The message, however, was very brief.
Caroline,
I hope you are doing well in your marriage, and that you are doing all you can to reflect positively on our family and on your father’s name. In your sister’s unfortunate absence, we are very glad to know that you, at least, can be counted upon.
You asked in your most recent letter whether or not we had heard anything from Prudence.
Caroline had to stop reading for a moment, so absurd had that sentence been. Asked in her last letter! She’d asked in every letter. It had been the sole subject of her correspondence with her parents ever since her wedding day—not that they had bothered to answer the question, of course. They didn’t seem to care.
But there would be an answer at last. She returned her attention to the letter.
We have received word from her, and she assures us that she is well, though she hasn’t seen fit to tell us where she is. If she had done so, we would of course send for her and do whatever we could to bring her back. At the very least, we would let her know that you had married in her place—understanding that her actions have consequences might compel her to stop being so flighty and to return to her responsibilities. One may certainly hope.
Make us proud of you, just as you always have.
There was no signature. The letter had unmistakably come from Caroline’s mother, but just as obviously, she had grown tired ofwriting and had chosen to end things in a hurry. Caroline sighed, folded the paper up, and put it away to keep. At least she knew her sister was all right, which was the most important thing. Everything else could be managed.
She turned her attention to the invitations. There were a great many of them—it seemed as though invitations were going out for the whole season all at once. She sorted them according to date and was pleased to see that they still had a few weeks to go before the first one. That meant there would be plenty of time to prepare, plenty of time to acquire a fine gown—and time, too, to persuade her husband. She had a sense that even though he had agreed to attend functions with her, things might not actually be that straightforward. If there was one thing she had come to realize, it was that this new husband of hers spoke out of both sides of his mouth. She could not count on him.
She looked at the invitation for the upcoming ball. It was to be thrown by Viscount Marston and his wife, and she felt a flutter of excitement in her chest at the thought of it—the first she’d experienced in a good while, truth be told. How different it would be to attend a ball now that she was properly married! She would no longer worry about being perceived as the most hopeless of her sisters, as the one who would never marry and who could only be relied upon to care for her parents in their old age. No longer would she be looked at with sympathy or scorn. Instead, people would see a duchess, and there would be no looks of pity or disdain. Perhaps, for the first time, she would be able to get through one of these affairs without counting down the minutes until she was able to return home and feel at ease once more.
She left the breakfast table and went to find her husband.
He had taken to breakfasting in his study. Though they ate dinner together each night as he had told her he would insist upon, there had been no breakfasts together, and Caroline had begun to believe there never would be. Again and again, she told herself to accept it. She didn’t need to have breakfast with him. He was keeping to the agreement they’d made, and that was what mattered.
And yet, it felt like another rejection in the wake of the first one. Bad enough that he had sent her so humiliatingly from his room on the first night of their marriage. Now he was making it abundantly clear that all he wanted from her was one meal each day. It was hardly a marriage at all—why had he bothered to take a wife?
She knocked on the door to his study.
“Not now,” his voice called from within.
“I need to see you, Levi. I need to speak with you about something.”
He was quiet for a moment, and Caroline was sure he had expected one of the servants. After all, she had never come here to speak to him before. She steeled herself for more rejection, vowing she would not leave without speaking to him. If he tried to dismiss her, she’d just go in anyway—he couldn’t stop her from doing that.
“Come in,” he called eventually.
Shock thrilled her. So, he did want to see her! Or, at the very least, he recognized that he ought to, which was good enough for now. She went into the study.
He didn’t look up as she entered. He was sitting at his desk with his head bent over whatever he was working on. She waited a moment to see if he would give her his attention. Eventually, he did, raising his head to look at her. “Is there a problem?”
“Not a problem, no.”
“Perhaps it can wait, then,” he suggested.
“We’ve received some invitations.” She held up the Marston one, having stowed the others in her pockets. “You did say that you would attend functions with me now that we’re married.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave it to you to make those arrangements.”
“You mean to come with me, then?”
“Didn’t we agree to that? It was your sole request on entering into this marriage, as I recall. Surely you don’t think me a man of such low integrity that I would promise one thing and then immediately turn my back on that promise?”
“Don’t act as if I ought to know what to expect from you,” Caroline said. “I know what was promised. I also know that every time I’ve believed I understood you, without fail, I have been wrong. I don’t believe I have any particular knowledge of you now, but I do hope that you mean to keep your promise. I hope you plan to accompany me to the first ball of the season.”
“As I said I would.”
“I’ll need something to wear.” She swallowed. “In the past, I’ve depended on my sister’s husband to provide for me in this way, and he has always been very generous, but now that I’m married myself, it seems inappropriate to allow the Duke of Redmayne to provide for me.”
