“Oh, indeed,” Stephen replied.
“Scuse me, guvnor!” called a loud, cockney voice, and the entire group came to a halt as a young, fair-haired woman came hurtling down the corridor towards them.
“Clara,” said Kimbolton, exchanging a long-suffering glance with Sir John. “We have talked, have we not, about a lady’s pace? And her speech? What on earth will your new employer think?”
The girl blushed and bobbed an awkward curtsy, her hands bunching in the folds of a simple white day dress. “Excuse me, sir, but Cap’n Jones wants to know how many more trunks are to come for the girls. He says it’s gettin’ red…redick…bloody stupid. Sir.”
Wynn-Thorne rolled his eyes. “Women and their belongings. So much space we could be loading with profitable goods and we’re cramming it with useless junk.”
“My lord!” Caroline whispered sotto voce, as she rapped him playfully on the arm. “A woman’s treasures are sacred! Now, Clara, is that your name, dear?”
“Er, yes ma’am.”
“I want to hear your story. Every little detail about how you came to be rescued by these wonderful gentlemen. They talked about touring the ship, but I must say that terrifies me. How about you and I take tea while they attend to their manly pursuits?”
Clara’s expression turned cornered mouse. “Er, not much to tell. I were, um, a soiled un-for-tu-nate on the streets and now I’m not thanks to Cap’n Jackson and these here foine guvnors, er, gents. I’m lookin’ forward to my new life, that’s the plain truth.”
Caroline tilted her head. “Jackson? I thought you said the captain’s name was Jones?”
Pure panic flared in the girl’s eyes and her face lost all color.
Stephen frowned. What a truly odd reaction.
“Poor thing,” said Sir John, shaking his head. “So overwhelmed by her good fortune and impending journey, she forgot Captain Jones’ name.”
“Didn’t mean it, honest, guv. I mean, sir,” Clara whispered, visibly trembling now. “Please don’t kill me!”
***
“Darling, you’ve been staring out that window a good twenty minutes now. Am I really that dull?”
Barely managing to halt a scream of surprise, Caroline turned and smiled briefly at her mother. “Of course not, Mama. I just have a…few things on my mind at the moment.”
“Oh? Like what? Come and tell me.”
Sighing, she obediently returned to the flowered chaise in the small parlor Sir Malcolm had deigned to permit her mother to use, and sat down. Where to begin. A marriage with more ups and downs than a ship battling a storm-tossed sea? A houseguest she wanted to dropkick from a high window? A mother in law she missed desperately? The quest for an heir she wanted and yet didn’t want? Her husband’s budding friendship and business partnership with men who genuinely frightened the life out of her?
The dock meeting had played over in her mind so many times it was practically engraved there now. Young Clara and that whole scene, from the abrupt entrance to the speech corrections and careful answers which seemed so damned practiced. Every instinct told her to ask some pointed questions and hadn’t that set the cat amongst the pigeons. But not in the way she’d wanted. Clara’s sudden change in demeanor, that look of absolute dread—she’d seen it enough times in the mirror before answering one of Sir Malcolm’s summonses. And the plea ‘please don’t kill me’ had sounded far too genuine, yet Kimbolton, Sir John and Wynn-Thorne all laughed uproariously at the girl and complimented her on a Siddons-like performance. Clara eventually curtsied, even smiled, but the stark pallor of her skin remained. And once dismissed she’d looked over her shoulder twice, as though to reassure herself they weren’t following her.
During the carriage ride home Caroline had wanted to discuss the morning with Stephen, but his thousand-yard gaze never shifted from the window except to inform her he would drop her at her mother’s for tea and collect her after his appointments with his law clerk and banker were completed. So now, here she was. Unsettled as hell and forced to smile and make small talk when all the while she wanted to fly to her husband and blurt out every worry currently sitting boulder-like on her shoulders.
“Caroline? Hello!”
“I’m sorry, Mama. You were saying?”
