Improper Ladies Page 13

  “It isn’t? Then what is?”

  “Grand emotion! Passionate declarations! Embraces under the stars!” She peered closer at Caroline. “Did you and Lord Lyndon embrace under the stars?”

  Caroline laughed harder. “Phoebe!”

  “No? Well, you should have.”

  Caroline decided that a small fib might be in order. “We did not ‘embrace under the stars.’ And you and young Mr. Seward had best not have done so, either.”

  “Oh, Harry Seward. All he has talked of these last few days is ‘making a name for himself and ‘having adventures.’ Nothing romantic at all. I don’t know what has gotten into him.”

  Caroline nodded. She remembered Justin saying he wanted to send Harry to manage one of the family’s smaller estates, but she would have thought Harry would not be very enthusiastic about it. Perhaps she had been wrong, and he liked the idea of his independence.

  “Are you disappointed in him, then, Phoebe?” she asked.

  Phoebe shook her head firmly, but her violet-blue eyes looked a bit sad. “What is there to be disappointed in? He is a silly young man, not at all like the Count Enrico in The Sins of Madame Sophie. Beside, I have adventures of my own to have! Starting today.” She gave a dramatic little pause. “Let’s go bathing.”

  Caroline closed her book, glad to have a purpose for the day besides brooding over Justin. “An excellent idea! But I am sure everyone else in town will want to do the same. Perhaps I should send Mary to reserve a bathing house.”

  “No need for that! Sarah Bellweather showed me the most delightful cove, just outside of town. It’s very quiet there; not many people know about it. If we went there to bathe, we wouldn’t have to worry about bathing houses and crowds. We would be all alone.” Phoebe giggled. “We could even take off our stockings!”

  “I hardly think that would be appropriate,” Caroline murmured. But a quiet swim, just the two of them and the sea and the sky, with no crowds, sounded just what she needed. “We could go there, though, and take a picnic.”

  “Wonderful! I’ll just go change into my bathing costume, then.” Phoebe rushed off, calling for Mary to come and help her dress.

  Caroline set aside her book with a pang of guilty relief. If she was bathing with Phoebe all day, she couldn’t call on Justin with her tale of the Golden Feather until tomorrow. Or the next day. Perhaps that was just as well. She needed time to gather her thoughts, prepare her words very carefully. She didn’t want to hurt him, or herself, but he deserved the truth.

  “I think, my dears, that I will not go with you to Waring,” Lady Lyndon announced at breakfast the morning after the assembly.

  Justin turned to his mother in surprise. “I thought you wanted to go to Waring, Mother.”

  “Oh, I do, and I will go there, in the autumn perhaps. But Lady Bellweather has asked me to accompany them to Brighton for the remainder of the summer. I would like that, I think. It has been a long time since I went to Brighton.” She touched her napkin to her lips and smiled at them. “But you must go to Waring, of course. You have been away too long, Justin, and the country air will be good for you.”

  Harry swallowed his bite of eggs and said, “If Mother isn’t going to Waring, then neither am I.”

  Justin looked at his brother. “And what are you going to do instead? Stay here to dangle after Miss Lane?”

  Harry’s face took on a rather comically serious expression, and he tilted up his chin. “Certainly not. You mentioned the possibility of my going to manage Seward Park.”

  “I did, but you hardly seemed enraptured at the possibility.”

  “Well, that was then. I have given it some thought. I do ... like Miss Lane, but you were quite right when you said I don’t have very much to offer her. If I managed Seward Park very well, then it would prove to her and her sister that I’m not just a useless fribble.”

  Justin regarded his brother with near shock. For once there was no pouting, no whining on Harry’s part. He looked earnest and worried and very, very young. “Harry, that is the first sensible thing I have heard you say since I returned to England.”

  Harry looked down at his plate, his cheeks reddening. “Yes, well, Miss Lane is a very special young lady. I want to be worthy of her.”

  “Then you can go to Seward Park. If you make a go of it, then I will give it to you as a wedding present,” Justin answered.

