by Claudia Dain
“Just where did you get those pearls, Lord Ashdon?” Sophia said, as if she could read his mind. According to his father, she almost could.
“Does it matter now?” Caro said before he could answer.
“It’s rather impolite to question the source of gifts, isn’t it, Lady Dalby?” he said.
Sophia smiled at his rebuke and said, “Already working as a pair, are you? I would so love to know what happened in that dressing room. Something scandalous, obviously, but perhaps something also quite . . . delicious.”
Caro turned her back on her mother at that and began fussing again with her bodice tie. She couldn’t seem to get it exactly as she wanted it. On that, he quite agreed with her; he wanted that damnable tie destroyed so that he could have his hands on her bosoms again, and this time without a riot taking place on the other side of the door.
This did no good. Thinking of Caro, of that, only distracted him.
“How charming,” Sophia said lightly, letting her gaze run over him; Ash resisted the urge to fold his hands over his groin. “I see you are all eagerness for the wedding. How fortunate that all the legal business is behind us, all that nasty wrangling, now we can devote ourselves to the joys of ceremony.”
“What do you mean by nasty wrangling? ” Caro said, turning back around to face them. Her bodice appeared completely intact and unfussed with, the pearls dipping down into her cleavage where they were lost to shadow. This time he gave into the urge and let one of his hands hover casually over his groin.
Sophia laughed lightly behind her hands, giggled really. When he turned to scowl at Sophia, she winked at him. No wonder his father hated her so; she was quite willing to drive a man to murder.
“Only the most normal of meanings, darling,” Sophia said to Caro, completely ignoring Ashdon as suddenly as she had made him the center of her jest. Impossible woman. “I’ve arranged a very nice settlement upon you, one which will insure that you will never want for anything. No matter what your husband gets into.”
“Gets into?” Caro said.
“Now, darling, it is simply the most disagreeable habit to repeat what everyone says. You mustn’t fall into bad habits just because you’ve chosen to marry a man with . . . oh, well, I suppose that was impolite as well, but now that we’re family, I suppose we may speak freely.”
It was hardly as if she was asking his permission now, was it?
“You and I both know,” Sophia continued before anyone could interrupt her, “that Lord Ashdon has a history of intemperate gambling, surely not uncommon, but usually not so . . . oh, what is the word I’m searching for . . . not so reliably dismal. I merely want to protect you and your future children against his—”
“Dismal record?” Ashdon supplied bitingly.
“How nicely put, Lord Ashdon,” Sophia said. “So helpful of you, really, and so refreshingly honest.”
“Thank you,” Ash said, bowing curtly and extremely sarcastically.
“If you didn’t like his dismal record, why did you put him forth as a husband for me?” Caro said. She was as direct and almost as rude as her mother. Ash could see that it was a perfectly acceptable defense against Sophia’s normal discourse. One could not fight fire with a feather, after all.
“Why did I buy him for you, do you mean?” Sophia said gaily.
“All right, Mother,” Caro said crisply, “that is exactly what I mean.”
“Well, obviously, and I mean no disregard for you, Lord Ashdon, simply because I could. There is a certain joy to be had in doing whatever one wants, particularly at my age.” At Caro’s furious look, Sophia said, “But more to the point, because I thought you two would get on very well together, which of course you do, and, with the matter of your security settled beforehand, I thought you’d make a good match between you. Was I wrong?”
“You were not wrong,” Ashdon said before Caro could get a word out. He didn’t quite trust Caro not to throw the whole marriage idea away just to spite her mother, and, though he knew without a shadow of doubt that his father might well cut him off without a shilling, he wasn’t entirely confident that his father had much more than a shilling to punish him with anyway. “Aside from being consistently referred to much in the manner as a cut of beef one is purchasing, I have always been agreeable to the match made between Caroline and myself. I trust you will support me in that statement, Lady Dalby?”
“Certainly,” Sophia said serenely.
“And now that I have become acquainted with Caroline—”
“Such understatement,” Sophia cut in. “It is perfectly within the truth to say you two are well acquainted now.”
“Which is surely to our mutual gain,” Ashdon said, taking Caro’s hand in his and pulling her gently to his side. “I have formed an attachment to your daughter, quite a firm one, and I will marry her.”
“You sound quite set upon her,” Sophia said, smiling at him.
“I am,” he said. “No other woman will do for me. It must be Caro.”
“Well then,” Sophia said, shifting her gaze to Caro, her expression enigmatic, “if it must be Caro, then Caro it shall be.”
Twenty
THERE was nothing for it; they had to leave the closet and face the crowd that thronged within the colossal magnificence of Hyde House. Sophia appeared undaunted by the prospect, Ashdon resolved, and Caro, well, the best description might have been overwhelmed.
She was to marry Ashdon after all. Not because he had been bought for her, at least not only because he had been bought for her, but because he had no wish to marry elsewhere.
