The Importance of Being Wicked (27 page)

The man was a saint to put up with her. The thought of herself, Caro, living with a saint raised a faint smile, which in turn lit a spark of vigor in her sluggish limbs and exhausted soul. The sooner she continued Thomas's lessons in unsaintly behavior, the better. Yet the reflexive naughtiness of her thought bothered her. Was that really all she needed? She wasn't seventeen anymore.

At last, it had stopped raining. A glorious summer day beckoned her into the gardens she'd scarcely noticed when Thomas took her out for little invalid strolls. The areas close to the house were laid out in a charming old-fashioned way. Wandering through a parterre of flowerbeds surrounded by low box hedges, she noticed a dead rose and tugged it off. A thorn pricked her thumb, the insignificant pain a sharp reminder that she was alive. Among the well-tended plantings she noticed that a large patch of sweet william, one of her favorite flowers, was overcrowded. Getting down on her knees, she reached over the foot-high hedge and pulled at one of the smaller plants. Digging ungloved fingers into the earth to loosen the roots, she relished the cool damp soil, the sun on her neck.

She had a faint recollection of working with a miniature spade and planting seeds under the gentle direction of a man. She couldn't be certain, but she liked to think it was her earliest memory, and the man was her father. Her mother had deplored her fondness for gardening. Though a genteel enough occupation, it led to dirty fingernails. So usurping the gardener's duty with her bare hands had become another weapon of defiance in her lifelong battle with Elizabeth Brotherton. A struggle that culminated in her running away with Robert Townsend because her mother forbade the engagement. It had been the reaction of a rebellious child.

It was time to acknowledge squarely that her first marriage hadn't been perfect, and to wonder if things would have been better if she'd taken a more conventional path. Not that she regretted her life with Robert. She would never blame him.

She stopped pulling at a plant. Why? Why did she excuse Robert? Did he really deserve it? He had taken all his brilliance and charm and good fortune and tossed it away. Everything he touched had turned to dross. She wrenched out the unfortunate sweet william and hurled it as far as she could. Damn Robert! Damn, damn, damn him! The knot in her heart loosened, letting fury escape, fury at the man she'd defended for so long. As she remembered his many neglects, and his greatest betrayal, she ripped the plants from the soil, taking out her anger and disappointment on hapless flowers because Robert had died before she came to her senses. Before she had the chance to tell him what she thought of his stupidity and selfishness. She railed at him in her mind, voicing the angry accusations she'd never allowed herself to speak, even to think, and letting them out in great dry sobs and the destruction of vegetation.

Suddenly, she'd had enough. Kneeling on the flagged path, a new serenity possessed her soul. It was time to forget the past. The knot dissolved completely, and, in its place, she discovered joy. As she thought of her husband—Thomas, her husband now and forever—the gay red-and-white flowers blurred. Her tears fell again, but they had changed, no longer a dull wash of lachrymose despair but cleansing and hopeful.

Thomas was a wonderful man, the best she'd ever known. He loved her, but she hadn't valued his regard. And she, blind and foolish, hadn't realized she loved him too. An agony of impatience seized her. How long would he be away? If he didn't return soon, she would take a carriage to London and hunt him down. She couldn't wait to throw herself into the security of his arms and tell him how much she loved him.

“Ahem.”

She looked up to find a gardener regarding her nervously. She hadn't met all the outdoor staff, and he probably wasn't expecting to find the new Duchess of Castleton alone, bareheaded, and grubbing in the dirt. She stood, her white gown soiled at the knees and bodice, and smiled at the man.

“I am the duchess,” she said. “The gardens are beautiful. I hope you don't mind me thinning the sweet william. Don't think I mean to imply any neglect. These garden tasks never end.”

He bobbed his head and removed his hat. “Thank you, Your Grace. Burton, head gardener, at your service. I was going to put one of my men on the job now the rain has stopped. You've saved him the trouble.”

She looked around at the destruction she'd wrought. There were several bald patches in the flowerbed, and the path and surrounding beds were strewn with horticultural debris. “I think I may have overdone it.”

