The Husband List (22 page)

“I was just gathering my thoughts,” Caroline said to her maid. “Where’s my mother?”

“She and your father are in your sitting room.”

The last time both of her parents had ventured into her quarters had been after the London six-shooter demonstration. It had not been a happy conversation. Caroline quickly made her way up the rosewood staircase, with its new scarlet-colored carpet, past a one-armed Grecian warrior, and to her sitting room.

Mama and Papa stood in the middle of the room on the worn floral needlepoint rug Caroline had loved since childhood. Judging by Mama’s rather Byzantine golden headdress and Papa’s jeweled crown and charcoal-colored silk ceremonial robe clasped at the shoulder of his evening coat, Caroline hazarded a guess that they were Empress Theodora and Emperor Justinian of the Roman Empire. She knew for certain that her mother had chosen the costumes to best display her jewel collection. Mama was practically her own light source.

“Your gown! You have altered it!” Mama cried as Caroline came closer.

Caroline loved her slender gold diadem and gilded bow and quiver of arrows. She had accepted the thin petticoat and had even come to enjoy the Empire style waist and minimal corset that were part of being Artemis. But when Annie’s eyes had gone wide as Caroline had donned her costume this evening, she’d known she still had too much skin exposed up top.

“I want to survive the evening with some measure of dignity intact,” she said to her mother. “The ecru lace Annie pieced in is hardly noticeable.”

Mama sighed. “I suppose it’s fine, particularly because there’s no time to remove it. Guests will begin arriving at any moment.”

Caroline’s father looked relieved at Mama’s capitulation.

“I’ve brought you something, Pumpkin.” He reached beneath the opening to his long robe and into the coat pocket below. Out came a blue velvet box. “Your mother told me you would be dressing as Artemis, so I had our jeweler design a piece especially for tonight.”

He handed her the box.

“That was so thoughtful of you,” Caroline said, feeling both touched and regretful. If this was the night she had to say yes to Bremerton, she wanted nothing to remind her of it.

“A woman should have her jewels,” Papa said. “They are insurance against a great many things in life.”

Caroline opened the box. Inside sat an intricate necklace. Three narrow chains paved with diamonds met to hold a cameo of Artemis as the huntress, bow and arrow raised, set in gold with yet more diamonds surrounding it.

“The jeweler told me that diamonds symbolize Artemis,” Papa said. “I’ve got no idea if that’s true, but it was a profitable statement for him to make.”

“It’s beautiful, Papa. Thank you,” she said and went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“It is quite tasteful,” Mama said. She frowned at the piece. “And I suppose it looks as though it could have belonged to Marie Antoinette.”

“What does a dead French queen have to do with this?” Papa asked.

“I’m just making sure Caroline matches the details already given to the newspapers,” Mama replied.

“You gave details regarding our own daughter?”

“Of course I did,” Mama said cheerily.

Papa sighed. “Sometimes you worry me, Agnes.”

“Annie, please help me with the necklace,” Caroline asked her maid.

Once it was in place, Mama nodded her approval. “That will do quite well.” She squared her shoulders. “Are we all ready for the most momentous night of Caroline’s life?”

If it was up for a vote, Caroline was not in favor.

*   *   *

THE ONLY thing Jack hated more than costume balls was a bad batch of beer. Tonight, though, he’d almost take the bad beer. He adjusted the mask to his makeshift costume and then stepped out of his carriage. Rosemeade was lit up and festooned past the point of excess. But Jack knew that had been Agnes Maxwell’s goal. Outdoing the neighbors in Newport was no easy job.

As he approached the house, he nodded greetings to those who looked remotely familiar, as well as to his fellow highwaymen. There was no better costume for a costume hater, and plenty of men matched that description.

O’Brien stood at Rosemeade’s door, flanked by a squad of tall footmen in powdered wigs. Only those invited would be getting inside. The rest would be sent to the property gate to join the gawkers and reporters.

“Mr. Jack Culhane,” Jack said.

O’Brien checked his list and nodded imperially. “Welcome, Mr. Culhane.”

Jack nearly stopped dead when he made the entry hall.