He wanted her. He wanted her enough to defy his father, for she well knew that the Earl of Westlin had nothing but rancor for Sophia and her children. Simply being Sophia’s child was enough to make an enemy of him, though now that Westlin was the father of her husband certainly they must find a way to happily coexist. Or at least peacefully coexist. Or at the very least behave in a civil manner to one another in public.
Caro only hoped they wouldn’t have to begin right now, being civil, that is. She would much rather wait until she and Ash were safely married and Lord Westlin could do nothing to change that fact. At this moment, with the veil of ruination and scandal her most prominent accoutrement, she was less than confident about almost anything.
Though Ash, his hand firmly on the small of her back as they slipped without overdue fanfare along the edge of the antechamber until they reached the music room, made her feel confident about almost everything.
She was quite aware that her thoughts were illogical and ridiculous. She was also quite certain she’d never had an illogical and certainly not a ridiculous thought in her entire life, but that was the effect Ashdon had on her. She was simply muddleheaded and what was worse, she didn’t care.
He liked her. He was, dare she say it, bewitched by her, or at least by her breasts. She supposed he had seen more than one pair of breasts since his wet nurse and that he knew what enchanted him or not. She enchanted him. She was positive of it.
Obviously, the thing to do was to get bare-breasted again, and as soon as possible. It was not beyond logic that his father might still yet convince Ash to do his worst, that is, to abandon her in some fashion as to ruin her completely. Her mother had warned her about that, knowing Lord Westlin as she did. Intimately, that was the gossip. She had no reason to doubt it. So, while she was feeling simultaneously without confidence and glowing with confidence, she had to get Ashdon back to her breasts.
It had been . . . amazing. She still felt jumbled, her knees like water and her breath uneven. She rather liked the sensation, just as she rather liked the sensation of Ash’s hands on her, and his mouth . . . oh, yes, her bodice had to disappear at the first opportunity.
Caro watched the way he looked at her, and at the pearls as they dangled between her breasts, sliding this way and that as she moved; it was this very look that gave her what little confidence she had. She was confident of one thing and it might well prove to be the only thing
of any import. Ashdon liked very much, very much indeed, the way she looked wearing his pearls.
She didn’t even need to be her mother’s daughter to know that. With that confidence and her little plan of removing her bodice foremost in her thoughts, Caro walked into the music room, the final room of the Hyde House assemblie, with Ashdon at her back and his pearls between her breasts. She held her head up and was certain she wasn’t blushing.
Well, almost certain.
“Darling, that blush quite becomes you,” her mother said softly, just as she was about to greet their hostess, Molly, Duchess of Hyde, “and Ashdon is positively besotted. Whatever it is you are doing, he appears to enjoy it immensely. What else should a woman do but keep doing it?” And with a laugh and a squeeze on the hand, Sophia gaily greeted Molly, as if she had not a care in the world.
“Your grace,” Sophia said serenely, “what a lovely gathering. I am so delighted to have been, once again, included.”
“Included?” Molly said. “Without you, the guests would fall asleep where they stand. One can only admire gold leaf so many times before even gold becomes tiresome. Now, tell me, Sophia, what divine devilishness have you concocted this year?”
“What have you heard?” Sophia said with a half smile.
“Only what half of London has heard by now,” Molly said with an answering smile. Molly had hair the color of a newly minted sovereign, entirely natural, eyes of gunmetal gray, and a smile that burst forth with endearing frequency. It was her smile, by all reports, that had gathered Hyde to her heart. Anyone who argued that her father’s fortune had secured Hyde had never met Molly and been captured by her exuberant joy.
“And that is?” Sophia said as the two of them made their way, completely unimpeded for the crowd parted for them as though for Moses with his staff, to a relatively quiet corner of the lavish music room.
“That your daughter plunged into the life of a courtesan with all the grace of a swan taking to the sky, with three pearl necklaces, each worth a rather large fortune, draped around her neck. I’m almost certain I saw a play to this effect when I first arrived in London,” Molly said, her brow furrowing in thought. “Of course, my son was never in any play I ever saw, and he was in this one.”
“You know how these things twist in the telling, your grace.”
“Oh, you misunderstand me, Sophia. If Henry wants the companionship of a woman, that is entirely his choice. I only hoped he would have the civility not to choose the daughter of a friend.”
Sophia laughed with such obvious delight that Molly had no choice but to laugh with her.
“He did not. He has civility and more to recommend him,” Sophia said. “In fact, he gave Caro the pearls to please me.”
“To please you? Sophia, you have, by any measure, the most devious mind I have ever witnessed. You are”—Molly paused—“a complete delight.”
“Thank you, your grace,” Sophia said, dipping her head in acknowledgment.
“Now, I trust you have been complimented enough for one night? Tell me everything.”