Burton scrutinized the flowerbed. “Yes, Your Grace. Perhaps one or two plants should go back in.” He looked again, and his lips twitched. “Or five or six. A little less zeal next time.” She was glad he didn't flatter her.

“Do you have time to show me around the garden?”

They passed a delightful hour together, Burton showing pleasure at her interest and remarkable tolerance of her tentative suggestions considering the mess she'd made. They even toured the kitchen garden, which contained a huge cutting bed filled with summer blooms.

“Could you send some flowers up to the house?” she asked.

He agreed with an alacrity that gave her the impression her predecessor hadn't been much concerned with floral decorations. Her next step was to inspect the interior of Castleton House.

She wandered through the state rooms and absorbed the history of the house, a marriage of the first duke's Stuart origins and his duchess's older wealth. The largest saloon was a gloomy room adorned with second-rate van Dykes of Charles I and his children, and the state dining room was little better, though improved by the Lely of Charles II looking saturnine yet merry, staring down from its place over the fireplace. A pretty lady by the same artist hung to one side. Without a label to identify her, Caro could only guess from her naughty smirk that this was the infamous Mary Swinburne, founder of the house of Fitzcharles.

Most of the pictures in the long gallery made her shudder. She could imagine what Julian would have to say about them. Not that she was a connoisseur like him. Her reaction to art was largely emotional. An occasional good canvas lightened the dross—a classical landscape, a portrait of two little girls and their dogs, the pair of Canalettos—and she found she started to appreciate them as a collection and a record of a family's past. The pictures Julian had sold to the old duke were as grim as he'd said and deserved to be consigned to a dark corner, or to bedrooms for unwelcome guests.

Castleton House wasn't horrible, she concluded. It merely needed to be cheered up. No wonder Thomas had liked Conduit Street, small and disorganized as it was. Her husband was not a lover of pomp and grandeur. His unyielding public front disguised a man who was simple and modest at heart. The thought made her soft inside. Damn it, was she going to cry again? She needed to stop behaving like a leaky tap.

How could she improve the house in a way that would please the master? The trick would be to introduce warmth and comfort without disturbing the family tradition and pride that he honored. She commanded the house steward to lead an army of footmen in some serious furniture moving. By midafternoon, she was weary, until tea and a rest with Thomas's naughty novel restored her.

“How far is the Grange House?” she asked a servant. “Can I walk, or do I need to order a carriage?” Not for a moment did she consider riding without Thomas. That lesson she had learned.

The duchess and her daughters received her with more evident pleasure than she would have expected, their delight in her recovery apparently genuine. Sarah and Maria summoned the courage to ask about her gowns and hair—girls were so delightfully predictable—and told her about their studies. She was introduced to a pair of spaniel puppies, new additions to the household. The late duke, she gathered, hadn't permitted pets indoors.

The young ladies were her sisters. How delightful! She'd never had sisters, and her elder brother had been a severe trial to her. As for the duchess, she was a much nicer mother than hers. She displayed a quiet yet deep affection for her daughters, in marked contrast to the vociferous disapproval of Elizabeth Brotherton. She wished Thomas could forgive his mother. At least her sin had been one of love, not cruelty. He loved his sisters, and he should love his mother for giving them to her, however irregular their begetting. And she herself was grateful to the duchess for giving her Thomas.

Her mother-in-law offered not a hint of disapproval or sense of insult at Caro's efforts to redecorate the big house. “I'm not intending to spend a lot of money,” Caro assured her. “Just change things around. I daresay, after so long, there was a lot you didn't notice anymore.”

“My dears,” the duchess said. “I think those dogs need to go out.” She continued, once her daughters had left the room, “I want to thank you, Caro. I may call you Caro?”

“Of course. Whatever for?”

“For what you have done for Thomas, and for me.”

“All I've done for him is lose his child.”

“These things happen. I lost two in pregnancy, between Thomas and Margaret. Then there was a long wait before the twins.”

