Midnight Lover

by Barbara Bretton

  Chapter 2

  Boston

  April 1876

  Caroline Louisa Bennett took a deep breath, counted to ten, then turned to face the overwhelming concern of Emily Addison and her dutiful son, Thomas Wentworth Addison II.

  "I'm sorry, Emily," Caroline said, crossing the drawing room and sitting down on the edge of a spindly-legged Louis XIV chair. "I've been woolgathering again."

  "Thinking of your dear father, I'm sure." Emily sniffed loudly into her glass of Madeira, her tiny brown eyes soft with tears. "Terrible business, this. Simply terrible."

  Thomas patted his mother's hand. "Let me pour you some more sherry, Mother," he said, waiting while Emily drained her glass. "It's been a difficult day."

  "Oh, it has been that, Thomas. When dear Aaron's trunk arrived this morning—" Emily paused to dab at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief "—well, I thought my poor heart would break."

  Oh yes, thought Caroline, Emily's tears had been prodigious that morning. No sooner had the trunk been deposited in Caroline's third floor room before Emily was regaling everyone with her dreams of what might have been. Caroline removed a bottle of bay rum from his trunk and Emily moaned aloud. She fished out a watch fob and Emily clutched her bosom in anguish. When Caroline found a wrinkled cambric shirt with Aaron's initials embroidered on the breast pocket, Thomas had to fetch both Emily's smelling salts and a servant to see her back to the drawing room.

  It was no secret Emily Addison had had her middle-aged widow's heart set on Aaron Bennett, nor was it any secret that Aaron had liked his women considerably younger in years and freer with their charms. Emily Addison had served Aaron's purpose, a purpose Caroline had been all too aware of these past sixteen months. What harm was there in wooing the mother when it was the mother's son who figured in Aaron's future? His Western adventure was less likely to be interrupted by the appearance of his twenty-three year old unmarried daughter if she were safely betrothed to stable, churchgoing, rich Thomas Wentworth Addison II.

  Caroline had understood nothing if not how her father's mind worked. Good looks and charm only got a man so far and Aaron was beginning to run short on both commodities. Each time he would try to settle down and make a home for Caroline and a career for himself, a pretty redhead or a winsome brunette would sashay onto the scene and Caroline's chances for a normal life would disappear the second he said "I do."

  He was forty-two years old and running out of options. Marrying his daughter into a wealthy and well-connected family was his way of insuring her future—and his own, as well.

  "Thomas will make you a fine husband, sweetheart," Aaron had said the night before he took the train to St. Louis to make the stage connection west. "You have nothing to worry about."

  "You've made a fine husband, too, Father," she had pointed out. "Six times over."

  Her father's marital history was as checkered as the dresses she had worn as a little girl. Alone, Aaron Bennett lacked direction; married, he followed the direction of his wife—usually straight to the poorhouse. Aaron's death at the hands of an unknown gunman didn't surprise Caroline half as much as the fact that her father had died unwed.

  Aaron had the last laugh, hadn't he? Dead and gone, leaving her once more at the mercy of old friends the way she'd been left a thousand times in the past. In his last few letters he'd mentioned owning a saloon, but that was obviously an invention meant to soothe his daughter's mounting suspicions. As it was, the only things she could call her own were her sterling silver brush and comb, her collection of china plates, and that blasted trunk upstairs filled with the pathetic accumulation of her father's forty-two years on this earth.

  Caroline sighed, her nostrils quivering at the scent of generations of Wentworth dust that rose from the Turkey rug at her feet. Emily Addison continued to run on about Aaron's grace and consummate style; Thomas's murmurs of assent echoed throughout the drawing room like a Greek chorus of one.

  This is it, Caroline thought wildly. Her future stretched before her, an endless string of days and nights in this polite and boring drawing room as Emily Addison drank her way through countless bottles of Madeira provided by her doting, thoughtful son.

