled, taut as a drawn bowstring. His gaze dropped once more to her lips—still trembling, still parted—and in the next heartbeat, restraint shattered.
He seized her mouth with his.
The kiss was not gentle. It was searing, claiming, a clash of fire and storm.
Caroline gasped, her hands pressed against his chest to push him away—but her fingers curled instead, fisting in the soaked fabric of his coat.
Her knees weakened, yet he held her fast, one hand gripping her waist, the other braced above her head, caging her against the tree.
She tried to resist, tried to cling to her outrage, but his mouth moved with relentless hunger, his breath hot against hers, his tongue demanding, coaxing.
And her resistance melted, dissolved into heat and need.
A sound escaped her, both protest and surrender, as her lips parted beneath his, yielding.
His hand roamed down the curve of her waist, firm, possessive, the strength of his grip betraying how close he skirted to losing all control.
The rough bark bit into her back, the damp air clung to their skin, yet all she felt was him—his mouth devouring hers, his body pressed hard and unyielding against hers, his scar grazing her cheek as though to brand her.
When at last he tore his lips from hers, both of them were breathless, their chests rising and falling in ragged unison. He did not step back. His forehead rested against hers, his voice a growl against her swollen lips.
“You’re choosing me.”
Her heart thundered, every nerve alight. She wanted to deny him, wanted to retort with some sharp barb, to reclaim control. But her lips trembled, and no words came. Only the hammering of her pulse betrayed her.
He pulled back just enough to see her face, her flushed cheeks, the dazed fire in her eyes. His own expression was fierce, almost feral, yet beneath it flickered something she could not name—a hunger not only for her body, but for something more.
Caroline pressed her palm against his chest, feeling the hard thrum of his heartbeat beneath her hand. She drew a shaky breath, finally forcing her lips into a smile, though it wavered. “You mistake one kiss for a vow, Your Grace.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed, the fire in them unrelenting. “No. I mistake nothing.”
Her breath hitched. She tore her gaze away, breaking the spell, and pushed at his chest—this time gently, almost reluctantly. He let her go, though his hand lingered at her waist a fraction longer than propriety allowed.
She slipped past him, her gown heavy and clinging, her steps unsteady as she fled toward the house.
Every nerve burned, every thought tangled in chaos.
She could still taste him, still feel the press of his body, the heat of his mouth.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, trembling. What have I done?
Richard remained beneath the oak, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists. The ruined sketch lay sodden in the grass at his feet, the monstrous caricature already blurred beyond recognition.
He stared after her retreating figure, his jaw tight, his scar stark in the light.
Her gown clinging to her form, the pale silk turned nearly translucent by the lake water.
Her hair had fallen loose in dark, curling waves down her back, glinting with threads of chestnut where the sun broke through the clouds.
She was tall for a lady, with long, graceful limbs and a carriage that spoke of both breeding and rebellion.
Her skin, flushed from the cold, was the delicate shade of English rose, though there was nothing delicate about the way she moved.
Her stride was sure, her chin high, her shoulders squared as if daring the world to strike her down.
Even soaked and shivering, she radiated life and defiance.
And those bright green eyes had looked at him not with fear, but with fury.
He had meant only to frighten her, to remind her who he was, to punish her insolence. But the kiss had undone him as much as her. He could still taste her defiance, her fire, the way she melted against him despite herself.
For the first time in years, Richard Belford felt the precarious edge of losing control. And worse—he was not certain he wanted to regain it.