Brent wiped a palm across his face, and finding he, too, could no longer sit, quickly stood and walked around the desk to the window, placing both palms down on the sill as he stared out to the cold, dormant flower garden beyond.
“Once I knew how well you suited Caroline,” Sytheford went on, “and learned you were honorable and educated and came from a respectable family, Stephanie’s idea began to take shape in my mind, and I realized it was a good one indeed.”
“Didn’t my illegitimate daughter concern you?” he asked with underlying cynicism, turning to face the man. “Surely you learned about her in your extensive investigation.”
Sytheford snorted. “Rosalyn was the least of my concerns. You aren’t the first gentleman to father a child out of wedlock, and I knew such an indiscretion wouldn’t faze Caroline in the least. Other ladies might faint from shock, but never her.” He shook his head. “No, I was more concerned about you, when you would be home from the war, how to get the two of you to meet, how to arrange a marriage between a man absorbed in work and horses and a woman absorbed in plants.”
He stopped in the center of the room, staring at the rugs beneath his feet.
“Finally, in May, two months before you returned, the opportunity I’d been waiting for sort of…fell into my lap. I learned from the man I had investigating you that your cousin was under the impression that you’d be coming home shortly and was trying to sell off some of your things. Naturally I was intrigued and arranged a meeting with him immediately.”
Sytheford looked up, eyes shining. “I bought it all, Weymerth—furniture, paintings, china, crystal, and the horses. I then sold everything except the horses and deposited all the money anonymously into your bank accounts, which is why you had so much when you returned. You would have been suspicious if I’d purchased only your prized steeds, and in truth I thought redecorating a house might be a way for you and Caroline to have a go at each other from the day of your wedding. This arrangement worked out best for all of us anyway, since I’m certain your cousin would have just sold your belongings to someone else if given the opportunity. I paid him handsomely to lose himself in a crowd of men leaving the country, which he did, and I kept the horses, your most cherished possessions, to use as a bargaining tool for my daughter when you returned. Then I sat back and I waited.”
Brent found himself incredibly shaken when Sytheford finished speaking, and not at all sure how he felt. He knew he should be enraged at his father-in-law’s gall for purposely changing the course of his life, but he saw a certain wisdom in the man’s actions as well. How would he react if one of his daughters were as decisive as Caroline and wanted to do something rash, something that could turn out to be questionable, even harmful?
The answer was very clear. If Caroline had been confronted by her father, she would have been more determined than ever to go through with her plans and wouldn’t have stopped for anything or anyone. Brent knew this absolutely. What the baron did was turn the situation around to his, and ultimately Caroline’s, advantage by finding her a respectable husband. That this respectable husband happened to be a relation of his daughter’s mentor was simply sweet cream for the cobbler. He couldn’t tell her because she’d then suspect his manipulation, but he knew she’d eventually learn the truth, and her dream would be in her hands.
No, what the baron did, he did for his daughter, not for himself, regardless of the risks involved and the fact that he’d wanted her to remain in England for selfish reasons. Baron Sytheford had spent an enormous amount of money, had taken a tremendous gamble, for the love and safety of Caroline. And that, Brent had to admit, as deceitful as it all was, was truly the most honorable action he had witnessed from a man in a long time.
“What if I hadn’t come home at all?” he finally asked, subdued.
“I don’t know,” Sytheford admitted honestly. “I suppose I would have confronted Caroline.”
“And if Caroline refused to marry me?”
The older man grunted again, walking with purpose to the oak cabinet. “If there was one thing I was absolutely certain of, Weymerth, it was that Caroline would agree to my conditions, planning to annul the marriage.”
He blinked hard. “That actually crossed your mind?”
Sytheford turned back to him, smiling, the bottle of port in his hand. “Care for another?”
Brent nodded.
“To answer your question,” Sytheford continued smoothly, pouring two fresh glasses, “I knew Caroline would plan for an annulment because she is smart, can be a bit conniving in her own right, and is the daughter who is most like me. She thinks like I do, Weymerth, and I would have considered the same thing had I been in her position.”
