The Husband List

by Janet Evanovich

Caroline took up the best compromise position she could think of. “No other girl there will have her governess as a shadow. Bremerton is sure to notice, and you don’t want that.”

  “A good point,” her mother conceded.

  “Send Annie. Most of the girls will have their maids present.”

  “Annie?” She gave Caroline’s maid a narrow-eyed look. “Absolutely not. Peek will go as your maid.”

  It was difficult to decide who was more affronted by this decree, Peek or Annie.

  “But ma’am,” Annie began, only to be cut off by Mama, who said, “Think carefully, young lady. Your next word could be your last as a Maxwell employee.”

  Annie nodded before joining the furniture on the edges of the room, and Peek glowered in silence.

  “There!” Caroline’s mother said in her first cheerful tones of the morning. “See how easily that was handled? Compromise is a fine thing.”

  And when practiced by Mama, an entirely one-sided affair.

  TWELVE

  “Do you think Lord Bremerton is here?” Amelia asked her sisters as they followed a pathway marked by potted daisies around the side of Thelmsford, the Vandermeulens’ palatial cottage set on a rise overlooking Bailey’s Beach.

  “Of course he is,” Helen said.

  “He’s going to be everywhere I don’t want him to be,” Caroline added. She had already shed Peek, sending her off with the other lady’s maids inside the house. Bremerton wouldn’t be so easily lost.

  Caroline adjusted her grip on the beribboned lavender parasol that matched her equally beribboned lavender dress. Though she was not much for fluff and lace, she had a soft spot for this particular dress. The narrow bands of white trim at the bottom of the skirt and the puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves felt quite stylish. She’d had Annie pin her hair more loosely atop her head in the style of a drawing by Charles Dana Gibson. Caroline had decided that these small pleasures would have to tide her over until she was free of the Englishman.

  “I don’t know why the two of you think Lord Bremerton is so horrible,” Amelia said. “I think he’s quite romantic. It’s as though he carries the weight of a tragic past and will not speak because of it.”

  “You’ve been reading too many Brontë novels,” Helen replied. “There’s nothing remotely tragic about him. He’s bored silly by us and thinks himself a thousand times better.”

  “You have your opinion, and I have mine. But you’ll both see. He simply needs to recover from a broken heart.”

  “Or the lack of one altogether,” Helen suggested.

  Caroline smiled. That, at least, would explain why he was so cold to the touch.

  They’d just rounded to the rear lawn, and Caroline was about to remind her sisters that the time had come to watch their words. Instead, all three pulled up and fell silent. Harriet Vandermeulen had put the sort of planning into this picnic that Caroline wouldn’t bother with for a wedding. Unless Jack was the groom, of course.

  The Vandermeulens had borrowed a flock of sheep to lend a more rustic appearance to their perfectly groomed property. The poor, blank-eyed creatures were penned in an enclosure decorated with large white bows. Two sullen-looking teenaged boys tended them. Each was dressed in a romanticized version of a shepherd’s garb, complete with a matching bow at the neck.

  All the female servants had been dressed in colorful gingham frocks, and the linen-covered tables were adorned with low arrangements of wildflowers. Just past the picnic area, a fiddler sat playing high on a haystack while two cows chewed contentedly on his perch.

  Harriet approached. She glowed with happiness in her rosy pink dress and wide brimmed hat decorated with fat bunches of cherries.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said to the girls. “It is a glorious day for a picnic, isn’t it?”

  Caroline quickly scanned the dark-coated men at the gathering, mentally charting a course that would keep her far from Lord Bremerton. Instead, she came up minus a Bremerton and plus a Jack. He looked her way and smiled.

  “Absolutely perfect,” she replied to Harriet.

  Amelia and Helen went off to a group of their friends while Harriet led Caroline toward the cluster of guests that included Jack.

  “It’s going very well between Jack and me,” Harriet said as they strolled.

  “In what way?” Caroline asked.

  “He’s very charming and attentive.”

  “Jack is a nice man,” Caroline said, attempting to keep at least the appearance of neutrality regarding Harriet’s campaign.

