“He is a duke,” Snowley pointed out. “The title counts for something.”
“Still, she might show a little more discretion given her recent bereavement.”
Under the cover of her skirts, Caro toed off her slippers. “Based on what Papa told me, her husband had no son to inherit.”
Snowley slumped into a chair and tugged his cravat loose. “Where have I heard that one before?”
“I’d say she’s looking to feather a new nest,” Caro went on. She ought to be relieved that Lady Wyvern seemed to be setting her sights on someone other than Adrian—even if that person was, ridiculously enough, her papa. But then, what was to stop the marchioness from enjoying the relative benefits of both men? “She must be worried that Wyvern’s heir presumptive will force her to leave.”
“I can’t say that I’d blame him.” Snowley stretched his legs out toward the hearth. “Still, if that’s what she’s doing, she’s getting on with it early. Won’t they want to wait to be certain she’s not in a delicate condition before they hand the estate over?”
“She must already know that she’s not.” Caro pushed her head into the back of the settee and contemplated the ceiling. “As for Papa, if he plays along with her, I’d say he’s finally found a sure way to push us all toward the altar. If he marries that woman, I won’t want to live with them, I can tell you that much.”
“At least they’ll have to wait a year. It gives you time to plan your escape.” On the other hand, there wouldn’t be any escape for Snowley. Without the promise of a dukedom, his prospects on the marriage market would suffer a fatal blow.
Pippa set down her glass. “Would you listen to the pair of you? You sound worse than Great-aunt Matilda. At least give Papa some credit. He liked the attention, but that doesn’t mean he’s about to offer for the woman. He could have remarried years ago, if he was so desperate to sire an heir.”
Caro had to admit her sister was right. Papa had loved their mama to distraction, or so she’d always heard. She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of losing one’s spouse after years of companionship.
Heavens, what must it be like to go through life knowing such devotion from another person? Society’s expectation for a young lady of her position hadn’t prepared her to confront such a question. She’d grown up with the knowledge that she’d marry a suitable gentleman, and if love blossomed from that relationship, she’d consider it a fortuitous surprise.
She’d spent most of her adult life running from the notion, because she refused to let any man sculpt her, chipping away at her essential self until she fit his vision of a proper lady. No one would stuff her into a particular box until she forgot who she was. She’d much rather pass up the chance of another person loving her.
Not just any other person.
No.
A vision floated through her mind of the look of infinite tenderness on Adrian’s face as he filled her. That expression had speared her heart the way he invaded her body. It should have brought her pain, but instead it had saturated her with sweetness.
She wanted that in her life. The thought hit her with all the shock of a headlong dive into an ice-cold pond.
Goodness, she hadn’t yearned for anything with this intensity, not even the sense of freedom that came from riding. Damnation, next to this, Sir Bellingham barely ranked.
But the chances of continuing her relations with Adrian were about as probable as Pendleton knocking at the front door to announce he’d changed his mind. They were less than dismal, due to their respective stations. Even if Papa found out she’d ruined herself with Adrian, he’d never permit her to marry the bastard son of a tenant.
“My lady?” The footman’s summons pulled her from her musings. “Mr. Crosby has sent for you. Will you attend him in the study?”
Her pulse rate kicked up a notch, though whether in anticipation or apprehension, she could not tell. Maybe, though, she’d learn something of what had transpired between Adrian and Lady Wyvern earlier. “Of course.”
She stepped into her slippers before standing and shaking out her skirts. As she headed for the corridor, her gaze crossed Pippa’s, whose left brow strained toward her hairline. Very eloquent, that graceful arch—it all but demanded to know what was going on. Caro would be all too happy to offer an explanation, as long as she could keep the intimate details private.
Hardly a chance at that, for Pippa was likely to see past Caro’s veneer. She could almost hear her sister’s probe: You’re in love with him, aren’t you?
More statement than question, to which Caro would have to reply in the affirmative. That simple truth hit her as hard as her last realization. Simply, impossibly, she loved him.
Caro headed for the study, pushing wide the half-open door and pausing when she caught sight of Adrian. He stood with his back to her, a glass raised to his lips. The muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed. The remains of his supper tray cluttered the desk.
On her entrance, he went still but did not turn. “I owe you an explanation.”
—
Adrian drained his glass, the brandy burning pleasantly in his gullet, before setting it on the desk with an audible click. Slowly, he pivoted to face Lady Caroline.
For Lady Caroline she was, regal and proud, her hair swept off her long neck. The soft green silk of her skirts swished about her ankles. Jewels dripped from her earlobes and enhanced the length of her white throat. Every inch of her proclaimed her heritage, a daughter of nobility just as it had the first day he’d seen her in this very room.
Her bearing presented a sharp contrast with Lady Wyvern. The marchioness walked with the languid movement of a woman confident in her seductive appeal. She prowled like a cat on the hunt, every flowing step a calculation meant to show off full hips and ample breasts.
Lady Caroline was built on sparer lines, sleek and efficient as a racehorse, and every bit as graceful. Oh, he’d refined his taste far more than Lady Wyvern knew.
In the end, there was no comparison.
