The Husband List

by Janet Evanovich

  “I see,” Caroline replied over her grumbling stomach. “Thank you, Cora.”

  “Yes, miss. Is there anything else I may do for you?”

  “Nothing at all, thank you.” Caroline made her way from the dining room to the stairs and was about to go up when Mama came rushing down. She was dressed in her dark blue travel garb, and to Caroline’s knowledge, no travel was planned.

  “Where were you for breakfast?” Mama asked.

  “I was still in my room.”

  “You’d better hurry tomorrow. The meal was over and done with before my tea could steep.” Her mother kept looking up the stairway as she spoke, and she seemed as skittish as Cora had, too.

  “Where are you going?” Caroline asked.

  “How did you know I was going someplace?”

  “Your clothing.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. London.”

  Caroline’s relief was infinite. “Thank heaven! Give us ten minutes, and Annie will have us packed.”

  “No need. You’re staying here.” Mama pulled a telegram from her small purse. “Your father has instructed me to return to London at once.” She handed Caroline the paper. “As you see, it’s addressed to me, alone, and it says only ‘Return London Now.’ There’s no mention of bringing you.”

  Caroline handed the telegram back.

  “You know he meant me, too, even if he didn’t spell it out,” she said. Papa was always ridiculously frugal when writing a telegram. It was as though he guarded the family fortune one word at a time.

  Mama returned the message to her purse and then gave Caroline a sharp look. “Have you accepted Bremerton’s proposal?”

  Now she understood her mother’s game. “No.”

  “Then it’s not time for you to leave. I hope to persuade your father to return here with me tomorrow so he can witness your engagement. Lord Bremerton thought it was a fine idea.”

  Of course he did, because that meant Caroline would be alone tonight. “Mama, you can’t just leave me here without a chaperone.”

  “You have Annie,” her mother said.

  Caroline was speechless for an instant. “You wouldn’t even trust her to go to Harriet’s picnic with me, and yet you’d leave us here, alone?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Mama replied. “Even you can’t find much trouble, here in the middle of nothing. And if you’re looking for a titular chaperone, there’s Lady Carew. Your reputation is safe.”

  Berta teetered down the stairs, carrying Mama’s smallest travel trunk.

  “To the carriage, Berta,” Mama commanded before coming to Caroline and taking her hands. “You’re twenty-one years old. I was married and had you at that age. Surely you’re independent enough to spend less than two days on your own.”

  If Caroline had been anyplace but there, she’d have been popping champagne corks and celebrating her freedom. But tonight, she’d be turning the lock on her bedroom door.

  “Travel safely, Mama.”

  * * *

  FOUR HOURS later, Bremerton was still harassing birds. No lunch was to be served until he was done. Annie had even gone to the kitchen to ask for bread and cheese, but with no success. Now she was off trying to sweet-talk Charlie into asking for her. Caroline was in her bedroom contemplating the healthful aspects of fasting when Cora appeared in the doorway and asked permission to clean.

  Caroline put thoughts of hunger away. She sat at the dressing table and pretended to sort through her jewelry. Really, she watched Cora through the mirror. At first, Cora darted glances in her direction, but eventually she began to clean, and with more thoroughness than she’d shown downstairs, too.

  Caroline decided it was time to speak. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”

  “No, miss,” Cora replied without looking her way.

  “Last night, Lady Carew said something at dinner about Lord Bremerton having a wife.”

  “Lady Carew is often confused.”

  “Yes, but I don’t think she’s confused about this. And I do wish that you’d sit and talk to me.”

  “I can’t sit, miss.”

  “Would you at least take a moment from your work? I’m alone here except for Annie, and both of us see that things aren’t normal in this house.”

  “You’ve got the right of that,” the maid said under her breath.

  “I promise this isn’t just a visitor’s curiosity. Lord Bremerton has proposed marriage. I feel I have a right to know about him and his past, even if he refuses to tell me.” Caroline stood and walked to Cora. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you love each other.”

