Lady Caro (10 page)

Chapter 12

Swope immediately confirmed his employer’s dark surmise. The marquess had been taken ill and wished to see him immediately.

“What is wrong with Papa?” Caro cried in alarm.

Swope looked uncomfortable. “I cannot say except that the doctor has been sent for,” he replied evasively.

Despite her tan, Caro suddenly looked very pale. She started for the house at a run.

Ashley, certain that his valet knew more than he had been willing to tell Caro, paused to ask again the nature of the marquess’s illness.

Glancing around to make certain that Caro was out of earshot, Swope said, “I was told it is his heart. He was stricken with excruciating chest pains shortly after a, er, rather violent dustup with Mrs. Kelsie.”

“What was that about? Don’t tell me you couldn’t say, because I know that you can.” Swope, who loved gossip, could be counted on to pluck every tidbit to be had from the servants’ grapevine.

“Her son stole a bottle of the marquess’s claret. Also, Mrs. Kelsie apparently attempted to humiliate Lady Caroline last night. His lordship was heard to tell Mrs. Kelsie to get out and never set foot on Bellhaven soil again while he was alive. A good deal of commotion ensued.”

Ashley could well imagine that it had. “How bad is the marquess’s attack?”

Swope frowned. “I heard he might turn his spoon to the wall.”

“Good God!” Ashley exclaimed. Looking toward the house, he saw that Caro was nearly there. He ran after her, following her inside and up the stairs to her father’s bedchamber. When she tried to enter, Levisham’s valet barred her way, saying that his lordship had been emphatic about wishing to see Lord Vinson before anyone else.

The viscount knew that the marquess wanted an answer about whether he would marry Caro. Until a short time ago, Ashley had intended to refuse. But the lascivious look on Tilford’s face as he watched his unsuspecting cousin swimming had undermined Ashley’s resolve.

When Ashley went in, Levisham was lying against the pillows. He attempted to raise his head, but it fell back weakly.

“Thank God, they have found you,” he said, desperation in his rasping voice. “I fear that I am dying ... I must have your answer now...
”

With a sinking heart, Ashley realized what that answer must be. His conscience would not permit him to abandon Caro to Tilford’s untender mercies.

The marquess paused as though trying to marshal his strength to go on. “I promise you that Caro will meet your principal requirement for a wife. She will never plague you about Lady Roxley.”

“I do not believe that your daughter will be happy about such a marriage,” Ashley said sharply, thinking again that Caro deserved so much better.

“It is the very kind of marriage that she wants.”

“She might think so in the abstract, but I am persuaded that faced with the reality of it, she will not like it at all.”

“But she will,” Levisham grimaced as though torn by pain. “She is still more child than woman, and she has some silly prejudices about men and marriage that must be dispelled. What is required is a husband who treats her with patience and gentleness and forbearance.” Again the marquess’s face contorted with pain. It was a long moment before he continued in a weak, halting voice. “Meanwhile, you will have your mistress ... All that I ask on that score is that ... you do not ignore Caro ... nor mortify her with too flagrantly open a liaison.”

“If you believe that I would treat my wife so callously, you should not be proposing to give your daughter to me,” Ashley said. “Nor will I wed a woman against her will. If Caro objects to this arrangement, I cannot marry her.”

“If she does not object ... you will wed her?”

“Only if she assures me that she wishes this arrangement,” Ashley emphasized.

Levisham’s eyes glittered angrily, clearly taking silent umbrage at Vinson’s insistence that Caro freely agree to their union.

Given her distaste for marriage, she would not like it, but she likely would agree to it, finding him preferable to her drunken cousin. Nevertheless, Ashley wanted to be certain that was the case. But why should her father be upset that the viscount wanted Caro’s assurance that she would not find marriage to him repugnant? Had she already told her father that she would?

Startled and a little uneasy about Levisham’s odd reaction, Ashley said sharply, “I reiterate that if she objects to—”

“I swear to you that she will not,” her father said coldly. “Not to marrying you or to your relationship with Lady Roxley.”

“With all due respect, my lord, it is her oath, not yours, that I wish to hear,” Ashley said grimly. “And I must hear it from her own lips. I insist on being private with her, just the two of us.”

“That is not necessary,” Levisham replied in furious accents.

“I insist on it!”

“Very well, then, you shall have her word,” the marquess responded, clearly outraged.

