The Heart Denied (12 page)

London stewed in a late-summer heat wave, steam rising off the slop in the gutters, slack-tongued dogs lazing on shaded stoops, and wilted shopkeepers poking their heads through open doorways in hopes of a putrid breeze off the Thames. Exiting an establishment on Fleet Street, Thorne doffed his waistcoat and cast a hopeful eye toward the afternoon sky for any sign of an approaching storm. Giving that up, he sought out the Sutherland coach waiting among others at the curb, where Caroline's driver sat mopping his forehead, and her horses whipped their tails at the relentless, tormenting flies.

No wonder he hadn't missed the city.

Inside the coach, he wiped his sweating brow and loosened his neckcloth, then leaned back against the upholstered velvet. How he longed to be home. Barring that, he'd settle for a dunk in yonder horse trough and a pint of ale.

In the last seven hours, he had identified Horace's body at the mortuary, authorized the post-mortem, arranged the memorial and interment, and met with the man's solicitors to begin assessing real property and inventory. A thorough audit of all accounts was begun, its result to reveal the extent of damage inflicted by the funding of Horace's drug habit. Thorne absently patted his valise, the documents therein requiring only Caroline's signature to transfer assets once they were determined.

Secluded in her room, the new widow had vowed to refuse all callers and not to appear until the funeral. She'd said little throughout the close, sticky journey from Wycliffe yesterday, for the most part staring blindly through the coach window, which had suited Thorne fine.

And so he was surprised, after an interminable half-hour ride from Fleet Street to her mansion, to find her waiting for him. He saw strain about her eyes, shadows Ashby had tried to conceal with powder. Mourning hadn't affected her grooming, though, he noted wryly. With her hair sleekly coifed, her black moiré silk frock fresh and crisp, and black opals shining softly at her throat and earlobes, she seemed unaffected by the heat. He felt all the more disheveled by contrast.

After promising her a full account of the day's events, he returned to the guest room, where his needs, right down to the tankard of ale, had been faultlessly foreseen. A copper tub practically overflowed with sandalwood-scented water, a pressed white bath-sheet draped over its side. Should ale not be his preference, a glass and a crystal decanter of Scotch whiskey sat next to a linen cloth on the sideboard.

Sunk chin-deep in the bath water, Thorne drifted off to sleep. The maid's sharp rap on the door to inquire if all was well roused him a half-hour later.

In deference to his liking for a late-afternoon repast, Caroline served tea in the library, a cool enough room under its high molded-plaster medallion ceiling and the dense shade of an oak in the rear garden. Brandy was brought in as well, and Thorne watched Caroline pour two glasses. "Not particularly a habit of mine," she said, glancing at him from under long lashes. "But just now I could use some fortification."

He suppressed a smile. Neither was it her habit to justify her actions.

She seemed pleased at his assessment of the manner in which Horace's affairs were being handled, distressed when Thorne confirmed that accounts had suffered some tampering.

"Don't fret," he advised her gently, "at least, not 'til you've heard from Holstaad. The man is working tirelessly with the accounting house. Tomorrow you've the service to endure, 'tis more than enough to weigh on your mind just now."

She smiled then, a wistful, bearing-up gesture in which Thorne saw no trace of the woman who'd repeatedly held him hostage with little more than a glance, a word, or a languid movement. Instead he saw a woman who had sincerely loved her husband. For the first time since Gwynneth had begged him to come to London, he began to relax.

"You are an extraordinary man, my lord." Caroline's pensive smile lingered as she poured the tea.

"And why is that, Mistress Sutherland?"

"Not many men would have agreed to do as you've done for me. Or rather, for your wife." Handing over his cup, she eyed him keenly and, when he made no denial, sighed. "A poor state of affairs for your first days of marriage, isn't it?"

"My wife," Thorne said after sampling the tea, "has prodigious powers of persuasion."

"I tried, you know."

"Tried?"

Caroline put her cup aside and settled with feline grace into her chair. "I tried very hard to dissuade Gwynneth from asking such an outrageous favor of you."

"Did you."

"Yes, but she was quite determined to see it through. God knows
I
hadn't the strength to argue at the time."

"Meaning I should have?"

Caroline shrugged.

"I argued," Thorne admitted.

Eyes twinkling, Caroline bit her lip. "For how long?"

He could not keep a smile in check. "Half the night, it seemed."

Both of them laughed, then Thorne put a finger to his lips.

"Yes, you're right," Caroline said, sobering. "Talk will be all over town that the Widow Sutherland had a wonderful time with Neville of Wycliffe-"

"And did she?"

"-on the eve of her husband's burial," she finished.

Thorne froze, then shook his head. "God only knows what made me ask that. I am truly sorry, I must be half out of my mind."

Caroline waved a dismissive hand. "You probably
are
half out of your mind, with exhaustion and hunger. Excuse me, I'll see if supper can be served shortly. It might do us both good to retire early."

As she passed him, skirts rustling, Thorne impulsively caught her hand. She stopped, making no move to wrest it away, and looked down at him. "Say you forgive me," he said. "For my rudeness. Past and present."

The clock struck the hour, making the moment more awkward for him, especially as it wasn't until the last stroke died away that Caroline finally slid her long fingers out of his grasp, her shapely mouth wrapping words around a velvet voice.

"You are quite forgiven, my lord."

* * *

With the last of the mourners gone, Marsh cleared the cups and plates away. Thorne and Caroline lingered, seated near an open window, a small table between them.

"You should rest," he said. "It's been a full day for you, and not yet mid-afternoon."

