“Yes.”
“And I must work as hard as you do, darling. Not spend my days riding.” He took Lavinia with him. “I have to show someoneoff today, Caro. Miss Lavinia can be your proxy. She’s not as beautiful as you, but close.”
Caroline first met with the head gardener and discussed pruning, weeding, and expanding the kitchen plots for the summer. The vegetables they ate would need to come from the garden. The man nodded but did not seem to be listening. As she took her leave from him, Caroline thought he would not be in the employ of the house for long. She would have to find a new head gardener, one who would take her direction.
She was down in the bowels of the house, going through the larder with the cook, when the butler came and found her. A caller, he said, for Lord Burchester.
“He went out.”
“I know, my lady. I informed Lady Starling and she said she would wait. She’s in the drawing room.”
Lady Starling. Caroline swallowed. At least, the drawing room looked slightly more presentable now. But did Caroline look all right? She ran her hands over her hair. She patted at the skirts of her dress where some wayward flour had collected.
How she wished she had La with her right now.
She went into the drawing room. She curtsied. “My lady.”
Lady Starling curtsied back, the smallest possible bob. “Lady Burchester.”
Caroline had been wrong in her assessment of Lady Starling from a distance in the theater. She wasn’t just pretty, she was positively alluring. A cupid bow mouth, a pert nose, long lashes around limpid blue eyes. The beautiful breasts, the tops of which threatened to overflow the neckline of her pale pink silk dress.
Caroline looked down at her own long, flat body, her green muslin dress with a flour smudge.
“I’m here to see Lord Burchester.”
Caroline raised her head. “Ah.”
“He owes me something.”
Another debt. One her husband had hidden from her.
“How m-m-m-much?”
Lady Starling seemed startled. “Pardon?”
“How m-much does he owe you?”
Lady Starling let out a little laugh. “Oh, no. I have to discuss that with him.”
“I am handling the m-m-money so you can t-t-tell me.”
“It’s not money your husband owes me.” Lady Starling looked furious, just as she had in the Burchester box all those months ago. “You see, I know all about Phineas’ various adventures. And I agreed not to tell your brother about what happened between you and the earl in the bookseller’s, and, in exchange, Lord Burchester agreed to . . . something else. And dear Phineas has not met his end of the bargain.”
Phineas had told this woman about their coupling in Hatchards? How had that happened? Under what intimate circumstances would he have told her such a thing?
And he owed Lady Starling something that was not money. Nausea and fear roiled Caroline’s stomach.
“You can tell my b-b-b-brother. Phineas and I are married n-n-now.”
“Are you sure you want me to do that, Lady Burchester? I think your brother would still not be pleased.”
What would Edmund do? He wouldn’t turn his sister into a widow over this. Of course, she would rather her brother not know that she and Phineas fornicated long before the wedding and even their engagement. But more than that, she didn’t want her husband to have anything to do with this woman any longer.
“You can t-t-t-tell the m-m-marquess.”
“He already knows how wanton his sister is, is that it? Shall I tell everyone in thetonas well?”
“If I have been wanton, it h-h-has only been with my spouse.”
