When Caroline awoke, dawn was just beginning to unfurl ribbons of light across a clear blue sky and a small fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth. For a moment she laid where she was, her gaze drawn to the silk damask canopy draped over the top of the bed. She hadn’t meant to sleep the entire rest of the day and night away, but she was glad that she had as she felt, if not completely free of the cumbersome weight that sat atop her shoulders, at least a tiny bit refreshed.

Sitting upright, she drew the wool blanket around her shoulders as a shiver worked its way down her spine. For all their size and splendor large houses were quite drafty, and despite the fire there was an unwelcome chill in the air that would only grow colder as the weeks progressed and the bright colors of fall gave way to the brittle starkness of winter.

Of Anne there was no sign, but the maid must have been in the room at some point for draped over the back of a wooden rocking chair Caroline found a day dress along with a neatly folded petticoat and a satin-trimmed corset.

With a start she realized that she’d slept in her wedding gown and the pale blue frock, once so painstakingly starched and pressed, was now wrinkled beyond repair. Not only that, but three pearls had worked their way free of the stitching on the bodice and were now missing. After several minutes spent searching for them amidst the sheets, she gave up with a sigh and rang for Anne.

The maid appeared almost immediately. Wearing a high necked black dress, white apron, and a worried frown, she hurried through the door and nearly stumbled over her own feet when she threw herself forward into a deep curtsy.

“Your Grace, I wanted to apologize for what I said yesterday. It wasn’t my place. My mum is always telling me I run my mouth too much. Anne, she says, you’re bound to get tossed out on your ear one of these days.” She lifted her head, revealing fretful brown eyes beneath a creased brow. “Oh, please don’t sack me. I won’t say another word about you and the duke. I swear I won’t.”

“I am not going to sack you,” Caroline said firmly.

“You - you’re not?”

“No. I do not believe anyone should ever be punished for speaking their mind.” She tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Does…does everyone believe what you told me yesterday? That my husband and I…that is to say…”

“You did not marry for love?” Anne ventured.

“Yes.” Relieved the maid had been able to say what she could not, Caroline nodded vigorously. “Precisely.”

It may have seemed foolish - and it probably was - but when she was a young girl she had not dreamt of fancy gowns or glittering diamond tiaras or balls that lasted all through the night. Instead she’d dreamed about finding her true love. A man who was kind and handsome and made her laugh. He needn’t be wealthy or own a great mansion or even be titled. Just as long as he gave her a reason to smile every day. Of course her mother had had other ideas, and what Lady Wentworth wanted Lady Wentworth got - even if it was at the expense of her own daughter’s happiness.

Caroline could have always refused the duke’s suit when he made his intentions known, but that would have meant not only defying one of the most powerful men in all of England but also her mother…who, although not as physically imposing, was every bit as intimidating.

So she’d done what they had both wanted her to do. She’d married a man she hardly knew and traveled to an estate she knew not at all. A frightening undertaking to be sure, but in the back of her mind she had retained some sliver of hope that her new husband, while grouchy as an old bear on the outside, was really a kind, affable man beneath all the sullenness and glowering stares and curt remarks.

That hope had been dashed from the instant they’d arrived at Litchfield Park. And to make matters worse - because no matter how bad things appeared, they could always get worse - it seemed she had been the only one who had thought there was ever a chance she and Eric might one day come to care for one another as a husband and wife should.

Apparently love was not a very realistic expectation when a surly duke was involved.

“I don’t know how to answer your question,” said Anne, chewing on her lip.

“Honestly, if you would,” Caroline said before she marched across the room and pulled back the drapes. Small fractured crystals of ice still clung to the outside of the windows, but they quickly melted into droplets of water when her breath warmed the glass. Resting her hands on the sill, she gazed out across rolling fields painted silver with frost. It was a pretty sight; one made all the prettier by a herd of frolicking horses. Emboldened by the crisp morning air they bucked and danced their way across the pasture, their hooves scarcely touching the ground.         

“The duke has never been a very…warm man,” Anne began hesitantly. “When the staff learned of his engagement, it was assumed the marriage was…well, that it was an arranged one. But from what I understand that is not uncommon, Your Grace.” 

