An Honest Heart (27 page)

“There you are, Son.” M’lady swept into the hall, her cloth-of-gold gown—or close approximation, anyway—glimmering in the dim candlelight. “I’d hoped to speak with you before the ball.”

“About what?”

“About your connection with the unfortunate Miss Bainbridge.”

“Unfortunate?” He crossed his arms and glared at M’lady. Though he’d made disparaging remarks about the seamstress to Doncroft and Radclyffe, hearing someone else speak of her less than kindly gave rise to something inside him he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—identify.

“Yes. Miss Buchanan called this afternoon and shared some interesting news with me.”

Oliver listened with growing anger as his mother shared the gossip—nay, slander—Edith had poisoned her mind with about Cadence Bainbridge.

Taking a deep breath and dropping his arms to his sides, Oliver waited until she’d finished speaking. “I assure you, madam, there is nothing untoward between Miss Bainbridge and the doctor. Her moral fortitude is too high to countenance such a thing. Besides, she is not more than acquaintances with him, despite what Miss Buchanan might have told you. So his sins should not be visited upon Miss Bainbridge.”

Though he’d started the speech out of habit of taking the opposite side of anything his mother supported or believed, by the end of his speech, he found himself growing heated in his defense of the seamstress.

Could it be? Could he have genuinely come to care for her?

No. Surely not.

M’lady arched her brows imperiously. “Believe what you will, Son, but those kind of people do not live by the same morals as we do.”

He snorted. “No. Those kind of people almost always have higher morals than we.”

With a snap of fabric, M’lady spun and stomped through the door to the great hall.

A bit off balance by his reaction to his mother’s denigration of Miss Bainbridge, Oliver paced the entry hall.

He must win Miss Bainbridge over tonight. He could close the deal by getting her to agree to meet up with him at the Exhibition. Once she was put off her guard by the sights and sounds and inducements of London and the looser morals of town life, he would finish his seduction.

“My lord, my lady, Mr. Carmichael . . . Miss Cadence Bainbridge.” The butler stepped aside and Caddy passed into the vestibule from the entry hall. Oliver had ordered the carriage driver to bring her to the main entrance, not the servants’ door in the back.

Oliver found himself taken aback at her appearance. He’d never considered her a beautiful woman—she was too old for that appellation. She was handsome in her own way. Tonight, however, she came as close to beautiful as she might ever manage. And the gown she wore, with wispy gossamer over rustling taffeta, made her look like a princess straight from a Grimm fairy tale.

“Miss Bainbridge, you are a vision.” He lifted her hand to kiss it, careful to touch his lips to the fingers left bare by the mitts she wore.

Her cheeks pinked at the compliment. “Thank you, Mr. Carmichael.”

He offered her his arm and escorted her into the great hall. Her skirts billowed out like summer clouds when she dropped into a deep curtsy before his parents.

“Welcome, Miss Bainbridge.” M’lady looked none too happy that the seamstress had entered through the front of the house.

“My lady, my lord. I cannot express my gratitude for the invitation to your home.”

Oliver choked on a laugh. Caddy had been in this house more times than he could count, between fittings and deliveries of his mother’s gowns. But he supposed she meant being a guest for the first time. He would remind her later that
he
had extended her the invitation, not either of them.

In high dudgeon, M’lady preceded them into the hall. Oliver’s father stood beside her, looking at Caddy a few times, winking at her twice.

Oliver’s stomach soured at his father’s obvious attempt at flirting with Caddy. To this day, no one was certain if the servant girl’s babe had been Oliver’s or the baron’s. Not that it mattered. The marquess had been happy to replace his wife’s fourth stillborn child with a living boy with half an aristocratic pedigree.

Dressed in the closest thing they had to finery, the servants of Chawley Abbey lined the perimeter of the great hall, their anxiety and excitement almost tangible.

