“You certainly know how to make a girl feel special.”
“It’s one of my great skills.”
“Can’t you shower me with flattery so I’ll believe I’m too marvelous to resist?”
“I’m much too manly to shower you with flattery.”
“Perhaps you could spew some poetry. Can you recite any sonnets?”
“I’m fresh out of sonnets.”
She sighed, and he sighed too, and she leaned into him, their bodies pressed tight from chest to toe.
“What now?” she asked.
He linked their fingers. “Have you calmed down? Will you come back down to the party?”
“I will in a bit. I need some time by myself to consider my options.”
“Don’t dawdle by yourself, fretting and moping. Gregory isn’t worth it.”
“That’s recently become very clear to me, so there are some massive changes approaching. I’ll have to devise a means of implementing them without being buried in the rubble of the chaos I’ll cause.”
“You know what the changes have to be. You don’t have to dither and reflect. Deep in your heart, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
She peered out the window, worried over how long they’d tarried. She was so completely enchanted by him that, if the sun had set without her noticing, she wouldn’t have been surprised. It was still afternoon though, but much later than it had been.
“I should probably get out of here,” he said.
“I never thought you should have arrived in the first place.”
“Of course you didn’t, but aren’t you glad I risked it?”
“I might be glad.”
“Promise you’ll come downstairs. I’d like to introduce you to my brother.”
“I’d like that too.”
“Why don’t you rearrange the seating chart at supper? Sit next to me.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“Why not?”
“I might like you more than I should too,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t be able to hide my heightened fondness.”
“No one pays any attention to you, Caro. Trust me on this. You could gaze at me until your eyes fell out of your head, and there isn’t a single person who would note what was amiss.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” she murmured.
“Don’t be sad.”
“I’m not. I’m. . . exhausted, I guess.”
“Don’t be exhausted either. Be relieved that you’re about to walk a new path.”
“I’ll tell myself that’s what is happening.”
“And be happy that you met me.”
“I don’t believe I should be happy about it. In fact, I’m predicting you’ll bring me nothing but trouble in the end.”
“You could be right.”
He gave her fingers a tight squeeze, kissed her a quick, final time, then went to the door. He unlocked it, peeked out, and slipped away. But not before glancing back, his expression so full of longing that she was bowled over by it.
“Don’t marry your cousin,” he said. “If you never follow another piece of advice, follow that one. If you marry him, you’ll always be sorry.”
Then he was gone.
She was frozen in her spot, trying to hear his footsteps retreating down the hall, but he vanished like smoke.
She sank down on her chair, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hand, listening as the silence settled around her.
“What to do? What to do?” she asked the empty room, but the room had no answer, and she was all alone.
“Won’t you ask me how my career is going?”
“No.”
Blake Ralston grinned at his brother, but Caleb didn’t grin back. The navy—and Blake’s career in it—was a sore spot between them. He shouldn’t have mentioned it, but he felt weighted down by guilt for the mess he’d caused, and he wished Caleb would forgive him.
It had happened four years earlier. Why couldn’t they move beyond it?
The navy had been Caleb’s whole life, and Blake believed, if they talked about it occasionally, it might stop being such a jagged wound. Yet maybe it wasn’t possible to repair the damage. Maybe Caleb would always suffer from the catastrophe Blake had stirred.
At least they were friends again. For a lengthy interval, they hadn’t spoken, and Blake had been terrified that Caleb meant for their rift to last forever. But as Sybil had counseled—Sybil being their substitute mother—Caleb would calm down, and he had.
He and Blake were all alone in the world. Well, if he didn’t include their half-brother, Jacob Ralston, and his two sisters. Caleb might get angry at Blake, but their firm bond would survive.
It was the tenor of his relationship with his brother. When they’d been growing up, Blake had been a constant trial. They would fight over his mischief, and Caleb would declare that he was washing his hands of Blake, but Caleb was too loyal. He’d never leave Blake behind.
They’d gradually fallen back into the rhythm that set the tone for their lives. He loved his brother, but Caleb wasn’t the cheeriest fellow. In that, they were complete opposites. Caleb was older—thirty to Blake’s twenty-five—so he worried and planned and remained alert for bumps in their road.
Blake, in contrast, was happy, lucky, and content to follow wherever Caleb led him. In his view, problems resolved themselves, and there was never a reason to fret.
“Shall we discuss your career then?” Blake asked.
“What career would that be? My ownership of a prosperous gambling house?”
“Yes, that one.”
“You should be glad I’ve been so successful. When you’re elderly and crippled, with your joints swollen from your decades at sea, I’ll be able to support you.”
“Will you hire beautiful nurses to tend me ‘round the clock?”
“No, I’ll hire aged crones.”
“You’re a cruel, heartless sibling.”
“If I am, you deserve it.”
They were chatting in the main parlor at Grey’s Corner. A festive dance was in progress, with couples promenading down the center of the room. There were plenty of female guests, so he’d been dragged onto the floor over and over. He was taking a break and catching his breath.
With Blake still in the navy, and Caleb having resigned and residing in London, they didn’t see each other very often. He hardly knew Gregory Grey, but he’d used the nuptials as an excuse to obtain a furlough. He wasn’t interested in the celebration, but Caleb needed him to guard
