Chapter Twenty-Four
Caroline knew something had gone horribly wrong when Gabriel’s butler rushed through the doors and hurried to whisper something to the dowager countess.
Lady Rockford gasped, looked at Caroline with bewilderment bordering on reproach, then simply fled the scene without a further word, the butler at her heels.
“What the devil?” Caroline muttered, giving chase. What had happened? Had Gabriel announced the engagement? Had it gone wrong? Had he punched someone? Had it been her father? Caroline was halfway down the hall when Sybil emerged out the ballroom door and sprinted toward her.
“Caro! Oh my lord!” She was weeping openly, a most un-Sybil-like action.
Caroline’s thoughts spun to the worst possibilities. And as she’d spent much of her life imagining gruesome scenarios in shadowed mansions, the list of potential horrors was impressive.
Caroline saw to her shock that the ton was collectively deserting the premises.
Baronets and viscounts stalked away with their families, muttering and shaking their heads. Even the Duchess of Ashworth, the brightest light in London, was leaving in the company of her husband and Lady Weatherford. Losing the Ashworths in such a public manner was a slight Gabriel wouldn’t be quickly able to overcome.
Caroline became frantic. “Sybil, please tell me what the matter is!”
“Your father…the Earl of Rockford…he’s shot him!”
“ What? ” For an instant Caroline’s entire world was upended.
Her father would be hanged and she would lose the man she loved just as he was about to marry her; there could be no more gruesome fate. Caroline could not have written anything so dreadful. She would never have put her characters through so much terror and heartache if she could have conceived what a wretched thing she was doing to them.
“Are you saying…he’s dead?” Caroline whispered.
“No.” Sybil sniffled. “Your father shot the earl in the foot. He’s saying the most ungentlemanly words, though I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Caroline’s frantic thoughts kept interlocking like mismatched puzzle pieces; she could understand what Sybil was saying but could form nothing conclusive from the information.
“He is not going to die?”
“It does not seem that way.” Sybil took out a handkerchief and honked her nose delicately.
“Syb, I’m grateful to you for caring about my family so deeply, but I’m not certain why you should be weeping here!”
“There must be some legal action taken. And Edmund…he says he’ll take the blame for your father! He’ll claim it was he who shot Lord Rockford and not the baron!”
Caroline grabbed Sybil by the shoulders. Her friend was weeping openly now, showing so much fear that it positively rattled Caroline.
“Why are you so upset? At least it’s not happening to your family!” Caroline cried, unable to contain her irritation.
“But it’s Edmund !” Sybil wrangled a handkerchief and wept into it.
Oh, bloody hell. If Caroline hadn’t been so preoccupied with her own disasters this Season, she would have noted how much her best friend and her brother had connected.
Trying to shush Sybil, Caroline embraced her.
“But why did any of this happen? Gabriel was announcing our bloody engagement!” Caroline should have been there. She should not have allowed this to proceed without her.
“It was your father.” Sybil sniffed. “He thought the earl had started the rumors about you and challenged him before the whole party. Then Rockford admitted he’d attempted to seduce you but had failed—”
“What?”
Caroline realized then that the people passing by were giving her looks of sympathy as well as some pity. To everyone’s shock, the Duchess of Ashworth noticed Caroline and stepped toward her.
“Miss Devereux? Are you well?” The duchess, a tall, stately blond woman, laid a sympathetic hand upon Caroline’s arm. “The earl is truly a rogue. You may feel caught in a maelstrom right now, but I’m certain it will pass. Should you or your family require assistance, I’d be only too happy to oblige.”
“Th-thank you, Your Grace.” Caroline curtsied, almost toppling over. She was spellbound, frankly in awe. She noticed everyone else observe the duchess’s composure, and Caroline felt the wind shift drastically. Half an hour ago, she’d been a ruined pariah; now, she was a wronged innocent with the Duchess of Ashworth on her side.
Caroline’s good name had been more than restored. She’d been vaulted to new, incredible heights.
All because Gabriel had lied.
He knew this would happen, and he sacrificed himself to save me.
Caroline had thought she knew love before this moment, but those had been mere trifling emotions compared to this. That brave, foolish man had risked his reputation and his very life to preserve hers. He would give up anything for her.
She didn’t want him to; she wanted him to gain everything. He deserved the world. She wanted to give him everything she had or would ever have; she wanted to give him every last bit of her, body and soul.