Ashley stared at the marquess, baffled by his anger. Levisham closed his eyes wearily. “You will be married tonight.”

“But that is impossible,” Ashley protested. “We shall have to obtain a special license.”

“I have already done so. All that remains to be done is for the minister to be summoned.”

More than a little exasperated at Levisham’s presumption, Ashley said firmly, “I must notify my parents. I do not wish to be married without them here.”

“By that time, I most likely will be dead. Do not deny me my last wish—to see my daughter safely married. Furthermore, if you insist on waiting for them to arrive, you may not be married at all. Count on my evil sister-in-law to find a way of preventing it once I am dead. You must marry immediately.”

“Yes,” Ashley said, thinking that perhaps haste was preferable from his own point of view, too. His father would not approve of Caro as a future countess of Bourn. Much as Vinson hated to be married without his parents present, it would be easier to have the deed done before his father could kick up a storm over his choice of bride. It would mean, however, that Ashley must postpone his return to London and his search for the truth about William’s death. He could not like that, but there was no helping it.

“Very well, we’ll wed tonight,” he capitulated, “but only if Caro assures me privately that this arrangement meets her approval.”

Once again anger flashed in Levisham’s eyes. Seeking to soothe him, Ashley said, “I promise that I shall take very good care of your daughter.” And he would. Now that he had agreed to the match, he was feeling much better about it. He could not have lived with himself had Caro fallen into Tilford’s hands. She would be far happier as Ashley’s wife. He would make certain of that. He was determined to be the patient, forbearing husband that Levisham wanted for his daughter.

The marquess said, “I ask one small favor of you.”

“Certainly, you have but to name it,” Ashley replied. “Let Caro remain here with me. I have no one else. I do not want to die alone.”

The viscount frowned. He did not want to deny a dying man’s request, but Levisham could linger for weeks, and Ashley must return to London to search for the one-eared man. It was even more important that he find him now that he was marrying. If Henry had murdered William in order to inherit the earldom, everyone who stood in his way was in danger, especially Caro, who, should she become pregnant, would give birth to a new impediment. “I have important business to attend to. I cannot remain at Bellhaven above a few days.”

“What can be that important?” Levisham demanded harshly.

For a moment Ashley considered telling him about Henry and the threat he might pose to Caro but decided against it. What point was there in burdening a dying man with yet another worry? “It is a personal matter.”

Levisham’s hand raised from the coverlet in an indifferent gesture. “Then depart when you wish, but leave Caro with me. You will have your mistress to occupy you in London.”

Ashley’s frown deepened. “There will be gossip.”

“Once it is known that Caro remained here because I am dying, it will be seen as the dutiful thing to do.”

“She may stay,” Ashley agreed with a rueful little smile. It would do him no good to tell her that she could not remain with her father. He knew his future bride well enough to be certain that nothing would pry Caro from her father’s side now.

When the door closed behind Ashley, Levisham sat up abruptly, the weakness he had exhibited in the viscount’s presence gone.

The marquess was not dying yet. But with his heart as bad as it was, his pretense could become a reality at any moment, and he had to get Caro safely married before that happened. It had been clear that Vinson intended to reject the offer of her hand, and Levisham had hit on a fake deathbed scene as the most expedient way of obtaining both Caro’s and Ashley’s agreement to the marriage. His daughter would be stubborn, too, but he would enlist Dr. Baxter’s aid in bringing her around.

Not that he was happy about her marrying Vinson. He silently cursed a cruel fate that forced him to make Caro marry a man whose chief requirement in a wife was that she not object to his mistress.

When he was with Caro, Ashley gave every indication of being both fond and protective of her. He had moved swiftly the previous night to save her from Olive’s attempt to humiliate her. Yet now, he was subjecting her to another kind of humiliation by requiring that she promise him she would not object to his mistress. As Vinson himself had said when the marquess had proposed the match, “Caro deserves better than a husband who loves his mistress.”

Levisham had seen the way that Caro looked at Ashley. Although she might not realize it yet, her heart was engaged by the handsome viscount.

Which made it all the more painful to her father that he must insist that she give Ashley the demeaning promise he wanted. The marquess had been so outraged by the viscount’s demand that he, in turn, had used the fiction that he was on his deathbed to induce Ashley to let Caro remain at Bellhaven. What need had Vinson for her in London when all he wanted was to rush back there to his mistress as quickly as possible after his wedding? No, he did not deserve Caro.

