Page 17 of How to Court a Rake (Wed Within a Year #1)
R eality—not regret—she would not use that word—was starting to settle in as Mary strolled the gardens at Sandmore. She did not regret coming here or her choice last night. She had only to touch her cheek or to look at her face in a mirror to know that the regret would have been in staying behind. Caine had offered her a way out—a way out of a dangerous marriage, a way out from a life that had lost its lustre for her. But now that she had achieved a way out, where did she go from here? Where did the way out lead? There was freedom in the thought of remaking herself in her own image, but there was fear, too.
She had no money. The clothes on her back were borrowed, she was in residence at a stranger’s home with nothing to call her own. The only items of value she possessed were the pieces of jewellery she’d worn last night. Not even her name would stand her in good stead. By now, rumours would be circulating about last night, the gossip pages would have reported the incident, every drawing room in London would be speculating.
She could imagine the sordid cast the story would take. No one would focus on how Amesbury had struck her or on her father’s marriage deal with him. The focus would all be on how she had run out in the middle of her mother’s musicale with Caine Parkhurst, the rakish Marquess of Barrow. It was further proof as to how unfair life was for a woman. She was ruined because she’d stood up for herself, because she had claimed her freedom, because she had protected herself the only way she knew how. And for that, society had thrown her out. There was no going back.
No going back to a closet full of more dresses than she could wear.
No going back to the well-appointed estates that were her luxurious prisons.
No going back to the pressures of the marriage mart.
But that also meant no going back to other things, too.
No going back to summer house parties with archery competitions and picnics by lakes.
No going back to Christmas parties in evergreen-strewn manor houses, tables groaning with food and tradition.
No more taking hedges in the field on the back of her mare, Mathilda. She would miss that the most. She hoped Mathilda would understand, that she would go on and bring joy to someone else. Her eyes stung at the thought of her horse.
All those things were lost to her now as well as those things she wanted to be so desperately rid of. To give up a life meant to give up all of it. It could not be done half-heartedly and she grieved for those losses as she walked the pretty gardens. The Earl of Sandmore had a good eye for Italian topiary. There was a giraffe, a lion and a stag among the menagerie of shapes interspersed with soothing water features, all of which held her interest and helped keep the grief at bay.
She reached the edge of the garden where the Earl’s dominance over nature ended. The manicured verge giving on to the green of untamed grass running down to a lake. Un-curated, raw and natural, like her life now. Mary closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, letting its warmth bathe her as she put her sadness aside. The future was hers to chart. She was starting from scratch.
She laughed out loud to the sky and held her arms out wide. She was indeed starting from scratch. One did not get any more ‘from scratch’ than she. Once, she’d dreamed of doing such a thing and now she’d done it. Finally. After years of trying to make others happy, she’d done something for herself.
‘Mary!’
She turned at the familiar shout to see Caine crossing the garden, a basket on his arm. He was without his coat, his shirt sleeves rolled up, the summer breeze playing with the waves of his hair. ‘Your grandfather has released you.’ She wondered what they’d discussed for hours behind closed doors. Surely it hadn’t all been about her.
‘Yes.’ He was smiling and the sight of that smile made her thoughts grow bold. Here was something else she might claim for herself before she went out into the world. She wanted Caine to finish the lesson he’d started in the coach—was that only yesterday? ‘I thought we might picnic down by the lake and take a quiet moment.’ He held up the basket in illustration and offered his free arm as they left the garden. ‘What were you laughing at, just then?’
‘Not at, in. I was laughing in celebration of my freedom.’ She smiled up at him, letting a moment’s euphoria spill out. It was better than crying. ‘I might go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.’
He answered with a grin, ‘That sounds ambitious, Mary. But you needn’t go tomorrow. Or the next day, or even next week. Take your time, stay a while. There is no hurry.’ It was kind of him not remind her she had nowhere to go, or that she needed to wait until it was safe to leave. There were loose ends to settle. ‘How are you otherwise, Mary? I am sorry I could not come to you sooner. Grandfather and I had much to discuss.’