“No,” Caroline said softly, still looking out the window. “It is not uncommon at all.”

But it still did not make the sting of being trapped in a loveless union hurt any less.

Why, she wondered silently as she watched an energetic bay prance and snort and toss his head. Why choose me, of all people?  But that was one question Anne could not answer, and she dared not ask it of her husband. At least not yet.

“Could you help me undress?” Feigning a bright smile, she turned around and lifted her hair to the top of her head, exposing a row of pearl buttons running down the length of her spine. “I fear I cannot do it myself.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Looking relieved to have been given a task that did not require her to divulge any more personal information about her employer, Anne helped Caroline out of her wedding gown and into the yellow dress she’d laid out on the chair.

Simple in design, it hugged Caroline’s shoulders and small breasts before falling away from her hips in a swirl of muslin and ivory lace. It was supposed to be worn with a hoop skirt, but she had always found the large, cumbersome contraptions dreadfully uncomfortable. She could not wait until they fell out of fashion, along with the boned corset that made it nearly impossible to draw a deep breath. Whoever invented the confining undergarments, it certainly hadn’t been a woman.

Not wanting to put Anne through the trouble of drawing a bath, she washed her face and arms with rose scented water and then sat perfectly still while the maid brushed out her hair before twisting it into a simple coiffure that left gold ringlets dangling down on either side of her temple.

“Don’t you want a feather or two?” Anne asked. “Or perhaps a flower?”

Caroline shuddered. Had her mother been in attendance she would have refused to let her leave the room without a full stone’s worth of accessories weighing down her head. Why, just two months ago she’d been forced to cut a bird’s nest out of her hair - complete with eggs! - after her lady’s maid had used a bit too much hemp-wool and powder to secure it.

“No.” The word felt heavy and foreign on her lips. Not surprising, given she wasn’t accustomed to speaking it. With her mother hovering over her shoulder she’d spent the last twenty-one years being told what to wear, what to say, and what to do. But now Lady Wentworth wasn’t here…and if she didn’t want flowers or feathers or bird nests in her hair she didn’t have to have them.

“That will be all, Anne. Thank you very much for your assistance.” She met the maid’s gaze in the looking glass and smiled. “You are going to be a wonderful lady’s maid.”

Anne blushed. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I believe I’ll stretch my legs before taking breakfast. Do you happen to know where my fur-lined cloak is? It should have been in one of the trunks, but I haven’t any idea which one. My mother was rather overzealous in her packing,” she said apologetically.  

“Not to worry, Your Grace. I will have it brought to you right away.”

“Thank you, Anne. I’ll be waiting in the foyer. Oh, and Anne?” she asked before the maid could hurry out the door. “I do have one more small request.”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Please…call me Caro. You needn’t do it in the presence of Mr. Newgate,” she said hurriedly when Anne frowned. “I know he wouldn’t approve and I do not want you to get in any trouble on my account. But when we are alone, just the two of us, I want you to think of me as your friend.” Her mouth curved in a tremulous smile. “I could very much use a friend.”

“You know,” Anne said thoughtfully, “you’re not at all like I thought a duchess would be.”

Caroline’s smile faded. “I’m not?”

Oh dear.

One day in and she was already mucking it up. She’d known being a duchess wouldn’t be easy and despite all of her lessons in etiquette and manners she had suspected there would be bumps and blunders along the way.

She just hadn’t realized she’d had time to make any yet.

“No. I always imagined a duchess to be…well…” – the maid’s hand waved vaguely in the air – “hoity-toity and full of airs. But you’re really quite nice.”

Caroline blinked. Out of all the things she’d been afraid of doing wrong, being too nice had never occurred to her. She sat up a bit straighter in her chair.

“Thank you, Anne. That…that is very kind of you to say.”

“You’re welcome.” The two women exchanged smiles and then with a quick curtsy Anne left the room, leaving Caroline to wonder if perhaps her new life wasn’t going to be quite so terrible after all.

 

Eric pulled his stallion up short when he saw a cloaked figure standing beside the horse pasture, their arm extended between the wooden rails as they reached out to touch one of his prized thoroughbred broodmares.

