Chapter 6
“Lady Caroline?” Winifred’s voice floated through the door. “Are you awake?”
Oscar meowed impatiently. Caroline said nothing. Perhaps Winifred would return back downstairs. The door cracked open. Oscar pattered across the floor and thumped onto the coverlet. He stepped forward slowly, pulsing the bedclothes with his paws like an overgrown kitten. Caroline patted his head.
“My lady?” Winifred opened the door the rest of the way. Caroline slowly pulled herself out of bed, like she was running through sand.
“I’m here,” she said. She stretched then let her arms droop back to the covers. “Quiet daybreak, isn’t it?”
She squinted through the curtains. What was the hour in any case? Winifred sat down a loaded tray. She laid her hand on Caroline’s back.
“We missed you this morning at breakfast, dear.”
Her voice was so calm, so understanding. Caroline looked down at the floor. She struggled against the grief rising in her chest.
“I slept in. Would you help me into my gown?”
Winifred went to the wardrobe and chose a quiet, gentle dress of airy beige organdy.
Caroline said nothing as Winifred helped her into it.
Oscar curled up on the bed into the warm space she had left.
He could have it; at least one of them, in the wake of her inevitable disgrace, could have some small consolation.
Winifred buttoned the clasps on the back of her dress while Caroline held her hair.
“Your aunt is also distressed this morning.” She finished the dress, gesturing Caroline to a footstool. “Not even the monkey could cheer her up.”
“I’m certain she has a lot on her mind,” Caroline said, quietly.
She blinked her swollen, red eyes hard. The scandal of the previous night whirled around her own head like a garish wooden top—whispering lips, narrowed eyes, shaking heads.
She shut her eyes tighter, trying to block them out.
How could she have been so foolish? She should have—should have—
What? her reason asked mildly. What could you have done?
She could have done—ought to have done—something. She could have made an excuse and returned to the ball. She shuddered. Or gone further into the garden, perhaps. Then, none of this would have happened.
It was her curse—the dreaded curse that haunted her and everyone she loved. After all of these years, it had struck again and in a ruinous way. When the gentleman had rescued her in the garden, she thought—
His face loomed before her with his gentle half-smile. A warm glow settled over her, just as it had the night before. She reluctantly pushed the feeling away. Why had she felt so drawn to him?
She hadn’t the foggiest idea. To her knowledge, she had never seen him before.
She wasn’t even sure she knew who he really was.
Someone—it would seem—connected with the Duchess of Blackmore, her aunt’s acquaintance.
That was the extent of her information. She rolled to her side.
Not that connections mattered after this point.
She—with only a tenuous foot in the door of good society—would certainly, after last night’s events, have it shut on her face.
Her scars were bad enough; rumors of intrigue were worse.
At least, she speculated miserably, she wouldn’t have to go to any more balls.
Winifred patted her on the shoulder.
“Scandal is a terrible thing, dear.” Her voice was heavy with worry. “It’s definitely not an outcome that we would have hoped for you, but all will come to right.”
Caroline, fortunately, had her head bowed, so Winifred might not see her wince. Winifred sniffed hard and snapped up some hair pins.
“All I can say is that the Duke of Blackmore isn’t anything but a scoundrel if he won’t marry you.”
“Who?” Caroline raised her head. “Is that the gentleman I met last night?”
Winifred bobbed her head up and down once. Her fingers trembled as she pushed pins into Caroline’s hair. Caroline tried to sit as still as she could to aid her and to preserve her scalp from incision.
“The Duke of Blackmore, Lady Esther Blackmore’s son.”
Caroline’s curiosity overrode, at least for the moment, her unease.
“What’s he like?
“Oh, a real gentleman, so called,” Winifred said savagely, “or at least everyone thought so before last evening. He manages his father’s estate and is dedicated to his mother and brother.”
“It’s said,” she continued, as if she was stabbing pins into a cushion, “that he’s a fine sort of man. One of the most eligible bachelors of the Season.”
“He sounds at least pleasant, then, if nothing worse can be said about him,” Caroline said, mildly. Her heart sank. “What an unfortunate business.”
What an unfortunate choice! Surely no man as well-favored as the duke could be enticed to consider her, the scarred daughter of a former earl, as an equal companion.