Oliver lay his free hand over Caddy’s, where it rested lightly in the crook of his elbow. “I must begin the evening by apologizing for not dancing with you first. You see, there is a tradition to this kind of thing, which unfortunately dictates that I must dance with M’lady’s maid first. And then the housekeeper, and then the head housemaid. But I trust you will not be too bored waiting for me to do my duty before I can get on to the pleasurable part of the evening.” He tucked his chin and gave her his most charming look.

Caddy nodded. “Oh, do not concern yourself with me, Mr. Carmichael. I am certain I can make my own way tonight.”

She sounded too cheerful when she said it. Oliver fought against a frown and a rebuke. Like a horse not quite broken, he must let her have her head for now. Soon enough, he would be reining her in and teaching her exactly how she was supposed to respond to him.

He walked her to an unoccupied corner of the large room, kissed her hand, and promised her he would be with her as soon as possible.

He’d just stepped out onto the floor with M’lady’s French maid when he saw Caddy dancing with the footman he’d sent to fetch her. She laughed at something the gangly youth said and shuffled her feet to cover for the young man’s misstep in the schottische.

The souring that had started with his father’s obvious attempt at flirting with her turned into a full-blown stomachache as jealousy filled his craw. And it wasn’t because he might lose the bet; he’d lost plenty to Doncroft and Radclyffe in the past, and he was certain he would lose more in the future. No. He could not fail in this because he did not want to think there was a woman alive who would fail to fall for his charms. Never before had a woman turned him down. Even when she initially said no, he’d managed to wheedle and flirt his way into changing her answer into a yes.

He would not allow Caddy Bainbridge to be the one woman who turned him down. Especially not now that he realized
he
had fallen under
her
spell.

The first three dances seemed interminable, but finally he pulled away from the tall, lean head housemaid and shot like a well-thrown dart to where Caddy was about to take the dance floor with Father’s valet. The servant stepped aside as soon as Oliver held his hand toward Caddy.

“Oh, but I already told Mister—”

“No, miss, no.” The valet wisely shook his head and backed away farther. “’Tis better you dance with Mr. Carmichael.” He bowed and walked away.

Caddy frowned, then quickly changed her expression to one more neutral as she let Oliver lead her to the floor for a waltz.

“I must say, you look absolutely ravishing tonight, Miss Bainbridge.” Oliver took the lead of the dance with a firm hand, but a few steps into it realized Caddy needed no tutelage on how to dance.

“Thank you, Mr. Carmichael.”

“And you are a lovely dancer. Where did you learn?” He added an extra turn to see just how well she could follow him.

She did not miss a beat. “I learned in finishing school.”

“Truly?” He frowned. Only wealthy families sent their daughters to finishing school. From everything he’d learned about the Bainbridges, they most definitely did not fit into that class, even before her father died. “Then how did you end up becoming a seamstress rather than entering society and becoming the wife of a rich merchant or squire?”

Color rose high in Caddy’s cheeks, and her lips curled up in a half smile, but her eyes gave away her shock at such an indelicate question.

Not the way to win her affection, Carmichael
, he chided himself.

“My father was friends with the headmaster of the school and saw to my admittance and continued enrollment. But even with the cost of tuition waived, I still needed money for books, clothing, and other sundries. So I used a skill learned at my mother’s knee and from a family friend to repair and create gowns for my schoolfellows. When I completed school, I apprenticed with the same family friend in her shop in London before returning here to use what I had saved to start my shop. My former classmates were among my first customers and are still the most valued ones.”

“I am certain your father would have been proud of your accomplishments.” Oliver bowed as the waltz ended, then extended his hands to her for the polka the quartet in the corner started next.

Caddy looked over her shoulder at the valet and other male servants standing to the side for lack of female partners. But Oliver took hold of her hand and waist and led her into the rollicking steps of the dance.

“My father would have been more pleased to see me as the wife of some wealthy merchant or squire. That was why he arranged for me to attend school.” She pressed her lips together as if to indicate there might be other reasons her father would not have been proud of the person she’d become, but Oliver knew better than to push the point. Aside from the fact that he really did not care for the details of the seamstress’s background and relationship with her vicar father, he’d never had romantic success with a woman who had been pushed to delve too deeply into the emotional turmoil of her past.

