‘You cannot stay at Hilverton.’ Gwenneth wept over the words quietly. ‘Malcolm is not a person who could ever condone such…looseness and these are his lands.’
‘Of course.’ Caroline handed a handkerchief into Gwenneth’s shaking fingers and tried to console her.
‘I told him I would refuse to acknowledge the gravity of what happened in Exeter should he feel the need to repeat it to…anyone at all, and he threw a passage from the Psalms at me…“Who shall ascend into the hill of our Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.”’ Watery eyes raised up to her own. ‘What was I to say to that, I ask you. He is a devout man…’ She began sobbing again, this time without even an attempt at quietness. ‘He said that he would honour my wants so long as you left. By the end of this week.’
Caroline’s spirits fell. Three days. And the weather unseasonably wet and cold! She could not even imagine where to begin, where to go and this time with a child in tow.
‘Malcolm told me to say that your brother still has a place here if he should want it; after all, it is not his fault that you…that you…’
The accusation of immorality sat in her eyes, and in the quivering distaste upon her lips. ‘Surely you must know that Thornton Lindsay would never marry you. He is a duke, for goodness’ sake, and you met him for the first time less than a week ago?’ Her voice strengthened considerably. ‘For the life of me, I cannot comprehend the reasoning that should make you behave in such a manner and so…out of character, Caroline.’
‘I am certain you cannot.’
Angry grey eyes lifted to her own before she pocketed the handkerchief and stood. ‘This will be goodbye, I am afraid, as I shan’t be requiring the finished portrait of my Megan under the circumstances. I would, however, like to give you this. It is saved from my own pin money, you understand, and money that my husband has no notion of. I want you to use it for Alexander. For his education.’
A heavy purse clunked down on the table before them.
Friendship. It was never black and white, Caroline mused, and the greys sometimes had the propensity to break your heart.
She swallowed before she spoke.
‘I will never forget you.’
For the first time a small smile blossomed around tightened and disapproving lips. ‘And I am certain that I could say exactly the same.’
When the door closed Thomas came forward from the side room where he had watched the conversation, undetected.
‘She is a fine woman.’
‘And a generous one.’ Her fingers felt the number of coins in the leather.
‘Pity you cannot tell her the truth, then.’
‘Which is?’
‘That you love Thornton Lindsay, the Duke of Penborne. That you have loved him since your first tryst in London when he fathered your only child.’
‘A monogamous whore, then. But a whore none the less. Did you not hear her recited passage from the Bible?’
‘I tried not to.’
For the first time in days Caroline actually laughed; the sadness she had been etched with since Lindsay had deserted her in Exeter relegated for a moment to some place distant.
Where had he gone? Back to Penleven, she suspected, to lick his wounds and brood upon a woman who lacked both principles and sense.
Even now she blushed at the memory of her wantonness.
Twenty-two and she had known the pleasures of the flesh only twice. If the reality had not been so tragic, it could have almost been funny.
But at least Thomas was safe. She put her hand into his, liking the feeling of closeness.
He had had absolutely no idea as to who had abducted him, but had escaped from the small cottage he had been incarcerated in after two days of isolation.
The perpetrators had not come back, and, after crouching in the undergrowth for half a morning to see if they might materialise, he had returned to Campton to find the Earl of Hilverton and his wife about to leave for Exeter.
‘If only you had come back to Exeter on your own to find me,’ she said softly and her brother looked at her, surprised.
‘No one would have known about us then.’
‘I think we would have had to leave anyway, Caro. The de Lerins,’ he clarified when she looked up, confused. ‘They have obviously found out where we live.’
‘Why did they not kill you then or at least haul you up before the judiciary? Why just leave you there? Why take such a chance on escape? And no note of intent either.’
‘Perhaps someone scared them off?’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’ Tosh rubbed his nose and grimaced.
Both his eyes were now swollen and the skin across his cheeks was a violent yellow green.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Not as badly as before.’
‘I could get you a cold compress.’
‘No, don’t fuss.’
Sensing irritation, she left it at that and folded a pile of damp washing to lay out by the fire.
For the first time since she was young, life had ceased to delight her, the charade of being somebody she wasn’t becoming increasingly intolerable.
To leave Campton with its green rolling hills and soft brambled lanes was distressing. To never walk the path again between this house and the big one or experience the kindness of those who knew her here.
Belonging.
Something she had never had before.
