The Wicked Governess (Blackhaven Brides Book 6)(72)

He leaned against the harbor wall, gazing out to sea over the bobbing fishing boats and the small pleasure yacht which had tied up since Caroline had been there last. She went and stood beside him.

For a moment he didn’t say anything, but he knew she was there, for his fingers found hers and threaded through them.

“I was coming back,” he assured her.

“I know. But I thought it was time to go home. Rosa may not sleep until you’re back.”

“I think she will. I think what she wrote eased her in some way. And she understands Swayle cannot hurt me or anyone else she loves.”

“He could spill venom at his trial,” Caroline warned.

“That will hurt him, not me or Rosa. I’ve protected her from the wrong things.”

“No, you’ve just protected her.”

He looked at her at last. “As you’re now protecting me? You set Fredericks on me, didn’t you?”

“I asked him about San Pedro. He seemed shocked that you believed what you did.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t believe it precisely. I was just afraid it was true and even more afraid to enquire in case I found out it was.” His lip curled. “I never thought of myself as a coward before.”

“It’s not cowardice, it’s confusion. You had too much tragedy in your life at one time to think clearly about everything. Your capture, torture, escape, leaving the army, returning home to…what you did.”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. His thumb stroked her hand. “You light my way, Caroline Grey.”

“As you light mine.”

“Do I?” he whispered, caressing her cheek.

“I, too, have been lost, in my own way.”

He kissed her lips, a soft brief kiss that sparked deep inside her. “Then let us go home and find each other.”

*

As Javan handed her out of the carriage in front of Haven Hall, a hulking figure loomed out the shadows.

“Oy!” Williams called indignantly. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Miller?” Javan said incredulously, pausing in his act of thrusting Caroline behind himself for protection. “Aren’t you supposed to be with Bolton?”

“He let me go,” Miller said cheerfully as Javan shone the lantern on him. Then he sighed. “Well, sort of. I nipped off while he was more interested in the gentry cove—Swayle. I don’t think he’ll mind, especially if you was to take me on.”

“Take you on?” Javan repeated incredulously.

“I can look to your horses, drive ‘em, be your bodyguard, whatever you want.”

“You want to work for us?” Caroline said carefully.

“No one ever saved my life before. Never thought enough of me, I suppose. I never gave ‘em cause to. Give you my word, sir, I’d never do no wrong to you or yours again—whether you take me on or not. But I’d like to pay it back. For shooting your missus. Because I’ll be honest, I never wanted to shoot her, but I did it anyway, for money. Never meant to kill her either, but if it had happened—and it easily could have—I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over it.”

“And all this has changed because I stopped Swayle sticking you?” Javan asked dubiously.

“Na, it was changing before. Being with your family and Williams there made me think, made me see things…different. I was going to run off and be a soldier like him, and you, do some good with my shooting. Then I thought I’d rather work for you.”

Javan and Caroline both looked at Williams who stood by the horses’ heads.

Williams shrugged. “I could use help in the stables. And in the house, but that’s a discussion for another day. You and me, sir, we’ve knocked worse men than Miller into shape before now.”

“Trial for a month,” Javan said, walking away to the front steps and drawing Caroline with him. “You obey Williams implicitly and show respect to the other servants or you’re out.”

“Understood, sir,” said Miller blissfully.

*

Rosa slept peacefully in her bed. Caroline and Javan stood for a few moments looking down at her. Javan touched her hair for an instant, and then they tiptoed from Rosa’s chamber to Caroline’s and quietly closed the door.

Javan gazed around it. “I drove myself mad thinking of you in here, wondering what you were doing, if you were sleeping. If you were thinking of me.”

“I usually was,” she confessed. “I listened to your footsteps every night, as you left Rosa, and imagined them coming to my door.”

His lips quirked. “What would you have done? Would you have invited me in? Or cowered in the corner and left first thing in the morning?”

Embarrassed suddenly, she made light of it. “Oh, I wouldn’t have left. I had nowhere to go!”

“That’s why I never came,” he said ruefully. “I never found my position of authority, of power, so damnable. And yet, feeling helpless is worse. I couldn’t have borne to be allowed into your bed from fear of destitution or worse.”

“I don’t think that would ever have been the case,” she admitted. “You always…affected me.”

He lifted one hand and cupped her cheek. “Do I affect you now?”

For answer, she leaned her cheek into his palm, then took his hand and placed it over her galloping heart. His breath hitched. He stood very still, gazing down at her, By the dim glow of the single candle, his face was dark and shadowed and unutterably thrilling. She craved his embrace, his kiss, so intensely it felt like pain.