Quietly, anguish and frustration consuming her, she turned and left the study, closing the door softly behind her.
Chapter 22
Jane held her gloved hand out to one of the four polished footmen, then stepped from the coach. The morning was bright and clear, and the smell of spring was in the air. A lovely February day for a bout with her arrogant brother-in-law.
She ascended the steps to the front door with confidence and was immediately ushered in formally by a parlor maid who took her pelisse and told her without the slightest trace of interest that she was to wait in the drawing room for Lord Weymerth’s appearance.
This she did, but as the minutes ticked by, she grew impatient and incensed. The earl was indeed as insufferable as Caroline had described without hesitation, and he was purposely making her wait as she sat primly in a chair, staring into the slow-burning fire.
“Well, finally. If it isn’t number one.”
She turned to the sound of his voice.
“I beg your pardon, Lord Weymerth?” she said stiffly, boldly looking him up and down.
“Number one, meaning you, Jane.”
His usually expressive face appeared drawn and exhausted, as if he’d been awake into the early hours of the morning, tossing back whiskey and wallowing in pity. Good for him. She hoped he was miserable.
He dressed casually in a cotton shirt, dark-brown breeches, and black scuffed boots. Obviously he wasn’t dressed for receiving but ready to ride. Too bad for that. The man would listen to what she had to say even if he had to throw her out on her heels, which appeared to be the only thing Weymerth was dexterous at accomplishing where women were concerned.
After eyeing her speculatively for a moment, he sauntered toward her. “Why did it take you so long?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure you do,” he drawled, sitting heavily in the chair across from her. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to discuss Caroline,” she replied bluntly.
He leaned his head back against the soft leather, eyes narrowing. “Really? The rest of Baron Sytheford’s daughters were here to plead for her before she left. And where is your father, by the way?” he added suspiciously. “He hasn’t contacted me at all.”
She brushed a lock of shiny blond hair off her forehead. “I am here for more important matters than to tell you Caroline feels terrible about what she did to you,” she brusquely informed. “As for my father, he is under the assumption you’ll take her back, so he chooses not to get involved.”
He raised his brows. “Assuming I wanted her, how could I take her back when she left the country weeks ago to pursue…glorious dreams of flowers.”
Jane ignored his statement. “I’ll not play games with you, Lord Weymerth,” she related, composed and daring him to counter with the determined glare she gave him. “My sisters love Caroline, as do I; however, being the oldest and most practical of them all, I’m not here to tell you she loves you more than roses, or wants you more than a greenhouse, or would give her life for you, or any other piece of nonsense. Those are romantic notions that do not concern me. I’m here to tell you, among other things, that I know without question that Caroline had every intention of annulling your marriage the day you wed.”
That statement surprised him, for he lifted his brows almost imperceptibly. Jane, though, prided herself on being enormously perceptive, which was, in fact, exactly why she’d bothered to visit the earl.
Slowly she began to remove her gloves. “First I’m going to explain why I came to you, sir, and then I’m going to tell you some things about your amazing wife.”
He groaned, annoyed, and gently rubbed his tired eyes. “I see no use in rehashing old lies that I’ve tried to erase from memory, Jane.” Candidly looking back at her, he added, “There’s no point in discussing any of this.”
She set her features with grim determination. “If you will allow me the opportunity, I believe you’ll see the point.”
He shook his head, smiling pompously. “Caroline didn’t want what I offered, and now she is on her own.” He shrugged. “I no longer care—”
“Oh, of course you care. Don’t give me that rubbish,” she cut in, standing abruptly. She dropped her gloves on the chair and strode purposefully to stand at the window.
Her eyes grazed over sunny grasslands and patches of white velvety clouds dotting the sky beyond as she shook her head pathetically. “Everybody knows you care, and that’s why we’re all more irritated with you than concerned about my sister’s welfare. Just one look at you reveals it all, for heaven’s sake. You’re not sleeping, you’ve probably been drinking far too much whiskey, and the lines on your face tell a thousand tales of worry. In fact, it’s Mary Anne’s opinion that you’re angrier at yourself than you are at Caroline right now. I happen to agree with her.”
She turned, facing him fully, eyes piercing his with confidence as she stated firmly and with pure pleasure, “Everybody knows how you feel about my sister. You’ve loved her for a very long time, Weymerth, are still in love with her now, and yet strangely enough, you are the only one left to accept this. You are undoubtedly the most stubborn and foolish man alive.”
She waited for him to rage at her audacity, watching him closely for signs of an impending verbal attack or rebuttal. Instead he stared directly into her eyes for a long moment, then slowly dropped his gaze to the cold, polished floor and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“Why are you here to…scold me now, Jane?” he asked in a gravelly whisper. “The entire matter has become irrelevant.”
She took a deep breath and boldly replied, “Because for the last few weeks, Caroline has been staying with me. She hasn’t gone anywhere.”
His head shot up immediately.
“That is to say, she hasn’t gone anywhere yet.”
