Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“ I have ruined it,” Caroline whispered softly, blowing steam off the hot cup of tea she cradled in her hands. “I got what I wanted, I had my dream in my grasp, and I… made a mess of it.”
Phoebe pushed a plate of lemon cakes toward her, across the kitchen counter. “Nothing is ruined, Caro. Nor did you make a mess of anything—you told the truth and that is a noble thing.”
“How can you say that when I have ruined your ball too?” Caroline murmured, her voice thick with sorrow. “No one can speak of anything else, and you are down here in the kitchens with me when you ought to be up there with your guests.”
Matilda laughed. “Come, Caro, it is the duty of the Spinsters’ Club to find the quietest room at any ball to be apart from it. We have never been social butterflies, and that has not changed.”
“We go where the drinks and cakes are,” Leah agreed, nudging a bottle of brandy toward Caroline in case she would prefer that over the tea. “We always have, and as you are one of us, this is precisely where we should all be.”
Caroline took a lemon cake to be polite, but she did not take a bite. “I should have been honest with him from the beginning. I should have explained that Dickie was only doing what I had asked and that neither of us cared what happened to our reputations.” She paused. “The trouble is, I was na?ve. I do not think I actually knew what might befall me if I had not married Max that day. What is happening above is a morsel of what would have happened, and… it is awful.”
“We would have protected you,” Olivia insisted. “And we will protect you now.”
Caroline took a sip of her tea, wincing as it burned her tongue. “I do not deserve your protection. I just… want to talk to Max. I just want to explain and apologize and… make him understand that, although it was not what I thought I wanted, marrying him was… the opposite of a mistake. It was the luckiest day of my life, for so many reasons.”
“You are right that you should not have lied,” Anna chimed in, her brow furrowed. “But my brother will not abandon you. It must have been a shock to him, that is all, and once he has had time to think through it all, he will come to you.”
Caroline swallowed uncomfortably. “Are you very angry with me, Anna?”
Of all the women gathered in the room, Anna was the last person that Caroline had wanted to upset. Indeed, there was still a lot that Caroline felt she needed to apologize to Anna for—embroiling herself in a scandal with one brother, marrying the other, and then knotting them both into another scandal with her.
“I am not angry,” Anna said with a sigh. “I am sad for Max, I am bewildered by Dickie, and… I just wish that this would all blow over quickly, for everyone’s sake. In truth, I am more curious to understand what you meant by having your dream in your grasp.”
Caroline took a shaky breath, concentrating on a fragment of tea leaf that floated in her cup. “I… was falling in love with him. I never thought it would be possible with him, but I have discovered over the past weeks that he is… everything I have ever dreamed of. But a relationship built on a lie is a relationship built on sand. Now, it has crumbled, and I do not know how to fix it. I do not know if I can, because I have hurt your brother enough.”
Olivia gasped. “You were falling in love with him?”
“It is hard not to,” Caroline admitted with a sad smile. “You all know him. You all spoke highly of him when I could not see the truth of what he was. He is… so much more than I deserve, even if he cannot love me in return.”
Anna quirked an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“He told me some things,” Caroline replied, determined to keep one last secret, so as not to alter Anna’s memory of her own childhood. “He alluded to the fact that love is… not possible for him. It is too difficult for him. But now, I would be willing to accept a loveless marriage if it means he stays at my side.”
Phoebe clicked her tongue. “Loveless? Hardly. I am not blind, Caro. I think he cares a lot more than you think he does, and I only saw you together briefly.”
“What?” Caroline sat up straighter. “You think there is hope for us?”
Olivia reached over and patted her gently on the back. “There is always hope, dear Caro. For all of us, there were times when we thought we might not find happiness in our marriages, but everything turned out well in the end. I am certain it will be the same for you and Max, if you really do feel something for him.”
“But do not relent too easily,” Matilda interjected. “Yes, apologize for lying. Yes, be remorseful about the initial misunderstanding. However, do not apologize for taking responsibility for your own part in matters. You wanted to spare his reputation and that is courage, Caro. You should not lose that.”
Anna nodded. “I agree. You were not in the wrong for that. Truly, I am grateful that you spoke up for him.”