Oliver would have been content to dance with her all night—telling himself it was because she was by far a better dancer than any of the servants. But as soon as the polka ended, his father cut in and whisked Caddy away for the next dance. Oliver excused himself to have a cup of punch with M’lady, who sat in her throne-like armchair overseeing the festivities with a slight frown. She kept a hawk-like watch on her lady’s maid—the French puff who thought too highly of herself and was an accomplished flirt—so she did not notice when Father managed to maneuver Caddy to the edge of the room and then disappear with her down the darkened service corridor.

Knowing his father’s intentions and worried for Caddy’s virtue, Oliver hurried around the perimeter of the room and lifted a candelabra from a side table.

As he suspected, at the other end of the hall, Father had trapped Caddy against the wall and was doing his best against her struggles to try to kiss her and lift her skirts at the same time.

“I say, my lord!” Oliver put as much outrage into his voice as he could, but his heart had quickened at the glimpse of plain white stocking under the edge of Caddy’s froth of petticoats. “Unhand her this moment.”

The baron cursed and continued trying to maul Caddy. Oliver set down the candelabra and grabbed his father by the shoulder. Tomorrow, once his father was sober, he would most likely not remember his son’s manhandling of him.

“Lord Carmichael, please, pay Miss Bainbridge the respect she deserves as a
guest
in our home.” He took Caddy’s hand and pulled her behind him. “I believe it is time for you to say your good-night, sir.”

Oliver waited until the baron staggered the rest of the way down the hall to the stairs, then he turned to face Caddy. “I offer my most abject apologies, Miss Bainbridge. If I had known my father would behave so abominably toward you, I would never have let you dance with him.”

He reached out and adjusted the lace fall on the short sleeve that rested just below the tip of her shoulder. When his fingertips inadvertently brushed her skin, she jerked back. Here was no wanton who pretended outrage with one man only to fall into the arms of her rescuer. He’d guessed she’d be more prudish than that.

“Come, let us get you back to the society and security of the ball.”

“If you please, Mr. Carmichael, I know it would be a great imposition, but I would very much like to go home.” She smoothed the wing of hair over her forehead with trembling fingertips.

“Yes, of course. I will drive you myself.”

Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Oh no. I could not ask that of you.”

“But I cannot ask the driver and footman to leave the ball. It is their one night of frivolity before going back to the daily drudgery of work. Besides, I feel responsible for what happened here tonight. Driving you home is the least I can do.” He offered his arm to escort her back to the great hall, taking up the candelabra with his free hand.

“Then I accept.” She lightly rested her hand in the crook of his arm and allowed him to escort her back to the main part of the house.

Rather than the closed coach that had brought her, Oliver had arranged for his two-seater high-flyer to be made ready before the ball in preparation for driving her home. While he had not expected to be taking her home so early, he was pleased with how well his plans had turned out.

He tucked her in against the chill spring air, then climbed up and took the reins. “When do you think you will go to London to visit the Exhibition, Miss Bainbridge?”

“I had hoped to be there for the opening, but I was unable to secure tickets for that day. I shall go, instead, the week after. I understand that many of the items to be exhibited have not arrived yet, so there will likely be much more put out on display after the opening.”

“I am looking forward to seeing all that the world has to offer. It has been a few years since my grand tour of the continent, and I am certain much has changed since then.”

“Where did you go on your grand tour?”

If he were not mistaken, he heard genuine interest in her voice. He smiled into the darkness. “France, naturally, Spain, Italy, Greece, a summer in the Carpathian mountains, several other little countries in the eastern part of Europe, then Bavaria and France again.”

“And which was your favorite?”

“Paris. No other place can compare. Not even London.”

“I see.” She sounded less enthusiastic now.

“If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?” He needed to engage her, to make her want to see him and spend time with him.

“As a seamstress, I suppose I should say Paris, where the great designers are, or Italy, where they make such fine fabrics. But I am a country girl at heart. The wilds of America have always sounded fascinating to me. Or even farther away like . . . like Australia.”