Gayle Buck (6 page)

Lady Caroline laughed, her embarrassment vanished. She went to him with outstretched hands. “For shame. Miles! You must know that his lordship means to make me his wife. I am of half a mind to accept him.”

Lord Trilby caught her fingers and carried them to his lips. Without releasing her hands, he shook his head. “Much better not to. His lordship is such a stiff stick that he’ll bore you to distraction in a fortnight. Either that or you will drive him to apoplexy.”

Lady Caroline’s lips quivered with amusement. She said demurely, “Lord Hathaway said that I am in need of a firm hand.”

“That is indisputably true. I have known it for ages. It is why I never made an offer for you myself. I am too easy a fellow for us ever to have suited,” Lord Trilby said, smiling down at her.

Lady Caroline’s own smile faltered. She gently pulled her hands free of his warm, easy clasp. “You will have tea, I expect.”

Lord Trilby regarded the remains of the previous tea with disapprobation. “Good God, rum-and-poppyseed cake.” He grimaced. “Thank you, my lady, but I shall decline tea.”

Lady Caroline laughed as she went to pull the bell rope. Before she had done more than give a short tug, the drawing-room door opened and Simpson came in carrying a tea tray.

“I have taken the liberty of bringing up a fresh pot of tea and sandwiches for his lordship, my lady,” the butler said.

Lord Trilby’s eyes lit up at sight of the stacked sandwiches. “Good man, Simpson! I shall recommend you for a bonus in your wages.”

The butler merely smiled. After placing the tea tray on the side table, he cleared away the old tray with its remnants of cake and biscuits.

Lady Caroline saw that the earl was settled with tea and a plate of sandwiches before she said, “Your sudden appearance came as quite a shock, my lord.”

“So I gathered when I so ineptly interrupted that charming
tête-à-tête,”
Lord Trilby said dryly.

Lady Caroline laughed, even as a tinge of color stole back into her face. “You know very well I meant nothing of the kind by my statement, my lord! I must own, however, I was glad to see you at just that moment. I was never more shocked in my life than I was at Lord Haulaway’s strange behavior.’’

The Earl of Walmesley cast over her an encompassing glance. She was looking particularly fetching in an afternoon dress of cerulean blue trimmed lavishly with lace at the bosom. Her hair was swept up in masses of glorious chestnut curls, held in place by copper and inlaid combs. “My dear Caroline, you malign your own charms. I would have been more surprised to learn that you did
not
excite such behavior.”

Lady Caroline thought she knew better than to place any deep underlying construction upon his compliment, and she accepted the accolade with a gracious nod. “Thank you, my lord. But what I meant was that I received your last letter not above a day ago and you made not one mention of surprising me in this fashion, wretch that you are.”

Lord Trilby had been making rapid inroads into the sandwiches, but at this he set aside the last one, unfinished. His former easy humor disappeared from his manner and his voice had of a sudden lost its lazy, half-amused drawl. “A few days ago I did not know that I would be visiting you, my lady.”

Lady Caroline’s mildly surprised gaze had followed the banishment of the sandwich plate. When she heard the change in his lordship’s voice, her eyes lifted swiftly to his. “My lord! What is it? Something has happened. You must tell me at once.”

Lord Trilby’s sudden smile was one of self-mockery. “I came to Berwicke for that express purpose, my dear. I am caught fast in a coil, one of my own making, I confess, and I harbor the hope that you will be able to aid me in extricating myself.”

“You know that you may call upon me. Miles,” Lady Caroline said quietly. Her heart was beating uncomfortably hard. She could not imagine what sort of difficulty the earl could possibly be in, but that it was of a serious nature was patently obvious to her. Lord Trilby’s uncharacteristic seriousness greatly alarmed her.

Lord Trilby was not given over excessively to any vice that she was aware of. He was wealthy enough that any losses at the gaming table would hardly be noticed, so she was easily able to dismiss the outrageous thought that he had come to beg a loan of her. She knew also that Lord Trilby was too even-tempered and moderate in drink to indulge in dueling or anything of that nature, even if provoked.

That left only the possibility that his lordship was having some difficulty with a woman.