  “Would you?” Harry cried, his eyes shining with new hope. “You are a good ’un, Justin.”

  Amelia beamed at her sons. “You see, my dears, I knew all would be well!”

  The butler came into the breakfast room, carrying a note on a silver tray. “This just came for you, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Richards.” Justin broke the wax seal and read the scrawled words quickly.

  “What is it, Justin?” Amelia asked worriedly. “Bad news?”

  “Not at all,” Justin said with a smile. “It is from next door.”

  Amelia gave a sly, satisfied smile. “From Mrs. Aldritch?”

  “No, from the young lady we were just speaking of. Miss Lane.”

  “Miss Lane!” Harry cried, half rising from his chair. “Why is she writing to you?”

  “Now, don’t get all upset, Harry. You’ve been doing so very well this morning. She simply wants to invite us to a picnic at the cove just outside of town.”

  Harry settled back warily. “Both of us?”

  “Of course. She says her sister and Sarah Bellweather will be there, as well.”

  “That’s all right, then. Sounds like jolly fun.” Harry popped another bite of eggs into his mouth and chewed happily. “I can wear my new waistcoat, the one embroidered with tulips. She’s sure to admire that!”

  Justin folded the note back carefully and tucked it beside his plate. It did sound like “jolly fun,” but he couldn’t help the nagging feeling of doubt that crawled inside of him. Why would Miss Lane write the note, and not her older sister? And why the cove, not the more public shore area?

  Very strange, indeed. But he would go, of course. He couldn’t stay away from Caroline.

  He smiled as he remembered their embrace in the night-dark garden. It had been sweet and fiery and perfect. So perfect. Not even her strange sadness after could mar the memory.

  He wanted to see her again, to hold her in his arms, to talk to her and tell her all he was feeling.

  Why, then, did he have the nagging thought that he should not go on the picnic today?

  Chapter Eighteen

  “This is wonderful! I feel just like a mermaid.” Phoebe splashed about happily in the cool water, her blond hair sleek in the sunlight. She had long ago removed her cap, and now she and Sarah were frolicking like two little seals.

  Caroline, perched on an outcropping of rocks with her stockinged toes dangling in the water, laughed when Phoebe splashed her. “You look like a monkey! You will catch a chill without your cap.”

  “Of course I won’t! The water is quite warm. Why don’t you come in, Caro?”

  “I will in a minute. I want to enjoy the sun first.”

  Phoebe nodded and went back to swimming in circles with Sarah.

  Caroline leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes to bask in the warm light. She knew she should not; the sun was sure to make her quite brown since she wasn’t wearing a hat. But somehow she felt too languid to even worry about her complexion.

  The sun, the sounds of the sea and the girls’ laughter, and the late night at the assembly all conspired to make her drowsy. She closed her eyes, letting the peace of the moment, so precious and transitory, steal over her.

  She was startled into full awakening by the sound of a man’s voice calling out.

  She looked over her shoulder to see Justin and Harry coming toward them. She sat straight up, automatically tucking her legs beneath her to hide the stockings of her bathing ensemble.

  Whatever were they doing here, in this out-of-the-way spot? Surely Phoebe would not . . .

  “Hello, Lord
Lyndon! Mr. Seward!” Phoebe called out, waving her hands from the water, confirming Caroline’s sudden suspicions. “There you are at last.”

  Caroline gave her a stem glance, but Phoebe just smiled blithely and swam over to snatch her cap and stockings up from where she left them on the rocks. She donned them beneath the water and came out onto the shore, Sarah behind her.

  Caroline stood up and caught Phoebe’s arm as she walked past. “Did you invite them here?” she whispered.

  “Of course,” Phoebe answered innocently. “I thought they might enjoy a picnic. Did I do something wrong, Caro?”

  Caroline watched as Justin came closer and closer. He was dressed casually today, in a blue coat, buckskin breeches, and a plain, simply tied cravat. He wore no hat, and the breeze ruffled his sun-touched hair.

