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In this very moment, she felt that she trusted him. She trusted him deep down in her heart with a certainty that made her want to allow him to protect her. But the forces against her were too evil.
She could not trust him fully.
She could not bring him to that danger.
She did not know which it was, she only knew she could not tell him the truth. Not yet. Not when Marilee was in danger.
Not when such knowledge might get him killed as well.
“Please,” she begged once more, “I cannot tell you what is in the letter, or where it is going. All I can say is that it is a matter of life and death. My life or death.” She shook with the enormity of what she was asking. He had just professed, and with good reason, his hesitations. Here she was expecting him to aide her, to put his seal to the matter, and to do so without any of his questions being answered. She pressed the letter to his heart, the paper doing nothing to keep her from feeling the heat of him, his deep thudding heartbeat beneath her fingers and the sweet masculine scent of him. “I am asking you to trust me, to send this with your seal. And... I’m asking you not to read it.”
She knew that this was a losing game. This moment would be the end of their budding friendship one way or another. If he refused to send the letter then he would be declaring that he thought her base and duplicitous. If he demanded to read it, he might also be revealing his own complicit role in the backwards ways of the London underworld. She did not want to believe that he could have been lying about his suspicion of the staff, about the fact that he had no knowledge of the goings on in his own house for the past five years, or even the past five months. She wanted to believe him more than anything. His statement had given her hope that changes were nigh, if not for her sake, then for that off all the women who might have come after. If his speech had been an act, then Caroline thought it fine enough to have earned him a place among the actors on Drury Lane.
If the reverse occurred, and he did provide his unconditional trust, she would stand to lose his forever. Her request could only mean that she was potentially deviant in nature or, perhaps the worse of the pair, that she did not fully trust him the way that he had trusted her, what did it say about her?
If he was suspicious of the house, if he ever found out about the link between these people and his father’s death, he would never forgive her. He could have no way of suspecting that she might be acting out of self-preservation as well as an attempt to protect him from meeting the same swift end that hung over her head.
The request hung between them for a painfully long moment.
Ever so slowly his free hand came to rest over the one that still remain poised against his heart. “Is this what you want?” he asked in a tone so low that she thought she could have imagined the words. His gaze held the weight of understanding. He knew the wall that this deal would place between them. His eyes begged her to tell him all, but he did not voice the request again.
Caroline felt her heart breaking. She hadn’t even realized how much she had come to value the duke’s respect until she now faced the prospect of losing it. She nearly cried with the injustice of it. And yet, it was more than her own life that could be saved with this posting. Marilee, and maybe even other women as well. That had to be worth more than her own wishes, she told herself. It had to.
For the second time in their short acquaintance, he pressed his forehead against her own. The action, so endearing and unique to him, had her biting back a sob and nearly begging him to forget the letter altogether. But she knew that she could not do that. Her own survival depended upon it, as well as the others and she could not be a maid forever. Perhaps when all had come to light, he would forgive her. She could only hope.
The hand that had first accosted her wrist upon her discovery loosened and slid gently to cover hers, pulling it beside the other pair so that he was now clutching both of her hands to his breast. Her eyes fluttered closed, heart aching, and breath trembling at the gentle affection with which he held her. It was far too personal for their opposing stations. That he had even allowed it meant that in some way he cared. Again, she was crushed under the weight of the importance of the loss that she had not even expected to matter.
“Is this what you want?” he repeated. His breath hitched, as if he were holding it while awaiting her response.
“More than anything,” she replied with a barely contained sob. The importance of her words rang true even as the hurt sprang to life between them.
Lord Robert lifted his head, gently released her hands, and stepped around her to approach the desk. It was only afterward that she noticed that with that movement he had secured the letter from her hand.
He leaned forward, spooned a pile of wax over the folded closure, and pressed the full weight of his seal into the binding. Without turning the letter upward where the addressee would be revealed, he slipped it into the middle of the pile of his own correspondence. With nary a word he had given her everything that she had asked of him, and she had taken away everything in return.
