An Honest Heart (32 page)

But she could not have abided that lie. It would have meant something to accept such a gift from a man like Oliver Carmichael. The latest bit of gossip about Oxfordshire’s most sought-after bachelor was that he was courting a young dowager baroness just come out of mourning and seemed very likely to marry her.

Caddy snorted. That must not sit well with Edith Buchanan.

She set her hands down in her lap and closed her eyes, praying for forgiveness for such an uncharitable thought. Edith Buchanan was obviously a very unhappy woman, and the only way she had found to cope with her misery was to take it out on others.

Out in the shop, the bell on the front door clanged—a sound that had become more and more common as the time for the opening of the Exhibition drew nigh. The sound filled Caddy’s heart with both gladness and dread. She was thankful for the extra business to make up for that which she’d lost due to the rumors about Neal. But she dreaded the idea that she might get to the point where she could no longer accept any more orders and would have to turn potential customers away.

A light tap preceded the workroom door opening. “Miss Bainbridge, there’s another special delivery for you.” Nan’s brown eyes sparkled.

Caddy groaned and set her sewing aside. Letty and Alice, who’d been told the story of Oliver’s delivery, exchanged significant looks, and their giggles followed her out into the shop.

Instead of a messenger, however,
he
stood there. Neal Stradbroke, his golden-brown hair gleaming in the sunlight streaking in through the windows behind him, stood just inside the front door, hands clasped behind his back.

He gave her a smile when he saw her, but it was tenuous at best. He extended a thin packet toward her with a slight bow. “Special delivery for Miss C. Bainbridge.”

Once she took it from him, he reached behind him for the doorknob. “No reply is necessary.” He disappeared into the mid-morning glare.

Caddy carried the letter upstairs to her room and closed the door, ensuring privacy.

She slid her thumb under the seal and popped it open. As had happened with Oliver’s delivery, other slips of paper slid out when she unfolded the outer parchment.

In Neal’s no-nonsense handwriting, she read:

Monday, 28 April 1851

North Parade, Oxfordshire

My dear Miss Bainbridge,

Please accept the enclosed as tokens of my regret for having hurt you by what I have done and said. Or, to be more precise, what I have not said. I have been selfish in not telling you the truth about myself, meaning only to guard against personal pain and sorrow, not thinking of what it was doing to you.

There is so much I need to tell you, so much of my heart I want to share with you. But before I can, I need to know if you can forgive me for hurting you so.

You need not reply to let me know whether you accept my peace offering or not. If you do, please meet me near the south entrance of the Crystal Palace behind the Canadian timber display on the first of May at eleven thirty in the morning. If you do not come, I will have my answer.

Yours affectionately,

N. Stradbroke

Caddy lifted the smaller of the two scraps of paper that had fallen to the coverlet. A pass for the opening day of the Great Exhibition. Unlike the one Oliver had sent, which would have allowed her to sit in the stands near the stage to listen to Queen Victoria’s opening address, Neal’s ticket was general admission, granting the bearer admittance but no special privileges once inside. The other, larger piece was a train ticket. Not first class, as Oliver’s had been, but still the comfort of second class.

She pressed the pass and ticket to her lips to muffle her cry of happiness, then looked up toward the ceiling. “Thank You, Lord.”

To keep the letter, ticket, and pass safe, she tucked them into the front of her father’s Bible, which she kept beside her bed. Back downstairs, she took her sewing up again with a joy she had not felt in many years—since long before Father died.

At dinner, with Mother, the apprentices Mary, Agnes, and Phyllis present, Caddy knew she had to tell them.

“I will be taking my trip to London earlier than expected.”

Everyone looked up from her dessert, eyes wide.

“How much earlier?” Mother asked.

Caddy cleared her throat. “I am leaving day after tomorrow.”

“But that means . . .” Nan counted on her fingers. “That means you are going for the opening.”

“I thought you sent the tickets back to Mr. Carmichael.” Phyllis licked her spoon before setting it down.

“I did. I received an invitation from someone else to attend on opening day, and I am accepting it.”

Mother’s pale blue eyes lit up. “Does this have anything to do with the special delivery that Dr. Stradbroke brought today?”

Caddy’s cheeks burned. “Yes. Tomorrow, I will wire Madame Renard and let her know to expect me a week early. I leave on the eleven o’clock train Wednesday morning.

The rest of the evening was spent with everyone crowded into Caddy’s small room, advice flowing freely as to which gowns she should take to consign in Madame Renard’s shop and which one she should wear to the opening of the Exhibition.

After sending the girls upstairs to bed and getting Mother and Mary off to do the same, Caddy collapsed onto her bed among a froth of gowns and petticoats.

If her suspicions were correct, Wednesday, the day before the opening, the train would be so crowded that a large trunk full of clothing would not make her a favorite among other travelers in the second-class car. So she put everything away and packed only what she would need for a few days in town. She considered taking the gown she had worn to the servants’ ball at Chawley Abbey, but the memory of what happened that night made her shudder and shove it to the back of her wardrobe. When she went back to London later this summer to take the girls and Mother to the Exhibition, she would be sure to take that gown to sell. Until then, she wanted it out of sight.

Besides, that was a ball gown. And even though many women would wear dresses fit for a dinner or ball due to the grandeur of the event and the presence of the queen and royal family, Caddy wanted to make sure she dressed in something that better suited her station in life. She was not a member of the gentry or aristocracy, nor would she become one through marriage, so she had no reason to dress as such.