  She nodded. “Very much, miss. My Jamie and I ran off, even though we knew I’d lose my job for having done so. Maids cannot be married. But the last Lord Bremerton’s wife, she told the housekeeper not to let me go. Lady Beth was a kind woman. We all hated seeing her leave Chesley House after Lord Percival died.” Her mouth worked for a moment as though she was trying to hold something in. “And I don’t like following the orders Lord Bremerton gave about you. It’s not right, not feeding you. I could hardly work while telling you that.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline replied. “I’d guess that not feeding me isn’t the only strange thing you’ve seen around here.”

  Cora’s expression grew darker for a moment. “I’ve seen plenty.”

  “A friend of mine heard whispers that Lord Bremerton might have had a wife,” Caroline said. “Having loved and lost someone isn’t usually the stuff of rumors. I’m sure you can see why I’m worried.”

  “I want to help you,” Cora said in a rush. “I do, but this is the only job I’ll be getting unless Jamie and I part.” She shook her head. “I can’t do it, miss.”

  If Caroline had had a house of her own, she would have offered the couple employment. But she didn’t, and wouldn’t before they starved. But she did have something.

  Caroline returned to the dressing table. Papa had said that a woman’s jewels were insurance against many things in life. Hers might be insurance against marriage. She selected a heavy gold brooch set with diamonds and rubies, and brought it to Cora.

  “I want you to have this,” she said. “It’s your assurance that if you choose to leave here, you and Jamie can start a new life.”

  The maid shook her head. “I can’t be taking that. I’d be accused of theft.”

  “I’ll write a letter of gift,” Caroline said. “Please. All I want is to have the same freedom given to you. I want to marry for love.”

  She held out the pin again. This time, Cora hesitantly took it. She held it cupped in her hand and looked at it for a moment, then sighed as she handed it back. “I can’t do it, miss. But I’ll tell you what I know about Lord Bremerton’s late wife, and that will be my gift to you.”

  Caroline felt nearly weak with relief. “Thank you.”

  Cora knotted her hands together and began speaking. “When Lord Bremerton took over the house, he came straight from France and brought with him a wife. She was French and spoke not more than a few words of English, but she was very beautiful and full of smiles for the first days she was here. Then something happened. I don’t know what, but her smiles were gone and she spent most of her time avoiding the master. I don’t suppose that’s surprising, considering his nature.”

  “No, it’s not,” Caroline agreed.

  “Not more than a week later, Lord Bremerton told Jamie to saddle a horse for his wife. They were going to explore the countryside. Jamie chose a mare he knew was safe, but Lord Bremerton said his wife needed a mount with a spirit to match hers. He insisted on a filly that was hardly saddle-broken.” Cora gave an angry shake of her head. “The master said the horse bolted and his wife died. He called it ‘a most tragic accident.’ I call it near close to murder. I always think about how horrible it must have been for her, in a land where she couldn’t speak the language, had no friends, and then died not a fortnight later.”

  “What was her name?”


  “Adele.”

  “Is Adele buried in the village churchyard?” Caroline sought proof of events that even her doubting mother would accept, but more than that, she wanted to feel as though Adele had found peace.

  “No,” Cora replied. “His lordship said he wished her returned to her family. I’d like to believe he did that, but I can’t. He’s not a kind man.”

  Caroline had nothing to say for that, now knowing she’d received only a negligible dose of his unkindness. “Did his wife meet any of the neighbors?”

  “No,” the maid said. “His lordship was in mourning for his brother, so they didn’t socialize.”

  “Lady Carew had to be here, at least.”

  “She wasn’t here, either. She didn’t come until after Lord Bremerton was alone.”

  “So she couldn’t have known Adele, then,” Caroline said to herself.

  “I think Lady Carew sees things the rest of us don’t, miss. And I think those things are real.”

