Lord of the Rakes (34 page)

Caroline’s hand moved. He was not sure she was aware that it did, but it drifted across the folds of her skirt, reaching out. Reaching to him. Philip’s heart thundered in his chest. It seemed to take an eternity, but he crossed to the window seat and sank down beside her. Softly, as if he feared she might break, he rested his fingertips over hers. There was a pause that was probably a second only, but felt a thousand years. She did not pull away.

A choir of angels sang within him.

Keenesford said nothing. Philip said nothing. Judith said nothing, at least until after she’d replenished Keenesford’s whiskey once more and saw him drink another sharp swallow. Then Aunt Judith turned to Caroline, took hold of her free hand, and met her bewildered gaze with one of kindness.

“I wish I could tell you why your mother never spoke to you of these matters, my dear, and I’m sorry for the distress it must cause for you to hear of them this way. But this is the truth, as far as I know it. As for you, my lord.” Judith turned to Keenesford. “I hope this will help lay to rest any doubts you may have about the origins of your mother’s illness. Whatever held her, it was a malady of her own heart, nothing that could be passed down through the blood.”

Jarrett gritted his teeth. “It makes no difference,” he said through clenched teeth. “She’s my sister, and I swore I would look out for her.”

“Forgive me if I contradict you, Lord Keenesford, but you have a choice. You can let her go.”

“I gave my word to our father. I will see it through,” Keenesford said stubbornly, but Philip heard the first faint note of doubt in his voice.

So, evidently, did Caroline. She rose to her feet. She squeezed Philip’s fingers once, giving reassurance and seeking strength. Philip did what she asked of him with that silent gesture, and he let go, allowing her to go forward on her own to face the earl, and all he represented.

“You are my brother, Jarrett, and I want to love you,” said Caroline. “I want . . . I want to do right by you and the family name. But as long as you insist upon seeing yourself as my jailor, how can either of us think of anything except my escape?”

“Your oath, Keenesford, was founded on pain, not on love,” said Philip quietly. “It was meant to force you into a life where a punishment could continue, punishment for a wrong neither you nor Caroline committed.”

Keenesford’s struggle played itself out plainly across the man’s features. He saw the door was open. He saw that despite all his father’s deathbed commands, he did not have to hold the keys of his sister’s life. He wanted to believe there was freedom for them both, but he could not. Not quite. Not yet.

Keenesford stalked over to Caroline, and Philip drew himself up straight, ready but waiting.

“Jarrett,” said Caroline, her voice soft, but steady. “We loved each other when we were children. We helped each other then. Remember that time when you trusted me, and let me go.”

“Why? So that man can have you?” Keenesford jerked his chin at Philip.

Philip took a deep breath. “I know very well who I am and all that I have done. I also know you’d rather have your throat cut than have a man like me know your private business. Believe it or not, I even understand the impulse. But it’s clear your mother was not insane. She was only trapped, and denied that love she most desired from life. Just like Lady Caroline is.”

“Just like you are,” breathed Caroline to Jarrett. Keenesford glowered at his sister, his eyes ablaze with his anger and frustration. But in that one moment Philip thought he read something new in the man’s hardened countenance. Hope.

Then Keenesford turned his back on Caroline and on Philip, who stood at her shoulder. He marched up to Judith, and he bowed.

“Thank you for your hospitality, madam. No, don’t bother. I can show myself out.”

Keenesford opened the door and marched out toward the front room. Philip opened his mouth to Aunt Judith, who shot him a commanding glare in return. With a muffled sob, Caroline started after her brother, but Judith took her arm.

“Let him go, Lady Caroline.”

“But . . .”

“You need to let him go. He needs to find his own way through this. Just as you have.”

Caroline met the older woman’s kind, wise gaze, and after an agonizing moment she nodded. Judith gave a great and exaggerated sigh and shook out her skirts.

“Now,” Aunt Judith said briskly. “I expect you two have some things you want to say to each other. I shall take myself off into the next room. If either of you should be tempted to leave in a huff, I beg you please do not slam the doors.”

