“You are staring, dearest.”
Her mother’s voice jolted Caroline from her musings.“Merely making a few observations, Mama, to amuse myself.”
Helena’s face fell a bit at the reminder that her daughter was not enjoying this taste of the London season, but Helena recovered quickly.“What do you notice, what do you wonder?”
The familiar questions, posed so often by Caroline’s father from the time she was a toddler, warmed Caroline’s heart.Those questions had been the starting point of her love of nature and her zest for discovering new knowledge of the natural world.
“I notice the number of gentlemen in the ballroom has decreased in the past ten minutes,” Caroline said hastily, turning away from Lord Fitzwilliam.“I wonder if that means an especially rousing game of whist has begun in the card room.”
But Helena had learned a thing or two from her years following a naturalist about the world too.She arched a brow.“Are you certain you weren’t noticing anyparticulargentleman?And perhaps wondering who he is?I could ask our hostess to finagle an introduction.”
I know exactly who he is, Caroline thought.But it was too early in the plan to reveal much more to Mama, so she merely smiled.“No, thank you.I’m merely passing the time.”
She thought she’d managed to keep her tone fairly neutral, but Helena sighed.“I’m truly sorry you are so miserable here.I shall tell Mother tomorrow that we must begin preparations to leave.”
Too soon!Unless…
“It’s true I’m eager to get back to my work,” Caroline said carefully, “and it would be wonderful if I could arrive at the Hebrides in advance of the manx shearwater mating season.But Mama, you needn’t feel you must come with me!I am perfectly capable of traveling alone, or hiring a guide if need be.”
“Nonsense, I’m your mother.Of course I will come with you.”
As Caroline had expected; Helena was determined to sacrifice herself on the altar of maternal affection.A truly loving gesture—but then, a truly loving daughter could never accept it.
“But you’re having such a wonderful time here,” she tried, casting about for another argument in favor of Helena staying.“And—and what if Grandmother has a relapse?”
Helena pressed her lips together, meeting Caroline’s gaze, then they both burst out laughing.Helena’s mother, who had become Lady Agnew when she remarried a baronet, was the reason for their long-put-off visit to London.Lady Agnew had written an imploring letter that promised she was quite ill and hinted she might not last through the spring.Caroline and her mother had boarded the next train leaving Edinburgh only to arrive at Lady Agnew’s townhouse to find the elderly woman as hale and hearty as a stevedore.
A stevedore who drank nothing but champagne and outlasted both her daughter and granddaughter at every ball they attended.
“My mother will be quite well.You are the one who needs me,” Helena said firmly, taking Caroline’s hands.“London has been diverting, but there is nothing here for me.I will be quite happy to go to Scotland with you.”
Caroline saw that she meant it—but she also saw how the light had gone out of her mother’s face.She saw the quiet resignation to a life Helena no longer wanted.She saw her mother’s loneliness, and it bolstered her resolve.
Yes, tonight was the night.
The time had come, as it did in every young woman’s life, to take that all-important next step toward maturity and independence.Time to clear out the nest and ready for flight.
In short, it was time to get her mother married.
ChapterTwo
Lord Fitzwilliam Drake looked round at the sparsely attended assembly and wondered why the devil some fellows had all the luck, and other fellows had to come up to London before the Season properly started and be bored to tears.
It was only the tail end of February, damp and blustery cold in the city while most of the Ton was still happily ensconced in their country estates having a jolly good time with the shooting and deer stalking and the occasional pint down the village pub.Exactly as Fitz had been, before he’d been summoned hence by his father.
From across the ballroom, Lord Alfred Drake, the Marquess of Huntingdon, beetled his steel-gray brows and gave his youngest son a speaking look as the orchestra struck up a waltz.
More of a shouting look, really.
Fitz suppressed a sigh by smiling instead.It was a nice smile, he’d been told by more than one giggling debutante and winking widow, and he turned it on his hostess as he prepared to do the pretty.
Overjoyed to have an actual eligible bachelor at her ball, the lace-capped matron accepted Fitz’s dutiful bow with vivacious enthusiasm.
“My dear Lord Fitzwilliam, you must allow me to introduce you to some charming young ladies!They are all longing to dance and I’m certain such a charming and accomplished young man as yourself will be absolutely charmed to oblige them!”
“Nothing could give me greater pleasure,” Fitz said, already weary of the whole thing.
But Fitz was the youngest son of a marquess who had already successfully shot off a daughter as well as betrothing his heir to an honest-to-God convent-raised heiress.And unlike Fitz’s brilliant eldest brother and his accomplished older sister, Fitz was what their father liked to refer to as “feckless.”