A place.
A home, with Alex raised not in the midst of strangers but with friends, raised exactly in the fashion that she herself had never been.
It was her fault. All her fault.
Wicked lust spoiled everything.
‘No!’
Such an easy word to say and Thornton Lindsay would have listened had she had the backbone to say it. But she hadn’t. Her own fulfilment had been paramount over everything, Alexander’s happiness, Tosh’s future, Gwenneth’s friendship.
She had sacrificed all for an out-of-control libido.
She was ashamed. Deeply. The predicament they found themselves in again was all her fault. And her brother’s magnanimous lack of accusation was not helping either.
‘If we travelled towards the east, it might be safer.’ Tosh was already laying out the map and tracing a path of travel with his finger.
‘I’ve always thought Norwich might be a town that would be worth the visiting. It’s out of the way of the regular London traffic and far enough into the countryside to be a long way from anywhere.’
Tears blurred her eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can do this any more…start again—’
She could tell he was losing patience with her when he butted in. ‘What other option is there, then, Caroline?’
She thought of Alexander and shook her head.
‘None.’
‘Then let’s get packing. If we can be ready to leave tomorrow, it will be better for everyone, and if I see Hilverton sniffing around here and looking at you like he was doing on the journey home, then I’ll bloody well punch his head in. A devout man, my arse.’
Caroline smiled, her brother’s humour dispersing the true ache of regret.
‘Anna could keep all the bigger things. She is getting married in the middle of next year and could do with some furniture.’
‘And Johnathon can have our books. He reads, you know, even given his lack of education, and would appreciate them.’
The dissemination of their lives.
Again.
Rising from her chair, she walked into her bedroom on hearing the small waking sounds of her son. And her heart fell further when she saw that with every day he began to look more and more like his father.
Thornton frowned as he read the letter that had arrived in the morning post.
The insignia of the Earl of Ross was vaguely familiar; slitting the flap open with his paper knife, he began to read. His shout brought his secretary into the room at full tilt.
‘Is there a problem, Your Grace?’
‘Do you know anything at all about the Earl of Ross and his daughter?’
James reddened considerably, giving Thornton his answer.
‘The Earl wrote while you were ill, sir, demanding an immediate answer. When I asked you for a reply to his letter regarding a visit to Penleven with his family and daughter you gave me reason to think that the idea was a good one.’
‘How?’
‘How what, Your Grace?’
‘How did I give you this…reason?’
‘You did nothing to make me think that the visit of a woman known for her virtue and piety would be counteractive to your own good well being.’
‘I was unconscious.’
‘I beg to differ, Your Grace. At one point you seemed much recovered and it was then that I broached the subject.’
‘I see.’
‘I have heard much about this particular lady, you understand, and the thing that strikes me above all else is her ability to make others happy. She has an easy nature and is seldom at odds with anybody.’
‘A sterling attribute, indeed.’ His tone decried that he thought anything but. ‘She will be visiting us early next week as her family are travelling through these parts and it seems we have been chosen as a…convenient stopover.’
‘Then I will inform the housekeeper of the dates, sir, if you could supply me with the numbers.’
‘Very well.’
He handed over the letter, though as his secretary walked to the door he stopped him.
‘And, James…’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I would prefer to hand out these sort of invitations myself in future.’ Thornton heard the anger in his voice but could not, for the life of him, soften his chastisement. After all, he was now stuck with a visitation he did not want and a father who was probably expecting a lot more than he was going to get.
‘Very good, Your Grace.’
There was a low-tone whispering outside even as the door shut.
Henry, he presumed, and no doubt in on the scam. If they were less like family he would have had no compunction in dismissing them on the spot, but James’s family had served the Lindsays since time immemorial, and the clumsy attempt at matchmaking would have been done with the best of intentions.
Thornton’s arm hurt, his eyes ached, and the memory of Caroline wrapped protectively around her twin brother in the room in Exeter infuriated him.
Five days ago he had never wanted to see her again. And yet now he knew that he could not just leave things as they were. He wanted to understand what it was that kept her so firmly in his mind, the feel of her body against his soft and pliant, her midnight blue eyes locked into his own.
When he lifted the second letter from the pile he frowned. Gwenneth Hilverton’s letter was full of eloquence, describing Caroline Weatherby’s current position in every detail, the village gossip, the local priest’s sermon, shopkeepers withholding their goods and their upcoming departure from a home that they had known for well over a year.
