TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER, before Sir Antony’s unrehearsed and very public marriage proposal, Lady Caroline Aldershot was staring down at the walled garden. Two hefty men, under direction of the head gardener, were engaged in moving tubs of orange trees into the sunshine. But her ear was to the inane conversation between Kitty Aldershot and Dacre Wraxton. Kitty’s prattle was naturally all about herself. The time she had taken at her toilette to make certain everything from her curls to her clocked stockings were perfectly coordinated received only monosyllabic responses. Thankfully, Kitty was so naïve that not once did she pick up on Dacre Wraxton’s attempts to engage her in serious flirtation. She answered all his remarks honestly and directly. When he made throwaway comments she did not understand, she pretended comprehension by replying with a silly comment of her own, ending her sentence with a giggle. When her giggles became louder, Caroline knew Kitty was growing increasingly nervous and finding it difficult to dig herself out of the attention hole created by Dacre Wraxton’s singular notice.
Caroline knew this because Dacre Wraxton, debonair lothario, had played the same game with her when she was Kitty’s age. She had responded to his advances in much the same manner as Kitty was doing now. Yet, whereas Kitty was hesitant and nervous, Caroline had enjoyed the attention and was flattered to be singled out by such a dangerously handsome man. She flirted outrageously with her admirer. Wraxton pursued her and singled her out at every public event. Caroline hoped his attentions would rouse Sir Antony Templestowe to jealousy. Her plan did not take. The more she and Wraxton flirted under Sir Antony’s fine nose, the more her Antony ignored her. In fact, he went out of his way to be blind to her behavior. Being ignored by the only man she truly cared about brought out the worst in her, and flirtation with Dacre Wraxton entered a dangerous phase. Her behavior became so outrageous Salt was on the brink of sending her back to the country when she had her very public spat with Antony at the Salt Hendon recital. That had changed everything.
That incident sent her spiraling out of control, and under the influence of too many glasses of champagne, she was brave and reckless in equal measure to allow matters with Dacre Wraxton to go beyond flirtation. She permitted him liberties from which there was no recover. Her only salvation was having the Earl of Salt Hendon for a brother. She doubted that even her dowry of thirty thousand pounds would have saved her from ruination, had Salt not intervened and married her off to Aldershot.
She was determined history would not repeat itself. Dacre Wraxton would not be the ruin of Kitty. Not only did Kitty lack the mental fortitude to recover from such a seduction, she did not have an earl for a brother or a substantial dowry, the prime factors that had allowed Caroline to avert open scandal and life-long recrimination.
So when the right moment presented itself, Caroline turned from the French window and said quietly but firmly as she slipped her fingers back into her delicate lace glove,
“Kitty, dear, be so kind as to fetch a glass of orange water. The warm air off the balcony has left me parched. Ask the footman over there for a fresh batch. I do believe all the jugs on the table are empty.”
Kitty instantly closed her fan, bobbed a curtsy to Dacre Wraxton, and departed. If her sigh of relief was inaudible, the still air left by her immediate absence was enough to underscore her liberation. Dacre Wraxton moved into this space and with a shoulder against the painted window frame, looked down on Caroline with a rueful smile and a gleam in his dark eye.
“Your charge is very pretty but she lacks your fire. I hope she finds a husband in her first season. Her blonde beauty will fade, and she’ll become tedious before she gains the wisdom that comes with silence. She’ll end her days on a shelf, gathering dust.”
“Better a tedious beauty covered in dust than what you had in mind for her.”
Dacre cocked his head with a twinge of a smile and his black eyes lost their cynical gleam.
“My dear Lady Caroline, I have nothing in mind for Miss Aldershot beyond mere flirtation in the here and now. I had hoped she would take the edge off my boredom. At the very least, take my mind off the fact my effete dolt of a brother is in the same room with me, spouting his poetical drivel. I applaud Lady St. John for orchestrating the family reunion. Let me not bore you with my family. I would prefer to hear all about yours. Other people’s families are vastly more entertaining than one’s own.”
“There is nothing to tell.”
He peered at her closely.
