Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Fitz was quite proud of himself. He’d taken part in his share of pranks and youthful hijinks—more than his share if truth be told—but never in service to such a noble cause as this.
And it had all gone off without a hitch! Avery was owed a substantial increase in pay, Fitz decided. It wasn’t every valet who could successfully impersonate a bear.
Granted, the moment Weatherby was out of sight, Lady Quick had turned her back on poor old Father before he could even offer her his arm. Instead, she’d determinedly latched onto Fitz and towed him off the path in search of woodlark nests, leaving Caroline to Father’s tender mercies.
Fitz tried not to worry overmuch about what they might be discussing. Caroline seemed perfectly aware of all his many flaws already and, for a miracle, she still seemed to want to kiss him. So he had nothing to fret over.
Still, the old man could be quite prickly at the best of times.
Fitz frowned, protective instincts stirring from sleep only to yawn and settle grumblingly back down when he heard his father actually laughing.
Laughing! The sort of loud, booming laugh that meant he was truly amused, verging on delighted.
“They seem to be getting on quite well,” Lady Quick commented. She sounded a bit subdued, as if she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“Your daughter is…” Fitz paused, remembering Caroline’s reaction to being called ‘extraordinary’ and smiling. “Well. She doesn’t like to think she’s unlike other girls, but I have certainly never known anyone like her before.”
Lady Quick gave him a sharp look that softened the longer she studied him.
“Of course I am biased, but I quite agree. My daughter has not had the most regular upbringing; she is like the flowers that grow wild among the hills and byways, sturdy and adventurous. Transplanted to a hothouse, she would wither away to nothing.”
“She would never allow that. Nor should she.”
A smile tugged at one corner of Lady Quick’s mouth, an expression he’d seen on her daughter’s face.
“You have the right of it. Caroline can be quite stubborn. She is strong-willed and sure of her purpose—which is not to say that she is indestructible. She needs care and attention, as we all do. Someone to watch over her when she is engrossed in her work.”
Before he could think better of it, Fitz was nodding. He had seen a bit of Caroline’s singular focus and he had no doubt she would walk straight off a cliff in pursuit of the knowledge she craved, safety bedamned.
Lady Quick beamed at him, and Fitz stopped nodding with a jerk.
It occurred to him that Caroline’s mother was interviewing him, delicately, for the position of Caroline’s minder.
Which of course was ludicrous—Fitz could barely take care of himself, much less another person.
Yet Caroline did need someone…and this entire scheme upon which they’d embarked would deprive Caroline of her staunchest companion: her mother.
“I have performed that office for a long time,” Lady Quick continued, “and of course I will continue as long as I can, with all my heart—but I do hope…I do so hope that one day, my dearest girl will find someone who will see her as she is and love her for it. Someone who will see her strength and honor it with strength and courage of his own, to weather life’s inevitable storms.”
For some damned reason, Fitz’s heart was galloping in his chest like a runaway stallion. “Caroline deserves nothing less. I would not see her disappointed for all the world.”
The person Lady Quick was describing—that wasn’t Fitz. It couldn’t be. But if it wasn’t him…then it would be someone else.
Someone else would get all of Caroline’s smiles and caresses and incisive observations and brilliant ideas.
Some other man.
A burst of fury flamed in Fitz’s chest so suddenly, he nearly choked on it. He hated that other man, whoever he was, as he had never hated anything or anyone.
Lady Quick patted the arm she was holding. Undoubtedly she could feel the way tension seemed to have turned all his muscles to stone. “Caroline is a pragmatist; she knows that no one is perfect. It is intentions that matter. Effort matters. Persistence matters.”
Her voice took on a melancholy heaviness. “The only true disappointment is someone who won’t bother to try.”
Even in the midst of his own turmoil, Fitz took note of the expression on Lady Quick’s face as her gaze slid, as if unwillingly, to land on his father.
It wasn’t the proud disregard she wore when Father was looking, nor yet the defiance she displayed when she played up to Weatherby to make Father jealous.
No, this was something else. This looked very much like…
Disappointment.
But that didn’t make sense. Hadn’t Caroline said she’d been the one to break it off with Father, all those years ago, to save his relationship with his parents?
