When Lady Lutton curtsied back, she smiled shyly at Caroline. Caroline felt something immediately with that smile. Lady Lutton carried her own wounds she hid from the world.
Lady Lutton nodded at Lavinia. “How beautiful your dog is, Lady Caroline.”
Caroline nodded.
Edmund cleared his throat. “I felt I needed to tell Lady Lutton about your difficulties with speech. She will be discreet. But she had to know.”
Caroline looked at her brother. His expression, usually stoic or frowning, was almost pleading. He had been so good to her these last months, so patient, but he must be so ready to have her be somebody else’s responsibility.
She turned back to Lady Lutton. “I’m happy to m-meet you.”
Lady Lutton’s smile became more genuine. “And I, you, Lady Caroline.”
“So, Caro, is there anything you want to do? I think I have a guess,” Edmund said.
“The g-g-gallery.”
“Wonderful,” Lady Lutton said. “Shall we go today?”
“Now?”
“No, I regret I have another engagement this morning, but I would be delighted to come back this afternoon. If that would suit, Lady Caroline?”
After luncheon, Lady Lutton returned to the Sudbury town house, and in the carriage on the way to the exhibition, Caroline eyed her chaperone. As she had noted before, Lady Lutton was pretty with her big, dark eyes and her round, dimpled cheeks. However, now Caroline observed Lady Lutton’s clothes were as out of fashion as Caroline’s dresses from Sudbury had been.
“Lady L-L-Lutton, how d-did you come to b-b-be a . . . ?” She could not saychaperone.
Lady Lutton looked down at her lap before raising her eyes to Caroline’s to answer her.
“My late husband was the Earl of Lutton.”
Lady Lutton was a widow! Could she be a potential wife for Edmund? And might her brother already have an interest? Because how had Edmund come to choose her as Caroline’s chaperone? He must think very highly of Lady Lutton.
“But we had no children, and the estate is entailed to the heir, of course. And I found I needed to have a bit of money to survive in London. Being a chaperone is very respectable, and I am very lucky you and your brother needed me.”
“Are y-you the mistress of my b-b-b-brother?”Mithtreth. She could not think of a word to substitute formistressand she wanted her meaning to be absolutely clear. Caroline had not sensed Lady Lutton was attracted to Edmund—yet, she told herself, yet!—but she thought she had better make sure. She knew so little about men and women, and mistresses seemed commonplace in London. But if both parties were unmarried, surely a mistress could become a wife?
The Dowager Viscountess Starling could become the Countess of Burchester.The uninvited thought made her unaccountably angry and she tightened her hands into fists.
Lady Lutton looked startled at Caroline’s question but then laughed, a small laugh. “I am happy you are direct, Lady Caroline, and you asked me rather than making an assumption. No, I am not your brother’s mistress. I will never be any man’s mistress, I assure you.”
Although Lady Lutton’s voice was sweet and calm, there was some strong emotion stirring her that Caroline could not place.
“I w-w-won’t either.” One time coupling and a few kisses didn’t make someone a mistress, did it?
“Of course, you won’t. Not that I scorn or blame women who are. It’s very difficult to be unattached and unprotected. You are very lucky to have your brother. He obviously gives you a great deal of consideration.”
How wonderful that Lady Lutton sensed Edmund could be caring, not just a gruff behemoth. Now, if Caroline could only get him to stop scowling so much. And soften his voice.
True, Lady Lutton wasn’t what she had pictured for her brother—perhaps a bit too sweet, too fragile, too decorous?—but she still might be a match. And Caroline liked her already.
“And you have another protector, as well. Please tell me the name of your mastiff.”
“Lavinia is a bloodhound.”
“A bloodhound named Lavinia. Why is she named Lavinia?”
Should Caroline tell her? “Titus Andronicus.” Of course, she saidTituth Andronicuth. Disgusting.
