Educating Caroline (6 page)

“It was a woman,” Braden said, slowly, taking his seat again. He had risen as soon as he’d realized she was there, as a gentleman ought to do. Though he was not, if truth be told, completely convinced she was a lady. Oh, by birth, certainly. But not by nature. Which had been, at one time, part of her appeal: the daughter of a duke who was decidedly not above behaving quite indecorously . . . what more could a man hope for in a wife?

Quite a bit, Braden was discovering, if that wife chose to behave indecorously with more than just her husband.

Or husband-to-be, as in this case.

“I
am
jealous,” Jacquelyn said, her lower lip jutting out to form a fetching pout. “Who is she? Tell me, now. You know what a horrid possessive creature I am, Granville. And you’ve such a reputation. I know scads and scads of women have been in love with you. Just who have you gone and added to your stable now?”

Braden said nothing. He rarely needed to, when Jacquelyn was in the room. She did quite enough talking for the both of them.

“Let me see.” She tapped a finger to the side of her chin. “Who did I see you talking with last night? Well, Dame Ashforth, of course, but she’s much too old for you. I know she’s quite besotted with you, but hardly the type of woman a man would sit about, mooning over. So not Dame Ashforth. Who else was there? Oh, yes. The little Linford girl. But she’s much too plain for a man of your discriminating taste. Whoever could it be, Granville? I give up.”

“You give up too easily,” he said, easily. “But I shall tell you anyway. It was my mother.”

“Oh.” Jacquelyn made a moue of disappointment. “I’d never have guessed
that.
You never speak of her.”

“No,” Braden said. “I do not.” Not to her. Not now. Not ever. “So, my lady. Supposing you tell me what I could possibly have done to earn the honor of your presence so early in the day. I have it on rather good authority, having spent enough nights with you to know, that it is only the most vital of reasons that will compel you from your bed before noon.”

Jacquelyn smiled at him archly. “You think you know me so well then, Mr. Granville? It’s quite possible, you know, that I still have a few secrets.”

“Oh,” Braden said. “I know you do. And when I finally catch you out in them, my dear, I shall make my lawyer a prodigiously happy man.”

Jacquelyn’s smile faded. “W-what?” she stammered. Under her rouge—only the lightest powdering, all a lady of Jacquelyn’s position would allow herself—she went visibly pale.
“W-
whatever are you talking about, my pet?”

Braden, sorry he’d spoken so flippantly—and not at all sure what had prompted the outburst, save the prickle of irritation he’d felt at her catty reference to Lady Caroline Linford, a girl with whom he had only the most passing acquaintance, and in whom he certainly had not the slightest interest—and half fearful he’d tipped his hand, said quickly, “I do apologize, my lady.” The last thing he needed was for her to grow suspicious, and, in her suspicion, more careful in arranging her assignations with her lover. “I spoke in jest, but I realize now it was not, perhaps, in the best of taste. Now, to what do I owe the honor of this early morning visit?”

Jacquelyn continued to eye him uneasily, but his demeanor, which he kept purposefully bland, seemed to disarm her, and the color soon returned to her face. When she’d fully recovered, she cried, blithely, “Oh, Granville,
darling,
it’s the strangest thing, but Virginia Crowley’s come down with one of those troublesome spring colds, and she was supposed to have her appointment today with Mr. Worth. Well, you know I couldn’t get one, due to . . . well, that incident last time I saw Mr. Worth, concerning Father’s credit. But suddenly Virginia said I might have hers, and you know, Braden, I do so want to look like the sort of wife an important man like yourself deserves, but my trousseau, such as it is, is hardly fit for a knacker’s wife, let alone the wife of someone like—”

Braden reached into his waistcoat pocket. “How much do you need?”

“Oh.” Jacquelyn looked joyous, then immediately became thoughtful. “Well, I need just about everything, hats, capes, gloves, shoes, stockings, not to mention underthings. . . . I suppose this much will do.” She held the index finger and thumb of her right hand about half an inch apart.

Braden handed her a pile of bills of approximately the thickness she’d indicated. “Give my regards to Mr. Worth.” Better this now, he thought, than thousands more later in court fees.

“Oh,
thank you,
darling.” Jacquelyn leaned across the desk, her lips puckered to accept a kiss from him, the money having been tucked quickly into her reticule. Braden raised his face, intending to pass his mouth lightly across hers, a quick, good-bye kiss. But Jacquelyn evidently had other ideas. She reached out, seized hold of his lapels, and pulled him toward her, thrusting her tongue between his lips and pressing her not inconsiderable bosom boldly against him.

