by Julia London
“For the sake of my sister, I hope that you do,” Beck said. He walked away.
Leo reluctantly turned back to the others. He wanted a word with Caroline, but it seemed as if all eyes were upon her, watching everything she did. And she, of course, was holding court as only she could do.
At supper, he was seated across from Caroline. She laughed and talked as she normally did, almost too beautiful to behold. She looked for all the world like nothing had happened between them. He would have been perfectly content to watch her all night, but Lady Katherine Maugham and her friend, Mrs. Hancock, wanted otherwise. They peppered him with questions he found confusing and silly, and he was certain he appeared as bored as he felt.
The only saving grace was that every so often he would catch Caroline looking at him with a sparkle in her eye. He would carry that delightful sparkle and brilliant smile with him always, imprinted on his heart. He would look back on this night and remember her and imagine what might have been.
She laughingly accused Mr. Hancock of wanting to steal their driver, apparently after a mix-up of carriages on Park Avenue one day. She congratulated Mrs. Hancock on her dress. She regaled the entire table with a tale of three young girls who had gone out when they shouldn’t have and gotten lost in a thicket.
“Where did this happen?” Lady Farrington asked.
“Oh, our home in Bibury. We used to summer there, all of us.”
“What I remember was taking a switch to the three of you,” the judge said.
“You never took a switch to them that I recall,” Beck said with a laugh. “Admit it, my lord. You indulged them terribly.”
“No worse than you, Hawke,” the judge agreed.
Talk turned to the new county courts that were to be established. Justice Tricklebank confessed he’d like to retire to one.
“You can’t desert us for the country,” Caroline protested. “What of me and Hollis?”
“The two of you will be married by then. That is my fervent prayer,” he amended to much laughter.
“Your prayers clearly haven’t been fervent enough, Papa,” Hollis said with a laugh.
When the plates had been cleared, Caroline asked to be excused. All the gentlemen stood and she left the dining room.
At the door, she glanced back at Leo so briefly that he might have imagined it. And then she was gone. He looked down at his plate. His stomach was roiling with nerves. He didn’t want his time here to end this way. And then again, he’d come this far. If he could save one more of them, wasn’t it worth the risk?
“Perhaps all the ladies should retire and leave the gentlemen to their cigars?” Lady Farrington suggested when Caroline had gone out. The ladies agreed and made their way from the room.
The smoking portion of the evening stretched interminably. Leo didn’t smoke but stood at the window, listening to the gentlemen discuss those things they enjoyed: hunting, racing. Women. His nerves kept ratcheting up. He felt a little ill. He wished for whisky.
He finally turned from the window and excused himself.
“We’ve got a piss bucket in the corner for you, Highness,” Farrington called out. The man had drunk too much, and so had most of his guests—they erupted into laughter.
Leo laughed, too, but carried on, stepping into the hall and pulling the door shut behind him. He glanced around and saw Caroline standing just at the door in the drawing room. She was waiting for him, he realized. She glanced back into the drawing room, then quickly stepped out and hurried over to him. “Last door on the right,” she whispered, pointing.
Leo looked in the direction indicated.
“She’s waiting for you.” Caroline moved as if she meant to return to the drawing room.
But Leo caught her hand. “Caroline, wait—I must speak to you.”
“Yes, of course. But you must go speak to her first. She’s frightened, but she wants to flee.” She disentangled her fingers from his and skipped across the hall and disappeared into the drawing room.
Leo looked down the hall to last door on the right. One more. One more to rescue, and he could stop playing the hero.
* * *
CAROLINE WAS CERTAIN no one had noticed her step out of the drawing room, and when she returned, no one glanced up—they were all chattering away. She was glad for it—she was at sixes and sevens, her nerves frayed. She went to the window and tried to see out, but it was dark, and all she could see was her shadowy reflection. She couldn’t seem to keep a breath in her chest and kept taking little gulps of air.
“There you are, Caroline. Where did you get off to?”
Caroline started. She turned to look at Lady Katherine. “Oh. The retiring room.”
“Ah. I should like to avail myself before the gentlemen join us. Is it just down the hall?”
Caroline panicked. There was nothing down the hall but a study, and right now, Leo was there with Eowyn. “Oh, I wouldn’t just now. I think they mean to clean it.”
“Clean it? Now?”
“Well,” Caroline winced, then put her hand to her belly, “I’m afraid supper didn’t agree with me. I think it was the fish. You never know how long it’s been sitting in those market stalls.”
Her distasteful little white lie worked like a charm. Katherine looked stricken. “Oh dear.” She glanced to the door. “Surely they’ve had time to clean it.”
Lord, this woman! She was a pest, forever watching Caroline. She wanted to put her hand over Katherine’s mouth and beg her not to speak. But here was Katherine, sticking her nose in once more. Obviously suspicious. Wanting to catch Caroline at something she could gossip about.
“You may be right. I’ll go and check for you, shall I?”
Katherine tilted her head to one side. “That’s not necessary.”
