Chapter Three
At the Oldhams’ ball, Caroline waltzed with Lord West. She should be pleased with how their acquaintance had progressed in the fortnight since their ride in Hyde Park. At the events they attended, he always made a point of singling her out for a conversation and danced with her twice—more often would set tongues wagging. That pleased her, too. She might intend to take a lover, but she wanted to be discreet about it.
The Oldhams had hired the same orchestra that Caroline had imported for her ball, which as she had hoped was the year’s most talked-about event. Unfortunately the lilting music might as well have been a band of rusty shovels banging together, for all the attention she paid it.
“Lady Beaumont, you seem distracted. Would you like to sit down and I’ll fetch you a glass of champagne?” West asked.
She stared up into his handsome face and told herself she should relish being his chosen partner. She’d intercepted enough envious glances from the other ladies to know he’d have no trouble replacing her.
Perhaps that was the problem. He danced with her because she was an acclaimed success. She danced with him because he matched the cardboard cutout lover she’d created in her mind during her lonely year of mourning. For all their mutual amity, neither felt a scrap of genuine affinity. Dancing in his arms was, frankly, less thrilling than holding Silas’s hand at the opera the other night.
She bolstered failing resolution. Once she’d given herself to West, these corrosive doubts would disappear. It was natural that she hesitated on the brink of action. She’d only ever slept with one man. If she could bring herself to seduce West, she’d finally escape the prison of her past. But if she lost her nerve now, she feared she’d never find the courage to lead the daring, exciting life she’d always longed for.
“Lady Beaumont?”
She must be gaping at him like a moonling. At this rate, he’d seek more amusing company. And she’d know her brave claim to be a dashing widow was nothing more than hot air. She couldn’t bear to revert to the subdued, provincial woman who had arrived in London more than a year ago. She raised her chin and met his eyes. One thing at least needed to change. No red-blooded rake bedded a woman he called Lady Beaumont.
“My lord, we’ve gone beyond formalities. Please call me Caroline.”
His startled reaction was discouraging—and unexpected. Perhaps he wasn’t as awake to her naughty intentions as she imagined. “I’d be honored.”
She waited for him to extend the same courtesy, but instead he began to outline his plans for the rest of the week. Caroline berated herself for drifting off again. After all, he was ensuring that they’d meet. That confirmed his interest. She reminded herself again that any woman would be proud to call this man her lover.
Whatever Silas thought of her plans.
Silas who had avoided her since that ride in Hyde Park. Helena said he was busy with his botanical work, but Caroline had seen him out in society every night. He hadn’t lacked for dance partners—even if none had been his dear friend, Lady Beaumont.
On the rare occasions they’d spoken, he greeted her with a chill politeness that hurt, however much she pretended it didn’t. She supposed he was sulking because she refused to heed his misgivings about her plans. She’d tried to tease him out of his mood. After all, they’d always made each other laugh. But any attempts to re-establish their closeness foundered against that wall of politeness, cold and impassable as the Atlantic.
As if the thought conjured him up, she glimpsed him across the crowded room. He was dancing with Fenella who looked lovely in a rose pink gown. Considering how reluctantly Fen had abandoned her widow’s weeds, she’d taken to the season with an élan that astonished Caroline.
Now there she was, sparkling and pretty and happy, in Silas’s arms. He smiled down at her with the warmth he’d once reserved for Caroline.
They looked so right together. Somehow complete unto one another.
Like people in love.
A great ax of understanding slammed down from nowhere and smashed everything Caroline thought she knew into chaos. The couples whirling around her became a dizzying wall of color. On a muffled cry, she stumbled as West swept her into a turn.
“Lady Beaumont—Caroline—you’re not well.” West’s hand firmed around her waist. “Come. Sit down.”
“I’m…I’m fine.” Her voice came from far away as she clung to West’s powerful arm.
“You’re definitely not fine,” he said, and somewhere in the distant reaches of her mind, she registered his kindness. “Can you walk or should I carry you?”
“No, no, I can walk,” she forced out. Talking was painful. Her heart shrank to the size of a walnut and the breath jammed in her closed throat.
Hardly aware of moving, she let him lead her across to where Helena stood surrounded by a circle of admirers. Vaguely Caroline knew that heads turned to track her unsteady progress.
