To Catch An Heiress (6 page)

Blake closed his eyes for a moment as Caroline trailed after James, listening to her raspy voice as she said, “You should call me Caroline. I've already given Mr. Ravenscroft leave to do so.”

Blake waited for a minute or two before following, needing a moment of solitude to sort out his thoughts. Or at least to try. Nothing seemed clear where
she
was concerned. He'd felt such a rush of relief when he'd found out that Carlotta De Leon was not really Carlotta De Leon.

Caroline. Her name was Caroline. Caroline Trent. And he wasn't lusting after a traitor.

He shook his head in disgust. As if that were the only problem facing him just now. What the hell was he supposed to do with her? Caroline Trent was smart, very smart. That much was abundantly clear. And she hated Oliver Prewitt enough to help bring him to justice. It might take a little convincing to help her get past her distaste for espionage, but not much. Prewitt had, after all, ordered his son to rape her. Caroline wasn't likely to turn the other cheek after something like that.

The obvious solution was to keep her here at Seacrest Manor. She was surely full of information they could use against Prewitt. It was doubtful that she was privy to his illegal dealings, but with the proper questioning, he and James could unearth clues that she probably didn't even realize she knew. If nothing else, she'd be able to give them the layout of Prewitt Hall—invaluable information if he and James decided to break in.

So then, if she was such a good addition to their team, why was he so reluctant to ask her to stay?

He knew the answer. He just didn't want to look deep enough within his soul to admit it.

Cursing himself for seven different kinds of a coward, Blake turned on his heel and strode out the front door. He needed some air.

“What do you suppose is keeping our good friend Blake?”

Caroline looked up at the sound of James's voice as she poured his tea. “He certainly isn't my good friend,” she replied.

“Well, I wouldn't call him your enemy.”

“No, he isn't that. It's just that I don't think friends tie friends to the bedpost.”

James choked on his tea. “Caroline, you have no idea.”

“The point is moot, anyway,” she said, glancing out the window. “He's walking away.”

“What?” James shot up from the sofa and crossed the room. “Bloody coward.”

“Surely he's not afraid of
me
,” she joked.

James turned his head to look at her, his eyes boring into her face so sharply she grew uncomfortable. “Perhaps he is,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

“My lord?”

James shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts, but he didn't stop staring at her. “I told you to call me James.” He grinned mischievously. “Or ‘dear friend’ if you think James is too familiar.”

She let out a ladylike snort. “Both are too familiar, as you well know. Given my remarkable predicament, however, it seems silly to split hairs over such a matter.”

“An eminently practical woman,” he said with a smile. “The very best sort.”

“Yes, well, my father was in trade,” she quipped. “One must be practical to succeed in such endeavors.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Trade. You keep reminding me. What sort of trade?”

“Shipbuilding.”

“I see. You must have grown up near the coast, then.”

“Yes. In Portsmouth until my—
Why
are you looking at me so oddly?”

“I'm sorry. Was I staring?”

“Yes,” she said baldly.

“It's simply that you remind me of someone I once knew. Not in looks. Not even quite in mannerisms. It's more of a …” He cocked his head as he searched for the right word. “It's more of a resemblance of spirit, if there is such a thing.”

“Oh,” Caroline replied, for the lack of anything more intelligent to say. “I see. I do hope she was someone nice.”

“Oh, yes. The very best. But never mind that.” James walked back across the room and sat down in the chair adjacent to her. “I've been giving our situation a great deal of thought.”

Caroline sipped at her tea. “Have you?”

“Yes. I think you should stay here.”

“I have no problem with that.”

“Not even for your reputation?”

Caroline shrugged. “As you said, I'm practical. Mr. Ravenscroft has already mentioned that his servants are discreet. And my other options are returning to Oliver—”

“Which really isn't an option at all,” James interrupted, “unless you want to end up married to that lackwit son of his.”

She nodded emphatically. “Or I can go back to my original plan.”

“Which was?”

“I'd thought to find work at an inn.”

“Not exactly the safest of prospects for a woman alone.”