With that, Aunt Judith sailed out of the drawing room and left them alone.

T
he drawing room doors closed, leaving Caroline alone with Philip. At that moment the last of her strength gave out. Her knees buckled and she fell. She could do nothing to stop herself. But she never touched the floor, because Philip was there. Of course he was there. He caught her effortlessly in his strong arms and eased her onto the window seat. She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes, and saw plainly all that was written there—all that she had no answer for and no way to comprehend. Her mind was too full of all that she had heard, of the revelation of the secrets Mama had never been able to tell.

Slowly, painfully, gracelessly, Caroline began to cry. She cried for years of needless pain and misunderstanding and broken hearts—her mother’s, her father’s, Jarrett’s, her own. She cried loudly and hoarsely. She knotted up her fists and beat against Philip’s chest, babbling words of anger that were not meant for him, but that she could not hold back.

“I didn’t know,” she said, to her absent mother, her fearful father, to her brother and herself. To all the Delamarres trapped together and none of them knowing how to let go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know!”

All the while Philip did nothing but hold her. His arms encircled her with gentle care. He said nothing, just surrounded her with his calm strength, holding her as he had from the first. Philip held her and loved her, until the storm eased and she could see again, could feel again.

The first thing she felt, absurdly, was embarrassment. Her face was now surely flushed and blotched, not to mention being covered with salt tears and a variety of other undignified fluids. She opened her eyes, which had been clenched shut, and meant to turn away, but the first thing she saw was Philip’s handkerchief held out to her.

Again.

Caroline laughed. She could not help it. She took the broad square of white cloth and buried her face in it, and laughed all the harder. Now she heard Philip laughing with her.

Everything was not all right. It would be a long time before it was, but at least she was laughing instead of crying, and Philip was here, with his handkerchief at the ready, just as he had been from the very first.

“I didn’t know,” she said. They seemed to be the only words left to her. The tears had drained away all the others. “I didn’t know how this all hurt Jarrett so much. How could I live in the same house with him for so long and never know how he felt?”

“It happens,” said Philip softly as he took the kerchief to press against her left cheek, and her right, against the soft skin under her right eye, and again under her left. “We all keep our secrets, even from our family.”

Memories rose in Caroline. She saw the darkened gardens again, and felt the breezes teasing her skin. She remembered all the compelling promises in Philip’s eyes as he dried her tears. She gazed up into his eyes again now, and tried to understand the tumult within her. But the tangle had so many different threads, she did not know where to begin. Nothing was made simpler by looking at Philip just then. She saw a thousand things in his gaze. There was fear and love, and that ever-present mischief she so adored. There was grief, too, and confusion, and sympathy.

“He’ll never really forgive me,” she whispered. “It’s too late to change what’s between us.”

But Philip only smiled at her, a smile of such tenderness she thought her heart might break all over again. “That’s what I thought about my brother, and my father,” he said. “You showed me differently.”

“I?”

“Yes. Without you, I never would have talked to my brother. He’s an astounding man. I also never would have seen so clearly how my father’s accident drove him to try to live his life through me. I never . . . I never would have understood that I had the power to break that chain, or that it’s up to me to decide I can be a different kind of man. I can be strong enough to take responsibility and to build something good and real in this world.” She opened her mouth, but Philip laid his fingers across her lips. “Do not say you did nothing, because it is not true. You saw me, clearly and truly, and it was by being with you that I finally saw myself.”

She did not try to argue with him. What would have been the point? Instead, she caught his hand. She held it tightly for a moment. Her breath had steadied, a little, and she realized she was abominably thirsty. She set his hand on his own thigh and stood. Philip did nothing but watch as she crossed the room to pour herself a cup of cooling tea and drink it down.

She set the cup back in the saucer and looked at it. “I like your aunt,” she said without turning around.

“I thought you might. And she likes you. I can tell.”

Silence fell. Caroline set cup and saucer down on the table. One of the knives left beside the tarts was crooked. She straightened it.

“Caroline?”

“Yes?” She turned her head without even thinking about it. Philip was on his feet. He was breathing hard, as if he had been running. At his sides, his hands clenched the air, over and over again, looking for something to hold.

