“Ah, then you must also adore reading. I believe you are highly intelligent.”
She frowned as she kept pace beside him, but he didn’t stop on the terrace where a few other couples lingered. “Reading is… difficult.”
“How so?”
“It leaves me quite tired,” she said slowly so the words would align themselves properly. “It frustrates me, not because it is a hard task but because I can’t grasp it. Words jump over the pages.” Even talking about it made her huff with annoyance. “Words move between the type and rearrange themselves into a jumble, so much that I can make no sense of them.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. It must cause you grief to so love literature but seem so far from it.” He guided her down the few steps that led away from the terrace then continued through the garden and eventually off the property, where he encouraged her onto a walking path that went around the square at the rear of the three long rows of townhouses.
“Yes.” How was it possible this man, a veritable stranger, understood her more than her own family? “My sister and aunt used to read me stories. Long ago, before…”
He patted her hand. “Before you were sent away.” It wasn’t a question.
Caroline nodded. “I memorized the words.” Her mind skipped backward to those times when she’d felt a smidgeon more accepted than now. Before it was difficult to communicate, before she became painfully aware of how awkward and odd she was. Before her parents sent her away. “Isobel was angry when reading so much to me so I could learn.” She allowed herself a small smile. “Favorites are fairy stories.” Beneath her gloved fingertips, the muscles in his arm tensed. He was strong, solid, like a great oak tree, one that wouldn’t break in the face of a storm. Awareness of him as a man tingled over her skin. “Now I can pretend to read the books.”
“Why, Miss Storme, how ingenious you are.”
His response pulled out another grin, and a sigh of relief shuddered from her. How lovely it was not to gain yet another rebuke for something she couldn’t do well. “I have learned to hide… many things of myself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He frowned. “Who you are is unique. Never hide your special sun because others prefer the shade.”
Her lower jaw dropped slightly. “Th… thank you, John.” His perspective on things ripped open a hole in her dark existence. It allowed light to filter in and illuminate a new path and oh how she craved more of that.
“I only speak the truth.” Carefully, as she were made of the finest porcelain, he escorted her to a dear little duck pond, the same one she saw out her bedroom window. “If you wish it, we can sit on the rim here and take in the night air.”
“Yes.” Quickly, before he could change his mind, she sat on the relatively cool stone. “Affinity I have at night.” Why couldn’t all her words come out right?
“Because you can better hide at night?” he asked softly as he sat beside her, not close enough to touch but close enough that the heat of him seeped into her arm and shoulder.
It was oddly comforting he knew her—or guessed—so well. “No one stares or whispers about me in the dark.”
“Then you don’t know the right people, my girl, for there are times when stares and whispers in the dark are quite delicious.” The tone of his voice, combined with a twinkle she could only describe as wicked worked at freeing another few butterflies in her belly. “But I know what you mean. People stare at me when I’m forced into society as well.”
“Why? You are not broken or suffer from insanity.”
“Ha!” He turned more fully toward her. When their knees bumped, warmth emanated up her leg from the point of contact. “I suspect we are all broken in our own ways, but one thing I am certain about. You do not suffer from insanity.”
Slowly, she smiled. No one had ever said something as sweet as that to her. In her mind, there was the distinct clank of an invisible chain breaking. “Agreed. I am not mad, but I am… different.” For lack of a better word.
“Oh, indeed, but why do you assume different isn’t a fine attribute? Sharks and dolphins are very different from each other, but the sea needs them both.” With the starlight reflected in his eyes and the formal clothes stretched on his frame showing his powerful body to advantage, it was easy to see him as a hero of old, clad in armor, riding to the rescue of a damsel in distress. Additionally, with his kind heart, any lady would snatch him up. “Regardless, people stare for the simple fact I don’t belong here.”
She frowned. “At Cousin Andrew’s house?”
“No, in society in general.” He shrugged, and she would give anything to watch the play of muscles beneath that fabric. “I’m big and rugged, not refined like most men of the ton. My hands are rough with callouses, given to me from hard labor on the sloop or schooner. I toil for a living instead of using family coin.” Sadness scudded through his eyes, gone at his next blink. “I like to curse and drink ale more than I probably should; brandy and wine aren’t for me. Neither is inane small talk confined to stuffy drawing rooms.”
“Does it make you angry, being different?”
“No. In fact, I’m glad for who I am.” He glanced across the green at the row of townhouses. Golden illumination spilled from many of the windows, and if she held her head just so, the whispers of laughter drifted to her ears. “I don’t aspire to be one of those fancy lords, especially since I’ll have that title soon enough.”
What did that mean? “You are a sailor, like Brand.”
“Aye, for the time being.” For the space of a few heartbeats, a certain hardness took possession of his eyes, and the delicate skin at the corners of his eyes didn’t crinkle with a grin. “My father is a baron, and one who is apparently hell-bent on drinking himself into oblivion.”
“That makes you angry.” Some of it rolled from him in waves. It stirred her own ire, but not in a bad way and left her confused.
“At times, on many counts.” John met her gaze, and when he did, his grin had returned. “However, I’m choosing not to think about that just now. Once my father passes, the damned title will go to me, and I want no part of it.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “I am not like the other men in the ton, and I certainly don’t aspire to anything that comes with it.” With a wry expression, he shrugged again. “I’m a simple man who wishes for a simple life. I feel I can do more for others as the man I am instead of the man I’ll have to become.”
How completely refreshing he was! Caroline smiled. Sitting here beside him, listening to him talk, trying to understand what drove him made her feel that perhaps being broken wasn’t a cross to bear after all. He wasn’t like a knight as she’d assumed, but more the reformed scoundrel who can’t help but go about the realm and perform acts of daring and kindness because he knew what it was like to feel helpless.