Which, of course, Sophia did not. She was not the sort of woman to tell anyone everything, but she did tell Molly enough to keep her satisfied and to give her a better than general understanding of events.
“Westlin may well have a fatal seizure of some sort,” Molly said musingly when the bulk of the tale was told. “It would hardly surprise me.”
“Well, it would surprise me,” Sophia said, “and it would ruin everything. How can a revenge be enjoyed when the object dies prematurely? It misses the point entirely.”
“He does deserve it, doesn’t he?” Molly said softly. “He was rather an oaf with you.”
“Hardly anything as serious as an oaf,” Sophia said. “Rather say a clumsy puppy with far more yip and bite.”
Molly studied Sophia shrewdly. “You’ve traveled rather far in your revenge upon him for merely a yippish pup.”
“It was a pleasant journey,” Sophia said mildly, “and Caro will be well served with Ashdon.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a match nicely made. They should get on well together. If Westlin can be made to heel.”
“Molly,” Sophia whispered, “you and I both know that all men can be made to heel. It is so very convenient that they come equipped with a lovely little leash and are so very eager to be led about by it.”
Molly chuckled riotously and said, “What is it about these English girls? They seem to never have quite got the grasp of things, if you understand me.”
“Molly, you are as English as any of them.”
“In politics, yes, but there must be something about the air in the colonies, something a bit . . . savage perhaps that aids a girl born in America to see things, and of course I mean men, in the proper light.”
“It has been an advantage.”
“One which you’ve passed to Caro?”
“One hopes. But I can see you’ve done Lord Henry the same service. He is remarkably astute for a man.”
“Yes, I almost could pity the girl he will eventually marry.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about her,” Sophia said with a soft smile, observing the room. “She’ll find her way.”
Perfumed and powdered, bored and spiteful, that was London. She had done very well here. She did not regret a moment of it, at least not out loud. She most certainly did not regret Dalby and the children he had given her. Markham and Caro were the future, and she had invested heavily in the future.
Sophia was well accustomed to seeing a good return on her investments.
“It is still rumored that you are the impoverished daughter of a French aristocrat,” Molly said.
“How charming.”
“Very. Naturally, I said nothing to correct the impression.”
Sophia looked down at Molly, who was fetchingly petite, and said, “You need not keep my secrets, Molly. Westlin surely has not.”
“Yes, but Westlin resents you so violently and so obviously that no one would think to believe him.”
“Forgive me,” Sophia said, “but I also find that equally charming. It is so refreshing to think of the Earl of Westlin being discounted, his opinions and pronouncements subject to obscurity. How completely delicious.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Molly said, smiling. “But, with Caro to marry the lovely Lord Ashdon, can the truth be ratified? If I tell it, it will be believed and it could cause Caro some trouble with Ashdon, not to mention your son, Lord Dalby. The ninth Earl of Dalby will be needing a wife before too long, and an heir.”
“I think,” Sophia said, watching Caro with Ashdon from across the room, Ashdon ever at her side, Caro deliciously flushed, “that Caro can manage Lord Ashdon. In fact, I think she’d rather enjoy it.”
Molly laughed. “She’s your daughter, then.”
“Oh, yes,” Sophia said, smiling as she watched Caro. “She’s most definitely my daughter.”
“Then you shan’t mind if tales of your origins become more than rumor and fantasy?” Molly said. “I would not want to speak amiss, Sophia. We colonials must unite before the London throng.”
“Molly, you have never needed my permission. You are a duchess, after all, and as for being a colonial, wasn’t a war fought over just this point? You are English to the bone, which was the start and finish of the whole bloody war and all that hysteria over inequitable taxation.”
“And you, Sophia?” Molly said softly. “What will be said of your bones?”
“Only good things, I trust,” Sophia answered. “Say what you will, Molly. My dear Dalby is buried these seven years, my children well planted in English soil and blooming effortlessly . . . I do believe even the truth cannot harm them now.”
“My dear Sophia,” Molly said with a skeptical grin, “no woman is best served by truth. Let truth dwell elsewhere, I say.”
“I would never presume to argue with you,” Sophia said, arguing, “but in this case, I do believe that Caro, and Ashdon, would be well served by truth. Let us see
where it takes them, shall we?”
“You have some plan, some devious twist, not that I can see it, but I know that look by now, Sophia, and if you want the truth out”—Molly shrugged delicately—“I am more than pleased to do my part. It looked to have been an excessively dull Season. Now, it looks to be rather more interesting.”
“That I can promise you, your grace. It will be very interesting,” Sophia said.
“And not just because of Lady Caroline and Lord Ashdon,” Molly said with a discreet motion of her hand. “The Viscounts Tannington and Richborough are having some sort of heated exchange behind the harp. I do hope they don’t damage it; it has just been restrung. I wonder what it is they’re arguing about?”