August 1817
Readjusting the mask on her face, Caroline turned back to the ballroom, her silk dress catching the light of candles, the material shimmering gold.
Excitement coursed through her. It had been all of sixteen months since she had left London with her heart on her sleeve and the fifty guineas safely in her reticule. And in those months her life had taken a different twist again, the girl she had been submerged into the woman she had become. Wiser. More careful. And meticulous in her dealings with the opposite sex.
Her fingers checked the bun she wore and she tucked in the errant blonde curls that had escaped their confines during a dance with an elderly relative of the Hilvertons.
After leaving London, she had imagined she would never grace a ballroom again, never feel the promise of youth and exuberance, never mingle with the local gentry with even a modicum of propriety. But she had, and a good deal of that fortune was due to Gwenneth Hilverton, the daughter-in-law of the Earl of Hilverton and the wife of the heir to this house and land and fortune. She had met Gwenneth by chance at a soirée in Bristol and been offered the chance of a cottage in return for portraits of her children.
Smiling, she crossed the room to stand by Gwenneth’s side, warm fingers curling around her own in welcome.
‘You look beautiful tonight, Caroline. The dress fits you as well as I thought it would.’
‘And you are certain that you have worn it before. It looks too…new.’
‘I wore it once when I was as thin as you are but that was some time ago. Malcolm keeps telling me to stop eating so much, though goodness knows I have tried.’
The mention of Gwenneth’s husband brought a cloud over the euphoria of the evening and Caroline looked around furtively to make certain that the young Lord Hilverton was nowhere near. She had endured many a clandestine pinch on the bottom since she had come to this place, but had refrained from complaint simply because of the hurt it would bring to Gwenneth.
Her disguise as the prim widow ensured most men were happy to keep their distance. The spectacles probably helped, as did the rather stiff countenance she had now perfected, but Malcolm Hilverton was the one man who seemed attracted to her austerity.
Sometimes she wondered what Gwenneth had seen in him to make her accept his proposal in the first place. Rich in her own right, she had not needed to place her hand in that of a man who would scorn her at every available opportunity and treat her as a woman with very little of importance to say.
Caroline shook her head. Tonight she would not let problems impinge on excitement. She would enjoy the evening behind the safety of her mask and before midnight she would make very sure that she slipped away home through the little path to the cottage on the other side of the glade.
And become the Widow Weatherby again. Respectable. Proper. Reputable. The woman who lived quietly with her brother, making a living from fashioning portraits for the very well-to-do.
An irreproachable paragon, the likeness of a husband framed on the dining-room wall, a young husband lost off the coast of Plymouth in a storm that had overturned his boat.
Sometimes, with the sea winds soft off the Bristol Estuary and Alexander in her arms, she could almost believe the fabrication herself. And yet it was in those moments that the memory of Thornton Lindsay was strongest.
That awful scene in his library.
Vain. Selfish. Stupid.
The pain of deceit in his amber eye as Tosh had struck him in the darkened Halstead room. Falling. Again. The scars on his face white against moonlight.
No. No. No.
Safety depended on anonymity. And distance. And she had sold her soul to make certain that her brother should stay safe.
Shaking her head, she put her mind to enjoying the last hours of the evening, pulling Gwenneth towards the supper room where the lines of hungry guests were finally abating, pleased that the mask she had constructed hid her countenance.
‘I am not certain that I should eat quite yet, Caroline. We have guests from London here tonight, and Malcolm says I must make an effort to draw them into conversation, but they look rather…menacing, so I have managed to avoid them all thus far. Particularly the taller man…’ She petered out, pointing to a group on the other side of the room.
Alarming. Dark haired. Formidable.
Caroline’s breath congealed in her throat. Thornton Lindsay stood dressed all in black, the ruined side of his face wreathed in a half-mask and a beautiful woman draped provocatively across his arm.
If Gwenneth had not held her up, she might have fallen; indeed, even as it was, she tipped forward, a whirling lightness unbalancing reality, her pulse in her temples beating so loud she thought everyone must hear it, must know it, must see that here, right here in this room, ten yards away, was a man whom she had once known…intimately. Bought and sold in lust.
Fear enveloped her and then a curious calm as he looked up, his eyes exactly as she remembered them, caution threaded with intelligence.
She made herself smile, made herself stand straighter, made herself breathe as he approached them, a whisper of a frown on his forehead.