  “And my father has already talked to Jack’s father. Since Jack is here, I have to believe he’s agreeable to a marriage.”

  “Interesting,” Caroline replied.

  “And I have good news for you, as well,” Harriet said. “Lord Bremerton is here. Everyone is quite taken with him. I think you will be, too. He’s seeing the grounds with Alice Ames and should be back at any moment. I’ll introduce you right away.”

  Caroline could work up no false enthusiasm. “There’s no rush. I met Lord Bremerton yesterday evening.”

  Harriet’s perfectly shaped mouth turned downward. “Oh. I was hoping to be the one to make the introduction. It would be a wonderful story to tell our grandchildren someday. But at least I have seated him at our table so I can tell him all the wonderful things I know about you. And you can do the same for me with Jack.”

  “Naturally,” Caroline said.

  They had reached Jack. He stood in the middle of a cluster of girls with Caroline’s brother, Charles, and poor, graceless Gordy Bullard. Harriet cut her way through the throng with a charming yet relentless efficiency, telling the others that luncheon would soon be served and perhaps they’d like to find their tables.

  Jack took a step toward Caroline and began to say hello. Harriet moved between them and edged close to Jack. Close enough that Caroline did not appreciate it.

  “Jack, you will be sitting with me,” Harriet said. “Caroline will be joining us with Lord Bremerton, and the table will be rounded out by Caroline’s sister, Helen, and Alice Ames. Shall we?”

  She tilted her head at an inquisitive angle, clearly waiting for Jack to act as her escort to the table. He held out his arm. Harriet latched on like a steel trap. Caroline followed behind and permitted herself one unladylike roll of her eyes. Jack chose that instant to look over his shoulder. He grinned and she smiled back.

  The three of them hadn’t been seated long when Bremerton and Alice Ames returned, and Helen made her way over. Jack rose. Bremerton’s gaze flicked past him and Harriet, and settled on Caroline. Focus on the small pleasures, she reminded herself, preparing herself for his icy attitude.

  But Bremerton beamed.

  “Hello, again, Miss Maxwell,” he said in a voice that oozed warmth and admiration. “You look radiant today. A true American beauty.”

  If Amelia’s theory had been correct, Bremerton had just set a new world’s record for recovery from a broken heart.

  “Thank you,” Caroline said, surprised that words had managed to work their way past her disbelief.

  Jack, who had greeted Helen and Alice, acknowledged Bremerton after they had each held a chair for the girls. “Lord Bremerton.”

  “Mr. Culhane,” Bremerton said collegially. “Jack, is it?”

  Jack looked exactly as suspicious as Caroline felt.

  “Yes, it is,” he said as both Bremerton and he sat.

  “I do recall those two names, though last night there seemed to be quite a few others packed between them,” Bremerton said. “You must have an interesting tale behind that.”

  “Please share it, Jack. I feel so deprived, not having been there with you last night,” Harriet said, and then shot a very pointed look Caroline’s way.

  Caroline understood the territorial statement. Jack was now the pinto hobbyhorse of their childhood, and Caroline was to keep her hands off. Jack gave Harriet a half smile, as though he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. He apparently hadn’t believed Caroline’
s warning about the extent of Harriet’s ardor.

  “My late mother fell ill before my birth and was told by her doctors that recovery, let alone more children, wasn’t likely,” he said. “She had wanted a large family, so I was given all the names.”

  “That’s very touching, don’t you think, Lord Bremerton?” Harriet asked.

  “Quite,” he replied. Anyone who had not encountered him last night would think he was sincere. But the hairs on Caroline’s arms still rose when he spoke, and she would put her faith in arm hair over the Englishman any day of the week.

  Harriet forged on. “Do you want a large family, Jack?”

  Seventeen-year-old Alice Ames gasped at Harriet’s audacity. The query had been as blatant as Mama’s idea of an Artemis costume.

  “I haven’t thought about it,” Jack replied.

  “But you would like a son to take on your name and inherit, wouldn’t you?” Harriet asked.

