Chapter Eleven
Caroline finally understood the true meaning of the phrase “grinning like a fool.”
She should have woken up filled with shame for last night, weeping over her tarnished virtue, but instead she felt like giggling as she went down to breakfast, as she sat over the accounts and looked over the menus for that evening.
Before last night, Caroline had felt like she was stuck on one side of a line she should have crossed by now. Some mystery of life had not yet revealed itself.
Lord Rockford had started her initiation into the complex world of womanhood.
Caroline felt as if she had grown in understanding, instead of mere age. And she wanted more of that sensation, when he had touched her in such a secret place and ignited lust in her like a wildfire. Caroline couldn’t get the heat of his hands and the roughness of his kiss out of her mind or body.
And the way he had spoken of her, the way he had admired her for her mind and spirit as well as her body, made Caroline want to give herself to him again. And again.
If Sybil knew what had occurred, she’d call Caroline reckless. Anyone else would call Caroline far worse than that, but they could go hang. Caroline wanted to sit down and write out all these new, fiery emotions she was experiencing, and to capture Lord Rockford’s sleek, animal qualities in ecstatic detail.
She had never felt truly alive before, and she loved it.
Caroline decided to pay a call on Sybil and burn off some of this excess energy.
As she was headed to retrieve her bonnet, she passed by her father’s study. The door was ajar, and she heard him call for her.
“Caro. A minute, if you please.”
She paused, almost considered moving on without stopping in. She felt like heeding his every order now was the work of a little girl. With all her duties she hadn’t been a little girl, even when she was one—her mother’s death had seen to that—and that had been his fault. But duty won out in her again.
Lord Devereux’s study had been stripped of its more ornate parts.
Most of the books were missing, leaving massive gaps on the shelves, and the busts of Athena and Apollo had long since been sold off. Her father didn’t come in here to read and study so much as he did to have somewhere to sit quietly for a while and think. Or drink, usually.
When Caroline entered, he glanced at her over the tops of his glasses and gestured to the single chair in front of his desk.
“If you please.”
“I feel like I’m about to be sent to the nursery without supper.” Caroline sat down, wary.
“You’re far too old for that sort of thing. That’s half the problem.” Her father removed his spectacles and polished them, an excuse for something to do with his hands. “How was the opera last night?”
“It was lovely.” Caroline felt uneasy, her stomach starting to knot.
Her reply made Lord Devereux polish his glasses all the harder. “Indeed. Remind me, what was playing?”
“Surely you don’t need me to tell you. The papers must have written it up, somewhere.” Caroline forced a carefree smile, but her father was less than amused.
“I sent Edmund along to keep an eye on you in the crowd. I didn’t trust that great-aunt of Rockford’s. Edmund says he never saw you.”
Drat Edmund! He was a dear soul, but he’d never acquired the habit of lying elegantly to their father.
“It can be very crowded at the opera. Perhaps he had a difficult time locating us.”
The glass in Lord Devereux’s spectacles was surely about to crack. Finally, he stopped polishing them and pointed them at his daughter in a manner that aspired to be threatening.
“This isn’t a game, Caroline. It’s not one of your silly novels. I know you weren’t at the opera last night, so tell me. Did the earl take advantage of you?”
She ordered herself not to blush or to flinch. That would be an admission of guilt. “No. He didn’t. He was a perfect gentleman. Has anyone said otherwise?”
“No.” At that, her father banged his fist on top of his desk. “If they had, we might have had leverage to hasten this engagement!”
Caroline was now stunned. “Beg pardon?”
“You should be encouraging Lord Rockford to debauch you! Honestly, Caroline, you’ve wits enough to blackmail him. Surely you’ve the nerve to entrap him further!”
“Papa!” She was stung and angry now. “One would almost think this was a brothel, the way you’re encouraging your own daughter toward licentiousness!”
“Nonsense.” A bit too eagerly, he added, “The earl didn’t take you to a brothel, did he?”
“No!”
Her father cursed beneath his breath.
“And my novels aren’t ‘silly’, I’ll have you know. They help put food on our table and keep creditors away from our door, so don’t insult them or me!”
Lord Devereux rubbed his forehead. Perhaps she’d given him another headache. Caroline certainly felt one of her own creeping up.
“What I mean to say is that Lord Rockford is the answer to our every hope and prayer as a family. I need you to secure him before the Season is over!”
They had to stop arguing as Simon pushed in.
Father and daughter affixed serene countenances, hiding the turmoil underneath. Simon was the pet of the family, and no one wanted him to see anything unpleasant.
“What are you doing, Simon?” Caroline asked.
“Playing a game.” The child started pulling open drawers, riffling through the contents, then banging them shut again.
“With whom? Edmund?” What sort of game was this?
“Just myself. It’s a hide-and-seek with myself kind of game.”
“Well, could you hide somewhere else, little chap? Caro and I are having a discussion,” the baron said.
“I’m seeking !” Sounding irritated at the adults’ inability to understand, Simon scampered from the room. Caroline made certain the door was shut before she proceeded.
“I am making progress with Lord Rockford. Honestly, you ought to be ashamed we’ve stooped this low as a family!” Caroline stood up, looking down upon her father with clenched fists. She wished that the baron had felt shame at her criminal activity, shame at himself for driving her to it. But shame was evidently not in his emotional vocabulary.
