A Season for Love (21 page)

“
I did not think about it at all,”
Caroline sniffed.

“
But you were shocked, were you not, to
find them there, like any other pair of newlyweds?”

“
Their’s was a marriage of convenience.
To find them on the Dark Walk . . .”

“
Caroline . . . I fear you have much to
learn about the attraction between men and women. It is powerful
and can be very . . . quite . . . ah—wonderful,” he supplied after
rejecting an array of terms that might have frightened her. “For
example, did you mind when I put my arm around your shoulders? Did
you mind when I held your hand?”

“
I minded when you held my wrists!”
declared Lady Caroline, game to the end.

“
Caroline . . .” Tony shook his head.
“One day I will show you what I am talking about,” he promised,
“but ’tis apparent now is not the moment.” And he’d had such high
hopes. He had actually dreamed of his intimate journey with
Caroline Carlington down the notorious dark path at Vauxhall
Gardens. “Come”—the viscount held out his hand to help her up—“I
imagine Jen has already dragged Longville back into the light. She
was, I suspect, quite as discomforted as you.”

As fireworks once again lit up the sky,
Viscount Frayne’s party reassembled at the supper boxes, Lady
Harriet and Emily Bettencourt looking as suspiciously disarranged
as the Duchess of Longville. So might she have been, Caroline
thought, managing to be both chagrined and self-righteous at the
same time. If she had not been so busy minding other people’s
actions, she, too, might have discovered the pleasures that lured
people down a path lit only by moonlight.

She was eighteen. Old enough to be
married.

Yet she was afraid. So afraid she scorned
Tony’s friendship as well as that strange inner longing she greatly
feared might be love.

He was an
uncle
, for heaven’s sake, her step-mother’s
brother. Viscount Frayne was simply being kind to a relative by
marriage. That’s all there was to it.

One day I will show you what
I am talking about
. Tony had said. A far from
avuncular statement. Caroline found the words ringing in her ears
all the way home.

Neither Tony, the duke, nor either of the
ladies, noticed the three men standing in the shadows of a large
tree in Grosvenor Square’s small park. Three men who had been
persuaded that housebreaking, at which at least one of them was an
expert, might be preferable to kidnapping, at which none of them
had experience. Flann McCollum, in a deliberate foray into a tavern
not far from Grosvenor Square, had encountered a second footman who
walked out with the maid responsible for cleaning the Duke of
Longville’s bedchamber. Somehow, over the course of an evening
where the ale flowed freely, talk of the Carlington jewels had
surfaced—the dowager’s reluctance to part with them, the duke’s
evident enjoyment in personally selecting his new duchess’s
ornaments each evening. Thus leaving the jewelry boxes in a
fold-down desk a child might have open in two shakes of a lamb’s
tail.

Even Flann McCollum, whose strong roots in
the green of Ireland made him wish to see the duke suffer almost as
much as did Bert Tunney, conceded that the loss of Carlington
family jewels might be almost as satisfying a blow to the duke as
nabbing one of his children. And certainly a more direct—and less
risky—way of tapping Longville’s deep pockets.

Of course . . . if they happened to encounter
one of the children while they were at it . . .

Flexible, that’s what they had to be, Bert
Tunney told his cohorts as they discussed their surveillance over a
heavy wet at The Gull and Griffin. Flexible. Maybe nab the duchess
when she was wearin’ the diamonds. Better yet, grab her up when the
girl was with her, wearin’ all them pearls.

“
No-o!” Alfie Grubbs howled. “Woman’s a
giant. Ain’t goin’ near ’er, I’m not.”

“
It’s the boy, I’m telling ye, the boy
that matters,” Flann McCollum insisted. “To a dook it’s the heir
that counts. Worth twice the women or the sparklers, he
is.”

“
We agreed—” said Alfie
Grubbs.

“
We agreed to do what’d get us passage
money to the Canadas—”

“
While givin’ the dook what-fer about
niver seein’ what’s under his nose,” Bert Tunney added
grimly.

“
Don’t want no female,” Alfie grumbled
into his pint.