  Caroline stood up and smoothed the skirt of her black mourning dress and tried to control the panic building inside her. Through the years she'd learned the importance of keeping one's emotions private; things like softness and sentimentality and fear could always be used against you. "If you'll excuse me, perhaps I'll go upstairs and finish going through Father's things."

  Emily took another medicinal sip of Madeira and dabbed at her eyes with her limp handkerchief. "Oh, my dear, do you think you should? So much heartache for one day, so much—" Her words drifted off into another ladylike series of sobs.

  This time to Caroline's surprise, Thomas ignored his mother and walked Caroline into the center hallway. "I apologize for Mother. Crying is one of the things she does best."

  "Let her cry,' Caroline said. "Someone should cry for him." God knew his daughter was finding it hard.

  He reached for her hand. "I'm here for you, Caro. If you should find yourself needing a shoulder to cry upon, I can provide one."

  For the first time since she'd learned of her father's death, Caroline's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you, Thomas," she said, her voice low. "I'll remember that."

  One thing Caroline Bennett never did was cry and she struggled to hide this unexpected rush of emotion from Thomas. He was a good man; it wasn't his fault if his fawning deference toward women reminded her sharply of her father.

  Thomas apparently took her silence as encouragement and he went to put his arm about her shoulder, but she moved just beyond reach.

  "I'm tired," she said. "If you'll excuse me..."

  She climbed the first step but still he held onto her hand.

  "I know this has been an exhausting day for you, Caro, but there's something I'd like to talk about." He rested one foot on the bottom step and moved closer until she could clearly see the flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes. "We've had an understanding, you and I, an unspoken understanding, I'll grant you, that—"

  She closed her eyes. "Thomas, please—"

  "—that I have been remiss in allowing to continue unexplored for so long."

  She met his eyes once again and took a deep breath. "Go on, Thomas."

  "When your father left sixteen months ago, he left certain—" He seemed to struggle for the precise word. "—certain responsibilities on my shoulders."

  She straightened her own narrow shoulders and climbed another step, forcing him to look up to meet her eyes. "And what kinds of responsibilities were they, Thomas?"

  "The responsibilities a father has toward his daughter."

  Caroline stiffened. "If Father found his responsibilities toward me to be too difficult to endure, he had no right to inflict those same responsibilities upon someone else. Had you but told me, I would have—"

  Thomas raised his hand to silence her. "Let me finish, Caro. There are also the responsibilities a man has toward the woman he loves."

  "Don't, Thomas."

  "It's long overdue, Caro."

  "This isn't the time."

  "I can think of none better."

  "I have just lost my father. Surely you cannot expect me to talk of such matters at a time like this."

  "Exactly why you need someone to care for you."

  "I'm a grown woman, Thomas. I can care for myself." Indeed it seemed she had been caring for herself since she was three years old and her m other died.

  "A woman needs a man's protection."

  "A woman needs a partner," she said, "not a protector." Protectors had the strange habit of disappearing when you most needed their protection.

  "I could be everything to you, Caro." He climbed up another step and drew her into his arms. "I could be your partner." He angled his head down until his mouth was inches from hers. "And your lover."

  Caroline could have moved away. Over the years she'd had much p
ractice at rebuffing the advances of young men inflamed by her beauty. She'd learned the effectiveness of a swoon or a well-placed slap. Why she'd never met a man she couldn't control when his ardor threatened to overcome his reason.

  Thomas was a gentleman right down to his buffed and gleaming fingernails. Had she exhibited the slightest maidenly horror at his boldness, he would have pulled back at once and apologized effusively for his presumptuous behavior as he had so many times before.

  But this time was different. This time she wanted to forget her sorrow; she wanted him to sweep her into his arms and make her feel that she wasn't in this life alone. Then maybe, just maybe, this one pipedream of Aaron's had a chance of coming true.

  She closed her eyes and waited for the magic.

  His touch was tentative, as if he awaited her permission. She forced herself to relax in his arms. Make me love you, she thought as his hand gingerly spanned her waist. Make me throw caution to the four winds and run off with you. There must be some secret, wonderful magic that occurred between a man and a woman that made normal people behave in such amazingly abnormal ways.

