He wasn’t sure why. He told himself it was because the information would produce far more heat than it warranted, andLewis was already managing enough. He told himself it was a matter of proportion.
He set the words down and let his friend move back to the enclosure bill, while they drank their coffee.
Eventually, it was time to leave, and just as he reached the entrance hall, hat already in his hand, the door to the small receiving room to his left opened.
“A moment of your time, Your Grace,” Lady Caroline whispered.
And damn him, he could not resist the curiosity that stirred in his bosom.
So, he stepped inside. She closed the door behind him carefully, and Anthony could tell that Caroline was someone who had done this before, closed a door without drawing attention.
He glanced around for a moment; the room was used for callers, furnished with a narrow settee, two chairs, a small writing desk, and a window overlooking the street below—not large enough for anyone to require particularly much of it.
Caroline turned from the door and looked at him. “Did you tell him?”
He held her gaze for a moment. “Good morning to you as well, Lady Caroline.”
“Did you tell him?” This was not the repeat of a question; it was a clarification that she had already asked the pertinent one, and pleasantries were not in the schedule.
“I did not tell him.” He watched the tightness in her shoulders ease by a single, barely perceptible degree. “Though I will note that I had a direct conversation with your brother in which you were specifically the subject, and several very natural openings presented themselves.”
The tightness in her shoulders returned. “And yet you didn’t.”
“And yet I didn’t.” He was quiet for a moment. “I won’t. On one condition.”
She waited, her eyes wide, and he had to rein in the urge to tease her.
“You will not go back to that tavern.”
Annoyance moved across her expression, quick and complicated. “I’m not sure what sort of ideas you have in your head, Your Grace, but you don’t have the authority to?—”
“I am not claiming what authority I do or do not possess.” He kept his voice level. “I am telling you that if you walk back into the Black Boar again, or any establishment in that district that hosts unsanctioned boxing matches, I will consider my obligation to my closest friend and act accordingly. I don’t say this to be difficult.”
“You do not need to try,” she said pleasantly. “You manage it entirely naturally.”
He let out a long exhale. Oh, she was a witty one indeed, but he would not smile at that.
“Lady Caroline?—”
“I will be going again,” she said very simply, as though she was commenting on the weather. “Not necessarily to that particular establishment, but I will be going.” Her chin was up, and her hazel eyes were entirely clear. “You may tell my brother if you like. I’ll face the consequences when they arrive. But I shan’t make a promise I cannot keep.”
Anthony looked at her, and he thought about the determination with which she had stood her ground in a dark alley long past midnight, in a man’s coat, with her hair loose over her shoulders. He thought about her voice, and how fervent her tone was when she’d told him about her lifetime of other people’s expectations… The hidden dread in it when she’d concluded that her Season would end with a man who’d stifle her.
To others, she might have seemed a difficult, even brattish chit. To him… To him, Lady Caroline was a woman with a lively, beating heart, who yearned for a taste of freedom before she would be schooled into wifehood and motherhood. And Anthony knew what it felt like to be scrutinized, pressured, and ordered to change himself to fit someone else’s expectations. Only, he had the ease to act as he pleased in private.
“Then what would you suggest?” he asked. “Since you seem to have given this considerable thought.”
“Come with me.” She said it as though it were the most reasonable proposition.
He stared at her. “Come… with you?”
“If your concern,” she continued, entirely serene, “is the matter of personal safety, then the simplest solution is for you to escort me. You are, by all accounts, a man who can manage himself in… a variety of establishments. So, if you want to keep me out of danger, Your Grace, why don’t you come with me?”
“No,” he said, without hesitation.
“No?” she repeated, and a beat passed as they stared at each other. “I see. So, your alternative is to simply forbid me?”
“I… I cannot forbid you, but I cannot accompany you, my lady,” he replied.