Chapter 21
CAROLINE
Caroline looked on as Frederick’s eyes widened—almost as though he was seeing a ghost.
He shook his head. “This is a mistake.” He held the paper toward Oswald. There was a resoluteness there at odds with his usual calm charm. Behind it, Caroline saw the glimmer of doubt.
“It is not,” Oswald replied, accepting the paper. “The valuation was done less than a fortnight ago.”
“By whom?”
“By Mr. Kelham, your brother’s own land agent.”
A heavy silence followed this pronouncement, and Caroline felt the urge to take Frederick’s hand, for there was a stricken look in his eyes that made her heart ache.
It was not the look of a man who had been found out, but of one coming to grips with something he daren’t believe—with the fact that, not only was he ineligible to stand for election in Trelowen, he was ineligible to do so anywhere.
It was the look of a man whose dreams had just been handed to him on a platter in ashes.
Oswald refolded the paper with a cool calm that made Caroline want to scream.
It was an unreasonable frustration, for it was not Oswald’s fault Frederick was unqualified to stand for election, and it stood to reason he would wish to find information that would eliminate his opponent. Even ten days ago, Caroline herself would have welcomed this bit of news.
But now?
She watched Frederick with a heart sick with sympathy—and regret.
He had told her he intended to give up the election, but perhaps she had not truly believed it, for now that his victory was an impossibility, she began to realize how much she believed in him.
Across her mind flashed a dozen moments—his carrying buckets of water across his shoulders, wrassling Jago, laughing with the villagers, tweaking Jory’s ear, pursing his brow as he listened to her speak of reform, standing with cool calm as guests at Trevenna mocked him.
Trelowen would have been fortunate to call him their MP.
“May I have the document again?” Frederick asked.
Oswald looked at him for a moment, then took it from his coat and ceded it to him, a watchful light in his eye. “A copy was sent to Hannaford, the returning officer for the by-election.”
Frederick shot him a glance with one brow raised, seeming not to like the implication that Oswald thought he might destroy the evidence of his ineligibility.
“I have no doubt of it.” His gaze flicked to Caroline and lingered there for a moment, his expression impossible to read, before it returned to Oswald.
“Thank you for this. I must be on my way.”
Oswald watched him stride toward the door, then turned to Caroline.
But she was not ready to face him. She was not mistress of her thoughts or feelings.
Nothing she had to say to him was fit for this venue—or their audience.
“I must convey Eliza home,” she said, trying to keep her tone even.
Eliza had no pressing need to leave—indeed, they had not even arrived at church together—but she was too good a friend to say as much.
Oswald merely nodded. “May I call upon you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Caroline responded, though she did not look forward to it.
The first minutes in the chaise were quiet and Caroline’s thoughts too in need of untangling to make conversation.
“It is a shame,” Eliza said quietly.
Caroline’s throat thickened, but she forced the emotion down with a determined swallow. “At least now the election may proceed without a great to-do.” She was trying to convince herself as much as anyone.
“I suppose so,” Eliza said doubtfully. “You shall vote for Mr. Oswald, then?”
Caroline glanced at her friend. “There is no other candidate to vote for.”
“No…” The way she said it made it sound as though she had asked her question well-aware of that fact.
“Do you suggest I refrain from voting altogether?” Caroline asked bemusedly.
“No,” Eliza rushed to say. “That is…” She paused. “You must do as you see fit, my lady.”
“And you must explain your meaning.”
Eliza’s lips pressed together, as though she was trying to keep her comments safely to herself. “I would not wish to speak ill of Mr. Oswald. He is your friend…”
“As are you. A good enough one, I hope, to speak frankly to me.”
Eliza hesitated. “I have no wish to gossip, my lady, but indeed, I do not believe that any of what I have heard is unfounded.”
Caroline merely looked at her, waiting for her to go on.
“Oswald paid Mrs. Tonkin a visit before he left for Truro.”
As he was their landlord, this was hardly something to bat an eye at, so Caroline waited.
“It was…cordial, I believe, and yet…”
“And yet?”
“Cautionary? Some think he has taken exception to the good terms between Mr. Yorke and Mrs. Tonkin and, I gather, believes this is doing harm to the view the villagers take of him. You know the influence Mrs. Tonkin has…”
Caroline’s pulse quickened as she pulled on the reins to slow the horses.
They had reached the place where the lane grew too narrow for her to turn the chaise around.
“What exactly did Oswald say?” She thought about the strange interaction she had seen at church.
Mrs. Tonkin had not wanted Frederick to sit with them.
“I believe he reminded Mrs. Tonkin that her lease requires renewing soon and that he would appreciate more vocal support from her.”
Caroline’s stomach swam.
“Perhaps I should not have said anything,” Eliza said.
“No. You did right. I had remarked Mrs. Tonkin’s change in behavior toward Mr. Yorke, and now it makes more sense.”
Oswald had threatened Mrs. Tonkin—however subtly—over her friendship with Frederick.
Caroline’s jaw clenched.
She had been dreading Oswald’s call tomorrow, but not anymore. She had a great many questions for him—and she prayed he would have satisfactory answers.