Braden, who’d quite thoroughly enjoyed the Lady Jacquelyn’s forward ways in the past, did not appreciate them nearly so much now. For one thing, the marabou was a bit problematic, flying about as it was, and tickling his nostrils. For another, he knew quite well that he was not the only man upon whom she practiced them.

Which was why it was so vitally important that he discover some proof of her perfidy, and get it to Mr. Lightwood—who’d handle the breach of promise suit she’d undoubtedly bring about as soon as he ended the engagement—posthaste.

“Well,” he said, after Jacquelyn had finally leaned back again, breaking the kiss. “That was . . . nice.”

“Nice?”
Jacquelyn hopped off his desk, looking annoyed. “There wasn’t anything
nice
intended. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Really, Braden, but I think you’ve changed.”

“Changed?” Braden couldn’t help grinning at that.
“I’ve
changed?”

“Yes, you have. Do you know it’s been a month— well, very nearly—since we last . . . well, spent the night with one another?”

He said, easily, “Ah, but Jacquelyn, you know things are different now that we’re engaged. We can’t be as wild as we once were. People will talk.”

“You didn’t used to care what people thought.” Jacquelyn spoke with some bitterness. “In fact, if I recall correctly, your motto used to be ‘Bugger what people think.’”

“Yes,” Braden said, carefully. “But that was when I had only my own reputation to think of, not that of my future bride.”

She sighed, and looked heavenward. “Well, if you should happen to change your mind,” she said, as she sailed toward the door, “you know where to find me.”

And then she was gone. But she’d left behind ample evidence of her presence, in the form of a cloud of rosescented perfume, and a few stray marabou feathers, which settled, like fallen autumn leaves, upon his desk.

It seemed as if no sooner had Braden Granville’s fiancée left the room, however, than his father barreled into it, a very irritated Weasel Ambrose on his heels.

“Braden, my boy,” Sylvester Granville cried, one arm spread wide in greeting, the other clutching a familiar leather-bound book. “Congratulations!”

“Congratulations?” Braden glanced at Weasel, who could only shake his head. Standing orders were that the senior Granville was to be admitted to his son’s office whenever he wished . . . though generally some attempt was made to announce him beforehand.

Today, however, Sylvester Granville was clearly too excited to wait for such formalities.

“You can’t mean you haven’t heard?” Sylvester lowered himself into one of the leather seats before his son’s desk. “I saw the Lady Jacquelyn leaving just now. I hope you don’t mind that I shared the happy news with her.”

Braden sank back into his chair, from which he’d risen politely while bidding adieu to his bride. He was tired, and his head still ached. He wondered what had happened to the coffee Weasel had promised him.

“What news?” he asked, without much interest.

“Why, the news I heard this morning. It’s all over town. On account of the newspaper story, about that new gun of yours.”

“What about it?” Braden asked.

“Oh.” As his son’s bank account had grown, so had Sylvester Granville’s waistline, and now he wriggled a bit in his chair. He was by no means obese. Still, he was a man who’d spent most of his life going to bed at least a little bit hungry, and the weight he’d put on in the past few years seemed occasionally to take even him by surprise.

“Don’t you know, then? Well, they say it’s a sure thing you’ll be offered a letter of patent by the end of the year. A baronetcy, most likely.” Sylvester shook his head dreamily. “Imagine. My son, a baronet. And married to the daughter of a duke! My grandchildren will have blue blood in their veins, as well as titles before their names. A man couldn’t ask more for his only progeny.”

Braden stared at his father. The old man had, of course, become a bit unhinged after the death of Braden’s mother, but his madness had always been more whimsical than anything else, with him fancying, for instance, that he’d invented a contraption in which a man might fly, or a potion that might make him invisible. Sylvester Granville’s recent fixation with the nobility—as illustrated by the book of peerage he clutched in his hands— had seemed harmless in comparison. Now Braden wondered if he ought to have been more worried.

