Chapter Two
He almost kissed her!
His heart raced, still! Seth’s steps landed hard as he forced himself to put distance between the two of them, to stop himself from turning around to finish what he started. Or wanted to start. Oh, how he wanted to start something.
He was a damned fool, that’s what he was!
Caught up with Cassandra, he forgot about the five men taking tea in the receiving room, waiting to determine the course of his future.
He forgot all about the whole blasted contest, and the one cardinal rule between male friendships.
A man did not kiss his best friend’s sister!
Especially when that sister was a well-born and well-behaved lady with the immediate goal of finding a husband that came with a title.
Wealthy. Not some low-born commoner without a penny to his name.
But she hadn’t been well-behaved at all right then. No. She was wild. Wind-blown and red-cheeked, eyes aflame, glaring at him from the treetops. Ha! What a rush!
Outside the window to his left, individual blades of grass joined to form a rolling blanket of green extending into the horizon. Swathes of beech trees lay in the far distance, showing as dark smudges against an otherwise clear backdrop of sunlight and sky.
If he had any sense at all, he would have released her as soon as she was safely on the ground, taken a step back and turned from her.
But with her in his arms, he wanted to hold her closer, to see how her mouth would fit against his.
Everything about her was soft. Surely her lips would be the same.
Unbidden, images flashed through his mind of Cassandra reaching for him so sweetly, so trusting.
It was an exquisite torture to feel her delicate curves press against his body, to smell the lavender scent of her soap up close.
The flush of her cheeks and the warmth of her breath on his neck burned through him, even now.
Her hushed voice, melodic and keening, pleading with him.
Please don’t let me fall, please don’t let me—
—white agony rained upon his back, lungs filled with acrid smoke, black and blinding. A primal voice screamed in his head to getoutgetoutgetout! Coughing and spluttering, he struggled and flailed his arms, searching, searching—
Where was—he couldn’t find—
A tug at his leg.
“—aptain… please, don’t let me—”
Jerking his head violently, Seth staggered backwards.
His shoulder connected to the wall with a thud.
His hands were shaking, every part of him was shaking.
Nausea surged through him as the world fractured and reassembled itself.
Chest constricted, he could hear his pounding heart as if it were outside of himself.
Choking on shuddering exhales, he urged himself to focus.
Focus!
His collar was too tight. He couldn’t breathe. He would suffocate. Seth tore his cravat from his neck and threw it at the ground. Breathing through gritted teeth, he forced himself away from the wall. Facing the window, he met his worthless reflection.
Weak. He ground his molars together. So bloody weak!
“Would you like me to fix that for you?”
Seth’s heel caught on the carpet as he spun to the voice.
There stood a golden-haired sliver of a seventeen-year-old girl in a pale yellow dress, his cravat extended in her upturned palm.
Her eyes were the same amber-brown color as her siblings, but her’s were rounder, owlish, blinking up at him with curiosity.
Caroline Cooper.
“Well?” She gestured to him with the cloth in her hand.
Seth slumped his shoulders. What luck. The hard part of his day hadn’t even started, and already what a mess it was turning into. Caroline led him to the windowsill and addressed him with the professionalism of a doctor directing their patient.
“Sit down. I’ll fix you right up.”
He complied and stared at the wall where he had all but disintegrated moments before.
“I hadn’t heard your approach,” he said, after he trusted his voice enough to speak. “You’re getting better at that.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “I knew you would approve. Cassandra has no patience for it, and I’m not sure if Matthew notices.”
“He notices,” he assured her. “How long were you standing there?”
She continued to loop the fabric together under his chin, her eyebrows knitted in concentration.
“Not long,” she quipped. After a beat, she asked, “What’s in the letter?”
His stomach turned. With as even a tone that he could muster, he asked, “Were you in the yard?”
“Cassandra’s window.” The corner of her lips tilted up in a mischievous grin. “Box seats.”
Seth was immensely fond of Caroline. Clever and conspiratorial, she made it her mission to know every detail of the personal lives of the household staff and her older siblings.
“Try to ignore her,” Cooper had said after their initial reintroduction.
“Don’t indulge her in gossip, and if you don’t want her to pilfer through your bedchamber, lock your door. ”
Seth could hardly imagine at the time the difficulty of evading her.