“I know,” Caroline agreed, “but I really didn't have a choice.”

James stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “You'll be safe here at Seacrest Manor. We're certainly not about to return you to Prewitt.”

“Mr. Ravenscroft hasn't yet agreed to let me stay,” she reminded him. “And this is his house.”

“He will.”

Caroline thought James was being a trifle over-confident. But then again he didn't know about the kiss she and Blake had shared. Blake had seemed rather disgusted by the entire affair.

James turned to face her suddenly. “We'll want you to help us bring your guardian to justice.”

“Yes, Mr. Ravenscroft said as much.”

“Didn't he tell you to call him Blake?”

“Yes, but somehow it seems too …”

Intimate
. The word hung in her mind, as did the image of his face. Dark brows, elegantly molded cheekbones, a smile that rarely appeared … oh, but when it did …

It was really embarrassing, Caroline thought, how one of his smiles could make her feel so giddy.

And his kiss! Dear Lord, it had made her feel things that couldn't possibly be good for her sanity. He had leaned toward her, and she'd simply frozen, mesmerized by his heavy-lidded stare. If he hadn't upset the moment by calling her Carlotta, heaven only knew what she would have let him do.

The most amazing thing had been that he had seemed to enjoy the kiss as well. Percy had always said that she was the third-ugliest girl in all Hampshire, but then again Percy was a fool and his taste had always run toward buxom blonds …

“Caroline?”

She looked up sharply.

James's lips were curved into an amused smile. “You're woolgathering.”

“Oh. Terribly sorry. I was just going to say that Mr. … er … I mean Blake already talked to me about helping you arrest Oliver. I must say, it's rather disconcerting to know that he may go to the gallows as a direct result of my involvement, but if, as you say, he has been conducting treasonous activities …”

“He has. I'm sure of it.”

Caroline frowned. “He is a despicable man. It was beastly enough of him to order Percy to attack me, but to endanger thousands of British soldiers … I cannot fathom it.”

James smiled slowly. “Practical and patriotic. You, Caroline Trent, are a prize.”

If only Blake thought so
.

Caroline let her teacup clatter into its saucer. She didn't like the direction her thoughts were taking regarding Blake Ravenscroft.

“Ah, look,” James said, standing up rather suddenly. “Our errant host returns.”

“I beg your pardon?”

James gestured toward the window. “He appears to have changed his mind. Perhaps he has decided our company is really not so bad as all that.”

“Or it might just be the rain,” Caroline retorted. “It has begun to drizzle.”

“So it has. Mother Nature is clearly on our side.”

A minute later Blake stalked into the drawing room, his dark hair damp. “Riverdale,” he barked, “I've been thinking about her.”

“
She
is in the room,” Caroline said dryly.

If Blake heard her he ignored her. “She's got to go.”

Before Caroline could protest, James had crossed his arms and said, “I disagree. Strongly.”

“It's too dangerous. I won't have a female risking her life.”

Caroline wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended. She decided to side with “offended”—his views seemed to stem more from a poor opinion of the female gender as a whole than from any overwhelming concern for her well-being. “Don't you think that is my decision to make?” she put in.

“No,” Blake said, finally acknowledging her presence.

“Blake can be rather protective of women,” James said, almost as an aside.

Blake glared at him. “I won't have her getting killed.”

“She won't get killed,” James returned.

“And how do you know that?” Blake demanded.

James chuckled. “Because, my dear boy, I am confident that
you
won't allow it.”

“Don't patronize me,” Blake growled.

“My apologies for the ‘dear boy’ comment, but you know I speak the truth.”

“Is there something going on here that I ought to know about?” Caroline asked, her head bobbing from man to man.

“No,” Blake said succinctly, keeping his gaze a few inches above her head. What the hell was he supposed to do with her? It was far too dangerous for her to stay. He had to make sure she left before it was too late.

But she'd already woken up that part of him he liked to keep undisturbed. The part that cared. And the reason he didn't want her staying—it was simple. She frightened him. He had spent a great deal of his emotional energy keeping his distance from women who aroused anything other than disinterest or lust.

