Carolina looked quickly away. It was a shock and yet somehow it added glamour to the handsome rake beside her. Young women threw themselves off bridges out of unrequited love for him! Another thought occurred to her—a disturbing one.
“She was—your mistress?” she asked him hesitantly. “No, of course not,” he lied. He gave her a steady look. “She was very young and she kept following me around in a most disconcerting way. When she followed me to my house in the night and I promptly sent her home in my coach, she became so upset that she leaped out of the coach and threw herself off the bridge before my coachman could stop her.”
Hanging on his words, believing him, Carolina did not notice the contradiction in his story—not then.
It was only one of many stories that kept cropping up about Lord Thomas, and Lord Thomas denied them all.
Carolina, young and desperately in love, chose to believe him.
“He isn’t bad,” she told Reba defensively. “Despite what they say of him. He is a victim of circumstance in every case.”
“Unlucky,” echoed Reba in a disbelieving tone. She gave her friend a cynical look. “Has he asked you to marry him yet?”
“No-o-o,” admitted Carolina. “But”—she laughed —“he’s asked me to do everything else!”
“You could do worse than marry him, you know.”
“Yes.” Carolina blushed. “I have been thinking on it.”
And she had. She had imagined herself strolling beside Lord Thomas beneath the elms of his country estate, arranging hunt balls, riding to hounds, coming down to London to her town house, which would have to be redecorated, of course. Lord Thomas had told her it was very shabby and his latest ploy to lure her there had been to ask her advice as to how it should be redone.
“I’m completely ignorant of these things,” he had argued. “I’m in need of your good taste and advice, Carolina.”
That had been in late November. They had been good-naturedly sparring about the matter ever since.
Lord Thomas, used to easy conquests, had been surprised at the difficulty he was having bringing this tantalizing American beauty to his bed. True, she would kiss him in the shadows of old overhanging trees, and once or twice in darkened doorways—always, then, he was surprised at the passion of her response—but she would not cross his threshold, she would not go upstairs in inns, insisting she preferred the common room to the private rooms upstairs.
A most obstinate female—but endlessly desirable. Sometimes when he touched her hand he could feel his whole body heat up just at that casual contact.
He redoubled his efforts.
On Monday he told her he loved her. He had said that before but this time his voice had the deep timbre that came of long practice.
Carolina was enchanted.
On Tuesday he took her to a very risqué play at Drury Lane and they ate little China oranges. Carolina, who was wearing a brilliant scarlet dress she had borrowed from Reba for the occasion, was sure several young gentlemen nearby considered her a prostitute, for prostitutes, she had just learned from their overheard conversation, usually wore masks when they attended plays. Instantly she jerked the mask from her flushed face and sat the whole time with it in her lap. Lord Thomas, who did not follow this reasoning, viewed her quizzically. That afternoon she refused to kiss him in the shadows of a nearby alley, but she found herself thinking longingly of his “shabby” town house whose interior she had never seen.
On Wednesday he took her (scandalously) to a music hall. There she was glad of her mask as Lord Thomas bowed to friends and whisked her on by—except for one sturdy young gentleman with merry hazel eyes and a dark wig slightly askew who stepped straight out in front of them, barring their way.
“Well, Thomas,” he cried jovially. “This, I take it, would be the lady you’ve kept so well hidden from us all? Come, come, don’t be shy—introduce me!”
Lord Thomas’s lips compressed.
“Mistress Lightfoot,” he sighed. “This bumbling oaf is my good friend, Lord Reginald Fanshawe of Ipswich, Suffolk.”
“Your servant, Mistress Lightfoot.” Lord Reginald made Carolina an exaggerated bow that nearly cost him his wig.
Lord Thomas frowned. “And now, Reggie, you’ve had your introduction and you’ll oblige me by getting out of my way, for I’m in no mood to introduce Carolina to that hungry pack that’s just converging on us!”
Lord Reggie looked about him, gave his wig a slap and saw several gentlemen lounging their way. “Oh—I do see what you mean, Thomas. Yes, be off by all means and take your lustrous lady with you!”
