The following morning, Michael was again nowhere to be found. A quiet regiment of servants directed the ladies to appropriate indoor pursuits—reading, writing letters, plunking on decrepit musical instruments—while the male guests ventured out into the bracing wind in search of horses to ride or animals to shoot.
In the drawing room that had witnessed last night’s phantasmagoria, Miss Cartwright tinkered with the magic lantern and examined Michael’s collection of glass slides. Caroline tried to regard this as a marker of her own impeccable judgment, that Miss Cartwright was so drawn to an activity that pleased Michael.
Caroline sat a few feet away in a cane-backed fauteuil of rosewood; next to her, Emily, Lady Tallant, stretched out on a claw-footed chaise longue. Its striped silk upholstery looked dim and worn next to the vibrant yellow of Emily’s gown, the startling jet of its trim.
“You look lovely this morning, Emily.”
Emily shot her the kind of wry look that could only be mastered by the oldest and truest of friends. With one single lift of an eyebrow, Emily communicated I acknowledge the compliment, but I know there’s something else on your mind that’s completely unrelated to what you just said.
All she said aloud was, “Thank you, Caro. You do too.”
Caroline shook her head, smiling. You’re right, but I can’t tell you anything in front of Miss Cartwright.
She knew she was not looking her best. Her maid, Millie, had arranged Caroline’s hair with unusual care, but there was no help for skin sallow from poor sleep and the jarring of a long carriage ride over a poor road. Given another day, though, she would shake it off. Surely.
Emily pushed herself up to a seated position. “Well, I’ve lazed about long enough. Shall we go poking around the rest of the house, Caro?”
“Certainly,” Caroline agreed. “Miss Cartwright, would you care to join us?” As she’d expected, that young lady declined in favor of further examination of the optical toy.
Caroline and Emily ventured into the corridor and looked up and down its length. It was paneled in dark reeded oak, carpeted in a worn buff-and-green knotted rug that must have once been thick and costly as an ermine pelt. To Caroline, it looked warm and timeless, magnificent and neglected.
She had not been in a stately country house such as this since the death of her husband, the Earl of Stratton, who had whiled away his twilight years at his ancestral home in Somersetshire. Faillard Crest was a smaller, newer home than Callows, and far more fashionable; Caroline had seen to that. But Callows had a grandeur that the Crest had lacked: it was steeped in history, built for the ages. Like Michael himself, it was heedless of expectations. It simply carried on as it wished, as it always had.
“Let’s try this door.” Caroline opened one at random. She found herself in a small, bright chamber wallpapered in a dizzying red-grounded Chinese print. Needlework furniture covers in the style of a few decades past proclaimed this a sitting room probably favored by the late duchess, Michael’s mother.
Gingerly, Caroline lowered herself onto a spindly chair of worn gilt wood. Its embroidered squab cushion sighed a frail protest, then pressed as flat beneath her as though she outweighed an elephant.
“Well, that’s lovely,” she muttered, hopping to her feet again.
Emily laughed and found a chaise to stretch out on, its cover all swirling dark embroidery and fragile old lace. “Lovely’s not the word I had in mind for this room, Caro.”
“It has potential.”
“In the right hands, yes.” Emily raised one of her annoyingly mobile dark brows. “Whose hands do you think those will be?”
“They’ll never be any hands but those of a maid caretaking a museum if Wyverne doesn’t deign to show himself at his own house party,” Caroline said with asperity. “After all I’ve done to help him, the man can’t even be found.”
“Need he be available at every moment?”
“Not all, but at some moments.” Caroline waved an impatient hand. “I could slap him for his carelessness of manners, except that such an ill-bred gesture would undermine my point.”
“His not making an appearance this morning, you mean?” At Caroline’s nod, Emily shrugged. “I don’t mind, and I doubt anyone else does, either. After all, it’s a novelty to be hosted by Mad Michael, and we hardly expected cucumber sandwiches and lawn tennis. I thought the phantasmagoria was rather brilliant.”
Caroline’s chest hitched, and she began to pace around the room, fingers dancing over the backs of Norman-style chairs that looked old enough to have been carved by William the Conqueror himself. “Yes, it was an excellent evening’s entertainment. But what has he done today? I can only presume he means to carry on as usual, even though he has a houseful of guests. He’ll tramp about his lands and pore through account books with his steward.”
