‘No!’
The first seeds of doubt began to push their way into his conscience. His stomach knotted. ‘The afternoon then? For Heaven’s sake, we can’t just ignore what has happened. Caroline?’
‘Don’t call me that. You never call me that.’
‘Why are you so angry?’
‘You don’t want to marry me. You don’t love me. I don’t want your pity.’
It was the way she ticked off each reason that threw him, as if she were critiquing a play. ‘It has nothing to do with pity. I have compromised you, therefore we have no option but to get married.’
She picked up the shawl and threw it over her shoulders, wrapping her arms tight around her waist, holding herself as if she might shatter into a thousand pieces. ‘Compromised me! Trust me, my innocence is not at stake. That, I am afraid, is long gone.’
He had not noticed, in the heat of passion, but then to his knowledge he had no experience of virgins. It was not always painful or difficult, that was surely the stuff of male mythology. ‘Do you mean that someone else...’ Cold sweat broke out on his brow. ‘Caro, oh dear heaven, Caro, do you mean that some other man seduced you? Took advantage of you? Is that what you meant when you said that things had been difficult for you?’
She put out her hands defensively in front of her when he made to cross the room. He stopped in his tracks, utterly confused. The very thought of Caro with another man was unpalatable to say the least, but he was extremely conscious of the fact that she was very far from his first woman. Most men would say the cases were not the same, but he was not most men, and Caro was most certainly not most women. On the other hand, if she had been forced—the very idea made him cold with fury.
What to say? He had to say something, because though his instincts were to comfort her, he thought she would very likely scream if he touched her. ‘Caro,’ Sebastian said carefully, ‘whatever is the truth, you can trust me to understand.’
For a moment, he thought she would cry. Her mouth wobbled, but she drew herself up, tightening her grip on herself so that the skin was stretched tight across her knuckles. ‘The truth is that there is no need for you to marry me. In fact, you can’t marry me, because I am already married.’
‘Married!’ The word came out as a gasp. Sebastian stared at her in utter incomprehension. ‘You can’t be married.’ But her stricken face told him otherwise. He snatched at her left hand. ‘Devil take it woman, you can’t be. You’re not wearing a ring. You’re staying here alone, you said you were alone, here in your father’s house. You never mentioned a husband. A more than trivial oversight you’ll agree.’
He had forgotten her injury until she winced, making him release his hold immediately. ‘My finger was too swollen,’ she said, rubbing her hand gingerly. ‘I had to have the ring cut off.’
‘When you caught it in the door?’
‘I—yes.’
‘And the other bruise? This one, on your behind. I suppose you’ll tell me that was caused by a door too.’
‘I will tell you it is none of your business.’
Sebastian flung himself from her. ‘Married! For how long? Who to?’
‘Three years. Sir Grahame Rider. You would have known, had you taken the least bit of interest in me, but you washed your hands of me the minute you left me that night in Lady Innellan’s,’ she snapped in return.
Her cheeks were bright with temper. She was no longer holding herself rigid but was trembling. It was a relief to give vent to his own fury, for it prevented him from confronting the sense of betrayal her revelation had evoked. A part of him should be relieved, he had never had any desire to marry, but though he stopped momentarily to search his conscience, he could find no trace of this. There was, however, a large and most unjustifiable dose of jealousy, he was mortified to discover. ‘Three years! You told me just tonight that you were in love with me four years ago, yet you must have married within a year.’
‘As I told you I would when you left. It was always my intention to make a good match, and I did.’
‘If your marriage is so good, why were you hiding out in the theatre quite alone and patently miserable? You deceived me,’ Sebastian threw at her, resorting to righteous indignation as he scooped up his waistcoat from the floor. ‘What the hell were you playing at? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why didn’t you ask? It’s been four years, Sebastian. You knew it was my intention to marry. Why did you assume I hadn’t? Just because you avoided all news of England doesn’t mean there was no news. Life here carried on without you. I carried on. Did you really think you would come back and find nothing changed? Were you really arrogant enough to think the world would stop turning and wait patiently for your return?’
