“Eamon suspects Mr. Clive of substituting the paintings, but Mr. Clive and Rudyard could have been colluding.”
“If Rudyard is to blame, we will have him.” Louise’s smile became determined. “I am pleased Eamon is helping you so much.”
Caro flushed. “I meant Mr. Stone.”
Louise laughed in delight. “I am teasing you, darling. I am glad to see you so in love.”
Caro halted. “Am I in love?”
Of course she was, and she knew it. That was why, when Eamon had exclaimed, Oh Duchess, I believe I’m falling in love with you, Caro’s heart had beat with wild joy.
Louise softened her tone. “You deserve to be. I know what it is to be fervently in love, and I wish it on you.”
“I loved Leopold,” Caro said in bewilderment. Poor Leopold. So many believed Caro hadn’t cared for him at all.
“You did.” Louise nodded. “But this is different.”
Caro’s regrets floated away as the memories of Eamon’s touch, kisses, and the glorious way he’d filled her threatened to drown her.
“Yes,” she agreed in a whisper. “It is very different.”
She’d give anything to hold on to the sensations Eamon had flooded her with, and the new life they’d surged through her, and never let them go.
“The queen has answered my letter,” the dowager duchess announced the next afternoon in the fourth-floor drawing room.
They’d finished the midday meal moments before, Leo heading downstairs to help Eamon as soon as he’d set down his fork. Caro and the dowager lingered at the table, sipping tea, the dowager reading through her correspondence.
“Her majesty wrote to you?” Caro pulled her thoughts from where they’d strayed to Eamon kissing her in the gallery earlier today. He’d drawn her into deep shadow and kissed her with slow promise.
The last few days had been filled with such encounters, Caro torn between excitement and shyness. Somehow, she’d invented many excuses to go down to the gallery—checking on Leo, bringing Eamon a receipt she’d found for one of her father-in-law’s purchases, or simply to ask how things were proceeding.
Stolen kisses were something new for her, the heat that boiled through her when their mouths met both unnerving and glorious.
Eamon shared Caro’s rage at Rudyard, which bolstered her more than she cared to admit.
“Her majesty did, indeed.” The dowager dangled a letter from her long-fingered hand. “She is outraged that Rudyard dares think to raise Leo himself. Dear Charlotte detests the man but speaks highly of you.”
“Does she?” Caro set down her tea, her attention caught. “I believe I’ve curtsied to the queen once, but she barely saw me. I wasn’t lofty enough to be presented to her personally at my debut.”
“She knows of you because I tell her about you,” the dowager said. “As we both arrived in England from foreign lands about the same time, Charlotte and I became friends. Neither of us knew much English, and we muddled along together—I speak German well, and she is proficient in French. I was one of her ladies-in-waiting, you know.”
“I did know that,” Caro said. The disapproving matrons of the ton had made certain Caro understood in what lofty circles she was daring to tread. “But not that you were close.”
“It was eons ago, when I was quite young. Charlotte and I learned English together, though her accent is heavier than mine.” The dowager paused for a flash of vanity. “I retired from court life when I began having my sons, but we’ve written to each other ever since. Our correspondence has grown since her husband’s illness became permanent, because she needs the distraction, poor lamb.”
Caro listened to all this with interest. The dowager rarely spoke about the period of her life when she’d been married to Leo’s grandfather, though she loved going on about her upbringing on her father’s sumptuous estate in France. Aristocratic life there had apparently been ten times more formal, elegant, luxurious, and entertaining than British aristocratic life could ever be.
“Please give the queen my best wishes,” Caro said. “I do feel sorry for her, as I know she is so fond of the king.”
The dowager looked pleased at Caro’s sympathy. “I shall. In any case, she likes you, even though she regards you as a nobody. Do not be offended—she is a foreign princess, and they believe themselves superior to all other mortal beings, though she was quite a nobody herself when she came here.”
Caro wasn’t certain how to respond to these observations. “I am glad she approves of me,” she managed. “Can she really help keep Leo home with me?”
“I do not know.” The dowager sighed. “Charlotte has a large influence on public opinion, so her approval of you means much. She finds you the breath of fresh air that the stuffy dukes of Aylesmore needed. Also, you provided your husband a legitimate heir, which she considers a large point in your favor. But she cannot override the law. The king might, if he was coherent, and the Regent might, if he wasn’t such a pompous, self-indulgent ass. Laws are made in Parliament by male creatures, and men stick by men, damn them all.”
“Thank you for trying,” Caro said, her hopes fading.
“I am not giving up, young lady,” the dowager said firmly. “I’ll not turn my grandson over to Rudyard. That lad was always a bad one.”