“A baronetcy?” Braden echoed. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed,” his father assured him. “ Apparently, it was the Prince of Wales’s suggestion. Well, the whole breech-loading business, that was what started it, I understand. And now this new gun—the Granville— well, everyone is talking about it. Why, I heard the young Duke of Rawlings shot a fellow at Oxford with one, just last week. Now, let me see.” He opened the leather-bound book in his lap, and turned to his favorite page, the one which listed the births and deaths of the Seldons, Lady Jacquelyn’s family, the one upon which, in a future printing, his son’s name would appear—if Braden ended up going through with the thing, that is. “I do hope you manage to receive the title before the wedding. Then the wording will be Jacquelyn, only daughter of the fourteenth Duke of Childes, married to Braden Granville, baronet, June Twenty-ninth, Eighteen Hundred and Seventy. . . .”

Braden realized, with something akin to horror, that there was no madness to this. None at all. His father was speaking the God’s honest truth.

Weasel, still standing in the doorway, asked with extreme politeness, “You still want me to bring you that coffee, my lord?”

“Yes,” Braden said, in a strangled voice. “And add a bit of whiskey to it, will you, Badge?”

4

T
he Dowager Lady Bartlett looked up from her breakfast tray and asked, “Why is it that there isn’t a servant in our household who can follow a simple instruction? I asked for a three-minute egg, and what do they bring me?” She lifted the brown egg from its silver cup and tapped it illustratively against the tray resting over her lap. “Listen to that,” she said. “Completely hard-boiled. Don’t you think if I’d wanted a hard-boiled egg, I’d have asked for one?”

Caroline hesitated. Conscious that her mother had not felt well the night before, Caroline had waited until morning to break her unhappy news. But it appeared clear that now was not a particularly good time, either. Was there ever a good time to break the news to one’s mother that five hundred wedding invitations had to be rescinded? Probably not. Accordingly, Caroline took a deep breath and said, “Mother, something horrible has happened.”

“More horrible,” Lady Bartlett said, “than my ruined breakfast? That I cannot imagine.”

Although she was propped up in the massive bed she’d shared with her husband up until an apoplexy had felled him, Lady Bartlett looked no less formidable than usual. She had always been a beautiful woman, and even now, in her forties, was still enormously sought after, and not necessarily for purely pecuniary reasons. The fortune her beloved husband had left her and their children was considerable, but there were many gentlemen to whom the Dowager Lady Bartlett’s translucent white skin and piercing blue eyes—which, though they might now sport tiny creases at the corners, were still opined by many to be the finest eyes in England—were even more appealing than her inheritance.

Lady Bartlett, however, would have nothing to do with these gentlemen. She claimed it was because she had not yet gotten over the death of the earl, only two years gone, but Caroline suspected that her mother rather enjoyed playing the role of the rich widow.

“Well,” Lady Bartlett said, narrowing those fine eyes now at her daughter, who unfortunately had inherited neither her mother’s white skin—Caroline’s had an unfortunate tendency to tan—nor her fine eyes, Caroline’s being the dullest shade of brown, without even any interesting mahogany or russet bits. “What is it?”

Caroline stood twisting the ring on her left middle finger. It was the ring Hurst had given her, his grandmother’s ring. It was beautiful, all heavy gold with a large blue sapphire in the middle, a sapphire that was every bit as blue as Hurst’s eyes. Caroline knew she would have to give it back to him now, and was not as saddened by the prospect as she suspected she ought to have been. The ring was very old and valuable, and she’d been frightened she might lose it, as she had a tendency to do with her own belongings.

“It’s Lord Winchilsea,” Caroline said, unable to meet the penetrating directness of Lady Bartlett’s famous gaze. “I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid he has not been faithful to me, Mother.”

Caroline’s gaze went to the vial of smelling salts at her mother’s bedside. She was fully prepared to leap forward and unstop the cork the moment her mother fell into a swoon. But Lady Bartlett did not faint. Instead, she buttered a slice of toast, quite calmly, Caroline thought, under the circumstances.

“Oh, dear,” Lady Bartlett said, after she’d taken a large bite. “Well, that is unfortunate. However did you find out?”

Caroline was not quite sure she’d heard her mother aright. “Unfortunate?” she repeated, her voice rising a little.
“Unfortunate,
did you say, Ma?”

“You needn’t shout, Caroline. And I’ve asked you and your brother not to call me Ma. You know how vulgar it sounds. It was all right when we were living in Cheapside, but now. . . .” She shuddered delicately. “And yes, I do think it’s unfortunate. I would have thought the marquis had more sense than to throw it up in your face.” She added a dollop of jam to her toast. “But then, I’d also thought you’d have more sense, Caroline, than to upset yourself over something so trivial.”

