To Catch an Heiress
“Are you certain?”
“Truly. I just shouldn't have stood on my tiptoes. It will most likely be completely healed by tomorrow.”
Blake crouched down beside her and, to her great shock and surprise, took her ankle into his hands, gently palpating it before standing back up. “Tomorrow might be a bit optimistic. But the swelling has gone down considerably.”
“Yes.” She shut her mouth, suddenly at a complete loss for words. It was a most unusual state of affairs. What was one supposed to say in such a situation? Thank you for the lovely kiss. Would it be possible to have another?
Somehow, Caroline didn't think that sounded particularly appropriate, even if it would be most heartfelt. Patience patience patience, she told herself.
Blake looked at her oddly. “You look somewhat disturbed.”
“I do?”
“Forgive me,” he said immediately. “It was just that you looked so serious.”
“I was thinking about my cousin,” she blurted out, thinking that she sounded extensively foolish.
“Your cousin?”
She nodded vaguely. “Her name is Patience.”
“I see.”
Caroline was afraid he really did.
The corners of his mouth quivered. “She must be quite a role model for you.”
“Not at all. Patience is quite a harridan,” she lied. Actually, Patience Merriwether was an irritating combination of reserve, piety, and decorum. Caroline had never met her in person, but her letters were always preachy beyond measure—or, in Caroline's opinion, politeness. But Caroline had kept writing to her over the years, since anyone's letters were a welcome diversion from her awful guardians.
“Hmmm,” he said noncommittally. “Rather cruel, I should think, saddling a child with a name like that.”
Caroline thought about that for a moment. “Yes. It's hard enough living up to one's parents. Can you imagine having to live up to oneself? I suppose it might have been worse to have been named Faith, Hope, or Charity.”
He shook his head. “No. For you, I think, Patience would have been the most difficult.”
She punched him playfully in the shoulder. “Speaking of peculiar names, how did you come by yours?”
“Blake, you mean?”
She nodded.
“It was my mother's maiden name. It's a custom in my family to give the second son his mother's maiden name.”
“The second son?”
Blake shrugged. “The firstborn usually gets something important from the father's side.”
Trent Ravenscroft, Caroline thought. It didn't sound half-bad. She smiled.
“What are you grinning about?” he asked.
“Me?” she gulped. “Nothing. Just that, well—”
“Spit it out, Caroline.”
She swallowed again, her brain whirring at triple-speed. There was no way she was going to admit to him that she was fantasizing about their off-spring. “What I was thinking,” she said slowly.
“Yes?”
Of course! “I was thinking,” she repeated, her voice growing a bit more confident, “that you're very lucky your mother didn't have one of those hyphenated surnames. Can you imagine if your name were something like Fortescue-Hamilton Ravenscroft?”
Blake grinned. “Do you think I'd be called Fort or Ham for short?”
“Or,” Caroline continued with a laugh, thoroughly enjoying herself now, “what if she were Welsh? You'd be completely without vowels.”
“Aberystwyth Ravenscroft,” he said, pulling the name from a famous castle. “It has a certain charm.”
“Ah, but then everyone should call you Stwyth, and we'd all sound as if we were lisping.”
Blake chuckled. “I had a mad crush on a girl named Sarah Wigglesworth once. But my brother convinced me that I must be a stoic and let her go.”
“Yes,” Caroline mused, “I can see where it might be difficult for a child to be named Wigglesworth Ravenscroft.”
“I rather think David just wanted her for himself. Not six months later they were engaged.”
“Oh, how perfect!” Caroline exclaimed with a hoot of laughter. “But now doesn't he have to name his child Wigglesworth?”
“No, only we second sons are obliged to follow the custom.”
“But isn't your father a viscount? Why did he have to follow the custom?”
“My father was actually a second son himself. His older brother died at the age of five. By that time my father was already born and named.”
Caroline grinned. “And what was his name?”
“I'm afraid Father wasn't nearly as lucky as I. My grandmother's maiden name was Petty.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear. Oh, I shouldn't laugh.”
“Yes, you should. We all do.”
“What do you call him?”
“I call him Father. Everyone else simply calls him Darnsby, which is his title.”
“What did he do before he gained the title?”
“I believe he instructed everyone to call him Richard.”
“Is that one of his given names?”
“No,” Blake said with a shrug, “but he much preferred it to Petty.”
“Oh, that is funny,” she said, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. “What happens if a Ravenscroft doesn't have a second son?”
He leaned forward with a decidedly rakish glint in his eye. “We just keep trying and trying until we do.”
Caroline's cheeks flamed. “Do you know,” she said hastily, “but I suddenly feel extensively tired. I believe I shall go inside and have a short rest. You are, of course, welcome to join me.”