They reached the edge of the lake and they shook out the blanket, laying it on the ground. ‘I am well,’ she said sombrely, sitting down. ‘I am coming to grips with last night. It’s a lot. Just when I think I have an understanding that makes sense to me, there’s something more, like ripples on a pond.’ She reached for the basket and began to help lay out the food. ‘The worst should have been Amesbury’s…attack.’ The word was still hard to say. ‘But as awful as it was, it isn’t the worst thing about last night.’
She set down a loaf of bread and held Caine’s gaze. ‘The worst was that my parents simply didn’t care, not about what he did and not about what I wanted, and it wasn’t the first time. They’ve never cared about what I’ve wanted. I was to accept the proposal and move on to be a dutiful wife, a dutiful duchess just as I’ve been a dutiful daughter. Dutiful and beautiful, that’s what they say about me behind my back, isn’t it?’
She laughed at the uncertain expression on his face. ‘Did you think I didn’t know? It’s all right. It’s true and it’s not the worst thing to be called.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Oh, my, look at all this food. How long did you think we’d be out here?’
Caine stretched out beside her, his head propped in his hand. ‘I don’t know. Grandfather has guests for supper tonight.’
‘So, we should make ourselves scarce? Is that it?’ Mary laughed. Being with him, here, out of doors, focused on the moment, she could forget all her other cares. ‘Won’t they see us from the garden?’ She glanced back over her shoulder at the house in the distance.
‘No, Grandfather’s guests aren’t the garden strolling type.’ Caine assured her. ‘Although they’ll miss a spectacular sunset. We have the best view of it from right here. The sun goes down over the rim of the lake.’ He pointed to the horizon. ‘When we were boys and we’d come for summers, we’d camp out here and sleep beneath the stars. Sometimes we’d have a bonfire, but most of the time, we’d just stay awake, looking up at the sky. Grandfather taught us our constellations that way.’
She studied him, trying to imagine him as a young boy. ‘I bet you were precocious.’
Caine laughed. ‘I was, but so were my brothers,’ he said as if that excused their antics. He plucked a strawberry from its bowl. ‘Here, eat. Grandfather’s gardener grows the best strawberries. It’s something to do with the soil he uses.’ He popped it in her mouth and she bit into the most delicious berry she’d ever tasted.
‘You’re still precocious. And you’re trying to distract me with berries.’ She chose a berry for herself. ‘Tell me a story from your childhood.’
‘All right.’ Caine grinned and shifted on the blanket, settling in. ‘Do you see that little island in the middle of the lake? We would have swim races out to it. Last one out there had to do the other’s school lessons for a whole week.’
Mary squinted, gauging the distance. ‘That’s a long way.’
‘It is and that’s why Lucien is by far the best of us at Latin.’ Caine laughed.
‘Who won most often? Did you?’ she prompted, liking this glimpse into Caine’s past.
‘Most of the time until we were about sixteen and then Stepan started to outpace us, even though he was four years younger than I. But he loved the water, he was born for it. The rest of us just tried to dominate it, whereas he was one with it.’
Caine’s eyes sobered. ‘We were having a relay race—Stepan and Kieran against Lucien and I. Lucien raced Kieran and I raced Stepan, but in the middle of the race, I got a cramp. I couldn’t swim, I couldn’t tread water. I was too far from shore to go back and too far from the island to go forward. I might have drowned if it hadn’t been for Stepan. He came back for me, got an arm about me and found the strength to swim me to shore. No mean feat for a twelve-year-old given that I outsized him in every way.’
Mary gave a wistful sigh. How wonderful it must be to have brothers. She could hear his love for them in his words—his grief, too, because a person could not have one without the other. For all their rakish ways, the Parkhurst brothers were close, the family was close. Caine was close even with his grandfather. Despite his grandfather’s displeasure at their sudden arrival, there was something about the way the two men had spoken with each other, the way they simply were with each other when they shared space, that indicated a respect and love that transcended disagreement. So very different from her home, her family.
Caine looked off into the distance and she sensed he was remembering a different swim now, one much more recent and more deadly. ‘He was younger than I, but always protective of me, even though it was my job to be protective of him.’
Mary smiled softly. ‘You hate that, don’t you? Allowing others to take care of you.’