Levisham’s head fell back wearily against the pillows.

Poor Caro. It would be easy for Vinson to make her adore him. But would he return her affection? Or did he love Lady Roxley too much to ever be weaned from her?

Chapter 13

Caro paced the hail outside her father’s bedchamber, anxiously waiting for Ashley to emerge. It was a measure of how much she had come to care for the viscount that, despite her overwhelming concern for her father, her hurt and bafflement over why Ashley had been so angry at her this morning still gnawed at her.

When at last he came into the hall, he looked at her gravely, a peculiar expression that she could not fathom in his green eyes. But all he said to her was, “You may go in now.” His voice, too, sounded odd.

She rushed into the room, stopping abruptly at the sight of her father lying weakly against the white linen of the bed pillows, looking wretchedly unhappy.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Papa?” she cried.

He regarded her even more gravely than Ashley had in the hall. It was as though he were trying to decide how to tell her something of the utmost importance. At last, he said weakly, “Yes, my pet, there is one thing you could do that would relieve my mind and make me feel ever so much better.”

“Tell me, and I’ll do it,” she cried eagerly.

He seemed reluctant to answer her. Caro, anxious to do anything she could that might ease him, pressed, “What is it that you wish, Papa?”

“For you to marry.”

She disbelieved her ears. “Surely,” she exclaimed, “you are joking, Papa.” But even as she spoke, Caro knew from his somber expression that he was not. “You know I do not want that,” she said reproachfully. “I wish to devote myself to you.”

“That is very noble, my pet, but it is time that we faced the truth. I am not likely to live very much longer, and—”

“Don’t say that!” she cried, throwing her arms about him as though to ward off death itself. Tears streamed down her cheeks at the thought of losing him.

He held her to him, stroking her hair and trying to comfort her as she sobbed out her grief. Her father had always been the foundation of her world, and she was certain that it would collapse if he died. Indeed, she could not imagine her life without him. She would have no one.

When Caro at last regained some semblance of composure, he told her bluntly, “It is not for me that you should be weeping but for yourself if I should die before you are married and settled.”

Caro, who had never before considered what would happen to her in that event, looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?”

“You will become your cousin Tilford’s ward because he will be the head of the family and your only living male relative. There is no one else.”

Caro, remembering with revulsion the incident in the stables, was terrified at the thought of living beneath her cousin’s roof without her father to protect her.

“His mother will rule him and Bellhaven,” the marquess continued. “Your life with that pair would be exceedingly miserable.” Her father stroked her hair, which hung loose about her shoulders, still damp from her swim. “Eventually they would force you to marry Tilford.”

“Oh, no!” Caro cried in horror, the sickening memory of her cousin’s brutal advance engulfing her. To be his wife, to be continually subjected to such treatment was more than she could bear to contemplate. “I would rather be dead!” she cried passionately.

“I cannot say that I blame you,” her father said softly, still stroking her hair. “We must foreclose the possibility of such a marriage.”

“How?” Caro asked desperately. She would do anything to escape from Tilford.

“By your marrying someone else before I die. I have found a man who understands your situation and has agreed to marry you in exchange for an assurance from you.”

Her head jerked up, and she gaped at him. “Who?”

“Lord Vinson.”

Her father’s face receded in a blur. The sudden flash of happiness that Caro had felt initially at the thought of marrying Ashley quickly vanished as she remembered Lady Roxley. “But, Papa, he cannot want to marry me,” she protested. “He ... he has a lady to whom he is much attached.”

“No, he does not
want
to marry you any more than you do him, but he is willing to do so,” her father said bluntly.

“Why?” Caro asked. All of her cousins’ oft-repeated assurances that no man would wed her except for her fortune returned to haunt her. “For my money?”

“No, he is not a fortune hunter!” Levisham exclaimed. “Rest easy on that score. His inheritance will be as large as yours.”

“Then why is he willing to marry me, if not for money?”

The marquess sighed. “Vinson must marry—his father insists on it—and the lady you mentioned is already wed to another. He needs a wife to give him an heir, and you need a husband to save you from your aunt and Tilford. So, what could be better than that you marry each other?”

No wonder Ashley had looked at her so strangely in the hall. “I cannot conceive why he should agree to marry me when so many far lovelier women yearn to be his wife,” she observed with characteristic honesty.

