Page 46 of Rival to Resist
And when he left Trelowen, he would take with him the strange aliveness she had felt for the past two and a half weeks.
Would she ever see him again? It was unlikely.
Her next hop stalled. Just a fraction. Just a breath.
Just enough.
Mr. Yorke took three great hops, passed her, and fell across the finish line, while Caroline cametumbling after.
The crowds cheered, and Caroline turned away from Mr. Yorke to see Jory holding his arms up in victory.
Breath coming hard and fast, Caroline clapped, but her mind was elsewhere.
Mr. Yorke had won. And she had let him. She’d had the chance to eliminate him from the election and from Trelowen, and she had hesitated.
She let her sack drop to the sand and carefully stepped out of it, aware that Mr. Yorke was doing the same just beside her. “Well done.” She picked up the sack and stood straight.
He did not respond immediately, brushing the sand from his shirt sleeves, then running a hand through his hair. Only then did he look at her.
The glint in his eyes made her pulse race.
“You let me win.” His chest rose and fell with his breath. His shirt was askew, the skin at the top of his chest visible and sprinkled generously with sand.
Caroline tried and failed to catch her own breath. “You were about to letmewin.”
He merely met her gaze, saying nothing but, she feared, understanding everything she least wanted him to understand.
She had agreed to the race to show him she did not want him in Trelowen, and instead, she had given him—and herself—confirmation that shedid.
Perhaps if he were teasing her for it, she would be able to engage with her own cutting repartee, but instead, he simply continued to regard her silently, as though he was trying to decide what to make of her.
“You did it!” Eliza called out, coming over with a face wreathed in smiles and pink at the cheeks. “I had no idea you had even joined. What made you decide to?”
Caroline held Mr. Yorke’s gaze a moment longer. “A moment of madness, no doubt.”
“Time ’as come, Mr. Yorke.” A fisherman named Ruan strode toward him. “Unless ’ee didn’t mean what ’ee said yesterday…”
“Of course I meant it,” Mr. Yorke responded. “But I require some instruction on the rules, for I have never wrassled before.”
“Ah,” Ruan said. “’Tis a proper sport, sir. Two men in jackets tryin’ to throw the other clean on his back—both shoulders touchin’ the ground, or it don’t count. No punchin’, no kickin’. All skill and footwork.”
Mr. Yorke listened to this with a slight frown. “May I watch a round?”
“Course,” Ruan replied genially. “Only follow me.”
Caroline and Eliza shared a significant glance. Sack racing and rope wrestling were harmless enough. Wrassling was rough and brutal—and Mr. Yorke entirely green.
The two of them followed behind Mr. Yorke and Ruan. A circle of people had formed on the side of the beach near the stairs, and with a few words, they parted enough for the wrassling to be seen.
Two men wearing the same, light-colored jackets tussled, their large arms gripping one another. Caroline had only seen wrassling once before, but the memory of a man being lifted in the air, then slammed onto his back was not one she would soon forget.
She winced as the man farther from her was thrown, imagining the same thing happening to Mr. Yorke, who stood just in front of her, watching with a pensive hand covering his mouth.
Was he afraid? Caroline found it difficult to imagine. Mr. Yorke was always so calm. So self-possessed. So confident. Overlyso, perhaps.
And yet, how could henotfear such a fate?
“I think I understand the general way of it.” He rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of capable forearms. “Who am I to wrassle?”