“Come along, Carolina,” said Lord Thomas grimly, and led her on a zigzag course that neatly circumvented his bright-eyed friends from intercepting their departure. He was, Carolina felt with quivering joy, trying to safeguard her reputation for it really would not do for an unchaperoned young lady to be seen about music halls! She lifted her chin proudly. She was certain now that Thomas loved her. And yet . . . and yet he had never asked her to marry him, to share his life. . . .
And then on Thursday, Lord Thomas proposed.
Chapter 7
On Friday she lost her virginity.
It all happened so simply, so naturally, that it was long after before she would ascribe it to anything but chance.
On Thursday Lord Thomas had called for her as usual and suggested a jaunt in the brisk December air. Even though Christmas was just around the corner and all the girls were making plans for the holidays, the weather had continued fair. A playful wind blew across London and sang about the chimneys. It reddened Carolina’s peachbloom cheeks and made her silver eyes seem to sparkle the brighter.
Lord Thomas had called for her by coach and had taken her to the north of London and now they were strolling about on Highgate Hill. Lord Thomas, who believed all young girls to be of a fanciful turn of mind, was at his most engaging. He was telling her the lovely legend of Dick Whittington, the young apprentice who thought he heard Bow bells call his name while he rested here on Highgate Hill. He returned to discover that the cat he had lent to his master as ship’s cat for a voyage had been bought by a foreign prince as mouser for his palace. Made rich by the fabulous price the cat had brought, Dick married well and became thrice Lord Mayor of London.
“The cat was Dick Whittington’s good luck charm,” he finished whimsically, and then, very grave, “Will you be my good luck charm, Carolina? Will you marry me and grace my days?”
The sky above them was very blue, the noise of the city seemed to have stilled. Carolina stood dizzily beneath this endless blue vault and considered the sandy-haired man before her.
Thoughts flooded into her mind of her own bickering parents back in Virginia, of their jealousy, of how gossip said they sometimes strayed to other arms. And there were those stories about Lord Thomas’s wicked past—stories she had not believed, of course. Still . . . there had been other women, and perhaps Thomas had loved them too.
“Would you be—faithful to me, Thomas?” she heard herself ask in a soft troubled voice.
“That I would.” His voice was deep-timbred. Convincing.
And as he said it, Lord Thomas meant every ringing word. Caught up by her beauty, by his desire for her, he could not at the moment imagine ever leaving her side. At that moment he would have stormed a castle for her, or leaped off London Bridge. He would lie by her side, she would stay wrapped in his arms forever.
Carolina felt a shiver of intensity go through her. Thomas had promised to be faithful. And his voice had had the ring of truth.
It was a moment when Jenny Chesterton could have come to her aid, had she been there. She could have outlined the future:
Lord Thomas was always faithful. Until he was out of sight. Mothers of eligible daughters had wailed that it was his only failing. He had looks, charm, wealth and a fine old name. He would make such a desirable son-in-law—but always he escaped the net. Thomas fell madly, passionately in love—over and over again. And somehow managed each
time to skip away from marriage. To him every new met young beauty was a challenge, a citadel to be stormed, a love he was always instantly sure was the love of his life.
Just as he was sure this time.
Carolina was so right for him. The One Woman who could fulfill his dreams. He would never want to leave her.
She felt the deep intensity of his feelings for her in Thomas’s rapt gaze, in the catch of his breath that was just audible, in the quick involuntary ripple of his muscles as he touched her.
And her young body and her young heart responded to that intensity—just as had so many other (and long since wiser) girls. Looking into his blue eyes at that moment, she was entranced.
“Then I will marry you, Thomas,” she said in a soft vibrant voice, and all the love and loyalty that was in her shone at him from her luminous silver eyes.
His arms went round her like a benediction. It was a long and heady kiss there beneath the blue skies over Highgate Hill.
He let her go with a sigh. “Then there is now no reason why you should not come to my house and decide how you will redecorate it,” he told her happily. “For God knows it needs a woman’s touch!”