That startled him, as she knew it would, and she watched his face display powerful emotions of shock, confusion, elation, hope, and grave uncertainty, which in turn gave her tremendous encouragement.
Suddenly he masked his features and sat back. “Yet?”
She began walking toward him. “Caroline has remained in this country under the hopeful assumption that you’ll come to your senses, forgive her and yourself, and request her return to Miramont as your wife. However, since you haven’t made inquiries regarding her intentions in America, or where she can be reached, or even if she’s still in England, she’s gradually come to believe you truly don’t care anymore. Because of your lack of concern, in three days’ time, on Friday, she will sail to New York.”
“How is she?” he hesitantly asked, looking to his hands.
That made her smile. “Just as you are. She’s angry, worried, hurting, feeling lonely because she misses you and Rosalyn terribly.” And quite noticeably pregnant, but that was beside the point and not something Jane intended to reveal. If the earl wanted his wife, he would take her back because he wanted her alone, not because she carried his heir.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“No,” she quickly returned. “That would just make her angry with me, and as I said before, I’m not here to boast of how much she cares for you or declare how wrong you were to dismiss her—”
“She lied to me,” he interjected coldly, as if that explained everything.
“Oh, good heavens, married people lie to each other all the time. That’s nothing new,” she said, exasperated. “But it’s also not the issue here. Caroline didn’t really lie—she just kept her feelings from you.”
“Her well-made plans, I think you mean.”
He continued to look at his hands, so she took the opportunity to return to the point.
“I am here for two reasons, Lord Weymerth. The first is to tell you some very private and extraordinary things about your wife, many of which I’m quite certain you’re completely unaware. The only reason I’m willing to discuss and divulge this information is because I personally think you are a
n exceptional man, and I’m not saying that to boost whatever ego you possess. I’m saying that because I think Caroline found a rare jewel in you.”
He raised his head and stared at her sheepishly, bemused.
She sighed heavily. “I want you to know that I understand what marriage is nearly always like for ladies of our class. Mine is no exception. My husband is generally kind to me, Weymerth, but to him I am his property, his caregiver and the mother to his heir. Nothing else. He has taken lovers over the years and has one even now in the Baroness Montayne. He doesn’t realize I know he beds her, because he has no idea how quick wives are in discerning such things.”
She lowered her voice with intensity. “As with all ladies of our station, I’ve put up with my husband, using him for stability, and likewise he’s put up with my usual frivolities over the years so I could give him a son. If Caroline had married a man like Robert, I would do everything I could to persuade her to leave, but she didn’t. She married you.”
Jane placed both palms on the back of the chair and gently squeezed the soft leather. “Caroline married you for an annulment, and this you know. What I don’t believe you know is why—”
“I know precisely why,” he interrupted harshly. “She cares for roses more than life itself.”
Fiercely, eyes flashing, she murmured, “You’ve never been more wrong about anything.”
“Indeed,” he said dubiously. “Do you know this instinctively, Jane, or did Caroline confess to such a falsehood?”
She waited for a moment to gather her thoughts, annoyed at his sarcasm. Then, watching him speculatively, she changed her approach.
“Do you remember the numbers you had her multiply the night of your dinner party, Weymerth?”
For a second he looked confused, then irritated. “I can vaguely recall the evening.”
He was purposely irritating her in return, but she decided it best just to ignore his impudence and move on.
Curtly she revealed, “Caroline did such equations in her head when she was four years old.”
Slowly, with growing comprehension, his eyes widened to gape at her, and the fact that he couldn’t hide his astonishment pleased her so much she graced him with a broad grin.
“You think you married a smart, talented, sharp-mouthed woman, but that’s not the half of it. Caroline is not simply a learned scientist, a woman wishing she could compete with men. She is an absolutely brilliant individual who was born with more intelligence than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s never needed to learn mathematics—she was gifted with the knowledge when she entered this world twenty-six years ago.”
She paused, allowing him to grasp and absorb the significance of her disclosure, then abruptly started to pace the room.
“From the moment she was born, she was different, and my parents realized this early because Caroline was very advanced for her age in everything she did. She walked at seven months, talked intelligibly at ten, and began speaking in short sentences when she was little more than a year old.” She flicked her wrist. “Some babies learn faster than others, so naturally my mother and father tried to brush these things aside as simple peculiarities. But when Caroline started to demonstrate her unusual ability with numbers, they found they could no longer do so, because it was slowly becoming apparent that their middle daughter wasn’t just advanced, she was extraordinarily gifted.
“She could count to twenty on her first birthday, to a hundred at eighteen months. She started adding objects around her before she was two, saying very odd things like, ‘Mary Anne got fourteen blueberries, and I only got twelve,’ or ‘There are nineteen cows in that pasture, and six of them are very fat.’” Jane grinned. “On Caroline’s second birthday, my mother placed a pile of pebbles in front of her, and with one look Caroline told her precisely that there were sixty-seven of them. After counting them herself, my mother nearly fainted.”
She stopped pacing and stared at the polished marble floor.