But she couldn’t do that if he sent her father or brother to prison! That would rather kill the developing bud of their relationship.
“We need to find Edmund,” Caroline muttered when the duchess and the other guests had departed. She pulled Sybil along. “Come on! We can convince him the earl was lying.”
Caroline was also going to stuff her father into a hatbox and place him on a shelf for safekeeping. That way he could never cause the family trouble again.
“Sybil!” Lady Rexbridge sailed over to them, Lord Devereux quick behind her. “This is no place to make a spectacle of yourself. People shall talk. And they have talked quite enough for one evening.”
“I had no idea this would happen, my lady.” Caroline felt herself growing exasperated. “But there’s more of concern here than just idle gossip. I need to see my brother and the Earl of Rockford.”
“The earl’s been taken upstairs to await the doctor, Caro,” the baron interjected, looking more abashed than she’d ever seen him. His shoulders slouched.
“What of Edmund?” Caroline asked. She noticed Sybil’s sharp, concerned inhalation.
“Edmund’s well. He shan’t be taking on any trouble for me, not that there’s now any to take. The Countess of Rockford informed me that they will claim it an accidental misadventure with a pistol. Not for our family’s sake, of course, but for the Rockford legacy. No one wants the first proper ball in years to be stained with an official attempt at murder.”
That was something good, at least. None of Caroline’s men would be in legal trouble and Gabriel would seemingly recover. But it had all spun so drastically out of control that she could not contain herself.
“Why would you brandish a gun at a ball, Papa? Why on earth would you be so bloody reckless?!” she cried.
Yet Caroline couldn’t reprimand her father, not when he was clearly berating himself for the first time in years. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I thought someone had to do something. I couldn’t let that man walk about while your reputation was in tatters!”
“If you’d waited but five minutes, all would have been well,” Caroline groaned. “Papa, don’t you see? The earl was about to announce our engagement!”
“He was?”
Caroline could have screamed in exasperation. “Yes! Why do you think Eddie was with him?”
“But where were you? I thought you’d run off!” The baron appeared shocked.
“I couldn’t face them all. If I’d only done so, I’d be safely engaged now and Lord Rockford would have a foot that was wholly intact!” Caroline did feel a bit of pride at her father for attempting to defend her honor, however haphazardly. And Edmund, too, prepared to take on the blame so that the family did not lose its head and last semblance of dignity. “I suppose I should thank you, Papa. You and Eddie have both tried to behave honorably this evening. I appreciate it.”
“It really is the grandest gesture,” Sybil whispered. She seemed ready to swoon. “Mr. Devereux is so very heroic.”
“Indeed, that is not the word I should use.” Lady Rexbridge put a hand to her daughter’s shoulder. “Sybil, you must come away with me. Let Lord Devereux and Caroline contend with their own misfortunes.” The marchioness gave a nod both sympathetic and dismissive at once. Perhaps such an effect had been achieved by the arrangement of peacock feathers in her hair. “I am sorry, Caroline, for your dear mamma’s sake, that it has all come to this. But I hope you’ll understand that I can’t have my daughter consorting with you any longer. The social risk is too great.”
“Mamma!” Sybil cried.
There was a moment of sheer panic; Caroline had lost so much already; she couldn’t lose Sybil, too! But loss had featured heavily tonight. Caroline had lost a reputation and regained it, gained a fiancé and then lost him, all in one evening. It was enough to drive one quite distracted.
Because she cared for Sybil, she understood that the marchioness was only doing what any concerned mother would. If the best way to spare her friend any pain was to break with her, Caroline would do so. At least for now, before she had a chance to think.
“I understand, my lady. If you’ll excuse us.” Caroline took her father by the arm and led him away.
…
Two days later, things had settled a bit. At least Gabriel would be all right and none of the Devereuxes would face any charges. Another great relief was that Lady Rexbridge had apparently changed her mind about Caroline’s danger to her daughter. Caroline sat for tea with a dispirited Sybil directly across from her.
“At any rate, I’m glad your mamma has allowed you to come see me,” Caroline said.
“Ah. About that.” Sybil blushed. “I’m afraid she thinks I’m looking at fabrics for Cynthia’s trousseau.”
Caroline frowned. Apparently the business of her father shooting an earl at his own party would take further time to wash away.
“We don’t have to worry that Cynthia will tell?” Caroline frowned.
