"Owww!" She would have fallen if Blake weren't already holding her up.
"Caroline?" he asked, his expression dazed.
"My stupid stupid ankle," she muttered. "I forgot, and I tried to-"
He put a gentle finger to her lips. "It's better this way."
"I don't think so," she blurted out.
Blake carefully disentangled her arms from around his neck and stepped away. With one graceful swoop of his arm, he reached down and retrieved her forgotten cane from the ground. "I don't want to take advantage of you," he said gently, "and in my current frame of mind and body, I'm liable to do just that."
Caroline wanted to scream that she didn't care, but she held her tongue. They had reached a delicate balance, and she didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. She felt something when she was near this man-something warm and kind and good, and if she lost it she knew she would never forgive herself. It had been so very long since she'd felt a sense of belonging, and heaven help her, she belonged in his arms.
He just didn't realize it yet.
She took a deep breath. She could be patient. Why, she even had a cousin named Patience. Surely that should count for something. Of course, Patience lived rather far away with her puritanical father in Massachusetts, but-
She nearly smacked herself on the side of the head. What was she doing thinking about Patience Merriwether?
"Caroline? Are you all right?"
She looked up and blinked. "Fine. Lovely. Never better. I was just... I was simply..."
"Simply what?" he asked.
"Thinking." She chewed on her lower lip. "I do that sometimes."
"A commendable pastime," he said, slowly nodding his head.
"I tend to wander off the subject on occasion."
"I noticed."
"You did? Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's rather endearing."
"Do you really think so?"
"I rarely lie."
Her lips twisted into a vague grimace. " 'Rarely' isn't terribly reassuring."
"In my line of work one cannot last very long without the occasional fib."
"Hmmph. I suppose if the good of the country is at stake..."
"Oh, yes," he said with sincerity so absolute she couldn't possibly believe him.
She really couldn't think of anything else to say besides, "Men!" And she didn't say that with much grace or good humor.
Blake chuckled and took her arm to turn her face to the building. "Now then, you wanted to tell me something about the windows?"
"Oh yes, of course. I might be a bit off, but I would estimate that the bottom sill of the window in the south drawing room at Prewitt Hall is about aslugh as the third mullion on the study window."
"From the bottom or from the top?"
"The top."
"Hmmm." Blake examined the window with an expert eye. "That would make them about ten feet high. Not an impossible task, but still, a bit annoying."
'That seems an odd way to describe your job."
He turned to her with a somewhat weary expression. "Caroline, most of what I do is annoying."
"Really? I should have thought it rather dashing."
"It's not," he said harshly. 'Trust me on this. And it isn't a job."
"It isn't?"
"No," he said, his voice a touch too forceful. "It's just something I do. It's something I won't be doing for very much longer."
"Oh."
After a moment of silence, Blake cleared his throat and asked, "How is that ankle?"
"If s fine."
"Are you certain?"
"Truly. I just shouldn't have stood on my tiptoes. It will most likely be completely healed by tomorrow."
Blake crouched down beside her and, to her great shock and surprise, took her ankle into his hands, gently palpating it before standing back up. "Tomorrow might be a bit optimistic. But the swelling has gone down considerably."
"Yes." She shut her mouth, suddenly at a complete loss for words. It was a most unusual state of affairs. What was one supposed to say in such a situation? Thank you for the lovely kiss. Would it be possible to have another?
Somehow, Caroline didn't think that sounded particularly appropriate, even if it would be most heartfelt. Patience patience patience, she told herself.
Blake looked at her "oddly. "You look somewhat disturbed."
"I do?"
"Forgive me," he said immediately. "It was just that you looked so serious."
"I was thinking about my cousin," she blurted out, thinking that she sounded extensively foolish.
"Your cousin?"
She nodded vaguely. "Her name is Patience."
"I see."
Caroline was afraid he really did.
The corners of his mouth quivered. "She must be quite a role model for you."
"Not at all. Patience is quite a harridan," she lied. Actually, Patience Merriwether was an irritating combination of reserve, piety, and decorum. Caroline had never met her in person, but her letters were always preachy beyond measure-or, in Caroline's opinion, politeness. But Caroline had kept writing to her over the years, since anyone's letters were a welcome diversion from her awful guardians.
"Hmmm," he said noncommittally. "Rather cruel, I should think, saddling a child with a name like that."
Caroline thought about that for a moment. "Yes. It's hard enough living up to one's parents. Can you imagine having to live up to oneself? I suppose it might have been worse to have been named Faith, Hope, or Charity."
He shook his head. "No. For you, I think, Patience would have been the most difficult."
She punched him playfully in the shoulder. "Speaking of peculiar names; how did you come by yours?"
"Blake, you mean?"
She nodded.
"It was my mother's maiden name. It's a custom in my family to give the second son his mother's maiden name."
"The second son?"
Blake shrugged. "The firstborn usually gets something important from the father's side."
Trent Ravenscrqft, Caroline thought. It didn't sound half-bad. She smiled.
"What are you grinning about?" he asked.
"Me?" she gulped. "Nothing. Just that, well-"
"Spit it out, Caroline."
She swallowed again, her brain whirring at triple-speed. There was no way she was going to admit to him that she was fantasizing about their offspring. "What I was thinking," she said slowly.
"Yes?"
Of course! "I was thinking," she repeated, her voice growing a bit more confident, "that you're very lucky your mother didn't have one of those hyphenated surnames. Can you imagine if your name were something like Fortescue-Hamilton Ravenscroft?"
Blake grinned. "Do you think I'd be called Fort or Ham for short?"
"Or," Caroline continued with a laugh, thoroughly enjoying herself now, "what if she were Welsh? You'd be completely without vowels."
"Aberystwyth Ravenscroft," he said, pulling the name from a famous castle. "It has a certain charm."
"Ah, but then everyone should call you Stwyth, and we'd all sound as if we were lisping."
Blake chuckled. "I had a mad crush on a girl named Sarah Wigglesworth once. But my brother convinced me that I must be a stoic and let her go."
"Yes," Caroline mused, "I can see where it might be difficult for a child to be named Wigglesworth Ravenscroft."