My Darling Caroline (11 page)
“Believe it or not,” he teased, “I even find you sexy clothed like a nun as you are now.”
“I’m not clothed like a nun, this is a
nightdress
—”
“It’s ugly and leaves everything to my imagination.”
“As well it should,” she scolded.
“My imagination is not that good, Caroline.”
“I’m certain it’s adequate.”
“Take it off and let me have a look,” he suggested devilishly.
She gaped at him and blushed furiously. “Don’t be absurd.”
Suddenly he shifted his body to climb onto her, grinning wickedly, pinning her beneath him while his palm slowly moved under her gown and up her leg to rest on her thigh.
She looked at him as if he were a naughty child. “Brent…”
He stroked the smooth skin of her leg and leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “Maybe you can just provide me with a tantalizing peek of your legs, then?”
“No,” she asserted in a teasing voice that startled even her.
Slowly he raised his head in contemplation. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any part of you below your two rather large, shapely—”
“That’s enough,” she interjected through an amazed laugh. “If you continue to carry on so indecently, I shall never show you any part of me above my ankles.”
“Then you would consent to letting me suck your toes?”
She didn’t know whether to be shocked or break into laughter. “You would do that?” she asked in wonder.
He grinned again. “Of course.”
She glanced at him skeptically. “It sounds disgusting.”
“But it feels marvelous.” He sat up a little and wrapped a lock of her hair around his fingers. “There are lots of places on your body I will suck and kiss and caress, Caroline, and it will all feel marvelous. I promise you that.”
Had he not been speaking so lightly, she might have jumped off the bed. But he was teasing her unashamedly, and she found herself enjoying it immensely.
Mouth twisting slyly, she sat up as well, leaning toward him to whisper huskily, “And I suppose you’ll tell me next there are places on your body you’d like me to suck. Am I right, Brent?”
She giggled at the sight of his reaction, his suddenly bewildered expression.
He groaned, rolled his eyes, and fell back hard against the sheets. “Go on, before I lose what control I have left. We need to talk, but we’ll do it later.”
She stared at him, unsure and not entirely ready to leave the comfort of his company.
He gave her a mischievous smile. “You’d better leave now, Caroline. I’m about to stand up, and you know
exactly
what I’m wearing.”
Before the words had completely left his mouth, she scrambled to her feet, grabbed her slippers, and raced from the room.
B
rent had suggested they go for a walk, the two of them and Rosalyn, and Caroline couldn’t argue that. The sun had shone all morning, and what dampness remained from the previous night’s showers had finally given way to a lovely autumn afternoon, beckoning even the most reclusive souls to stray outside and take in the freshness, the sweetness of wild roses and heather.
After bathing and spending an hour in attempted communication with Rosalyn, Caroline had sat at her writing desk in the parlor for the better part of the morning, preparing a list of suitable foodstuffs for tea. Her sisters Jane, Charlotte, and Stephanie would be visiting Miramont for the first time that afternoon, and she wanted everything to be perfect. Mary Anne, poor thing, was in the last stages of pregnancy and couldn’t make the trip, which was fine with Caroline. She didn’t need Brent so obviously reminded of his need for an heir.
The day was beautiful and warm, and the two adults strolled side by side in silence, Brent carrying a blanket under one arm, Rosalyn running in circles around them. They reached the top of a grassy hill overlooking the house, where he spread the blanket, sat heavily upon it, and pulled Caroline down beside him.
For a long while they sat peacefully and quietly together, watching the child jump and play and pick flowers.
“You’ve done the impossible with her,” Brent acknowledged at last. “I never thought I’d see the day when she would be clean and beautiful and play like a normal child.”
Caroline smiled, drew her legs up under her peach day gown, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “She’s a smart little girl. She just needed a little push in the right direction.”
He turned to her, watching the side of her face. “She didn’t learn to calm down and play normally all on her own, Caroline. Because of you, Rosalyn hugs me now, holds my hand, waves to me. For the rest of my life I will be grateful for the wonderful thing you’ve done for us.” He lowered his voice. “How do you feel about her?”
That caught her off guard. “Feel about her?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I want to know what your feelings are for Rosalyn. It couldn’t have been easy to learn your husband had an illegitimate daughter, and frankly I’m surprised you handled the situation so easily.”
Caroline shrugged, stalling. How could she explain that her feelings didn’t matter when she would be leaving them soon to pursue her dream?
Finally she said softly, carefully, “Because she’s an innocent child, I care about her a great deal. But since there’s nothing I can do about her illegitimate birth, it doesn’t bother me. Your past is your own, Brent.”