“Unbelievable,” he said to himself. The place looked like Agnes had lifted the Elgin marbles from the British Museum and had them shipped in. Knowing her level of determination, it was possible. He followed the flow of the crowd toward the ballroom, which he could have found by scent alone. Thousands of white roses and hundreds of people were squeezed into the space. He took a glass of champagne from a round table packed with them and began to hunt for Eddie, who was somewhere out there in the legion of highwaymen. Jack could eliminate a number of them by build, and more by voice. But then he saw Eddie.

“What the hell happened to you?” Jack asked his friend.

“This,” Eddie said, gesturing at his white pantaloons and bright blue velvet jacket and cape embroidered with
fleurs de lis,
“is what happens when I am stuck under my mother’s roof. No black mask and cape for me. I have to be Louis-stinking-XIV, the Sun King.”

Jack grinned. Eddie’s hair rose several inches above his head before it fell in twin waves of tortured curls. “Nice wig.”

“And yet it’s better than these damn pants,” Eddie said with a long-suffering smile. “Where have you been? I kept your father company for as long as I could before Mother reeled me back here.”

“I think you mean you kept my father and the whiskey company,” Jack said.

He laughed. “It was tough duty, but someone had to take it. So where were you?”

“Picking up that Providence brewery. We finished negotiating at three this afternoon, and I’m out of the buying business until my cash reserves can catch up with my ambition again.”

“It sounds to me as though it’s time to marry Harriet,” Eddie said. He inclined his head to Jack’s right. “She’s over there, done up like some princess or another. You could get her to the altar after our dawn breakfast without even waiting for her to change her dress.”

“I’d rather do with less breweries,” Jack said flatly. The moment he’d realized he was falling in love with Caroline, he’d also lost his sense of humor about Harriet’s fervent pursuit.

“Good. You’d just be stealing Caroline’s thunder,” Eddie replied before handing his wineglass to a waiter and requesting whiskey instead.

Jack had a feeling he should be asking the waiter to make it two. “Caroline has news?”

Eddie nodded. “She should by the end of the night. Bremerton plans to propose.”

Forget a glass. Jack wanted the bottle.

*   *   *

IT WAS only an hour into the ball, and Caroline had already become very talented at both dancing with a bow and quiver on her back and dancing around Lord Bremerton. After one obligatory waltz and some cursory chat, she had made her excuses and headed off to dance with others. She now stood on the far side of the ballroom from the Englishman, taking a much-needed break. Caroline amused herself by counting the number of new gilded mirrors hung from the silk-covered walls beneath the equally new crystal-laden electric light fixtures. They numbered more than the male guests clad as highwaymen, but not by much.

Mama, who had been watching Caroline all night, sent her another disapproving look. She didn’t need to bother. Caroline’s freedom would end at midnight when O’Brien rang the chimes announcing dinner. There was no escaping one’s dinner partner. Naturally, hers was Bremerton. But until then, her time was her own.

Caroline was preparing to join a group of friends who stood not far away when a highwayman approached from her right.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded a greeting, but didn’t speak. He must have decided to distinguish himself from the pack by being a mute robber, but his black cowboy hat in lieu of a top hat already did that for him.

His hand closed around her wrist with just enough firmness that she knew she was being instructed to follow. He turned back the way he’d come and led her from the ballroom. If anyone noticed them—and as wrapped up as they were in their own pleasures, Caroline doubted they had—they didn’t say anything. He urged her out of the crush of the crowd and on to the south wing of the house. With his free hand, he pushed open the glass and wrought-iron door to the conservatory and drew her in.

Unlike the rest of Rosemeade, this room was lit only by gaslight. Its sole fixture, a filigreed, multiglobed bronze chandelier, was suspended from the conservatory’s high center peak. It made for a romantic setting, if not too practical for nighttime botany. But her highwayman was no botanist.

“Hello, Jack,” she said once the spring-hinged door had swung shut behind them.

He released her. Caroline could have stepped away, but she didn’t want to.

“You knew it was me?” he asked.

“Of course.” She’d known the instant he’d touched her. “Do you think I’d let just anyone abduct me?”

He laughed.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, then added, “Well, as much of you as I can see at the moment.”

