To Charm a Naughty Countess (20 page)

“No, I know you could not. But now you seek help with these duties, a duchess to stand at your side.”

He bristled. “I would not ask anyone to fix my errors, Caroline. I have always sought to resurrect the fortunes of Wyverne myself. I would not even seek a marriage for money if there was any means of extending my own credit further.”

A sudden lift of the wintry breeze ruffled his dark hair, blew open the worn cotton of his shirt collar. He must be cold, but he seemed not to notice. Tall and strong and spare, he studied the sweep and flow of the quiet land. Its fallow moors, its rocky crags were his to protect.

But for all the uncaring land took from him, it could give him nothing back. Why could he not see this?

Caroline wanted to slide her arms in a living sash around his lean waist. To rest her face in the hollow between his shoulder blades until the tension that always tugged at them melted away. To press her warmth against his and whisper,
You
are
not
alone.

Stubborn man, though. Alone he had made himself, year upon year. His proposals had been nothing but matters of business; his heart remained shuttered away.

Even now, as his burdens grew, he trusted no one to help him carry them. Only when they grew unbearably heavy did he seek a marriage for money.

“Would you seek a marriage for any other reason?” she asked.

But the breeze flung her words away, and they never reached his ears. After another minute, she turned and walked back to the house.

When Caroline reentered the massive front hall of Callows, she momentarily forgot the manners instilled by a lifetime among the polite world.

This was, perhaps, understandable. Because the first person she saw upon reentering the great house, still stamping her chilly feet and rubbing together her chillier fingers, was her grand-nephew by marriage. Her late husband’s heir. Her most persistent, least beloved suitor.

Lord Stratton.

Her head reared back. “What are
you
doing here?”

Considering she hadn’t invited him, she could have said much worse to him than that. Stratton’s defiant expression told her that no one else had invited him either.

Considering
that
, she
definitely
could have said much worse.

“Surely you didn’t think you could escape me.” He tried on a silky smile. “I’m so delighted to have caught up with you, Caro.”

She shut her eyes for an instant, swallowed a shiver of distaste. “This is very odd behavior, Stratton, showing up without any type of summons.”

“We family members need not stand on ceremony with one another.” He stepped forward, taking her hand. “What’s yours is mine.”

Family members.
Ha
. Like a bloodhound, he had the scent of her hundred thousand pounds in his nostrils, and he couldn’t stay away from it. Money was life itself to Stratton.

Annoyed, she yanked her hands from his grasp. “That is not at all true. What’s mine is mine, and I want nothing to do with what’s yours.” Since he was exactly her height, she stared him straight in the eye. “Might I add, Stratton, that unless you are secretly related to His Grace, the Duke of Wyverne, then you are not in a situation or a household in which family relationships apply. I am nothing more than His Grace’s appointed messenger in the matter of arranging his house party.”

“Nonsense. You sent the invitations.”

Caroline wondered if this was the way Michael felt during social occasions: as though people were using the same words to speak two different languages. “And? Did I send one to you? I did not. There’s no place for you here, Stratton.”

Rather impressive that the smile remained affixed to his face. “I shall make a place.”

The solid thump of boots across the marble floor distracted Caroline from what would undoubtedly be another futile attempt to hold Stratton at a distance.

Michael.

He smiled when he saw Caroline; then his head seesawed to take in the earl at her side. “Lord Stratton?”

They stood still as chess pieces on the black and white squares of the floor, all frozen in surprise. Caroline was the first to find her words again. “The earl has come to call, Michael. This must be quite a surprise to you, as it was to me.”

Thus she hoped to communicate that: one, she hadn’t invited Stratton; two, she did not consider it a pleasant surprise; and three, she did not do him the intimacy of calling him by his first name.

Unfortunately, Michael was oblivious to social niceties, while Stratton was determined not to comprehend Caroline’s displeasure. So he only beamed at Caroline as though she’d thrown herself around his neck, while Michael narrowed his eyes in an expression of suspicion.

She would much have preferred the expressions reversed.

“Good to see you again, Wyverne,” Stratton said. “Nice little home you have.”

Michael stared at him, then turned his gaze to Caroline. “You did not invite him to attend?”

She shook her head.

He looked down his nose at Stratton. “Then you should not be here. Will you depart of your own volition, or must I have you removed by force?”

A puff of laughter escaped Caroline’s lips. He sounded so
calm
.

