"Then I shall make certain he never discovers it. It is not so very hard. I am certain he thinks I have not a sensible thought in my head in any event."
Martha met her gaze in the mirror for a long moment, plainly unconvinced, before giving one of the flowers a small adjustment. "Well, you are set for the morning. That shade makes you look newly risen from the grave and determined to attend Almack's."
Caroline looked at herself in the glass and could not entirely disagree with Martha's assessment. The gown had drained almost every trace of warmth from her complexion, while the silk flowers made her appear as if she were about to appear in a very ill-considered theatrical performance.
"Perfect," she said, rising from the stool.
Martha shook her head as she gathered the scattered pins from the dressing table. "Your brother asked that you join him in the library before breakfast."
Caroline paused while drawing on one glove. "Did he say why?"
"Only that it was important. He wasn’t his usual self at all truth be told."
That was enough to dampen her good humour. This was going to be one ofthosetalks. Charles was not given to solemn pronouncements, particularly at this hour of the morning. He moved through life with an ease Caroline had always envied, content to assume that most difficulties would resolve themselves if everyone behaved kindly. He had never lacked consideration for her, even when she was at her most impossible. But every so often he remembered the promise he had made to their father—to see her well settled with a gentleman—and attempted to cajole and coax her into a suitable marriage. He had never attempted to force her, but Lord knows that even Charles’ patience must run dry sometimes.
???
Charles stood before the library fire with one hand braced against the mantel, staring into the flames. The coffee beside him had gone untouched and the newspaper remained folded upon the table, two small but unsettling signs that whatever he wished to say had troubled him enough to spoil his usual morning comforts.
At the sound of the door, he turned. His gaze travelled over Caroline's gown and the silk flowers crowded into her hair, and some of the gravity left his face. "Good God, Caroline."
She closed the door behind her. "Good morning, Charles."
"What have you done to yourself?"
"I have dressed for breakfast. It is a custom in most civilised houses."
"You look like… I have no idea how even to describe what you look like. What is that colour?"
"You can know nothing of fashion, brother," she said with an affected sigh before dropping down into a chair with a pained air.
His mouth twitched, and for a moment she thought she might escape whatever conversation he had planned. Then he drew out the chair opposite her and sat down, regarding her thoughtfully.
"Caro." He had not called her by her childhood name in some time and an unexpected lump rose in her throat. She pretended to examine her fingernails to allow the feeling to pass. He rested his forearms upon his knees and looked at her with an earnestness that immediately put her on her guard.
"This is about last night, I suppose," Caroline said.
"In part," Charles replied, looking down at his hands for a moment before meeting her gaze again. "But it has been troubling me for longer than that, and I think I have avoided saying anything because I did not wish to quarrel with you."
That made her wary. Charles disliked quarrels and usually trusted that patience would carry them past whatever difficulty stood between them. There was also no anger in his voice. Charles had always been kind to her, sometimes maddeningly so. He forgave her sharpness before she apologised for it—which she rarely did. Even when she turned her temper upon him, he rarely answered in kind. He simply looked hurt and let out a long sigh.
"You were unkind to people who had done nothing to deserve it," he said. "I know you did not enjoy the assembly, and I know what these occasions are like for you. But you went into that room determined to despise everyone in it."
"Not everyone," she said peevishly, trying to cover her rising panic with insolence. "Your Miss Bennet was a gentile sort of thing I suppose… but her mother…"
"Enough." He said the word sharply enough to make her jump, and she began picking at an imaginary thread in her lap.
Caroline tried another tack. "Country assemblies are rarely inspiring and there is no one of consequence to be found in Hertfordshire."
He stood then, raking his hands through his hair as he paced back and forth. Again, he spoke more sharply than was his want. "Perhaps not, but these people are our neighbours. I should like to know them without having to apologise for my sister every quarter of an hour. I have tried not to interfere. I know Papa handled some sort of youthful romance badly, and I did not want to become another person telling you what your life ought to be. But you have made it very difficult to stand aside. Every time a gentleman shows the smallest interest, you find the quickest way to make him regret it. You do not even wait to discover whether he deserves your contempt."
Caroline stared at him, the rest of what he had said fading beneath that one careless phrase.
"Some sort of youthful romance?"
Charles stopped pacing and turned towards her. "That is how Papa described it. He said you had formed an attachment in Scarborough to a young man who was in no position to marry you, and that he had intervened before matters went too far. He never told me much more than that."
"Of course he did not."
