“You may have to,” Braden said.
“What does that mean?” The earl’s voice rose an octave. “I say, just what do you mean by that, Granville?”
Braden said only, “Swear you won’t go back to Oxford.”
Thomas said, “I’ll do no such thing.”
“Swear you won’t go back, or I’ll tell your sister the true story of how you were shot.”
The chin slid out again. “You
wouldn’t.”
“I would. I
will,
unless you swear to me you won’t go anywhere near Oxford, and The Duke.”
Thomas stared sullenly down at his hands. “I swear it, then,” he said.
Braden’s lips curled, but not in satisfaction.
Please tell my brother he mustn’t go,
Caroline had written in her letter to him that morning.
I don’t know why it’s so important to him to return to Oxford—he says there’s something he must do there. But he is not as well as he thinks he is. Please tell him not to go. He’ll listen to you. He thinks of you as the Great Granville. He will do whatever you say, I’m sure of it.
But that wasn’t so. The Earl of Bartlett would not do as he said. Oh, he wouldn’t go back to Oxford—Braden was fairly sure of that now. But he would never tell Caroline the truth about the man she was marrying.
And he had just sworn he would not tell her either.
“
D
on’t slouch so, Caroline. Pull your shoulders back.”
Caroline, standing on a footstool in the center of the mirrored room, pulled her shoulders back.
“I don’t know,” her mother said. “It doesn’t look right, but I can’t say why.”
Caroline looked down at the frothy white confection that threatened to engulf her. She knew precisely why the wedding gown didn’t look right on her.
Caroline lifted her gaze to the reflection she saw peering back at her from nearly every direction. The girl on the pedestal in the mirror was not Caroline Linford. She had already decided that. The girl on the pedestal was someone who looked like Caroline Linford, but couldn’t, of course, actually be Caroline Linford, because Caroline Linford was no longer chaste, and had no business putting on white wedding dresses.
At least, she didn’t
think
she was chaste anymore. Did it count when a man put his finger in you? She thought it probably did, but she wasn’t certain, and there wasn’t actually anyone she could ask.
“Stand up
straight,
Caroline,” her mother said again, sounding exasperated.
Caroline, already standing as straight as she could, stuck out her chest, and promptly caused the seamstress to prick herself with a basting needle.
“I’m so sorry,” Caroline gasped, stooping down to lay a hand upon the girl’s back. “Are you all right?”
“Caroline,” her mother snapped, “stay away from her. Can’t you see she’s bleeding? Do you want to get blood on your wedding dress? Is that what you want? Your original Worth design wedding dress, ruined by a bleeding seamstress?”
Caroline straightened again, and looked down pityingly at the seamstress, who was sucking on her finger. “I
am
sorry,” she said again.
“Never mind her, Caroline,” Lady Bartlett said. “ Violet? This box is empty. See if Mr. Worth has any more.” Lady Bartlett handed her maid a box that had once contained bonbons, and the maid glided quickly from the room in search of more.
“I didn’t like to say anything in front of Violet,” Lady Bartlett said, not seeming to mind saying it in front of the anonymous seamstress instead. “But I did want to ask you—has Tommy said anything more to you about this absurd desire of his to go to Oxford this weekend?”
Caroline felt herself turning red. Incredible. Even a roundabout reminder of Braden Granville, like her mother’s mention of Tommy, made her blush.
Well, and what kind of girl would she be if she didn’t blush? After what she had let him do in that carriage— and then the bold-faced way she’d sent him that letter this morning! Why, only a hussy of the lowest order would let a man do to her the things she’d let him do, then turn around and ask him to do her such a personal favor, as well. What must Braden Granville think of her?
She could not tell by his response to her note. Its tone had been perfectly impersonal. He had stated merely that he would be only too happy to provide the Lady Caroline with whatever aid he could.
Then he’d gone on to say that he looked forward to the day’s “lesson”—and Caroline had realized, with a sinking feeling, that she’d forgotten all about his parting words as he’d let her out of his carriage the day before. He meant them to go on with the arrangement, even though she’d told him there was no longer any point to it.
And though she ought to have written back at once, reminding him that she no longer held him under any obligation to fulfill his part of the bargain, she did not. Instead, she’d opened her jewelry box and removed the false bottom, and added his letter to the notes she’d received from him the day before, putting them where no snooping eyes were ever likely to discover them.
Four o’clock. She would see him again at four o’clock. Oh, she was a wicked, wicked thing! She had no right, no right at all, to be standing here dressed in white.