  If that were the case, Caroline wished she could see Bremerton’s wife, too. She wanted to know what truly happened. “Where did Adele spend her time?”

  “Mostly, she’d be in the east wing’s library or out walking the grounds. It was all so very sad.”

  “Thank you for telling me about this,” Caroline said.

  “You’ve a right to know,” Cora replied. “And Jamie and I are the last here who can tell the tale.”

  Caroline held out the brooch again. “Please, take it.”

  Cora deliberated for a moment, then accepted it. “Thank you. You’ve changed our lives.”

  Caroline smiled. “And you might just have saved mine.”

  * * *

  JACK WASN’T sure what he was doing in the Maxwell parlor at three on Tuesday afternoon, and he hadn’t been impressed by Bernard Maxwell’s terse summons, but he was there, just the same.

  “I owe you an apology,” Caroline’s father said as he walked in the parlor door. This was the first time Jack had seen Maxwell looking worn down. Jack didn’t like it.

  “You were right about Bremerton,” the older man said. He pointed to the wing chairs where they’d sat yesterday. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand, thank you,” Jack replied. “What have you heard?”

  “Enough that I immediately sent word to Agnes to get back here. I expect them soon.” Maxwell shook his head. “I can’t believe how damned hard it was to get in to see Endsleigh. At home, people come to me.” He tapped his chest. “Presidents come to me. The old man’s staff made me sit in a long hallway for over an hour before I was allowed an audience. All that time, the dead dukes of Endsleigh were staring down at me. Even the damn paintings had a superior attitude.”

  “It’s not such a rare thing,” Jack said, deciding to take that seat after all.

  “We’re not like these people, Jack.”

  He smiled. “And yesterday you were telling me that I wasn’t like you.”

  Whatever Maxwell had planned to say in return was lost in the commotion of Agnes Maxwell rushing into the room. She pulled up short when she spotted Jack.

  “What is he doing here?” she asked her husband while she unbuttoned her blue cape, shrugged it off, and handed it to a waiting footman.

  “He’s my guest,” Bernard replied. “Where’s Caroline?”

  “Still at Chesley House.”

  Bernard shot from his seat. “What?”

  “But only for a very short time,” she added. Her voice quavered in the face of her husband’s anger. “I am hoping you’ll return with me on the morning train. Caroline won’t accept the proposal without you there.”

  “She won’t be accepting the proposal at all,” Bernard replied.

  Agnes stiffened. “How can you say that, after all of my work?”

  “Not another word,” her husband said.

  She closed her mouth.

  Bernard looked at Jack. “Endsleigh told me a few tales from Bremerton’s early youth that make me believe he not only harmed Edward, but has done worse. And since Bremerton stepped in line to inherit, his grandfather has learned more. Not only does Bremerton gamble money he doesn’t have, but he’s being blackmailed. The duke has no proof, but he suspects the blackmail has to do with the death of his grandson, Percy, as well as the death of Bremerton’s first wife, Adele. The duke would rather see the title extinguish than eventually go to Bremerton, but he can’t control that.”

  “I should never have left Caroline there, not even for a short while,” Agnes said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Maxwell turned back to his wife. “Neither do I. There will be much more discussion about who and how my daughters may marry from now on.”

  She nodded.

  “Where, exactly, is Caroline?” Jack asked her.

  “At Chesley House, outside the village of Arundel, southwest of here.”

  “We need Caroline out of there tonight,” Agnes’s husband said.

  “But there’s no train service past Petworth until morning. I checked at the station before coming home,” Agnes replied.

  Jack rose. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to the Maxwells.

  “Where are you going, son?” Bernard asked.

  “To Chesley House.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  What would a woman who spoke only French want in an English library? Caroline closed the door behind herself, pulled open the dusty gold curtains to let in the afternoon summer sun, and began trying to answer that question.