Sybil shook her head. “No, she’s a darling. That’s the wonderful thing about sisters, they understand everything implicitly.”
Indeed. If only Caroline could have had at least one sister to help set her to rights or offer moderate guidance.
She stirred milk into her tea, watching the liquid swirl round and about. Her thoughts became lost once more, and it was easy to lose the path of conversation these days. Much nicer to duck off the trail and into the cool green forest of imagination, where Gabriel might be waiting.
“Are you thinking of Lord Rockford?” Sybil had an extraordinary sense of one’s thoughts.
“I know he was good enough to ask that no action be taken. Since the assault took place in his own home, and since Rockford’s a bloody earl, his word carries final weight. Now he simply needs to wait for his foot to heal.”
“Before he can meet you down the aisle, you mean?” Sybil arched a brow. “The man was ready to sacrifice his honor for you. If that’s not a declaration of love, I’m not sure what is.”
Caroline laughed, though her heartbeat was quick. She had never been formally announced as Gabriel’s betrothed, so simply rushing over to Kane House would be improper. But why hadn’t the earl written to her? He’d been shot in the foot, not the hand.
Unless there had been an infection, and it had spread, and he was even now lying in a delirious fever gasping her name as his very life hung in the balance—
“Caro, are you having dramatic thoughts again?” Sybil asked.
“Am I really that easy to read?”
“You’ve no talent for deception at all.”
“I suppose I haven’t.” Caroline sighed. “Amazing that I ever thought I could maneuver my way into marriage.”
“So what? If your love is as true as his, how does it matter how it began?” Sybil looked irritated as the clock chimed the hour. “I must go. Cynthia will be finishing at the modiste soon. But let me know as soon as you hear from Lord Rockford.”
“If I can find a way past your mamma, I shall,” Caroline teased.
The drawing room door opened, and Edmund poked his head inside.
These past two days he’d gone about looking sad and sympathetic whenever Caroline was near, but all thought of sadness seemed to have vacated. He greeted Sybil with a poor attempt at looking nonchalant. Indeed, he was a bit splotchy about the face with excitement.
“Hello, Lady Sybil. Are you leaving just now?”
“Were you hovering at the door and listening, Eddie?” Caroline asked.
“No,” he said much too quickly. His face reddened. “Um, that is, my lady, it would be my pleasure to escort you anywhere you wished.”
“Oh, if you wouldn’t mind. I only need to stop in at Mrs. Maxwell’s on Oxford Street.” Sybil nearly bounded to her feet, resembling less a lady than an enthusiastic jackrabbit. In a bonnet. “You’re so kind, Mr. Devereux.”
“Oh no. The kindness…is all the other way.” Edmund gazed at Sybil, and Sybil gazed at Edmund, and then Edmund shut the door and left. A moment passed.
“Is he coming back?” Caroline wondered aloud. The door opened once again, and Edmund poked his head inside.
“Erm. I should probably leave with you, Lady Sybil. If I’m escorting you.”
Sybil laughed, and Edmund blushed, and Caroline smiled.
Once her brother and best friend had gone, Caroline settled herself back down to work. She’d tried writing in the parlor, thinking a new location might help unstick the words that had now blocked themselves in her head. But it was useless; the Masquerade at Seville refused to offer anything new. And most of her issues were to do with the Devil.
No matter how many times Caroline tried to revise him, the Devil remained infuriatingly one-dimensional. He never did anything but sneer and scowl and threaten the heroine. There was no real temptation on either side.
Once, Caroline would have been satisfied with him. He was only a demon, after all, a malevolent spirit with the handsomeness of sin. Now she knew there was more to him than a diabolical temperament, but she couldn’t seem to find the words for it.
James knocked and entered with a letter.
“From Lady Rockford, Miss.”
Caroline’s pulse skyrocketed. Had Gabriel been killed after all? Why was his mother writing and not he? Caroline ripped open the letter, and the words she read did nothing to ease her fear.
Miss Devereux,
Might you call upon me tomorrow at one in the afternoon? I must speak with you.
Caroline swallowed the lump in her throat. Surely if something were gravely wrong with Gabriel, the dowager would have said as much. Perhaps the older countess simply wanted to berate Caroline for causing all this anguish in the first place.
That thought stiffened Caroline’s spine. She herself was not the reason everything had spun out of control. The blame for that lay with her father, and frankly, it began with Lady Rockford herself.