“Trivial?” Caroline burst out. “Trivial? Mother, I
walked in
on him! I
walked in
on my fiancé with—with this other woman! And not to be indelicate, but they were . . . well, sharing a moment.” Caroline’s mother was a scrupulously tidy woman who did not like mess, and tended to consider the human body one of the messiest things of all. For that reason, she chose to discuss its various functions as little as possible, and most especially avoided all references to functions performed in the boudoir. Caroline, respecting this, did not elaborate regarding just what, exactly, she’d seen her fiancé doing. It was enough for her to reiterate, significantly, “A
moment,
Mother.”

“Oh, dear.” Lady Bartlett sank back against her pillows. “My poor Caroline. My poor dear Caroline.” Then, as if rallying herself, she said, “Caroline, darling. I know you must be very hurt. But you’re really taking it much too hard. You can’t have thought a man like the marquis wouldn’t have a mistress.”

“A mistress?” Caroline repeated. Tears, which had evaded her for so long, seemed to surface all at once, and in such copious amounts that it was almost as if they were making up for lost time, flooding her vision, and making her feel as if she were melting, a singularly unpleasant sensation. “A mistress? No, I never thought Hurst had a mistress. Why should I? And why should
he?
What does he need a mistress for, when he has
me?”

On the word
me,
Caroline broke down completely, and threw herself upon her mother’s bed, causing the coffee on Lady Bartlett’s breakfast tray to slosh dangerously. Lady Bartlett lifted the cup to keep it from spilling further as her daughter’s sobs wracked the bed.

“Now, dear,” Lady Bartlett said. She reached out with her free hand and patted Caroline’s tumbled hair fondly. “Don’t take on so. I know it must be a shock to you, and for that I blame myself. I just assumed you knew. I had no idea you were such a little innocent, Caroline. But you see, darling, that’s how men like the marquis
do
things. That’s what all these titled fellows do, you know. Keep mistresses on the side.”

“Papa didn’t,” Caroline said fiercely, into the comforter.

“Well, of course your father didn’t, Caroline. He
loved
me.”

Lady Bartlett uttered this last as if Caroline was dense not to have realized it already. But of course she’d known it perfectly well. Caroline’s father had quite doted on his little family, but especially upon his wife, whom he’d al ways said had had her pick of suitors. Why she’d chosen him, Lord Bartlett had often mused, he couldn’t guess, though Caroline was fairly certain that her mother’s eyes were not only very fine, but very farsighted, as well. She had known perfectly well that young Hiram Linford was destined for greatness. And he had not disappointed her, except perhaps by not living long enough to see his grandchildren . . . if either she or Tommy ever produced any, which at this point, Caroline was rather beginning to doubt.

“Mistresses weren’t the thing at all in Cheapside,” Lady Bartlett said. “Your father was different, Caroline. He came into his title late in life. He wasn’t
born
into nobility, like your marquis. And that’s quite a different kettle of fish, being
born
into it, you know.”

“He isn’t
my
marquis,” Caroline said, even more fiercely, though she still didn’t lift her head from the bed. “Not anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lady Bartlett said. “Lord Winchilsea is still yours, Caroline.”

“He isn’t,” Caroline said.
“I don’t want him.
And you know he only wants me for my money, Mother.”

“Caroline, how can you say such a thing? After what he did for your brother—”

Caroline raised her tearstained face from the bed. “I
know
what he did for Tommy, Mother. How could I forget? I’m reminded of it every time Tommy walks into the room. If it weren’t for Hurst—if it weren’t for Hurst—”

“Your brother would be dead,” Lady Bartlett finished for her daughter. “And now you’re ungrateful enough to say you won’t marry him, just because he made one little mistake—”

“Not ungrateful,” Caroline declared, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve. “I’m
very
grateful for what he did for us, Mother. Only I don’t see—I just don’t see why—”

“Besides,” Lady Bartlett said, as if Caroline hadn’t been speaking, “Even if we didn’t owe him Tommy’s life, it’s much too late to drop him now. The invitations have already gone out.”

Caroline sniffled. “I thought—I thought we might put an announcement in the paper, calling the wedding off.”

