Chapter 6
SILAS COULD BARELY think due to the pounding of his pulse in his ears as he pushed through the guests.
He knew everyone in the vicinity was staring at them, and he hated every single eye that then turned to someone else to discuss what had been seen.
Those who kept to themselves could look all they wanted, as he hardly expected to escape the gathering without drawing some curious looks.
Especially if the occasion proceeded the way he wanted it to.
He’d heard more than enough from his mother about the gossip that had lingered after he had left without giving Caro an understanding as to where they stood.
She liked Caro well enough, but as Silas had never given his mother insight into his personal and intimate feelings about his best friend, she only complained about the fact that nothing else about their family was being spoken about.
She had no aspirations for Caro to join the family as far as he knew, and while she wanted her sons to marry—and marry well—as well as procreate, she was not the sort of woman to push the issue.
If they had been daughters, that might have been different, and he was certain that Sera would have a very different experience when she was of an age to seek suitors, but for now, the boys were not held to those standards.
Yes, it was unfair, but he was not the sort to change such matters for the world. Someone with a greater interest and more desire to attract attention could do so.
Caro’s fingers clenched against his hand, and an echoing pulse tightened around his chest, banding the moment to him with a pain and anticipation he had not fully anticipated.
Everything hinged on this conversation he was about to have with her. Absolutely everything.
He had not been home in three years, what with everything he had been seeing to on his uncle’s account.
His family had come to visit him, all on the understanding that they were strengthening the connection between their families, and it seemed to be working.
Or have worked, as it were. His uncle was not dead yet, but he certainly liked Silas more now than he had in his entire life, and Silas could honestly say that he liked his uncle much the same.
More than that, he loved Sinclair House and its lands.
It was more remote than the house he had grown up in, and the neighboring village was even smaller, but its crops and fields were productive, its gardens just cultivated enough to avoid being wholly wild, and its general prospect was almost quaint in appearance.
Ivy sprawled over the walls and gazebos on the house and estate, wisteria dotting it more often than not.
The walls were made of the sort of stonework and thatched woodwork that was suited to cottages and not large country houses.
And yet it suited.
Sinclair House was more like an expanded cottage with a ballroom and several guest rooms than it was a grand estate house.
Yes, it had the requisite parlors and drawing rooms and long gallery, but it still managed to feel cozy and comfortable.
Silas’s uncle had turned more into a reclusive scholar in his dotage, so the library was the most expansive that Silas had ever seen in a residence.
He had grown even more appreciative of quiet time spent with his attention between the pages of a book since taking up residence at Sinclair House.
And he knew for a fact that Caro would appreciate such a room as well.
In fact, the moment he set eyes on Sinclair House, he had known that Caro would love it.
It was a perfect place for the two of them to start their lives together, to raise their children together, to indulge in long horse rides across the estate, to spend quiet evenings wrapped in each other . . .
Just perfect. And the fact that he had true affection for his uncle and not just the mercenary aims of his parents where this estate and his uncle were concerned was even better.
Now he had no guilt over being named heir or indulging in the opportunity to assist his uncle in his waning days. If he had no feelings for the man, yes, he would have guilt, and he’d likely refuse the inheritance if he had been named, but that had not happened.
His uncle actually knew full well why Silas had come and what his parents had wanted. He had admitted it on the second day Silas had been there and charged him to change the man’s mind about who he was and what he deserved.
Three years seemed to have done that, but it had taken time, which Silas respected even more.
But now he was done with trying to become something more, and he wanted to end the torment his heart had endured while the rest of him had been becoming.
He moved them to a quieter corner of the ballroom. One where only the elderly and the ungainly and the unmotivated gathered and sat. The ones uninterested in public opinion or popular gossip. The ones forced to be here by parents, children, social demands, or an unoccupied social calendar.
They would know who Silas and Caro were, and they would leave them be.
He lodged himself in the corner so as not to appear as though he was blocking Caro in. He did not need untoward rumors starting about their first reunion.
She stepped closer to him, seeming to steel herself, then looked up and met his eyes.
Silas examined her face for a long moment, then smiled again. “Greetings, Primrose.”
Caro’s brow creased slightly, her lips pursing. “Greetings? That is what you have to say to me?”
He shrugged. “Good evening sounded so formal, and I was not certain what you would want to hear immediately. Greetings, when coming from me, would be impertinent, which seemed a decent way to begin.”
She huffed slightly, but her brow cleared as her bright sapphire eyes took him in fully. “You’re taller,” she murmured eventually.
He nodded once. “I am.”
“And broader in the chest.”
“That as well.”
“Why?”
“Physical labor.”
“Where?”
Silas cocked his head a little, amused that she wasn’t getting to the crux of what lay between them right away. “Not far from Upper Bucklebury.”
Her eyes seemed to fall closed, fluttering slightly as they did so. “Berkshire. You were here in Berkshire all this time?”
He winced as he could hear the pain in her whisper. “Yes, I was.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
He watched her swallow, feeling his own throat tighten and grow parched at seeing it.
