She was no longer simply Miss Caroline Ashworth with her perpetual understanding as the almost bride of William Sutton. She was the young lady who had waited. Who had waited and been left.
It was not, she told herself firmly, a fair characterization. But fairness had very little to do with how such matters were received, and she was not so naïve as to believe otherwise. Reputations, once marked, did not easily return to their former state. And hers had been marked in such a scandalous way, through no fault of her own, that it would never be forgotten.
What man, she wondered—not for the first time, but with rather more clarity than before—would willingly attach himself to a woman whose name carried such associations? Not any gentleman of consequence, certainly. Not a man who had any real choice in the matter. Fortune hunters and adventurers and those whom she could never trust and whose devotion to her would always be less certain than their devotion to her marriage portion.
The realization ought to have been sobering. Instead, it left her curiously hollow.
She had not, until recently, allowed herself to consider the possibility that she might wish for more than a sensible arrangement. Now, confronted with the very real possibility that such a future might never materialize at all, she found that her indifference—if it had ever truly existed—had been something of a fiction.
She did want more. She wanted what Eleanor had. She wanted love—something she now recognized that had been absent even in her long standing fidelity to William.
Not the spectacle of it, nor the attention, nor even the certainty of a match well made in the eyes of society. She wanted the quiet ease she saw now in her friend’s expression, the sense of being chosen not out of convenience, nor obligation, but because there was no one else who would do.
It was a dangerous sort of desire. One she suspected she had no business entertaining given the nature of her current prospects, which were effectively absent.
“Caroline, my dear, you are brooding.”
She turned at once, summoning a smile, and found Lady Ensley eyeing her with unmistakable purpose.
“I assure you, I am doing no such thing,” Caroline replied. “I have simply discovered that if I remain near the window, I may admire the gardens and avoid being made to account for my recent change in circumstances.”
Lady Ensley laughed. “And what a pity that would be. A wedding breakfast is precisely the place to consider one’s future—a future that your recent change in circumstances has permitted.”
Caroline felt the familiar tension return. “It appears I have made a habit of choosing poorly.”
“On the contrary,” Lady Ensley said, already surveying the room. “You never chose at all, my dear. You were chosen and then held in reserve by a man who never appreciated you.”
Caroline had the distinct impression she was about to be made into the subject of Lady Ensley’s matchmaking schemes. And the last thing she wanted was another public romance or rejection.
Julien had not intendedto eavesdrop. His intent, upon seeing Caroline staring out the window with such apparent consternation, had been to inquire after her and see if all was well. Despite the fact that it had been his firm resolution, upon entering the breakfast and observing the arrangement of guests, to maintain a careful distance until such time as a more suitable opportunity presented itself. The morning belonged, properly, to Eleanor and Adrian, and he had no desire to turn attention elsewhere by any action that might be remarked upon. If there was one thing he had learned over the years, it was that timing mattered. Acting too soon invited scrutiny. Acting too late invited regret.
He had, on more than one occasion, suffered from the latter. Today, however, he had no intention of repeating the error. He was waiting for a time when he could speak to her privately, to relay his feelings for her, or to at least hint at them. He could hardly tell her, after all, that he’d been infatuated with her upon first meeting and had, over the course of their years long acquaintance, fallen maddeningly and infuriatingly in love with her. Those were sentiments he had kept to himself. Sentiments he’d kept from everyone.
And in truth, until that time, it had seemed a pointless and wasted emotion. As long as Eleanor’s situation had remained uncertain, had waited while Adrian hesitated, had waited through weeks and months of observing a circumstance thatwas not his to interfere with—he’d never been free to act on his feelings. It would have been improper to pursue anything of his own while his sister’s future hung so precariously in the balance. Not that it would have mattered as Caroline had doggedly held onto the slim and threadbare promises of William Sutton. Now both impediments were mostly resolved. One quite happily and the other decidedly less so, but both with a degree of certainty that had been eluded for far too long.
Which left him, at last, without excuse. He intended to speak to Caroline. Not in any grand or declarative manner, not in a way that would invite speculation or place her in an uncomfortable position, but plainly enough that there could be no misunderstanding of his interest. It had been his intention from the moment he had resolved, some time ago, that his earlier restraint had cost him more than he had been willing to admit. He would not make the same mistake twice.
He had even determined how it might be accomplished.
A quiet conversation. A moment removed from the immediate press of company. Something that might pass without notice, yet remain unmistakable in its meaning to her. It was, in his estimation, a sound plan.
It had been thwarted almost immediately.
Lady Ensley, whom he respected in general and avoided in matters of this nature whenever possible, had taken it upon herself to reorganize the social landscape of the room with alarming efficiency. Each time he had made even the slightest movement in Caroline’s direction, he found himself intercepted. Introduced. Redirected. Presented with another agreeable young lady who was, by all accounts, perfectly suitable and entirely without fault.
Save one. She was not Caroline. No one else would ever do.
He endured it with as much patience as he could muster, though he was aware, in a distant and uncharitable part of hismind, that his tolerance was wearing thin. He did not wish to be rude. He had no desire to embarrass his sister or create discomfort for those who meant well. But neither did he intend to be managed into a series of introductions that bore no relevance to his actual purpose.
It was while extricating himself from the most recent of these that he heard his own name.
“…Mr. Harcourt, for example, can no longer hide behind his sister…”
Julien turned, not abruptly, but with sufficient interest to confirm what he had already suspected. Lady Ensley stood near the window, Caroline before her, and though he could not hear every word that passed between them, he did not require it. The direction of the conversation was evident enough.
Marriage. It was always marriage. He ought to have been accustomed to it by now—to having his life and future discussed like they were planning a blasted menu for a garden party. He was not.
What he was not prepared for—what he had not anticipated—was the effect of seeing Caroline in that moment, standing just slightly apart, her composure intact and yet not entirely convincing to one who had spent years observing her more closely than he had ever acknowledged.