At the thought, Lady Caroline’s fingers momentarily curled in her lap. The Earl of Walmesley was no saint, of course. There had naturally been the odd mistress or two that she had been told about by well-meaning friends, and each time she had died a little death. But she had not realized before how thoroughly she had dreaded the day that Lord Trilby would come to tell her that he had become seriously involved with someone.

“It is a female,” she stated, with what she thought was creditable calm in consideration of how violently she was shaking inside.

Lord Trilby looked at his companion with surprise and a heightened degree of respect. “Your percipience amazes, Caroline. You are exactly right, however it is that you fathomed it.”

Lady Caroline rose swiftly from the settee in order to put distance between herself and the earl, fearing that he might read her vulnerability in her expression. She went to the side table in pretense of wanting to freshen her cup of tea from the urn. Her hand shook as she poured. “What is it that you wish me to do?”

Lord Trilby studied her profile, faintly startled by a glimpse of something that he could not quite put a name to. “Are you not interested in the round tale, my lady?”

Lady Caroline gestured dismissively with her free hand. “I doubt it is much consequence to me. I am more interested in discovering how it is I may help you.”

“You are accommodating, indeed. But I suspect that in all fairness you should hear the whole before you commit yourself in any fashion,” Lord Trilby said.

Lady Caroline glanced swiftly back at him. “Tea, my lord? No? Very well, then.” She gracefully returned to the settee, her own cup in hand. Sinking down in her former place, she said with the glimmer of a smile, “I perceive that you are determined to tell me all, so proceed.”

It was Lord Trilby’s turn to rise, in testimony to his slight discomfiture. He took a quick turn about the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He frowned as he composed his thoughts. “The thing of it is, I am not all that certain that I have the right to call upon you,’’ he said at last, turning to regard her. “When I was in London and thought of you, I saw instantly how you might aid me. We are such good friends that it never entered my head at that time that what I meant to ask of you borders on the preposterous. Now, of course, I have had ample time for reflection, and it is not as simple as I originally believed.”

“Why do you not let me be the judge, my lord?”

Lord Trilby half-smiled in acknowledgment of her willingness to give him a hearing. “You are a rare one, Caroline. Very well. I suppose that you recall my occasional mention of my great-aunt, the Grandduchess of Schaftenzeits.”

“Yes, indeed. I believe her grace is the only personage that you have ever admitted to a dread of,” Lady Caroline said, smiling.

Lord Trilby laughed. “Yes. In any event, Grandduchess Wilhelmina Hildebrande has written to me that she will shortly descend upon me for a lengthy visit.”

Lady Caroline regarded her companion with mild surprise and some bewilderment. This was not at all the confidence she had expected to hear. “I do not quite understand the difficulty, my lord, for if I am not mistaken, I seem to recall that you have always spoken of the grandduchess with enormous affection.”

“True enough; I do hold the grand old lady in the fondest regard. However, her grace is a regular tartar, making a career of ordering others’ lives for them. She is quite determined to arrange mine to her satisfaction while she is in England,” Lord Trilby said, his eyes glinting with rueful humor.

“Oh, dear, I begin to see,” Lady Caroline said with a curious lightening of her spirits. The earl’s difficulty had nothing to do with a young and nubile female, after all. “But I still do not understand what it is you believe I may do to help you. I should be most willing to do my part in entertaining the Grandduchess of Schaffenzeits, if that is what you are hoping. I am, however, fixed here at Berwicke until Lord Eddington’s return, which of course you know. I assume, then, that you intend to bring her grace down to Walmesley?”

“Yes, I shall have her grace down to Walmesley for the entire length of her stay, she and her whole entourage. She never travels without being accompanied by at least a dozen servants, her secretary, and her pet pugs, all of which are loaded into four or five coaches drawn by large showy teams with liveried attendants,” Lord Trilby said.

Lady Caroline was amused. “Grandduchess Wilhelmina Hildebrande sounds a character of the first water.”

“You may well say so. I could never fit them all comfortably into the town house, nor would I wish to make the attempt. The grandduchess detests London. She has informed me so on numerous occasions,” Lord Trilby said.