“I love you, Caroline.”

Caroline bit her lip. The words staggered her, and she pressed her hand against the table.

“I can’t,” she answered him. “I can’t, Philip.”

“What can’t you?”

“Love you,” she whispered. “I can’t love anyone.”

“Why?”

It was such a simple question, and one to which she should have a simple answer. She’d always been so certain of it. Except for those few, short, wonderful days before Jarrett came back. In those few days, she’d dreamed of love. Real love, with Philip.

But then Jarrett came back, and the world had split open and all the dreams flowed away. As she had known in the depths of her heart they must.

And she said so.

“I know all that, Caroline. I saw it. I helped it,” said Philip. “But look.” He spread his hands wide. “We are both still here. The secret’s out. Your brother’s left to find his own healing, and we. Are. Still. Here.”

He took a step forward, and another. She could smell the musk of him, the whiskey scent and the leather. She could feel the warmth of him, and the fear in him.

“All you’ve told me is why you couldn’t love me before. Why don’t you love me now? Is it something I’ve done?”

“No!” She shook her head. She wanted to get away, but there was nowhere to go, and there never would be. Her feelings for Philip were as much a part of her as her blood and breath. But she still could not speak. The pain was too old and the fear was too fresh. The combination seized her in its grip, and it felt as though nothing could ever loosen it.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“What do you want to do?”

He spoke so easily, so practically, she blinked at him. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Even if . . .”

“Caroline.” For the first time something like exasperation crept into Philip’s tone. “I love you. If you want to go to Timbuktu, I’ll order the carriage brought round. All I want is for you to be happy, and free.”

“That’s enough for you?” she breathed.

“It will never be enough. Nothing except having you forever at my side could be enough. But if you must leave to find your own happiness, then I accept it, and I know I will spend my life striving to be a man who could be worthy of your love.”

Hope gleamed, small and sad. Perhaps there was a way out after all. “Then you will find love. It will be there for you.”

Philip smiled, and like her hope, his expression was a small and terribly sad thing. He rested the palm of his hand against her cheek and searched her eyes. She could not read them. The look was too complex, too deep. It held too much of Philip all at once.

“I should go,” he whispered. He turned away and picked up his hat and stick. He pulled his gloves from his pocket and put them on.

“Good-bye, Caroline,” he said, without turning around. He laid his hand on the door latch.

He was doing it. He was leaving. Because he believed it was what she wanted. Because she would not speak.

“Philip!”

He did turn then, and she saw the tears shining in his eyes.

“Caroline?”

She ran to him. She wrapped her arms around him and with all the strength in her she pulled him close. Then she spoke the only words left to her.

“I love you. I love you, Philip. I will not let you go.”

Slowly, his arms closed around her. Tenderly at first, as if he feared to break her, or could not believe what was happening. She pulled him closer, and his embrace tightened around her. She felt his eyelashes brush her cheek as his eyes closed.

“I love you, Caroline. I love you!”

Philip lifted her up; he whirled her around so fast her legs and skirts flew out and she laughed at her dizziness, at her freedom. Then he was kissing her. His kisses rained down frantically, randomly. They caught her brow, her nose, her cheek, until she grabbed his face with both hands and held him still so she could plunder his mouth. Philip, being Philip, took the hint very quickly. He snaked his hand around the back of her head, holding her as she held him, keeping her still so he could hold the kiss, warm and wonderful, deep and intimate, until neither one could remember the world before the kiss had begun.

At last, he did pull back, but only a little, because neither had let go.

“Caroline,” he breathed. “I want nothing more than to be a man worthy of your love. But I have been a rake for a very long time. I . . . I still doubt my ability to change that.”

She ran her fingertips across his mouth to silence him. “You do not need to change anything, Philip. Not for me.”

He smiled. “But I need to be sure of myself. I need to know I can yield to love, to constancy.”

“How can you know, except to do so?”

The mischief that thrilled Caroline so deeply lit Philip’s eyes. “There is a way. But you will have to trust me once more.”