“Helena, Lady Beaumont is feeling faint,” West said, his arm still around her waist.
She was grateful for his support. Her legs threatened to fold beneath her. She told herself to stand up straight, but every muscle felt made of string.
“Caro, are you ill?” Helena asked, taking her arm. “Here. Sit down. It’s cursed hot in here. No wonder you’re lightheaded.”
“I’ll fetch some water,” West said.
“Thank you,” Helena said, easing Caroline down into a chair. She waved the curious onlookers away. “Stand clear and give her some space.”
As her blood thundered deafeningly in her ears, Caroline sucked in a deep breath of humid air, then another. It didn’t help. The musicians scratching away at the far end of the room set her teeth on edge.
Horrified at her behavior, she summoned the stern voice in her head that always sounded like her father at his frostiest. That austere voice told her she made a spectacle of herself. Over nothing. Less than nothing.
Silas. And Fenella.
West returned, looking gratifyingly perturbed, but she was in no state to enjoy his attention. With a shaky hand, she accepted the glass he carried. How desperately she wished she was at home, away from all these prying eyes.
She choked down a sip of water, then forced numb lips to move. Her apology emerged slurred and muffled. “I’m sorry for all this fuss. I’m fine. Really.”
“You’re as pale as a ghost,” Helena said, fanning her.
“What the devil’s going on?” Silas pushed his way through the small crowd. “Has something happened to Caro?”
“Lady Beaumont felt faint,” West said.
“Caro, are you all right?” Fenella rushed up behind Silas. She sounded sincerely worried. Of course she did. Fen was an angel, one of the kindest people in the world.
Silas. And Fenella.
“I just need a moment,” Caroline whispered. She forced down another sip, her mind seething as she struggled to make sense of what she’d seen and, more, why it stabbed at her like a knife. How could she have been so blind? Now that she saw, why, in the name of all that was holy, was she so upset? She’d long ago recognized that she lacked Fen’s generous spirit, but she thought she was better than this. Or was she at heart one of those ghastly women who hated to see a friend find new allegiances, new love? She couldn’t bear to admit she was such a spiteful cat.
Yet still those three words jammed like logs in her chest. Silas. And Fenella.
“Caro, tell me what’s wrong,” Silas said, seizing her hand. “Do you need a doctor?”
She snatched away and refused to meet his eyes. If Silas picked up even a hint of why she was so distraught, she’d die of humiliation.
“No, I’m fine.” If she kept saying it, perhaps it would become true.
“You don’t look any better,” Helena said.
“Let me take you home,” Silas said gently. He sounded like the man who had been her friend and that only magnified her roiling misery. “The heat in here is unbearable.”
“I’ll come with you,
Caro.” Fenella watched her with such aching concern that Caroline felt like a witch for wanting to claw that sweet face to ribbons. “I’m visiting Brandon at Eton tomorrow which means an early start.”
What business of hers was it if Silas flirted with Fenella? Except she’d read more than passing attraction in his face. She’d read a closeness that made her feel bereft and lonely. She’d seen abiding affection and deep interest.
Dear God, she really was a shrew. Despite her pursuit of West, she wanted Silas’s affection and interest all to herself.
“No need to interrupt your enjoyment.” She prayed she didn’t sound as waspish to them as she did in her own ears.
“Nonsense.” Through the buzzing in Caroline’s head, she heard an unaccustomed note of authority in Fenella’s voice. Of course, the love of a man like Silas Nash would do wonders for any woman’s confidence.
Caroline’s protests came to naught. She ended up in Silas’s carriage, sitting opposite him and beside Fenella. She’d regained a little of her composure, but everything still felt vilely disjointed. No amount of self-castigation could silence the howling protest deep in her soul at the idea of Silas and Fenella in love.
To avoid questions she flinched from answering, she closed her eyes and huddled in the corner. On the short journey, Silas and Fenella spoke in low voices. It didn’t help Caroline’s raging, unacceptable, uncontrollable jealousy that their discussion centered on her welfare. Not even her nastiest suspicions detected anything but fondness in their remarks.
Silas. And Fenella.