He could attempt to defend himself in this, tell her why he had been in Berkshire and what he had been doing, but not yet. Not in this moment. Not as some excuse for the silence and distance they had endured.
Everything would be explained in full, but not like this.
Silas waited for Caro to open her eyes, but he felt something die inside him when a lone tear trickled down the soft, pale expanse of her cheek.
He reached out and caught it with his thumb, then brushed it against her face gently. “Primrose, darling. Look at me.”
Her lips parted, and a soft sob passed her lips.
Gads, he was going to die right here on this spot, witnessing the pain he had inflicted upon her.
“Caro,” he rasped, his voice choked and rough. “Please look at me.”
Her lashes fluttered, and then those brilliant blue eyes were on his, heartbreak and pain etched in every swirl of color.
He smoothed his thumb over her cheek again.
“I should have written you,” he admitted softly.
“I should have spoken with you before I left. I should have told you a hundred different things and not left silence as an answer to every question. I will not apologize because you deserve so much more than an apology. So much more, Primrose. You deserve to have me grovel at your feet for the rest of my days. There is nothing I can say that will make my silence or my absence acceptable.”
Silas looked down, realizing he still held her hand between them. He squeezed it before bringing it to his lips, lingering there a long moment and inhaling her essence.
“Then why did you?” Caro asked him, without any sort of recrimination in her tone, amazingly.
“Because I am a coward,” he confessed, not daring to meet her eyes. “There is no other reason, despite what I may tell myself. No rationale that is worth expressing.”
A soft brush of fabric glossed under his chin before a firm pressure lifted his gaze to hers, her delicate hand now cupping his chin.
His cheeks might be burning with shame, but her eyes were fierce and her blush stunning.
“You have known me for most of my life, Silas,” Caro said in a low, steady voice. “We have been best friends for nearly that entire time. How could you be a coward with me?”
The burning in his cheeks now spread to his ears, and he shook his head. “Because there was too much to lose, Caro. The risk I was facing, the secrets I have held . . . I thought it was better to go on as we had been rather than chance the loss of it.”
She tilted her head at him, a small crease between her brows making him want to smile.
“But we didn’t go on as we had been, did we?
You left. No word, no hint of where you were or why you had gone, no visits home, let alone to me.
I did not write to you either, but where would I have even posted the letter to?
I could have gone to your house and asked your mother, but what could I say?
That I missed you, and I did not understand why you had left without telling me?
She likes me well enough, but would she have told me where you were? ”
“Likely not,” Silas admitted, exhaling almost forlornly when her hand fell from his chin. “Not for any reason involving you, but simply because she would not want anyone to know where I was or what I was doing.”
Caro reared back a little, her eyes going wide. “Why? What were you doing, Silas?”
He bit back a laugh. “Nothing criminal, I assure you. Simply not something my mother would want spread about, since it was her idea. Well, my father supported it, I suppose, but it was certainly my mother’s plan.”
“Your mother sent you away?” Caro shook her head, her mouth working silently. “Whatever for? What was she thinking? How could she—?”
Silas cut her off by covering her mouth with his hand, now freely smiling at her. “At ease, Primrose. It was far from a punitive action.”
Caro huffed behind his gloved hand, and her eyes narrowed, but her shoulders dropped in spite of that.
He took the opportunity to look her over once more, which he had indulged in where possible while dancing, but his focus had been more upon her face and her reactions than anything else.
Now he could take in the entirety of her, and his heart began to pound more furiously, lodging itself securely at the base of his throat.
She was stunning in a soft, pale petal-pink that perfectly enhanced her natural blush without distracting from anything or anyone else.
Elegant in its subtlety, perfection in its fitting, and delicately embroidered with small rosettes along the neckline, waist, and hemline.
The skirts had tiny pickups above the hemline, and each curve seemed a perfect mirror of her smile.
In fact, the shade was not just that of her blushes, but that of her lips.
Those perfect, plush lips that were not too large, and just present enough to keep attention on them when she spoke.
To glimpse the tiny flick of her tongue over them when they were dry or when she was nervous.
And when those lips were curved into any smile of hers, whether small or great or secretive?
The daybreak of dawn was never so majestic or stirring.
If he dared, if they were alone in this room, he would cup her face in his hands and simply stare at her. Trace every single molecule of her stunning face until it was impossible to forget a single pore. He hoped that she would feel in his tender hold how precious she was to him.
That he would fully accept that this was not a dream, and he was really with his Primrose again. She was here. And he could have her.
Well, he needed to speak more if he wanted to have her.
If it was even possible to have her.
“Then why?” Caro asked, her voice breaking slightly on the words. “Why would your mother send you away from me? I mean, from here?”
Silas smirked ever so slightly at her correction and at the blush that immediately rose in her cheeks with a vengeance.
“Will you walk out into the gardens with me, Primrose? This is a long conversation, and I don’t believe my mother would like this aspect of her known far and wide.”
He offered her a hand, not extending it too close to her in an attempt to give her less pressure on this choice.
To his immense relief, Caro immediately put her hand in his.
He turned before she could catch his sharp exhale and began to tug her gently toward the doors to the terrace and gardens beyond.