“I think you will emerge from this as a stronger couple,” Leah said, stealing a lemon cake. “I can feel it in my bones.”
Listening to the kindly advice of all of her friends, Caroline knew what she had to do, and she could not do it from the kitchens of Phoebe’s London residence. They were right—she was not going to apologize for standing up for him when he was the best of gentlemen, but she would fight to keep him because, at last, she had a man worth fighting for. Even if the opponent was her own mistakes.
“I should return home,” Caroline said in a rush. “When he has had time to think, he will go there. I should be waiting for him, so we can speak more calmly, and hopefully remedy this.”
Matilda clapped her hands together. “Go and claim your man, Caro!”
“But be gentle with him,” Anna added quietly, an anxious smile on her face. “He is not used to someone taking care of him the way he takes care of everyone else, so it might be uncomfortable for him.”
Phoebe got up and put an arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “And if tonight is not the night for this talk, and he is still not ready, then know that the door to this house is always open to you. You are family. We will protect you, no matter what.”
“I could not have said it better myself,” Olivia agreed.
The Spinsters’ Club surrounded Caroline, following Phoebe’s lead in putting their arms around their youngest, honorary member. They hugged her as one and, in the middle of that caring circle, Caroline drew strength and courage. Everything she would need to try and convince her husband that they could continue on, and that nothing needed to change, even if society’s opinion did.
If he returns to the townhouse before five o’clock in the morning, we will carry on as if nothing happened.
Holding that barter with fate in her heart, she broke away from her circle of friends and family, and darted out of the house through the kitchen doors to where the carriage awaited.
There were lights aglow in the windows of the townhouse as the carriage came to a standstill outside. The warm sight cheered Caroline’s spirits, giving her immense hope as she leaped out of the carriage and ran up the porch steps.
She threw open the door and called out, “Max? Max, are you here?”
But it was a different man who jumped up from the chaise-longue in the entrance hall, where he had clearly been dozing. He rubbed his eyes and bowed his head. “Caro. I apologize for the intrusion.” He cleared his throat. “And I am sorry that I have not called upon you sooner.”
“Dickie?” Disappointment weighed heavy in her chest, for the obvious similarity between the brothers only made Max’s absence more painful. “What are you doing here? Do you know that Max is out searching for you? He will not think to look for you here, or is that the point?”
Dickie stepped forward. “I am here as a friend and a messenger.” He offered out his hand, but she would not take it. “Can we go into the drawing room? There is a lot to be said.”
“Very well.” Pulling back her shoulders, Caroline marched toward the drawing room and sat down on the settee, tapping her foot impatiently as Dickie settled opposite.
Powder Puff, who had evidently been waiting for the return of her master and mistress, prowled over to Caroline and jumped up into her lap. The cat chirped and mewled, nuzzling her furry head against Caroline’s stomach, as if the feline could sense her mistress’s anguish.
“That is new,” Dickie said, gesturing at the cat.
Caroline leveled her tired gaze at him. “What did you come to say, Dickie?”
“I came to apologize.”
“You do not need to apologize. I told you not to come to the church—you were doing as you were asked,” Caroline insisted. “ I should apologize for not warning you that I was going to reveal the truth, for it is sure to make your life more difficult from now on. Although, in my defense, I did not know I was going to reveal the truth until it happened.”
Dickie shook his head. “No, I should apologize. I should apologize for accepting your suggestion too quickly, out of my own selfish desire to avoid marriage. I should apologize for not being at the church, regardless of what you said.” He furrowed his brow. “I knew the full extent of what that would do to your reputation, and I still stayed away.”
“It does not matter, Dickie,” Caroline urged, running her hands through Powder Puff’s soft fur, soothed by the rumble of the cat’s purring. “No harm befell me. It is only now that it might, but that was my decision, and I am braced for any storm to come.”
Dickie got up and went to the rear window, which looked out onto the garden. “I should thank you, really,” he said, almost to himself. “Your scheme served me better than I could have imagined. You see, there was another reason that I accepted your suggestion of a jilting so easily.”
“Oh?”
