“Never, Miss Alaina.”
Chapter 13
Caroline’s feet acted of their own accord. Rather than turning and running away, she walked towards David instead. He smiled a little before taking another puff from his pipe.
“Come to escape the babble in there?” he asked, nodding back to the house.
She turned her gaze up to the stars, admiring the way they twinkled in the blackness.
“Come for a taste of freedom.”
“Is that your desire, Miss Alaina?” he asked, walking towards her. They met in the middle of the garden. “Freedom?”
“Isn’t it everyone’s wish?” she murmured, suddenly breathless as she looked at him again. They shouldn’t be standing this close; she knew that but couldn’t help it.
He turned his pipe out of ash, was now done smoking it, and placed it on the edge of a sundial nearby.
“I’m sure it is,” David agreed, “but some more than others. I would have thought a maid would know what it is to come out here at night, to feel free when standing under the stars. Looking at you…” His eyes drifted down from her face to her figure. Caroline felt she should have been angry at that hungry look, but she was anything but. Her stomach tensed, her heart fluttering in her chest. “You look as if it is one of the first times you have ever felt free in your life.”
He has seen too much.
“What makes you say that?” She walked around him, suddenly wary of letting him see her expression too much. She strolled down the garden, and he followed her. “I wasn’t aware you had taken much notice of me in this house, let alone been watching me and making a judgement on how I feel.” When she reached the edge of the garden, she turned and leaned against the wall.
He caught up to her, gently leaning on the wall beside her so he faced her.
“I noticed you.” The words were simple yet muttered so deeply that she was breathless again. “Maybe I watched you a little too,” he confessed, a mischievous smile on her face.
Caroline couldn’t stop her own smile now, though she fought it all the way.
“I’d say you were a woman unlike any other maid I have ever met,” he whispered. She froze, feeling once again he had noticed far more than she would have liked.
“What does that mean?” she asked, a little defensively. Despite her tone, he smiled a little more.
“It means that most maids don’t fuss about dirt on their petticoats if they go riding.”
Caroline baulked. She had indeed worried about the dirt on her dress when she had gone riding, attempting to chaperone Alaina with the duke a few days ago.
“I’m the one who has to clean it, remember?” she asked with a snort of derision. At the rather unladylike sound, she raised a hand and covered her face. Yet David just laughed with her. He was unlike any man of the ton, who would have surely looked down on her for such a sound.
“You also don’t sound much like a maid,” he whispered. “The way you talk. It’s so formal. When someone dropped a teacup on your foot the other day, you cried out, ‘Goodness!’” He chuckled deeply. “Most maids I know would have used coarser language than that.”
Caroline bit her lip. It was true; Alaina would have certainly cried God’s blood or something of the like, but it was Caroline’s training that fought against it.
“Blame my education for that,” she said tremulously, though she pushed on fast, trying to cover it up. “The earl, my master, had me sit in on some of my mistress’ lessons. I guess I learned how to speak properly.”
Yet there was something in David’s face that suggested he did not believe her. He even lifted a single eyebrow in silent question.
“I did not come out here to be questioned by you,” she protested.
“No? You came for a taste of freedom,” he reminded her, that taunting look still in his gaze that she found so alluring.
“Then I shall continue to grapple for it.” She stood tall and turned to face him. “They say you’re hoping to start your own business. Is it true?”
“Ah, now I am the one to be interrogated, eh?”
“Don’t ask questions of your own if you cannot bear the thought of being questioned in return,” she defended, smiling victoriously at him. “Well?”
“Yes.” He nodded once. “It is my dream to own my own business. Horse training. The duke was interested in investing money at one point.” His expression turned sad. “That was before his father lost so much, though. Now, sadly, the duke doesn’t have a lot to spare.”