“He wants a wife who will not object to his relationship with Lady Roxley,” Levisham replied. “You told me that the only marriage you would consider was one like Lady Fraser’s, and so I have arranged precisely what you wanted.”

Or what Caro had thought she wanted before she had seen Emily and Mercer together, had seen how it could be between a man and woman who truly loved each other. And before she had met Ashley and discovered that her heart was not immune to a man. But he would never love her the way Mercer loved Emily. Beautiful Lady Roxley held his heart captive.

“You should be delighted that I have persuaded Vinson to save you from your aunt and cousin,” Levisham was saying.

Yes, she supposed that she should be, but she was not. Caro wondered what her father had had to do to win the viscount’s acquiescence. Was that why Ashley had been so angry with her this morning? “What persuasion did you have to employ?”

“Vinson’s principal requirement in a wife is that she not interfere with him and his other connection. I assured him that you would never object or even take the least notice of that.”

Caro’s heart felt as though it were sinking into nether regions from which it would never escape. Her mutinous emotions must have reflected on her face because her father cried in sudden agitation, “You must never, under any circumstance, vex Vinson about Lady Roxley. Swear to me, Caro, that you will not. It is crucial. I think he is inclined to be fond of you, but nothing would sink his affection more quickly.”

Fearing that such perturbation was very bad for her father, Caro tried to calm him by saying, “I swear, Papa. Only, please, do not fret yourself.”

His head sank back on the pillows. “When you see Vinson, you must give him your solemn word on that score.”

Caro struggled to hide the shame that his request caused her. What if she refused? Would Ashley refuse to marry her, thereby consigning her to Tilford?

“Promise me that you will give Vinson your oath when you see him,” her father insisted.

“Yes, Papa,” she agreed reluctantly, afraid of the effect it would have upon him if she did not.

“Don’t look so unhappy, my pet,” her father pleaded. “Vinson is a man of superior manners and understanding. I am certain that he will treat you always with the utmost kindness and consideration if you do not plague him about his other interest. I own I do not believe that I could find a better man for you. You will not be mistreated like Clara Potter or Mrs. Burke or Amelia Coleberd.”

No, Caro realized sadly, she had no fear that Ashley would abuse her—he was too decent for that—only that he would ignore her. She could not be optimistic about her future with a man who would marry her only because she would not object to his continuing affair with his true love.

“If you strive to be the kind of wife Vinson wants, my pet, he might in time come to love you,” Levisham said musingly, surveying her so critically that she wished she had taken the time to fasten up her long hair, still hanging loose about her shoulders. “How untidy you look. You must take far greater pains with your appearance when you are Lady Vinson. You must learn to look and act like a lady. No longer can you indulge in hoydenish scraps or behavior that would embarrass your husband.”

“Yes, Papa,” Caro said dully. He sounded like Aunt Olive. She would try very hard to be the kind of wife Vinson wanted, but she was pessimistic about her success in this endeavor.

“Vinson has agreed that you can be married tonight.”

“Tonight! Oh, no, Papa! I cannot, I
will
not leave you when you are so ill!”

“You will not have to. Vinson is amenable to your remaining here when he returns to London.”

And to Lady Roxley, Caro thought bleakly, sorely wounded that he would be willing to leave his new bride so quickly.

A knock on the door signaled the arrival of Dr. Baxter, a graying, middle-aged man of considerable erudition beyond medicine. He had been one of her father’s few intimates during his reclusive years at Bellhaven.

Caro was sent from the room while the doctor examined her father. She hovered outside, her thoughts in an upheaval, her pride in shreds. What irony! She had been offered the kind of marriage that she had professed to want to the only man that she had the slightest interest in wedding, and she was miserably unhappy.

When the doctor emerged from her father’s room, he warned her that she must spare him as much anxiety as possible. “Agitation is very bad for him. I will not mince words with you, Lady Caroline. I fear that his incessant worrying about what will happen to you when he dies is having the unfortunate effect of hastening that day. He just told me that you have received a very flattering offer, and it is my frank opinion that if your father were to see you settled, it might be the best medicine that he could be given.”

Hearing that, no daughter who loved her father as much as Caro did could think of refusing the “very flattering offer.” With a breaking heart, Caro resigned herself to a lifetime of unhappiness with a man who would never love her.