Sytheford brought him another half-filled glass, standing beside him as they both turned to look out the window.
“My greatest hope was that you and my daughter would grow to care for each other. But even if that didn’t happen, I knew enough about you to know you’d respect her, and that the two of you would, at the very least, get along as well as any married couple of your station.”
The baron exhaled loudly. “In the end, when I’d finally decided to force your marriage in such an underhanded fashion, I knew without question that Caroline’s will to remain chaste would fail her. She’s methodical, resourceful, and sometimes incredibly obstinate, Weymerth, but beneath the skin is a loving, giving woman who, when she met you, desperately needed the companionship of a man. I knew she would eventually succumb to you and honor the marriage vows if you pushed hard enough, and indeed she did because there’s the proof.”
Brent turned, and out of the garden walked his wife, side by side with Stephanie, one of his baby girls in her arms, the other in her sister’s, and Rosalyn skipping along in front of them. They were bundled tightly against the crisp December air, but the sun was shining, and the view of their rosy cheeks and smiling faces was lovely and perfect from where he stood.
The baron dropped his gaze. “If you ever mention this to anyone, Weymerth, I’ll deny I said it, but”—he lifted his glass and swallowed the contents—“I never needed a son to feel completely whole as a man, and truthfully I’m quite glad I never had one.”
Brent glanced at his father-in-law, more than mildly surprised to hear such an odd statement from a member of the nobility.
Smiling, Sytheford quietly lowered his voice in retrospection. “If I had sired a boy, I would have spent my life grooming him to be a baron and in many respects, I probably would have neglected my girls. This happens constantly in our class. And I’m certain, over the years, I’ve been the brunt of jokes and the pity of those men who are so ignorant they can’t possibly understand or see the worthiness of the females in their lives.”
Gazing back at his daughters, he warmly disclosed, “I can’t bestow my title on any of them, but they’ve all received my support, my guidance, and my love, and I know there is no man alive with five sons and no daughters who could be any more proud of what his children have become.”
Brent looked back at Caroline, his beautiful babies, his sweet daughter who’d been accepted into his wife’s family as if she were one of them. When he’d married her, the only thing he’d wanted from the union was a son, and although there was merit to the fact that males alone inherited titles and property, he now understood the shallowness of the desire. His world was rich with happiness and completely fulfilling as it was right now, and if there was one thing he knew as absolute truth, it was the worthiness of the females in his life.
“Well said, Charles,” he whispered. “Well said.”
Author’s Note
I took some liberty writing a story about a woman scholar in early nineteenth-century England. Caroline attempted to study at a university, but this really would never have been tolerated during her time, and certainly not at Oxford. It’s true that some American universities, before the twentieth century, permitted a few brave women to stand outside classrooms and listen as Caroline did, but such allowances were extr
emely rare, even for the gifted.
A note of appreciation to Claudia Canady, Ph.D., for a wealth of information about speech-language development and the behavior of children with hearing impairments.
Acknowledgments
A sincere thanks to Marilyn Price-Larson, Ph.D.,
for her informal critique and superior
knowledge of all things English.
About the Author
ADELE ASHWORTH I’ve always loved to write, but after my first attempt at a novel (nine chapters of Plastic City, the story of underwater-dwelling orphans in the twenty-third century that I wrote in the sixth grade), I took some time to get my bachelor’s degree and to try my hand at other careers before I returned to my first passion: creative writing. After lots and lots of perseverance, hard work, and a bit of very good luck, My Darling Caroline went on to win the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award for Best First Book of 1998.
I live in Texas with my family, exploring history as I delve into the hearts of my characters. I love to hear from readers through my website at www.adeleashworth.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By Adele Ashworth
MY DARLING CAROLINE
A NOTORIOUS PROPOSITION
THE DUKE’S INDISCRETION
DUKE OF SCANDAL
DUKE OF SIN
WHEN IT’S PERFECT
SOMETHING IRRESISTIBLE
Coming Soon
THE DUKE’S CAPTIVE
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MY DARLING CAROLINE. Copyright © 1998 by Adele Budnick. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © December 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-198792-2
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