Chapter 22
Caro realized she’d ceased breathing. She tried to draw a breath, but she’d gone numb, her ribs constricting. “How?” she choked out. “How could he know?”
She wasn’t sure why this question slipped from her, but Louise’s gaze sharpened. “It is true, then? Rudyard isn’t simply putting slander about?”
“If he’d said it yesterday, it would be slander,” Caro croaked. “Today …”
“Oh, my dear.” Louise squeezed Caro’s hand, though Caro could barely feel the attempt at comfort. “After your supper? He seduced you?”
Caro’s face flamed. “I seduced him.”
She found herself confessing all, from the note she’d slipped Eamon to helping him steal away in the wee hours of the morning.
Louise listened in sympathy, interest, and some dismay. “This is all our fault. Jo and me, teasing you about becoming his lover. It seemed romantic, in theory.”
Caro regarded her in surprise. “Of course it isn’t your fault. I chose to invite Eamon to my chamber, knowing full well what we’d do there. And it was quite wonderful.” She emitted a breathless laugh. “I have no regrets, Louise. I’d do it again. In fact, I hope to.”
“I thought Mr. Stone looked rather pleased with himself when I passed him downstairs,” Louise said, her good humor restored. “I am glad to see him still here. He didn’t simply take what he came for and disappear.”
“Take what he came for?” Caro repeated incredulously. “You make it sound so sordid.” She stilled. “Oh, dear. Is it?”
“I don’t think so.” Louise bathed her in a rare smile. “Jo and I weren’t teasing when we said you deserve happiness, Caro. You’ve sacrificed so much and ought to be showered with pleasure.”
“But I’ll have to keep sacrificing, won’t I?” Caro rose abruptly. “If I have a dalliance with Eamon, Rudyard will force me to give up Leo.” She shook her head with adamance. “I will never, ever let Leo go to Rudyard. But that means I have to give up Eamon.” She faltered, her heart hurting.
When faced with the choice, Leo would win, without doubt. But Eamon’s absence would put a hole in Caro’s life.
“I am so sorry, darling,” Louise said in distress. “I did not want to bring you this news, but I preferred you to hear it from me, not Rudyard or someone taunting you with it. Rudyard is being less than discreet.”
Caro swung from where she’d paced in her agitation, her anger rising.
“Rudyard has already threatened me. He is a horrible man, and I will not let him endanger my son. I will keep Rudyard from Leo, and I don’t care what I have to do.
I’ll sacrifice my entire world, including Eamon if I must, to keep Leo from him.
” Tears stung her eyes, but Caro held herself stiffly, refusing to give way.
“Excellent.” Louise jumped to her feet. “I knew you wouldn’t crumple and surrender to Rudyard’s bullying. What shall we do?”
“I don’t know.” Caro put her hands to her head.
“When I received the letter from Rudyard’s solicitor, Eamon promised to help, but I don’t know what he’s accomplished.
If nothing else, we must work to prove Rudyard would be a horrible guardian.
Perhaps you can ask some of Geoff’s friends if they’ve heard any dire rumors about him. ”
Louise flinched slightly at the mention of her deceased husband, but she nodded. “I’ll also call upon the most gossipy wives of our old circle. Jo knows everyone in London—she can pry out information as well.”
“I wonder …”
Caro gazed up at the landscape painting of Mayfield Hall, the Aylesmore estate in Kent, near Tunbridge Wells. This picture was genuine, painted by an unknown artist hired by Leo’s grandfather, worth little to anyone but the family.
“You wonder what?” Louise prompted.
“So much of our artwork has gone missing, and Rudyard boasted that he ran tame in this house when Leopold was alive. I wonder if Rudyard has been robbing us, little by little, over the years.”
Louise’s brows rose. “Possibly, but I think Singleton would have noticed if Rudyard had tucked a painting under his coat on his way out.”
“I don’t mean that, exactly. Though there are smaller items to take—books and little statues, gold boxes and things of that nature.
Eamon explained that someone might send a painting to a gallery to be cleaned, and the gallery returns a copy while keeping hold of the original.
Perhaps Rudyard suggested to Leopold that he should restore the grimier paintings.
Suppose the gallery Rudyard chose did the copying, paid by Rudyard, and Rudyard absconded with the real painting and returned the copy?
Leopold wouldn’t have known the difference.
He was quite trusting, and knew little about the value of what he had. ”
Louise nodded sagely. “Yes, I can imagine Rudyard taking advantage of poor Leopold that way. There must be records of the paintings being sent out—you or Mr. Stone could discover to which galleries and whether Rudyard had anything to do with it.”
