Chapter 13 #2
“And indeed you were right, Mr Edwards. It is the most tremendous news.” She paused for a moment, looking him over rather thoughtfully.
At last, she went on. “I wonder, Mr Edwards, if I might ask you to do me a service? You gentlemen are so much quicker than we ladies. Might you spare me a little walking, by finding out where my brother and sister-in-law intend to go next?”
The request was so self-evidently an excuse for Edwards to leave them that Thom turned to his friend, silently willing him to understand.
If Caroline wished to speak to him privately, it was of the utmost importance that she might do so.
Either she wished for privacy to bid him goodbye forever, which he must consider as likely, or — or —
It would have taken a man much less clever than Edwards to mistake her meaning. His friend was already bowing and making several meaningless assents, before quickly walking away — not particularly, Thom noticed, in the direction of Mr Bingley and his wife.
“We will not have long,” Caroline said quietly, as soon as Edwards had passed beyond earshot.
“No,” Thom agreed. “I shall listen to whatever you wish to tell me. Even if it is something I might find difficult to hear. I confess that when Edwards remarked upon an item of tremendous gossip concerning yourself, I had rather expected I was to hear of your engagement to the viscount.”
Caroline looked at him with a directness that made his heart pound. “That, you will never hear,” she said.
For a moment, Thom did not know how to understand her. What she seemed to mean, what he hoped she might mean, scarcely seemed possible. “Oh?” he said at last.
“If the viscount were to give me the honour of a proposal,” Caroline began delicately, “I would refuse him. There is only one man my heart could accept. The viscount has nothing to give me — nothing I really need.”
“Do you mean…?”
“Yes.”
“You give me reason to hope,” Thom said hoarsely. “Only I do not know that I can hope. I cannot give you anything. My wife shall have no title, no money — no place in society.”
“I used to think I wanted a place in society,” Caroline murmured. “I think so no longer. I only want a place in your eyes, and in your heart.”
“You already have it,” Thom told her. “Even had we never met again after that first evening, I do not think I could have ever forgotten you. Each conversation we have had and each time I have seen you has only reinforced my fascination with you. I should like to spend every day of my life with you. I should like to see you at the beginning of each morning and as the last thing I set my eyes upon at night. Caroline, will you marry me?”
“I will,” Caroline murmured. “I, too, do not wish to spend another day of my life without you.”
Though they stood in the centre of the Frost Fair, only a stone’s throw from a dozen stalls, though people stood all about them and Edwards was likely returning even then, Thom caught her up in his arms and kissed her.
Practical woman though she was, Caroline made no move to protest or remind him of the social consequences of such a display, but only threw her arms around him with an ardour that was as delightful as it was surprising.
Too soon, though too late for propriety, Thom drew away from her.
“I am sorry to have been so overcome,” he said a little ruefully. “Though in all honesty, I cannot really claim to regret it.”
Caroline laughed. “No more do I.”
Thom looked about, half wondering if Bingley had seen the indecent display. It would hardly be a propitious start to asking him for his sister’s hand in marriage.
Though, perhaps, the conversation would be rendered easier, as the marriage could not now be avoided.
To his surprise, they seemed to have attracted no notice at all. Not only were the Bingleys looking to the other side of the ice, but so was Edwards, though he stood well away from them. Indeed, all the crowd seemed to be looking towards Blackfriars Bridge.
“My goodness,” Caroline murmured. “I can hardly believe my eyes. Is that…”
“An elephant,” Thom completed. They stood together, hand in hand, and watched as the creature was led on.
Thom was glad they stood well away. The noble beast seemed almost impossibly large.
Thick as the ice must be to support so many stalls and such a crowd, surely it could not bear the of a creature with legs as wide as tree trunks.
Yet, though the ice groaned, it did not break. The elephant and its handler reached the other side entirely unscathed, and the crowd broke out in a cheer with no small portion of relief.
“You will have to paint this,” Caroline told him, “or no one will believe it happened.”
Thom laughed. “I have just seen it, and I do not think I believe it!”
“I say, North, did you see that?” Edwards exclaimed, running up to them. He nearly slipped on the slick ice before catching himself. “What a stunt! I have never seen anything like it.”
“Nor I,” Caroline agreed. Edwards gave her a bow of acknowledgement and agreement, only to stop short. Observant as ever, surely he had noticed their hands, still intertwined.
Edwards raised one brow. “Am I to offer the two of you congratulations?” he asked with a good will and heavy disbelief.
“Indeed, you are,” Thom told him, and laughed to hear the smug satisfaction in his own voice.
Edwards gave a long whistle of astonishment before catching himself. “Please excuse me, Miss Bingley, I am being dreadfully rude. I am only rather surprised, though very happy for my friend. It is only that I would have thought it, shall we say, quite impossible.”
“As impossible as an elephant walking over the river Thames?” Caroline asked delicately, and all found themselves helplessly laughing.
Thom looked at her, a tender smile curving his lips. He half-thought his heart might burst with how much he loved her. His muse, his love and his wife-to-be, his wonderful, impossible Caroline.
THE END