CHAPTER 14
“The seamstress is here,” Bethany said.
Caroline looked back from the window. She had been staring out over the grounds and brooding for the past hour, and she had the strange sensation that she was returning to reality after some time away from it. The room seemed a little too bright. “What did you say?”
“The seamstress,” Bethany repeated. “She’s here to take your measurements for the gowns you’re to have for this season’s balls. You engaged her services a week ago.”
“That’s right.” Caroline had nearly forgotten, in the wake of all the information about Prudence, that things like balls were even happening. She had entirely forgotten this appointment with the seamstress. It felt inappropriate to keep it, knowing that her sister might be anywhere, that she might be in danger.
But what Levi had said was true. Wherever Prudence was, she had been there for weeks now, which meant this wasn’t urgent. They needed to find her, but they didn’t need to stop everything. It was probably important that theydidn’tstop everything, in fact. Appearing at this ball was a way to signal to the ton that all was well, which would help to protect Prudence’s reputation for the day shewasfound.
She couldn’t erase the gnawing of guilt in the pit of her stomach about that fact, nor did she want to. She wanted to feel these consequences for the fact that she hadn’t insisted on making contact with Prudence, that she had accepted the easy explanation for her continued absence without proof. She’d never forgive herself for that, and she prayed that she would discover Prudence was all right—she didn’t know how she would go on if that wasn’t the case.
But for now, there was nothing to be gained by avoiding her appointment with the seamstress. She rose from the window seat and nodded to Bethany to show the woman into the room.
“Your Grace.” The woman who entered the room was plump and matronly, but she wore a warm smile that immediately put Caroline at ease and made her feel comforted, as if none of her worries could possibly be as bad as they seemed. “It’s an honor to meet you—such a pleasure to be outfitting you for the season’s events. I have samples of fabrics we could use to make your gowns—we can see which ones favor your coloring, and then you can choose your favorites. I’ll take your measurements, and then I’ll send over some things in the latest styles that fit.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said. The woman’s positive energy really was a welcome distraction from her troubles. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
“You may call me Madam Bennett,” the woman said with a smile. “It’s such a privilege to come and make clothing for a duchess.”
“No, the pleasure is mine, really,” Caroline said. “I’m grateful to you for taking the time.” As wonderful as it was to have something to take her mind off her worries, she thought that going into town and doing this in a shop might have been too much for her. “It was very thoughtful of you to come all the way out here to Mowbray Manor to meet with me.”
“Oh, the rewards will be entirely mine once the rest of London sees you wear these things,” Madam Bennett assured her. “You must promise me that you will tell anyone who asks who made your gowns.”
“Of course I will,” Caroline said warmly. “And I’ll tell them, too, what a pleasure it was doing business with you, and how you went out of your way to provide for me.”
“Well, really, I had to,” Madam Bennett said, pulling out her tape measure. “It’s quite lucky enough that you’re going to be attending balls this season at all. I don’t think anyone had any serious expectation that you would be seen out of the house. Andshopping…well, that was far too much to expect.”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I go to the shops?” Caroline asked. “I mean to say—I didn’t wish to go there, and Iamvery grateful to you for coming here, but how could you have known that was how I would feel about it?”
“Well, given the state of things between yourself and the duke, I simply didn’t imagine that you’d want to go into town, or that you would even be given the opportunity to do so,” Madam Bennett said. “Hold your arms out—yes, like that.” She ran the measure from Caroline’s wrist to her shoulder and made a mark in her book. “I would have thought he’d keep you locked up in the house, truth be told.”
Caroline couldn’t have been more shocked if Madam Bennett had asked her outright whether she needed any more men’s clothing for her trips into town. “I…I don’t think I know what you mean,” she managed. “Why would my husband lock me in the house?”
“Oh, forgive me. I don’t mean to overstep,” Madam Bennett said, though she didn’t look remotely abashed. “It was just that I’d heard the two of you were not getting along well as of late.”
“You had?” Where was this gossip coming from?
“Well, you know how the people of London like to talk,” Madam Bennett said. “I won’t speak ill of His Grace, of course, but therearethose who say that he is a rake. They say your sister was engaged to marry him, and when she fled, he took you as his wife in her place.”
“That much is no secret,” Caroline said.
“Indeed. But they say that you have never relished your marriage, and that you resent him for his rakish ways. They say he disappears from the house for hours and days at a time. I heard a rumor that you were plotting to run away as well, to follow your sister.”
“It doesn’t behoove you to spread rumors,” Caroline said severely, no longer certain she liked Madam Bennett so well as she had thought. “You are here to take my measurements, not to gossip.”
“Yes, of course. Forgive me, Your Grace. It was just that I was surprised to see you looking…”
“Looking what?”
“Lookinghappy. I expected, even when I received this commission, that I would be coming here to serve a duchess who was unhappy with her lot. I see now that that is not the case. You look as if you are excited about the season’s events.”
“I must ask you not to spread any further rumors about my family,” Caroline said seriously. “These things are personal to us, and none of us wants to see them spread around.”
Madam Bennett raised her eyebrows, but she said nothing.
“You look as if you wished to speak.”
