Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

by Gardiner, Jenny

  “I think Gareth is going to be bereft without his helper, you know.”

  “Well maybe he can get back to working on protocol with you, being that you obviously need the help,” Caroline said with a wink. “But seriously, look at you. You’re all put-together now. You dress in these beautiful clothes that flatter your figure. You’re keeping up with your highlights,” she said, tapping on her head, “something, I might add, I’ve never known you to do in your life.” She then pointed at Emma’s eyebrows. “And you’re keeping yourself well-groomed. I mean I haven’t seen a stray eyebrow hair on you for weeks.”

  Emma pushed her friend jokingly. “You might not even recognize me by the time you’re back for the wedding.”

  Caroline hugged her friend hard. “I’ll miss you tons. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Miss you more, infinity.”

  “FaceTime with me lots?”

  “Every day if you’ll let me,” Emma said. “You want me to come with you to the airport?”

  “Nah, it’ll be better if I go on my own. I don’t want to get weepy and then have my mascara smeared for the whole flight home. I’ll never be able to pick up a guy on the plane if I look like I’ve been bawling.”

  Caroline turned and climbed into the back seat of the Rolls.

  “Love you!” Emma yelled after Caroline as her car pulled away.

  ~*~

  Caroline finally arrived at her apartment around dinnertime. Which didn’t bode well, since she had precisely no food in her apartment. After wandering around the tiny space, checking on how much dust had gathered and pitching the remains of her sad little poinsettia, which had died in the months she’d been gone, she left her apartment and hopped an Uber to Arlington to grab some dinner.

  It was Tuesday. Two-for-Tuesday at Tio Gringo’s, which meant the place was crowded. There wasn’t a table available for a lone diner, so she squeezed in at the long bar between a few parties waiting for their tables.

  Caroline ordered a margarita, which made her sad, because the last time she’d sat at a bar with margaritas was at Pippa’s party. And nothing good had come of that. She pushed the drink away and asked for a glass of water.

  All around her people were laughing and talking and having a good time going about the business of living. But Caroline could only look around and feel like she didn’t belong here. But where did she belong?

  “I love the way you make your margaritas,” she practically shouted to the bartender, a pathetic attempt at drumming up small talk.

  He cupped his hand to his ear, but she just shook her head and didn’t bother repeating herself.

  Soon the bartender served her the plate of nachos she ordered, which she ate while watching a guy nearby tucking his hand beneath the waistband of his girlfriend’s jeans in a proprietary boyfriend kind of way and pulling her in to kiss her forehead. That simple gesture made Caroline’s heart ache just a little bit with yet another reminder that she had no one to pull her close and remind her that she was special.

  She finished her dinner, paid her bill, and caught an Uber ride back home. If you could call it home.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  DARCY sat down to breakfast with his mother for the first time in what seemed like weeks. Witnessing Caroline making out with Zander had weirdly taken the wind out of his sails, and he’d actively avoided his family lately because he just didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything at this point. He was in a full-out discussion embargo. For a guy who loved to schmooze, it was a strange holding pattern to be in.

  “Hello, stranger,” his mother said as she blew on her tea. “Something must be up if you’ve finally decided to grace me with your presence at a meal.”

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” he said. “I’ve really just wanted to have time to think.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “And are you done thinking now?”

  He shook his head. “Not done so much as tired of it. I feel like a dog chasing its tail.”

  “Well, you look more like the dog that’s been kicked,” she said, running her fingers through his short hair.

  Darcy chuckled. “Thanks for the compliment. To be honest, I do feel like a dog that’s been kicked. Or maybe a dog that’s kicked himself. I’m not so sure anymore.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Darcy sighed. “I suspect you can deduce a bit of it.”

  “Perhaps involving that sweet girl Caroline?”

  “Sweet,” he said, shaking his head. “Or so I thought.”

  “What happened?”

  “What didn’t happen is more like it.”

  “Last I knew, you two were working together and seemed to get along wonderfully. And then you weren’t. And ever since then you’ve been cranky.”

  “I have not been cranky,” he said, a decidedly cranky whine in his voice.

  His mother laughed. “I’ll take you at your word. So what happened with you and Caroline?”

  “Everything. And nothing. Things were going great when we were in America,” he said. “She was a lot of fun. We laughed a lot. We hit it off. We got each other. Even though we started out completely mistrusting one another.”

  “Those are often the best relationships,” his mother said. “Like your father and me. You can imagine how uncomfortable it was for me not having a choice in the matter. It had long ago been determined that your father and I were to marry and all that was left were the details. So when your father started courting me, I could barely look at the man.”

  Darcy squinted at his mother in disbelief. “You never told me this before.”

  “I suppose there was never a reason to.”

  “So you didn’t like Dad, then?”

  “More like I resented the hell out of him,” she said. “We women had no choices back then. Particularly not in this culture, either. In landed families, it mattered greatly who was paired up with whom. My parents barely discussed the matter with me. I had my debut, and your father was my escort. But I would have nothing to do with him still.”

  “Really? You ignored him?”