He leaned one shoulder against the mantel and regarded Lady Caroline with anticipation. “She has also advised me many times to give up my frivolous London life. She wishes me to settle at Walmesley with a good wife and an increasing nursery. I am to have no fewer than six children and at least half of those should be sons so that there will be a better-than-even chance that the family name will be carried on after my demise. It is my duty to marry and procreate, since I am the last of the British line. My honor is at stake, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Dear Lord,” Lady Caroline murmured, stunned.

Lord Trilby laughed at her bemused expression. “As you have gathered, the Grandduchess of Schaffenzeits is a lady of formidable opinions, with which she is very vocal and very generous.”

“I can readily believe it.” Lady Caroline regarded his lordship with ready sympathy. “You fear that her grace’s visit will be one of vexation and discomfort, do you not? I know that you dislike excessively such situations. It will be very bad, indeed, if you are to be subjected to such strictures for weeks. The only thing to do, of course, is to provide enough entertainments so that the grandduchess’s attention is diverted from your bachelor state. It is rather a problem, since her grace so dislikes London, particularly since most of our neighbors are themselves away in London for the Little Season. But I think that even so we may stir up a few activities in our quiet county that might be relied upon to engage an elderly lady’s interest.”

Lady Caroline smiled reassuringly at the earl. “Leave it to me, Miles. I am certain that I can manage a few respectable parties, at the very least.”

“That is not quite what I had in mind, actually,” Lord Trilby said slowly.

The slightest lift of Lady Caroline’s brows indicated her surprise. “Is it not?”

Lord Trilby crossed to sit down beside her on the settee. He took her hands, to hold them loosely between his own. “Caroline, I have come to ask you to help me deceive the Grandduchess of Schaffenzeits—by pretending that there is an understanding between us.”

Chapter Seven

Lady Caroline stared at the earl in speechless astonishment for several heartbeats. She regained her voice, at the same time attempting to free her hands. “Are you
mad,
Miles?”

Lord Trilby tightened his hold on her hands, refusing to allow her to withdraw from him. “I told you it was a ludicrous notion, Caro. But now that I have said it, at least allow me to explain more fully before you reject it out of hand. Will you grant me that, Caro?”

Lady Caroline looked at his lordship. He so rarely addressed her by that intimate diminution of her name, doing so only in moments of great feeling. She nodded warily. “Very well; I shall hear you out. But I should give you fair warning that, at best, I suspect you mad, and at worst, disguised.”

“Foxed at teatime? You know me better than that, I hope,’’ Lord Trilby said, not at all offended at the aspersion she had cast upon his sobriety.

“Then you are mad,” Lady Caroline said decisively.

“Perhaps I am,” Lord Trilby admitted. “But you will listen, will you not?”

“I suppose I must, if I am ever to understand what has knocked loose your senses,” Lady Caroline said on a sigh. She glanced thoughtfully down at her entrapped hands. “Or even if I am to regain possession of my hands.”

Lord Trilby let go of her then with a laugh. He leaned back against the cushions of the settee. “I shall give it to you quickly, then. Several months ago the Grandduchess Wilhelmina Hildebrande tired of my polite assurances that I would one day fulfill my duty and wed. She wrote to me that she wished to have me firmly committed to matrimony before she died, so that she could rest easily in her grave. Such dramatic rot I have never read before or since, I assure you. I thought I was very clever in conveying the reply that I had entered upon an engagement with a suitable young lady, just thinking to put her off a bit longer, you see. It was to be a lengthy engagement, of course, out of deference to the lady’s family situation. Later, I meant to inform her grace that the lady in question and I had agreed that the understanding between us be quietly dissolved, for reasons which by honor I naturally could not reveal.”

“Oh, Miles,” Lady Caroline said in quiet dismay. She was beginning to see at last the magnitude of his lordship’s difficulty.

Lord Trilby gave a self-mocking smile. “Caught myself finely, did I not? You have already divined it, of course. Weston warned me at the time how it would be, but foolishly I did not heed him. The upshot of it all is that the Grand-duchess of Schaffenzeits does not believe that my engagement exists. Moreover, since I have not seen fit to provide myself with a bride, she has decided to select a suitable helpmate for me.”

“Oh, my word! It is no wonder you pitched such a cork-brained suggestion to me,” Lady Caroline said, disgusted.