“I’ll be back tout de suite.” Caroline smiled. It was a flimsy excuse, but Caroline didn’t know what else to do. She moved around Katherine and out the door, hurrying down the hall, glancing back once to make sure Katherine didn’t follow her. Just as she reached the study, she heard the gentlemen. They were preparing to rejoin the ladies, and it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed she and Leopold were both missing.
In her panic, Caroline dove in through the partially opened door of the study and startled both Leopold and the girl. Eowyn was sobbing. Leopold spoke to her in Alucian, his voice calm and soothing. Then he looked at Caroline.
“They are...you’ve been missed.”
He understood immediately. He turned to the girl, put his hand on her arm and spoke to her in Alucian. But Caroline could hear voices coming down the hall toward the room. She closed the door. “They are coming now!” she warned them.
“Go and get your things. Come round to the side of the house,” Leopold instructed Eowyn. “Take only what you can carry and speak to no one.”
The voices were drawing nearer. Caroline recognized Tom, Priscilla’s husband, and she was all but certain she heard Katherine’s voice, as well. “It’s too late! Hide, Eowyn!”
“Caroline!” Leopold said as Eowyn dove behind a chair.
There really was no place for the poor girl to hide. They would spot her right away, and they would assume the worst of her and Leopold. Caroline heard Farrington at the door. She knew instinctively the only way to hide that girl was to create a diversion. She ran to the prince. “I’m so very sorry,” she said, then threw her arms around Leopold with such force that he stumbled backward and had to catch her. Just as the door opened, Caroline kissed him. She kissed him with all the regret and longing she would carry with her the rest of her days.
Leopold returned her kiss with all his regret and longing. They were locked in a lover’s embrace. Their last embrace. Their last kiss.
Caroline heard Katherine’s cry of alarm, heard Farrington bellow for them to stop it at once. Caroline shoved away from Leopold and lunged toward the door
. “It’s not what it seems!” she cried.
“Bloody hell, it’s not!” Farrington shouted. “And you, Highness, debauching this young woman!”
More people were coming, and Caroline moved toward Farrington. “I welcomed it!” she cried, and grabbed the man’s lapels.
“Caroline!” Leopold thundered and rushed after her. They all spilled into the hall, Caroline sobbing that she’d done nothing wrong, she’d merely followed her heart, and Leopold begging Farrington’s forgiveness. Everyone was shouting, Priscilla’s dogs were barking and Katherine was crying, which confused Caroline. Somehow, Hollis had reached her, had taken her hand and squeezed it, her face ashen and wide-eyed.
It was Beck who scared her the most. She’d never seen him so angry. He dug his fingers into her elbow and yanked her forward. She didn’t know what he said to their hosts—she tried to turn around, to see Leopold, but Farrington was railing at him, threatening him with the demise of good relations with Great Britain as he, too, tried to make his way to the entrance. And Priscilla, her good friend Priscilla, staring at her in horror. “In my house, Caroline? In my house?”
Somehow, Beck managed to force Caroline outside and into a waiting coach. She waited, fearing she would be ill, trying to see out the window at what was happening. But it was dark and she couldn’t make anything out. Several minutes later, Beck entered the coach, and he pounded the ceiling so hard she thought he’d put a fist through it.
“I can explain,” she tried, but Beck threw up a hand.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice deadly and low. “Not a word, Caroline. Not a damn word from you.”
They rode in an uncomfortable silence all the way home, and once there, Beck didn’t bother to help her from the coach. He leaped out and strode through the gate and up the stairs to his suite of rooms. The slamming of his door reverberated throughout the house.
Caroline slowly made her way to her room. Her legs felt heavy, and her heart ached. She fell listlessly onto the bed, facedown. She was exhausted, emotionally drained. She had ruined her reputation, she might never see Leopold again and she didn’t even know if Eowyn had escaped.
When the tears finally started to fall, they were not for her ruin. They were her grief at losing Leopold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Quite a few people have come and gone from a particular house on Upper Brook Street in the last two days. One might assume someone had taken ill. It is entirely possible that is true, given that the events at a friend’s house left many hard and confused feelings among close acquaintances.
Ladies, if your husband is experiencing lethargy and an unwillingness to work, a teaspoon of licorice root to one’s tea is guaranteed to restore vitality. Carsons’ Licorice Root is available in measured doses for the unsuspecting husband.
—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and
Domesticity for Ladies
CAROLINE CRIED HERSELF to sleep and into the night between tears and sleeping. On the following day, she was dragged awake by the sudden streaming of sun in through her windows. She threw an arm over her eyes and moaned. “What time is it?”
“One o’clock,” Martha said from somewhere across the room.
Caroline opened her eyes. They were swollen from sobbing, and her head felt as if it were caught in a vise. She slowly pushed herself up, and a curtain of hair shielded her view of Martha. “The most terrible thing happened last night, Martha.”
Martha didn’t speak at first. Caroline squeezed her eyes shut then pushed her hair aside and looked at her lady’s maid.
Martha gave her a piteous look. “I heard, madam. Another maid has gone missing, and the tale of how she went missing was quick to spread. They say it’s a love triangle.”
“A love triangle?”