Lady Bartlett set her coffee cup down again, not very carefully, and some more of it sloshed over the side, onto her breakfast tray.
“Take out an announcement in the paper?”
she echoed. “Have you lost your mind, Caroline? Hasn’t it occurred to you that if we did any such thing, the marquis would be perfectly within his rights to take legal action against us? And do you have the slightest idea the kind of talk it would generate? My God, people would think us the most ungrateful creatures in the world—”

“Legal action?” Caroline shook her head. “But what for?
He
was the one who had his tongue in someone else’s mouth, not
me.”

Lady Bartlett, hearing this, heaved a shudder of distaste, but went resolutely on, like a soldier picking his way across a battlefield littered with his fallen comrades. “And are you prepared to mention that in a civil court, young lady? Are you prepared to humiliate yourself by publicly admitting such a thing? Do you imagine, my dear, that any girl who did have the ill judgment to admit such a thing would ever have another marriage proposal from anyone respectable
ever again?”

Caroline felt a fresh wave of tears sting her eyes. “B-but . . .”

“Certainly not. Besides thinking you the most ungrateful, hardened girl who ever walked—abandoning at the altar the man who saved your brother’s life—you would be the laughingstock of London. We would never find anyone remotely suitable for you. You’d die an old maid.”

This did not sound to Caroline like such a terrible fate, considering that the alternative was marrying a man who it turned out was not the least bit in love with her.

“I shouldn’t mind that,” she said. “I know quite a few old—well, spinsters. And many of them seem to lead fulfilling lives, performing good works for the poor, and striving to put an end to workhouses, and—”

Lady Bartlett looked appalled. “What, in heaven’s name,” she demanded, “have you been doing, mingling with women like
that?
Lord, this is Emmy’s doing, isn’t it?”

Caroline stuck out her chin. “It hasn’t anything to do with Emmy. You know perfectly well that some mornings I attend lectures at the—”

“No daughter of mine,” Lady Bartlett said, fixing Caroline with a very stern gaze, “is going to end up a spinster. Good Lord! Your father would spin in his grave at the very thought. How we scrimped and saved for you to go to that ladies’ seminary, before he made his fortune! Why, those dancing slippers of yours alone cost a small ransom. If you think I intend to let all that go to waste. . . .” Lady Bartlett’s voice trailed off threateningly.

Caroline could not help scowling. She had certainly never asked to be sent to the expensive and exclusive school her parents had insisted upon her attending, nor had she enjoyed her time there. The other girls— including none other than Lady Jacquelyn Seldon, who’d been a few years ahead of Caroline—had not been very welcoming of the “upstart from Cheapside,” as they’d called her . . . all except Emmy, of course, in whom Caroline had found a sympathetic comrade.

Still, she had to admit her schooling had been occasionally useful. She now knew how to say, “Please stop beating your horse,” in five languages.

“The fact is, Caroline,” Lady Bartlett went on, not noticingher daughter’s scowl, “that as usual you are troubling yourself over nothing. What you ought to be is grateful.”

Caroline choked.
“Grateful?”

“Certainly. The fact that Lord Winchilsea has a mistress means he won’t be asking you to do anything . . . well, unpleasant.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes, wondering what her mother meant, and knowing it was useless to ask. Lady Bartlett would only sputter and turn red, as she always did when Caroline questioned her about the sexual act. Was having a man shove his tongue into one’s mouth
unpleasant?
Lady Jacquelyn certainly hadn’t looked as if she’d thought so. Was straddling a man, and riding him as if he were a pony
unpleasant?
Lady Jacquelyn had looked as if she’d been enjoying it immensely.

Were these the sort of things Caroline ought to be grateful Lord Winchilsea wouldn’t be doing to her?

“Now,” her mother said briskly. “Pull yourself together, Caroline. I’ve had a letter of regret from the Mc-Martins, which means we can pull someone up from the B list. Who do you want more, the Allingtons, or the Sneads? The Allingtons ought to give you a nicer gift, but the Sneads do own a country place where the Prince of Wales frequently stays—”

Not believing what she was hearing, Caroline stared at her mother in horror. “Ma,” she said, “I can’t marry a man who is only marrying me for my money. You know I can’t.”

Lady Bartlett blinked her fine eyes. “Caroline Victoria Linford,” she said, not without some indignation. “What on earth makes you think the marquis is only marrying you for your money?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Caroline said, fiercely. “Perhaps it’s because I saw him last night
with another woman’s legs wrapped around his waist.”

Lady Bartlett blanched, and Caroline knew at once that she had gone too far. “Caroline Linford!” her mother cried.