Lady Caro (7 page)

Vinson looked sharply at his host’s shrunken face and body. So Levisham was a dying man. What, Ashley wondered uneasily, would happen to Caro when her father was dead? Custom dictated that she become the ward of the new marquess and head of the family, Tilford Kelsie, who was both a drunkard and a mama’s boy. Furthermore, Ashley had not liked the way that bacon-faced Tilford had eyed Caro the previous night in the drawing room, rather like a hungry cat stalking a mouse.

What kind of life would poor Caro lead once she no longer had her father to protect her?

Chapter 8

When Ashley finished dressing for dinner that night, he sent his valet on a reconnoitering mission. Swope returned with confirmation of his master’s suspicion that Grace and Jane Kelsie, as they had the previous night, were again hovering just around the turn in the hall, waiting for him to emerge. Such overeager females, no matter how lovely, disgusted Ashley.

Opening the door silently, he tiptoed down the hall in the opposite direction to the back stairs and took them to the first floor. Heading toward the drawing room, he heard, through the half-opened door of the dining room, Olive Kelsie’s shrilly raised voice. “But I would never have locked dearest Caroline in her room. She is dreadfully mistaken.”

“Then how is it that the door was locked?” Levisham demanded.

“I am certain that it was not locked,” her aunt said thinly. “I do believe the door to her room sticks slightly. Yes,” she continued, her voice gaining strength from this inspiration, “I am certain that is what must have happened. It stuck, and dearest Caroline thought that it was locked.”

“Then I shall have to have it checked frequently to make certain that it does not become stuck again. One other thing, Olive. Your seating arrangement for dinner did
not suit
me. I have changed it, and it will remain this way until our guests depart.”

As Ashley stepped into the drawing room, the door to the dining room opened, and he had a glimpse of Mrs. Kelsie’s face, red as a lobster in her rage.

When Grace and Jane came into the drawing room, Ashley was gratified to see the startled chagrin upon their faces as they saw that he was already there. Little as he liked the two sisters, he had to admit that Grace looked exquisite in a frothy, beruffled creation of pink jaconet muslin.

Several minutes later, Caro came in, wearing a gown cut along exceedingly skimpy lines, as though the seamstress had been forced to conserve material. The result emphasized, rather than softened, her thin boyish figure. The neckline had been cut far too low for a child with her meager endowment. Even worse was the gown’s color, a shade of pink that should have been prohibited on anyone of her coloring, for it made her look dreadfully sallow. Suddenly he realized that Caro’s gown was of the identical pink jaconet as Grace’s. His eyes moved from one cousin to the other, and a dark suspicion entered his mind.

Seeing Caro, her aunt hurried toward her with an evil look in her eye. Ashley, who was talking to Emily and Mercer, hastily excused himself to his companions and followed Mrs. Kelsie.

“How dare you tell your father that I locked you in your room,” she hissed at her niece. Gone was the “dearest Caroline” and the syrupy tone that Olive had affected whenever someone else was about.

“But I did not,” Caro began.

“Don’t lie to me!” her aunt snapped.

“She is not lying,” Ashley interjected coldly.

Mrs. Kelsie, who had thought herself out of earshot of everyone but her niece, whirled in consternation to face him.

“I am the one who told her father,” Ashley said, “and he was as enraged as I thought he should be.”

Mrs. Kelsie was so stunned that she convicted herself by gasping, “How could you know?”

“My room is two doors from hers,” he replied. That much was true.

Caro’s aunt immediately drew the conclusion that Ashley had intended her to. “I assure you that your eyes deceived you, Lord Vinson. I was merely checking the key.”

“How odd that it should be the only room with the key on the outside of the door,” he observed. “I will not scruple to tell you, Mrs. Kelsie, that I found your action shocking. What if there had been—God forbid—a fire?”

Caro’s aunt suddenly seemed to be experiencing a great deal of difficulty in breathing, and her face grew quite as red as it had been when she had emerged from the dining room. Without a word, she stalked off.

Caro turned gray eyes, shining with gratitude, to Ashley. “How nice of you.”

“I wager you won’t find yourself locked in again, so there is no need for you to climb down that tree tomorrow.”