Perhaps they’d got the wrong end of the stick somehow. It was all such a muddle.
They walked on slowly, coming to a clearing a short distance from the main path.
Fitz glared at the ground between the pines, thick with dead, rotting vegetation and tangled undergrowth.
Here and there, a tiny, intrepid green shoot sprouted up, the first harbinger of spring.
The dead forest making way for new life.
Gazing in bemusement at the uneven forest floor, his mind spinning in circles, it took Fitz a long moment to understand what he was looking at. He squinted. A feather. Short and brown, tipped in white. All his senses went alert.
He scanned the area near the fallen feather, slow and methodical. There, in that divot of earth under the sheltering shadow of a pine sapling, was that…a nest?
An unexpected thrill swept through him, pushing everything else to the side. With a huntsman’s instinct, he stopped dead still and watched the spot for long enough to catch sight of a flicker of brown and white wings.
Drawing Lady Quick’s attention to the nest with a silent gesture, he stepped smoothly and quietly away to locate Caroline where she was bent over a particularly dense patch of brambles. His father stood by, watching her with an odd look on his face.
“I beg your pardon, Father,” Fitz said, polite but vibrating with anticipation, “but there is something I believe Miss Quick will want to see.”
“Oh!” She straightened at once and looked round at him, eyes shining like stars. “You found a nest!”
Fitz could no more have stopped the grin that spread over his face than he could have stopped breathing air. He held out a hand and she took it, folding her fingers so eagerly and trustingly into his. He had no idea why that made his chest feel too small to contain his heart, but it did.
As he led her toward the nest, he made the mistake of looking at his father—who was looking back at him with dawning suspicion. Hastily turning away, Fitz guided Caroline neatly round a fallen tree trunk and back to where her mother awaited them, hands clasped and beaming.
“Over there,” he murmured, pointing out the spot, and before he knew what was happening, Caroline was crouching among the brown, fallen pine needles, crawling slowly forward on her hands and knees to get a better look.
Caught between the enticing sway of her upturned backside and the adorable furrow of excited concentration between her blonde brows, Fitz felt almost light-headed with lust. Except more than lust, something else, that thing Caroline brought out in him that felt like lust and liking and protectiveness and possessiveness and fondness and missing her even when she was only an arm’s length away.
Father came up behind them and Fitz stiffened, sure he knew what the governor would have to say about a lady wallowing in the dirt—but just then, Caroline looked over her shoulder at Fitz, her entire beautiful face lit from within.
And when she whispered excitedly, “Fitz, come see! They’re wonderful,” he was on his knees for her, beside her, without even needing a moment to think it through.
Who could care what Father thought when this woman was grasping his sleeve and tugging him forward to lie against her, side by side, to stare into the bushes at…
at…good God. Not only were there several pretty little whitish eggs dotted with brown spots like cinnamon sprinkled over clotted cream—there was actually a baby bird.
Scrawny-necked and with eyes and beak that looked too big for its fuzzy brown body, it wobbled against one of the other eggs and promptly fell over, disappearing from view for a moment before popping up again, blinking comically.
Unaccountably, emotion caught at the back of Fitz’s throat.
Something that was soft and sharp at the same time, painful to swallow against. The conversation he’d had with Lady Quick swirled in his head, disjointed thoughts that crystallized suddenly into the realization that this wasn’t only a glimpse into a bird’s nest and the start of a new life, shaky and fragile and real—it was a glimpse into the core of Caroline’s passion, her drive, the pure sense of purpose that shone from her like a beacon and drew him in to crash upon her shores.
Oh no, Fitz despaired. He’d turned poetical. Disaster loomed.
Quite literally: a shadow fell over them at that exact moment. His father, the stern, perpetually disappointed presence at his back. Fitz stiffened, compelled to rise by the sheer waves of disapproval radiating from Lord Alfred, but before he could move, Caroline shifted to catch his gaze.
Dreamy-eyed and mussed, bonnet askew and a smudge of soil across her cheekbone, she had never looked more perfect to Fitz.
She reached up and put her palm to his cheek, the thin kid of her glove smooth against his skin, and he knew with sudden panic that her mother had not been exaggerating—when Caroline was in the grip of her work, she lost sight of everything else.