“
The jewels’ll fill our pockets right
fine,” Bert urged. “Even after the fence takes ’is cut, we’ll have
more than we ever seen before in our lives.”

“
I seen too many starvin’ children,”
said Flann McCollum. “The dook’s brats can suffer a bit in
return.”

“
They suffer, it’s the end for us all,”
Alfie whined. “Y’ kin have all the gold in the Bank of England and
no place to spend it if’n we’re dead and buried.”

“
Cowards,” Bert Tunney taunted. “It’s
the brats’ll be dead and buried long before me, I’m telling
y’.”

Gloom descended. Into the silence Flann
McCollum raised his mug. “To whatever comes,” he said. “And the
Divil take the hindmost.”

“
To whatever comes,” echoed Tunney and
Alfie Grubbs. They clicked their mugs together and, solemnly,
drained their pints.

~ * ~

Before seating herself in the drawing room at
Longville House, Miss Emily Bettencourt pulled the delicate royal
blue and gilt armchair closer to Lady Caroline so their
conversation would not be overheard by Emily’s aunt or by the
duchess, who were enjoying a comfortable coze in front of the
fireplace. Miss Bettencourt—modestly clad in an unadorned gown of
primrose dimity, her warm brown hair simply styled in a coif—was a
pattern card of maidenly propriety. Until she looked directly at
Lady Caroline, and her speaking gray eyes, tinged with anxiety,
seemed to fill her face. “Do you . . . do you think Mr.
Trimby-Ashford cares for me, or is he simply being kind?” she
whispered.

“
He has been in your pocket at each
event we have attended,” Caroline responded with some surprise.
“How can you doubt that he cares for you?”

For a moment Emily played with her gloves;
her gaze dropped to her slippers. “He is Lord Frayne’s particular
friend,” she murmured. “I fear he is merely being polite. You have
kindly included me in your company, and he is always with Lord
Frayne. Yes,” she added, bobbing her head in agreement with
herself, “that must be it. With Lord Frayne shadowing you each
evening, what else could Mr. Trimby-Ashford do but be kind to your
companion.”

“
You are not a mere companion, Emily,”
Caroline protested. “You are my friend.”

“
I—I would like to think so,” Emily
ventured after several beats of silence, “but, truly, I am Lady
Jen’s—Her Grace’s friend. You have had me thrust on you, I
fear.”

“
True,” Caroline agreed quite casually,
“but, amazingly, I find I like you.”Emily favored her with a
grateful and somewhat watery smile. “But I must admit,” Caroline
continued, “I am the last person you should ask about love. The
example I have seen in my own family does not lead to romantical
notions in the style of Romeo and Juliet or Lancelot and
Guinevere.”

“
Abelard and Eloise,” Emily intoned,
adding, “but they all came to sad ends.”

“
You are quite right,” Caroline
admitted. The two young ladies sighed in unison. “That the most
famous lovers in history came to tragic or disastrous ends,” she
added consideringly, “ is scarcely a recommendation for finding
love in marriage.” Both girls nodded, acknowledging the enigma of a
world that made supposedly romantic legends of unhappy love
affairs.

Suddenly, Emily perked up, her customary calm
confidence restored by fond memories. “My parents were happy
together. Although my mother died when I was twelve, my
recollections are quite clear. They adored each other and rarely
quarreled.”

“
There is an exception to every rule,”
Caroline pronounced grandly, unmoved by the Bettencourts’
fidelity.

“
Look at Lady Jen—the duchess,” Emily
told her. “Have you noticed the way she looks at your father? She
is mad for him, I assure you. She never would have married him
else. Everyone knew she was devoted to Captain Wharton. The
military ladies expected her to wear the willow for the rest of her
life. We were quite astounded when we heard of her betrothal.
Truly, Caroline, it has to be love match.”

“
Don’t be absurd—” Caroline broke off,
considering the matter. “Very well,” she pronounced slowly, “I will
concede the duchess may have a
tendre
for my father, but to him she is a mere
convenience, nothing more. A mother for Laurence, a chaperon for
me.” As if by pronouncing this falsehood she could make it so. As
if she could keep her father solely to herself by declaring his
wife a non-entity. Caroline repressed a niggling twinge of
shame.