Martha glanced away. “You, the prince, and the maid.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Caroline whispered. “I’m ruined, aren’t I?”
Martha didn’t dispute her. She sat next to her on the bed and put her arm around her shoulders as she’d done many times through the years. “Don’t fret, milady. His lordship will make it better.”
But Beck didn’t make it better. He couldn’t make it better, no matter how he might have wanted to. If he wanted to. He summoned her to his study later that afternoon. He looked older to her somehow. His eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, and the lines around them were more pronounced than she’d ever noticed before. She stood meekly before him, her arms wrapped around her body, equal parts ashamed and tired and defiant.
Beck sighed. “What am I to do, Caro? What, pray tell? Your reputation is in tatters. I went round to the club this morning and everyone had heard what happened at the Farringtons’.”
A shaft of light broke through the clouds and landed between brother and sister, like some sort of invisible barrier.
Caroline felt as if she’d climbed mountains. Her legs and arms felt wobbly. She sank onto a settee. “I was trying to help.”
“By seducing him? That’s what they will say, you know. The fault always is assigned to the female in these situations.”
“I didn’t seduce him. It wasn’t like that.”
Beck came around from his desk and pulled a chair up to sit before her. “Then what was it like? Tell me, Caro. Help me to understand.”
Caroline didn’t have the strength to spare Beck any detail. She told him everything—about the Weslorian girls and the terrible thing that had happened to them, and how Leopold was doing his best to save them. She confessed she’d fallen in love with Leopold, and that it wasn’t infatuation but true love, and he had come to feel the same for her. She told Beck that last night, when it looked as if Leopold would be caught and the girl sent off to her rooms and to God knew what sort of punishment, she’d done the only thing she could think of in the moment and created another scandal to cover the one blooming in that study.
When she had finished, Beck understood. He had softened considerably. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin as he looked at the window. “Why didn’t you tell this to Mr. Drummond when he called?”
“I didn’t know if I could trust him, and I wouldn’t do anything to harm Leopold.”
Beck spread his fingers wide on his knees. “Well, then. You’ll have to go away from London for a time.”
“Why? I won’t go out, I promise.”
“Caro...don’t you understand? I won’t allow to happen to you what happened to Eliza. This society you love so much is like a rabid dog. They will turn on you and pillory you at the slightest opportunity. You and Martha will go to our country home in Bibury, and hopefully, with the passage of time, the talk will ease.”
Her chest constricted painfully. She couldn’t imagine living in the country indefinitely. What would she do? How would she survive without friends? What about her dresses and her plans to open a dress shop? What about suppers and balls and gentlemen callers, all threads in the tapestry of her life? Who was she without those things? “But...but what of Leopold?”
“No, Caroline,” Beck said sharply. “I am sorry, darling, I know you love him. I’ve suspected it for some time, really. But you mustn’t ask about him, you mustn’t think about him. He is sailing tomorrow and he will not be back. His reputation is in worse tatters than yours.” He surged forward and grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I understand, darling. I’ve known heartbreak. But it will ease with time and a change of place. You will gradually think of other things.”
Caroline didn’t believe him. She couldn’t imagine she would ever think of anything but her prince.
* * *
HOLLIS CAME THE following morning. Beck met her in the grand hall and told her that now was not a good time.
“It’s never going to be a good time, Beck,” Hollis said. “Move aside.”
“Do you really think you’re in a position to come into my home and order me about, Hollis Hone
ycutt?”
“I do, Beck! I do! She is a sister to me and I will not allow you to stand in my way.”
Beck huffed. “Why is it that you are incapable of listening to me?” he demanded. “Why are you all incapable of listening to me?” he called as she marched past him and up the stairs.
Hollis ignored him. Her face was upturned to Caroline, who had watched it all from above. “Darling!” she cried. “Oh, Caro.” She reached the first floor and looped her arm through Caroline’s, whirling her about and pulling her into Caroline’s sitting room, where dresses in various states of construction were lying and hanging about. She pulled Caroline down onto the settee, took both hands in hers and said, “Caro...he’s gone. He boarded the royal Alucian ship this morning with three maids and a boy.”
She gasped with relief. At least they’d managed to do that. “How do you know?”
“I sent Donovan to help them all. No one else would.”
Caroline couldn’t breathe.
Hollis squeezed her hands. “He told everyone the truth before he went,” she said low. “He called the Alucian ambassador to him as well as the men from the foreign secretary’s office. Mrs. Parker was at the Clarendon Hotel with her husband when it happened, and she said that he explained to them that he’d discovered a nefarious plot. She didn’t hear all the details, as her husband sent her from the common room, but she heard enough to know it involved young women. She said the government men didn’t believe him, and wanted to question him further, but the tide was going out soon and he said if they didn’t have cause to detain him, he was leaving, and that he did. He boarded a ship for Alucia with the rest of them. Donovan said he’s a hero.”
Caroline felt herself choking on her breath. He was a hero. He was kind and compassionate and he felt things, and made her feel things, and Caroline couldn’t breathe. “I’ll never see him again, Hollis. And if I do, he’ll be a man with a wife and children and I... Oh my God.”