“Caroline began to read, without any help or tutoring, when she was three, and not simple nursery rhymes, mind you. She began reading books, Weymerth. You cannot imagine how baffled my mother and father were to see their little girl no more than a toddler, absorbed in the works of Dryden, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and perhaps not grasping the adult concepts, but reading the words and understanding the stories nonetheless.”
Jane raised her head and turned to him. His face told her nothing, but his eyes, so expressive and intense, showed intrigue, admiration, and amazement. It was just as she thought. He didn’t know any of this.
She continued fastidiously. “When Caroline was seven, she began working in the garden, and it immediately grabbed her attention. I think my mother purposely turned her in that direction because nobody in our family really knew how to relate to her. Suddenly she was not only planting, but growing things that shouldn’t grow in our soil, planting flowers just to see if they would bloom at the wrong time of year, which, I might add, some of them did.”
She shook her head, walked again to her chair, and leaned over the back of it, turning her face to the fire in tender remembrance.
“I vividly recall the day she began breeding. She was nine years old, Weymerth.” She tossed him a quick glance, but he just watched her, so she carried on. “Caroline decided to cross a white rose with a deep red, all on her own, without one shred of information on how to go about doing such a thing. They bloomed in the dead of summer, and I will never forget the look of pride and absolute joy she wore on her face the moment she walked into the garden to find blended, healthy pink roses. She, in her words, had found her destiny, and her life would be spent breeding flowers.”
Jane quieted for a moment and walked around her chair to sit again. She regarded the earl as he sat four feet across from her, taking note of his large stature, his chiseled facial features, and vibrant, attentive hazel eyes. Caroline was indeed fortunate, for this man was not only exceptionally attractive, but he also listened with interest when a woman had something to say. Remarkable.
Sighing softly, she creased her brows, concentrating to delve into the heart of the matter. “Two years after her first breeding, when she was nearly twelve, my sister learned of a man called Albert Markham who was attempting to breed a lavender mix from two unique and extremely fragile bushes. I think you know who this man is, so I will not embellish on his behalf.”
She dropped her gaze to her lap in reflection. “Caroline became his unknown champion, and at that tender age, she began to study his work enthusiastically and passionately. For years she did nothing but follow what she could of him and his experiments, laboring in the garden and greenhouse from dawn till dusk, breeding roses, varying temperatures as she could, calculating growth patterns and color hues and various soil conditions, and above it all, taking notes on everything she did.”
She raised her lashes to look at her brother-in-law again. “As a child and then an adolescent, roses were the center of her life, Lord Weymerth, because not only could her unusual talent with flowers be used as a means to achieve personal satisfaction from something she adored doing, but that same talent was also a means to escape from a society that had termed her odd from the moment she left the cradle.”
That confounded him. “Caroline has never struck me as a woman who would hide from society, Jane. She’s unusually clever, perhaps even intimidating to other ladies, but she’s also elegant and can handle her own at any social function. I’ve seen her do it, and she’s hardly shy.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Jane replied, shaking her head. “Of course she knows how to behave as a lady should, but you’re simply describing a well-bred, properly raised individual.” With deep feeling, she leaned toward him and soothed her voice to an impassioned whisper. “Caroline had no friends, Weymerth, not one. Children thought she was so strange when she would rattle off Shakespearean sonnets from memory at the age of seven and innocently announce things like…it would be one hundred and forty-three days until Christmas. Nobody under
stood her, and children can be very cruel, so in the end, after the tears had dried and she’d accepted the fact that she was different, she retreated to her garden. Caroline hid the hurt of loneliness and bitter rejection the only way she knew how, by absorbing herself in her plants.”
Slowly she sat up. He scrutinized her sharply, his narrowed eyes penetrating hers as if to discover untruths or distortions to her revelations of past events, but in an almost truculent manner, she refused to back down.
Then gradually, with a jagged, deep inhale, clarity seemed to wash through him, and he lowered his gaze to the floor, his features and his formidable posture softening as he leaned back heavily in his chair.
“Why didn’t she ever tell me this, Jane?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged. “Frankly, I think it embarrassed her, but probably more than anything she didn’t want you to be repulsed by her.”
His head shot up. “Repulsed? How could intelligence repulse me?”
“You don’t understand,” she gingerly returned. “When Caroline met you, she didn’t want you so she didn’t care. There was no point in telling you anything. After she grew to adore you, she was afraid of losing you. It’s as simple as that.”
Quickly he stood and walked to the grate, staring down into the flickering flames, his back rigidly set.
She waited, and when it appeared he didn’t want to voice his thoughts, she decided to just move on. “When Caroline was sixteen, she began attending Markham’s classes at Oxford—”
“Sixteen?” he interjected in disbelief.
Jane smiled. “Yes, sixteen.”
“And your father just allowed her to go?”
“My father has been flustered by Caroline since the day she was born. He’s never been sure what to do with her, so as she gently persuaded and pushed him, he finally consented, allowing her to attend Oxford University, chaperoned, with the condition that she keep to herself and Markham’s classes exclusively.”
My Darling Caroline Page 27