An equestrian enthusiast from the moment he’d sat on his first pony, the duke’s carefully cultivated breeding herd was one of the finest in all of England. The foals his mares produced were worth tens of thousands of pounds and just this spring one of his two-year-olds had taken the Derbyshire Cup, the youngest to ever do so.

To say he was protective of his horses – particularly his broodmares – would have been a vast understatement. No one except for himself and his grooms were ever allowed to touch them. They weren’t pleasure animals, they were breeding stock. And they – bloody hell. Was that a carrot?   

“You there!” he called out sharply. “Step back at once!”

Ignoring him, the cloaked figure climbed up on the fence and stretched their arm all the way through the rails, an orange carrot dangling from their fingertips as they tried to coax Lady Rebecca, the dam of the colt who had taken the Derbyshire Cup, a few steps closer.

Gritting his teeth, Eric pressed his heels into his stallion’s sides and the great black thoroughbred leaped forward as though springing from the starting gate. As they came thundering down over the crest of the hill the interloper panicked and squeezed himself between the rails, tumbling headfirst into the pasture.

“Got you now,” Eric said grimly, but no sooner had the words left his mouth than the rest of the mares, enticed by the smell of a stallion, came running across the field in a rippling wave of sleek muscle and deadly hooves.

He was of half a mind to let the stupid fool get trampled to death. It would be no less than he deserved for trying touch one of his horses. But then the stupid fool’s cloak fell back, revealing soft yellow hair spun from gold and the terrified countenance of his wife. Lurching to her feet, Caroline ran towards the fence and jumped onto the middle rail, clinging to it like a kitten dangling down from a tree as the herd of mares came barreling towards her. 

“Goddammit,” Eric cursed as the anger in his chest turned to ice. Pulling hard on the reins, he leapt from the saddle before his mount had come to a full halt and sprinted towards the fence. Grabbing hold of his wife’s slender forearms, he yanked her up and over the top rail just as the mares reached them.

Clods of dirt and grass rained down from the sky as they fell backwards. Instinctively protecting Caroline with his own body, Eric struck the ground first. Grunting from the force of the impact, he rolled once, twice, and came to a stop in the shade of a towering oak tree with Caroline cradled on top of his chest.

She was so still that for a moment he feared she’d been knocked unconscious…but then he saw a flash of gray as she peeked down at him through her tangled hair and his fear turned to fury.

“You little idiot!” he growled, blue eyes flashing with temper. “You could have been run down! What the devil were you thinking, climbing into that field? Those horses are easily ten times your size!”

 “I – I am sorry,” she whispered haltingly. “I was only trying to–”

“Get yourself killed?” Eric gritted his teeth as he fought the urge to shake some sense into her. He’d known his wife was cripplingly shy, but he hadn’t any idea she was so dimwitted! Or so soft…

When she tried to push herself upright her hip brushed against his upper thigh and he suddenly found himself gritting his teeth for another reason all together.

It wasn’t because he found her attractive. She was pretty enough in a wallflower sort of way, but his personal preferences had always run towards more exotic beauties. Ones with dark hair and full red lips and heated glances that could burn a man from across the room. Caroline had none of those traits, and yet as she squirmed and wiggled he could feel heat shooting straight to his loins.

“Stop that,” he said harshly.

She looked down at him in confusion. “Stop what? I am not doing anything.”

He groaned when her breasts brushed against his arm. “Stop moving. Unless you want our son to be conceived underneath a tree.” 

“No – no,” she squeaked.

“Good.” Jaw clenched, he waited for his arousal to pass. But when it didn’t – when it only got worse – he propped himself on his elbows and glowered at the bewitching blonde sprawled on top of his hard, pulsating body. “I need you to stand up.”  

Caroline bit her bottom lip, and the sight of her plump mouth caught between her teeth was nearly his undoing. “But you just said–”

“I know what I bloody well said!”

What the devil was wrong with him? He could feel his heart racing the same as it had when he’d been an inexperienced lad of sixteen about to divine the pleasures of a woman’s flesh for the very first time.

Two months without a mistress and I am lusting after my own wife, he thought in disgust.

