Chapter 8 #2
Like, for instance, the presence of her mother and his father, standing not two feet away and staring right at them.
“Thank you for finding the nest,” she breathed, flushed and sincere. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”
Fitz sucked in a breath. Caroline had forgotten everything except the birds she loved so much…and him. He was part of it now; she’d invited him into her world, to share it with her.
And now that he was here…Fitz knew with a searing certainty that he could not bear to be anywhere else.
* * *
A harrumphing cough startled both Caroline and the young woodlark; she couldn’t have said which of them peeped in dismay, it could have been either.
Tearing her gaze from Fitz’s felt like a physical wrench, but she managed it so that she could put the full force of her annoyance behind the “Shush!” she aimed at Lord Alfred.
But he wasn’t even looking at her. His attention was all for his son.
“Get up from there at once, boy! What on earth are you playing at? It’s unseemly!”
“Leave them alone, Alfred,” Lady Quick hissed. “They’re not doing any harm.”
“I exempt your daughter from my statement, my lady. I believe her to be entirely sincere in her appreciation of the local fauna. My son, on the other hand, and it pains me to say this as his father, but my son is unlikely to be appreciating anything more than an opportunity to behave inappropriately with Miss Quick.”
It wasn’t even true, or at least not the whole truth, yet still Caroline could see the words hit Fitz like a careless blow.
“You understand nothing about him,” Caroline said. She scrambled up and stepped over Fitz’s long legs to stand between him and his father.
Lord Alfred shook his head wearily. “I understand him all too well, my dear. Well enough to at last see through the scheme he’s been working on for this entire misbegotten house party!”
Caroline’s blood chilled. She darted a look at her mother, who appeared somewhere between bewildered and enraged. Good grief, what a disastrous moment for their parent trap to be exposed.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Caroline stammered.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Lord Alfred said, confusingly, before glowering down at his prone son. “Get up from there. You embarrass us both.”
Fitz got his legs under him and stood in a rush of controlled power that reminded Caroline of the muscular athlete’s body she’d seen and touched and pressed against the night before.
The instant he was up, Caroline grabbed his hand and held on tightly, taking strength from the press of his warm, strong fingers.
“Father, whatever you think is going on here, perhaps we might discuss it in private.”
Proud though she was of the steady calm Fitz employed, Caroline found herself tightening her grip on his hand. She did not wish to be parted from him just now.
“You would prefer that, wouldn’t you?” The lines on Lord Alfred’s face deepened as he frowned. “But little though I like to drag our family name through the muck, I feel we owe you ladies the truth. Lady Quick, I am sorry to say that we were both brought here under false pretenses—”
Caroline’s pulse raced, perspiration prickling at her temples. “Mama, please, I can explain—”
“There is nothing to explain,” Fitz attempted, but Lord Alfred wasn’t having it.
“By gad, there is! You’ve brought us all to this dreadful house, full of contemptible cads and disgracefully loose morals, to seduce Miss Quick into marrying you to secure your inheritance! And I will not have it.”
Relief crashed over Caroline like a wave. He didn’t know! She looked at Fitz, but he was staring at his father. Fitz dropped her hand, stepping away from her.
“You wanted me to marry,” Fitz said slowly, as if trying to understand. “A good woman, steadying influence, all of that. And now when I actually find one, when I could for once in my life do something to make you proud—still, once again, I am somehow in the wrong.”
Caroline froze. Was he saying…did Fitz actually want to marry her? She must have misunderstood, a misapprehension born of her own confused and confusing feelings. Fitz did not wish to marry anyone.
Things have changed, whispered a voice that felt as though it emanated more from the region of her heart than her head. For both of you.
No. Caroline set her jaw. They had a plan. She could not allow herself to believe in the possibility of anything else.
But there was Fitz, squaring off with his father in a way that seemed to take the older gentleman aback.
Lord Alfred eyed his son. “If I could believe for one moment that you were serious about wishing to marry this young lady and be a good husband to her…but no, I know you, Fitzwilliam. You have never been serious about anything in your entire life.”
“Why should I be? Poor Rob is serious enough for all three of us, and Arabella has never had a moment of fun, if she could help it. Why do you care how serious I am, so long as I am willing to follow your orders and marry someone?”
“Someone! Fine, go find someone. Anyone else!” Lord Alfred’s face was going an unhealthy shade of red. “But not this girl. She is not for you.”
Not good enough for you, Caroline heard, and she flinched.
That must have been what Fitz heard, too, because his voice went low and dangerous.
“Why? Because I’m the son of a marquess?
Your precious title has nothing to do with me, it means nothing to me—but Caroline means everything. I will marry her or no one.”
Caroline gasped, her ears ringing, but Fitz hadn’t even glanced at her and she didn’t know what was happening. Mama wrapped an arm about her shaking shoulders even as Lord Alfred’s eyes blazed with the fury of a man who was unused to being defied.
“So you will compromise her, ensuring she has no choice but to marry you, and I have no choice but to allow it? A match so unequal, it would be a scandal for the ages! I won’t allow—”
“Still spouting the same nonsense, all these years later, Alfred?” Helena spoke for the first time, her words slicing through the argument like a raptor stooping to its prey.
“Helena,” Lord Alfred protested, anguish turning his voice raspy.
“You haven’t changed. Still obsessed with scandal and what the world thinks of you and your venerable family name.” Mama’s arm tightened, squeezing Caroline tight. “Still a coward.”
Lord Alfred winced. “I must apologize if I have offended, I am not making myself clear—”
“Oh, you’ve been perfectly clear, Father.
” Fitz stood straight and tall, his broad shoulders back and his head held high.
“So let me be clear as well. I don’t care about the inheritance.
You can keep your money and your orders and your opinions to yourself.
I will marry Miss Caroline Quick, with or without your blessing. ”
Caroline staggered; she would have fallen if her mother hadn’t been holding her up.
Mama cried, “This is beyond anything! Lord Fitzwilliam, I like you, but I will not watch history repeat itself. There will be no engagement! Caroline and I will leave this place, today, at once. Come, dearest.”
Breath coming in short, shallow gasps, Caroline felt as though the entire world had been turned upside down.
Everything was happening so quickly, people shouting and saying things they didn’t mean, couldn’t mean, and there was no time for her to take it all in and make a sensible plan for how to react, there was only the sudden and sure knowledge that she could not stand another moment of it.
Caroline wrenched free of her mother’s grasp. Fitz reached for her at once, finally looking at her, his face registering concern, but Caroline backed away from him too. “Stop, all of you. Just stop!”
“Sweet,” Fitz said softly, his silvery eyes warm and entreating, but Caroline shook her head and wrapped her arms around her own midsection. The afternoon sun must be waning; the forest had turned cold.
“No. All of you standing here, wielding my future like knives in your battles with each other. I’m not a weapon for you to bludgeon your father with, Fitz. And you two are no better!” Caroline felt dampness on her cheeks and realized tears were tracking down her face.
Impatient, she dashed at them with the back of her hand. “Just…leave me out of it. Leave me out of all of it.”
“Dearest…”
“Sweet…”
“No!” Caroline backed away from their pleading eyes, their worried, upset expressions, their reaching hands. “I need to think. Please, just let me go.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and ran, Fitz’s voice calling her name fading behind her until all she could hear was the wind rushing in her ears and the pounding of her own feet down the path.