“You’re brilliant, Caro. I know you are.” He tried to speak more soothingly now. “If you were my son, I know you’d singlehandedly raise our fortunes through your writing. If we lived in another sort of world, you’d be able to do the same as a woman. I would be happy of that.” He brought his fist down on the desk now, disrupting the few quills and the single inkpot that remained. “But we don’t live in a children’s fantasy! And I can’t afford to let my family go to ruin because you wish to pretend at being an author!”
When her mother had been alive, her father had been a different sort of man.
He’d brought Caroline books, encouraged her interests. He’d taken pride in her accomplishments alongside his wife.
But when Lady Devereux had left the world, her husband’s passion and optimism had gone with her, and the worst parts of his personality gained ascendency. Caroline knew he saw life as ultimately a disappointment one should learn to make the best of as soon as possible.
Caroline bit back her tears. She clenched her jaw and willed her lip to stop trembling. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself, not now.
“All you’ve ever wanted since Mother died is to indulge yourself at our family’s expense. You’re the last man on earth who should lecture me about taking care of this household!” Caroline’s joy at last night had fled now, and she felt as she often did in her father’s presence: a nuisance. In some way, Caroline was a reminder his perfect wife had gone and left an imperfect daughter in her place.
The baron appeared wounded by her words, then angered. “I merely want you to think about your family and not your own pursuits for one single moment!” he snapped. Caroline could put up with a great deal from her father, but being falsely labeled as selfish crossed the ultimate line. She almost choked on her rage.
“I’m always thinking of the family! You and Eddie and Simon are what consume my thoughts most days! I worry that I’m not managing the household as well as I should, that I’m not hiring the proper tutors for Simon, that I’m failing and disappointing everyone. When I write, I always consider how many copies this story might sell so I can pay off a debt or purchase a little more butter or sugar. I know I’m not what society deems a perfect lady; I can never be like Mother, or Sybil. I’m sorry for being such an endless disappointment, Papa, but you can’t accuse me of not thinking about the family! That at least is unfair.”
When she was done with her minor speech, her father regarded her with a sort of quiet shock. He cleared his throat and finally placed his mangled spectacles back upon his nose. “Be careful, Caroline. It’s all I can ask of you. Just be careful. We need this done.”
All I can ask.
He knew that being proud of her was too much to hope for at this point. Now he merely wanted her not to lose out on their last hope of security.
And after last night, Caroline was doing an especially bad job of that as well.
She’d taken a huge gamble when she allowed Lord Rockford to take liberties. She’d followed that path out of selfish pleasure, out of curiosity. She was incapable of planning or the icy logic that society demanded of its brightest stars.
She took her leave and found she didn’t want to visit Sybil any longer.
Now instead of being lit with fire whenever she thought about Rockford’s touch, she felt guilty. She’d allowed him liberties; he hadn’t forced her. She’d wanted him, and even in wanting him, she’d been doing the wrong bloody thing.
Caroline felt a bit ill as she considered last night from a new perspective. What if Rockford had given her a test? What if he’d wanted to see how virtuous she truly was? Would there be unforeseen consequences to that one beautiful, reckless moment?
Was Caroline truly that bad at doing anything good? She wanted to know that Rockford was not disgusted with her. She wished and wished that he would write to her, just a few short words to soothe her after the tumult of last night.
“Beg pardon, Miss Devereux.” Wilkins appeared with an envelope in his gloved hand. “This just arrived for you.”
And there it was, a letter.
Caroline managed to thank him and kept herself from ripping the paper out of his hands. She could not have timed it more perfectly if she had written the scene herself!
But it wasn’t from Rockford.
Caroline felt momentary disappointment.
But then she realized it was from her publisher. This should be the answer she’d been waiting on for Masquerade at Seville !
An acceptance would mean a chance at greater earnings than ever before.
She hurried up the stairs and leaned back against the door to her room. Her stomach was flipping about nervously. She didn’t take the time to sit at her desk and grab her letter opener.
Caroline tore open the envelope and let it flutter in shreds to the floor. Then she read the letter with shaking hands.
Miss Devereux,
It has been decided that we will not be publishing your novel The Masquerade At Seville .
The cost to print and distribute it has been deemed too great in comparison to what we stand to gain.
If you could see your way to revising it by adding a proper love story of some sort, we might be able to reconsider our decision.
Yours respectfully,
Mr. Harold Dunwell, Dunwell that she, Caroline Devereux, could still do all of this on her own.
And now it was over. She knew that the publisher needed “a proper love story” because they didn’t trust her to write anything significant. Her penny pamphlets were all well and good, but they’d never make a serious investment in her unless Caroline wrote the way they thought a woman ought to write.
She hated crying, and tried never to do it, but she couldn’t stop the cascade of tears as she put her head in her hands and gave way to her grief.
She felt so utterly childish, someone who believed in fairy tales still. She’d believed she’d be rewarded for all the hardship she’d suffered—her mother’s death, her family’s disgrace. She’d believed she’d rise like a phoenix from the ashes of her past and blaze into a bold new future.
Now she saw what a very dull and ordinary bird she truly was.