Silence reigned between them, but this silence was not peaceful. It was oppressive and dark.
Caroline was unable to say the words of thanks that she knew she had ought to speak. She did not trust herself to speak over the lump that had taken residence in her throat. She nodded, tears already spilling from her eyes, as she turned and walked slowly from the room. She held her head as high as she could manage but as soon as she was clear of the doorway her shoulders slumped, her head sagged, and she knew that she would cry herself to sleep this night and perhaps for many more to come.
In the battle for her freedom, she had just won a great victory. And yet, something inside of her knew that she had simultaneously suffered the greatest of losses.
With every passinghour Caroline waited for her rescue. She had nothing else to think of since the duke had left the house on business, she had been told. She had little doubt that he had in fact left to escape her, and she found that she didn’t mind. Seeing the hurt on his face would have made her relive that moment over and over until nothing remained in her but an empty shell of regret. Oh, her heart still ached when she went to talk to him and realized that he was no longer in the study each evening, likely never would be again. She told herself that was just because she really didn’t have anyone else, she cared to talk to in the house, except Lizzy who had been so busy with the surprise departure of two more of the scullery maids that they hadn’t been able to get in more than a passing phrase each day. Mostly it drove her near to the point of insanity that she could not ask him when the post had gone out, and if he was certain that he hadn’t dropped it and if he had received any response.
Each time she walked the main hall she stared at the door, willing it to burst open with the army of men that her father had rallied to retrieve his daughter. When she washed the windows, she looked out hoping to see her father’s carriage would drive by and signaling that he had arrived in London.
She listened to every whisper and hint of gossip. Perhaps they had captured the Madam first so that they might root out Marilee and retrieve both females in a duel-edged attack. That did not seem likely, however, as someone would have warned the others in the criminal web. The servants did not seem nervous. Not even Mrs. Reilly seemed the least concerned that the rouse was up, that was if she were actually involved. Caroline still did not possess a lick of proof, but it seemed too implausible that any housekeeper worth her salt would accept the constant ebb and flow of workers without explanation.
By the third day, Caroline was becoming irritated. What was her father doing? Taking a leisurely carriage ride to London? He ought to be racing on horseback through the night to get to her. Where in the heavens was he?
At the end of the week Caroline was enraged. At first, she had thought her mind had just given over to paranoia, but now she was certain, the duke had not sent the letter. He couldn’t have. That was the only explanation that made sense to explain why her father was not bursting down the door and demanding the return of his only child.
The betrayal cut deep. The duke had seemed so thoughtful and resolute in his actions that she had even believed that he would not make an attempt to spy the name on the front of the letter. She had believed him that honorable, had believed him without reservation and she had fallen for his act the way that he must have known that she would. Perhaps he had known who she was this whole time. Perhaps their friendship had been nothing more than a ruse to keep an eye on her lest she attempt just such a feat. She felt like an idiot. She felt like a fool. Good Lord, what had she done? What if he had taken her letter and handed it over to the madam, declaring that Marilee be punished? Caroline groaned when she thought of how daft he must have thought her when she had walked away believing that she could put her very life in his hands and that he would deliver the letter without question. She was a fool, and her foolishness may have just signed away her own life and Marilee’s.
CHAPTER17
Caroline was polishing the pianoforte in the music room when voices drifted to her from the open doors to the adjacent drawing. She had been so enraptured by the keys, running her fingers over the smooth ivory and willing herself not to allow the digits to pluck a little tune, that she had not noticed that anyone had entered in time to exit with discretion. The male and female voices were arguing. The doors to both rooms had been shut to the hall and they must have thought themselves alone. There was no way for her to escape without being seen. The music room opened into the drawing room and the door between the two rooms was open.
“We can make this work,” the male voice said as his footsteps chased the lady across the room and closer to the doors that would reveal a frozen Caroline. She hoped that they would not come any closer. But at least, if they did, she would be able to hear more clearly.