He hadn’t needed the soft tread of Caro’s feet in the hallway to announce her arrival. He’d sensed her presence as something vital to him like air. Dressed in finery or breeches, she was beautiful to heartbreak. Clad in nothing but her skin, writhing beneath him in ecstasy…he had no words for that. Not even the most accomplished of poets did.
As he watched her shimmer on the threshold, his heart swelled until it beat against his ribs. She wasn’t going to like what he had to tell her. Still, he must do it. Now.
It was Lady Caroline who broke the thickening silence. “Something tells me this explanation involves Lady Wyvern.”
He stared at his glass, empty though he willed it full. Wishes, however, proved futile. If they hadn’t, he’d have changed the circumstances of his birth to make himself an acceptable match for Caro. “She tends to have a strong effect on people, aye.”
“On men, you mean?”
Damn it, she saw too much, but then Lady Wyvern was about as subtle as a rampaging bull.
“I had the unique pleasure of watching her work her wiles on my papa at dinner.”
“Then you have her measure.” He picked up the decanter and refilled his tumbler. “She is the reason I left Wyvern.”
A small smile played at Caro’s lips. “I cannot say I blame you there. Though I imagine most men would have been flattered by the attention.”
“I was,” he admitted, “at first.” Curse him for a fool, but he couldn’t help himself. Better he was honest about everything that had happened. Besides, he’d done nothing he regretted. Yet.
That part was coming as inevitably as tomorrow.
“Sit.” He gestured toward a chair. “You once asked about my history. I’m ready to tell it now, from the beginning.”
—
Caro listened while he recounted his life in his soft Yorkshire burr. From his earliest memories, he told her of hardship, lean seasons, dark cold nights when he’d clung to his mother for warmth in a drafty tenant’s cot
tage.
But he recalled love and happiness, as well, times of plenty, days off to attend fairs, all of it framed by whatever work his mother could scrape up. And when the first marchioness, a kindly older woman, came round to redistribute some of the wealth they’d paid in rent, she’d always had an extra sweet for him.
At the same time, Adrian had caught the notice of Wyvern’s agent, a man named Danvers. As if he’d planned it with the marchioness, Danvers began bringing Adrian to the manor, teaching him to read, to add and subtract, ensuring he got better meals from the estate kitchens. The marchioness let Adrian have the run of the library, where he could quench his thirst for knowledge.
Gradually, Danvers began to ask Adrian’s opinion on estate matters, discussing each decision on which crops did best in which field, which sections would do better lying fallow, and the profitability of introducing sheep. Whenever he could, Adrian would promote the interests of the tenants.
“Danvers was teaching me his job, though I didn’t realize it at first.” Adrian had been given an opportunity to rise above his birth, one he’d never questioned.
Then the first marchioness had died and Wyvern found a much younger replacement, a woman who might yet give him the heir he wanted.
Caro’s supper sat more and more uneasily in her stomach as Adrian told her what had transpired next. The new marchioness had also taken an interest in him, though of a rather darker nature.
“At first, I thought she preferred the attention of a younger man.” Adrian shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his own naiveté. “But I put her off, because I felt I owed Wyvern my loyalty. If nothing else, he might throw me off the estate. And if the new Lady Wyvern had wanted a younger husband, she would have snared herself one.”
Snared. What an apt term for Lady Wyvern’s machinations. “She seems to prefer them old, if her behavior in the dining room was any indication.” She could’ve just as easily set her sights on Snowley, after all. “I just don’t understand why she’d pursue you this far when you left to escape her.”
“I had first thought her desperate to give Wyvern his heir. I didn’t learn until today why she’d chosen me.” He paused, tapping his fingers on his empty glass. “Though he had difficulty siring a legitimate heir, he had no troubles leaving by-blows in his youth. One, at least.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“Oh.” For the briefest of moments, Caro entertained a burst of hope. The son of a marquess. That nearly made him suitable, except for the part where his mother and father hadn’t actually married. Except for the small fact that his mother still occupied a tenant’s cottage.
“Since Wyvern’s demise, she’s become even more desperate. Unless she can produce an heir within the next nine months, the next in line to the marquessate will come along and put her out.”
“And she thought you’d go along with that plan?” The very thought sent Caro’s blood pumping hot through her veins. To cover the darker emotion, she forced a laugh. “That only makes her a fool. There’s no guarantee she’d have a son.”
“There’s no guarantee she’d have a bairn.”
Caro narrowed her eyes. “As many times as you rejected her advances, how did she think she’d convince you?”
He went very still, and a quiet fell, the silence so deep, she could hear the rush of her own blood, though now it ran cold.
“She discovered I have a particular weakness where you’re concerned.”
“Me?” That admission ought to have reassured her, but somehow it only made the situation worse.
“She threatened to use you against me if I refused.”
Caro’s throat began to swell, until she was like to choke. God, he’d been shut in here with the woman for ages. “And did you?”
“I refused her.”
Those three simple words brought such a flood of relief with it. “She can say what she likes about me. I don’t care.”
He planted his hands on the desktop and leveraged himself up. “You don’t understand. She knows about us. She knows what’s happened between us.”
“How?”