“Oh, I would not have anyhow,” Caro said cheerfully. “I gave Papa my word that I would not, and I would never break my word to him or to anyone.”

After dinner, Olive insisted on cards for entertainment and adroitly maneuvered Ashley to a whist table that included Grace, Jane, and Lord Sanley. To Caro’s acute unhappiness, her aunt assigned her to be Tilford’s partner, but her spirits picked up when she saw that Emily and Mercer Corte would also be at her table. Tilford was a wretched player, and the way he kept eyeing Caro made her so nervous that she could not keep her mind on the cards. They were roundly defeated by their opponents, even though Emily and Mercer were clearly more interested in each other than in the card play.

Caro had been dismayed when she had learned that Emily wanted to marry Corte. But now that Caro had met her friend’s personable suitor, observing how happy they were together and the adoring way that they regarded each other, she understood for the first time why a woman as intelligent as Emily might actually choose to wed. Emily’s and Mercer’s eyes met repeatedly over their cards in such a speaking look of mutual love and magnetism that Caro found herself wondering what it would be like to be so obviously loved and cherished by a man like him.

Or like Ashley? He was such charming company—and nice, too. Not at all toplofty like Sanley or malicious like Sir Percival or capsuled like Paul Coleman. Their ride that morning had been capital fun, and Caro would always be grateful to Ashley for protecting her from Aunt Olive before dinner. That meal, seated between him and her father, had been one of the most entertaining that she could remember.

Looking out the window of his bedchamber the following morning, Ashley glanced apprehensively toward the large elm that marked Caro’s room. To his relief, no telltale movement indicated that she was not keeping her word to her father. A smile tugged at Ashley’s lips as he remembered how emphatic she had been that she would never break her word. The child might be a ramshackle hoyden, but she was a most entertaining one. He could appreciate why her father cherished her so. Life at Bellhaven would be considerably duller without her.

She had been seated between Ashley and Levisham at dinner the previous night, making the meal far more enjoyable than it had been on the viscount’s first night at Bellhaven when he had been stuck between her two boring cousins.

Ashley had been amused by the ill-concealed fury on Mrs. Kelsie’s face when she had seen the new seating arrangement that Levisham had dictated. At the opposite end of the table from Ashley, who was between Caro and Emily Picton, sat Tilford with his mother on one side and Grace on the other. Percy Plymtree and his creaking Cumberland corset had been placed between Grace and Jane.

Despite Levisham’s retirement from society, he had maintained a keen interest in literature, the theater, politics, and affairs of state, which he had shared with his daughter. Ashley had been bemused by the intelligence with which Caro had discussed these subjects. She might be naive, but she had a quick mind. Nor did she hesitate to disagree with him. He found her frank tongue diverting after all the simpering girls who hung on his every word. True, she wanted conduct, but he was less put off by her than he had been in the beginning.

Ashley looked out over the rolling green hills and woods of Bellhaven’s park, invitingly serene in the soft light of morning. The spell of hot weather had not yet broken, and the day would again be scorching, making the park seem even more inviting. Breakfast would not be for another hour, and he decided to go for a stroll in the park first.

Twenty minutes later, he was standing before a particularly splendid weeping beech in the park, admiring the gracious droop of its branches, when he noticed a silver haired terrier circling an elm in the distance. Then a flash of color in the luxurious foliage of one of its lowest branches caught his eye. Abandoning his contemplation of the beech, he ran toward the elm, certain of what he would find when he reached it.

His foreboding again proved correct. Caro’s tiny figure, clad in an old frock that was clearly a relic of her schoolroom days, its skirts tied up about her thighs to reveal legs encased in a beruffled pair of white drawers and feet in nankeen half boots, was hidden in the greenery. To Ashley’s relief, the branch that she had chosen was not far off the ground. She was talking, apparently to something in the tree with her, so softly that he could not hear her words.

Not wanting to startle her, Ashley took care to make a very noisy approach to the tree. The leaves parted and her thin face appeared above him.

“Why is it, Caro, that I must always find you up a tree?” he asked in exasperation, feeling like a frustrated father trying to deal with a disobedient child.