“Nothing? Ha! A nice try at nonchalance but I am not to be fooled, my dear. He’s put you out of sorts, has he not, your blue-eyed baronet?” When she did not deny it and did not look up at him either, he smiled thinly. “Proximity has us both shivering—me with embarrassment for having such a brother, and you with renewed awakening for your baronet.”
“Stop it, Dacre!”
“That’s better. Call me by name. I much prefer you animated to maudlin, even if it is with anger. The latter complements your hair delightfully.”
When he put out his hand, she lightly slapped his fingers with her fan and he took it from her, unfurled it and fluttered it like a woman.
“My dear, there really is no need to engage your scruples,” he continued. “I find that to survive the rigors of this Society to which we belong, it is better to—pardon the cliché—lock away one’s conscience and throw away the key.”
At that, she did look up at him, face flushed with the embarrassment of memory.
“So you admit to having a conscience. How touching!”
For a moment, he lost his suave façade, dark brows contracting over his thin nose.
“If I was ever inconsiderate to your needs, at any time, my lady, I most sincerely apologize…”
“No. No. You need not apologize or think that,” she confessed truthfully and swallowed. She bravely held his gaze. “You only did what I asked of you.”
“I may now die a happy man,” he drawled, and made her an elegant bow, lace ruffles at his wrists sweeping the floor.
When he straightened she tried to snatch back her fan.
“That was ill-judged, sir! Now half the room is looking this way.”
He glanced over his shoulder and took in the fancifully painted walls with their Etruscan motifs of ancients in drapery, golden griffins and classical urns sprouting ivy foliage, and saw that indeed most eyes had turned in their direction. The guests were assembling around the gilded clavichord and footmen were arranging ribbon-back chairs in two rows. Thankfully, his brother had finished his recitation, and his discarded mistress, Lady Dalrymple, was no longer staring at him mournfully. He heard Diana St. John call to him, but he chose to ignore her, returning his attention to the deliciously curvaceous Lady Caroline—the only bright star in an otherwise dull affair.
“Only half?” he quipped. “Dear me. I must be losing my touch. I was hoping for all eyes.”
“Pray be serious a moment.”
“Must I? Why must I be serious, my sweet cheeks?”
“Never call me that,” she demanded in a low voice, blushing.
“But you have the finest—”
“Wraxton,” she hissed, face now the color of her hair. “Your word. You gave me your word you would never speak of our—of our—encounter.”
“Encounter?” he questioned. “I would prefer to hold to the memory as a most enjoyable liaison.”
“I’m surprised you can hold to a particular memory at all where women are concerned!”
His chuckle was low and full of amusement.
“I do miss you, spitfire. I miss your banter. To have you pretend to be disconsolate with me is such a refreshing change from doe-eyed ninnyhammers. Spitfire, you and I are cut from the same flawed cloth. We deserve each other. Admit to it! Now the boy is well-and-truly cold in his grave—”
“Don’t talk of Aldershot with such disrespect. For all his faults, he was still my husband.”
“Faults? He was a lily-livered, consumptive fortune hunter! He was undeserving of you. You are well rid of him, is the truth, and I’ll say it, even if you and others cannot.” He let the fan dip to her décolletage and ran its pleated edge along the little lace border of her chemise. “All I ask is that you give my offer serious consideration…”
“Offer? After a twelvemonth of marriage to you, if I should be so fortunate to receive your singular devotion for even that length of time, you’ll return to your dissolute ways and I will be just one of many. Worse. I will be the wife you forsook for other women. Your callous treatment of the weaker sex is evident in poor crumpled Jenny Dalrymple. She may only have been your mistress, but she did not deserve to be summarily dismissed. I shudder at the prospect! No, I thank you.”
He shrugged, a glance across at Sir Antony and Lady Reanay sipping tea. The large baronet was listening to the old lady as if her every word was coated in gold. It made him sneer.
“With the return of your blue-eyed baronet, you think you have a choice? Don’t be fooled. A man like that has scruples. He’ll accept a virtuous widow for a bride, but when he discovers you have a past, he’ll have justifiable cause to cast you off before he marries you. Pardon me for mentioning it—but as the interested third party in your impending romantic imbroglio I do have a vested interest—what do you think will be his reaction when he learns the truth?”
Caroline suddenly felt faint.