  Lady Charlotte laughed. “Oh, goodness, I was so hard on the poor thing. I just barely allowed him to link arms with me as we entered the ballroom and he escorted me to be introduced to the royal court. Lucky for him, I submitted—against my will, mind you—to dancing with him that night. But I spoke hardly a word.”

  “Poor Dad,” Darcy said. “He probably just wanted to impress you.”

  “By the end of the evening, I had started to soak in some of his charm,” she said. “Your father was much like you. He had an outgoing personality and was easy with a laugh. But I wouldn’t let on for a good while.”

  “Did you even let him kiss you good night when he returned you home?”

  “Heavens no!” his mother said. “I wasn’t about to yield to him without a bit of a fight.”

  “So then what?”

  “We went on several outings together. He would show up with a corsage or a nosegay of flowers. He wanted so badly to impress me. But I held strong. Really, I was doing it to rebel against my parents, because it certainly wasn’t your father’s fault. For all I knew, he didn’t want to marry me any more than I him. But he didn’t let on.”

  “So what happened to change your mind? Nothing I ever knew about the two of you was anything but deeply loving. You’re one of the great love stories I know of, in fact. Father was so devoted to you he set the standard.”

  Lady Charlotte smiled, a wistful glimmer in her eyes. “I had a cat, Midnight, whom I loved dearly. He’d been with me since I was a young girl. He slept at the foot of my bed each night, he shared my life’s heartaches—whatever those are when you’re a child. But he took ill. He was old. And he was dying. Your father sat with me for hours, just stroking the old cat, comforting him and me. He was genuinely concerned about my cat’s welfare. And when Midnight died, Hubert led me by the hand to a far field, shovel in hand, and dug a grave in the unforgiving rocky soil for me to bury my bel
oved cat. He created a little memorial site with rocks and checked with me often to be sure I was honoring the memory of Midnight by visiting his gravesite.”

  “Dad always was a soft touch when it came to creatures. Those horses,” he said, pointing toward the barn. “I think he loved them like they were his children.”

  “Yes. You see, your father wooed me with his love for all things,” she said. “And when he showed up one day with a tiny gray kitten in one hand and an engagement ring in the other, well, how could I object? He’d proven to me that he was a good man with a large heart. What more could I ask for?”

  Darcy nodded his head. “I sure miss him. He was a larger-than-life presence. Impossible shoes to fill.”

  “I don’t think you’re meant to fill them, son.”

  “But this estate, all of this, all of his empire is now mine to try to maintain in the fashion in which he cared for it.”

  “Darcy,” his mother said, stroking the side of his face. “Do you think Hubert marched in lockstep with his father? Of course not. When your grandfather passed away, your father followed his own passions in deciding how to manage Weltenham. He didn’t allow himself to be tied to the past, but rather he used his vision to continue to grow the parts that interested him. The rest, he let it go. I think there’s a message for you in that.”

  “But what if I don’t know what I want?”

  His mother tilted her head and gave him one of those mother-knows-best looks. “Somehow I think you know in your heart of hearts. Now you just have to figure out how to make it happen. Sometimes if you overthink something, you make a simple thing impossible.”

  “I suspect I’m beginning to realize that,” he said. “What’s lousy is that I think now that I’m starting to get it, it’s likely too late.”

  “It’s never too late as long as your heart is in it,” she said. “Now I’m off; I’m joining a knitting group. Something I’ve always wanted to do. I hope you’ll think about what I’ve said.” She leaned over and kissed him on the head. “It will all work out. Just trust in your heart.”

  “I hope you’re right about that.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  EDOUARDO sure knew how to disturb his bliss, Darcy thought the minute he saw his brother storm into the room.

  “Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been avoiding me for weeks, Darcy,” he said. “I know you think I’ve been irrational in my beliefs about that woman, but I have proof that I was right from the get-go.”

  “Look, Edouardo, now’s not the time,” Darcy said. “I finally found a few minutes’ peace, and here you are stirring up my agita all over again.”

  “I don’t even know what agita is.”

  “It’s what you’re doing to me. And I don’t want you to do that. So I’m going to ask you to please stop.”

  “I saw her at that party at Pippa’s,” Edouardo said, reprising his role as the tattletale little brother Darcy remembered from years earlier. “All over Zander like a barnacle on the hull of a ship. Just what I’d have expected from her. Couldn’t get anywhere with you, so she moved up the food chain, went after the bigger fish.”

  “Just because you saw something happening doesn’t mean it was what it seemed to be.”

  His brother gave a sneer. “Are you that daft? Zander’s hands were all over her. Not to mention his mouth. Those two were glued together so tightly you could barely tell where one started and the other ended.”

  Darcy winced, remembering the scene. “So what then? Tell me why Caroline isn’t entitled to be with whomever she wants. I’d told her I couldn’t be anything more than a friend to her, so she was free to move on.”

  “And she sure did, didn’t she? Scrabbling after the next single guy with money and stature she could find.”

  “I beg your pardon, but you don’t even know Caroline, so how is it you’re so capable of making such judgments against her?”

  “I know the type,” Edouardo said, frowning. “All too well.”

