Leslie Lafoy (36 page)

She could do this; the only other choice was to lie down and die. She forced herself to breathe and willed a wholly false calm into her voice to ask, “How long will you be gone?”

He hesitated, raked his lower lip with his teeth, and then flatly replied, “When you and your sisters come back to the city for the Season, you’ll take up residence at Lady Aubrey’s town house.”

Her heart tearing, tears clawing at her throat, she could only whisper, “So we’re done.”

“We both know that it’s for the best.”

“And we’ve always known that this day would come sooner or later,” she added as she was supposed to, as a blessed numbness crept slowly through her. “Have you said your farewells to Simone and Fiona?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat and lifted his chin a notch higher. “Fiona cried. Simone . . . Well, let’s just say that she dubiously broadened her little sister’s vocabulary and leave it at that.”

“She’s young,” she offered in her sister’s defense. “She doesn’t understand how one must do the sensible thing regardless of how difficult it may be.”

“Precisely. We found ourselves unexpectedly thrown into a world neither one of us finds particularly comfortable and—”

“Found comfort in each other,” Caroline supplied quietly, vaguely troubled by the absence of clear memories. Were they gone forever? Wiped away like the sums on a schoolroom slate? Or were they simply floating out there somewhere in the graying edges of the foyer?

He nodded ever so slightly and cleared his throat again. “Now it’s time that we accept where we are, who we are, and do what’s expected of us. I appreciate all that you’ve done—are doing—to improve my standing.”

“As I appreciate your concern for my reputation,” she lied. How easily it had slipped off her tongue. How sincere it sounded. A new talent.

“The men will line up around the block once you get to London. You’ll have your pick.”

I’ve already picked. And been denied.

“But, in the event that none of the men are to your liking . . . ”

She stared at the leather folio in her hand, dully wondering how it had gotten there and oddly intrigued by the fact that she couldn’t feel it.

“We made a bargain that first day,” she heard him say as though from a great distance. “I would see your business settled fairly and have a document drawn up allowing you access to your dowry portion if you choose not to wed. In exchange, you would accompany me and fulfill the terms of Lady Ryland’s will. You kept your end of the bargain, and now I’ve kept mine.”

It had been nothing more than a bargain to him? An exchange of services. A contract made and kept. How very foolish she’d been to let it become more to her than that. She should have known better.

“The money from the settlement of your business is yours regardless of your decision on marriage. It’s been placed on account in both our names with my signature required for you to gain access. I didn’t want it to be possible for a husband to take what’s rightfully yours. If you ever have need of the funds for yourself, for your dreams, I’ll sign at your request.”

Ah, dreams. No, she’d never do that again. Losing them hurt too much. Slowly, thickly, she realized that there was silence hanging between them. Had he said something? Was he waiting for a reply? “Good-bye, Lord Ryland,” she said, hoping it was what he expected to hear.

“Good-bye, Lady Caroline.”

She didn’t see him walk away, she felt it. A cold emptiness unfolded in her soul, growing larger with every step he took, pushing back and walling away all other feelings. At the click of the door latch it crystalized, hard and impenetrable. Deep inside her, tears welled and froze. Wave after wave of them rose and surged, each piling hard against the one before. Her chest tightening, the pain growing with every ragged beat of her heart, she put the folio on the table, turned and moved toward the stairs while her legs could still hold her.

“Lady Caroline, we were planning the menu for tomorrow evening.”

“Serve whatever you like,” she said, gathering her skirts, fixing her gaze on the upstairs landing, and starting up.

“It is your responsibility to decide.”

“I’ve decided that I’d very much like everyone to go
somewhere else for dinner. Preferably on their way to live in someone else’s house.”

“A good hostess does not ask guests to leave. It would be incredibly ill-mannered to even hint that they’d outstayed their welcome.”

A good hostess. Ladies do not.

“Lady Caroline!”

Ladies do not stride, they glide. Ladies do not laugh, they titter. Ladies do not cry, they sniffle. Ladies do not cry. Ladies do not cry.

“Good afternoon, madam.”

Ladies do not ask, they instruct.
“Lock the door, Dora,” she said, standing in the center of her room, not quite remembering how she’d gotten there. “Don’t let anyone in. If Lady Aubrey wants to know where I am, tell her I’ve died.”

“I can’t say that, madam!”

Caroline wrapped her arms around her midriff and closed her eyes. “Then tell her I’m not feeling well and don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Shall I summon a physician?”

“It’s nothing a physician can fix,” Caroline said softly, wishing that a simple balm or poultice could ease the horrible ache in her soul. “I need to be alone for a while. I’ll be fine in time, Dora.”

“Are you sure, madam?”

No, not at all.
“Yes. Thank you for being concerned.”

“I’ll be in my apartment. If you need anything, ring and I’ll come.”

Caroline nodded and listened to Dora slip away. In the silence there was only cold emptiness, her frozen sea of tears, and the tiny voice of hope whispering,
maybe
. She turned and walked through the sitting rooms and into Drayton’s.

The fire was banked in the hearth, the bed made, the draperies drawn back from the windows to admit the golden autumn light. She crossed to the armoire and opened it. Then stepped to the bureau, pulled open the drawers one by one, then went into his bathing and dressing rooms.