He closed his eyes. “Trust me, she’s worked it out, and I couldn’t deny it. Not convincingly. But I can still protect you.”
Caro didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“You do. I have to leave. If I do that, you can cover this up.”
She shot out of her seat, dropping her fists on the polished wood surface, so she could face him across the desktop. As an equal adversary. “I told you today in the folly, you haven’t ruined me. I’ve ruined myself. There’s nothing she can say that makes it any worse.”
“You’ll forgive me if I disagree.”
He was speaking as an inferior, and she hated it. “You’ve nowhere to go.”
“I can go back to the Wyvern estate.”
God, how could he sound so calm, so reasonable, when every word was tearing her apart? She felt like he’d unleashed a wildcat inside her, and it was clawing her to pieces in its desperation to escape. “With her.”
“No. If she bears no heir, she will have to leave, and I can resume my old position.”
“If you think for one moment I’ll stand by quietly and let you leave, after all that’s happened. After all that we’ve done—”
The sound of a throat clearing behind her cut her short. Though her heart felt shattered, it still managed to pound painfully.
“So it’s true.” Damnation, that was Papa’s voice, and it shook with a fury she’d never heard from him. “Lady Wyvern’s been telling me quite a tale.”
Caro pivoted. “You cannot believe a word that conniving…” She hesitated. How she wanted to give her tongue free rein and say what she thought of the marchioness, but the blaze of cold rage in Papa’s eyes made her think better of it. “…woman says.”
“I did not wish to believe it. What could she know of anything when she’d just arrived? But Caruthers has reported a thing or two. Stable boys claiming they saw the pair of you in your mare’s stall. The kitchen maids gossiping. It’s all lent credit to what Lady Wyvern said.” Papa addressed his next words to Adrian. “Under the circumstances, I’ve no choice but to dismiss you.”
Chapter 27
“No!”
The reaction tore from Caro, more a howl of pain than intelligible language. Never in her life had she screamed at her papa, but scream she did now, worse than a harpy. Papa had never hurt her before, not like this. Her heart felt as if he’d shoved a flaming brand though it and twisted for good measure.
The pain made her want to press her forearms into her abdomen and bend over, in hopes of staving it off.
Nothing would stave this off.
She forced herself to stand tall. “You can’t do this.”
“My dear, I may be old and infirm, but I am still the Duke of Sherrington. Where it comes to my estate and my family, there is very little I cannot do.”
Never in her living memory had he taken such a firm tone with her, spoken with such authority. Her logical mind knew he must have done so on other occasions, with other people. It came of his position, of being a duke. But with her, with Caro, he’d always been indulgent. His lack of indulgency now only struck another blow to her charred heart.
She would not bend before him. “Don’t send him away for something that was my doing.”
“Lady Caroline…” Adrian’s voice rumbled close at hand, which meant he’d come out from behind that desk. To stand by her side.
Though the gesture warmed her, she wanted to tell him he wasn’t helping. “Let me handle this. Papa, I pursued Mr. Crosby”—Adrian—“not the other way around.”
“And it was up to Mr. Crosby to know his place,” Papa said.
His place. How she despised those two words.
“His grace is right,” Adrian concurred.
And now she hated them even more. Could this confrontation go any worse?
She took a step towar
d Papa, coming chin to chin with him. At some point, she’d grown—or he had diminished with age—until they were close to the same height. “If Mr. Crosby leaves, I’m going with him.”
“Lady Caroline.” Damnation, she loathed those words even more than his place. “I don’t believe you’ve considered this. How would we live?”
She spun to face Adrian. “You said it yourself just now. You can go back to Wyvern and take up your old position.”
He hesitated, a hundred emotions flickering through his expression, too quickly for her to pick out a single one. At last he said, “I can’t bring you with me for that.”
“What?” Why was he fighting this? Did today mean nothing to him? Had he taken physical comfort in her body without his feelings being engaged? Though it was the only conclusion she could pluck from the whirl of her thoughts, it didn’t quite add up, not when he’d resisted her for so long.
“Crosby has the right of it,” Papa interjected. “A young lady of your standing living at another manor in a position just above the servants…It would be awkward.”
Young lady of your standing. She hated those words most of all.
She wanted to shriek. She wanted to rant like a Bedlamite. She wanted to tear at her coiffure and her gown. “When will you understand that I do not give a fig about my standing? I never asked for it. Not once. But no matter, I’ve another solution. I can sell Boudicca, and we’ll live on the proceeds until you find a position that will not be awkward. Papa will give you a reference, won’t you?”
“No, I will not,” her father said. “Because you will not be going with him.”
“How can you stop me?”
“I shall appeal to your sense of family duty and your love of your sisters, if not your father.” His voice shook, and the sagging skin about his jaw shook with it. “You shall stop thinking only of yourself and see how your actions reflect on us all. At the moment, the damage is minimal and can be covered up as long as you remain quietly in the country. I daresay that was your plan all along—to arrange matters so you’d never have to show your face in society again.”
Every one of his words pierced deeper, stinging with the poison of his disappointment, but that last accusation…She stole a glance at Adrian. Beneath his weathered skin, the color drained from his face.
To Tame a Wild Lady Page 23