Emily tapped her chin with a graceful forefinger. “Do you know, Caro, I think you sound a bit petulant.”
“I do not.” Caroline sank again into the chair that had protested her weight. She passed a hand over her face. “Oh, damnation, Emily. I do, don’t I?”
“It’s quite all right with me, though if you complain to His Grace, he’ll have no idea what you’re protesting.”
“It’s very clear what I’m protesting. I’m protesting his negligence of his guests.”
“Guests that you invited, Caro. This house party was your doing.”
Caroline was beginning to wonder why she had wanted to talk to Emily this morning. Her friend was completely lacking in the righteous indignation she ought to feel on Caroline’s behalf. “It wasn’t precisely my doing. That is, I arranged it, but it’s to benefit him. To find him a wife.”
“Miss Cartwright.”
“That’s who I intend for him, yes.”
Emily blinked at Caroline. “And whom does he intend for himself?”
A pulse of futile, longing heat trembled up and down her body. “He’ll follow my guidance. He’s never thought about what he wants, Emily. He just bumbles around in a fog of responsibility, only coming up to grasp for money.”
“Bumbling around in a fog? You make him sound as doddering as Lord Kettleburn. Why on earth should Miss Cartwright want such a man?”
Caroline’s throat wanted to close, but she forced out the words. “Miss Cartwright is, I believe, much the same way. Perhaps not in the utter lack of introspection”—she pulled a deep breath in through her nose, willing herself calm—“but certainly in the logic and responsibility. I think she will be satisfied to exchange her money for his title.”
“There is to be nothing more to their marriage, then?”
“Probably not,” Caroline replied, her voice growing faint.
Emily picked at an ancient lace doily on the arm of her chaise. “If his marriage is to be nothing but a transaction, what need has he of your help? He could better make use of a solicitor than a matchmaker, it seems.”
“I was more than a matchmaker,” Caroline murmured.
Emily looked up sharply for an instant, then dropped her gaze back to the doily and studied it with feigned interest. “I see.”
“I doubt it.” Caroline sighed. “Emily, you remember what happened eleven years ago, and what a fool I made of myself over him. I fear I’m doing the same again.”
“You were young, and he was handsome. There was nothing so foolish about desiring him. Or do you mean you’ve fallen in lo—”
“No. I couldn’t allow it.” Too fast she had blurted the words, and they sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. “Yet I meant well when I thought up this plan. This house party. I wanted to help him. And for myself—I wanted to be needed, even if for nothing but finding him a wife.”
The countess teased free a strand of lace and met Caroline’s eyes with the look only the truest of friends could master: sympathy without the slightest shred of pity. “That’s cold comfort, to be wanted for the sake of another woman.”
“Even cold comfort is better than no comfort at all.”
Which was what she had now. Only a moment of lust had drawn him to her body, but now it had passed. Even if Caroline succeeded in matchmaking for Michael, she would end up alone.
This did not bear thinking of. She tried to lighten the conversation. “I can’t complain that he’s ever offered me a falsehood, nor expected them from me. He’s always been quite plain about needing to marry for money.”
“I must be overtired,” Emily said, “because I’m not understanding why you don’t simply marry him yourself. He’s asked, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. He even deigned to tell me that I suited his requirements perfectly.”
“Which were?”
“Being female. Having money. That’s it, really. He did admit he liked me too, but that was an afterthought.”
“What’s wrong with that? An unencumbered fortune is hardly a detriment to your marriageability. He can’t be expected to ignore it.”
“But couldn’t he pretend to be infatuated with me anyway?” Caroline knew she was sounding petulant again. She felt helpless, as if straining for a treasure held out of reach.
“No, I don’t think he can pretend. Your puppy suitors are better fitted for that—though I am sure it is not all pretense, because you’re quite ravishing, Caro.”
“Oh, quite.” Caroline folded her arms behind her head like a slumberous Venus, feeling neither ravishable nor ravishing this morning.
“Well, you are. Any man with eyes in his head would be drawn to your appearance, and his interest is sure to be kept there by your money. There’s nothing wrong with that. Wyverne’s simply the only one who went about it the other way around—sniffing from your inheritance to your… ah, other appealing qualities.”
Caroline’s arms dropped into her lap.
