Page 15 of Lady in Ruby
My goodness, Mr Stockan has fallen in love with Estelle! The idea roused her from her stillness. True, the young man had fallen for Estelle in a twinkling, but Caroline didn’t doubt how genuine his feelings were. They practically burned through the air. How could Estelle not know of his affection? She appeared completely oblivious.
Must everything be so tangled? Estelle appeared to have two men interested in her, while Caroline had to fend off attention from a man she’d never once considered as a marriage partner. She looked up, and noticed the little sprigs of mistletoe hanging from the chandeliers. She grimaced. The whole house appeared set up to encourage romance, and she was beginning to think it was all a mockery.
* * * *
After luncheon, still in a dour mood, Caroline went upstairs in search of the book she’d been reading. She found it only after an exhaustive search of her room—how did it end up behind the headboard?
Closing her door again, Caroline walked down the corridor, but stopped when she noticed the distinctive blue jacket of Lord Snowdon further down. Something just slightly odd in his manner kept her from speaking. Instead, she stepped back into a bedroom and peeked out.
Snowdon stood at the door of her parents’ bedroom. He knocked twice. Caroline happened to know that her father was out to the village and her mother was in the parlor, but before she could go out and tell him so, Snowdon’s hand fell to the doorknob and he pushed the door open.
She blinked in surprise. What was he doing? Such an invasion of privacy was unthinkable, all the more so because she couldn’t dream of why he’d do it at all.
Snowdon was in the room for only a few moments. Caroline heard a little bit of rustling and the scrape of a drawer being opened and closed again.
Then Snowdon returned to the hall. With one hand he pulled the door shut once more. His other hand was holding something awkwardly under his jacket. He turned toward her and Caroline pulled back, praying he hadn’t seen her leaning out into the hall.
He moved swiftly to his own room and went in, shutting the door tight. Caroline heard the metallic sound of a key twisting. He’d locked the door shut!
She frowned. Was this man a thief? No. He was a lord. He was well-dressed and he had all the manners of a gentleman. But what did that mean, after all? He could be anybody! Caroline steeled herself, then strode forward and rapped on his door.
“Lord Snowdon?” she called, just as she put her hand on the knob, intending to try it despite knowing the door was locked.
To her astonishment, the door swung open easily, sending her stumbling into the room…and into his arms.
Chapter 7
Caroline gasped as she was enveloped into Snowdon’s embrace, his strong arms holding her upright against the momentum that would have sent her tumbling to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked in a growl. His icy blue eyes were locked on her face, his expression darkening when she didn’t respond.
How could she respond? Caroline was overwhelmed by the presence of him, the intense maleness of his body next to hers. He’d taken his jacket off, so she could feel the hard planes of muscle in his arms and his chest. It was shocking how her curves melted against him, filling in the tiniest spaces, molding her body to his. Only the thin layer of her gown and the fabric of his shirt separated them, and that wasn’t nearly enough for her sanity. She inhaled and smelled his scent: apples and woodsmoke and something musky and dark underneath the rest. She’d never smelled anything quite like it, and she was conscious of a desire to put her face closer, to breathe in deeply and let the aroma wash over her, to revel in the novelty and the allure of it.
“Caroline, you shouldn’t be here,” he said in a softer tone.
“I know,” she breathed, dizzy from the heat rising off his body. A man made of snow? Not now. He seemed to hold a banked fire inside. “But I saw you, and—”
Before she could go on, they heard heavier footsteps out in the hall. Caroline froze. To be caught in a man’s room would mean social ruin, no matter her reasons for pursuing him there.
Snowdon obviously realized it too. He relocked the door and then held a finger to his lips. She nodded, already glancing around the room in case she needed to hide somewhere.
Nothing presented itself. There was no closet, only a tall clothespress that held shelves inside, making it impossible for her to fit in. Behind the door? That would work only if no one stepped all the way in.
The doorknob began to turn slightly.
Snowdon’s eyes narrowed and his mouth was set in a thin line. He lowered his head to her ear and breathed, “Under the bed.”
She moved as fast as she dared to the large four-poster bed. She flipped up the bedspread and dropped to her knees. Peering underneath, she saw that the floor was perfectly clean (Maggie would need to be given a raise in wages at the New Year), and that Snowdon’s traveling cases had been slid under the bed on the far side, making it less likely a person would see her if they looked from that angle. She quickly flattened herself out and rolled into the dark space.
She took a careful breath, but then gasped as Snowdon followed her, pulling the bedspread back into place as he went. His long form lay next to hers, face-to-face.
“What are you doing? You don’t have to hide, it’s your room—”
“Hush,” he ordered, his voice low, the command clear. “If you’re seen, it would be bad.”
She snapped her mouth shut, wondering what she’d got herself into. She heard a scraping sound, as if from a key that didn’t quite fit the lock. Snowdon barely seemed to breathe, he was listening so intently. It took Caroline a moment to realize he’d put an arm around her shoulders in a protective embrace.
Then the door swung open. She shook as footsteps reverberated along the floorboards. Quiet as the person was trying to be, the sounds felt like thunder to Caroline.