Caroline was smart. She was witty. She was damned appealing. And Blake didn't want her within ten miles of Seacrest Manor. He'd tried caring before. It had nearly destroyed him.

“Ah, bloody hell,” he finally said. “She stays, then. But I want both of you to know that I completely disapprove.”

“A fact which you have made abundantly clear,” James drawled.

Blake ignored him and chanced a look over at Caroline. Bad idea. She smiled at him, really smiled, and it lit up her whole face, and she looked so damned
sweet
, and …

Blake swore under his breath. He knew this was a big mistake. The way she was smiling at him, as if she thought she could actually light the farthest corners of his heart …

God, she scared him.

C
aroline was so delighted about being allowed to remain at Seacrest Manor that it wasn't until the following morning that she realized a rather pertinent point: She had no information to share. She knew nothing about Oliver's illegal dealings.

In short, she was useless.

Oh, they hadn't figured that out yet. Blake and James probably thought she had all of Oliver's secrets stored neatly in her brain, but the truth was, she knew nothing. And her “hosts” were going to figure that out soon. And then she'd be right back where she'd started.

The only way to keep from being tossed into the cold was to make herself useful. Perhaps if she helped around the house and garden Blake would let her stay at Seacrest Manor even after he realized that she had nothing to offer the War Office. It wasn't as if she needed a permanent home—just a place to hide for six weeks.

“What to do, what to do,” she mumbled to herself, walking aimlessly through the house as she looked for a suitable task. She needed to find a project that would take a long time to complete, something that would require her presence for at least several days, maybe a week. By then she should be able to convince Blake and James that she was a polite and entertaining houseguest.

She strolled into the music room and ran her hand along the smooth wood of the piano. It was a pity she didn't know how to play; her father had always intended to arrange for lessons, but he'd died before he could carry out his plans. And it went without saying that her guardians never bothered to have her meet with an instructor.

She lifted the lid and tapped her finger against one of the ivory keys, smiling at the sound it made. Music somehow brightened the whole morning. Not that her peckings could be called music without gravely insulting scores of great composers, but still, Caroline felt better for having made a little noise.

All she needed now to brighten the day in truth was to get a bit of light into the room. The music room had obviously not been occupied yet this morning, for the drapes were still pulled tightly shut. Or perhaps no one used this room on a regular basis, and they were kept closed to keep the sun off the piano. Never having owned a musical instrument, Caroline couldn't be sure whether too much sunlight could be damaging.

Whatever the case, she decided, one morning's worth of sun couldn't hurt too much, so she strode over to the window and pulled the damask drapes back. When she did, she was rewarded with the most perfectly splendid sight.

Roses. Hundreds of them.

“I didn't realize I was right below my little room,” she murmured, opening the window and sticking her head out to look up. These must be the rosebushes she could see from her window.

Closer inspection proved her correct. The bushes were terribly neglected and overgrown, just as she remembered, and she saw a flash of white lodged just out of her reach that looked suspiciously like her little paper bird. She leaned out further to get a better look. Hmmm. She could probably reach it from the outside.

A few minutes later Caroline had her paper bird in her hand and was regarding the rosebushes from the other side. “You are in dire need of pruning,” she said aloud. Someone had once told her that flowers responded well to conversation, and she had always taken the advice to heart. It wasn't difficult to talk to flowers when one had guardians like hers. The flowers inevitably compared quite favorably.

She planted her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and perused her surroundings. Mr. Ravenscroft wasn't the sort to boot her out while she was tidying his garden, was he? And Lord knew, the garden needed tidying. Aside from the rosebushes, there was honeysuckle that needed to be cut back, hedges that ought to be trimmed, and a lovely purple flowering bush she didn't know the name of that she was convinced would do better in full sun.

Clearly this garden needed her.

Her decision made, Caroline marched back into the house and introduced herself to the housekeeper, who, interestingly enough, didn't look the least bit surprised by her presence. Mrs. Mickle was quite enthusiastic about Caroline's plans for the garden, and she helped her to locate a pair of work gloves, shovel, and some long-handled shears.

