Chapter Eight
“With a bit of effort, the Downys could make this approach far more impressive.” Mother eyed the facade of Downy House as though it were a hovel surrounded by mud and muck. “One would never guess they were kin to a duke.”
She treats the lot of us as though we were nothing more than our ancestry. Caroline had been quite astute in that observation. Mother reduced everyone to their respective bloodline, for better or for worse. The irony, of course, was that her own ancestor did not stand up to scrutiny.
“I am certain the Downys have far more pressing matters to see to than the appearance of their home.”
Mother waved that off. “First impressions are crucial, George. Remember that.”
How could he help but remember something she never let him forget? “I do hope you will be civil to the Downys, Mother. They have received me very warmly these many years and deserve warmth in return.”
“I am always civil.” Mother’s declaration didn’t entirely hit its mark, delivered as it was, down the length of her haughtily upturned nose.
The carriage came to a stop at the house’s front portico. The door was opened. The Downys’ footman handed Mother down. George waited a moment longer, needing to brace himself for the coming few days.
Mother would, no doubt, be nearly impossible.
The Downys would be in a frenzy of planning.
Caroline would be. . . He didn’t even know what to expect from her. She’d gone from hesitantly friendly to a hermit in the couple of weeks he’d been there previously. She’d cried more and talked less than she ever had before. It worried him. Deeply.
But he’d made an ironclad bargain with her, one he was honor-bound to see through to the very end, whatever that end might be.
He squared his shoulders and stepped down from the carriage.
The trunks were already being handed down.
The stablehands were seeing to the horses.
When he stepped into the entryway, the housekeeper was already being berated by Mother.
All in all, a very typical arrival at Downy House.
“George!”
His heart leapt to his throat at the sound of Caroline’s voice calling his name with such excitement.
“You’ve come at last!” She ran down the stairs, enthusiasm emanating from every inch of her.
“Have you missed me?”
She answered by simply throwing her arms around him, much the way she had in the corridor the day her mother had enlisted them all to help plan the ball. Except, this time, there was no pity or sadness in the embrace. She seemed overwhelmingly happy to see him.
Holding fast to her in return, he said, “This is the best welcome I have ever received.”
“You were gone so long, George.”
“Only a week.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head.
“It was a very long week. Mother kept predicting you wouldn’t return. Tom insisted you had joined the navy simply to get away from me.”
He rubbed his hand in large circles on her back. He breathed in her sweet, flowery scent. “I hope you didn’t believe either of them.”
“Edward told me not to.”
He had always thought her oldest brother was smarter than all of them combined.
“I must say, for a young lady of such exalted standing, this is a very lower-class display.” Mother had been so quiet, George had all but forgotten her there.
Caroline rose to her own defense. “Your son left without bidding his fiancée a proper farewell. Is that not rather lower-class as well?”
Mother offered a confused humph before gliding up the stairs, her dignity rolling off her in waves.
“Mrs. Carlton?” Caroline called after her. “Would it be terribly lower-class of me to kiss your son here in the entryway?”
Mother picked up her pace.
“What has come over you, Caroline?” George wasn’t complaining, he was simply confused.
“I’ve missed you.”
He settled her in the crook of his arm, walking with her slowly toward the back terrace. “I have missed you as well, my dear.”
“Without you here, there was no one to talk with. No one to walk with me in the gardens. No one to sit with in the library or laugh with about the oddities of life.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.
Though she had done that on occasion before, there was something different in it now.
“There was no you, and I didn’t like that at all. ”
Please let this be more than her pining for my friendship.
“There has been no one here to hold my hand or to put an arm around me when I was afraid.”
He stopped up short. “You’ve been afraid? What has frightened you?”
“You.” She was so much more at ease with him than she had been in the weeks before that even that answer didn’t overly concern him.
“I worried that you were marrying me for the wrong reasons. And, then, I worried that I was marrying you for the wrong reasons. And I worried that all of those wrong reasons meant that our marriage was ill-fated, and that if our marriage fell apart, I would lose you.”
“Is that why you were so opposed to this match?” He turned to face her. “Because you thought it would. . . ruin our friendship?”
“I couldn’t bear the thought of losing that, of losing you.”
He slipped an arm around her waist. “And what do you think now?”
“This will change things between us, but it doesn’t have to be a bad change. You will still be a wonderful, lovely, integral part of my life.”
George pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And you will always be the best part of mine.”
“I love you, George Carlton.”
Those five words froze him on the spot, his lips still pressed to her forehead.
“Not, perhaps, in an earth-shattering or life-changing way,” she added. “But I’ve only just begun allowing myself to think of you as anything other than my friend. I understand these things take time.”
“Are you saying that you believe you could love me in that way?”
She pressed her hands to his chest. “I am saying I believe I might already, I simply have no practice in recognizing it.”
That was not a terribly difficult obstacle to overcome. “Then allow me to show you every day of our lives what it is to be loved and cherished and treasured. Allow me the opportunity to make that experience so clear that you need never doubt it.”
“I would like that very much.”
Was she saying what he thought she was saying? He pulled back and studied her face, her smiling, contented, perfectly happy face. “Does this mean you intend to carry on with the ball?” That seemed a safer way of ascertaining her intentions than asking right out.
“Only if you will dance with me the first dance, and the last, and all the dances in between.”
He brushed a hand along her cheek. “If I do that there will be little point in making a betrothal announcement, we will have made it by our actions.”
Her smile grew tenfold. “How very lower-class of us.”
“So long as we are treading that path, I believe I shall kiss you. And I do not at all mean a staid, brotherly sort of kiss.”
She set her hands on his shoulders once more. “I am ready to be thoroughly scandalized, George.”
He leaned in, savoring the long-awaited moment and the promise it held. His lips brushed hers once, twice. Breathing proved a chore, as did hearing anything above the pounding of his own pulse. But the feel of her tucked up to him, in his arms at last, wiped away any doubt, any worry.
He kissed her just as he’d promised he would, right there in the corridor. And long afterward, he simply held her, blessing fate and the heavens for bringing her into his life.
His sweet, loving Caroline.
His darling, wonderful friend.