Carolina gave him her lovely confident smile—and tried to hold onto her swaying senses, for she was as shaken by that kiss as was he. “There is every reason, Thomas,” she chided him. “For now that I am to become your wife, I must be more circumspect. You would not want me to become a scandal. Suppose your mother were to hear that I had visited you alone in your house?”
“She is in Northampton and she never hears anything,” he said bitterly, for he had not expected this turn of events.
On Friday, Lord Thomas decided to give fate a helping hand.
It was raining and Mistress Chesterton in her violet skirts met him at the door when he called for Carolina.
She looked a trifle wan for Lord Ormsby had not called all week.
“Surely you are not going to take Carolina out in this weather?” she remonstrated. “Indeed you see her too often. All the girls are buzzing now—you will manage to ruin me if you insist on being so obvious!”
“The devil take your ‘buzzing’ girls,” said Lord Thomas unpleasantly.* “I thought we understood each other.”
Before his cold gaze she wilted. “Very well,” she said unhappily. “But do not keep her out too late.”
Lord Thomas ignored that. He would keep the girl out as late as he liked!
Carolina was surprised that in this downpour Lord Thomas had not called for her in his coach, or at least a hackney. But she accepted without question his explanation that his coach had thrown a wheel and that all the hackneys were already taken due to the rain. But there was a new play at Drury Lane and they would be late if they did not hurry.
Carolina had thoroughly enjoyed the last play. She picked up her skirts, ducked her head, and hurried along the drowned cobbles beside Lord Thomas.
They were about to cross the Strand when it happened.
A wagon was lumbering by, sloshing water from its wheels, and as they started to cross the street a horseman, thinking to cut round the wagon, shot by, dangerously close. Lord Thomas jerked Carolina back —but somehow not so deftly as was his wont and she went down into the muddy cobbles of the gutter.
“Oh, Lord, are you hurt?” He was bending over her, all solicitation, awkwardly stepping upon the hem of her skirt with his muddy boot. He jumped off with alacrity but in moving aside he managed to push more of her skirt down into the muddy water.
“No, I’m not hurt.” Carolina looked down ruefully at her water-logged skirts as he helped her up. “But my clothes are ruined!”
Lord Thomas contemplated the truth of that in apparent alarm.
“You cannot attend the play soaking wet—but I hate to take you back to the school in this condition,” he worried.
Carolina winced. There would-indeed be need of explanations if she arrived soaked and muddied! “My hood fell off, it’s down there in that muddy water,” she said unhappily. “Would you please rescue it?”
Lord Thomas retrieved the hood, turned it about so the water would pour off. Silently he handed it to her.
“I could take you to a dressmaker’s shop,” he said uncertainly. “To fit you for a new dress—but that would take some time.”
Yes, and what explanation would she make at the school, for having left in one gown and returned in another? The headmistress might decide she had become Lord Thomas’s doxy and forbid him to call on her! For Carolina had no idea that Lord Thomas had blackmailed Jenny Chesterton into letting him squire her about London—she had put it down instead to his very real and compelling charm.
“I would far rather find some place to dry off,” she sighed.
“Well, there’s my house,” he said wistfully. “But it’s rather far and besides you’ve expressed a marked dislike for going there. But we’re very near the Star and Garter—it’s an inn where I sometimes spend an evening gaming in the common room. The innkeeper knows me and he’s discreet. We can take a room for you and dry your clothes there.”
Carolina, dabbing at her muddy skirts and entirely preoccupied with how disreputable she must look, nodded in agreement and went directly along to the Star and Garter.
There she was whisked upstairs past an innkeeper who, after a moment’s conversation with Lord Thomas, turned his attention to other things. “We’ll need a bath sent up,” Lord Thomas called over his shoulder as he escorted her up the wooden stair. Carolina might have protested but she felt so filthy after falling into the gutter that a bath sounded endlessly desirable. She let Lord Thomas usher her into a commodious room with a very conspicuous bed in one corner. The bed had a plumped up mattress and a spotless blue quilt and looked most inviting. Quickly she averted her eyes from the bed and turned to look nervously at Lord Thomas.
