Chapter 7
Everything?” Caro strove for an innocent tone.
“Oh, my friend, I have known you far too long.” Jo leaned to her with a brush of lemony perfume. “You did not call today because you craved a bit of society. You barely spoke to anyone and listened less. Who is this man who’s come to value your pictures, and why do you trust him to look after Leo?”
“He is not looking after Leo,” Caro said quickly. “Singleton and Mama-in-law are there for that. Leo admires Mr. Stone. Natural, I think, since the poor lad lost his father. Mr. Stone was an officer in the war, and Leo is interested. That is all.”
“Yes, but who is he?”
Jo obviously would not be put off. “He has excellent references.” Or so Caro assumed. The haughty owners of Cheswell’s gallery wouldn’t have hired him otherwise. She could ask to view the letters of reference any time she wished, couldn’t she?
Caro would most definitely not tell Jo what the dowager had proclaimed, that Eamon’s father had been a charming rogue who’d had a way with the ladies.
A new and younger voice joined the conversation. “You are asking the wrong questions, Aunty Jo.”
The door of an ornately scrolled armoire swung open, and a slender girl popped out.
Her fashionable pale pink and cream gown was a near duplicate of Jo’s, a pink sash separating skirt from bodice.
The cloth roses on the sash now hung precariously by a few threads, and the girl’s pink slippers were smudged with dust.
“What are you doing in there, impertinent miss?” Jo asked her sternly.
“Eavesdroppers learn much to their advantage,” the being returned without shame. “Is that a quote from something, Aunt Caro?”
Caro was not the girl’s aunt, but she’d accepted the honorific years ago.
Twelve-year-old Meredith Sutcliffe was the daughter of Jo’s older sister and a handsome British earl.
Young Merry held the courtesy title of Lady because of her father, and under the curious inheritance laws of Osagard, she also retained the title of Princess.
“I’m not certain,” Caro said in answer to Merry’s question.
“You are very, very bad and won’t have any ices,” Jo scolded.
“I’ve already eaten three,” Merry chirped. “I know Miss Crone will give me only bread and weak tea when I go home, so I’ve filled up.”
“Her name is Miss Crane,” Jo corrected her. “Her new governess,” she explained to Caro.
“I don’t need a governess.” Merry’s brow furrowed.
“I have no intention of becoming a young lady and catching a husband. What a beastly idea. But we’re listening to Aunt Caro tell us about her new young man.
She’s a widow, so she can have an affaire de coeur without censure.
” Merry’s blue-eyed, piercing gaze was much like Jo’s. “Confess, Aunt Caro. Is he handsome?”
Caro’s face burned to the roots of her hair. She ought to command Jo and her niece to cease this interrogation and mind their own business, and then she’d rise and coolly quit the house.
Which would tell the two ladies all they needed to know.
“Yes,” Caro whispered.
Jo and Merry erupted into squealing laughter. They hugged each other, then Merry squeezed her way between Caro and the arm of the settee.
The two proceeded to bombard Caro with questions from both sides. What did Mr. Stone look like? Where did he come from? Why was he examining old paintings if he’d been an officer in a regiment? Did he have any brothers or close friends?
This last came from Merry, with emphasis, as though it was the most important point.
Caro supplied them with every detail she could, knowing she’d never leave this room alive if she did not.
“He did mention two fellow officers,” Caro answered Merry. “They were together at Waterloo, trapped behind enemy lines. Mr. Stone made light of it, but from the story he told Leo, I gather it was quite perilous. They were lucky to escape unscathed.”
“A dashing officer surviving a dangerous mission,” Merry cooed. “Better and better. Ripe for an affaire de coeur.”
“You should not even know what that means,” Jo said severely. “She is right, though, Caro. It is time you enjoyed yourself.”
Caro thought she’d never cease blushing. “My dears, it will hardly come to that. And you should not know of such things either, Jo. You’re an unmarried miss.”
“Spinster, you mean,” Jo said with a grin.
“Unmarried, but so very wise. The things my sister has told me about ladies of society would shock you senseless. You are a paragon of virtue, Caro, which is one reason they took against you when you married Leopold. They expected you to be a hussy, not an angel.”
“I would be exactly that if I follow the path you are suggesting,” Caro pointed out.
She strove for indignation, but a sudden image took her breath away. She saw herself entering a bedchamber where Mr. Stone, undressed for some reason, turned to confront his intruder. He’d start at her entrance, but quickly pull her into his arms, stifling Caro’s apologies with a scalding kiss.
Heat pooled in Caro’s belly, and she inhaled sharply.
Jo and Merry went off into laughter again. “I vow, Caro, you are lost,” Jo declared. “I must meet this gentleman.”
“And so must I,” Merry declared. “And his friends.” She pointed behind her hand at Jo and mouthed to Caro, For her.
Jo ignored the gesture. “Not you, child. Not until I assess him and decide whether he is good enough for our Caro. We must consult Louise as well.”
“No, no.” Caro said hastily. “Louise has her hands full with her boys. No reason to disturb her.”
“Nonsense. I will write her this evening. We’ll think of an excuse to bring your Mr. Stone somewhere we can meet him.”
“Or we’ll simply turn up in Grosvenor Square,” Merry suggested. “Calling on our poor, lonely Aunt Caro.”