“And why must
you
always rise so early?” she retorted with a gleam of mischievous humor.

“What the devil are you up to now?” His concern for her safety made his voice strident. “You gave your word to your papa that you would no longer climb trees. Is this how you keep it?”

Laughter fled from the big gray eyes, and they flashed with indignation. “I would never break my word. How ungentlemanly of you to accuse me of doing so. I promised Papa only that I would not use the elm as a staircase from my room. And I shan’t!”

Ashley, wondering whether her father was aware of this distinction, repeated, “What are you doing up there?”

“Rescuing Muffy.” She nodded her head toward her shoulder, which was obscured by the foliage. Ashley noticed for the first time a puff of white fur with dark markings, which proved to be a kitten fastened to her shoulder. “That wretched dog scared her up the tree, and she was afraid to come down. There was nothing to be done but for me to climb up and rescue her.”

“You might have summoned one of the servants to do so.”

The big gray eyes were again indignant. “But that would have taken forever and Muffy was so frightened. I could not have been so cruel as to leave her up here all that time, could I?”

Ashley diplomatically refrained from a truthful answer to this question, saying instead, “Hand the creature down to me.”

But Muffy did not wish to be handed down. Instead, she clung tenaciously to her rescuer’s shoulder. Finally Ashley instructed Caro to sit on the limb, which was only a foot or so above his head, and push off into his outstretched arms.

As he caught her and set her on the ground, he reflected again that she weighed no more than a feather. Muffy, frightened by this precipitous descent, was meowing furiously and digging her claws sharply into Caro’s shoulder. But she did not seem to mind the kitten’s lack of gratitude. Instead, she soothed it until it was purring happily.

The child was too soft-hearted for her own good, Ashley thought unhappily. She needed a guardian, and he seemed to be repeatedly trapped in that unwanted role.

When the men rejoined the women in the drawing room that night, a small orchestra was setting up in one corner to provide music. The furniture had been temporarily pushed from that end of the room to provide a small dance floor.

The day had been unbearably hot and humid, and night had brought no relief. When Ashley came in, he looked so cool and impeccable that Caro was instantly conscious of how hot and untidy she must look. She glanced rather enviously at Grace who was, as always, perfectly groomed in a stylish yellow batiste gown with not a single hair out of place.

But to her surprise, it was not the lovely Grace that Ashley sought out, but herself. He had scarcely reached her, however, when Aunt Olive hurried up with Grace and Jane.

“We are about to begin the dancing,” Aunt Olive said, waving her fan coyly. “My daughters tell me that you are a superb dancer, putting all the other men here in the shade.”

“Your daughters flatter me, ma’am,” Ashley replied coolly, not looking at all like a man who was flattered.

The orchestra struck up. Both Grace and Jane looked expectantly at Ashley, each clearly hoping that she would be the one he asked to dance, but he turned to Caro. “Will you do me the honor of standing up with me?”

As he swept her away, Caro had a hard time not to chuckle at the chagrin on her cousins’ faces.

After their dance was over, he stood up with Emily, then with each of the other ladies in the room. After a second dance with Caro, he retired from the dance floor to engage his host in conversation while Grace and Jane cast baleful looks in his direction.

The tall French doors that led out to the terrace had been opened wide in a vain attempt to cool the drawing room. Fanning herself vigorously, Caro looked longingly beyond the doors at the night. Her despised fan was proving to be more utilitarian than useless tonight. When no one was watching, she glided out onto the terrace, only to discover that one corner of it was already occupied.

Deep in protective shadows, Emily and Mercer were locked in an embrace. Remembering Tilford’s loathsome kiss, Caro shuddered. Yet Emily clearly relished Mercer’s.

That night, when the young ladies retired, Caro, beset by confusion, trailed Emily into her room. As her friend sat down at the dressing table, Caro said, “I saw you kissing Mercer tonight on the terrace.”

Emily’s startled eyes met Caro’s in the reflection of the mirror above the dressing table. “Did anyone else—”

“No, you were well hidden. Do you like it?” Caro could not suppress a tiny shudder as she remembered Tilford’s advances. “I fear that I would find kissing a man exceedingly unpleasant.”