‘Lady Hilverton.’ He held out one gloved hand, and the sound of his voice filled the cold draughty corridors of Caroline’s heart and the pit of her stomach where the butterflies collided against exposure.
Could he know her? Would he remember? She did not dare to risk looking up in case he watched her and was pleased when Malcolm Hilverton pushed in between them, his face ruddy and his eyes full of self-importance. ‘It is a great honour to have you here, Your Grace. I hope we can persuade you to stay on for at least a few days. Perhaps you would like to come riding tomorrow and partake in a picnic lunch with us down by the rocks of Morte Bay.’
‘Perhaps.’ His reply was abrupt and Malcolm, covering the awkwardness of the moment, pulled Caroline forward, his hand tarrying on the crook of her elbow for longer than she would have preferred.
‘I would like to introduce you to Mrs Weatherby. She has lived on the estate for more than a year now with her brother and baby son.’
Alex!
His amber eyes the mirror image of his father’s and his hair the exact same shade of midnight black.
No future.
No contact.
No place for a woman such as her amidst the ton and a family that could trace their ancestry back for generations.
And no place for a bastard heir, either…
Glancing up, she saw his eyes upon her, questioning and unsettled, the unevenness of skin beneath the bottom edge of mask familiar. Dangerous. Risky. His visage toughened by a life that had allowed him little ease and a reputation that always kept others at bay.
‘I understand you are here visiting your property, Your Grace,’ Malcolm spoke in the tone of one with the full confidence of the other and even when one dark eyebrow tweaked upwards he continued unabashed. ‘I could offer my services to familiarise you with local knowledge…’
‘I have someone to help in that.’
Thornton Lindsay did not mince words or soften the message and the young woman standing beside him wound his arms through her own and tilted her head proprietarily, the ivory sheen of her skin making her look as if she were barely old enough to even be up so late.
Suddenly Caroline felt as if she were one hundred and one, lumped in now with the older matrons. A woman who was over the hill at twenty-two, placed as she was outside the boundary of any true and lasting relationship by a past that would crucify her in any and every salon of repute.
Looking up, she caught the full flare of the Duke of Penborne’s gaze on her, abstruse and probing, and the room began to tilt.
Could he see her through the mask? Did he know? Had he remembered?
She ground her teeth together in pure fright. Let them move on, let them pass; let them return to wherever they had materialised from tonight. Far away from here and from her. Far away from memory and regret and the aching true knowledge of want.
Want—to take his hand in her own and never let go. Want—to lie down on the thick rug in his town house and feel things that she never had before and never would again.
Again.
Alexander!
The consequences were even greater this time and she could not afford the risk of anything.
Malcolm, true to form, was making the most of the moment, and his ridiculous comments were consolidated with his next outburst.
‘I had heard that you have a team of fine horses with you, Duke. Word has it they are of Arabian stock you had especially brought over to England.’
In Lindsay’s glance Caroline detected a glimmer of surprise, though he answered with a semblance of polite distance.
‘If you would care to look them over, you would be welcome. We will be remaining at Millington for the rest of the week.’
Six more days? Caroline pulled her mask more snugly against her cheek and frowned as she saw the Duke watching her fingers in a way that worried her.
Horses and houses. Heirlooms passed from one generation to the next. She and Tosh had missed out on such traditions and now Alex was going to do the same. Guilt sliced through reason and she turned away, ignoring Gwenneth’s surprised query as she strode towards the door, tears seeping down inside her mask.
She had to get home, away from the lights and music and the whirling pressure of what could have been.
She had to get away from the dangerous Duke of Penborne.
She gathered herself together out in the silence of the cottage garden, the unfairness of everything diminished somewhat under a sky of twinkling stars. A beautiful night, summer in the air and the strains of Mozart far off in the distance.
Opening the front door, she found Tosh reading a book, Alexander slumbering across his lap, his cherubic cheeks reddened by a cough he had developed over the past few days. She had never felt so glad to see them both, her anchors against the world.
‘You look…worried.’ Tosh carefully disengaged the sleeping baby and stood.
‘Thornton Lindsay was at the ball.’
‘Lord. Did he know you?’
She shook her head. ‘I hardly spoke and the mask…’
‘How long is he here for?’
‘I am not sure. He actually owns one of the neighbouring estates.’