Stratton began to perspire; she could see the dew break out at his temples. “Surely there’s no reason for such talk between frien—”

“You decline to leave on your own? Very well.” Michael marched toward Stratton. “I shall assist you to the door. Caro, never let it be said I have no manners.”

“See here!” Stratton scuttled back a square. Distantly, a door opened and voices spilled forth.

Michael’s jaw tightened. “See what? That you have displeased the lady, and therefore myself?” He rolled up the cuff of his right sleeve, an ominous gesture.

“Your Grace!” Caroline blurted. “He has indeed displeased me, but I should not like to alarm the other guests by drawing attention to his presence.”

Both men froze. Caroline could hardly tell which was more surprised by her outburst.

“I—” She fumbled for words. Never before had someone risen so swiftly to her defense. Never before had she imagined Stratton would traverse the country uninvited.

With a shake of her head, she rattled her thoughts into order. “Here is my suggestion. The party intends to walk to Preston this afternoon—Stratton, that’s a town about a mile and a half from here. You may join us at that time. I’m sure you can find adequate lodging there until you can arrange for your journey back to London.”

The two noblemen continued to stare from their squares like frozen chess pieces.

“Is that acceptable, Your Grace?” she prodded.

Michael cast Stratton a freezing look, then returned his gaze to Caroline. “If it is acceptable to you?”

Warmth spread all the way into her cold fingers, making them tingle. “Yes. It will do.”

“Then until the outing”—Michael nodded toward Stratton—“you are free to wait in the drawing room.” He bowed to Caroline. “I shall have a footman escort him. You need not trouble yourself further.”

“It’s… fine.” She still reeled a bit from the conversation. “Thank you, Your Grace. We’ll be all right.”

He hesitated, only withdrawing after she gave him an extra nod, a smile that felt tremulous. She watched him cross the floor in swift strides, then pound up the wide flight of stairs and disappear from sight.

Oddly, she felt a bit more at ease with Michael gone. Their conversation had ended in stalemate, neither offering terms the other could accept. If a third party were to broker their relationship, it would certainly not be Lord Stratton.

Damn her stupid relative by marriage. Damn his complete breach of manners.

Caroline turned back to face Stratton. “You heard your extremely temporary host. A footman will come to keep an eye on you. Until then, you might as well wait here.”

Something sparked in Stratton’s blue eyes, and he caught her arm as she tried to turn away. “Making awfully free with the duke’s house, aren’t you, Caro?”

She shook her arm from his grasp. “I am not required to justify my actions to you, Stratton. I am fulfilling the role with which His Grace has tasked me; that is, to serve as hostess of this party.”

“So you do as Wyverne asks?” Stratton looked interested. “I wonder why. I wonder that he permits you such a free hand. Or is it you who has permitted liberties?”

A prickle of apprehension chased down Caroline’s neck. “Indeed not. But I do as I like.” So she had recently told Michael. The impulse sounded childish now—or foolhardy.

“You always have, haven’t you?” A tight smile played on his lips; too close, he stood. “I remember what you were like before you married the last earl. You couldn’t get—”

“
Enough
.” Caroline fixed him with her chilliest look. “I take pleasure in helping friends.”

“Yet you won’t help me?” He blinked at her, all innocence, yet his hand brushed her breast. “I know you enjoy giving men this sort of help.”

She would not step back; instead, she jabbed him in the chest with a forefinger. “If by
help
you mean
marry
, no, I won’t. I shall not marry simply to convenience someone who seeks my purse. If you require any other sort of help, you may ask for it. Just as I may refuse to give it.”

She turned toward the sweep of stairs Michael had just ascended. “Excuse me now, Stratton. I have guests to attend to. Stand here until someone comes to show you to the drawing room. I suppose you might have tea and a fire.”

And with that, she left, floating up the stairs with a grace entirely at odds with the tumult inside.

How vulgar, how exhausting, to be subjected to men such as Stratton. She could understand why Michael kept himself away from the boil of society, where one never knew what might bob to the surface. One must be always vigilant, ready to skim off the undesirable scum.

She had been such an undesirable once, thanks to Michael. He had won her; she had lost him. And she had almost lost her good name too.

It had not quite come to that, thank the Lord; specifically, the late Lord Stratton. He had been willing to marry her, dingy reputation and all.

Now it was up to Caroline to safeguard that reputation herself. It was, as she had once told Michael, what she had made it over long and deliberate years.