She was right, Sebastian realised with sickening clarity. His father was dead. Caro was married. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that he was quite alone. Which was exactly what he preferred, and how he would make damned sure to keep it from now on. Ignoring the sense of crushing disappointment, he finished dressing. ‘Are there any children?’ he asked as he struggled into his coat.
Caro shook her head. ‘No.’
Her voice was barely a whisper. She looked just as shattered as he felt. And so she ought, for this was as much her doing as his. If he had not asked, she had certainly omitted telling him.
He was making for the door when her voice halted him. ‘You have no right to judge me, Sebastian.’
‘I did not...’
‘Don’t bother to deny it.’ She began to pick up her clothes, moving slowly. ‘Tonight constituted what we agreed upon, oblivion. A temporary escape from the real world, in which no questions are asked or answered on either side.’
‘I am not married, if that is what you are alluding to.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Caro said after a long moment, ‘but I am not surprised that you are not.’
He desperately wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but was equally determined to bring this débâcle to a swift conclusion. She was shutting him out. He should be relieved to be absolved of all responsibility, but the more she excused him the more he wished not to be excused.
‘Just one more thing, Sebastian,’ Caro said as she held open the door for him. ‘I did not say I was in love with you, I said I thought I was. When you left, I realised that I didn’t know you. How can you be truly in love with someone you know nothing about?’
What she meant was that he meant nothing to her. ‘I no longer understand you,’ Sebastian said bitterly. The Caro he thought he knew would never have lied to him. She would never have dismissed such an intimate act as meaningless. That it was the first time he had ever found it to have meaning made this fact even more painful, made him even more determined not to allow her to wound him. He didn’t know her, he never had, and moreover he didn’t want to.
His anger returned, surging like a spring tide, washing away his hurt. ‘I had planned to spend this evening alone at Limmer’s with only a decanter of brandy for company. I wish now that I had.’
He waited for her to say something, anything, but her expression remained frozen, her eyes wide, her skin mottled with tears. No explanations, no excuses, nothing to mitigate the damage she had done. Oblivion.
Sebastian picked up his hat and gloves from the writing desk by the door. ‘If I never see you again, it will be too soon.’ He quit the room without a backwards glance.
Alone, Caro listened to this muffled footsteps crossing the reception hall. She counted to one hundred as he unlocked the front door, pulling it firmly closed behind him. Then two hundred. At three hundred, she let loose her grip on the back of the chair and sank on to the hearth rug. She was still there, engulfed in her broken dreams and bitter regrets, when dawn broke.
Crag Hall—1830
‘So you see, it is imperative that, as landlords, we present a united front
on this issue.’
Sir Timothy Innellan had been pontificating for over an hour now and showed little sign of flagging. How the man liked the sound of his own voice, Sebastian thought wearily. To listen to him, one would think he had been ploughing the fields himself for the last decade, when in fact he had inherited only two years ago, at about the same time as Sebastian himself had done.
‘If one of us starts paying over the odds for labour, then it will cause great unrest when others do not follow suit. Do you not agree, my lord?’
The question was purely rhetorical. Sir Timothy continued without a pause for breath. Patience, Sebastian told himself. He strolled over to his desk and selected a book at random. Contributions towards the Improvement of Agriculture with Practical Suggestions on the Management and Improvement of Livestock. As good a topic as any. He cleared his throat. ‘As a matter of fact, Sir Timothy...’
The parlour door was suddenly thrown wide open. ‘Sebastian, did you know...’ Caro stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, I did not know you had a visitor. I will leave you to complete your business.’ She hurriedly made to withdraw from the room.
Sebastian dropped the worthy tome back on the desk and strode over to the door. ‘No, please join us, your presence is most welcome,’ he said, casting Caro a pleading look. ‘Sir Timothy, may I introduce...’
‘Lady Caroline.’ She filled the awkward gap herself, giving Sebastian an almost undetectable shrug before stepping forwards with a very fair imitation of polite diffidence. ‘How do you do?’