“He’s said nothing to me,” Caroline said. “But then I haven’t seen him since he went on his morning ride.”
“His morning ride,” Lady Bartlett said, indignantly. “He isn’t supposed to be riding, and he knows it.”
“He goes gently, Mother,” Caroline said.
“He oughtn’t go at all,” Lady Bartlett said. “The doctor-said so.” She sighed. “He hasn’t said anything more to me, either. About this Oxford business, I mean. When I asked Tommy just before he went out, he told me to—”
Something in her mother’s voice caused Caroline to glance in her direction. “To what?”
“To mind my own business!” Lady Bartlett’s color was high. “Imagine it! His own mother! And he tells me to mind my own business! Not only that, but he called me . . .” She dropped her voice to a whisper.
“Fatty!”
Caroline, who’d stooped to hear her properly, knit her brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Fatty! ‘Mind your own business, fatty,’ he said. His exact words. I nearly fainted on the spot, Caroline.”
Caroline had to try very hard not to laugh out loud. “I’m so sorry, Ma,” she said. “But I’m sure he didn’t mean it—”
Violet returned, looking regretful. “I apologize, my lady,” she said. “But I couldn’t find Mr. Worth. They say he’s with another client in the next room.”
“Another client?” Lady Bartlett’s lovely face turned a shade pinker. “Mr. Worth takes more than one appointment at a time?”
The seamstress took her finger from her mouth and said, in a heavy French accent, “Monsieur Worth is a very busy man, Madame. If he did not take more than one client at a time, no one would ever get an appointment at all—”
Lady Bartlett cut her off. “I specifically made an appointment for my daughter’s final wedding gown fitting for today. We have no intention of waiting—”
“Oh, there will be no waiting, Madame,” the French girl assured her. “If Madame and Mademoiselle will step this way, I will show you some lace that has only just arrived, all the way from Vienna. Perhaps Mademoiselle still requires lace, for her veil?”
Seeing her mother’s dark expression, Caroline said, “I’ll go. You stay here, Mother. I’ll be right back.”
Lady Bartlett said threateningly, “If her dress is damaged while she’s rummaging about out there, I shall expect Mr. Worth to repair it without cost.”
“Of course, Madame,” the French seamstress said, and she led Caroline through a narrow door, into a pleasant room filled with long tables, across which were lain yard after yard of differently patterned lace.
It was the lace that did it.
The gown hadn’t done it. Standing there in all of that white froth, she had merely mused at the irony of it. But the lace . . . the lace for her veil. That somehow brought home the reality of it all.
The lace. There was so much of it. Flowered lace, lace with heart patterns in it, lace as delicate as cobwebs. How many girls, Caroline wondered, had stood at this table and fingered this lace? Hopeful girls. Happy girls. Probably not many had stood before it feeling as she did, as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
It was when she saw the lace that she knew. She pictured herself lifting the gossamer stuff from her face, turning to the man with whom she’d just pledged to spend the rest of her life, raising her lips to meet his in joyful union. . . .
That was when the vision dissolved. Because the lips she’d pictured kissing were not Hurst’s. Not at all.
Oh, God.
What was she going to do?
“Lady Caroline.”
A voice, oddly familiar, sounded beside her. Caroline lifted her gaze . . .
And found herself staring directly into Lady Jacquelyn Seldon’s dark eyes.
“Oh,” she heard herself say, faintly.
“What a surprise bumping into you here.” Jacquelyn smiled prettily. “I didn’t know your wedding gown was a Worth.”
Automatically, Caroline’s gaze dipped below Jacquelyn’s neck. She, too, was dressed in a Worth wedding gown. Only Jacquelyn’s, Caroline saw in a glance, was a good deal less modest that Caroline’s, cut very low over the bosom. Jacquelyn’s gown was much fancier, too, with sparkly beading and even some feathers sticking up out of the poofed sleeves. Caroline’s own sleeves were quite plain.
“Do you like this lace?” Jacquelyn asked, lifting a piece featuring a pattern of entwined hearts, and fingering it experimentally.
Caroline looked down at the snowy fabric. All she could think was,
Yesterday, this woman’s fiancé had his hand down my pantaloons.
And then her cheeks turned crimson.
Why,
she thought to herself,
here I’ve been, hating Jacquelyn Seldon for doing what she did with Hurst, and what have I been doing?
What have I been doing?
