Page 75 of The Nature of a Lady
All right, it did. A little. “And then what? Sail home with Ollie?”
He actually winced, which would have made her chuckle if not for the headache. “I’m sure there will be someone else coming this way.”
“You can come with me.” Something about Oliver’s tone—even, firm, steady—drew her gaze back to him. He wasn’t flushed with anger as he usually was when going toe-to-toe with Casek. His eyes weren’t glinting. He was just standing there, calm as could be, holding Libby’s hand as he’d been doing just about every time they were in the same room together.
Looking perfectly aware that only storms waited in that direction. But then, storms thundered over his house too. Storms loomed wherever Beth was. Storms were all he had just now.
Apparently Casek Wearne and his thundering just didn’t rate.
She turned back to him, not sure he’d see the same. Or, frankly, that he could be trusted to respect it. But Casek was regarding Oliver solemnly. And after another moment, he nodded. “It’ll do.”
Well. Mabena exchanged a gaze with Libby—surprised, impressed—before Libby apparently remembered that her complaints against Mabena still stood unresolved and looked away.
She sighed. The lady had been the soul of concern throughout the day and a half since the attack, tending her with care and consideration when she wasn’t doing the same for Mrs. Tremayne. But she never quite met her eye.
They’d have to settle things. Soon. For now though, she’d focuson some other settling. She let a hint of a smile touch her lips as she turned to Casek again. “Well then. Let’s be off.”
He hiked a brow even as he held out a hand toward where her boat was still anchored. “You’re not going to argue? Insist you’ll go with them?”
She tossed a smirk at where Oliver was leading Libby toward the Tremayne boat. “I don’t think they need my company just now.”
He grunted. “That’s going to end badly. Not thatImuch care, but I’d have thoughtyouwould, enough to warn them against it.”
“Oh, I did. But...” She shrugged. “I suppose I’m utterly failing at my chaperoning duties. Her mother will be appalled and no doubt sack me for it. And you know, I don’t care a bit. Let them steal an ounce of joy for a summer. They deserve it, both of them.”
She expected him to argue about the deserving bit. Instead, he latched on to the earlier statement. “Let her sack you. You don’t need to go back to the mainland. Just stay here, with us.”
Us, was it? He meant her parents, she supposed, and her siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors. Her lips twitched. “I may, at that.”
Not what she’d expected to decide when she came back here. Frankly, she expected to grit her teeth through every moment, find Beth, and hightail it back to Telford Hall with Libby. But she’d underestimated the islands, their pull on her.
And she’d certainly underestimated this one’s ability to dig down past the sandy layers of hurt and betrayal. To dig straight down to the rock of her and anchor himself there.
He shot her a look, all raised brows and incredulity. Then a scorching smile that burned the disbelief away and left pure pleasure in its ashes. “I expected it would take another month to convince you. At least.”
She allowed a little smile of her own. “Flattering. But I think the blow to my skull knocked a bit of my stubbornness loose.” And the way he’d dove after her, cradled her so tenderly, spent every possible moment with her since, despite that it meant visiting her at the Tremayne house...
They said nothing more just then, since they were nearly to theMermaid. Just focused on climbing aboard, casting off, and getting her under sail. Only once they were in open water—Mabena happy enough to let Casek man the tack and just relax—did he turn to her again with that look in his eye.
“Benna. When I saw that bloke strike you, when I thought I may have lost you ... I love you. I always have—you have to know that. And I can’t let another day go by without saying it, not with that threat still out there.”
Her heart was a cormorant, skimming over the waves with its wings spread wide. “Caz.” She didn’t know what else to say. Maybe there were feelings there, threatening to choke her, but they didn’t come with words. Not that she could find.
“I know it’s not so simple for you. What with Cador.”
She didn’t wince at the name at least. That was progress. Instead, she sighed. Just now, she couldn’t solve all the bigger problems they faced—the threats and the mysteries and the injuries. But there was one ghost she could put to rest. “Tell me. I’m ready to hear it now. He married her?”
Casek granted her the mercy of a gaze set on the sails instead of her face. “He did. It was, he thought, the quickest way to what he wanted. They eloped, and then they went to London to introduce him to Fiona’s parents.”
She’d assumed as much. Still, she’d expected that if ever anyone said it outright, it would be a fresh blow to her heart. Cador, her fiancé, the man she’d planned a life with, now someone else’s husband.
Maybe it was just because of Sunday night’s very physical blow casting its shadow on her, but she didn’t feel that other at all. Not more than a twinge, anyway. “Are they happy?” She wasn’t sure she was gracious enough to hope so.
But Casek’s snort only gave her alittlebit of pleasure. “Of course not. Her family didn’t approve of him, as we all knew would happen. A little nobody from a National School, trying to rub elbows withthe intelligentsia?” He shook his head. “They told her it was either an annulment or they’d disown her.”
Her mouth fell open a bit. Cador had always been able to charm his way into anyone’s favor. He’d even gotten along with the Tremaynes, for goodness’ sake, becoming the only Wearne to claim that feat for generations. But there was no wiggle of hope that perhaps he was free again. Nor any devilish glee in the thought of their hasty marriage failing so quickly. “What did she choose?”
Now Casek glanced her way, a warning in his eyes. “Them, at first. Until she realized she was with child. Then she went back to him. From what I can glean from his letters, they’re living in a miserable little flat in London, and he’s working for a publisher, though not in any notable position. He maintains that it’s a start, and that the misery his nag of a wife subjects him to daily is but fuel for his muse.” He rolled his eyes at that. “The latest letter said their second child should join them by Christmas.”