Sir Timothy, who had automatically begun to get to his feet, had now paused midway, his breeched behind hovering over the chair upon which he had been sitting. Lady Caroline? What would any respectable lady be doing in the home of a notorious bachelor? The question may as well have been writ large on the man’s forehead, so obviously was he thinking it, but Caro’s calculated assumption that manners would dictate that he would acknowledge her proved to be accurate. Sir Timothy made a small bow and briefly touched his fingers to hers. ‘My lady,’ he said, though his tone was frankly questioning.
‘Sir Timothy.’ Caro dropped a small curtsy. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance but if you will excuse me, I have interrupted your visit long enough.’
The look of relief on his visitor’s face as she began to back out of the room riled Sebastian. The man may already have drawn his own dubious conclusions, but allowing Caro to beat the polite retreat she so obviously desired would only reinforce them. Besides, he was damned if he’d allow her to be forced out of the room.
‘There is no need to leave us,’ Sebastian said, catching her at the door and ushering her into a chair, managing to give her hand a reassuring squeeze as he did so. ‘Sir Timothy has been most—er—passionate upon the subject of agricultural labour, but I fear his erudition is somewhat wasted on me, since our views are rather diametrically opposite. In fact, your intervention has prevented us from coming to blows on the matter, has it not, my good sir?’
His neighbour, still eyeing Caro with some suspicion, managed a distracted smile. ‘Oh, as to that, my lord, I am not a violent man,’ he said, tugging at his beard. ‘I am sure there is a middle ground to be found. My point is,’ he continued, obviously having decided that the best policy would be to ignore Caro’s presence, ‘we currently have rather a glut of labourers and rather a scarcity of work for them. They are proud men, they will see the payment of a higher hourly rate as an insult. “An honest penny for honest sweat”, my father always used to say.’
‘Indeed,’ Sebastian said shortly, struggling to hide his irritation. As Sir Timothy continued with his lecture and continued to ignore Caro, he could see that while she appeared on the surface to be amused by the pompous prig, the awkwardness of the situation was making her most uncomfortable. She was lacing and unlacing her fingers together in her lap. There was the slightest of flushes on her cheeks. While it was one thing to jest about courting scandal, Sebastian realised that it was, for her at least, quite another thing to suit actions to words. Her response to the vile things her husband had said of her had been to hide, not brazen it out. Though she claimed she was happy to embrace the freedom which her ejection from polite society gave her, Sebastian was beginning to get an inkling of what her notoriety would cost her.
And now he had placed her in the unenviable position of having to endure the man’s tedious sermon or risk a snubbing. Dammit, he should not have forced her to remain in the room, yet her leaving could only draw attention to her presence. How the devil was he now to be rid of the man?
Blissfully unaware of his host’s displeasure, Sir Timothy, had settled into what was obviously a well-rehearsed speech. ‘As to this notion that we landowners should provide employment for the customary numbers despite the quality of the harvest—well!’ He gave a hearty guffaw. ‘Ridiculous idea. One is not a charity.’
‘But if you do not provide them with the employment they expect what do you think will happen to them? They will have no wages, no money to feed and clothe their families.’ Caro’s sudden entrance into the conversation startled them both.
Sir Timothy’s eyes boggled. ‘Why, that is what the parish is for,’ he said disdainfully. ‘And the workhouse. An honest penny for honest sweat, my—er, lady. And if they do not take to such work—well, there is a natural cycle of things, I believe.’
‘You mean they will die,’ Caro exclaimed indignantly, earning herself a baleful stare.
‘I mean that a poor harvest yields poor peasants,’ Sir Timothy said. ‘I cannot be doing with poor peasants. I require strong, hearty men.’
Caro gave something which very much resembled a snort. ‘I am very sure you do.’
Sebastian bit back a smile, but his guest, no longer able to deny Caro’s existence, was not amused. ‘I am afraid that the finer nuances of agricultural practice are lost on ladies—and the weaker sex in general,’ he said, making it clear that he had decided she did not belong to the former category.