“The room will be warm soon.” He noted Carolina’s shiver in her damp clothing as he watched the chambermaid kneel to light the fire which had been laid upon the hearth. “I’ll wait for you downstairs in the common room.”
He was gone and the chambermaid came up off her knees to flash a smile at Carolina. “A hot bath will cheer you up,” she told Carolina blithely and went out, closing the door.
Carolina, standing before the fire, began to feel warmer. She had taken off her cloak when the chambermaid returned with a metal tub and hot water and soap. She helped Carolina undress, tch-tching at the state of her clothing.
“I don’t see any towels.”
“Oh, Lor’, I forgot the sponge and towels! Well, no matter, I’ll just whisk all these clothes downstairs to get the mud spots off and dry them before the kitchen hearth—”
“Oh, no,” protested Carolina, as her chemise came off. “I’d rather—”
“It’ll take them forever to dry up here,” warned the chambermaid as she scooped up Carolina’s stockings along with her other clothes. “Room’s too damp. Landlord’s too penny-pinching to light a fire till a room’s taken. But there’s a roaring fire down in the kitchen!”
“Oh—well, all right.” Carolina snatched up the bed quilt and gathered it around her as the girl reached the door.
“You just hop into your bath before you catch cold,” said the chambermaid cheerfully, departing with her arms full of Carolina’s wet things. “I’ll be right back with a sponge and towels.”
Carolina nodded. Stripped naked now and finding that the quilt felt damp and cold in spite of the newly made fire on the hearth, she tossed it aside and slipped down into the warm coziness of the tub and let the water lap over her legs and hips. It was very relaxing. Indeed the room was fast being warmed by the fire and Carolina, who had not been sleeping well of late— indeed her sleep had been interrupted by wild dreams in which she ran away with Lord Thomas to the Marriage Trees while her father shot at them—felt drowsiness steal over her as she waited for the sponge. Outside the cold rain pattered against the window panes, lulling her with its sounds that covered up other noises in the inn.
>
Behind her—for the chambermaid had positioned the metal tub before the hearth so that Carolina sat with her back to the door—she heard the door open and lifted up her hand for the sponge. It was promptly given to her—and a soft masculine voice behind her murmured, “Anything else I could do for you?”
She gasped and sprang up, whirling about and almost overturning the tub. She was holding the sponge inadequately in front of her and her whole body pinked at the open admiration mirrored on the face of the smiling man who stood there holding his coat folded over one arm and some towels in the other.
“Thomas!” she cried accusingly.
“The chambermaid was bringing up your towels,” he told her with a grin. “I relieved her of her burden!”
“Well, put them down and go!” she told him in a suffocated voice.
“You’re so beautiful,” he sighed, letting his lingering gaze rove over her. “Wet or dry—beautiful.” He dropped what he was holding and took the short step needed to close the distance between them.
Carolina tried to back away and almost keeled over backward as the calf of her leg collided with the edge of the metal tub. Thomas caught her wet body in his arms and she slipped downward from his grasp, splashing back into the tub. But his strong hands slid under her armpits and grasped her to him. He lifted her effortlessly. She felt his clothing slide over her naked skin as she was pulled upward against him, felt her stomach glide up across his trousers, felt the slight rasp of his white cambric shirt against her tingling nipples as he dragged her slight form up along his own. The touch of him throbbed through her. It was exciting, it was nerve tingling, it gave her a wild sense of panic—she fought to free herself. Thomas’s shirtfront was soaked by now from the struggle but he obviously did not care. He was holding her close, close. And then his sandy head bent down and she felt his chin, his lips wander down over her wet breasts even as his warm hands kneaded the soft flesh of her back.
“Thomas, we can’t—no. No, Thomas!” Even as she struggled she was crying out softly, trying not to arouse the inn, not to make a great scandal. For after all, weren’t they to be married soon? And then a moment like this one could be an everyday occurrence. . . . “Thomas!” Her protests sounded weak even to her own ears, for as he held her, fondled her, she was being swept away by her own senses. Her heart beat unevenly, there was a flutter as of the whir of wings in her ears, she desired him—oh, God, how she desired him! And he was here. And the moment she had longed for was upon her.
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