He still appeared somewhat skeptical, but nodded slowly.A thrill went through her.
“So you agree?You will help me lure our parents into matrimony?”
“All right.”Lord Fitzwilliam smiled suddenly, that infectious grin she’d seen him bestow upon others.Up close and turned upon her full force, the effect was devastating.“Why not?I’m not very likely to come up with something better to try.I am yours to command—how shall we begin?”
As the orchestra ended their song and the assembled dancers clapped politely, Caroline instructed Lord Fitzwilliam on the first step of her plan, which was to engineer a meeting between Helena and Lord Alfred in Hyde Park.He bowed over her hand, all easy acquiescence to her ideas, and pressed a small, secret kiss to the bare skin of her wrist just below her satin glove.
The imprint of his lips burned sweetly long after he’d taken his leave of her.Caroline was very nearly giddy when she returned to her mother’s side.
She tried to tell herself it was only that her plan was proceeding apace, bringing her closer to her goal of leaving London for the wilds of the Hebrides and the culmination of her beloved, departed father’s life work, which was now her own—but there was a tiny part of Caroline that hinted that perhaps some of her high spirits could be attributed to a certain tall gentleman.
Pleading a headache, she convinced her mother to call for Grandmother’s carriage early.Caroline felt only slightly guilty for the deception.If she’d had to stay another two hours watching Lord Fitzwilliam dance, smile, and pay gallant compliments to other women, she likely would have a headache in truth.As it was, they were on their way back to Grandmother’s house in Portman Square in plenty of time to get a decent night’s sleep before tomorrow’s all-important manufactured meeting.
Of course, instead of sleeping peacefully, Caroline tossed and turned all night to heated memories of that spine-tingling, toe-curling kiss.Yet somehow as she herded Helena out the door of Grandmother’s house the following afternoon for the ten-minute walk to Hyde Park, Caroline found herself nearly buzzing with energy.
“Good heavens, Caroline,” her mother laughed as Caroline took her arm and towed her through Cumberland Gate and into the park.“What has gotten into you?I thought you were tiring of London but with this level of enthusiasm, perhaps we will make a convert of you yet!”
Caroline attempted to moderate her eager pace to a less suspicious trot.“A part of me wishes I could be happy here, especially since you seem to love it so.”
“Your father and I did not raise you to be content in a drawing room, and in truth, I have no regrets on that score.I wanted more for you than the rules of etiquette and rigid social hierarchy that held such sway over my own life as a young girl.Your father wanted to give you the world, and he did—I can hardly fault you for wishing to live in it.”
Caroline noted the wistfulness in her mother’s voice and felt a pang near her heart.She missed her father every day.And soon, if all went well, she would be missing her mother too.It would be a wrench to leave her behind, but she owed it to Helena to try to give her the life she wanted.“Father might have given me the world, but you made it a home.Because of you, I think I could feel comfortable and content anywhere at all!”
“Anywhere except London.”Helena’s smile was wry, not accusatory, but Caroline bit her lip as her mother continued, “I loved our little family’s life abroad; I loved seeing the world with you and your father.I do worry that by keeping you away from the society into which you were born, we have made it difficult for you to find a partner in life.But your father always argued that we had plenty of time.”
Unbidden, a vision of Lord Fitzwilliam’s finely carved face rose to the forefront of Caroline’s mind, his dark hair flopping rakishly over his forehead and mischief brightening his quicksilver eyes.Her partner in crime.
“I don’t need a partner,” Caroline said hastily, banishing the vision.“That is, I have no need of a husband who will think he has the right to tell me how to order my life and my work and who knows what else.I cannot see the appeal.”
“Not all husbands are so dictatorial,” Helena laughed.“Your father never gave me a moment’s trouble.”
“He did take you away from your family and everything you knew,” Caroline pointed out.
“I was only too happy to leave.England—London, especially—had become…well.Intolerable.I needed a change.And life with your father was certainly different!”
Intolerable.Another piece of the puzzle Caroline had begun to put together when she’d found the stack of old letters tied with ribbon in the bottom of the wardrobe in her bedchamber.The wardrobe that had once stood in young Miss Helena Rhodes’ room, when she’d attended her first London Season as the pretty daughter of a decorated Naval hero.
Sensing an opportunity to fill in a few more details, Caroline proceeded to probe delicately.“I know you loved Father.But surely he would not wish you to stay a widow for the rest of your life, however long that might be.”
“Caro!”Helena laughed.“I’m hardly in my dotage.”
“But that’s just what I mean.You’re still young!”
“Still young—which is quite different from actually young!What shall I be termed next, not old?Oh, I’m only teasing, and you’re right; your father would be the last man to expect his widow to languish in mourning forever.I know he would wish me happy.”
“Do you believe you could ever love again?”
A far-off look came into her mother’s eyes.“Not every love is the same, dearest.What I had with your father—we were friends first, the best of friends, and everything grew from there.I came to think friendship to be the best foundation for a marriage.And I do believe it’s possible to love more than once in a lifetime.In fact, I know it is.”
She knows because Father wasn’t her first love,Caroline mused, thinking of the letters she’d found.And with any luck, he won’t be her last.
They made their way along the footpaths toward the King’s Old Road, where the great and the good of London’s high society liked to be seen prancing about on their high-strung horses.Anxious not to miss the appointed time for the ‘accidental’ meeting with Lord Fitzwilliam and his father, Caroline kept them moving briskly enough that she was ever so slightly breathless when they reached the giant weeping cherry on the far eastern banks of the Serpentine.
Blowing and stamping in her half-boots like a Thoroughbred herself, Caroline craned her neck to search the crowd for her mark.Rotten Row wasn’t nearly as full of jostling riders and carriages as it would be in the high season, Caroline surmised, but even under the cold, steel-gray sky of late February, there were at least a hundred gentlemen and ladies taking the air.The creaking wheels of light barouche boxes and tall gigs competed with the thud of horse hooves on the packed dirt road.No one was moving especially quickly—there was hardly the space between conveyances to maneuver at all—but the flow of traffic was constant and chaotic, a strange, slow-motion crush.Caroline and Helena stood outside the low wooden fence that bordered Rotten Row, sheltered by the slender bare branches of the willow tree.
“Do you know,” Helena was saying, voice hesitant and warm with distant remembrance, “I used to love this tree, when I was a girl.In fact, it was right over there that I—” when Caroline finally spied the tall, broad-shouldered figure she’d been waiting for.Lord Fitzwilliam towered over the other riders, and even in the brief instant of observation she afforded herself, Caroline could see the easy, natural grace of his form and the connection he effortlessly maintained with his mount.
It was funny—he hadn’t looked at all out of place in the ballroom last night, clearly born and bred to the occasion, but there was something about the man out here, in the open air, controlling the enormous beast between his thighs with thoughtless ease.The sight sent a warm shiver through Caroline, tightening her belly and rolling down her legs.