Caro, obviously equally aware of the implied insult, refused to be cowed. ‘Indeed,’ she enquired with a tight smile, ‘what then, I wonder, would you consider a fit topic for us to discuss?’
‘That is a difficult question to answer since I am unclear as to your—ahem—status here at Crag Hall.’
This blatant insult sent the colour flooding to Caro’s cheeks and made Sebastian’s fists clench automatically. ‘Whatever conclusions your provincial mind has come to with regards to Lady Caroline’s presence here,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘let me assure you, they are likely to be far off the mark.’
‘I came here merely to discuss our common interest in these itinerant labourers. I have no interest in your personal circumstances,’ Sir Timothy said haughtily. ‘Since we have now concluded that discussion, I will take my leave.’
‘But we have not concluded that discussion at all, for you have given me no chance to express my own opinion. You will, I am sure, wish to do me the courtesy of hearing it before you leave.’ Sebastian leaned casually against the parlour door, giving his guest no option but to resume his seat, albeit with extreme reluctance.
‘I will be brief, since you are so eager to be on your way,’ Sebastian continued. ‘The salient point, and one you yourself made, is that these labourers are proud men. Many would rather die than throw themselves on the parish.’
‘Many forced to live on the parish, do die,’ Caro interjected before casting him an apologetic glance.
Sebastian grimaced. ‘Lady Caroline is in the right of it. Come, Sir Timothy, these same families have been employed at harvest time on our estates for generations. Don’t you think we have an obligation to support them through difficult times?’
His guest, however, was unwilling to surrender an inch of his entrenched position. ‘We are experiencing difficult times ourselves, my lord, if I may remind you. Labourers are not the only one
s affected by a poor harvest.’
‘We can, however, weather the storm rather better, can we not? We are not faced with eviction because we can’t pay our rents. Our families are not going to starve.’
‘It seems to me that you are already tightening your belt,’ Sir Timothy said, eyeing the parlour askance. ‘Your predecessor left his affairs in a tangle, I take it? Understandable that you have shut the place up. Houses this size are a huge overhead. I thank my good fortune that my own establishment is somewhat more modest. Although one still has the burden of responsibility. My mother was saying to me only the other day that it was about time I took a wife. Obligation to the title, and all that,’ he added, looking suddenly unhappy. ‘Have to confess, it’s a burden, sometimes—the title, the land. In fact there are times when I would be very happy to hole up in a little bachelor apartment like this and...’ He broke off with an embarrassed laugh.
‘I met your mother in London,’ Sebastian said. ‘A most enterprising woman, I thought. I would imagine she has her own views on a bride for you.’
‘Oh, my mother has many plans for me. Point of fact, at one time she was quite set upon making a match with one of the Armstrong girls over at Killellan Manor—egad!’ He stared at Caro with almost comical incredulity then leapt to his feet. ‘Just remembered, urgent appointment. I must go.’
More likely he was anxious to hotfoot back to share his juicy gossip with his mother, Sebastian surmised. Even if Sir Timothy hadn’t recognised Caro as an Armstrong, just the mention of her Christian name would have ensured that Lady Innellan put two and two together.
As if reading his thoughts, Sir Timothy coloured as he addressed himself to Sebastian. ‘I came here merely to discuss agriculture,’ he reiterated. ‘How you choose to conduct your personal affairs is none of my business. You may rely on my discretion. Now, if you will permit me, I will take my leave. Of you both,’ he said, finally nodding curtly at Caro.
Realising that he had slightly misjudged the man, Sebastian held out his hand. ‘Come, let us not end this visit on an unpleasant note. When the harvest begins in earnest I intend to do my best by the men who have served my family faithfully for years. I won’t have them forced on to the parish. I will be employing the usual number, at an increased rate. Upon one matter we are, I hope, in complete agreement. It is imperative that we landlords present a united front. Between us, you and I wield considerable influence. I trust I can count on your support?’
Rumors That Ruined a Lady Page 12