Why, I’ve been every bit as bad. Well, maybe not
completely
as bad, but almost as bad. I haven’t any cause at all to feel superior to her. None at all! I’m every bit as wicked.
And both of us—both of us—wearing white!
Caroline said, through extremely dry lips, “It’s lovely.”
Jacquelyn looked at the lace, made a face, and tossed it away. “I hate it,” she said. “It’s much too busy. Granville’s bought me a tiara, you know, and I wouldn’t want anything to detract from that. Not that anything could, of course. It’s got over sixty-five diamonds in it, not a one of which is under a quarter of a carat.”
Caroline made what she hoped was a suitably impressed expression, but all she could think was,
Did he go home last night and do that trick with his fingers on
her?
And then, to Caroline’s horror, Jacquelyn, almost as if she’d read her thoughts, said, “You know, Lady Caroline, I couldn’t help but notice you and Granville dancing together the other night at the Dalrymples’.”
Caroline swallowed hard. “Yes,” she tried to say, but it didn’t come out right. She had to clear her throat and try again. “I mean, yes. I’m buying a gun from him. For my brother. For when he goes back to school. In the fall.”
“Oh, your brother,” Jacquelyn said. She moved along the table, the train of her white satin gown making a swishing sound behind her. “Of course. How is he? He looks better every time I see him.”
“He’s doing very well,” Caroline said. And if this woman’s fiancé was as successful in his mission as he’d sworn to Caroline he would be, Tommy would continue to do well for some time to come—or at least until the next inane scheme that came into his head. “Thomas is very keen, you know, on Bra—I mean, Mr. Granville.”
“Well,” Jacquelyn said. “He’s not the only one.”
Caroline lowered her face, hoping Jacquelyn wouldn’t notice the red hot heat suffusing it. She knew. She had to know. What else could that remark indicate? Jacquelyn knew precisely how she felt about Braden Granville.
But how could she help it? He wasn’t like any other man Caroline had ever met. He wasn’t like Hurst and his friends, sweetly empty-headed, thinking only of their next card game or glass of port. Braden Granville actually listened to her, and seemed to consider her opinions with some amount of seriousness—at least when he wasn’t thrusting his hands down various parts of her clothing. How could any woman help being keen on Braden Granville? He was . . . well, he was extraordinary.
Lady Jacquelyn was speaking again, suddenly, cutting through Caroline’s frantic musings:
“You know, Caroline, it’s strange, but even though you and I went to school together, I don’t feel that . . . well, that I know you very well. So I hope you won’t take it amiss if I give you a little piece of womanly advice.”
Caroline, her eyes very wide, echoed, “Advice?”
“Yes,” Jacquelyn said. She turned around and awarded Caroline another of those frightening smiles. “Woman to woman. You see, Caroline, I know.”
Caroline felt her face go scarlet again. It was not a pleasant feeling. “Know?” she managed to stammer. “Know what?”
Jacquelyn tossed her head. Her ink-black hair had been done up in a complicated arrangement of curls, many of which hung loosely down the back of her neck, swaying like the fronds from a willow tree. That’s what Jacquelyn was, Caroline thought, suddenly. A weeping willow, tall and slender, bending in the wind, but never breaking. Nothing could break Jacquelyn.
“About you,” the older girl said, lightly. “And Granville. You’ve never been very good, you know, at hiding your feelings.”
Caroline’s blush drained away. She must, she thought, have gone as pale as her gown. She said the only thing she could think of, which was, “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
Jacquelyn’s smile, which had been so sinister, suddenly turned very sweet indeed. “Don’t you? It isn’t anything to be ashamed of, dearest. You couldn’t help it. What woman could help falling in love with him? He isn’t called the Lothario of London for nothing. But that, you see, is why I wanted to give you a little advice. You are such a little innocent, I’m afraid you might get your little heart trampled on.”
Caroline blinked. “You mean . . . you mean . . . ?”
“Yes.” Jacquelyn smiled down at her kindly. “I know you’re in love with my fiancé. Goodness, any fool could see it, just by looking at your face any time his name is mentioned. You go positively red, Caroline. And I want you to know, I’m not in the least angry about it. But I do feel obligated to warn you, Caroline, that Granville isn’t . . . well, he isn’t the sort of person little girls like you ought to fall in love with.”
Caroline felt dizzy suddenly. She had, in fact, to reach behind her, and grip the edge of the table on which rested all those yards of lace. If she hadn’t had the table for support, she was quite sure she’d have sunk to the floor, for her knees seemed to have turned to jelly.