  He smiled at her and waved.

  Caroline thought he was the loveliest sight she had ever seen.

  As he came ever closer, she reached up nervously to make certain her hair was still tidy and smooth beneath her cap.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, handing Caroline a small parcel. “Mother sent some of her raspberry cordial, since she couldn’t be with us today.”

  Caroline stared up at him and heard herself saying, as if from a long way away, “Thank you, Lord Lyndon. We are very glad you and Mr. Seward could come.”

  “I got the distinct impression earlier that you were rather startled to see us. Did your sister invite us without your knowledge?”

  Caroline’s hand tightened on Justin’s arm. They were walking along the shore after the long and very merry picnic luncheon, watching the three young people where they dug about in the sand up ahead. Looking for smugglers’ treasure, no doubt. Then the three of them ran off behind a small hill, out of sight.

  “I confess she did,” she answered. “But that does not mean that your presence was at all unwelcome. It has been a delightful day.”

  She realized that these were not just polite words. It had been a delightful day, full of laughter and good cheer. She felt warm and happy, with the cordial in her veins, the sun on her head, and Justin beside her.

  It was a perfect day, almost as perfect as the night in the assembly rooms garden had been. A day she wished could go on forever and ever.

  But she knew it could not.

  She turned to face Justin, walking half sideways. “Lord Lyndon—Justin—there is something we have to talk about.”

  He smiled at her, so sweetly that she felt her resolve to be honest and truthful melting away beneath it until it was almost gone.

  Almost.

  “I know,” he said. “We have many things to talk about. What would you care to start with?”

  She tried to steel her resolve against his teasing. His casual, happy manner only made her fear what she must say even more.

  She didn’t want to lose this, his smile, his laughter, his admiration. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping that not seeing his face would help her to say what she had to say.

  Unfortunately, shutting one’s eyes while walking is not the wisest thing to do. Her slippered foot caught on a clump of driftwood, and she fell with a thud to the hard-packed sand.

  For one moment, she lay there absolutely stunned, unable to move or breathe. She felt sick to her stomach.

  Then she felt absolutely mortified. When she finally caught her breath, reality returned, and she realized she was lying like a beached fish at the feet of the man she loved.

  She groaned and pressed her forehead harder into the itchy sand. So what if she had been about to destroy his faith in her forever with her confession? That didn’t mean she wanted his last vision of her to be this. A small part of her, the part that had once been young and foolish and read cheap novels, had wanted him to remember her as tragic, self-sacrificing, and nobly alluring, even as she gave him up.

  Well, now she could bid farewell to nobly alluring. He would surely always remember her as awkward and dirty with wet sand.

  She moaned softly.

  Then she noticed that he was kneeling beside her, calling her name frantically. Her ears must be full of sand, too.

  “Caroline!” he cried. “Caroline, can you hear me? Are you conscious?”

  She slowly turned her head to look at him, or rather at his arm as he reached for her. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at his face. “I am ... conscious,” she murmured.

  “Thank the Lord! Are you in pain anywhere? Can you sit up?”

  She did ache a bit, but she knew she could not just go on lying there forever. The sand was beginning to prickle. She nodded, and he slid his arms about her, pulling her gently upright.

  A sharp pain shot up her left leg, and she cried out.

  “What is it?” Justin asked, his blue eyes slate-gray with worry.

  “My ankle,” she gasped through the throbbing ache. “I must have twisted it when I fell.”

  “It could be broken.”

  Caroline shook her head and reached into the tight sleeve of her bathing dress for a handkerchief to wipe her face with. She might be crippled now, but she wanted to be a cripple with a clean face.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “We should make certain. Then we will get you to a physician. Where are those blasted children at? They’re never about when you actually need them.” He reached for her foot and started to draw the heavy woolen stocking down from her knee.

  At first, Caroline was too busy scrubbing at her face to truly realize what he was about. Then she felt the soft, tantalizing brush of fingertips against her calf and looked down at him.