Caine cocked a dark brow. ‘I dislike others doing my job for me. I am the oldest, it’s my job to look out for them, all of them, whether they like it or not.’ As he’d looked out for her, whether she’d asked him to or not. He’d certainly gone above and beyond what she’d expected of him. What an interesting dichotomy that offered: a rake with a soul, a conscience. It was something to hold up against Lady Morestad’s claim of inconstancy.
Caine’s voice dropped and his words came slow and deliberate. ‘That night at Wapping…’
He chose each word with care, perhaps so as not to open himself up to grief.
Heaven forbid the great champion Caine Parkhurst be vulnerable , she thought, even as she found herself leaning forward, not wanting to miss a word.
Here was another secret she might add to her treasures.
‘We were on the dock and he said to me, “If it comes to swimming, you let me go in.” And he hasn’t come out. Yet.’
She reached for a strawberry, aware of the silence around them. One could hear the night birds begin their evensong, the gentle susurration of the lake water against the shore. She ought not probe, a young lady should avoid indelicate conversation, but perhaps that did Caine a disservice. Perhaps here, with the privacy of dusk settling around them, where no one could hear, it would be a kindness to ask the question, to give him a chance to talk about something that obviously troubled him deeply.
‘What happened in Wapping, Caine?’ Why had Stepan Parkhurst jumped into the water at midnight? What had been so urgent to call a gentleman away from a ball? What had been so dire it could not have waited until morning or even a few minutes?
‘Business for Grandfather.’ He held up the jug of lemonade, silently asking if she wanted more. It was an attempt at distraction. But she would not be diverted.
‘You can tell me, Caine. You can trust me. I’ve kept your secrets,’ she offered the reminder softly.
He set the jug aside and touched her good cheek with a gentle caress that sent her blood pounding. ‘It’s not that, Mary. Some secrets are not made to be shared.’
She would not get more than that from him. He was withholding for her sake, not his. He was protecting her again, this time with his words. He could not tell her because the secret was too big, too much of a burden. That was perhaps more frightening than whatever it was he felt he needed to hide.
‘You’re a complex man, Caine Parkhurst,’ she murmured, ‘I don’t think you’re all that London says you are.’ There were too many contradictions for that to be true.
‘Oh? And what do you think I am?’ Caine’s eyes glinted with amusement.
‘I think you are more, much more.’ She selected another berry. This one she held up to his lips, miming his earlier gesture, and watched his eyes go obsidian black, watched them drop to her own lips and linger. Her mouth went dry.
‘Mary, what are you doing?’ Caine’s voice had become a seductive rasp.
She wet her lips, her breath catching at the sight of desire stealing over him, naked want in his gaze. ‘I am claiming my forfeit.’ Her own voice was a sultry husk she hardly recognised, but then again, she was hardly herself these days; she was a new person since she’d met him.
‘Minx,’ he growled, taking a slow bite of the strawberry that left juice on her fingers. ‘You’ve already claimed your forfeit.’ His gaze held hers, hungry and hot. He took her wrist and drew her fingers to his mouth, licking them one by one, his tongue a wicked caress against her skin. Mary felt the heat of want and desire rise in her cheeks, stir low down in her belly, until she was boiling with it. She swallowed hard, finding the words to answer his challenge.
‘The forfeit was to claim you , but as I recall in the carriage, you were the one doing all the claiming.’ And quite honestly, that had been fine with her. His mouth, his hands, had wrought all nature of wicked pleasure, but that was not the forfeit. Would he even allow her to claim him? This man who protected others but would not permit others to protect him?
‘Mary, do you know what you’re asking? Wanting?’ he warned, his eyes meeting her in a clash of onyx and lightning.
‘Yes, I know exactly what I’m doing, Caine, and who I am doing it with.’ She wanted this moment, this night, to take into a new world with her new self, to hold against all the other nights to come—empty ones, lonely ones. ‘Tonight, I want to know pleasure, Caine, and I want to know it with you.’ She raised her arms, feeling deliciously exposed as his eyes followed the motion of her body, and reached for the first hairpin, just to be sure Caine knew she meant business.