“Would you like to be lovers until I leave, or was last night all?”
Carolyn looked into his blue eyes and read the warmth and sincerity there. “I would like that, so long as I am a lover and not reduced to a mistress.” A lover bespoke of an agreement, equals. A mistress was a kept woman, which she would never allow herself to become.
“Lovers until you decide no longer.” He then leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. “Until we are alone again.”
Which would be Wyndview Farm.
Caroline was also more relaxed than she had been when they set out for Stellenbosch. Maybe it was because she had come to know Sterling a little better, or maybe it was because of what they shared last night, which also left her exhausted and Caroline found herself taking naps, as did Sterling, likely making up for the sleep they had missed.
But when she had finally rested and thought over everything that had transpired since Sterling had arrived at Wyndview Farm, she grew curious and given they were alone in the back of a wagon with no place to do, Caroline decided to ask.
“I have a question. You do not need to answer me, but it is a curiosity.”
“What would that be?”
“You seem distant from your mother, sometimes angry. Bitter.”
“That is because I am. Or I was when I had first arrived. My irritation now is because she is trying to manipulate my time here.”
“Many mothers are the same when they want a son to marry.” She chuckled. “I believe she attempted to do her best to introduce you to each marriageable girl at the ball.”
Sterling groaned. “Yes, well, I do not need her assistance as it relates to any part of my life. She forfeited that privilege long ago.”
“Oh.” Caroline had not expected such an answer. “Why?” She then threw up her hands. “Never mind, you do not need to answer thatquestion.”
Sterling stared at her for a moment as if he were trying to decide if he was going to tell her. “She abandoned me.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sterling pushed hisfingers through his hair. He did not want to talk about his mother.
“I do not understand.”
How could she? Sterling was certain that his mother would have been too proud to let anyone know that her husband had left her behind.
It was a private family matter…except, Sterling wanted to tell Caroline. Maybe then she would understand.
“She left us.”
“What do you mean she abandoned you?”
Sterling then went on to explain how when his parents sailed to the Cape Colony with Caroline’s family that his father had returned to England without his mother.
“She stayed here and your father went home. Therefore, she abandoned you?”
“Yes!” Maybe now she would understand.
“I was fourteen at the time. How old were you?”
“Ten and eight.”
“Your brothers, were they much younger?”
“Damian was six and ten, Elliot four and ten, Jules three and ten and Avery was only eleven.”
“Did you all live at home?”
“No. They were at Eton and Cambridge. I had already finished mystudies.”
