“Lucky you,” George said grimly and went back to looking out the window.
Yes, lucky me.Phineas leaned back in his seat. But why was that? Why was love for other men and not for Phineas Edge?
Well, in truth, because he really could not be bothered. Love, for the most part, seemed very uncomfortable. Just look at woebegone George. Look at their friend Jack who had passed almost half a year in misery, pining for a plain, skinny Scottish spinster who would as soon put a dirk in you as look at you. Phineas expected to hear news any day from Scotland that Jack’s bride had murdered him in his sleep over the maltreatment of sheep in the Highlands or some other bone of contention.
Yes, love wasn’t for Phineas Edge because love changed one’s circumstances. And he liked his circumstances. His club, his sport, his friends, his freedom to arrange his life exactly as he liked.
Yes, love was definitely for other men. Men who didn’t have the wonderful life Phineas had. Men who couldn’t anticipate the upheaval love would bring.
Good thing Phineas was immune to the silly thing.
He sighed contentedly and thought about the brandy he would have in front of a roaring fire once he got back to his rooms in London. And then he thought about how much better that brandy would be if he were sharing it with darling Caro, dribbling it into her navel and licking it off her as she moaned.
Yes, Phineas would have to get to work on Edmund.
Six
Father was not well. He had started coughing the day after Edmund’s shooting party went back to town.
Caroline endeavored to make the marquess understand he must stay in bed, he must permit a doctor’s visit. But, as always, he resisted her.
“I’m perfectly fine,” he growled. “A sniffle from shooting in the damp. And then having no hot drink afterwards. The tea was tepid rubbish.”
Even though it had been perfectly dry the day he went out to shoot, her father had found a way to cast aspersions on her management of the house party.
“There’s no need for a damned physician. You tend to your business, daughter, and I’ll tend to mine.”
She might remind him that for twelve years, he and his possessions hadbeen her business. Her only business. To step into her both her mother’s shoes in the organization of the manor and her father’s shoes in the care of the estate. To make sure her father was comfortable and wanted for nothing, that he was not troubled with anything he considered piffling—which was almost everything.
And that he had a biddable female to tend to him.
A biddable, silent female.
Because, of course, her speech was at its worst with him. She did well with the servants and with Jones, in particular. She was understandable to her brother. But she had never spoken well enough in front of her father to be able to convince him she would not expose him to public shame if she went out into good society again.
It had started with her lisp. Adorable when she had been three. But the lisp had persisted and her father said her tongue thrust forward toward her front teeth when she spoke.
“Disgusting to see your tongue that way,” her father would say, his eyes on her mouth, his voice dripping with disdain.
But she had never known how to correct herself. Anesscontinued to be aneth. This was not so awful on the whole, but her father’s scowls made her whole mouth seize up when she came to a word which contained anyesssound.
She developed a stutter at age seven in addition to her now-permanent lisp.
The stammer might occur with a word containing aness, but could erupt at other times, such as when she was anxious. Avoidingesswords was not a guarantee she could speak as her father would like her to.
Her mother had spent many hours with her, soothing her, and then having her read aloud. Caroline would be doing well, words fluent despite the lisp, but as soon as her father came into the room, she would begin to stutter. And he would snort, turn on his heel, and leave.
Even so, her mother had convinced her father that Caroline must have a Season when she was seventeen.
“You’re a tall beauty,” she had said to Caroline. “No one will care how you speak. And the right man will understand you.”
It was the last time anyone had ever called Caroline a beauty. Because two days after her first ball where she had danced with Phineas Edge, her mother had tumbled down the stairs in the Haskett town house, hit her head, and stopped breathing three hours later, unconscious to the end.
After that, her father had sworn never to return to the town house or to London again. “The goddamn stairs in that goddamn house,” he had cursed, his eyes boring into Caroline. Later, he had said worse.
The marquess had taken his daughter back to Sudbury, and she had become the mistress of Sudbury Manor and the administrator of the sprawling estate in all but name. Her one Season was over and she would never have another.
Her brother, however, had stayed in London and lived in the town house.
