Chapter Forty-Five
Caroline was packing when Lottie burst into the room. “Happy birthday, Caro!” she cried, and dropped a wrapped parcel on the bed, and gave her aunt a hug.
Caroline smiled. “I didn’t think anyone would remember,” she said.
Lottie beamed. “How could I forget? My birthday is just twelve days after yours.”
“You’ll be an old married woman by then,” Caroline teased, and crossed to the package.
“Yes, I will, won’t I?” Lottie’s smile faded.
“Aren’t you happy?” Caroline asked, putting the gift down again.
“I thought I was. William seemed so kind and charming and—serene. Now I think ‘serene’ may have been the wrong word.”
“Oh?”
Lottie bit her lip. “I’m horribly afraid he’s just dull, and not serene at all, which makes me question if he really is charming and kind, or if I’ve made a dreadful mistake. He is handsome at the least, isn’t he?”
Caroline’s heart went out to her niece. She’d once fancied William herself as the perfect husband.
Now she could not imagine anyone else but— She took a breath and stopped that thought in its very dangerous tracks.
Tomorrow she’d be gone from Glenlorne, and she’d never see Alec MacNabb again.
“Yes, he’s very handsome,” she murmured to Lottie, meaning William.
“I love to dance, but William doesn’t dance. Do you see that as a problem?”
Caroline remembered the way it felt to dance on Midsummer’s Eve, light as a feather in Alec’s arms, her feet bare in the cool grass, her body hot with desire . . . Would she ever dance with anyone else and feel the same thrill in his arms?
“Dancing is not so important,” she lied.
“And William refuses to travel, or to hunt. I wished to go to Paris for our wedding trip, now the city is open again and Napoleon is gone. He told me he gets seasick, and wouldn’t think of such a dangerous journey.
Dangerous! Why, my friend Anne Thorndale went to Paris to buy a whole new wardrobe, and she says it’s perfectly wonderful, and quite safe.
She didn’t suffer even the tiniest bit of mal de mer,” Lottie said.
She reached for the parcel herself, and began to twirl the string between her fingers, studying her betrothal ring, a perfectly respectable if not awe-inspiring diamond hemmed in by fat pearls.
Caroline remembered the ruby ring her mother had left her, and rubbed her finger where it had once sat. She had given it to the gentleman on the street in London the night she fled Somerson House. Would she change that now, if she could go back, stay where she belonged? She knew she would not.
“You traveled here all by yourself, didn’t you?” Lottie asked.
“Yes,” Caroline murmured. “I’m sure you think I was foolish to flee like that. I didn’t think of the dangers I might have faced.” Especially if she hadn’t had the stranger’s advice about the Royal Mail coach, and the coin he gave her for the fare.
“Oh, I know mama says you are quite ruined, and I did think it was silly to run away at night the way you did, but look at you now—I’d say your adventures have been the making of you!”
Or the undoing, Caroline thought. She glanced at the small valise, half hidden by the open door of the wardrobe.
It would hold the few gowns she’d purchased in Edinburgh, a book or two, and nothing else.
She couldn’t stay, couldn’t watch Alec marry Sophie, promise to love and cherish her all the days of his life.
She was sorry she would not be there to stand with Lottie, but she had to go.
She would go to Edinburgh or Glasgow, find another job.
She would write a letter to Somerson, making good on her promise to renounce her dowry, and cut her ties to her family.
Lottie squeezed the package in her hands, and the paper crackled. “Caroline, I’ve decided not to marry William. Just this moment, in fact. My brother George is going on the Grand Tour. He leaves next month, and I think I’ll go with him.” She jumped to her feet. “Have I shocked you?”
“Frankly yes. Are you sure? What will your parents say?” Caroline said.
“Well, I’ll need a chaperone, of course, besides George—a companion. I thought perhaps you would like to accompany me. Oh Caroline, think of the fun we’ll have. Mama can’t object if you’re with me, and George will be there, with his tutor and his valet.”
Caroline studied her niece’s flushed face, saw the spark in her eyes—determination, delight, and mischief. “Please say yes, Caro!”
Caroline’s stomach tied itself into a knot. It did offer a new destination, a way to forget Alec. She tried to picture herself by Lottie’s side, on a ship, or in Paris, or Italy, and saw only Glenlorne in her mind’s eye. “If this is what you want,” she said slowly.
The string holding the present closed unraveled in Lottie’s fingers, and she looked at the parcel in her lap in surprise, as if she’d forgotten it was there.
“Here I am rattling on, and this is your day, and you should be opening your gift.” She handed it to Caroline.
“It’s a shawl,” she said before Caroline had even gotten it half unwrapped.
“The finest cashmere. It was for my wedding trip, but I can’t bear to wear it now, and I shall buy something new and exotic in Paris or Italy.
The colors will look better on you, anyway. ”
Caroline held up the lovely shawl. It was moss green, with a deep paisley patterned edging of gold and orange, the colors of the hills of Glenlorne. “Oh, Lottie, it’s lovely, but I really shouldn’t—”
Lottie snorted and snatched it from Caroline’s hands, wrapping it over her shoulders.
“Nonsense! You look lovely. It brings out the golden tone of your skin, and the green in your eyes. She fussed with the shawl, wrapping it over Caroline’s hair, tossing the ends over her shoulders.
“Oh, you look like a bonnie Highland lass!” she said. “As if you belong here.”
She squeezed Caroline’s hands. “I’d better go and see Mama now. She’ll have just finished breakfast, and be looking forward to lunch. She’s always more approachable on a full stomach. Wish me luck?”
“Luck,” Caroline said. “What about William?”
Lottie turned in the doorway. “Mama’s the hard part. I daresay William will simply find another bride.”
Paris. Italy. The spa towns . . . anywhere, Caroline thought, taking off the shawl and putting it into the valise. “Europe.” She whispered the word as she’d once whispered, “Scotland.” It was a destination. Still, she could not rid herself of the feeling that once again, she was running away.