Emily gave her a perplexed look over the rim of her teacup. “No dear, you are supposed to be talking. Is it Stephen? Are the two of you fighting?”
“No,” Caroline replied. Then grinned ruefully. “No more than usual, anyway.”
“Then is there a problem with…ah…in the…er…bedchamber?”
“No, Mama. Everything is quite…very…more than well there.”
“Excellent. I hoped…I hoped very much you would enjoy the kind of passion I knew with your father. My word did that man make me long for winter.”
“Winter?”
“Oh yes,” Emily said wistfully, her eyes shadowing the way they always did when she retreated inside her mind to happier times, although she rarely spoke of her first husband. “His ship docked in port. Short days. Long nights. Even now, there is nothing I wouldn’t give for just one more.”
Caroline bit her lip to halt a barrage of questions. If she stayed silent perhaps she might learn something for once. It was patently ridiculous how little she and George knew of their true father, not even his full name for heaven’s sake. All that remained of the man who had given them life, who apparently loved them dearly until his untimely death in a shipwreck, was one small, intricately painted family portrait.
It had shown a grinning blond giant of a man. He was dressed for seafaring in front of a large ship, one arm around her simply-gowned but beaming mother, each balancing a rosy-cheeked toddler on a hip. They clearly had little material wealth, but an abundance of bliss. Maddeningly, no information was included on the back, like the ship’s name or even the location, just a small note—‘Howard, Emily, George and Caroline, summer 1791’.
So many times she’d tip-toed into her mother’s room, pulled the hidden portrait from its oiled cloth and cried. Prayed for a letter stating her father lived, was wealthier than the king and would be whisking them away from Sir Malcolm to a life of peaceful splendor. But of course a rescue never happened. And as the years passed she sought comfort in the portrait less and less, knowing it only represented what would never be again.
“Mama…” Caroline said sympathetically, reaching out to clasp her hand. To lose a husband was one thing, the great love of your life unbearable. No wonder her mother wool-gathered, especially with the daily miseries of her second marriage.
Emily shook her head and leaned forward.
“Just be happy, darling. Cherish every day you have together. That’s all I—”
The parlor door swung open with a loud bang, and they both jumped as Sir Malcolm strode in. Speak of the devil.
“Bother!” her mother muttered, dabbing a tea splash with a starched linen napkin.
“What is the problem, Emily?” said Sir Malcolm coolly. “Spill your tea? Better go and change your gown.”
“No, no, it’s fine, thank you. Just a few spots.”
“I don’t think you heard me. I said you’d better go change your gown.”
Emily visibly tensed, her face paling. “I—”
“Before it stains and must be burnt.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Caroline felt her lips twist as Emily hurried from the parlor, her head lowered. Marriage might have saved Caroline from this bald-headed viper, but her mother still suffered at his hands.
God, how she hated him.
“Well, girl, you look well enough,” her stepfather said finally, when she deliberately sipped tea to stretch the silence far beyond politeness.
“My name,” she replied icily, “Is Lady Westleigh. And yes, I am quite well with no one threatening or beating me.”
“Give
it time. No one is in more need of proper physical correction than you.”
“Proper physical correction? Is that what they call it down at the court docks? More like an excuse for a complete and utter low-life to abuse someone smaller and weaker than himself.”
“Well. There has to be some benefits to marriage, does there not? Especially when the woman brings nothing of note. At least you don’t have two mewling brats trailing along behind you.”
Caroline stilled, her fingers clenching around the tea cup. Information from the least likely source? “If marrying my mother was so distasteful, why did you do it?”
Sir Malcolm leaned against the mantelpiece and laughed. “Why do you think? They filled my bank account to overflowing, purchased me a knighthood, this house, and interesting employment.”
“They? Mama’s parents are dead.”
“Your father’s family, of course. Hated the three of you interlopers beyond words, promised extra if I formally adopted you and George. Despite the grievous annoyance I did so, anything can be achieved with the right connections.”
Unable to control her trembling, she gripped her cup tighter. “But why did they hate us? And who are they?”