  But Thomas's kisses were as undemanding, as respectful as a minister's handshake and about as exciting as a Sunday sermon. Indeed, some of Reverend Taylor's fire-and-brimstone sermons had inspired more passion in her than Thomas's attentions.

  Caroline opened one eye and looked at him. The gently handsome face of Thomas Wentworth Addison II had been transformed by desire. His brows were drawn together in a scowl. Beads of perspiration edged out of the neatly trimmed sideburns framing his face. A low moan sounded from deep in his throat and made the knot on his navy silk tie quiver.

  He looked to be in some kind of celestial agony and Caroline had to pinch herself hard on the wrist to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

  So much for the experiment. Whatever it was that brought men and women together despite the most prodigious odds remained a secret. Caroline was as far from physical ecstasy as she was from turning into the sweet and yielding woman who would be the perfect Mrs. Addison II. Putting her palm against his chest, she pushed him away.

  "No more, Thomas," she said. "This isn't right."

  His kisses trailed down the right side of her throat and fiddled around the high lace collar of her black mourning dress. "Of course it's right, Caro. I love you. I want to marry you."

  "No!" God forgive her, but she hadn't meant for the words to burst out with such force. She took a deep breath, trying to summon up a semblance of coquetry to salve his ego. "What I mean is, I'm not ready to marry yet, Thomas. It's too soon after..." She let her voice trail off.

  "My sweet love," he said, catching her hands and bringing them to his lips. "I know what troubles you. Do you think I care if Aaron left a bushel of unpaid bills behind? I'll pay off every one of them tomorrow if that will bring a smile to your beautiful face."

  Anger twisted through her chest and burned its way outward. "Have I mentioned Aaron's debts, Thomas?"

  "I only assumed—"

  "You assumed that embarrassment over my financial circumstances was the reason for my reluctance."

  "A reasonable assumption, Caro, given the nature of Aaron's—let's say, the rather unorthodox way in which he lived."

  She pulled her hands from his and plunged them into the pockets of her dress. "I do not want your money, Thomas."

  "And money is not what I am offering you, Caro. What I am offering you is so much more."

  She forced a laugh. "I would make you a terrible wife, Thomas. My pedigree isn't as fine as that of your mother's prized Pekingese."

  He smiled but his dark brown eyes remained solemn. "There is more to marriage than a bloodline, Caro."

  She inclined her head toward the staircase. "Emily might disagree with you."

  "Mother loves you, Caro. You should know that."

  Emily Addison was a good woman but what she'd loved was what Caroline represented: the key to Aaron Bennett's padlocked heart. Right now when her grief was fresh and new, Emily doted on caring for her dead lover's only child, but once the mourning clothes were put away and the widowers who had stepped aside came to call once again at the Addison house, Caroline would become a problem.

  Emily was generous to a fault but when it came to the battle of the sexes, she was nobody's fool. What man would give a forty-year old brunette with a pleasant face a second thought when a beautiful young blonde resided under the same roof?

  Caroline, of course, said none of this to Emily's only son. Like most men, Thomas was terribly naíve about such things. He believed that just because his mother fluttered her eyelashes and laughed at his jokes, she was nothing more than a delightfully scatterbrained creature whose most serious thoughts centered on the color of the plume on her next new hat.

  It was a testament to Emily's wiles that her son never knew how easily dominated he was.

  "I'm not asking for an answer now," Thomas was saying as she forced her mind back to his ill-timed proposal of marriage. "I understand that you need an opportunity to consider the future."

  The last thing on earth Caroline Bennett wanted to consider was the future but she would take the time he offered her.

  He reached for her hands once again. "Caro, my love, if there is anything—"

  "Thomas!" Emily's voice pierced the moment. "Thomas! Where's that new bottle of Madeira that Joshua Barnes brought back from his travels?"

  Thomas glanced toward the drawing room but kept Caroline's hands clasped between his.

  "You were saying something, Thomas?"