Caroline felt very tired standing alone. But if she wanted to do as she liked, she must draw back her shoulders and keep climbing the stairs.

I
shall
not
marry
simply
to
convenience
someone
who
seeks
my
purse.

She could almost wish that Michael had overheard, or that she had thought to announce the same to her roomful of puppy-like suitors in London.

She was wanted by everyone, Emily had said? No, she was truly wanted by no one. Wealth made it impossible for her to tell the false from the true—to know who cared only for her fortune and who would be satisfied with the comparative poverty of her heart.

***

The Londoners seemed pleased by the prospect of a jaunt into the nearby village. Michael tried to communicate the small size of Preston compared to London, hoping to keep his guests from being disappointed, but he became mired in an explanation of the cloth-making achievements that had originated nearby. Too late, he saw that everyone had drifted away from him, then been herded out the front door by Caroline. Only Miss Cartwright remained at Michael’s side.

“I apologize, Miss Cartwright.” He followed Caroline with his gaze. “I was carried away by my own interest in the subject, though Preston’s most notable achievements might not appeal to many others.”

“Perhaps not,” said the lady at his side, “though I myself share your interest in mechanical innovation, Your Grace. I was raised amidst coils of wire; I learned the workings of a spinning jenny at the age many children would instead learn to ride a horse.”

Michael turned back to her, surprised, and her gray eyes met his. “Not the most fashionable upbringing, I know. But I am the daughter of a tradesman, not a gentleman.”

He absorbed these glass-clear words. “I thank you for your honesty, Miss Cartwright. I welcome the chance to discuss mechanical innovation with you.”

Color rose in her porcelain cheeks. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Wyverne,” he said, feeling as though he were extending a hand of friendship.

“Wyverne, then,” she said with a nod of her pointed chin. “Ought we to join the others?”

Was her tone regretful? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t precisely feel regretful himself. When he took her arm, her gloved hand stirred him not at all.

This was good, though, a necessary step in assembling the machinery of a marriage of convenience. Best that his future wife’s touch not unsettle him, surely.

Caroline had chosen well. Miss Cartwright seemed perfect for him: a fellow tinkerer, as logical as he might wish for a wife who was to improve his dukedom.

But would a life with a wife so chosen be like the chugging of pistons, inevitable and endlessly similar? Who would make human a marriage between two such contraptions as he and Miss Cartwright?

It was in his nature to turn over unanswered questions, nag at uncertainties, sift through every contingency. But there were too many unanswered questions in his mind right now; he could never sift through them all. They were beginning to knock against the sides of his head, distracting him as he walked toward the rest of the party with Miss Cartwright. If he could only make a list, quantifying his confusion and thus controlling it.

But his guests were scattered over the lawn in front of his house, dressed in bright cottons and wools, chattery and spangled as a flock of starlings. And on his arm, requiring his solicitous attention, was the solution to his financial troubles.

“Please proceed down the road before you,” Michael said to his guests. “You’ll reach Preston in approximately one and one-half miles. The road should be in fair condition for a walk.”

Uncertainty flickered over the faces of his guests, and Michael realized he had sounded too brusque. Of all the Londoners, only three did not show signs of confusion. Miss Cartwright, still at Michael’s side, nodded her understanding. Lord Stratton beamed in a sickeningly triumphant manner.

Caroline, however, smiled at Michael as if he’d just said something delightful. Which was ridiculous, but it silenced his thumping headache anyway. The ache bled out of his head, swirling downward, twisting hungrily in his gut. He must have looked his hunger at her, because in the flicker before he looked away, her smile slipped and changed.

The headache returned with a dull thud. Michael twisted his arm within his coat sleeve, ensuring that Miss Cartwright’s fingertips touched only the insensible bone of his forearm.

And they all began to march down the road to Preston.

For the second time that day, Lord Stratton intruded himself on Michael’s notice. “Such a quaint part of England, isn’t it?” The earl swung his amber-headed cane in conspicuous arcs. “This
is
England, isn’t it?”

He swept a hand at the landscape, and Michael saw it through the eyes of a City dweller: deserted, quiet, rocky, barren.

How had he hoped to catch himself a wife here? What were the chances that any wealthy woman would love this place as he did?

“As you weren’t married over a blacksmith’s anvil during the course of your travels,” Caroline said from a few feet away, “then you must be aware you haven’t crossed into Scotland.”