“You would not stoop so low…”
He looked deep into her green eyes.
“For you I would stoop all the way to hell.”
Caroline believed him. Such an earnest declaration from such a devilish handsome rogue would have had three quarters of London’s females swooning at his boots. It did nothing but make her feel ill. He made her feel ill. She averted her face, and in so doing caught a glimpse of her big handsome gentle man. He had a delicate teacup and saucer balanced on his silken knee and was politely listening to one of Aunt Alice’s monologues, as if she was telling him the most riveting piece of news. In all probability, she was giving him a medical inventory of her arthritis, and Antony was listening with all the assiduousness of an attending physician.
She swallowed back tears.
“He has the reputation of being a most chivalrous gentleman, and the most honorable,” Dacre Wraxton said in a low voice near her ear, because there were calls coming from the other side of the room and his name was mentioned. He pressed home his advantage before being called away. “Four years ago you could have had your baronet, and yet you ruined your chances. Face the looking glass, my tiny spitfire. Even as a naïve innocent, you knew he was too good, too righteous, for the likes of you. What are the odds he will offer for you a second time once he discovers the truth? Your brother can have no objection to you marrying me, not after he married you off to a sot like Aldershot. One day I’ll inherit title and wealth. I give you my word I’ll be faithful after my own fashion. If I stray, I’ll be discreet—”
“Discreet? Faithful? Your word? You face the looking glass, Wraxton!” Caroline replied, incredulous. “Such fine words are not in your lexicon.” She took a step away and shook out her silk petticoats, rallying herself enough to say without emotion, “I am not the girl I was at that masquerade. What I did then was out of spite. Marriage to Aldershot—our-our trifling affair—have merely allowed me to gain clarity on what is truly important. Antony is worth a hundred—no—a thousand of you! I know precisely what I squandered. But you are wrong. He has never asked me to marry him.”
Dacre Wraxton was genuinely surprised.
“It’s not like Lady St. John to be wrong about such an important detail…”
“Lady St. John?” Caroline’s eyes narrowed to slits. “How interesting. Time away from London society and Cousin Diana failed to learn her lesson to keep her nose out of other people’s affairs—more precisely, my family’s business!” She had a sudden, awful thought. “You couldn’t—You wouldn’t—You didn’t tell her?”
Dacre Wraxton flicked shut her fan and lightly tapped the end of her nose before returning it to her.
“My dear spitfire, I own to being a complete rogue and a breaker of hearts, but I do not break confidences, particularly when shared in the bed of a lady.” When Caroline closed her eyes with relief, he apologized. “I did not tell her, but she knows.”
“How? How does she know?”
Dacre Wraxton smiled with sympathy that her anger should instantly turn to dread at this revelation. Unlike most of his peers, he was not pleased with Lady St. John’s return to London. They shared a history in her late husband Aubrey St. John. He looked into Caroline’s eyes and was not surprised she was fearful. Diana St. John was a force to be reckoned with. She had commanded Polite Society four years ago through force of personality and knowing other people’s secrets. And by her forays into Society drawing rooms in recent weeks, was well on the way to regaining her pre-eminence, and by every means at her disposal.
“I do believe the saying the walls have ears apposite. Servants are everywhere and yet we see them nowhere. One can only assume a menial blabbed.”
Caroline’s gaze fixed on Diana St. John, the center of the gathering by the clavichord. She could well believe her cousin capable of paying servants to spy.
“One of yours or mine?”
He shrugged a shoulder, indifferent.
“My servants or yours, that is of no consequence. With your cousin, I would be more concerned about the why rather than the how. She stores away other people’s secrets better than a squirrel does acorns for the winter! A circumstance I discovered too late for my own good, and so I dance to her tune when required. So now you must excuse me. I have been summoned.” Across her shoulder he saw Sir Antony fast approaching and said at her ear, “When you’re done playing silly games with honorable men, I’ll be waiting.”