  “I don’t know.… Having a son simply to be left my belongings, goods, or carry on my name seems a pretty self-centered reason to bring a child into the world.”

  “What reason would you suggest for procreation, then?” Bremerton asked.

  “Love,” Jack said.

  “Ah, of course,” Bremerton said. “I believe that’s a given for every human being. And while my future title demands that I marry in order to protect the line, I will do so only with the prospect of a deep and lifelong love.” He fixed his gaze on Caroline. “It is what every woman deserves.”

  Young Alice sighed sweetly, while Helen made a choking sound. Caroline clenched her hands beneath the table, wishing she were a man and could punch Bremerton’s long nose for this absurd deception. But she could try to push him until his shiny new veneer of caring cracked.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “And every woman deserves to have a voice in her world, or we are little different from the sheep in that pen.”

  “I feel horrible for the sheep,” Harriet said with a delicate shudder. “I begged my father to let them wander, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “I can guarantee they’ve been in less happy places than that pen,” Jack said. “Though I can’t necessarily say the same for the shepherds.”

  Caroline laughed.

  Harriet looked up at Jack, which was no small feat since they were sitting down. “It’s so kind of you to comfort me.”

  “Are you saying that ladies can be likened to sheep?” Alice asked Caroline. She sounded more intrigued than offended.

  “I am saying that sometimes we are treated like livestock,” Caroline replied. “We are given no more options than they are.”

  “We’re certainly not sheep,” Harriet said, clearly irritated that the conversation was veering away from her. “And I don’t live in a pen.”

  “Caroline doesn’t mean it literally, Harriet,” Helen said.

  “Then is this about not having the vote? Are you a suffragist with that Susan B. Anthony?”

  “I am a member of her association,” Caroline said. “And I have been lucky enough to hear Miss Anthony speak twice.”

  Jack smiled across the table at her. “That must have taken some maneuvering on your part.”

  “I’m becoming fairly adept at that sort of thing.”

  He laughed. “I’ll bet you are.”

  Harriet took a quick sip of her ice water and put down her glass with more force than necessary. “I have no desire to follow politics or business.”

  “We all have different interests. But I was referring to a choice in love, actually,” Caroline said to Harriet as a large luncheon platter was set down in front of her. She glanced at the slices of crusty French bread and the makings of a sandwich of one’s choice. The meats and cheeses had been arranged like flowers. Caroline had a fundamental objection to flowers of meat, and she was growing to object to Harriet, too.

  “We can all choose to love the man we wed,” Harriet said, looking at Jack. “I think it would be very easy to do so.”

  “In some cases, yes,” Caroline replied while she busied herself placing her napkin on her lap. If she even glanced Jack’s way, the entire table would know how she felt about him. “But think how much better life would be if we could choose to love before we choose to marry.”

  Jack had another life-improving choice to add to Caroline’s suggestion—escaping this table. Luckily, he’d already laid the groundwork for his departure. He needed to use it now, before he committed the apparent sin of making a direct comment. He pulled out his pocket watch, checked it, and closed it with a snap.

  “I’m afraid it’s time for me to leave,” he said to Harriet.

  “I know you said you had another engagement that you might have to attend to, but you haven’t even eaten,” she said, pouting. “Please stay a while longer.”

  Jack wasn’t about to touch a plate that had been served to him by Caroline’s governess, Peek. How Caroline had just missed her in that ill-fitting pink gingham dress and why she was acting as one of the Vandermeulens’ staff were both beyond him.

  “It’s unavoidable,” he said to Harriet, doing his best to sound disappointed.

  “Let me walk you out,” she offered.

  “No … No, I’ll be fine. Please stay with your other guests.” He smiled at Caroline, who, without speaking, conveyed her irritation at his escape. But he had plans for her, too.

  “If you insist,” Harriet said. “I look forward to seeing you again, very soon.”

  Jack replied with a noncommittal thank you and said good-bye to everyone else. As he made his way past the sheep pen, he stopped near the so-called shepherd guarding the gate. He was a young man of stocky build, and not especially suited to wearing a big white bow.