“No misfortune on his part, surely,” Winifred said, weaving a delicate pink ribbon into Caroline’s hair as if she were brandishing a rapier. “He should be honored—any gentleman should be honored—to consider such a great lady as you.”
Oscar hopped off the bed, ears forward, drawn to the wiggling bit of extra ribbon Winifred had allowed to fall near the side of the footstool.
“I don’t want to marry him,” Caroline said.
Winifred stopped.
“What?”
“I—” Caroline closed her eyes. “Even if he was so inclined, I don’t want to marry the duke.”
Oscar fiddled with the bit of ribbon. A piece of it caught on his claw and he stuffed it, growling furiously, into his mouth.
“But—” Winifred resumed her braiding. “The scandal! An alliance with the Duke of Blackmore would be redeeming for both of you, however sadly it came about.”
“Perhaps,” Caroline admitted. The discomfort of being shunned—even more so than she had been—for the rest of her life loomed before her eyes. “Nonetheless, I have no interest in an alliance with the duke.”
Or an alliance at all, she admitted privately. Secretly—so secretly even that she had not before this moment admitted it to herself—she had leaned away from Aunt Olivia’s marriage plans for one reason. The same, haunting reason that stalked her dreams and dampened her waking hours: the curse.
Of course, rational people didn’t believe in curses.
Rational people generally had their family members about them.
Caroline had Aunt Olivia, the stables, Oscar, and Winifred, and she loved them dearly.
But in the dark, late at night, or on dull, slow afternoons, memories of her parents, her younger sister, and her older siblings crept into her thoughts.
Snippets of laughter, the echo of someone’s voice—she carried them with her wherever she went.
Winifred finished her hair and moved around the front of the footstool, kneeling until they were at eye level.
“He’s not such a terrible man,” she said. Her eyes scanned Caroline’s face. “They say he’s nothing like his father.”
“As to that, I am not familiar with the particulars of his situation.” Caroline clasped her hands in her lap. “And after our conversation last night, I am not overly concerned with his character.”
Winifred’s brows furrowed like grey caterpillars.
“What, then?”
Oscar, having savaged the ribbon, batted at the hem of her dress. She lifted a corner of it, dangling it in front of his claws. He growled playfully.
“I—” Caroline traced the scar on the back of her hand. “I can’t stand the thought—”
Tears choked her silent. Winifred held her hands.
“What is it, dear?”
“It’s the curse,” Caroline whispered like the words were poison. “I should have known that it would bring you and Aunt Olivia grief—and it has. And if I married—” She closed her eyes. “It would bring harm to my husband, too, and to—my family.”
She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself like a blanket. Winifred, soft as a pan of new milk, touched her face.
“From the day you arrived here, that very first moment, I have been by your side,” she said. “I have watched you grow, watched you learn.”
Caroline looked at her through misty eyes. She tried to blink the tears back, but they tried with equal exertion to escape and spill down in droplets onto her dress.
“I have seen no curse. I have seen a girl who has been a credit to her friends and family and who spreads love to all around her.”
Caroline wiped the tears from her eyes. Winifred’s words, while they didn’t quite settle into her heart, did perch comfortably there for a spell, offering a moment’s consolation.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Winifred wiped her own eyes.
“Well,” she said, rising, “enough of this sadness and misery.”
Oscar rolled on his side, batting now at Winifred’s amply available skirt. She pushed him gently to the side with her foot and dropped a fresh fragment of ribbon into his waiting paws.
“Today,” Winifred said with more determination than the statement warranted, “is an excellent day for a ride. Why don’t you visit your aunt? I believe she’s in the stables.”
Caroline sniffed and brushed away the last trail of tears as she hurried downstairs.
When in doubt—or in happiness, apathy, or any other such emotion—Aunt Olivia could be found in the stables with Marengo, Vizir, and Atlas.
Marengo had come first when Caroline had pleaded, just once, to be allowed to ride a horse for her twelfth birthday.
Aunt Olivia, much to her own surprise as anyone else’s, took to the saddle as fish do to water and couldn’t be parted from the sport from that day forward.
Outside the stable door, Caroline paused. Was Aunt Olivia terribly angry with her? Or terribly sorrowful? Caroline’s heart quavered, unsure which reaction was worse. She pushed open the stable door and peeked her head around the jamb.