“Between you, George and Emily, what’s there to like? As to your second question, that, my dear, is something you’ll never learn from me. The contract I signed swore total silence, forever.”
“Oh? So you do occasionally follow the law?”
He smiled. “When it suits. I must say, I’m enjoying spending your husband’s money. That was another profitable contract for me, although it resulted in your loss. I guess I shall have to increase discipline of your mother and brother to compensate.”
Rage overwhelmed good sense and she flew at him. “Bastard!” she screamed, flinging the contents of her cup into his face, anything to remove that cold, self-satisfied smirk. For a long second he stood there, liquid dripping from his nose and chin. Then in a frighteningly fast movement, one meaty hand encircled her throat and squeezed.
Gasping for air, her fingernails clawing at his hand, she lifted a foot to kick him.
But despite a clear height advantage, her coordination and timing were no match for his and he easily sidestepped the off-balance attack, grabbed an arm and hurled her back toward the side table.
Caroline sprawled onto the floor, her left shoulder connecting sharply with the table edge, and the tea tray leapt several inches before crashing beside her in a heap of cake crumbs, sugar cubes and rattling crockery.
A moment of total numbness, then pain. Shocking, jolting pain, travelling across her shoulders and down one arm.
She blinked and panted, determined not to cry no matter what.
“Foolish, clumsy little bitch. Excuse me, Lady Westleigh,” said Sir Malcolm as he crouched down, gripped her throbbing arm and roughly hauled her back up onto the chaise. “I suggest you forget your mother, forget your father, forget whatever other ‘things’ you have on your mind and go home. Concentrate on achieving what your husband bought and will keep paying for. An heir, as soon as possible. Understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered dully.
“I didn’t hear you.”
Caroline stared at him, silently vowing to make him sorry for this, sorry for what he’d done to her mother and George. However long it took, she would make him pay. “Yes!”
Chapter Seventeen
“Stephen, darling! How wonderful to see you.”
Nodding quickly at Pearce, the Edwards’ butler, Stephen grinned and strode forward to take his mother-in-law’s hands and kiss her cheek. Emily was a first class lady, warm, kind and possessing nerves of steel to make it through not just his and George’s Eton exploits, but far worse, marriage to a bastard like Sir Malcolm.
“Good evening. Apologies I didn’t come in before, I am frightfully late following a bankers’ appointment. If you leave them alone too long, who knows might they might do…your eyes look a trifle pink. Are you all right?”
She smiled brightly. “Of course. Just stayed up far too late last night with my sewing. Must learn to pace myself, but whenever I find a new pattern, I simply cannot resist! Now, if you come with me, we’ll fetch your wife. She’s in the parlor with Sir Malcolm.”
Stephen inwardly frowned at the news. George and Caroline both openly loathed their stepfather, and although they’d never said anything specific, he was fairly certain this house kept more than a few unpleasant secrets. If the cold-eyed magistrate had any friends they could be numbered on the fingers of one hand with plenty to spare, but his enemies certainly numbered in the thousands, across the full spectrum of London’s population.
“Well, lead on then. If he’s in several pieces, dusk is certainly the time for clean up.”
Emily made a sound that might have been a laugh, but quickly clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle it. Instead she linked an arm through his and ushered him across the foyer and through the parlor door.
“Caro, dear, look who I found loitering at the door,” she announced to the room.
“Good gracious, Mama,” said his wife from where she sat rigidly on a chaise, Sir Malcolm standing far too close behind her. “He looks a right ruffian. Whatever were you thinking, allowing the likes of him inside?”
“I did ask very, very nicely,” said Stephen, his gaze narrowing both at her wobbling tone and the mess. Not since Caroline’s figurine-smashing spree had he seen the room in such a state. “But why are the contents of a tea tray decorating the floor, my dear? Did the fruit cake not meet your exacting standards?”