She attacked the rosebushes with great enthusiasm and vigor, snipping here and trimming there, chattering to herself—and the flowers—all the while.

“Here you are. You will be much happier without”—
snip
—“this branch, and I'm sure you'll do better if you're thinned out”—
clip
—“right here.”

After a while, however, the shears grew heavy, and Caroline decided to put them down on the grass while she dug up the purple flowering plant and moved it to a sunnier location. It seemed prudent to dig a new hole for the plant before moving it, so she surveyed the property and picked out a nice spot that would be visible from the windows.

But then she saw some other lovely flowering plants. These were dotted with pink and white blossoms, but they looked as if they ought to be producing more blooms. The garden could be a delightful riot of color if someone would only care for it properly. “Those should also get more sun,” she said aloud. And so she dug up some more holes. And then some more, just for good measure.

“That ought to do it.” With a satisfied exhale, she went over to the purple flowering bush that had initially captivated her and started to dig it up.

Blake had gone to bed in a bad mood and had woken up the next morning feeling even worse. This assignment—his
last
assignment, if he had anything to say about it—had turned into a fiasco. A nightmare. A walking disaster with blue-green eyes.

Why
had Prewitt's stupid son chosen that night to attack Caroline Trent?
Why
did she have to go off running into the night the very evening he was expecting Carlotta De Leon? And worst of all, how the devil was he supposed to concentrate on bringing Oliver Prewitt to justice with her running about underfoot?

She was a constant temptation, and an aching reminder of all that had been stolen from him. Cheerful, innocent, and optimistic, she was everything that had been missing from his heart for so very long. Since Marabelle had been killed, to be precise. The entire bloody situation seemed to prove the existence of a higher power—one whose sole purpose was to drive Blake Ravenscroft absolutely and irrevocably insane.

Blake stomped out of his bedroom, his expression black.

“Ever cheerful, I see.”

He looked up to see James standing at the end of the hall. “Do you lurk in dark corners, just waiting to bedevil me?” he growled.

James laughed. “I have far more important people to bedevil than you, Ravenscroft. I was just on my way down to breakfast.”

“I've been thinking about
her
.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

James shrugged, his expression beyond innocent.

Blake's hand descended heavily on his friend's shoulder. “Tell me,” he ordered.

“Merely,” James replied, removing Blake's hand and letting it drop, “that you look at her a certain way.”

“Don't be stupid.”

“I've many bad qualities, but stupidity has never been among them.”

“You're insane.”

James ignored his comment. “She seems like a nice girl. Perhaps you should get to know her better.”

Blake turned on him in fury. “She isn't the sort one gets to know
better
,” he roared, sneering the last word. “Miss Trent is a lady.”

“I never said she wasn't. My my, what did you think I was implying?”

“Riverdale,” Blake warned.

James just waved his hand in the air. “I was merely thinking that it has been quite some time since you've courted a female, and as she's conveniently right here at Seacrest Manor—”

“I have no romantic interest in Caroline,” Blake bit out. “And even if I did, you know that I will never marry.”

“
Never
is a very strong word. Even I don't go around saying I will never marry, and Lord knows I have more reason to avoid the institution than you do.”

“Don't start, Riverdale,” Blake warned.

James stared him hard in the eye. “Marabelle is dead.”

“Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't remember that every single bloody day of my life?”

“Maybe it's time you
stopped
remembering that every single bloody day. It's been five years, Blake. Almost six. Stop doing penance for a crime you didn't commit.”

“The hell I didn't! I should have stopped her. I knew it was dangerous. I knew she shouldn't—”

“Marabelle had a mind of her own,” James said with surprising gentleness. “You couldn't have stopped her. She made her own decisions. She always did.”

“I swore to protect her,” Blake said in a low voice.

“When?” James asked flippantly. “I don't recall attending a wedding between the two of you.”

In half a second Blake had him pinned up against the wall. “Marabelle was my affianced bride,” he ground out. “I swore to
myself
that I would protect her, and in my view, that oath is more binding than anything sworn before God and England.”