  For one long moment, time seemed suspended. She could still feel the touch of him on her skin, the sunlight beating down on her head, the piercing ache of her ankle. But she could not move or speak. She was frozen.

  Only one image kept replaying itself in her mind. The image of her standing in her office at the Golden Feather while he held her scarred ankle in his hand.

  It was an image eerily like the one she was living now. Only now it was so very much worse, because she knew all that she was losing.

  And the only thing she could do was watch and wait.

  He rolled the stocking to her ankle, then glanced up at her. She made her face as cool and expressionless as she could, and gave him a small nod.

  If this was how it was fated to be, then so be it. Perhaps it would be easier if he hated her as a deceiver, after all.

  He drew the stocking the rest of the way off and pressed his thumbs to the delicate bones of her foot. They moved gently over the arch, pressing lightly. Closer his touch came, ever closer, until his thumb brushed over the rough, raised scar on her ankle.

  Then he stilled. He became as frozen as she herself felt, and even his hands felt chilled against her skin.

  He lifted her foot a bit and stared at the pink scar. Caroline fought the urge to yank her foot away, to scream and cry out and run away. She made herself sit there, as still as ice, her face the cool mask she had learned to don in her lonely years at the Golden Feather.

  She only wished she had one of her cloth masks to hide behind, as well.

  He raised his gaze to hers. His eyes were bewildered and dazed. “How could? ... Is this? . . .” he said hoarsely. His grasp tightened.

  Caroline swallowed hard. “Yes. I am, or was, Mrs. Archer.”

  Justin slowly placed her foot back onto the sand. Caroline caught up the stocking and pulled it quickly back over her leg, wincing as it passed over the swollen ankle.

  The pain was as nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

  Justin sat back against the driftwood. The stunned look on his face ripped at her soul. “Tell me,” he said.

  “What is there to tell? Lawrence died without a farthing to his name. His only legacy to me was the deed to a gaming establishment, a place called the Golden Feather. He won it, you see, in a game of chance the very night he died. So he did not have time to lose it again.”

  “And you took th
e place over?”

  Caroline nodded wearily. She found she could not go into all the reasons for that action now. She was tired and in pain, and all that seemed so far away now. As if it had all happened to another woman.

  Besides, to Justin, a gentleman, her reasons would not matter. A true lady would have chosen genteel poverty over ill-gotten riches.

  As indeed she would have, for herself. But not for Phoebe. Never for Phoebe.

  And now they were both ruined.

  “Why did you not tell me?” he said, his voice tight with anger. “All these weeks, we have spent so much time together, and you never said a word.”

  “Why do you think I did not tell you? Because then you would have given us the cut direct and made your mother and brother cut us, too. All of Society would have followed your example, starting with the Bellweathers. I could not have borne that for Phoebe, never!”

  Caroline feared she was about to start weeping. She turned her face away from him, refusing to look at his furious, wounded eyes any longer.

  He stared at her in the heavy silence, his gaze like a hundred knives stabbing at her heart.

  Then the dark spell was broken by a piercing shriek.

  Caroline looked up to see Phoebe running toward them, closely followed by Harry and Sarah. She had lost her cap again, and her hair fell down in unruly curls. Her hands were bunched into fists, and she was frowning most fiercely. She looked like a vengeful little Valkyrie.

  “Once again your guard comes to your rescue,” Justin muttered. “First your maid and her book, and now this, Mrs. Aldritch. Mrs. Archer.” He raked a shaking hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in wavy tufts. “Whoever you are.”

  “I am Caroline,” she whispered. “I am me.”

  But he did not hear her. Phoebe was upon them, shouting, “What have you done to my sister? Why is she sitting in the sand like that? Did you knock her down?”

  Justin stared at Phoebe unseeingly. Then he said, “Pardon me. I must ... go. I am sorry. Harry, please see the ladies home.”

  Then he stood up and walked quickly down the shore, out of their view.