“I was in love with someone else,” Dickie confessed. “The day of our wedding, I rode to tell the woman in question of my feelings. She told me that she had feelings for me in return, but when I offered marriage, she refused me. She said I was not serious; I was not responsible, I was not someone reliable, and I could not argue with her, considering I had just proven her accusations to be true by jilting you. I love her still, but now I know that she will never have me. I would not know that if I had married you that day.”
Caroline paused in her stroking. “And that is something that served you well?”
“For my character, yes. I want to be a better gentleman because of her and because of you, but after tonight, it is a certainty that I cannot have her as a wife. Phoebe would never permit it.”
Caroline nearly choked on her own breath. “ Phoebe would never permit it? Who is the lady in question?”
“Ellen,” Dickie said quietly, as he wandered back to the opposite settee and sat down. “The moment I met her, I knew… that she was everything I wanted and could never have. She is the only reason I have emerged from my hideaway over the past few weeks, and she is the one who came running to me tonight, to inform me of what had happened. She told me to come to you. She told me what I had to do to make it right, and if that is the only thing I can do for her, then so be it.”
Caroline tilted her head, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I have already discussed matters with Max, and he is in agreement,” Dickie said hesitantly. “He is going to the archbishop in the morning to request an annulment, and once he has received the confirmation papers and they are signed, I will marry you myself. As I should have done in the first place. I know it is not what either of us would have imagined for ourselves, but I must do the right thing, just once in my life. For you, for myself, for Max, and for Ellen.”
Caroline blinked at the man opposite as if he were a stranger speaking in tongues, for not a lick of what he said made any sense to her. She told him as much, once she had found her voice again. “If you love Ellen and she has affection for you, then what on earth is wrong with you? Why would you even suggest such a thing? Or… was it Max’s suggestion?”
She braced for the blow that would surely crumble her to dust. If Max was the one who had conjured such a scheme, then it meant that he was done with her.
“It was mine.” Dickie looked at her with curiosity, a softness gleaming in his eyes. “And yes, I do love Ellen, which is why I am asking you to do this. Because she has asked me to do this, and I understand that I must. It is the only way that both of us will emerge from this scandal relatively unscathed.”
“Relatively unscathed?” Caroline barked, her head reeling.
Indeed, she felt as if she were back at her brother’s house on the morning that Dickie had proposed. Cornered and panicked and utterly determined to not do what was being demanded of her.
“Are you quite serious, Dickie?” she continued. “I was in Phoebe’s ballroom for all of ten minutes after I revealed the truth and, let me tell you, the response from the guests was not remotely mild.”
Dickie sighed. “But if we restore the balance that has been upset, then forgiveness will quickly follow. Trust me on this, Caro. There is nary a scandal I do not know how to lessen.”
“And Max is… in favor of this?” She could barely get the words out, her heart clenching as her chest squeezed tight, making it hard to breathe.
Dickie leaned forward, his expression sympathetic. “He knows it is in your favor.”
What does that mean? Caroline concentrated on Powder Puff, distracting herself to hold off the tears that pricked at her eyes. But with every stroke of her palm across the soft, white fur, more questions bombarded her mind. Did that mean Max did care but wanted what was best for her, yet again? Did that mean Max did not care and had jumped at the first excuse for an annulment? Was his agreement reluctant or insistent? Had he tried to protest? Had he been waiting for an opportunity?
She thought back to the awful day that she had suggested an annulment. Max had not seemed keen then, choosing to ignore the fact that she had said it all. She had been grateful for that, but now she wondered if she had planted a seed in his head that had finally bloomed into this.
Perhaps, I am looking at this the wrong way. Her heart twinged. Perhaps, this is the kindest thing that I can do for him . She had caused him enough trouble, had she not? He had been so generous, so noble, so righteous, and so determined to be responsible for her.
Maybe, it was her turn to return the favor—to set him free before she fell in love completely. For she could think of no fate worse than loving someone, getting close to someone, and having them distance themselves because of something she had done. And Max would pull away again, further than before this time.
She knew because he already had.
“Very well,” she said quietly. “Tell him that… I agree. Let us undo what I did.”
But I will take sole responsibility for this. I will do this my way. She did not yet know how, but if she had to separate from Max, then that would be it. Her dream would be over, once and for all. She would make sure of it.