“Besides,” Emily said, studying the worn lace beneath her fingertips with elaborate attention, “I don’t for a moment think that all he wants from you is your money. And if you do think so, then there’s not as much sense in your lovely head as I’ve credited you with.”
Caroline stared. Could it be that simple? Her face and fortune were apparent to the world. But Michael did say he liked her. Her.
No, it all came back to money. Long ago, she hadn’t had any, and now she did. Long ago, Michael had left her without a word; now he had proposed.
She had sold herself in marriage once. She would not do it again. She would never remarry without having all of her husband and giving all of herself—and she would not do the latter without the former.
“For heaven’s sake, give me that doily.” She snagged the tattered lace from her friend and began picking at it furiously. “Em, you can’t persuade me he’s looking for anything except a lifelong investor.”
“Hmmm.”
Caroline looked up, narrowing her eyes at her friend. The dark-patterned chaise framed a face of complete unconcern, as Emily studied the fit of her modish long sleeves.
“Hmmm is not an answer,” Caroline said. “It is an exhalation. Even horses are capable of saying hmmm.”
“A horse isn’t capable of disagreeing with you, either. Since it seems an echo is all you want from this conversation, perhaps you ought to traipse out to the stables in search of a more sympathetic listener.”
“I might if you don’t cease your irritating observations. I’ve spent more time with Michael than you have, you know. Surely I can tell what he wants better than you can.”
Emily reached for an embroidered cushion and stuffed it behind her shoulders, then settled back onto the chaise longue again, her glossy auburn hair a halo around a face of false innocence.
“What? Nothing to say?” Caroline’s eyebrow shot up. Emily wasn’t the only one who could speak a second language with her facial features.
“I’m not allowed to say hmmm, and I believe that’s all I have to contribute at this point. You’ve decided he’s mad, and that all he wants is your money, and so you aim to match him with someone who will be content to exchange a title for a fortune and who won’t at all care how he behaves. Yes?”
“No.”
Emily’s expression shifted from wry to puzzled. “No?”
“I don’t think he’s mad. I’ve never thought that.”
Emily sat up straight. “Hmmm. I mean—ah, yes, I see.”
“Do you? How bright you are. We needn’t continue picking me apart, then.”
“Of course we need continue. So you don’t think he’s mad. Instead, you… oh, I can’t recall what I said next. Was it the money? You do think he wants to marry only for money, and you think Miss Cartwright won’t mind that.”
“I suppose.” She minded more than she should that Miss Cartwright could slot into Michael’s life easily as a slide into a magic lantern. “If he were mad, it would have made my own humiliation so much less when I was a hopeful debutante and he left me alone at the center of gossip.”
“Are you so sure he’s not mad, then?”
“Yes.” That answer, at least, came easily. “He doesn’t care about the things other men care about, but that doesn’t make him mad. He still perceives reality in an accurate way, as far as I can tell—if that is how one defines madness.”
“I would define a madman as one who didn’t tumble at your feet,” Emily said loyally.
“He’s done that, well enough.” Annoyingly, her cheeks grew pink.
A grin spread across Emily’s face. “Ah. So there was a tumble. I do wonder why you both persist in this cool distance of finances and contracts when it’s perfectly apparent that you long to become entangled in a very different type of affair. Did you tumble for him as well as he did for you?”
“As well as he deserved,” Caroline said crisply. She teased out a final knot of lace, then tossed the bedraggled doily to the floor. “Oh, Em. I don’t know what he deserves, nor I.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re all together in this lovely home so you can find out,” Emily said. “You’ve given yourself the task of finding him a wife, and I believe you shall. I’ve never known you to fail when determined. Not since…”
“Not since I went chasing after Michael the first time,” Caroline finished. “I know, I know. Well, Miss Cartwright may do the trick. If all he wants is a ledger with a pretty face, she’ll happily serve.”
“If that’s all he wants, he’s a fool,” said Emily in the same tone of certainty that she might use to pronounce a ribbon attractive or a joint of mutton undercooked.
“He’s not the only one,” Caroline said. “If he wants too little, I want too much.” She tried to smile. “You’d think that would make us the perfect pair, wouldn’t you?”
“My dear Caro,” said Emily, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Nor I,” murmured Caroline. No, not even about herself.