“Marabelle isn't here. Caroline is.”

Blake abruptly let him go. “God help us.”

“We have to keep her at Seacrest Manor until she's free of Prewitt's guardianship,” James said, rubbing his shoulder where Blake had grabbed him. “It's the very least we can do after you abducted her and tied her to the bedpost. Tied her to the bedpost, eh? I should have liked to have seen that.”

Blake glared at him with a ferocity that could have felled a tiger.

“And beside that,” James added, “she may very well prove useful.”

“I don't want to
use
a woman. Last time we did that in the name of the War Office she ended up dead.”

“For the love of God, Ravenscroft, what will happen to her here at Seacrest Manor? No one knows she's in residence, and it's not as if we're going to send her out on missions. She'll be fine. Certainly safer than if we turned her out on her own.”

“She'd do better if we packed her off to one of my relatives,” Blake grumbled.

“Oh, and how are you going to explain that? Someone is going to wonder how you came to be in possession of Oliver Prewitt's ward, and then any hope we have of secrecy will be destroyed.”

Blake grunted in irritation. James was right. He couldn't let his connection to Caroline Trent be made public. If he was going to protect her from Prewitt, he had to do it here at Seacrest Manor. It was either that or turn her out. He shuddered to think what would happen to her, alone on the streets of Portsmouth, which was where she'd been heading when he'd abducted her. It was a rough harbor town, filled with sailors—definitely not the safest place for a young woman.

“I see you concede my point,” James said.

Blake nodded curtly.

“Very well, then. Shall we break our fast? I find myself salivating at the thought of one of Mrs. Mickle's omelettes. We can discuss what to do with our lovely houseguest over our meal.”

Blake let James lead the way down the stairs, but when they reached the ground floor there was no sign of Caroline.

“Do you suppose she slept in?” James asked. “I imagine she must be quite tired after her ordeal.”

“It wasn't an ordeal.”

“For you, perhaps. The poor girl was kidnapped.”

“The ‘poor girl,’ as you so sweetly put it, had me running around in circles for days. If anyone suffered an ordeal,” Blake said rather firmly, “it was I.”

While they were discussing Caroline's absence, Mrs. Mickle bustled into the room with a plate of scrambled eggs. She smiled and said, “Oh, there you are, Mr. Ravenscroft. I met your new house-guest.”

“She was here?”

“What a lovely girl. So polite.”

“Caroline?”

“It's so nice to meet a young person with such a sweet temperament. Clearly she was taught manners.”

Blake just raised a brow. “Miss Trent was raised by wolves.”

Mrs. Mickle dropped the eggs. “What?”

Blake closed his eyes—anything not to see the yellow eggs splattered on his perfectly polished boots. “What I meant, Mrs. Mickle, was that she might as well have been raised by wolves, given the pack of guardians to which she was subjected.”

By then the housekeeper was on the floor with a cloth napkin, trying to clean up the mess. “Oh, but the poor dear,” she said with obvious concern. “I had no idea she'd had a difficult childhood. I shall have to make her a special pudding this evening.”

Blake's lips parted in consternation, as he tried to recall the last time Mrs. Mickle had done the same for him.

James, who'd been grinning to himself in the doorway, stepped forward and asked, “Do you have any idea where she went, Mrs. Mickle?”

“I believe she's working in the garden. She took with her quite a bit of equipment.”

“Equipment? What kind of equipment?” Blake's mind was flashing with horrific images of mangled trees and hacked up plants. “Where did she find equipment?”

“I gave it to her.”

Blake turned on his heel and strode out. “God help us.”

He wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Holes.

Big, gaping holes, all over his formerly pristine lawn. Or at least he'd thought it had been pristine. In all truth, he had never paid much attention to it. But he did know that it had definitely not looked like
this
, with brown clumps of earth littered across the grass. He didn't see Caroline, but he knew she had to be there.

“What have you done?” he bellowed.

A head popped out from behind a tree. “Mr. Ravenscroft?”

“What are you doing? This is a disaster. And you,” he said to James, who hadn't made a sound, “stop laughing.”