Who did he think he was?

His father?

The unsettling thought was just what Eric needed to bring him to his senses. Wrapping his hands around Caroline’s waist, he set her off to the side before springing to his feet. Brushing leaves off his fawn colored breeches, he stiffly extended his right arm down towards his wife but with a hurtful glance she gathered her skirts and managed to rise without his assistance.

“What is it?” he said on an exasperated sigh when she continued to look at him like a lost little fawn peering out through the bushes at a big hungry wolf. “You’re not going to start crying again, are you?”

Even though she did look suspiciously close to tears, Caroline gave a tiny, albeit firm shake of her head. “No. I just wanted to say – I wanted to say that you needn’t yell at me all of the time.” She lifted her chin, revealing a spark of defiance he had never seen before. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nothing wrong?” he said incredulously. “You nearly got yourself killed!”

“I did not know the horses would come running so quickly.”

“You never should have been near their field in the first place, let alone inside of it.” He scowled down at her. “My horses are prized possessions, not pets. You’re not to go near them again. Do you understand?”

“I wasn’t going to hurt them,” she whispered, looking so dismayed that Eric was nearly tempted to pull her back into his arms.

His brow furrowed. What was it about his tiny slip of a wife that made him think such foolishly romantic thoughts? His mistresses had been after him for years to show emotion. ‘It is like you do not care for me at all’ they’d say, to which he always pointed out – quite reasonably – that he’d showered them in a small fortune’s worth of furs and jewels. What else could they possibly want? They’d known what they were agreeing to when they had climbed into his bed. And not a single one of them had ever been able to make him feel any guilt for his callousness.

Except for Caroline.  

“I know you weren’t,” he said gruffly. “I should have told you that the fields were off limits.” His fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck and sank down into the corded muscle. “Do you like to ride?”

To his surprise, she nodded. Given how tentative and easily frightened she was, he would never have taken her for an equestrian. It took a certain amount of boldness to climb atop a twelve-hundred-pound animal. No horse was completely infallible, not even a sweet-tempered gelding, and every time a person placed their foot in the stirrup they were putting themselves at considerable risk for injury.   

“That’s something we have in common, then.” His mouth stretched in what he thought to be an encouraging smile, but Caroline did not look very convinced.

“I suppose.” She nudged a clump of grass with the toe of her boot. “Would you – would you care to go riding together sometime?”

“I don’t see why not,” he said.

Visibly startled, she looked up at him with wide eyes. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do.” As much as he would have liked to, he couldn’t ignore her completely. She was his wife, after all. And if they were going to spend time together, he’d rather they do it in the saddle. “I have a colt who could use the exercise, and an older draft mare that would make a fine lady’s mount.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said, and her small, tentative smile aroused a flicker of warmth within his cold, unfeeling heart. Not liking the sensation, nor what it implied, he took a step back both figuratively and literally.

“Very well. I shall bid you good day, then.”

“You – you’re leaving?”

“I have other things to do,” he said brusquely. 

“What sort of things?” she called after him when he started to walk away.

He stopped short, a cutting retort souring the tip of his tongue, but when he looked back at Caroline the only sound to come from his lips was a startled hiss of air.

Bloody hell. Had he really thought her a plain wallflower? Standing beneath the red and orange leaves of the oak with her hair unbound and her skin kissed by sunlight she looked like a woodland fairy princess. One plucked straight from the pages of a Shakespearean play.

There was an etherealness to her beauty that he’d never noticed before. An understated elegance that glowed from within her. She was a quiet sunset after a long summer’s day. She was the soothing moment of calm after a hard storm. She was fresh snowfall on an open field. And in that moment he wanted her so badly that he ached.

“Your Grace?” she said uncertainly, making Eric realize that he’d been staring at her with his jaw agape like some sort of love struck fool.

“What?” he snapped, hands diving into his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. “What the bloody hell do you want now?”

Caroline started to say something. Stopped. Frowned. “Nothing.” She spoke so quietly that Eric thought he’d misheard her until she added, “I want absolutely nothing from you.”

And for the very first time since they’d met, she walked away from him.