And blaming him in that peculiarly careful way that well brought-up women had of expressing opinion.
Anger surfaced as Thornton balanced leaving things exactly as they were against the odds that the child could actually be his. Lord. Could he leave Caroline to the mercy of circumstance when his part in all of this had been every bit as culpable as her own? More, perhaps, given the cold calculation of their meeting. And if she was the mother of his child…Had he actually ever doubted it?
‘James.’
His secretary came back, wariness in his eyes and a hint of sullenness.
‘I want you to organise a coach to Campton and bring Mrs Weatherby, her son and brother back to Penleven.’
He could give them shelter for at least a while. He had had dealings with what it was like to be an outcast before, and if others thought that she was now easy game…
‘And, James…’
‘Yes, Your Grace?’
‘Make certain that you don’t take no for an answer.’
Caroline heaved the last of her few clothes into an old trunk and folded Alex’s blankets and bedding across the top. In their past sixteen months they had acquired ten times as much as they ever had before and she was at a loss as to what now to get rid of and what to take.
The toys and books others had gifted to Alexander were ones that he would grow to cherish and love and her new gardening tools could certainly be used in the next house. Her paints were also too valuable to just give away and she hoped that perhaps she could continue bringing in money with her portraits.
Wiping her hand across her brow, she tightened the mob cap around her head and bent to the task of sorting, smiling at Alexander next to her as he reached out for a doll Gwenneth had brought him only two weeks prior.
A soldier boy doll, his knitted jacket scarlet red. What had Thornton Lindsay worn, she wondered, as he had crossed Europe under orders from the King? She had heard stories of intelligence officers being summarily executed by the enemy when caught out of uniform and incognito. A dangerous life of extremes. He still wore secrecy and distance like a cloak and she found herself imagining how difficult it must be to just come back…and fit in.
Tosh’s shout had her standing and her eyes were caught by the sight of a coach rounding the corner and coming to rest outside their gate. A coach with an insignia.
Endure forte was written in gold and red across the helm of a knight in armour.
The Lindsay coat of arms! Her heart raced as fear, hope and dismay coursed through her, and Alex, reacting to her alarm, began to howl. She would not go out there! She would not meet the Duke of Penborne dressed like this, looking like this. Her hand snatched the cap from her head and she straightened her skirts, angry at herself for even thinking such considerations important, and watching as Tosh spoke with a small dark-haired servant who had alighted from the coach.
Perhaps Lindsay had not come at all. The windows were dressed in thick velour, sheltering prying eyes from any inside inhabitants, and she could detect no twitching of the curtains.
When Tosh turned to come inside she tried to read the expression on his face.
‘You have no idea what has just happened, Caro,’ he began even before he had crossed through the door’s lintel. ‘The Duke has invited us to stay at Penleven and his man said he would be in severe difficulty should he not be able to persuade us to accompany him back.’
‘I do not know…Is he there?’
‘Lindsay? No. I didn’t see him, at least.’ He stopped to peer out of the window and began to shake his head. ‘I doubt he would just hide inside, do you?’
‘Go out and see.’
Tosh’s answering frown was heavy. ‘We have little money, Caroline, a small baby and lots of luggage. Outside lies a means of transport, two men to help us lift our possessions and the chance to reach the south coast without parting with a penny.’
‘You’re saying you think we should accept the offer but get out before we reach his lands?’
He drew his hand through his hair and swore. ‘I no longer know what to think, Caro. At Exeter I tried to kill Lindsay for what he had done to you, but I can see in your eyes that things aren’t as simple as they would appear.’
‘He is Alexander’s father, Tosh.’
‘He is also the man who will never marry you, Caro.’
‘But if I just leave…without knowing…without trying…’
He began to laugh. ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways. “O my God I trust in thee; let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.” I looked up Malcolm’s quote and found it was from Psalms 24. Mine is Psalms 25. Perhaps there is a message in it. I, for one, think we should see just where this invitation takes us.’
He smiled as she reached out and took his hand. Penleven. She imagined the castle repelling a thousand years of enemies. Lord, once they were inside such a place they need never fear anyone again, save for the lord who owned it, walking his corridors in isolation and reclusion. Why would he want her there? Them there? A worm of promise turned and she quickly stamped it down—she could not afford the luxury of groundless hope around a man like Thornton Lindsay.
And survive.