Aunt Olivia was brushing Vizir, the stable’s only Arabian, with a curry comb in long, slow strokes.
Her curls were pulled back under a tall, dark hat. Vizir nibbled at her emerald green riding habit. Aunt Olivia patted him absently.
“My dear!” she said, catching sight of Caroline. “You’re awake!” She put down the comb and took both of Caroline’s hands. “And how are you this morning?”
A smile crept onto Caroline’s face.
“Much better now.”
Aunt Olivia nodded brusquely. She turned back to Vizir.
“Help me brush?” she asked. “There’s another comb in the bin.”
Caroline stepped carefully around Vizir. He wouldn’t ever kick on purpose but might if inordinately startled. She picked up the comb and ran it over Vizir’s creamy white haunches. He chewed his hay as peacefully as any pleased cow in the field.
Aunt Olivia brushed silently, and Caroline followed suit, her heart sinking. After the warmth of her aunt’s greeting, she hoped that her distress had been less than it appeared. Her aunt’s silence spoke otherwise.
“Are you—” she started but stopped herself. It wasn’t her place to pry.
“What, dear?” Aunt Olivia asked. Caroline took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“I’m sorry—” she started but got no further. Aunt Olivia had already clasped her hand.
“Sorry, child? What do you have to be sorry for?” She hugged Caroline fiercely, like a bear clutching its cub. Caroline struggled simultaneously against a flood of relief and the crushing desire to breathe.
“You’re not angry then?” she gasped as her aunt let her go. “Oh, I was so worried you might be.”
Aunt Olivia straightened her hat.
“Not angry at you, dear one,” she said. “I don’t believe a word of the gossip, no matter who claims what. It’s a pack of insidious lies.”
She dragged the brush across Vizir’s hocks. His ears shot back. Caroline patted him reassuringly.
“Of course, the news—if you can call it that—has already caused enough damage.” She looked at Caroline with heavy eyes. “It will be very difficult, child, to find—”
Caroline blushed.
“You won’t have a chance, after this, to find the love we hoped you would,” Aunt Olivia said. “That wretched, wretched ball—” She pulled the brush across Vizir’s shoulders. He swung his head to stare at her. She patted his head. “The ball has made sure of that.”
“If it consoles you,” Caroline said, pulling a long stroke on Vizir’s shoulder, “I don’t feel the loss as terribly as you do.”
Aunt Olivia sighed and sat down heavily on a farrier’s stool.
“I really had little intention of marrying,” Caroline said, hurriedly. “It’s all right if I never do, you know.”
Aunt Olivia closed her eyes. When she opened them, her gaze looked backward to a past to which Caroline was not privy.
“No,” she said slowly. “It’s not all right.”
She opened her eyes.
“A marriage for convenience is little more than a formality. But a marriage of love—of mutual, enduring trust that blossoms over a lifetime—there’s nothing else like it.”
Her eyes shifted back to the present.
“I wouldn’t shuffle you off, dear, as a matter of convenience. Thank heaven we haven’t ever had need for that. But I would hope—as I know would your family and your uncle if they were here—for such a lifetime love as I had once experienced.”
Caroline’s heart swelled. She forgot, sometimes, how lonely her aunt must feel. She stepped forward and took her hand. Marengo whinnied like a trumpeter going to battle. Aunt Olivia rolled her eyes.
“Yes, your majesty, we hear you,” she said. “Attend him, will you, dear, before you go back up to the house? He’s a glutton for affection, that one.”
Caroline laughed, she realized, for the first time since yesterday.
“Come, you thoroughbred,” she said, patting his velvety brown nose. It looked as though it had been dipped in an inkwell. “You’re one royal I’m happy to attend.”
Marengo snuffled happily. She scooped a handful of oats, keeping her fingers flat as his lips nipped it off her palm.
“You’ll spoil him,” Aunt Olivia grunted. “He’ll be begging for oats every day.”
Caroline stepped closer until Marengo’s head fell over her back. She scratched his long, broad shoulders. The close, warm comfort as he blew out seemed to sweep away the dark concerns that plagued her. She patted him gratefully.
Aunt Olivia finished with Vizir and headed over to Atlas, the patient Gypsy Cobgelding.
“It was a horrible night,” she said, half to herself. “But good things will come, child. Good things will come.”