He seldom shared meals with the sisters, and their paths only occasionally crossed.
Seth and Cooper worked around the clock, often taking their meals in the barn that the two had refitted into their workshop.
Still, Seth felt the occasional sensation of being watched as he went about his work.
Other times he would return to his bedchamber and nothing would be missing, but his sketchbook would be minutely askew, his charcoal pencils organized and laid neatly on his desk.
One morning, Cooper was called away on business concerning his estate and Seth had wandered into the breakfast room as Caroline finished her meal, her toast slathered in strawberry preserves.
He wished her a good morning, helped himself to the sidebar, and took care to sit a respectable distance from her.
The moment he bit into his own toast, she burst forth with a salacious tale of an amorous stable hand, a married barmaid, and a drunken, snake-wielding Scotsman.
He hadn’t believed a word and told her as much.
When he visited the stables that morning, he made no outward reaction to the bruising on James’ left cheek.
If he hadn’t known what to look for, Seth might have completely missed the inflamed puncture wounds on the man’s arms when he handed Seth his saddle.
Over tea that evening, Seth informed Cooper that the young man in his employ would need medical attention, as adder bites festered.
Caroline couldn’t have been more delighted, and an unlikely friendship formed between them.
“If you watched the entire performance, you would know that I haven’t read it,” Seth challenged.
Caroline gave his cravat an unnecessarily sharp tug.
“I could only see the first half,” she mumbled. “Too many leaves.”
Seth breathed a sigh, lungs relaxing as his heart rate slowed to a normal tempo.
He trusted Cassandra to keep what had happened between them, if she had even been aware of it at all.
But if sharp-sighted scandal-seeking Caroline had seen his misstep, she would have known his intentions, and she would tell Cooper.
Seth would promptly and deservedly be out of a job and out on his own again in an even worse situation than he had started.
“Are you going to read it?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I detest secrets.” Caroline huffed.
“A fact I am keenly aware of. It’s my spoil, I’ll keep it.”
“I’ll only end up stealing it from you later. Are you aware of that, Mr. Reeves?”
“You can try,” Seth said. “I have hiding spots even you can’t find.”
“This is the thanks I get for helping you?”
“Saving your family from financial ruin isn’t thanks enough?” Seth gasped in mock indignation.
“You haven’t saved us yet,” Caroline said pointedly.
“Not yet.” He grinned. “Give it time.”
Ignoring him, Caroline fluffed his cravat and rolled backward on the balls of her feet to survey her handiwork. A pleased smile flickered over her freckled cheeks.
“Not bad for my first try!” She gave him a lopsided grin and then scrunched her nose. “But… take care to avoid quick movements all the same.”
“I will do my best. I’m ever in your debt, my lady.” Seth stood and bowed to her. His cravat loosened slightly.
“Good luck in there.” She gestured to the receiving room door. “From the sounds of it, you’ll need it.”
Soundlessly, she walked away from him, vanishing into the shadows of the house.
In front of the door, Seth took a solidifying breath. He rapped a knuckle against the door to signal his presence before he stepped inside, closing the door with a gentle click.
Seth felt as if he had walked into a doll’s house.
The room’s furniture had been pushed off to the side, squeezing the occupants of the room into one small corner.
Matthew Cooper, Viscount Lincolnshire and Nathaniel Hollingsworth, Earl Bolderwood, sat in the only two chairs in the room, while three men squished together on the undersized sofa.
On the table between them, a ceramic teapot sat as a centerpiece amongst a plethora of cakes, shortbread biscuits, and sandwiches.
Porcelain teacups painted in pink flowers balanced precariously on their saucers on the edges of the table.
Seth longed for a cup of tea, especially after his earlier exertions, but he wasn’t confident that he could make his way to the table in the middle of the room without toppling over someone.
All the same, it was likely cold by now.
A large table took up a third of the room, displaying a long rifle complete with a line of shining brass cartridges and a stack of diagrams and schematics.
All were untouched.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting.” Seth bowed to the occupants in the room before standing next to the table. Cooper gave him a questioning glance. Seth responded with an incremental nod, and relief flashed over the other man’s face before being replaced with his trademark grin.