“I went downstairs for a… cup of warm milk to… help me sleep,” she replied in scared gasps. “Powder Puff came with me, but… someone had left the door open. There was a thunderclap… and… she bolted. I didn’t want her… to get hurt, so I… chased after her. She tried… to climb the tree, but I managed to stop her, but then… I couldn’t get back. Every time I tried, she tried… to jump out of my arms.”
Even as she spoke, Powder Puff wriggled and strained, as if eager to take her chances in the storm.
“Enough of that, you wicked little beast,” Max said sharply to the wayward cat. “You could have cost Caro her life tonight, so I suggest you stay still before I decide to take you to the nearest village and leave you to survive with the other strays.”
Powder Puff scowled at Max, far more perceptive than any feline had a right to be. But she did not struggle as Caroline held her tighter, merely lashing her tail in displeasure.
“Let us return to the house,” Max said more gently to Caroline, scooping her up into his arms before she could say a word. “Do not release your hold on that wastrel for a second.”
Caroline nodded, eyes still wide and frightened as she curled into his chest. “I promise; I will not.” She managed a nervous smile. “As long as you promise the same.”
“I promise,” he conceded, dipping his head to press a kiss to her brow.
As he pulled back, she whispered, “Are you very angry with me?”
“I am not angry,” he replied. “But why did you not wake me?”
“I did not think.”
He nodded in understanding. “It is a habit of yours. I had forgotten that.”
Almost from the very moment they met, she had acted impulsively, reacting to situations in a manner that others would consider rash. And though he knew he ought to chide her for not growing out of that particular habit, he could not, for if she had been anyone other than herself, then they would not be where they were at that moment.
I would never know what it feels like to kiss you.
After they had left the belvedere and gone to take tea in the drawing room, he had waited for their kiss to feel like a mistake. But all through tea and cakes and then all through dinner, the feeling still had not come. When he had kissed her cheek and retired for the night alone, there had been no regret either.
But as he wielded his wife across the stormy lawns to Cedar House, he was filled with another feeling: a sensation of being unanchored, cast adrift in an unknown ocean, uncertain of where he—rather, they—were headed.
Shivering from head to toe despite the roaring fire that licked in the grate, Caroline recalled another night when she had been bundled up in a thousand layers of blankets. Back then, she had wanted nothing more than for Max to leave the room and give her some privacy. Now, that was the last thing she wanted.
“Do you want more tea?” Max asked from where he sat beside the fireplace, adding more logs.
Caroline did not answer immediately, observing him in the bronzed firelight. He had donned a shirt, but the residual rainwater made the thin fabric cling to his skin, while the glow behind him silhouetted the hard muscle and athletic physique. A body so strong that he had carried her across a quagmire of a field, in the driving rain, without so much as a grunt of strain.
“Caro?” he prompted.
She blinked. “No, thank you.”
“Can I get you anything else? I doubt Mrs. Bowman will sleep tonight, or that she will deny you anything. You gave her quite the fright.”
“I will apologize for the hundredth time tomorrow,” Caroline promised, a twinge of guilt pinching her chest.
She had not meant to worry the housekeeper. She had thought the kindly woman had heard her when she had shouted back that she was going to retrieve her cat. Still, Caroline knew her actions had been foolish. Every time the thunder rumbled, and the lightning flashed in the far distance, she cringed at what could have happened if Max had not come to rescue her.
“I am sorry to you too,” she said quietly.
“Five more apologies to go before you reach one hundred,” he replied with a smile. “I have forgiven you, Caro. Do not worry.”
But there was something in his expression thatdidworry her. A haunted look that had yet to leave his eyes. She could easily guess why—he must have been reliving what happened all those years ago, whether he wanted to or not. The only difference was he had been in a position to help her, where he had not been able to help his parents.
“This one, however,” Max said, reaching out to stroke Powder Puff, who slept soundly on the rug in front of the fireplace. “It shall be a long while before I am able to forgive her, and I shall not hold my breath waiting for an apology.”
Caroline chuckled. “It is a small mercy that she did not climb the tree, for I daresay I would have tried to climb up after her.”
“Do not say that.” Max shuddered. “I dread to think.”
She smiled, wrapping the blankets tighter around herself. “I will do my best to start thinking more before I act.”