SIR ANTONY’S marriage proposal on bended knee caused such a cacophony of good-humored shouts of encouragement from the gentlemen, and exclamations of joy and sighs of happiness from the ladies, that Caroline felt she was at St. Bartholomew’s Fair amongst the poor howling and squawking exotics of Pidcock’s Wild Beast Show. Several of the ladies rushed forward in a rustle of petticoats so they could hear her reply to such a thoroughly romantic gesture. Lady St. John, on the arm of Mr. Dacre Wraxton, and Lady Reanay with Kitty holding her hand, waited at Sir Antony’s back, eyes riveted to Lady Caroline’s flushed countenance.
Still reeling from the revelation that Diana St. John knew about her past, and wondering what her cousin meant to do with such scandalous and damaging information—inform Salt was her first thought—Caroline could only stare at her gloved hand resting across Sir Antony’s fingers. When she finally lifted her gaze to his pale face, the earnestness in his blue eyes formed an obstruction in her throat and she swallowed hard. She had not heard his words, but being on bended knee was indication enough of the question requiring her response. She had been waiting such a long time to hear him ask it, and had practically dreamed of this very moment on and off for so many years, that for him to make such a momentous declaration in public, and at such an inauspicious moment, terrified her to silence.
Joy. Elation. Supreme happiness. These were the feelings normally associated with a marriage proposal. Yet, her emotions were hopelessly tangled into knots. She believed herself thoroughly unworthy of Sir Antony’s wildly romantic gesture. This handsome man who kneeled before her, who had opened his heart so publicly and so willingly, deserved better than her in a wife. He would think so, too, when he discovered her for what she truly was. Tears of self-pity welled up to be quickly blinked away. There was no point to feeling sorry for herself. She had made choices and now she must live with them. Antony had made choices, too, and now he must move on—move on without her. It was for the best. He would think so too when he finally knew the truth.
She mentally prepared herself to give him the answer she knew he did not want to hear. Removing her gloved hand from his, she took a deep breath and bravely met his gaze.
What she actually said and did was something altogether different. She blamed the look in his eyes—blue eyes that reflected an earnestness of purpose. How could she resist such honesty and such adoration? Her resolve, the guests and their surroundings, all melted away to leave just the two of them smiling at one another as if they were the only two people in the room. It was but a moment, not even a minute, but it was enough. Instead of her gloved hand dropping to her side, she lifted it to gently touch his face. Tracing the line of his strong jaw, her lace-covered fingertips caressed the roughness of stubble to cheek and chin. And when he briefly closed his eyes, turning his face into the palm of her hand, tears pricked her eyelids.
Without conscious volition she sniffed back tears and whispered, so that only he could hear, “Why ask me such a question in public, you vexatious man?”
Sir Antony smiled crookedly, kissed her hand and rose up to his full height. He was hurt that her response was not the spontaneous one he had hoped for, but it brought him to a sense of his surroundings and the realization that once again he had allowed his feelings for Caroline to get the better of him. In so doing, he had again placed her in a most awkward position, and he did not have the excuse of a drunken stupor to blame for his impetuosity! Still, she had not rejected him outright, and that gave him hope.
He had not let go of her gloved hand, and he took a step closer and bent to her ear, so that only she could hear him. To those watching on, it looked as if he was kissing her cheek.
“Because I love you, Caro,” he replied softly. “I have never stopped loving you.”
Overwhelmed and overcome, Caroline stifled a sob as she pulled her hand free. With one last look up at his flushed face, she snatched up a handful of her silk petticoats and fled the room, Kitty Aldershot quick to follow on her petticoat hems to a roar of applause.
LADY REANAY stopped Sir Antony from pursuing Caroline, catching at the embroidered silk skirts of his frock coat and holding fast.
“Leave her, my boy. She’s overwrought. A proposal from you was the last thing she expected. Best to wait until she can put a sentence together.”
She smiled at his frown of confusion and was pleased when he heeded her advice with a nod and remained by her side. She was also relieved. In her present disordered state, there was every chance Caroline would refuse him, for all the wrong reasons, something she would later bitterly regret.
“You are calling on us tomorrow, so can talk with Caroline then,” she added with forced brightness, and gave his silken arm a fond squeeze, turning to take her leave of her daughter-in-law before her nephew could ask any searching questions.