‘We can find somewhere else to go.’
Love engulfed her. And sadness. For the first time in a long while she felt they had the chance to make something of their lives. Yet here her brother was, prepared to just up and leave.
She shook her head as his fingers curled up into hers. So familiar. So known.
‘He has appointed a new manager for the farm and shall be here only fleetingly. Gwenneth introduced me as Mrs Weatherby.’
‘You had your mask on?’
‘I did, and I am certain that you cannot see my eyes through the feathers?’ She held it in front of her face and was pleased when he shook his head.
‘Even I would be hard pressed to know that it was you.’
Instantly she relaxed and crossed back to the sofa to perch beside Alexander. ‘Then I think I am still safe.’ Her fingers pushed back a strand of darkness and her son shifted in his sleep, the faint warmth of his breath tickling the top of Caroline’s thumb. ‘But to be certain I think we should both stay in tomorrow. Malcolm made mention of a riding expedition and a picnic at Morte Bay. And if Lindsay should see us together…’
‘I’m due in Exeter for the next few days to help Johnathon Wells at a cattle sale. Perhaps you could come with me.’
She shook her head. ‘No, there is a portrait I have to finish and Alexander is grizzly. Besides, the Duke looked more than enamoured with his beautiful travelling companion.’
Tosh looked up sharply and Caroline held out her hand to stop him saying anything. She could see in the perplexity of his glance a raft of questions and did not feel at this moment up to answering even one of them.
Carefully she bent to lift Alex in her arms, his warm body moulding into her own.
Alexander Thornton Weatherby. In the moments of joy after his birth she had chosen the name of his father to also be his. A reminder and a keepsake.
She had known she was pregnant within three weeks of leaving London, a tiredness sweeping over her every movement and an utter sadness that she hadn’t lost until the moment she delivered her son. When she had held him in her arms and felt the first tug on her breast, the inexplicable vagaries of her world had been healed, and her transient nomadic life had come to an end.
She had argued with herself as to whether she should contact Thornton Lindsay with her news. But the letter she had received after their night together had dissuaded her completely, his offer telling her exactly just where his heart lay. He did not want her for a wife. He did not even offer her a residence. Nay, he wanted a temporary liaison, a provisional and interim union whilst he looked elsewhere for a life-long partner.
A wife.
But not her!
Far better then for all concerned just to leave everything as it was. A chance meeting that would not be repeated. The beginning of a new life that contained none of the what-ifs of the old one.
She dashed away the tears with the back of her hand and went to settle Alexander, her world suddenly on the edge of teetering into chaos and negating everything she had so carefully built around herself over the past months.
Well, she would not let it. She would make certain that he did not know her, and would keep her ear to the ground so that she should discover the movements of the Millington party well before they could inadvertently come across one another again.
As she sang a night-time song to her son, tears scalded down her cheeks and her heart was heavy.
Thornton Lindsay.
Here.
Not even half a mile from where she sat.
Seeing the same moon.
Breathing the same air.
She chastised herself soundly for her silliness and tucked the blankets firmly about her son.
Thornton stood against the window and looked out across the dark valleys of this part of England. Civilised, rolling, manicured. None of the wildness of Cornwall with its untamed beaches and windswept coves, where long breakers eroded sandstone into jagged ramparts.
He felt stymied and caught, and he wondered about the turning his life had taken. He seemed to have lost something…inexplicable. Lord, he was twenty-eight and his conscious and calculated decision to take a wife wasn’t turning out in quite the way that it should.
He muttered beneath his breath as he remembered another night, in London, the fifty guineas small payment for the hours that had followed.
The Weatherby widow had in some way reminded him of Caroline Anstretton. Strong. Unusual. Something in the turn of her head and the upward line of her lips.
He wished he could have removed her mask and seen her eyes.
Lifting a full glass of brandy, he remembered other things. The shape of her nails and the crescent scar at the base of her thumb as she had held her mask in place. White honeyed hair slightly curly.
And a baby son!
His mind began calculating back the months and came up with an answer that had his blood boiling.
It had to be Caroline Anstetton and—she was a mother.
And in that one simple moment of clarity he was glad that she was not standing there before him with her deceit and her vanity and her cold-hearted calculation.
Because he wondered if he could have stopped himself from placing his fingers around her beautiful throat.