She wondered what the wife of a doctor in a suburb of Oxford would wear. She smiled as her hand fell to the perfect dress. She had not worn it in a long time, which meant Neal had never seen her in it. And the bright color would ensure he would be able to find her. The last thing she wanted was for them to miss each other in the crowd and for him to decide she had chosen not to forgive him.

Edith arrived at the train station early Thursday morning. She yelled at the driver for stopping too far from the building, but when she climbed down from the carriage, she understood why. The station was mobbed with people obviously wanting to catch the first train to London to be sure not to miss the queen’s opening speech.

As a holder of a first-class ticket, which she’d had the foresight to send a servant for last week, Edith was ushered through the crowd and to the front car of the train. But even first-class passage did not guarantee her privacy. She found herself sharing the compartment with a couple and their three boisterous children.

By the time the train reached London, Edith had mentally prepared a strongly worded letter that she planned to write to the railway company demanding that they ban children from first-class cars in the future.

Since she could not go to the house, as Papa still had not given her permission to come back, Edith followed the crowd from the station the half mile to Hyde Park. She had not yet managed to secure a ticket, but she was certain she would be able to get in.

Just her luck, several people outside the high fence surrounding the park were selling tickets. Edith balked at the price quoted her by the man she approached, but she pulled out the coins and paid him, taking the pass in exchange.

She ventured into the park in the slow-moving queue, but broke away from the teeming mass as soon as she could find room to walk. She found herself in a large garden, which would have been pleasant except for all the other people walking in it.

How would she ever find Oliver among these thousands of people?

And then, as if by a miracle, the crowd parted ahead of her and she saw him. Dressed in brown worsted, his light hair roguishly tossed by the spring breeze that threatened rain at any moment, Oliver seemed to be following someone through the crowd.

Edith lifted her skirts and hastened after him, slowing when she drew near enough to be certain it was him.

A light drizzle began, and almost everyone in the garden dashed for the doors at this end of the Crystal Palace.

Oliver, however, had caught up with whoever he’d been chasing down. With his hand clamped around her elbow, he turned the woman in the rusty-orange dress toward him.

Edith gasped and lifted her skirts to run toward them, but suddenly, an arm snared her around the waist and pulled her behind a large oak tree.

Reginald Doncroft pressed his fingertips to her lips to shush her, then leaned around the tree to observe Oliver.

Edith struggled to free herself from Doncroft’s grasp, but he did not loosen his hold.

“Be still,” he hissed, “and watch.”

Oliver pressed Cadence Bainbridge against the base of a large statue and kissed her.

“I never thought he’d be able to do—”

The sharp crack of a slap cut off Doncroft’s words. Cadence ran toward the building, rubbing the back of her hand across her mouth.

Doncroft laughed. “As I suspected. She’ll never want anything do to with him. I warned him he should not put money on the chance of seducing a woman like that. Too prudish.” Doncroft looked down at Edith, his pale eyes narrowed, head cocked as if seeing her for the first time.

“Are you saying he wagered that he could seduce my seamstress?” She clenched her hands into fists, ready to go after him and tell him exactly what she thought of that.

Doncroft caught her around the waist again. “As you can see, he did not win the wager, so there is nothing to worry about, is there?”

Edith struggled against him, but the heat coming from him made her want to draw closer as the drizzle turned to a genuine rain. “Release me this instant. I wish to go inside now.”

“Do you?” He pressed her back against the tree. “Why are you so determined to marry Oliver Carmichael? You know he would never make you happy.”

Edith snorted. “And you would?”

“You and I are of a kind, Miss Buchanan.” He ran a finger down her neck, chasing a raindrop. “We understand each other.”

“I do not know how you can say that when we have hardly ever spoken.”

“We do not need words.”

Edith barely had time to draw a breath before Doncroft lowered his head and kissed her, his lips ravaging hers, drawing from her a hunger she’d never experienced. She returned his kiss with equal measure, half passion and half loathing for the man who drew such a reaction from her. She knew all about Reginald Doncroft and his exploits. And she knew he would make any woman he married miserable with his penchant for seducing maids in back stairwells. But she could not deny her physical reaction to him, no matter how wrong it was.

A sharp gasp and a man’s shout drew them back to the world of reality.

“Edith!” Dorcas stood under a large black umbrella held by Oliver’s other friend, Radclyffe. He must have been the man who shouted. “What are you doing here? Are you intent on completely ruining our family’s reputation? It is bad enough what you did to Kate, but now you allow yourself to be compromised too?”

Edith pushed away from Doncroft. “You are one to speak, out here alone with a man.”

Dorcas gazed soppily up at Mr. Radclyffe. “Sebastian and I are engaged to be married. He was supposed to meet his friends in the garden, and I begged to come with him so we could tell them together.” Dorcas folded her hands, prim as a schoolmarm, and frowned at Edith. “Were you so desperate to marry that you had to force a man to compromise you?”

When had her sister turned from a milquetoast into the tigress who now stood before her? Had falling in love given her so much confidence she could now stand up to Edith?

Beside her, Doncroft laughed. He yanked Edith back into his arms and kissed her again. Then he returned his attention to Dorcas. “I assure you, your sister has not been thoroughly dishonored. If a few stolen kisses necessitated a wedding, there would be many more forced marriages than there are.” He touched the dripping brim of his hat, then jogged off toward the building, laughing.

Dorcas slid her hand into the crook of her fiancé’s arm. “Father will be so angry if he learns you came back to London without his permission. You should probably go home—back to Wakesdown.”