The duchess read the knowledge in Caro's face; perhaps she was looking for it. “I see he shared my confession with you. I am glad. I thought Thomas should know about it, but he was always his father's son more than mine. He blamed me. Rightly so, I suppose. But I think he now understands, and that must be your influence.”

“I don't know,” Caro said. “The matter of the girls' dowries preys on his mind.”

“And I made things worse, losing the Stuart Twins . . . Ah! I see he didn't tell you that part.”

The duchess related the strange tale of the flawless matched diamonds she'd given to her lover. “Except I lied to Thomas. Partly because he was so stern and unforgiving about my past shame. Also because I couldn't bear to admit that I had been duped, that my lover and the girls' father was a thief. He stole them from my jewel case, then left me to face my husband.”

Caro's head buzzed with an unthinkable but entirely plausible idea. She thought about dates and ages and the length of a pregnancy. She was certain she had it right. Lewis Lithgow was the duchess's lover and the twins' father. The duke hadn't expelled the Lithgows for a lame horse, and it certainly wasn't a paltry miniature Lewis had stolen. Priceless diamonds were much more like it. No doubt he'd taken them abroad and sold them there.

The duchess concluded the tale. “You can tell Thomas, if you wish. Perhaps he'll think better of my honesty if not my sense.”

Caro didn't think she could do so without voicing her suspicion. Tell Thomas that Marcus Lithgow was his sisters' brother? He'd been hurt enough. And she didn't
know
that it was so. Though her heart shied from keeping another secret from him, her reason told her not to mention the matter. She'd do nothing to spoil the fragile peace between her husband and his mother. And though Thomas would never blame his sisters for their parentage, she didn't want to cast a shadow over his love for them.

Besides, it wasn't her business. If Thomas wanted to know the identity of the man, it was up to him to ask his mother.

“No,” Caro said. “He doesn't need to know. The diamonds are gone, and he's forgiven you anyway.”

Back in her sitting room, now smelling gloriously of roses, she sat down to write a letter. If Thomas could forgive his mother, she could forgive hers. Her fifteen thousand pounds would contribute to the twins' dowries.

A
t three o'clock, maybe four, Thomas and Denford tumbled from their hackney outside a house in Covent Garden. Thomas was far too drunk to know what time it was, but he had a feeling dawn wasn't far off. He'd consumed more wine at dinner than he'd ever taken at a single sitting. And then there was the brandy. Dark, evil stuff that ripped his guts out over the dice tables at a gaming establishment in Pall Mall where heavy-eyed men won and lost fortunes. Thomas had lost, of course. Not a fortune. When he was down almost three hundred pounds, he couldn't bear it anymore. At this, as in so much else, he was a failure. To make up for his faint heart, he took a bottle to go into the carriage.

The house was brightly lit, and the sound of music poured into the street from the opened door. The tune reminded him of the Pantheon masquerade, the rapid tempo designed to stir the blood. Laughter, uninhibited female mirth punctuated with men's rumbles, hit him like a wall, along with the scent of cheap candles, cheap wine, sweat, and fornication.

Struggling to stay upright on legs that seemed to have lost their bones, he leaned on Denford's arm. Funny how Denford seemed to have no difficulty standing. Must be because he wasn't as broad in the chest.

He blinked through the smoke. There were indeed ladies present. Not ladies, women. Definitely women. Women whose state of dress made Caro look like a nun. Women clad in scarlets and oranges, whose bodices failed to contain their ripe breasts. Women with painted faces draped over men in varying states of attire or undress.

“Denford, old fellow,” he said carefully. “I can't be certain because I've never been to one, but I do believe this is a house of ill repute.”

“Spot on, Castleton.” He'd become accustomed to Denford's cynical drawl during the evening, but now he remembered why he hated him. This place was revolting, the women with their exaggerated leers disgusting, the men who pawed them foul.

“Why have you brought me here? I asked you to show me how Townsend spent his time.”

“And so I have.”

“Townsend came here?”

“Not often. Especially by the end he didn't have the means to perform.”

“Are you sure?” It seemed utterly incredible that a man with Caro at home would waste his time in this tawdry company.

“Quite sure. On occasion I pulled him out and took him home.”