It made such cruelly good sense. Fenella would appeal to Silas’s innate protective streak, the same protective streak that had led him to befriend a lonely widow from soggiest Lincolnshire. Fenella, like Silas, would face down lions for the sake of someone she loved. When she’d first met Fenella, Caroline had dismissed her as a clinging vine. But she’d come to respect her friend’s loyalty to her dead husband and her fierce devotion to her son. Fenella mightn’t look like a warrior, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fight.
What a pity that at this moment, Caroline wanted to shove her into a bottomless well.
If Silas pursued Fenella, it was likely that he had marriage in mind. And why shouldn’t he? Fenella would make the ideal wife—and unlike Caroline, she’d proven herself capable of bearing children.
That old, bitter failure stuck its claws into her anew. The prospect of Silas and Fenella producing a brood of perfect offspring made her feel like vomiting. Under cover of the darkness, she pressed a shaking hand to her churning stomach. She didn’t want to be the sort of woman who turned sick with jealousy. But apparently she was.
All the time, her conscience remonstrated with her that she should be happy for her friends, that she pursued Lord West, that people had a perfect right to set up alliances separate from Caroline Beaumont and her selfish whims.
She’d like to drown her conscience in that well, too.
Caroline only emerged from self-torture when the luxurious carriage drew to a stop and the door opened. She’d been too lost in her funk to realize they’d reached her house. She fumbled for her reticule and shawl as Fenella stepped out.
Oh, for pity’s sake, no. She couldn’t bear it. If that hussy—who also happened to be a dear friend—planned to stay behind to ensure her wellbeing, she’d scream like a banshee.
“Good night, Caro. I’ll come and see how you are when I get back from Eton.”
Caroline frowned through the gloom, one hand clutching her reticule, the other fisted in her cashmere shawl. Then she glanced over her friend’s shoulder to the footman holding the door at the top of the steps. Fenella’s, not hers.
“This is your house,” she said stupidly.
“Silas will take you the rest of the way. It’s only a few minutes—I doubt if even the highest sticklers would find that improper. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” Caroline said, meaning she’d rather cut off her head than suffer a private conversation with Silas Nash. Silas who would press for answers and who was smart enough to read between the lines to discern what a hag she was.
But Fenella took that croaked denial as consent. “Go straight to bed when you get home. Conquering society has overstretched you.”
She leaned in to kiss Caroline’s cheek. The brush of her lips burned like acid. Oh, Caroline Beaumont was a horrid person. She was the one who should be dunked in that well.
“Good night,” she mumbled, shrinking back into the unlit cabin and refusing to watch as Silas escorted Fenella inside. He was hardly likely to kiss her in public. Which didn’t stop Caroline imagining them falling into a passionate embrace the minute they crossed the threshold.
If Silas did kiss Fenella—even in her half-mad state, Caroline knew that was extremely unlikely—he didn’t take long about it. He was soon back in the carriage.
As they rolled on, she felt Silas studying her through the darkness. He had his back to the horses while she faced forward. She suffered an illogical, pathetic impulse to ask him to sit beside her and take her into his arms. She’d never felt so alone in her life.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your delightful evening.” This time, not even the kindest ear could miss the sour note.
“Are you feeling better?” he said mildly. “You looked ready to collapse at the Oldhams’.”
“How considerate of you to notice.”
His sigh was long-suffering. “What’s wrong, Caro? You’ve been staring daggers at me all week.”
I want you to be my friend again. I want you to smile at me the way you used to. I want to know that you and I are united in a conspiracy against the rest of the world. I want you to tell me that you’re not in love with Fenella.
Of course she didn’t say any of that. It would be too revealing.
“There’s nothing wrong,” she muttered, looking blindly out at the rows of quiet houses along South Audley Street.
She didn’t need to see his frown to know it was there. “Perhaps you should get out of London for a few days. Fenella’s right. You’ve thrown yourself into the season like a general on campaign. It’s time to rest on your laurels before the next battle.” His tone hardened. “West will wait a week or so, I’m sure.”
The jibe hurt. What right had Silas to point the finger of disapproval? Temper came to her rescue. She’d rather be angry than bawl like a lost calf. She faced him, catching the glint of his eyes through the darkness. “I could take him with me.”
Except strangely, Vernon Grange wasn’t her preferred companion in this mythical rural idyll. The man she wanted to be alone with was Silas Nash. She must be losing her mind.