Diana St. John startled Lady Reanay by affectionately linking arms with her and walking her across the room and out onto the landing. She further surprised the old lady when she turned to face her, tears in her eyes,
“Thank you for accepting my invitation, my lady,” Diana St. John said with a tremble in her voice. “We have not always been on the best of terms, but four years away, with only my thoughts for company, has given me time to reflect upon what is important in my life.” She touched Lady Reanay’s gloved arm. “Only you truly know what agony of thought I have been through, separated from my dear children. To be without their company… Not to see their dear little faces… I worried every day for their welfare. I worry now they will no longer know their own mother—”
“That is not true, my dear,” Lady Reanay assured her, made uneasy by Diana St. John’s melancholy tears. She had never seen her distressed. It was such a change from how she appeared in company. She was in total sympathy with her predicament. “Why, only the other day, Merry asked if you had received her latest letter.” In truth it had been three months ago, but, under the circumstances, she thought a little latitude was required to alleviate a mother’s distress. “Such a treasure. She is a credit to you, Diana.”
Diana gasped. “Letter? My darling Magna wrote me a letter! Oh! If only I had known this while away, it would have given me such hope.”
“Not just one letter, my dear, several letters. Merry is a very conscientious correspondent, to you, and to her Uncle Tony. She cherishes his replies and keeps all his letters tied up with ribbon and in a special box she decorated herself, with fabric and wallpaper strips cut into shapes. It is quite the most enchanting creation and the perfect place to put her keepsakes. She has an assortment of shells from our visit to the seashore, pressed flowers, and I think there is also—”
“How charming,” Diana St. John interrupted, disinterested. She forced herself to smile and open wide her wet eyes in expectation. “Is that where she keeps my letters, too?”
Lady Reanay frowned in puzzlement. “Your letters? Forgive an old lady, my dear, but I do not understand.”
“The many letters I wrote to my children while on my Continental wanderings,” Diana St. John lied. She blinked at her mother-in-law’s look of complete confusion and tilted her head to the side in question. “I wrote to my darlings every week. I made a habit of making Tuesday writing day. No matter where I was, I always found the time to write to my two little ones. I understand letters can and do go astray… But it did not stop me from writing to them.” She pressed Lady Reanay’s gloved hand. “You see, I remember St. John telling me once how much he valued your letters to him while you were traveling abroad. He said they made him feel close to you, even though he knew there was no opportunity of ever seeing you again.” This, too, was a lie and it achieved its object when the old lady’s eyes filled with tears at mention of her son. Diana sighed her sadness, while inwardly congratulating herself on her best performance yet. “That is the excuse I told myself, that their letters to me had gone astray, as to why I never heard from them in all the time I was away.”
“Are you saying you never received one of Merry’s or Ron’s letters? Not one?” When Diana nodded sadly and dropped her lashes, Lady Reanay was appalled. “How can that be? Why, even when Sir Tobias and I were literally at the ends of the earth in Oslo, I still received Aubrey’s weekly letter. Of course, at times, four weekly letters would arrive at once… Not one letter?”
“Not one. I thought—I thought they wished to forget me,” Diana replied in a small, weak voice and dabbed carefully at her eyes with her kerchief. She sniffed. “Of course it is not for me to say, but perhaps there were others—others who wished my darlings to forget their dear mother…”
“Oh! I cannot believe Salt would… That dearest Jane could…” She shook her powdered coiffure, saying more to convince herself than Diana St. John, “No. No. They could not withhold the letters of a mother to her children… Not the letters Ron and Merry wrote you… I cannot believe—”
“Can’t you?” Diana snarled through her teeth, unable to help herself. She instantly pulled herself up, covering her involuntary outburst with a dry sob, hands to her face, the façade of sorrowful parent masking her true feelings and intent. She looked up when the old lady laid a gloved hand on her arm. “You are Ron and Merry’s grandmamma, you know—in your heart—you know that it is indeed true. Just as it is true my dearest darlings have been kept from me! And you will be shocked when I tell you, but I must, that Salt’s decision to keep them from me is not his own…” Over the top of her mother-in-law’s plumed turban she saw a footman coming up the stairs and added with a trembling smile, “I have detained you far too long,” she apologized. “Caroline and her sweet blonde companion are waiting for you…”
The old lady met Diana’s sad smile, a frown between her brows.
