Page 251 of Historical Hotties
He snorted softly and shook his head at her impudence. “Have it your own way,” he said. “But I have just been given permission to go north and survey my new earldom. That is good news, don’t you think?”
Caledonia’s smile faded. “Home?”
He could see that she didn’t have the same enthusiasm as he did, and his joy at the situation faded. “Aye,” he said. “Why? Do you not want to go?”
She nodded. But her eyes teared up and she lowered her head, struggling with her composure. That wasn’t like her, this bold and fiery woman, so concern swept him. He instinctively put an arm around her shoulders, leaning into her so no one could hear their conversation except his nosy sister, who leaned in also.
“Will you tell me why this troubles you?” he asked softly.
Caledonia was so used to keeping her feelings and thoughts to herself that to have someone ask her—actually ask her—was quite new. It was also embarrassing. She wasn’t used to having so much attention on her, but she quickly realized something—she liked having Thor so close. He was big and powerful, yet there was a gentleness about him. At least, when it came to her there was. He’d been that way from the start. It was a warm trap of human kindness, but a trap that filled something in her life that had been lacking.
A most tender trap.
“Truly, it is nothing,” she said, struggling to shrug off his concern. “I… I simply have not been home in a while. Will we be going to Stafford Castle, too?”
Thor nodded. “That is where your children are, isn’t it?”
As she nodded, Nicola gasped. “I did not know you have children,” she said. “How many do you have?”
Caledonia was trying to discreetly dab away the moisture around her eyes. “Three,” she said. “Three daughters.”
Nicola sighed in delight. “How very lovely,” she said. “What are their names?”
“Jane, Janet, and Joan.”
Nicola was delighted by the idea of three daughters. “Such pretty names,” she said. “Very fashionable.”
“I was not allowed to name them,” Caledonia said, showing little interest in Nicola’s compliment. “Their father named them in accordance with his mother’s wishes.”
Nicola didn’t quite understand that. She and Caledonia hadn’t really discussed her marriage to Robert beyond the fact that she had once, indeed, been married to the Earl of Stafford, so she wasn’t sure how to respond. Looking to her brother for direction, she could see him shaking his head faintly. That told Nicola it wasn’t a good subject to be on, but she wanted to give the woman comfort.
“I… I am sure they are beautiful and intelligent,” she said, trying to sound positive and helpful. “Won’t it be good to go home and see them? How long has it been?”
That was the wrong question to ask. Caledonia lowered her head even further and the tears came again. Nicola had no idea what she’d said wrong. But Thor had an inkling; he gave Caledonia a gentle squeeze and spoke softly and reassuringly.
“If you are worried about the old nun who is their guardian, I will send her away if you wish it,” he murmured. “I will chase her away the moment I set foot in Stafford and you will never see her again. Would you like that?”
The tears were forgotten. Caledonia’s head came up and she looked at him in shock. “You… you would do that?”
“If you wish it. Do you?”
Did she?Since the day the girls were born, she had wished it. She had prayed for it, hoped for it, but Robert had been determined to keep the old hag who had raised him in charge of his own children. The nurse who’d poisoned Caledonia’s own children against their mother and there had been nothing she could do about it.
It never occurred to her that Thor would.
If her marriage to him only brought her the removal of that beastly woman, then it was well worth it.
“Aye,” she said hoarsely. “I wish it. Very much.”
He winked at her and leaned back, removing his arm from her shoulders. “It would be my pleasure, Lady de Reyne,” he said, using her new title for the first time. “Therefore, there is no more trouble. We are eager to return and see to your children. I suppose they will become mine, too. I should like to meet them.”
Caledonia couldn’t keep the tears at bay after that. Thoughts of seeing her children and perhaps actually being a family with Thor undid her. She stood up quickly, rushing from the hall as Nicola tried to follow her, but Thor held her back. Instead, he went after his new wife because, to be perfectly truthful, he wasn’t entirely sure that she wasn’t running from him again. He just wanted to make sure. She’d been quite compliant since he brought her back from Gomorrah, so he wanted to make sure she hadn’t lulled him into a false sense of security. He didn’t want to say he didn’t trust her not to head back to Gomorrah if it all became too much for her, but…
Fortunately for both of them, Thor found Caledonia out in the corridor. She was standing near one of the big windows that overlooked a small courtyard that was enclosed on all four sides. There was a small garden in the center of the courtyard and he walked up behind Caledonia, lit up by the moonglow. When he looked at her, he could see her profile. She was looking at the moonglow, too.
He could see the tears on her face.
“If I said something to upset you, I apologize,” he said. “Mayhap I am behaving clumsily, though I do not mean to.”