“Why don’t you?” Silas asked with a bite. He reached out to grip the base of the open window. The light from the carriage’s exterior lamps shone on fingers curled taut over the dark wood. “I’m sure he’d leap at the chance to consummate your affair in some secret love nest.”
His contemptuous tone made her bristle. “Who’s to say the consummation hasn’t already taken place?” she asked with poisonous sweetness.
His breath hissed out before a lacerating silence crashed down. Caroline’s stomach knotted in horror. What the devil was wrong with her? Frantically she wished the lying words unsaid, but pride stopped her from backtracking.
After what felt like an hour, Silas spoke. She braced for another lecture on her recklessness, but he sounded tired and flat in a way she’d never heard him before. “I hope you’ll both be very happy.”
“We are,” she said defiantly, even as she told herself it was time to shut up. In fact, she should have kept her mouth closed the entire trip.
“Then I’m bloody delighted for you,” he said savagely.
The coach stopped outside her house. Caroline had never imagined she’d be so desperate to escape Silas. In earlier, happier days, the time they spent together had always seemed too short, they had so much to say. She’d lost him, and she didn’t know why. The skin across her temple
s was tight and throbbing with a headache. She longed for the privacy to cry her eyes out in a way she hadn’t since she was a silly girl.
“Good night, Silas,” she said in a thick voice, her hand fumbling for the catch on the door. She didn’t want to spend a moment longer in this carriage than she had to.
“Caro, wait,” he said softly, catching her arm just as she found the trick of the fastening.
“I’m tired,” she said, hating the whine in her voice. No wonder Silas preferred Fenella.
“I know you are. I’ve acted like an utter swine. I have no business criticizing your choices. I’m sorry.”
Strangely his concession didn’t lift her spirits. She was the one who had acted badly, not Silas. “You—”
John, her footman, opened the door and saved her from having to respond to Silas’s unnecessary apology. She felt horrible—lumpen and ungracious and stupid and mean. She hadn’t felt so useless since she’d forsaken Lincolnshire in search of a reinvented self.
“I’ll walk you to your door.”
“There’s no need,” she mumbled.
“You’re not well.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, wondering if they’d carve that lying little phrase on her tombstone.
“Nevertheless.”
He wouldn’t abandon her until he’d seen her safe, despite the household full of servants awaiting her bidding. Silas was such a white knight. Caroline should have long ago realized that he’d choose a fragile damsel like Fenella, not a great, argumentative, gallumping creature like Caroline Beaumont.
She was too tired and disheartened to insist further. Once he’d escorted her inside, she could send him home. Silently, she left the coach and let him take her arm to help her up the steps. His touch was poignantly tender. He clearly hadn’t forgotten her strange turn at the Oldhams’. She wondered what he’d say if she confessed that the sight of him dancing with Fenella had literally made her sick.
“Shall I stay until you’re settled?” he asked softly in the doorway after she’d told the footman to wait inside. “I’m not convinced I shouldn’t fetch a doctor.”
Not long ago, he’d been angry. She didn’t sense any anger now. Instead he seemed…sad. That wasn’t an adjective she’d ever thought to apply to him. She recalled with stinging regret how his essentially joyous heart had helped her come to terms with her new life.
A joyous heart he’d obviously decided to give to Fenella.
She bit her lip, using the sting to control her tears. “No,” she forced out, then belatedly remembered her manners. “Thank you for bringing me home.”
He studied her, the light from inside her house casting fascinating shadows over his face. Then he caught her hand and bowed over it. “You mightn’t believe me, but I’ve only ever wished you well.”
“I believe it,” she said on a thread of sound. “You’re making this sound like goodbye.”
Keeping hold of her hand, he watched her from under those expressive brows. “You’ve learned to fly, Caro. It’s inevitable that while you take to the skies, you leave some of us behind on the ground.”
She guessed he meant that as a compliment, but it didn’t sound like it. It still sounded like farewell, and she could hardly endure the pain of it. “Silas—”
“Good night, Caro. I hope West knows what a damned lucky devil he is.”
For the first time, he took the courtly gesture a step further and pressed his lips to her gloved knuckles. Heat jolted her while unfamiliar yearning jammed her voice in her chest along with her cramping heart.
Abruptly he released her and ran down the steps to his carriage. As the vehicle rumbled across the cobblestones and out of view, she stood on her doorstep, staring after him until she shivered with the cold.