“But Jane would never… She has been so good and kind to Ron and Merry… I cannot believe… My dear, if there is anything I can do for you…?”
Diana hesitated, hands clasped together. As if she had little hope of having her wishes fulfilled, she said heavily, “I dare not impose on your good offices, as I fear it is too much to ask…”
This prompted Lady Reanay to take hold of both her hands.
“You must allow me to help you in some small way. You are the mother of my grandchildren, and they are most dear to me, more than anything or anyone else.”
“Very well then,” Diana responded, gaze lifting from the old lady’s gloved hands about hers. “My dearest wish is to hold my children in my arms. It has been such a long time since I felt the warmth of them… To hold them… To know they are well and happy…”
“Consider it done, my dear,” Lady Reanay stated. “I shall arrange it. The Earl and Countess need not know… You are the twins’ mother after all… Now you must return to your guests, my dear,” she added, giving Diana’s hands a quick squeeze. “Dry your eyes. You shall see your darlings. That I promise!”
With that reassurance, Lady Reanay sailed off down the Adam staircase to join Caroline and Kitty in the carriage for home. From the landing, Diana watched with a smile of satisfaction as her gullible fool of a mother-in-law disappeared out into the late afternoon light. What tears she had shed were all to good purpose. She fully expected to have her son and daughter returned to her by the end of the week, and then she would discover for herself how much they had missed their dearest mamma. No doubt, that she-devil who shared the Earl’s bed had corrupted their minds, but she would soon disabuse them of false notions and correct their faults. It was her duty as their mother, and their duty as her children to obey.
She bustled back to her waiting guests, invigorated that her plans were coming to fruition. It was a stroke of luck—or mayhap it was ordained that her plans be given a helping hand—that Salt was hosting a masquerade ball at the end of the sennight. The day after the masquerade, all her troubles would be over. The Earl would again be hers alone. There would be nothing left in his life to distract him from his purpose. He would be able to focus exclusively on becoming First Lord of the Treasury and she would be there beside him, basking in his glory as she had done before.
While incarcerated in her Welsh prison, she had racked her brain to find a means of being reunited with the Earl, a means that would forever bind him to her. Every day she dreamed of being Countess of Salt Hendon, and every day she permitted the ignorant yokels to think of her as such. Parading about Harlech Castle as if she were in truth Lady Salt fed her addiction and focused her mind. It helped her realize that her dream was not an impossible one. One day she would be Countess of Salt Hendon.
And then, as if by divine providence, the answer came to her in a dream. Sorrow. Not just grief, but unimaginable sorrow. Only with unimaginable sorrow would the Earl be hers again.
She truly was a genius.
The death of her husband from smallpox showed her the way forward and out of her present predicament.
She recalled the Earl’s devastation at the loss of his closest cousin and best friend to smallpox. The Earl’s best friend, Aubrey St. John, just so happened to be her husband. Far from being a grieving widow, she had been relieved at his passing. But she had hidden her relief with a mask of sorrow to match the grief experienced by the Earl. In mourning the loss of Aubrey St. John together, they had never been closer. It was only in a state of grief-stricken distraction that the Earl fully appreciated what she meant to him. Everything and everyone else in his life was reduced to little or no consequence. Only the here and now had mattered; she had mattered. So it would be again between them.
There was no better way for them to bond than through the Earl’s unimaginable sorrow. Mutual grief and loss would unite them, this time forever. He would welcome her comfort and counsel with open arms. She would make certain there was no chance of him ever making a recovery. No one recovered from the loss of one’s entire family. There would be no hope left to him other than the hope she provided. He would see that her devotion was constant and unflagging, and she would again be the singular focus of his attention. He would need her to prop him up, to show him that he could overcome his loss for the greater good. To be great, he had to forgo the ordinary; sacrifices were required if he was to be immortalized. No one entered the pages of history as a consequence of being a family man. The thought was a ludicrous one, and he would come to realize this once he reached his potential as the political leader of his country.
Her plans were in place. She was counting the days with barely-disguised glee. What remained for her to do was to discover the depths of her brother’s ignorance, and deal with him accordingly. She smiled to herself. Such a kind-hearted blockhead as her brother was the least of her worries.