In the end, she stood at the side of his bed, straining to hear the whisper of hope again. It refused to offer her anything more, refused to deny the truth. It was over. Forever and always done. Drayton was gone. He’d taken all of his things with him, leaving her nothing to hold, nothing to remember, nothing to wrap the fragile wisps of her hope around.

She reached down and smoothed a wrinkle from the coverlet. Then up to adjust the edge of the sham covering a pillow. Drayton’s pillow. On Drayton’s bed.

Maybe . . .

She slid onto his bed, covering his place in it, gathering his pillow into her arms and holding it close, pretending it was him, willing him to come back to her. “Please,” she murmured, pressing her face into the pillow. “Please, Dray—”

The scent of him poured through her and struck her to the core, shattering the icy walls containing her pain. Choking on the surging tide of tears, she buried her face deeper in his pillow and sobbed as the memories flooded back.

I don’t love you.

  Nineteen  

THE JANGLE OF KEYS
?
CAROLINE TORE HER GAZE FROM
the flames dancing in her bedroom hearth and turned her head in the direction of the sound. Yes, it was Mrs. Gladder. Moving from the door to the window on the opposite wall. “I instructed Dora that no one was to be admitted.”

“So she said.” She threw the curtains wide in one smooth, ruthless movement.

Caroline flung her forearm over her eyes, shielding them from the intense sudden brightness. “I don’t want the draperies pulled back.”

“And I don’t want to trip over the furniture.”

It sounded as though . . . Caroline drew her arm back just enough to peer out through squinted eyes. Yes, Mrs. Gladder had dropped down into the facing chair and was studying her across the tea service. Her eyebrows were knitted and her mouth was pulled to one side as if she wanted to smile and frown at the same time. Caroline covered her eyes again. “I didn’t give you permission to sit,” she said, trying to deflect the approaching lecture.

“My dear girl, one begins as one means to go on, and it’s far too late for you to decide to be a duchess with me. And while I will publicly defer to you as befits your rank,
in private you and I will speak just as frankly about all matters as we do the making of draperies and the painting and papering of walls.”

So much for the imperial approach. “I don’t want to talk at all.”

“What
do
you want to do?”

Be miserable and die. Alone.

“A point of information for you as you sit there and contemplate . . . No ones dies of a broken heart.”

How did she know what she’d been thinking? Caroline lifted her arm and peered at her again.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Gladder said, rolling her eyes. “It’s such a wonderfully tragic way to achieve revenge. But the truth is that only fragile, delicate little girls have hearts weak enough to be at risk.
If
they had the fortitude to fall in love to begin with. Which they don’t. And on the chance that no one has ever said so, allow me to be the first to inform you that you are not any more a little girl than you are either fragile or delicate.”

The suspicion of which had flitted through her disappointment just a while ago when she’d found herself still alive as the sun had come up again. She let her arm fall into her lap. “I’m not as strong as you think I am.”

“If you’re feeling weak, it’s largely because you haven’t eaten anything in the last four days.”

Well, that was probably true. Still . . . “I’m not hungry.”

Mrs. Gladder sighed softly, studied her for a few moments, and then said firmly, “Lady Caroline, men have been incredibly stupid and done magnificently stupid things since the dawn of time. It is simply part of their natures. It is part of our natures to watch their follies, clean up the debris left in their wake, and decide whether we
want to accept their apologies when they finally realize what complete oafs they’ve been.”

“Some of them never realize they’ve been oafs,” she countered. “And some of them would choke to death on an apology.”

“Would you put Lord Ryland in either of those categories?”

Drayton was certainly capable of reflection. And expressing his regrets. Both of which had been evidenced the morning they’d stopped along their way to Ryland Castle and he’d asked her to marry him. If only she hadn’t been so quick to be rational. “No,” she admitted. “But then, he doesn’t think he’s done anything at all stupid this time. He thinks he’s being incredibly noble and protective.”

“Trust me, my dear,” the housekeeper said, arching a brow and smiling. “If he’s been sleeping alone for the last three nights, his sense of nobility and gallantry is crumbling by the second.”

She
knew
?

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lady Caroline,” Mrs. Gladder said, shaking her head. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you and Lord Ryland found so many opportunities to be alone and undisturbed?”

“It wasn’t just good timing?”

“The entire staff has worked very hard to ensure that love had every chance to grow and bloom.”

The entire staff knew? Oh, God. Caroline swallowed down her mortification and managed a tight smile. “Not that it worked out very well, but I appreciate the effort.”

“One of the other natural traits of women is our ability to exercise patience,” Mrs. Gladder went on. “It’s God’s
way of ensuring that enough males survive to continue the human race. Lord Ryland will come to his senses. It may take a while, but he will.”

So
she
said. “And if he doesn’t?” she countered peevishly.

“One day, one hurdle at a time, Lady Caroline. The task of the moment is for you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to living your life. Your house is full of unruly guests and—”

“Unruly?”

“Last night Lady Gregory organized a Tribute to Norway evening. Lord Henden pretended to be a reindeer and gave sleigh rides on upturned ottomans, ending in the foyer where everyone spent the better part of two hours bobsledding down the central staircase on silver trays.”

Caroline snapped her jaw closed and swallowed. “You’re joking.”