Emily ran her fingers along the royal blue
upholstery and gilded wood of the chair arm. “Caroline . . . I
believe you may be wrong,” she offered softly. “I learned many
things while growing up in the tail of an army. One was the look of
true love and devotion. The way Lady Jen and Captain Gordon looked
at each other, even when he was dying. I’ve seen the duke look at
the duchess that way. Possibly he is not aware of the strength of
his feelings, but if I were a wagering woman, I would stake a good
deal on my being right.”

When Lady Caroline remained stubbornly
silent, Emily demanded, “Do you not wish your father to be happy?”
The silence dragged on. “Caroline, Lady Jen—that’s how she was
called on the Peninsula—was known throughout the army for her
kindness to others, for her willingness to help wherever she could,
even in the worst situations. And she was known for her steadfast
devotion to Captain Gordon Wharton. Lady Jen was everyone’s idol.
The men adored her, and the women attempted to follow her lead. You
should count your blessings you have such a woman for your
step-mother. And I assure you she deserves to be called something
more cordial than ‘Your Grace’!”

As Miss Bettencourt’s defense of the second
Duchess of Longville grew more heated, her voice had risen until
the rather shrill “Your Grace” brought turned heads and fixed
stares from both the duchess and Emily’s aunt.

“
I beg your pardon,” Emily said to the
older ladies, who, sensitive to her embarrassment, immediately
returned to their conversation. Miss Bettencourt, completely
mortified by the duchess’s notice and possibly embarrassing her
friend from army days, clasped her hands in her lap and stared at
her fingers as if she had never seen them before.

“
I knew you must be very brave.”
Caroline spoke quietly to Emily’s bent head. “Following the drum is
only for the hardiest of souls. Believe me, I am aware that your
knowledge of the world is far greater than mine. And, yet, somehow
I had already guessed at the truth about the duchess. She is, you
see, everything my mother was not. She is strong, courageous,
loyal. And, yes, even a naive fool like myself can see that she
loves him. And I fear I must admit I have seen the way he looks at
her when she does not know he is looking. ’Tis positively
scandalous for one of his years. He never looked at my mama like
that, I am certain of it.” But not even to Emily would she mention
seeing the duke and his new duchess clasped together on a bench in
the Dark Walk.

“
Oh, my dear!” Emily cried, raising her
head. A swift glance at the duchess, and she once again lowered her
voice to a whisper. “I am certain he must have looked at your mama
so when you were younger.”

“
Perhaps,” Caroline sighed, “but I
remember nothing of the kind.”

“
Caroline . . . if there is one thing I
learned in the army it is that life is not fair. All too often the
finest men died while the gamesters, the cheats, the liars, and the
rakes escaped battle after battle with nary a hair out of
place.”

“
You give a very good scold,” Caroline
pronounced. “Possibly even better than Miss Tompkins.”

“
I am a beast!”

“
No. You are a better friend than I
deserve,” Caroline said. “I truly hope that Mr. Trimby-Ashford
appreciates what a gem he has found in you.”

“
We have come full circle,” Emily
murmured.

“
And you are just as confused as when
we started.”

“
I fear so.”

“
But I am not,” Caroline asserted
quietly. “I dug in my heels and refused to regard the duchess in a
fair manner. You have made me look within to a place where I did
not wish to go. And I have, indeed, found myself
wanting.”

“
I was far too harsh,” Emily declared.
“Please forgive me, I had not the right.”

“
A friend always has the right,”
Caroline replied. She reached out and touched the fingers that were
still tightly clasped in Emily’s lap.

The two young ladies looked each other in the
eye. For the first time that morning, they smiled.

“
Ah, good morning, Sarah,” said the
duchess as she entered the sunlit morning room on the ground floor
of Longville House.

In spite of knees that weren’t as nimble as
they once were, Miss Sarah Tompkins sprang to her feet and executed
the perfect curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured. “I am waiting for
Huntley, who is with the duke.”