  She sat behind the mahogany desk and started pulling open drawers. Other than a few worn pen nibs and the odd scrap of paper, the desk had been cleaned out. She moved on to the bookshelves. Someone many years ago had loved botany. A third of one wall was filled with old texts. If Adele had read Latin, she would have been in heaven. However, in Caroline’s circles, Latin-reading women were fairly scarce. And given Bremerton’s need to control, she doubted he would have wed a woman more intelligent than he. She laughed to herself when she realized what she’d just thought. Of course he would marry a bookish heiress. She was proof of that.

  Caroline pulled a volume at random. It had been shelved for so long that its top was thick with dust. Holding in a sneeze, she replaced it and tipped out a few others to see if they, too, were long unread.

  Satisfied that botany and Latin hadn’t been Adele’s lures, Caroline moved on. She’d nearly decided that the Frenchwoman had merely chosen the library for its out-of-the-way location when she came upon a small foreign language section.

  “Yes,” she murmured to herself as she ran her fingers along the works of the philosopher Descartes, translated from their original Latin to French. Whatever the language, they remained heavy reading. Smiling Adele would have fancied something lighter. Caroline smiled, too, when she saw a copy of Les Trois Mousquetaires. Trying to think like Adele, she pulled the book from the shelf, dragged the desk chair into the sunlight, and began to read. She’d just gotten to d’Artagnan’s first skirmish with the Comte de Rochefort when Annie shot into the room.

  “Here you are! You’d better hurry, or dinner is going to pass you by, too. Bremerton is gobbling his food just to be sure you go hungry.”

  Caroline closed the book. Hesitant to leave a good story behind, she brought it along to the dining room. Bremerton looked up from his plate as she entered. All she could think was, So this is what a murderer might look like. One would never know. She decided to be as she always had been with him—somewhat south of polite. If she started fawning now, he would suspect something was awry.

  “I didn’t know we were to dine early,” she said to the Englishman as she slipped into her seat and set her book on the table. “Then again, you didn’t tell me.”

  “What is that you’re reading?” Bremerton asked.

  “Alexandre Dumas,” she said. “The Three Musketeers.”

  “In French?”

  “Well, yes,” she replied.

  “You speak French?”

  “Yes, and Ge
rman. And I read Latin and some Greek, besides.”

  He made a disinterested sound. Caroline nipped into her chicken while she could. Nerves had only increased her appetite. This was plain food, but after a day of going without, it tasted like ambrosia.

  “We’ll be taking a ride tomorrow,” Bremerton said. “I thought you might like to see the countryside and perhaps visit with the Bentons before your mother and father arrive.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “Let me put that in British terms. I wish to never ride with you.”

  His look of surprise quickly faded. “Your choice. Stay here, then.”

  “I will,” she said before eating five green beans in quick succession.

  Bremerton set down his fork. Charlie stepped forward and cleared the plate. He looked Caroline’s way before turning and walking at a snail’s pace toward a tray he’d placed on the buffet. Caroline was grateful for the brief reprieve. She bolted as much food as she could before Charlie returned and pulled her plate.

  Bremerton, who had been watching her, said, “After that show, I’m sure you don’t wish for dessert.”

  “I couldn’t eat another bite,” she lied cheerfully. “In fact, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire to my room and read for the evening.”

  “Of course. I’ll be by to check on your welfare later.”

  “That’s quite unnecessary,” Caroline said as she rose and reclaimed her book from the table.

  “But it will happen all the same,” Bremerton said.

  Caroline left the dining room and found Annie waiting for her in the hallway.

  “Did you get any food in?” Annie asked.

  Caroline smiled. “An impressive amount. Thank you for the warning.”

  They climbed the stairs, and once they were back in the bedroom, Caroline took a look at the cowhide couch and decided to forego sitting on that in favor of reading in bed. Annie settled onto the chaise with a piece of lace she was tatting. She said it was going to be for her wedding dress one day, if she was ever mad enough to marry. If all marriages turned out like poor, dead Adele’s, it would be madness. But Caroline still held out hope for Jack and true love.