The Husband List (17 page)

Caroline stood at attention in her Artemis costume, while Helen and Amelia waited in line as Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, and Demeter, Goddess of Harvest, respectively. And then there was Mama, who had a decidedly sharp edge this morning. She had not announced her costume, but Caroline felt that Bellona, Roman Goddess of War, would be a good fit. Though on second thought, Caroline did not want to see what sort of damage Mama could wreak with both a spear and a torch. Her weapon of choice at the moment was silence toward her eldest daughter, and Caroline was bearing up only tolerably well under that punishment.

“The vee at the bosom is not deep enough,” Mama said to the harried seamstress making adjustments to the white silk of Caroline’s dress. “Have I not told you that once already?”

Caroline drew in a calming breath. It was difficult to keep her tongue when it appeared that Mama was mistaking virgin huntress Artemis for a manhunter goddess, Tartemis. Caroline knew her comments would not be well received, so she gave Helen an imploring look.

Helen shook her head no.

Please,
Caroline mouthed.

“Mama,” Helen said with obvious hesitance.

“Lower!” Mama commanded the seamstress.

“Mama,” Helen repeated more firmly.

“Ah, yes! Perfect,” Mama said.

Except if Caroline looked down the costume’s décolletage, she could see all the way to the floor.

“Mama!” Helen cried.

Her mother finally looked her way. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, what, Helen?”

Caroline smiled her gratitude to her sister.

“Do you know how you speak of a young woman’s honor and how it must be protected, for it is a gift greater than gold?” Helen asked Mama.

“Yes,” their mother said as she walked a circle around Caroline, inspecting her much as Bremerton likely would.

“Well, Mama, I fear that dress exposes Caroline’s honor to danger and her bosom to one and all.”

Mrs. Longhorne, who was unrolling one of a dozen velvet jewelry pouches on the war table, nodded her head. “I must agree, Agnes.”

“After Caroline’s reckless disappearance last night, we must regain Bremerton’s attention and keep it,” Mama replied to her friend.

Caroline couldn’t stand silent another second. “And so you think to achieve that by having the top of my dress disappear?”

Mama wheeled on her. “If you are going to speak, make it a recitation of Bremerton’s living relatives.” She flicked her hand toward Caroline’s governess. “Peek!
Debrett’s
!”

Even Peek knew better than to argue. She pulled the red tome from the table and opened it to the Duke of Endsleigh’s listing.

Caroline was not in the mood to cite chapter and verse, so she returned to silence, even when Mrs. Longhorne came close enough to peer down her dress.

“Oh, dear. We do have an issue here,” Mama’s friend said.

Mama stopped closer to investigate the view.

“You may bring the vee up an inch,” she told the seamstress.

“Just an inch?” Mrs. Longhorne asked.

“She will be wearing a wide gold belt high on the waist,” Mama replied. “That will cinch in the fabric and take care of the rest of the problem.”

But it would also accentuate Caroline’s ample curves up top. Among her friends, she was the only one she knew who didn’t have need to add padding to her dresses in order to attain the current fashionable proportions. But without the proper restraint, she felt so … obvious. But that was Mama’s strategy.

“And not too much bulk, either,” Mama said. “Just one petticoat, I think.”

“You’re lucky!” Amelia exclaimed. Her wheat-embroidered Demeter costume was so petticoated up that she reminded Caroline of a hay pile.

Mama tapped her finger to her chin as she inspected Caroline’s throat. “We want to keep the eye following the line of the dress. Perhaps the Russian pearl choker she wore last night,” she said to Mrs. Longhorne, who had returned to the array of jewels.

Caroline’s palms grew damp. She’d realized Jack still had the pearls as soon as she’d gotten into the house last night. She planned to find him today and reclaim them.

“No. Never mind,” Mama said. “We can’t have Lord Bremerton seeing her in the same jewels twice.”

She turned away from Caroline, who surreptitiously wiped her palms on the dress, earning a gasp from the seamstress.

“She will wear the diamonds, I think,” Mama said from her new spot next to Mrs. Longhorne. “When you slip details about the ball to the
Times
and the
Mercury,
be sure to say that Caroline’s gems were once Marie Antoinette’s.”

“Were they?” Helen asked.

“No, but the newspapers won’t know the difference.”

