Her Sudden Groom (16 page)

“
Wait,” a man’s voice called from behind her, halting her steps and speeding up the pace of her heart.

“
Alex! What are you doing here?”

He smiled at her. “I asked if it was all right to come by. You said I could. So here I am.”

She blushed. He’d really come! “Yes, I remember the conversation.”

“
Good. What are you doing out here?”

She shot a quick glance at the storage shed and bit her lip. “Getting my telescope,” she said at last, hoping he’d not object to her getting it out by herself.

“
Why? It’s not quite noon.” He leaned with his shoulder against the side of the building.

“
I know. It’s for tonight. If my math is correct, there’s to be a lunar eclipse tonight.” She shook off the dirt that had blown onto her green skirt.

He nodded. “Your math is correct. But you don’t need a telescope to see the eclipse, you know.” His mouth was bent in a smile that took the starch right out of her knees.

“
I know that,” she said defensively. “I just wanted to look at the constellations and planets while I waited for it.”

“
I can understand that,” he said, looking around. “Where is it?”

“
What?”

“
Your scope.”

She pointed one finger to the shed. “In there.”

He blinked at her. “You store it in the shed?”

“
No. Yes.” She cleared her throat. “It’s safer than in the house.”

“
I can understand why,” he muttered, moving his hands to the lock. “Where’s the key?”

“
I have it. What are you doing?”

He held his hand out with his palm up. “I’m going to get it out for you.”

“
I’ll get it,” she said quickly, tightening her grip around the key. There was no way she was going to allow him in that disastrous shed.

He frowned. “I’ve a lot of ungentlemanly behavior to make up for as far as you’re concerned. Let me demonstrate my good manners by getting your scope.”

“
No.” Caroline shook her head wildly. That shed was offensive, to say the least. Olivia didn’t believe in throwing
anything
away. Ever. That shed was full of all sorts of odd and ends from Olivia’s past. Most of which amounted to broken or stray pieces of outdoor games, torn paint canvases, ripped or broken furniture, outgrown clothes, and anything else Olivia couldn’t bear to part with for some sentimental purpose or another.

“
Why not?” he asked, crossing his arms and blocking the door.

“
Alex, please, if there was ever a time not to ask questions, this might be it.”

He didn’t budge.

She sighed. “That shed has a lot of personal things of Olivia’s, and she’d be unhappy if she knew you’d been in there.”

He looked like he didn’t believe her at first. “Very well. But as soon as you get your scope out of there, I’m going to carry it for you. No arguments.”

“
Agreed.”

Alex moved out of her way and she unlocked the door, simultaneously sending up a prayer pleading that everything would not fall out as soon as she opened the door. Slowly, she cracked the door just far enough to be able to go slip in and said a prayer of thanksgiving when nothing fell out.

Pushing her way inside, she paused a minute and let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit little room. Three of the walls were solid brick and mortar, but the far wall had a window that was about two feet tall and ran the length of the wall.

“
This is a mess,” she muttered, squinting at the giant pile of junk that was heaped in the little space.

She did a quick scan of the shed to find her telescope and sighed. Of course her telescope was over in the back corner. Where else had she expected it to be? The front? No. That would be too convenient and heaven forbid Olivia allow Caroline to get to her telescope without having to work for it. She bit her lip. Perhaps she should just go fetch a footman to dig it out for her. She shook her head. She was already here. Besides, if she left the shed now, Alex would insist
he’d
get it for her, and the last thing she wanted was for him to see the inside of this shed.

“
Need any help?” Alex called impatiently from outside.

“
No,” she said, stepping over a broken easel. “I’ve got it.”

She lifted her leg as high as she could so as not to knock over a stack of moldy, leather-bound tomes. Sadly, her hard work was for naught and the heavy fabric of her skirts sent them tumbling as she lowered her foot back to the rubbish pile on the other side of the stack. “Good gracious,” she said between clenched teeth as she tried to yank her skirt out from under the books that had just fallen on it.

“
Caroline, are you sure you don’t wish for any help? I couldn’t care less about seeing your cousin’s tokens of her girlhood,” Alex said loudly.

“
I’m almost done, I promise,” she lied, wishing it was the truth. She turned her attention back to her skirt which was now trapped under what used to be a not-so-tidy stack of ruined books. She needed to get free. Clutching a fistful of her skirt, she jerked a little harder than necessary—partly because of haste, partly from pure irritation. The jerk did not free her skirt; instead, she lost her balance and gave a high pitched yelp as she collapsed on top of the junk.

“
I heard that,” Alex said tightly, opening the door. “Hell’s afire, Caroline. You could have been seriously hurt digging around in this rubbish.” He walked over to where she was laying and picked her up with more care than she imaged him capable of. He set her down on a somewhat flat area and kept his arm wrapped around her for support. “Where’s the scope.”

She inclined her chin a notch to stave off her extreme embarrassment. “In the corner.”

His eyes went to the corner. “I see it. You wait outside and I’ll get it.”

“
No. I’ll help,” she protested.

“
No, you’ll wait outside. Now.”