He shook his head, amazed. “I’ve never known a woman like you, Caroline. You’re so different with regard to me and my past affairs, not caring at all that I had sexual relations with someone before you. Most wives would complain endlessly, or bitterly, or snivel foolishly for days.” He paused and lowered his voice. “I don’t know whether to be thankful or bothered by the fact that you’re so incredibly unruffled by it all.”
Slowly she pulled her gaze from his and looked out over the meadow. It annoyed her to know that his former relationship with the courtesan did bother her a little, but she wanted to keep that hidden from his penetrating stare. “I suppose if ours were a love match it would matter a great deal, and I would indeed be upset by such an indiscreet liaison. Since ours was a marriage of convenience, I must accept you as you are, knowing that my feelings for you and your daughter must remain rational and unencumbered by your complicated past.”
She turned to him then, noticing how quickly his jaw had tightened, how his eyes had thinned to hazel slits. She faltered a little but continued anyway. “I simply meant that if we loved each other, my feelings would be different from what they are now. I would probably be very jealous of Rosalyn’s mother.”
“You’re implying that jealousy and love go hand in hand,” he stated sardonically.
She gave him what she thought was a comforting smile. “Yes, usually. Probably always.”
He grunted and glanced back to Rosalyn, watching her pick wildflowers and gather them into her arms. “Well, Caroline,” he said blandly, “regardless of some elusive feeling women choose to call love, I intend to keep a sharp eye on your whereabouts from this moment on. Not only will I not permit another man to lay claim to any part of you, I don’t know what Rosalyn and I would do without you in our lives.”
Although he had said it lightly, his words, oddly enough, made her feel both joyful and discomfited. She tried to smile as she wiped a stray piece of hair from her cheek.
“I’m sure you’d manage. You managed before.”
He drew his leg up once again and rested his arm across his knee. After a quiet moment he turned his head back to her and gazed into her eyes. “We didn’t manage before you, little one, we barely existed. Rosalyn was lost in her private inner world, and I was lost in mine.”
She noticed at once how his features betrayed his emotions. He looked troubled, intense in his thoughts, his expression scarred with pain from a past unknown to her.
Without thought, she raised her hand and brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “This is about last night, isn’t it?”
He expelled a deep breath, his eyes turning solemn. “There are some things I need to tell you, Caroline, most of which aren’t pleasant. As my wife, however, you have the right to be informed about them.”
She nodded.
He wiped his palm over his face, then said bluntly, “For the last six years I’ve been employed by British intelligence.”
She gaped at him, nonplussed, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“During the first nineteen months, I worked my way deep inside the French government until I moved in top circles as a different person from the one you married, appearing sophisticated, cunning, arrogant. Quite French. Those who knew me never suspected what I was because I went through years of intense training before I left for the Continent, becoming all things French, speaking the language perfectly, acting the part impeccably, knowing the history and culture as if they were my very own. I was sent to France expressly for the purpose of infiltrating Napoleon’s military, to become one of them, which I managed to do flawlessly.”
He grasped her hand, intertwined her fingers with his and squeezed gently, waiting for her to look him in the eye. When she did, he gave her a comforting smile. “I worked in France on and off for six long years, moving from here to there, depending on the political climate.” He paused, unsure, then whispered, “You married a British spy, Caroline.”
She stared at him wide-eyed and utterly incredulous, for nothing in her life had ever shocked her so. He held her gaze, watching her intently as if waiting for response or reaction, but she couldn’t think of a suitable reply.
The breeze picked up, blowing loose hair across her face. Gently he lifted his hand and brushed it aside, taking the time to run his fingers down her cheek.
“You could have died,” she murmured at last.
He pursed his lips. “True enough. It’s a dangerous occupation, and had I been discovered in France I would have been hanged.” He shrugged and lightened his tone. “Or more likely guillotined.”
“Oh, God…” She felt sick, her head suddenly reeling.
“Try not to concern yourself with it, Caroline,” he soothed. “That part of my life is over.” He glanced back to his daughter. “Nobody in the world has needed me as Rosalyn does, and it took the fighting at Waterloo and a horrible three days of hell for me to understand exactly how much.” He dropped his voice to a faint whisper. “And how much I need her.”
Instinctively Caroline clasped his hand tightly, shock giving way to intrigue. “Tell me what happened.”
Brent felt fear well up inside of him again, as vivid as the day it had begun. Until now, the only person who knew of his battle in the pit of death was Davis, and although uncontrollable feelings of panic and hopelessness filled him, he still had the overwhelming urge to confide in his wife.
Rosalyn played more than ten feet away. She couldn’t hear him, but he wouldn’t have spoken of Waterloo with her any closer. There was no one else around, and Caroline, looking innocent and lovely just as she was, sat patiently holding his hand. He pulled himself up to sit straight and began at the beginning.
