Recognizing the vehemence in his tone, Caroline prudently kept a few feet of distance between them. She wrapped her slender arms around herself, trembling. For a while there was no sound other than their labored breathing.
"We should go back," she finally said. "People will notice that we're both absent. I… I have no wish to be compromised… that is, my reputation…" Her voice trailed into an awkward silence, and she risked a glance at him. "Andrew," she confessed shakily, "I've never felt this way bef-"
"Don't say it," he interrupted. "For your sake, and mine, we are not going to let this happen again. We are going to keep to our bargain-I don't want complications."
"But don't you want to-"
"No," he said tersely. "I want only the pretense of a relationship with you, nothing more. If I truly became involved with you, I would have to transform my life completely.And it's too bloody late for that. I am beyond redemption, and no one, not even you, is worth changing my ways for."
She was quiet for a long moment, her dazed eyes focused on his set face. "I know someone who is worth it," she finally said.
"Who?"
"You." Her stare was direct and guileless. "You are worth saving, Andrew."
With just a few words, she demolished him. Andrew shook his head, unable to speak. He wanted to seize her in his arms again… worship her… ravish her. No woman had ever expressed the slightest hint of faith in him, in his worthless soul, and though he wanted to respond with utter scorn, he could not. One impossible wish consumed him in a great purifying blaze-that somehow he could become worthy of her. He yearned to tell her how he felt. Instead he averted his face and managed a few rasping words. "You go inside first."
For the rest of the weekend party, and for the next three months, Andrew was a perfect gentleman. He was attentive, thoughtful, and good-humored, prompting jokes from all who knew him that somehow the wicked Lord Drake had been abducted and replaced by an identical stranger. Those who were aware of the Earl of Rochester's poor health surmised that Andrew was making an effort to court his father's favor before the old man died and left him bereft of the family fortune. It was a transparent effort, the gossips snickered, and very much in character for the devious Lord Drake.
The strange thing was, the longer that Andrew's pretend reformation lasted, the more it seemed to Caroline that he was changing in reality. He met with the Rochester estate agents and developed a plan to improve the land in ways that would help the tenants immeasurably. Then to the perplexity of all who knew him, Andrew sold much of his personal property, including a prize string of thoroughbreds, in order to finance the improvements.
It was not in character for Andrew to take such a risk, especially when there was no guarantee that he would inherit the Rochester fortune. But when Caroline asked him why he seemed determined to help the Rochester tenants, he laughed and shrugged as if it were a matter of no consequence. "The changes would have to be made whether or not I get the earl's money," he said. "And I was tired of maintaining all those damned horses-too expensive by half."
"Then what about your properties in town?" Caroline asked. "I've heard that your father planned to evict some poor tenants from a slum in Whitefriars rather than repair it-and you are letting them stay, and are renovating the entire building besides."
Andrew's face was carefully expressionless as he replied. "Unlike my father, I have no desire to be known as a slum lord. But don't mistake my motives as altruistic-it is merely a business decision. Any money I spend on the property will increase its value."
Caroline smiled at him and leaned close as if to confide a secret. "I think, my lord, that you actually care about those people."
"I'm practically a saint," he agreed sardonically, with a derisive arch of his brow.
She continued to smile, however, realizing that Andrew was not nearly as blackhearted as he pretended to be.
Just why Andrew should have begun to care about the people whose existence he had never bothered to notice before was a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with his father's imminent demise… perhaps it had finally dawned on Andrew that the weight of responsibility would soon be transferred to his own shoulders. But he could easily have let things go on just as they were, allowing his father's managers and estate agents to make the decisions. Instead he took the reins in his own hands, tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence.
In accordance with their bargain, Andrew took Caroline riding in the park, and escorted her to musical evenings and soirees and the theater. Since Fanny was required to act as chaperon, there were few occasions for Caroline to talk privately with Andrew. They were forced instead to discuss seemly subjects such as literature or gardening, and their physical contact was limited to the occasional brush of their fingertips, or the pressure of his shoulder against hers as they sat next to each other. And yet these fleeting moments of closeness-a wordless stare, a stolen caress of her arm or hand-were impossibly exciting.
Caroline's awareness of Andrew was so excruciating that she sometimes thought she would burst into flames. She could not stop thinking about their impassioned embrace in the Scotts' rose garden, the pleasure of Andrew's mouth on hers. But he was so unrelentingly courteous now that she began to wonder if the episode had perhaps been some torrid dream conjured by her own fevered imagination.
Andrew, Lord Drake, was a fascinating puzzle. It seemed to Caroline that he was two different men-the arrogant, self-indulgent libertine, and the attractive stranger who was stumbling uncertainly on his way to becoming a gentleman. The first man had not appealed to her in the least. The second one… well, he was a far different matter. She saw that he was struggling, torn between the easy pleasures of the past and the duties that loomed before him. He still had not resumed his drinking and skirt chasing-he would have admitted it to her freely if he had. And according to Cade, Andrew seldom visited their club these days. Instead he spent his time fencing, boxing, or riding until he nearly dropped from exhaustion. He lost weight, perhaps a stone, until his trousers hung unfashionably loose and had to be altered. Although Andrew had always been a well-formed man, his body was now lean and impossibly hard, the muscles of his arms and back straining the seams of his coat.
"Why do you keep so active?" Caroline could not resist asking one day, as she pruned a lush bed of purple penstemons in her garden. Andrew lounged nearby on a small bench as he watched her carefully snip the dried heads of each stem. "My brother says that you were at the Pugilistic Club almost every day last week."
When Andrew took too long in answering, Caroline paused in her gardening and glanced over her shoulder. It was a cool November day, and a breeze caught a lock of her sable hair that had escaped her bonnet, and blew it across her cheek. She used her gloved hand to push away the errant lock, inadvertently smudging her face with dirt. Her heart lurched in sudden anticipation as she saw the expression in Andrew's searching blue eyes.
"Keeping active serves to distract me from… things." Andrew stood and came to her slowly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. "Here, hold still." He gently wiped away the dirt streak, then reached for her spectacles to clean them in a gesture that had become habitual.
Deprived of the corrective lenses, Caroline stared up at his dark, blurred face with myopic attentiveness. "What things?" she asked, breathless at his nearness. "I presume that you must mean your drinking and gaming…"