She sighed. “Fine. But please leave the drape on it until you get it outside. I don’t want it to get scratched.”

He nodded.

Caroline stood outside the shed and waited, trying not to smile or grimace as she listened to Alex mumbling phrases she couldn’t quite make out, but somehow knew they were inappropriate nonetheless. Two minutes later, he emerged holding her telescope over his head, one hand on the tube of the telescope and the other supporting it at the base where it attached to the tripod.

“
Thank you,” she said, blushing. She wasn’t an extremely neat person, but she’d be deathly embarrassed if he thought she kept her things that way.

“
No problem,” he said, setting her telescope down with care. “Have you ever heard the term blivet?”

Caroline stood frozen and stared at him. She knew what a
blight
was. She gave her head a little shake. That’s probably what he said. “I believe so, yes.”

He cocked one eyebrow at her. “Is that so? My father used to use that term, I always assumed he’d made it up,” he informed her quietly, untying the ties at the bottom of the drape. “When I was a boy, my father would come into my room and look around at all my specimens and instruments and say, ‘Boy, this room is a blivet.’ I just thought he was saying my room was a mess. Then, when I was about fifteen, my father came to visit me at Eton during the middle of the term. He walked into the room Marcus and I were sharing, let out a low whistle and said, ‘Boys, this room is a blivet and a half.’ Marcus looked bewildered and I was about to explain to him Father thought our room was a mess, but just as I got my mouth open, my father shook his head and said, ‘Marcus, a blivet is when a man has a box or a bag that is designed to hold five pounds worth of stuff and he tries to shove ten pounds worth of stuff into it instead. And you boys are trying to shove fifteen pounds into this five pound room.’”

Caroline smiled. “I can only imagine what you two boys had in that room.”

He shook his head. “I bet you can’t.”

“
You’re probably right,” she agreed, watching as he untied the last tie. “So are you trying to say that shed is a blivet, Mr. Banks?”

“
No,” he said earnestly. “Nor is it a blivet and a half. It’s two.”

She burst into laughter. “I tried to spare you.”

“
I know. But it didn’t matter in the end. I still had to come in to rescue you.” He smiled at her in a way that made her heart double its pace. “Now, are you going to uncover this thing or what?”

She proudly walked up to her telescope, grabbed the top of the drape, and pulled it off, letting the cloth fall to the ground beside them.

“
I know Marcus was never interested in astronomy,” Alex commented, running his fingers along the side of the scope tube that was facing him. “Every once in a while he’d come ask me to show him a constellation or planet. Knowing that, and assuming he did not suddenly develop an astronomical interest since school, it begs the question of how Ridge Water ended up with a telescope that lives in a shed.”

“
It belonged to my mother,” Caroline said proudly, beaming at him. “She used to like to stargaze. She even took me with her sometimes. When she died, my uncle bought the telescope from my father and kept it here for me to use.” She shrugged. There was no sense in telling any more of the story. He could think what he wished.

“
Well, it’s a nice scope.” He bent to peer through the eyepiece.

Nodding, Caroline didn’t bother to wait to hear his expert opinion on the magnification of the eyepiece. She went straight to the end so she could clean the lens of any smudges that might block her view when she tried to see the stars tonight. She pulled the hem of her sleeve down with her fingers and gasped. The blood rushed from her face and her heart hammered out of control, and all she could do was helplessly stare at the hundreds of shards of glass that made up the shattered lens. Refusing to believe what she was seeing, she numbly reached her trembling index finger forward and nearly screamed with horror as her finger confirmed her brain’s assessment of the state of the lens.

“
I’m sorry,” Alex said solemnly as Caroline backed away, still staring motionlessly at the destroyed telescope. “I should have been more careful with it when I was bringing it out.”

She shook her head. “You’re a terrible liar, Alex. We both know what happened. Olivia always does things like this to me. She’s the reason it was in the back corner of the shed to start with. I used it only two weeks ago. It should have been in the front. She ordered it sent to the back.” Her voice was cracked and she made herself to stop talking and look away before the tears fell from her eyes.

“
That doesn’t mean...”

“
Yes, it does.” She swallowed convulsively. “She must have broken it herself, though. None of the servants would have ever done such a thing, even if she ordered them to.”

Alex came up to stand in front of her and wrapped his surprisingly thick arms around her trembling body, pulling her against his chest. “Shhh, Caro,” he crooned softly in her ear. “It’ll be all right.” He used the pad of his thumb to wipe away a tear that had slipped out the side of her eye.

Her body shook with sobs, and he held her close. She inwardly commanded herself to stop crying, but it was useless, her tears continued to pour, creating a large, warm stain on the front of Alex’s shirt.

“
I’m sorry she did that.” His voice was soft and quiet. “And I know this won’t fix anything, but I know of someone who has a telescope you can borrow tonight. You may not be as familiar with it as your own, but I assure you, you’ll be able to see the stars all the same.”

She shook her head the best she could against his hard chest. “I can’t borrow someone’s telescope on such short notice. It would be rude to even ask,” she whispered. She drew in a ragged, shaky breath. “Besides, they may not even be willing to lend it to me.”