“I’d been in France for nearly two years when I met a man called Philip Rouselle, a low-ranking officer in the French military. I immediately disliked him because of his nature—always suspicious, shrewd, greedy, doing what ever was necessary for personal advancement.
“Philip followed my every move, and my guard was always up when he was around. What made him resent me, though, was my affair with Christine. She didn’t want him, she wanted me, and his ego was grand, Caroline.”
He watched her closely but saw nothing except the slightest trace of tightness cross her mouth. In some very obscure manner, knowing that his wife held a dislike for his former mistress pleased him enormously.
He rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. “For nearly three years Philip and I played a game of cat and mouse with each other, and finally, about a year ago, I discovered exactly what he was.”
“What he was?” she whispered.
He paused, looking out over the hills. “You have to know that much of my reason for seeing Christine over the years was personal. But although she seldom discussed government or political issues, she moved in those crowds and from time to time was an unsuspecting and knowledgeable in formant.”
“How convenient for you.”
Brent glanced at her quickly, then back to the meadow, deciding it best to ignore the biting comment and move on.
“One…evening together, she accidentally said something that led me to believe that Philip might actually be my counterpart, a French intelligence agent and a hired killer. I checked the facts, and indeed, the man was everything I feared. He was handsome, highly intelligent, and trained to move in circles above his class or below it, speaking English as if it were his mother language. During all the years I worked for British intelligence, that man is the only one who ever suspected me of being something other than what I appeared, and it all came to a head last June during the fierce fighting at the Battle of Waterloo.”
He needed to stop for a moment, allowing the calmness of the early afternoon to seep inside of him, the sunshine to soothe him. His wife said nothing but held his hand tightly as if afraid to let go, fully engrossed in his words.
“Philip grew to hate me, Caroline,” he said bleakly, quietly, “because of Christine, because of Napoleon’s defeat and exile to Elba as if that were my doing, because I was English, because I refused to kill without honor, which he considered the gravest human weakness. He would kill ruthlessly and without feeling, striking those in his path regardless of age or sex, even those unable to defend themselves.”
“Are—are you telling me you’ve killed people?” she asked shakily, shocked.
There was no easy way to confess. He squeezed her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed her wrist gently. Gazing intently into large, dark orbs full of uncertainty, he boldly admitted what he knew she feared.
“I am trained to kill with skill and efficiency, Caroline, and over the years I have done so.” He felt her try to pull away but he wouldn’t let go. With his free hand he firmly grasped her chin, forcing her to keep her eyes locked with his. “I have killed in defense and only those who have in some way jeopardized my life, my country, or my king. I would also, without question, kill to protect my family.”
His tone became fierce, his gaze piercing. “But I swear to you, Caroline, on the life of my daughter, I would never kill, nor have I ever killed, randomly, unjustly, or without feeling as Philip has done. He would kill even Rosalyn without blinking an eye, without feeling anything, and certainly without honor, which is precisely where we differed.”
She continued to look at him, and gradually he released her chin, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Then he dropped his hand from the softness of her face, raked his fingers through his hair, and turned his head to stare hard at the grass-covered ground before him.
“During the battle at Waterloo I stayed deep in French territory, my cover intact, and worked on gaining a foothold for our forces. The Prussians had moved in from the east, and Napoleon’s troops, strong and heroic as they were, were divided. The English probably won the war because of this advantage.” He exhaled loudly. “The French went to work, their cavalry charging the English center, and I was caught in the middle of it.”
He swallowed with difficulty, fighting the raging conflict inside. The pain was obviously evident, for at that moment Caroline scooted closer and placed his hand in her lap. He felt softness and warmth, smelled wild roses and the violet water only she wore, and still the remembrance clouded his mind, choking him.
“Caroline—”
She slowly stroked his hand with hers. “It’s all right.”
He shook his head and continued to look at the ground in front of him. “It was a field of mass suffering, of men slowly dying in unbearable pain. I’d experienced war and certainly death before, knew what it looked like, and for that I was prepared. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me.” He drew a deep, shaky breath. “I saw Philip coming for me through the smoke and haze, attacking with vengeance, charging at me from the side before I could defend myself. He knocked me off my horse, hitting me in the temple with the butt of his pistol, stunning me, the pain shooting through my head as if a dagger had pierced my skull.”
Bitterly he chuckled. “Hell came upon the French cavalry in the most peculiar way that day, Caroline. Because of the thick fog of gunpowder and dust surrounding us, nobody saw the trench until too late—a trench large and deep, virtually hidden in the brush. Suddenly men and horses began falling into it, some wounded, most of them dead. After several hours of fighting, the French began using the filling trench as a human bridge to encroach on the enemy.”
“No…” she whispered.