  “You don’t look happy,” Jack said. “Would you like a new job?”

  The younger man cocked his head. “What would it be payin’?”

  Ah, so the not-quite-real shepherd was Irish. “If it gets you out of that ridiculous costume, do you even care?”

  “Not so much, sir,” he said. “But I’d be a fool not to be askin’.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Dungloe, County Donegal, sir.”

  Jack grinned. That was a stone’s throw from Da’s old home.

  “But how much are you payin’? You still haven’t told me.”

  And he was persistent like Da, too. “Twenty-five dollars a month, and room and board, of course.”

  “That’s twice what I’m makin’ now.” The pretend shepherd tugged the bow from his neck and threw it in with the sheep. “Done.”

  He fell in step beside Jack.

  “What’s your name?” Jack asked as they walked toward the front of the house.

  “Fintan O’Toole,” he said.

  “How old are you, O’Toole?”

  “Seventeen. Eighteen next month.”

  “No wife?”

  “Ha! I can hardly support meself. Well, now I can, but I’m still wanting no wife.”

  “O’Toole, you’re now my personal secretary.” He glanced the younger man’s way and thought he might be wise to cover a few of the job’s requirements. “You can read, can’t you?”

  “Aye.”

  “And you like beer?”

  “I’d never be drinking on the job, sir,” O’Toole said.

  “That’s good, but do you like beer?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Then you’re going to be one very happy personal secretary.”

  O’Toole grinned. “I’m near thrilled already, just getting rid of that bow.”

  Once they were at the carriage, Jack dug into the carriage box. He’d tucked a telegram from Gustav Miller about the Philadelphia brewery in there. Jack handed it to O’Toole.

  “Bring this to Miss Caroline Maxwell. She’s the woman in lavender sitting at the same table as Miss Vandermeulen. Tell her it just arrived for her.”

  “Aye, sir,” O’Toole said as he glanced at the paper. “Am I waiting for some sort of reply? Though I can’t
think what Miss Maxwell might be saying since this is addressed to you.”

  Jack smiled. “That’s half the fun of Miss Maxwell, seeing what she might do next.”

  * * *

  CAROLINE GAZED diffidently at the French bread in front of her. She had no appetite. And for a man who’d recently made a rescue at sea, Jack had quickly forgotten the time-honored tradition of women and children first when abandoning a sinking ship. Heaven knew this meal was that and worse for Caroline.

  “Do you enjoy watching polo, Miss Maxwell?” Lord Bremerton asked.

  “When my brother is playing, I do,” she replied.

  “Perhaps you could extend that pleasure. I’ll be playing at the Westchester Polo Club immediately after this. Would you do me the honor of watching?”

  He seemed to be determined to play the chivalrous swain.

  “I’m afraid I’m otherwise occupied today,” she said.

  “But Caroline, you know we were all to go to the polo field this afternoon,” Harriet said.

  “My mother has need of me at home,” she fibbed.

  “Ah, I see,” Bremerton said. “And I fully understand. As we chatted about last night, we all must meet our families’ expectations.”

  What a lovely threat disguised in sunshine, Caroline thought. She was about to reply when a young man who looked suspiciously like one of the shepherds approached the table.

  “Miss Maxwell, begging your pardon, but this telegram was just delivered for you.”

  Caroline never received telegrams, especially from shepherds.

  “Thank you,” she said, accepting it. “Will you be nearby if I need to respond?”

  “I’ll be right by the house, miss.” The young man executed a sketchy half bow and retreated.

  Caroline unfolded the paper, read it, and put on a businesslike face.

  “I’m afraid I need to step away from the table for a few minutes,” she said.

  “It’s not anything to do with the family, is it?” Helen asked in an alarmed voice.

  “No, nothing at all,” Caroline said as she worked back her wooden folding chair and rose. “It’s from an acquaintance I made in London last year. She has asked me to attend her wedding, which is taking place quickly, before her betrothed must go to India on government business.”