He took off his hat and set it next to a spindly fern. Then he reached behind his head, untied his black fabric mask, and let it drop to the hat. “Better?”

“Yes. Much.” She tried to judge his mood by his face, but he wasn’t giving anything away. And while she preferred to dance a circle around Bremerton, she wanted to be direct with Jack. “Now that you’ve gone to the effort of getting us alone, is there something you want to say?”

He reached out one black-gloved hand to touch her face. “You look beautiful tonight. You make the perfect Artemis.”

She wanted to tell him that flattery wouldn’t work, but it would. Too well.

“Thank you, though you didn’t have to bring me here to say that,” she replied before sidestepping him and walking farther into the large conservatory. When she’d been younger, this had been her jungle and each fern and flower an exotic new species to discover.

Jack pulled even with her. “I brought you here because it’s your favorite place,” he said, sounding slightly irritated.

“Well, thank you again. That was unusually considerate of you.”

The corner of his mouth bent upward. “Unusually? You
are
upset with me, aren’t you?”

She hadn’t meant to send that arrow flying, but now that it had been shot, she felt better. “I have reason to be.”

“I know.” He looked down at the ground and then back at her. “I also brought you here because I’m not going to eat crow in front of six hundred people.”

“But you will in here?” she asked, feeling pleased by the offer.

This time he full-out smiled. “Yes, if you want me to.”

“A few bites might be nice.”

“Okay,” he said, and then drew a breath as though preparing himself for something strenuous. “I’m sorry for the way I acted the other day. You’re important to me. You deserve better.”

Which was exactly three bites, Caroline thought. “You’re referring to the exchange in your carriage, correct?”

“Yes.”

She could ask for more crow-eating, but Flora had been right. Impatience on Caroline’s part had brought about this situation. More impatience wouldn’t solve it.

“Thank you, then,” she said.

Jack blew out a quick breath that Caroline figured was pure relief.

“I saw Bremerton all weighed down by gold chains,” he said. “Which king is he supposed to be?”

“A young Henry the Eighth,” she replied.

“Young, huh?”

“Those were his words, not mine,” Caroline said, trying not to smile at Jack’s skepticism. According to
Debrett’s,
Bremerton was seven years older than Jack.

Jack shrugged. “He’s got an old Henry’s dissipated look.”

Caroline laughed. “I’ve missed you.”

He came closer. “Your brother says there’s supposed to be an engagement announcement tonight.”

“That’s just Mama’s talk. Bremerton hasn’t asked me.”

“Yet,” Jack said.

She nodded. “Yes, yet.” The thought hung over her like an executioner’s blade.

Jack settled his hand on her arm. Caroline wished his gloves would go the way of his hat and his mask. She wanted the comfort of his touch, not leather.

“Since you’re not yet engaged, it wouldn’t exactly be a hanging offense if I did this.…” He brushed a kiss against her lips and then moved back.

“
That
was a highwayman’s kiss?” she asked, pretending shock.

He laughed. “What, not dangerous enough?”

“Not even close,” she replied.

Jack returned. His mouth hovered over hers. “Ready?”

“A highwayman just takes what he wants,” she reminded him.

And so he did.

This time his kiss was all hot persuasion, quickly stealing what little sense of propriety Caroline had when it came to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck. The heavy satin of his black cape felt sleek against her bare skin. She held on as he teased her mouth, tempting her to give more, and then making a low sound of triumph when she did. If he was this good at stealing kisses, she’d happily give him whatever else he wanted to take.

Jack ran his hands from her ribs to her waist, jostling her bow and quiver. He broke the kiss to say, “Let’s disarm you.”

He helped her ease her costume pieces over her head, and she quickly set them on the floor. Then he drew her back into his arms. This time his hands ventured even lower, and he pulled her hard against his body.

“Now I’m
really
liking this costume,” he said.

She smiled. “I’m growing fonder of it, too.”

He kissed her again. His hands slid lower yet, past the curve of her lower back. She drew in a sharp breath, and he rather slowly retreated from the new territory.

“No. Stay. It was good,” she assured Jack before kissing him again.

She had understated the feeling. This was
amazing.
All she could think about was how much she wanted to feel him, skin to skin. She couldn’t have that, but one wish could be granted tonight.