“That is enough.” Caro finally dredged up some firmness. “If you three arrive to stare at the man, he’ll flee, and I’ll never know if there’s anything of value among Leopold’s things.”
“If Mr. Stone survived being penned up on a ridge by the French army, he will stand ladies asking him questions,” Jo said.
“Merry will either keep silent or shan’t be allowed to come.
” She glared at Merry, who rolled her eyes but subsided.
“Why do you say anything of value?” Jo asked Caro.
“I thought your Leopold’s collection was priceless.
Enough to keep you in splendor the rest of your days if you and the dowager can bear to part with any of it. ”
Caro wiped away the rose-tinted dreams of Eamon Stone in a bedchamber and returned to her present circumstances. “Mr. Stone has found some very convincing fakes Leopold’s father and grandfather must have been tricked into purchasing. I’ve written to Mr. Clive about them but have had no answer.”
The explanation of Mr. Stone’s discoveries started Jo on another series of questions about Mr. Stone, Cheswell’s, and how reliable was Mr. Stone’s appraisal.
Jo rang for tea and cakes, and the conversation lasted well into the evening, Merry neither growing weary nor uninterested in the topics that so absorbed the adults.
By the time Caro departed, she was both exhausted and exasperated. A hug from Leo, a warm bed, and a good book was what she needed to comfort her, but in all of this, she was to be disappointed.
“Who the devil are you?”
An overly well-bred voice spoke in the shadows of the gallery where Eamon was making a sketch of a statuette that might be worth something and might not.
He pulled his attention from the bronze Diana, who was modestly draped—an indication it was probably a modern copy—to find a willowy man in a well-tailored suit and thick golden hair staring at him with icy blue eyes.
The man’s frock coat collar was so high that the points indented his soft cheeks, which were adorned with well-trimmed sideburns. He was in his thirties if Eamon was any judge and hadn’t done anything harder in his life than ride a horse. Slowly.
Eamon noticed that Leo, who’d been helping him sort books in his mother’s absence, had vanished.
“Mr. Eamon Stone, at your service.” Eamon supposed he should give the man a deferential bow, but for some reason, his back would not bend. “As you have sprung from nowhere, unannounced, in Her Grace’s house, I should ask—who the devil are you?”
The blue eyes bulged. “How dare you, sir. Are you not beaten enough for your impertinence?”
“No one so far has managed it.” Eamon let a dangerous note slip into his answer.
“I did not hear Singleton announce you. The lady of the house is out, so I suppose it has fallen upon me to turn away intruders. I’ll conclude that Singleton is taking a well-deserved nap, and you somehow managed to sidle in.
Your name, sir, before I push you back down the stairs. ”
The man drew himself up, the collar points scraping his chin. “You are as ignorant as you are foul. I am Rudyard Berridge, heir to the dukedom of Aylesmore. I do not sidle anywhere.”
“And yet, you walk into a house that is not yours, uninvited.” Eamon closed his sketchbook with a loud snap and set it on the table next to the Diana.
Rudyard gazed disdainfully about the dusty gallery and its high windows that let in a modicum of the evening’s light. “Uncle let me run tame in this house from the time I was a lad. That was natural, since he had no children of his own. I was his heir.”
Then pretty Caro had come along to bear His Grace a healthy son and change all that. This man was still an heir and would become duke if something happened to Leo. No wonder Leo had made himself scarce.
“I assume you’ve arrived to visit Leo’s grandmother,” Eamon suggested. “I will call Singleton to take you to her.”
Alarm crossed Rudyard’s face at the mention of the formidable dowager, whom Eamon had yet to meet. She kept herself sequestered on a floor that Eamon so far had not been allowed onto.
“Our grandmother, I am certain, is resting,” Rudyard said, a trifle nervously. “I am here to see the mother of my cousin Leo. Though I do not need to explain myself to a servant.”
This man could call Eamon a servant or any number of unpleasant names, and he’d take them in his stride. But Rudyard’s sneer of the mother of my cousin awoke Eamon’s fury.
“You mean, Her Grace,” Eamon said coldly.
Rudyard snorted. “That title applied to my grandmother and my uncle’s first wife, not an upstart chit from the country, little better than a lightskirt.”
A dark fog coated Eamon’s vision, obscuring everything but Rudyard’s symmetrical face and colorless eyes. A gentleman should call out another who’d tarnished a lady’s name, avenge the insult in a civilized manner.
Rot that. Eamon was simply going to knock Rudyard to the floor.
Rudyard held out his hand, a coin glinting between his fingers. “Be a good fellow and tell her I’m here.”
The idiot had no idea how close he came to death in that moment. Eamon would sweep the man’s legs out from under him, crash him to the floorboards, and then break his spine. He made the first step toward Rudyard when a light voice startled them both.
“Rudyard?” Caro stepped off the flight of stairs to the gallery, her eyes flashing anger, a lock of hair tumbling to her shoulder. “You are supposed to write before you call.”
“I refuse to adhere to such nonsense,” Rudyard scoffed. “I am here to see you, Aunty.” He spat the word.
Eamon took another step. “I’ll show him to the pavement, if you’d like, Your Grace.”
For a moment, Eamon thought Caro would happily accept. Then she firmed her lips and shook her head.
“I will speak to him. Briefly.” She turned to descend the staircase once more, fingers light on the banister, but Eamon saw the lock of hair tremble. “Downstairs, please. In the blue reception room.”