“I’m glad they’re not. I would hate for my sister to be wearing the jewels of someone who was beheaded. It seems like a bad omen, and Lord Bremerton seems like a walking bad omen as it is,” Helen said.

“Don’t be silly,” Mama replied. “Lord Bremerton is a mannered, sophisticated gentleman.”

She returned to stand nearly toe-to-toe with Caroline. “Last night was also your last hurrah, Caroline. We will not pretend that it did not happen, and we will place you under guard, if need be, between now and when Lord Bremerton begins to negotiate with your father regarding a marriage.”

“Yes, Mama,” Caroline said. What she thought was another matter entirely.

Caroline’s mother waved Peek over. “You will accompany Caroline and the twins to Harriet Vandermeulen’s picnic at noon today. You will oversee her activities and report back to me on her behavior.”

“So I’m to be under guard already?” Caroline asked.

“Miss Peek is your governess.”

Caroline took up the best compromise position she could think of. “No other girl there will have her governess as a shadow. Bremerton is sure to notice, and you don’t want that.”

“A good point,” her mother conceded.

“Send Annie. Most of the girls will have their maids present.”

“Annie?” She gave Caroline’s maid a narrow-eyed look. “Absolutely not. Peek will go as your maid.”

It was difficult to decide who was more affronted by this decree, Peek or Annie.

“But ma’am,” Annie began, only to be cut off by Mama, who said, “Think carefully, young lady. Your next word could be your last as a Maxwell employee.”

Annie nodded before joining the furniture on the edges of the room, and Peek glowered in silence.

“There!” Caroline’s mother said in her first cheerful tones of the morning. “See how easily that was handled? Compromise is a fine thing.”

And when practiced by Mama, an entirely one-sided affair.

TWELVE

“Do you think Lord Bremerton is here?” Amelia asked her sisters as they followed a pathway marked by potted daisies around the side of Thelmsford, the Vandermeulens’ palatial cottage set on a rise overlooking Bailey’s Beach.

“Of course he is,” Helen said.

“He’s going to be everywhere I don’t want him to be,” Caroline added. She had already shed Peek, sending her off with the other lady’s maids inside the house. Bremerton wouldn’t be so easily lost.

Caroline adjusted her grip on the beribboned lavender parasol that matched her equally beribboned lavender dress. Though she was not much for fluff and lace, she had a soft spot for this particular dress. The narrow bands of white trim at the bottom of the skirt and the puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves felt quite stylish. She’d had Annie pin her hair more loosely atop her head in the style of a drawing by Charles Dana Gibson. Caroline had decided that these small pleasures would have to tide her over until she was free of the Englishman.

“I don’t know why the two of you think Lord Bremerton is so horrible,” Amelia said. “I think he’s quite romantic. It’s as though he carries the weight of a tragic past and will not speak because of it.”

“You’ve been reading too many Brontë novels,” Helen replied. “There’s nothing remotely tragic about him. He’s bored silly by us and thinks himself a thousand times better.”

“You have your opinion, and I have mine. But you’ll both see. He simply needs to recover from a broken heart.”

“Or the lack of one altogether,” Helen suggested.

Caroline smiled. That, at least, would explain why he was so cold to the touch.

They’d just rounded to the rear lawn, and Caroline was about to remind her sisters that the time had come to watch their words. Instead, all three pulled up and fell silent. Harriet Vandermeulen had put the sort of planning into this picnic that Caroline wouldn’t bother with for a wedding. Unless Jack was the groom, of course.

The Vandermeulens had borrowed a flock of sheep to lend a more rustic appearance to their perfectly groomed property. The poor, blank-eyed creatures were penned in an enclosure decorated with large white bows. Two sullen-looking teenaged boys tended them. Each was dressed in a romanticized version of a shepherd’s garb, complete with a matching bow at the neck.

All the female servants had been dressed in colorful gingham frocks, and the linen-covered tables were adorned with low arrangements of wildflowers. Just past the picnic area, a fiddler sat playing high on a haystack while two cows chewed contentedly on his perch.

Harriet approached. She glowed with happiness in her rosy pink dress and wide brimmed hat decorated with fat bunches of cherries.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to the girls. “It is a glorious day for a picnic, isn’t it?”

