Cage spread out the blanket across the grass. She wandered over as he began unpacking the basket. A plate full of finger sandwiches cut into tiny triangles, cheese, grapes, and a jug of lemonade. She stopped in her tracks. “I can’t believe you remembered our conversation.”
He just grinned up at her, then brought out the box he held earlier when he’d first arrived. He opened the lid, lifting the box for her to see. Inside lay a dozen fluffy cream puffs like little clouds with filling oozing out. “Happy birthday.”
She snatched one out and popped it into her mouth. “Wait,” she said around the cream puff. “You didn’t let me win that race, did you?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that.” He crossed his heart with one finger.
“Hmmph,” she grunted. Then she picked out another creampuff. While she chewed the delicious treat, she unbuttoned her jacket. It was so warm out. When she noticed Cage’s eyes track her movements, she slowly slid the jacket off her shoulders. The breeze cooled her skin through the thin lawn of her blouse. But the desire in Cage’s eyes had exactly the opposite effect.
She sat down next to him, organizing her skirts around her. He pointed to the plate of sandwiches, and she nodded. He passed her a cucumber triangle and took a ham one for himself. She glanced at him through her lashes. “Are you ready to tell me why you left? I mean the real reason.”
“What I told you was the truth. I do not want to harm you.” He ran a hand down over his face. “My father was an abusive tyrant. Everything had to be precisely to his specifications, or else he would burst into a rage. My mother died when I wasfour. The story was that she tripped and tumbled down the stairs.” He glanced over at her with a wry quirk of his lips. “Yes, no one who lived with my father believed that. Grace’s mother was my father’s second wife. Anne was quiet and kind, a perfect punching bag for Wrotham.” His gaze shifted and fixed on a spot on the horizon. “As I grew bigger, I would step in between them, provoke my father so he would leave her alone. But I always feared what happened to her behind closed doors.”
“I came home from school at Michaelmas when I was sixteen, greeted by the sounds of her screaming. I exploded through the door to his study where he was beating her, and my father and I fought. At this point, I was as tall as my father but still lacked his muscular frame. It didn’t matter. I was fueled by fury. I beat him unconscious.”
Caroline gripped his arm, horrified by his story.
His lips pursed, and he stared down at her hand for a long moment. “Anne told me to run. She knew Wrotham would punish me terribly when he came around. She gave me money she had been saving and sent me away. I wanted her and Grace to go with me. I was so foolishly young, thinking I could possibly take care of them. Anne knew better and forced me to leave.”
“Where did you go?”
“I rode to Bristol and joined the infantry as an enlisted man. I gave them my mother’s maiden name, Morgan. It was rough starting at the bottom but no rougher than living with my father.”
Caroline’s heart broke for the scared, brave boy he had been. She watched his profile as he stared out at the landscape. “I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.”
He turned to face her, the anguish in his eyes poignant. “What if I’m like him?”
Caroline got up on to her knees and placed her hands on either side of his face. “You are nothing like him.”
“But that day in the study, I was out of control. I wanted to kill him. I could hear Anne screaming at me to stop, but I just kept hitting him.”
“You were a boy who reacted to a terrible situation. Haven’t you had to use violence in your time in the army? Didn’t you have to use your fists to protect Vivian when you and Jack went to save her from those pirates? That is not the same thing as the cruelty your father displayed.”
Cage leaned his forehead against hers. She laid a hand on his heart and watched as he drew in a deep breath. “Cage Morgan, I know you. You smile easily. You watch over those you love. You fight only when necessary. You’ve tempted me to dream beyond the borders of my safe plans for the future. Now I will settle for nothing less than all of your passion, all of your love, all of you.”
“Caroline, I love you so much it scares me.”
“Then let us be scared together, because I love you too.”
Cage’s hands delved into her hair, dislodging the pins that held her hat in place, and they tumbled to the grass. His lips pressed against hers, warm and soft. She closed her eyes and soaked in the love that poured from him with each brush of his mouth.
Then he pulled back just far enough to look into her eyes. “I’m still afraid, but I won’t let fear stop me from loving you. I promise to choose every day to be the man you deserve to have as a husband.”
She blinked back tears. Then Cage scooped her into his lap, and this time when he kissed her, it wasn’t soft but hot and possessive. Her blood heated, and she gripped his hair to keep him in place while she plundered his mouth with her tongue. When he broke the kiss, they were both panting.
“From the moment I saw you standing in the moonlight, there has never been anything faux about my feelings for you. My fascination with your clever wit, my admiration ofyour courageous spirit, my desire for this delectable body”…He playfully squeezed her bottom,“are just some of the many reasons I cannot live without you. Caroline, let’s make this fake engagement real. Will you be my bride?”
Joy rushed through her like sunshine in her veins. And for the first time in response to a proposal of marriage, she said, “Yes!”
Epilogue
Caroline closed her eyes against the summer sunshine and listened to the cacophony of joyful sounds from their annual family gathering. To her right, Jack and Andrew led a rousing game of pall-mall with the older children. The cheers of “good shot” and groans of “no, not my ball” made her lips quirk. Nearby, Abby led the little ones in a game of duck, duck, goose, where giggles and screams of delight abounded.
Around her, the conversation was far less competitive as Emma, Lucy, Margie, and her mother exchanged ideas for how they would convince Abby to settle down and pick a husband in the upcoming season. Caroline chuckled softly. Abby would choose a suitor when she found the right man. There was no reason to rush it.
The small boy in her arms shifted in his sleep, and she rubbed gentle circles on her son’s back. Across the lawn, her husband emerged from the house. The red brick manor at Taitlands had become home. She had done her best to take the house with all its ghosts and turn it into a home full of love and laughter. Cage, with William’s help, had reinvented his grandfather’s horse breeding program. William and Grace and their two children lived in the Dower House on the property's west side.
Cage’s gaze immediately sought her out. And when their eyes met, a wide grin split his face. Five years of marriage and that grin still had the power to make her heart beat at triple its normal rhythm. He walked toward her, one hand behind his back.