Sir Malcolm chuckled, and yet again he was reminded why his mother referred to the man as Malevolent. “On the contrary, Westleigh. Our Caroline was reaching for yet another slice, overbalanced, and sent the whole thing flying. Very fortunate the teapot was nearly empty otherwise it could have been a lot worse.”
“Indeed,” he said coolly, his temper prickling at the patronizing nonsense. Not even Caroline was that clumsy. “Very fortunate. I apologize for the briefness of my stay, but we really must be going. Two balls to make an appearance at this evening, hate to be tardy.”
Stephen’s lips tightened further when Caroline gingerly got to her feet, walked over to Emily and wrapped her in a tight, prolonged hug. What the bloody hell had just happened in here?
“I’ll see you soon, Mama,” she said.
“Goodbye, darling. Goodbye, Stephen. Enjoy your dancing ‘til dawn!”
“We will.”
They walked in silence to his carriage, Caroline not even waiting for him to help her up the step, just scrambling quickly inside and huddling in the corner.
Frowning hard, he slammed the door behind him, tapped the roof and slid onto a leather squab opposite his wife as the vehicle moved smoothly away from the Edwards townhouse. Everything about her was wrong at the moment: a lack of chatter, her too-pale yet mottled skin, but especially the way she held herself.
“Caroline, what on—”
“Do we really have two balls to attend tonight?”
“No,” he said reassuringly. “I made that up. Got the impression you didn’t really want to be there any longer. We were tentatively booked to have dinner with Ardmore, Southby and a few others, but I can make our excuses. It seems newlyweds are given a fair amount of leeway for cancellations, even with little notice.”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Thank heavens for that.”
“Indeed. One of the vastly underrated benefits of marriage. While it would have been nice to see everyone, to give them the opportunity to unleash all the patently unamusing comments they’ve no doubt been saving up since the night we abandoned our own ball, it’s been a hell of a day.”
“Yes, it has,” she replied, her voice and expression so strained his patience ran out.
Folding his arms, Stephen pinned her with a severe look. “Are you going to tell me the truth
about the tea tray? I know even at the best of times you have the coordination of a young buck at the end of his first night out, but I don’t believe for a second Sir Malcolm’s story about you overbalancing. Do I need to lock him in Lady Havenhurst’s drawing room with Esther Hartley and a pianoforte? Beat him to a pulp and throw his carcass into the Thames?”
Caroline laughed, but it was the strangest, wateriest sound he’d ever heard, and seconds later she was sobbing. Great, wrenching ones which practically shook the carriage.
Aghast, he could only gape. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her like this. His wife shrieked and threw figurines. Smiled sweetly and pulverized toes. But she never broke down.
“Caroline?” he said, at a total loss, his acute discomfort with feminine tears warring against a powerful desire to discover and resolve whatever distressed her.
But she didn’t answer, merely buried her face in her hands and cried harder. Seconds later Stephen found himself moving across to sit next to her, curling an arm around her left shoulder and awkwardly pulling her toward him.
She screamed. Stunned, he jerked away. What the hell? What had he done wrong? She liked being held, didn’t she?
“Caroline,” he repeated sternly, battling through his confusion at the absolute oddness of the situation, a sting at the rejection, and anger that anyone could reduce his wife to a state of such despair. “Stop crying and start talking. Now.”
“I’m s-sorry,” she wept. “I want you to hold m-me. But my shoulder h-hurts so much. From where I h-hit the table.”
Hit the table?
His jaw clenched. “You’re hurt? Let me see.”
Equally as disconcerting as her tears, his wife obeyed instantly, shrugging off her pelisse and tugging down one puffed sleeve of her dark blue gown.
Jesus.
The start of some very painful-looking deep bruising was forming on her creamy skin. Lines and blotches of dark pink and pale blue, yet even now hinting at the yellow-flecked purple mess it would become. Rather similar to his own shoulder actually, which could only mean one thing. She had been helped on her fall by some sort of extra momentum.
To Love a Hellion (The London Lords Book 1) Page 20