“Eamon suspects Mr. Clive of substituting the paintings, but Mr. Clive and Rudyard could have been colluding.”
“If Rudyard is to blame, we will have him.” Louise’s smile became determined. “I am pleased Eamon is helping you so much.”
Caro flushed. “I meant Mr. Stone.”
Louise laughed in delight. “I am teasing you, darling. I am glad to see you so in love.”
Caro halted. “Am I in love?”
Of course she was, and she knew it. That was why, when Eamon had exclaimed, Oh Duchess, I believe I’m falling in love with you, Caro’s heart had beat with wild joy.
Louise softened her tone. “You deserve to be. I know what it is to be fervently in love, and I wish it on you.”
“I loved Leopold,” Caro said in bewilderment. Poor Leopold. So many believed Caro hadn’t cared for him at all.
“You did.” Louise nodded. “But this is different.”
Caro’s regrets floated away as the memories of Eamon’s touch, kisses, and the glorious way he’d filled her threatened to drown her.
“Yes,” she agreed in a whisper. “It is very different.”
She’d give anything to hold on to the sensations Eamon had flooded her with, and the new life they’d surged through her, and never let them go.
“The queen has answered my letter,” the dowager duchess announced the next afternoon in the fourth-floor drawing room.
They’d finished the midday meal moments before, Leo heading downstairs to help Eamon as soon as he’d set down his fork. Caro and the dowager lingered at the table, sipping tea, the dowager reading through her correspondence.
“Her majesty wrote to you?” Caro pulled her thoughts from where they’d strayed to Eamon kissing her in the gallery earlier today. He’d drawn her into deep shadow and kissed her with slow promise.
The last few days had been filled with such encounters, Caro torn between excitement and shyness.
Somehow, she’d invented many excuses to go down to the gallery—checking on Leo, bringing Eamon a receipt she’d found for one of her father-in-law’s purchases, or simply to ask how things were proceeding.
Stolen kisses were something new for her, the heat that boiled through her when their mouths met both unnerving and glorious.
Eamon shared Caro’s rage at Rudyard, which bolstered her more than she cared to admit.
“Her majesty did, indeed.” The dowager dangled a letter from her long-fingered hand. “She is outraged that Rudyard dares think to raise Leo himself. Dear Charlotte detests the man but speaks highly of you.”
“Does she?” Caro set down her tea, her attention caught. “I believe I’ve curtsied to the queen once, but she barely saw me. I wasn’t lofty enough to be presented to her personally at my debut.”
“She knows of you because I tell her about you,” the dowager said.
“As we both arrived in England from foreign lands about the same time, Charlotte and I became friends. Neither of us knew much English, and we muddled along together—I speak German well, and she is proficient in French. I was one of her ladies-in-waiting, you know.”
“I did know that,” Caro said. The disapproving matrons of the ton had made certain Caro understood in what lofty circles she was daring to tread. “But not that you were close.”
“It was eons ago, when I was quite young. Charlotte and I learned English together, though her accent is heavier than mine.” The dowager paused for a flash of vanity.
“I retired from court life when I began having my sons, but we’ve written to each other ever since.
Our correspondence has grown since her husband’s illness became permanent, because she needs the distraction, poor lamb. ”
Caro listened to all this with interest. The dowager rarely spoke about the period of her life when she’d been married to Leo’s grandfather, though she loved going on about her upbringing on her father’s sumptuous estate in France.
Aristocratic life there had apparently been ten times more formal, elegant, luxurious, and entertaining than British aristocratic life could ever be.
“Please give the queen my best wishes,” Caro said. “I do feel sorry for her, as I know she is so fond of the king.”
The dowager looked pleased at Caro’s sympathy. “I shall. In any case, she likes you, even though she regards you as a nobody. Do not be offended—she is a foreign princess, and they believe themselves superior to all other mortal beings, though she was quite a nobody herself when she came here.”
Caro wasn’t certain how to respond to these observations. “I am glad she approves of me,” she managed. “Can she really help keep Leo home with me?”
“I do not know.” The dowager sighed. “Charlotte has a large influence on public opinion, so her approval of you means much. She finds you the breath of fresh air that the stuffy dukes of Aylesmore needed. Also, you provided your husband a legitimate heir, which she considers a large point in your favor. But she cannot override the law. The king might, if he was coherent, and the Regent might, if he wasn’t such a pompous, self-indulgent ass.
Laws are made in Parliament by male creatures, and men stick by men, damn them all. ”