  Darcy shook his head, resisting the urge to shake his fist. “I wasn’t going to go there, Edouardo. It’s an area none of us ever likes to resurrect. But here goes: Caroline is not Eugenie. There, I’ve said it.”

  Edouardo glared at his brother. “She’s just like her. Money-grubbing, social-climbing beer wench.”

  “Beer wench?” Darcy laughed. “I don’t even know where that came from.”

  “I heard her talking to the bartender. At Pippa’s. Said she used to serve drinks. Probably that and then some.”

  “It’s time to back down, Edouardo, before I do something we’ll both regret,” Darcy said. “I need you to stop disrespecting Caroline, who is a good friend of mine.”

  “Why are you defending her when you know better?” Edouardo leaned forward so that his face was right up against his brother’s.

  Darcy pushed his brother away, stood up, and waved his finger at him. “Just because someone broke your heart because she was only interested in your family fortune doesn’t mean that every woman is like that. I know Caroline well enough to say with certainty that she is not that type of person. She’s loyal and trustworthy and honest.” He pointed to the scar on his forehead. “Caroline took care of this, made sure that I got to a hospital and had it stitched up, and tended to it herself to be sure it stayed clean.”

  “Yeah, so, maybe she wanted to be sure you didn’t die before you could marry her.”

  Darcy shook his head. “Are you that mad? You really have so little faith in people that you think your average woman is all about maximizing her advantage in order to land a rich guy?”

  Edouardo stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, when you say it like that... maybe.”

  “Maybe it’s more like they know you are so pathetic that they’re trying to run away from you?” Darcy laughed.

  His brother pretended to punch his arm. “You’re a million laughs. Look, Darce, I think we’re all feeling vulnerable right now. I just don’t want to see you taken advantage of.”

  “I get that. And I appreciate your concern. But I’m a big boy and I can take care of myself.”

  His brother hung his head. “Fine. I hear you. And, um, sorry I stopped things at such an inopportune time.”

  Darcy rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Edouardo, I mean really. Do you know how close I was?” He held his thumb and pointer finger less than an inch apart. “But in truth, you owe Caroline an apology. You can imagine how mortified she must have been.”

  “I can’t talk to her about that!”

  “You damn well better,” he said. “Otherwise how am I going to make up for lost time? If I even can. You owe me that much.”

  His brother practically dragged his feet on the ground, so reluctant was he to do the right thing. “Okay, fine. But only if you swear to me you’ll watch out in case she’s after your fortune.”

  Darcy scruffed his hand through his brother’s hair. “Yep, I’ll keep a close watch on that, be sure she’s not cooking our books or leaving here with sacks full of cash.”

  “You make me sound so foolish.”

  “Shoe fits.”

  “Wait a minute,” Clementine said, walking in and stretching her arms out in disbelief. “The two of you are uttering words to one another?”

  “I was making clear to your brother, even though it’s probably too late anyhow to matter, that Caroline was not a repeat of that dreadful Eugenie.”

  “Ugh, she was a real piece of work,” Clem said, hitting Edouardo on top of his head with the spoon she’d gotten out to stir sugar into her tea. “What got into you thinking that about Caroline?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Ohhhh, so that’s what all this dead silence was about?” She pointed at Darcy. “And this is why you dumped her? Because your dumb little brother insulted her? Geez, the two of you are sort of pathetic.”

  “Thanks, Clem,” Darcy said, frowning. “On top of everything else being dumped on my shoulders, now I have a sister who thinks I’m a pathetic loser?”

  “I can
’t believe you dumped Caroline because of that.”

  “Well, it wasn’t just that,” Darcy said, his shoulders slumping.

  “What else?”

  Darcy looked around the room, spreading his arms out. “All of this. And you two. And Mum.”

  “What do we have to do with your girlfriend?”

  “She’s no longer my girlfriend.”

  “Okay, ex-girlfriend,” she said. “Which, by the way, was thanks to your foolishness.”

  “Don’t need to be beaten over the head with it, thanks,” Darcy said. “I felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to carry on properly in the footsteps of Dad. I knew it wasn’t the time to be chasing selfish pursuits.”

  Clementine curled her lip. “Why the hell not? What better way to get over heartbreak than with someone who loves you by your side?”

  “Okay, so let’s get this straight. First of all, she’s not by my side. And secondly, she doesn’t love me.”

  “Says you,” Clementine said.

  “Did you not see her at Pippa’s? She’s with Zander now.” Darcy’s mouth set in a hard grimace.

  Clementine started to laugh. “Oh my God. If only she were here, I’d call her right away and tell her. She’d probably get a good laugh out of this.”

  “She who?” Darcy said.

  “Oh, but I can call Zander. He’ll be thrilled that his acting prowess paid off.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Darcy said, looking at his brother to see if he had a clue, but Edouardo just shrugged and popped some bread into the toaster.

  “Oh, dear brother of mine,” Clementine said. “I’m so glad to know you’re so predictable. Caroline and Zander aren’t a couple, you dimwit.”

  “Perhaps you missed what happened at that party, but I saw it for myself,” Darcy said.