But for now, it was Frederick she wanted to see.
Caroline rode the length of the beach twice, taking her time on the second pass in case Frederick had been delayed somehow. But he was nowhere to be seen, the beach empty without him, a shell of what it had been when they had been there together last.
Had he forgotten their assignation in the emotion of Oswald’s revelation? Or was he avoiding her?
Perhaps he blamed her, in part, for she had been the one to make Oswald feel the election was his from the start.
A thought struck her, making her feel as hollow as the wind on the beach. What if he had left? Left Trelowen?
She could not believe he would do something so rash, so…heartless. A panic took root inside her, all the same.
She looked toward the outcrop of rock, where a wave broke mercilessly, for the tide was rising. Surely, he would not have attempted to pass it?
She guided her horse toward it when she spotted something. At first, it looked like nothing more than a rock. A moment’s surveyal more made it clear that a pair of riding boots sat beside it—and a man’s coat and waistcoat.
Her eyes scoured the scene, moving to the waves, where she finally saw a head break up through the water behind a wave. Frederick was turned away from her as he wiped the water from his eyes and pushed his hair back.
“Frederick!” The waves and wind drowned her voice.
She slipped down from her horse and dropped the reins, hurrying toward him, her progress slowed by the sand as it grew less firm and more waterlogged.
A wave crashed and washed over her boots, pulling the skirts of her riding dress backward and then forward as it retreated.
Determined, she continued into increasingly boggy sand as more water washed over her feet. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Frederick!”
He went still, then turned.
Their gazes met, his full of surprise as a wave crashed into him from behind, pushing him forward with merciless power.
He disappeared.
Caroline picked up her skirts and hurried further into the waves, the water reaching her knees and pulling down on her clothing.
Frederick’s head came up again, only to disappear yet again.
Her eyes searched, and she started as he emerged from the water mere feet away from her.
He pushed back his sopping hair, revealing a dark, knit brow. His shirt was plastered to his body, one brace haphazardly hanging. He slipped it over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he called as a wave crashed, making Caroline stumble, for her focus was on him.
He strode through the waves and grasped her arm.
“I might ask the same of you,” she said over the sound of the water.
“I am clearing my head.” His brow looked anything but clear, however. He kept hold of her arm, guiding her out of the waves.
“I have been looking for you this past half hour,” she said. “We had an assignation.”
He said nothing, so she pulled her arm from his grasp and stopped to face him, ankle-high in water, impeding his progress.
They stared at one another, the water crashing and wind gusting.
His expression, always so ready with smiles and charm, was as unforgiving as the waves. “Why would you wish for an assignation with me? I have nothing, Caroline.”
She stepped toward him and reached for his hand, but he retracted it.
She went still.
“Do you not understand?” he said, looking half-mad. “I have nothing to offer you, Caroline. No title, no seat in Parliament, not even ￡300 in land. And the one thing I could offer you has been taken as well.”
“What is that?”
His gaze flickered, and he swallowed. “I cannot even sacrifice the election to persuade you of the genuineness of my feelings.”
She stared at him, trying to fathom what he was saying.
She had assumed he was mourning the loss of the election. Of his dreams.
But it was something far deeper than that. It was his very worth.
“Frederick,” she said. “You are more than the property you possess.”
He broke his gaze from hers, looking at nothing in particular, his jaw working. “It does not feel that way.”
She stepped toward him, and this time, he did not retreat. “Do you think I care for any of those things? I have a title. I have had a husband in Parliament. I have land. Do you know what I have not had? What I have never even dreamed of until now?”
His throat bobbed, and she could not tell whether the droplets of water on his lashes were from the sea or from tears.
“Someone who sees me,” she said. “Who speaks to me as an equal. Who asks for my thoughts and considers them seriously. Someone who takes my breath and makes the next breath feel worth taking. Who will laugh with me one minute, argue with me the next, and then kiss me until I cannot remember my own name.” She took his wet face in her hands.
“You, Frederick. You are what I never dared dream of. You are what I want. Nothing more. Nothing less.” The truth spilled out of her, frightening, undeniable, beyond recall.
His eyes searched hers for a moment, full of painful hope.
Their mouths came together in a crash of salt and hunger. In the next moment, she was swept into his arms as he strode out of the water, his drenched chest pressed against hers.
Briny spray kicked up around them with every step. Her hand slid into his sea-soaked hair, and the world narrowed to the taste of him.
He lowered her until her feet found purchase on the sand, their mouths breaking apart.
His fingers laced through hers, and his arm stole around her shoulders. He pulled her to him, bringing her close, and Caroline closed her eyes, letting the moment fold around her.
But beneath the warmth of it all was a niggling unease. Tomorrow, she would speak with Oswald, and she did not know what she would say, did not know how to feel toward him.
Would he sense the change in her without even a word being spoken?
She might be frustrated with him, but she wanted to believe there was an explanation for it all, that beneath these actions she could not understand, her friend was still there—that he still wanted the same things she did.
Tomorrow would tell.
For now, though, Frederick needed her, and she him.