“You wouldn’t understand. You with your pampered ton life and all the luxuries so you’ll never want for anything.” He fairly spat out the words.
Caroline’s eyebrows soared. Surprise temporarily made her forget the fear. She snorted. “I am not that.”
“Ha! Cousin to an earl. Daughter of a viscount. Gadding about to a vast country estate following your marriage. Hell, that opal ring you wear would fetch a veritable fortune in a pawn shop.” When he looked too long at her engagement ring, she hid her hand in her skirting, for she’d once again neglected to wear gloves. “You have much more than I could ever hope for, even if I have a title.”
Oh, it was laughable how wrong he was. Should she tell him of her real history, of what her life had been? Would it have any effect on his current plans?
You are strong, Caroline. You are beautiful and clever. Never let anyone tell you differently.John’s words jumped into her mind to buoy her confidence.
She forced a swallow to moisten her dry throat, and carefully, deliberately, she concentrated on her words. “Titles and coin mean nothing when there is no caring or compassion.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“I was sent away as a girl of twelve. My parents assumed I was insane due to my mind.” She focused out the window once more. The faint smell of water betrayed the fact that they were nearing the park and the Serpentine. “Twenty years I lived alone. Unwanted. Fearful. Hating myself for being different. Left in an asylum with no future. No one to talk to. Away from my family.”
“And?” The baron shrugged. “You’re here now, so obviously your circumstances didn’t matter. I assume your cousin had enough influence to pull you out of that place.”
“Cousin Andrew doesn’t abide by anyone’s rules.” At least, that’s what she’d figured merely by watching him interact with others.
“That is his right and comes with privilege”
Caroline shook her head. “No. He is arrogant, rash.”
“Every peer is to some extent.”
“No.” She shook her head. As she thought about John, the man she’d married, the man she’d come to love and depend upon, tears filled her eyes. “John isn’t like that.” He was the exact opposite of those men in every conceivable way. She concentrated on her words to make them clear. “He was the one who finally rescued me, saw me. Cousin Andrew held no sway over that decision.”
“John is an idiot. He has a responsibility to the title he’ll eventually inherit over making some woman with a history of insanity happy.”
Her temper flared. “Not insane.” The words snapped from her. If he wouldn’t listen, there was no hope of changing his mind. “I am different. Not stupid. Not slow. John doesn’t want the title.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him that, but dissembling was a waste of time. There was no purpose to it. “He is happy without it.”
“There is no such thing as happiness, and the Westfield title is his damned birthright.” The baron shifted again as the hired hack slowed to a halt. “There is only the business of living, of trying to survive in a world gone cold, and then there is death. What a man does during that lifetime is his own business.”
So much bitterness wove through his voice that it tugged at her heart. “There is also love. And belonging. And feeling safe.” All of those things she’d found with John. He’d made her realize she wasn’t all the things that had happened to her. She wasn’t what everyone thought of her. She was her own person, with unique qualities she should rejoice about instead of try to hide in an effort to be “normal.”
“Love is for stupid children who enjoy fairy stories.” He grabbed the door handle, yanked on it, and then pushed the door to the cab open so violently, it slammed against the side of the vehicle. “Love doesn’t last. It leaves a man weak and vulnerable, but above all, it leaves a man desolate and alone, without purpose or direction. I don’t believe in that emotion any longer.”
She gasped. “Grieving you are.” That would certainly explain his horrid behavior. John hadn’t talked about his mother’s death, but then most of his focus had been on her. I need to change that. “It makes you sad.”
“You know nothing about it.” There was a bit of a snarl in his tone.
“My mother died recently.” Perhaps it was time for her to think about it and determine how she felt about that. No matter that she’d never truly known either of her parents, never again would she hear her mother’s voice or see the emotions hidden deep in her eyes. Knowing that this man was like her—grieving, perhaps missing—someone had those emotions pressing in on her. “We have in common that.” And with that, they could find balance, but still her chin trembled, for she hadn’t been able to tell her mother goodbye, had refused to see her the last time her brother had told her to.
“Don’t try to make this personal. I won’t fall for it.” Before she could say anything else, he’d jumped from the carriage.
“Let’s go.” When she didn’t move, the baron yanked on her arm. In the process of dragging her from the conveyance, the sound of fabric rending echoed in her ears. “If we don’t hurry this transaction along, a couple of the men I owe money to will come find me.”
She could have forgiven him for his emotional responses, for she was just now learning how to navigate hers, but ripping her beautiful gown went beyond the pale. The second her slippers hit the ground, she shoved at him with her balled fists, catching him off balance. “Ripped you my gown!” A piece of the sparkling fabric embroidered with stars and crescent moons drifted to the ground. “You do not deserve John as your son.” With another shove, she bolted away, running along the bridle path that led deeper into Hyde Park. In some distracted part of her brain, she knew they’d disembarked near the Temple Gate. If she could find it, she could access a main road soon after. Wasn’t that how she’d arrived in Andrew’s carriage the day of the rain when she met John, and everything changed?
Whatever it took, she would prevent the baron from harming her husband. And at the end, if John decided he didn’t love her, she would let him go. She wanted him as happy as he made her. Perhaps he would ask her to go back to Hadleigh Hall, but then she would never lay eyes on the sea. A sob tore from her throat as she ran blindly over the path. The tiny gravel and pebbles bit into the thin soles of her slippers, but she didn’t care. The goal was to get away from the baron. He needed to solve his problems instead of thinking someone else could do that for him.
“By Jove, woman, if you don’t come back here, I’ll start shooting. You won’t get far.” The baron’s call rang in her ears, and again she wondered if it would hurt too terribly much if one of those balls were to lodge in her flesh. “It won’t matter to me if I hit you or my son in the process.”
That gave her pause. Though her heartbeat ricocheted through her veins, she slowed her pace. She loved John too much to let his father harm him. “If leave him alone you promise to, I’ll come with you.”
“Caroline!”
She jerked her head up at the sound of her husband’s voice. “John! I’m over here!” Moving in the direction where she’d last heard him, she winced each time rocks and pebbles pressed into the tender skin of her feet. Not having the use of her arms made her balance unsteady.