Studying his face, Caroline waved her fan lazily to and fro, stirring little tendrils of hair on her forehead. "You won't rid yourself of me that easily. Besides, I've a reply for you."

"A reply? I don't recall asking-"

"You're wondering why I've produced no flood of tears, no histrionics."

God's bones, am I that transparent?
"It has crossed my mind," he admitted.

"The tears will come." She shrugged. "And when they do, they shall pass unmarked."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I always weep alone."

"You wept in my arms Friday night," he countered before he could stop himself.

"I was inebriated, thanks to you. People in their cups will cry over anything."

"And were you inebriated in the wee hours of Sunday morn?"

Caroline's eyes narrowed. "I'd just had Holstaad's letter."

"Yes, and you were not alone. I was there. I wiped your tears with my own hand."
Stop. Stop now.

"Your point?" Her voice had grown dangerously soft.

"Only that your toughness, the self-reliance on which you seem to pride yourself, is a façade. A defense, if you will."

"Said by a man who has put up a defense or two himself."

Touché.
Thorne tried not to glower.

"So," Caroline said, lightening her tone, "tomorrow, you'll return to your new bride."

"After you and I've met with your solicitors. And perhaps visited the cemetery afterward?"

She looked surprised, then touched. "I'd like that very much, thank you."

Marsh brought in brandy and a cache of cigars. "You may as well take them all," Caroline told Thorne, briefly catching her lip between her teeth before going on. "Horace never smoked...not cigars, at any rate," she amended with a grimace. "But he always kept a fresh supply for guests."

"Perhaps your half-brother will want them."

She nearly dropped her glass. "I never see the man," she said hastily. "We're not on such terms, and I seldom hear of his whereabouts or his welfare. Have you any siblings, Thorne?"

He suppressed a smile. "No. Though as a boy I often wished I had."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "The country is beautiful, but it can be lonely for a solitary child."

"Your mother died when you were young?"

"I was three. She contracted an ague in London. She was there with my father for the opening of Parliament. He never forgave himself. Buried her in the churchyard, and buried himself in business."

"You'd no nurse?"

Thorne shook his head. "My mother was my nurse--at her insistence, I'm told. Later I'd a tutor six mornings out of seven. Sundays and afternoons I roamed the manor or explored the house and generally got underfoot. The servants dared not complain--save for one."

"Dame Carswell," Caroline guessed, and laughed at the confirmation in Thorne's rueful expression. "No friends, then, no visiting cousins?"

Thorne fell silent, debating a reply that could open old wounds. "There was one," he said at last. "A young girl who used to visit with her father--an earl or a viscount, some such title or other, a friend of my father's. At any rate, she was a good companion, and my age or thereabouts. Always willing to assist me in my pranks and share in my adventures."

"Don't you remember her name?"

He fought to keep the knot in his stomach from rising into his throat. "I could never forget it."
Try though I have. "
Madelena. 'Maddie' to her doting father, but she refused to answer when I addressed her so. Bade me call her 'Lena'. At the moment her surname escapes me."

"Were the two of you close?"

He shrugged, trying to appear casual. "As close as thirteen-year-olds can become during the course of two years. She and her father visited nearly every month for days at a time."

Caroline settled back in the stuffed brocade chair, her face in shadow and her ample décolletage in the direct light of the fire. Thorne wondered if the distraction was deliberate. He tried to focus on her face.

"So, Lena was your first love?"

"I suppose."

"But only because she was in the vicinity?"

Irritated with Caroline's persistence, Thorne still felt strangely compelled to confide in her now that she'd unlocked old memories. He drew a long breath, knowing he would have to steel himself in the end.

"Lena and I had each lost our mothers at a young age, and both our fathers grappled with grief and matters of business. They'd little time for us. She was without siblings, too. An extraordinary girl, not at all like the ones I'd seen in London, with their endless simpering and giggling and primping. She liked nothing more than to hitch up her skirts and ride hell-for-leather astride any one of the horses, the wilder the better. We'd mad races through the forests and meadows, sometimes nearly killing ourselves
and
our mounts." Thorne faltered, surprised to find a poignant smile forming on his lips. "Sometimes we'd sneak through the north end of the forest and make off with melons from a tenant's field--I could barely outrun Lena, she was every bit as reedy and leggy as I was at the time--then we'd chill the melons in the beck and bathe while we waited. She swam like a fish, and could hook them as well. Baited her own lines, too."

"Ah, the ultimate qualification for the perfect mate," Caroline said, chuckling.

"Let's say I thought it an admirable talent."

"And was this Lena pretty?"

"By whose standards?"

"Yours, of course."

He frowned. "Why is physical beauty such a point with women?"

"Because men have made it so."

"Very well then, I thought she was pretty. But my exposure to women was limited."

"Rubbish. There were maids aplenty in your house, and you've knocked about since. So,
was
she pretty?"

"Probably." Thorne frowned. "Has anyone ever told you you're quite bold?"

"Bold as brass." She shifted in her chair, allowing the firelight to reveal an impish smile on her lush lips.

"Well, whoever said it was bloody well on the mark."

Caroline scrunched up her perfect nose at him. "So, Lena visited regularly for two years. What happened then?"

Thorne took a fiery gulp of brandy and stared into his glass. "For a long while, I didn't know. They stopped coming. When I asked my father why, he put me off, something about a disagreement with Lena's father. I learned the truth much later. Lena died of malaria, on one of their more exotic travels."

"First your mother, and then Lena," Caroline said softly.