  Filial duty tugged at him; Caroline could see how his loyalties were divided even in so simple a matter as this.

  "Thomas!" Emily's voice was high with impatience.

  "Go to her," Caroline said, pulling her hands away. "I am fine."

  "Are you certain?" he asked, obviously relieved to be spared having to choose between the two women so early in the game.

  "I am quite certain."

  "Shall I see you at dinner?"

  Caroline nodded. "Precisely at eight."

  She turned and headed up the staircase toward her room. Dinner at eight. Breakfast at seven. Luncheon with the midday sun. Brisk walks every Saturday along the banks of the Charles. Sunday services at the Episcopalian Church across from the Common. A perfectly ordered, perfectly ordinary life, safe within the walls of the Addison house on the hill.

  She would finally have money and position and all of the things Aaron had wanted her to have.

  Unfortunately she was her father's daughter and the same wild blood ran in her veins, urging her toward something better, something brighter, some unknowable dream that had kept Aaron searching all his life long.

  And so Caroline closed the bedroom door behind her and wondered how on earth she was going to tell Thomas no.

  * * *

  After sipping two glasses of Joshua Barnes's sherry, Emily had fluttered off to her boudoir to do whatever it was women of a certain age did to their faces to hide the ravages of tears. With a sigh of relief, Thomas pushed aside the ever-present Madeira and poured himself a generous shot of their best scotch. His mother thought scotch a crude drink, one favored by the working classes, but when it came to dulling the edges of pain, he found it had no rival.

  Thomas gulped down the first shot and shuddered as the scotch's fire burned its way into his gut. Quickly he poured himself another one, then stretched out full length on the horsehair sofa by the window. Emily would have apoplexy if she saw his riding boots propped up on the chintz-covered arm of the tiny divan but at the moment he didn't give a sweet damn.

  He had made a fool of himself, that's what he'd done. He'd taken his best opportunity to finally break through Caroline's defenses and botched it so badly it would be a wonder if she ever spoke to him again, much less said yes to his proposal.

  He hadn't intended to pull her into his arms like that. Only the lowest form of cad would take advantage of a woman in her sorrow, and yet that was exactly
what he'd done. There she was, mourning for that pathetic reprobate of a father, and he'd preyed upon her vulnerability just because he found temptation to be more than he could endure.

  He finished his second scotch and closed his eyes against the memory of her breasts pressed up against his chest, the sweet smell of flowers in her hair. What he'd wanted to do was rip open that demure dress and bury his face against her warm and fragrant skin. He'd wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her up that winding staircase and -

  But Thomas Wentworth Addison II was a gentleman through and through. What he did in the upper room at Belle's Sporting Establishment near the waterfront with one of Belle's girls didn't translate easily into fantasies about Caroline.

  Somehow Caroline Louisa Bennett managed to keep him an arm's length away, even in his own dreams. Where he wanted her pliant and willing, she remained aloof and cool. Not even in his daydreams could he manage to break through the partition of glass that seemed to surround her.

  But, sweet Jesus, what she'd done to him. Every time he saw her he forgot he was an Addison, forgot about reason and caution, forgot everything but what he wanted to do with her. She was in his blood and, so far, there was no cure.

  Thomas glanced at his empty glass and got up for another refill.

  Hell.

  With apologies to his mother, this time he needed the whole damned bottle.

  * * *

  "And how long would you be sitting there?" Abigail's lilting voice floated through the darkened bedroom.

  Caroline had been stretched out atop the frilly four-poster bed trying to make sense of her life. "A hundred years," she said as her maid entered the room. "Maybe a thousand."

  Abby lighted the kerosene lamp on the large pine dresser and the room was quickly bathed in a pale yellow glow. She was a tiny woman with shiny brown hair coiled in a figure eight at the nape of her neck and she wore her starched black-and-white uniform with the grace of one born to a higher position.

  Caroline's father had been adamant about maintaining the illusion of prosperity and when he arranged for his daughter to stay with the Addisons, he also arranged for Caroline to have a full-time maid to assist her.