Caroline quickly scanned the dark-coated men at the gathering, mentally charting a course that would keep her far from Lord Bremerton. Instead, she came up minus a Bremerton and plus a Jack. He looked her way and smiled.

“Absolutely perfect,” she replied to Harriet.

Amelia and Helen went off to a group of their friends while Harriet led Caroline toward the cluster of guests that included Jack.

“It’s going very well between Jack and me,” Harriet said as they strolled.

“In what way?” Caroline asked.

“He’s very charming and attentive.”

“Jack is a nice man,” Caroline said, attempting to keep at least the appearance of neutrality regarding Harriet’s campaign.

“And my father has already talked to Jack’s father. Since Jack is here, I have to believe he’s agreeable to a marriage.”

“Interesting,” Caroline replied.

“And I have good news for you, as well,” Harriet said. “Lord Bremerton is here. Everyone is quite taken with him. I think you will be, too. He’s seeing the grounds with Alice Ames and should be back at any moment. I’ll introduce you right away.”

Caroline could work up no false enthusiasm. “There’s no rush. I met Lord Bremerton yesterday evening.”

Harriet’s perfectly shaped mouth turned downward. “Oh. I was hoping to be the one to make the introduction. It would be a wonderful story to tell our grandchildren someday. But at least I have seated him at our table so I can tell him all the wonderful things I know about you. And you can do the same for me with Jack.”

“Naturally,” Caroline said.

They had reached Jack. He stood in the middle of a cluster of girls with Caroline’s brother, Charles, and poor, graceless Gordy Bullard. Harriet cut her way through the throng with a charming yet relentless efficiency, telling the others that luncheon would soon be served and perhaps they’d like to find their tables.

Jack took a step toward Caroline and began to say hello. Harriet moved between them and edged close to Jack. Close enough that Caroline did not appreciate it.

“Jack, you will be sitting with me,” Harriet said. “Caroline will be joining us with Lord Bremerton, and the table will be rounded out by Caroline’s sister, Helen, and Alice Ames. Shall we?”

She tilted her head at an inquisitive angle, clearly waiting for Jack to act as her escort to the table. He held out his arm. Harriet latched on like a steel trap. Caroline followed behind and permitted herself one unladylike roll of her eyes. Jack chose that instant to look over his shoulder. He grinned and she smiled back.

The three of them hadn’t been seated long when Bremerton and Alice Ames returned, and Helen made her way over. Jack rose. Bremerton’s gaze flicked past him and Harriet, and settled on Caroline. Focus on the small pleasures, she reminded herself, preparing herself for his icy attitude.

But Bremerton beamed.

“Hello, again, Miss Maxwell,” he said in a voice that oozed warmth and admiration. “You look radiant today. A true American beauty.”

If Amelia’s theory had been correct, Bremerton had just set a new world’s record for recovery from a broken heart.

“Thank you,” Caroline said, surprised that words had managed to work their way past her disbelief.

Jack, who had greeted Helen and Alice, acknowledged Bremerton after they had each held a chair for the girls. “Lord Bremerton.”

“Mr. Culhane,” Bremerton said collegially. “Jack, is it?”

Jack looked exactly as suspicious as Caroline felt.

“Yes, it is,” he said as both Bremerton and he sat.

“I do recall those two names, though last night there seemed to be quite a few others packed between them,” Bremerton said. “You must have an interesting tale behind that.”

“Please share it, Jack. I feel so deprived, not having been there with you last night,” Harriet said, and then shot a very pointed look Caroline’s way.

Caroline understood the territorial statement. Jack was now the pinto hobbyhorse of their childhood, and Caroline was to keep her hands off. Jack gave Harriet a half smile, as though he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. He apparently hadn’t believed Caroline’s warning about the extent of Harriet’s ardor.

“My late mother fell ill before my birth and was told by her doctors that recovery, let alone more children, wasn’t likely,” he said. “She had wanted a large family, so I was given all the names.”

“That’s very touching, don’t you think, Lord Bremerton?” Harriet asked.

“Quite,” he replied. Anyone who had not encountered him last night would think he was sincere. But the hairs on Caroline’s arms still rose when he spoke, and she would put her faith in arm hair over the Englishman any day of the week.

Harriet forged on. “Do you want a large family, Jack?”