Lady Caro (2 page)

“What of Estelle?” Ashley asked quietly.

“Why you would want to plow another man’s field is beyond me,” the earl said bluntly. “But so long as you marry and produce sons, I don’t care if she remains your mistress until you die.”

“I doubt that my wife would be so complaisant,” Ashley said wryly. “There, Papa, is the difficulty, for I do not intend to give Estelle up.”

“Then arrange a marriage with a sensible woman of breeding who understands such things,” his father counseled. Seeing the revolted look on Ashley’s face, he continued hastily, “I know what I am asking of you, for I,
too, married once for duty. My father chose William’s mother for me, yet ours was a satisfactory union.”

“But not nearly so happy as your second with Mama,” Ashley guessed. Despite the great difference in his parents’ ages and personalities, their love and devotion to each other had remained untarnished through the years.

The earl’s faded hazel eyes brightened at the mention of his wife. “I won’t try to gammon you. My marriage to your mama has been far happier than my first was.”

“And that is why I want to marry a woman I love,” Ashley said quietly.

“But I fear you will never love any woman but Estelle,” the earl said sadly, suddenly looking very tired. “Perhaps it was a mistake to have prevented you from marrying her. I know you think I did so because she lacked breeding and money, but it was because I thought her a selfish creature whose first affection would always be for herself. I feared that she would make you very unhappy.”

“Estelle loved me as much as I loved her,” Ashley exclaimed angrily.

“Did she?” his father asked skeptically, rubbing his forehead wearily with his fingers. “You were so young then that I thought you would soon forget her, but clearly I was wrong. Not one of all the beauties who have dangled after you has been able to capture your heart. I must say that your taste in women, whether flirts or convenients, is dazzling.”

Shocked, Ashley exclaimed, “I thought you had no inkling of my ladybirds.”

“Of course I knew of them,” Bourn said impatiently. “Everything involving you is of great concern to me.”

“Why?” Ashley asked bitterly. “Afraid I’ll disgrace the family?”

“Not at all.” Again the earl rubbed his hand wearily over his eyes. When he spoke, there was a plaintive note in his voice that Ashley had never heard before. “Your mama misses you dreadfully. It would give her so much pleasure if you would visit us at Winton more frequently.”

Ashley seldom went there because he was uncertain of how welcome he was to his father. “And you, Papa,” he asked, determined to know the truth, “would you like me to visit?”

“What a corkbrained question! I should like nothing better!” The earl’s voice was thick with emotion. The list of names fell unnoticed from his left hand. “May God and poor William forgive me, but you always were my favorite. So like your dear mama.”

“
What
?” This emotional confession from his usually impassive father stunned the viscount.

“Of course, I tried very hard to hide it, especially when William was alive. It is quite unworthy for a man to have favorites among his children.”

“Oh, Papa!” Ashley exclaimed in a choked voice. All those years when he had thought ... He bent over hastily, fumbling with the paper that his father had dropped in order to cover the emotion that overcame him. When he looked up, his green eyes were very bright indeed. So were the earl’s.

His father’s passionate confession had a singular effect on Ashley. In that moment he would have tried to fly to the moon if the earl had asked it of him. He turned his attention to his father’s list of prospective brides with the air of a man who knows his duty and is determined to do it.

Bourn said anxiously, “All the marriages this past year sadly decimated the ranks of desirable young ladies, but all seven are of excellent breeding. And that snake Henry cannot be permitted to succeed to what I, and my father and grandfather before me, spent our lives building.” Vinson had to agree that if his father’s suspicions of Henry were true, it was unthinkable that he should do so. Even if they were not, such a loose screw as Henry was not a fit successor to the long line of distinguished men who had held the title.

Despite, or, perhaps more accurately, because of, his determination to honor his father’s wish that he marry, Ashley contemplated the list with dismay. He knew six of the seven young ladies, and his father was right. It was a very poor year to be bride picking.

Lady Margaret White, who headed the list, was exquisitely lovely—and exquisitely boring.

Grace and Jane Kelsie, daughters of the marquess of Levisham’s late younger brother, were also acknowledged beauties who had made a joint London come-out last season. They had been very forward in signaling their interest in Ashley, but they had both struck him as tiresome creatures who hid an ill-tempered nature behind a sugared manner. He suspected that once married they would display an alarming tendency to become as shrewish and domineering as their overbearing mama.

Elizabeth Trott, at twenty-five the oldest on the earl’s list, had been the Incomparable of her first London season. She had kept hordes of suitors dangling, preferring the adulation of many men to the wedding ring of one. But that had been seven years ago. Now she had grown plump and faded, trying to conceal beneath a liberal application of paint and powder that she was no longer a beauty. Her many admirers had vanished with her beauty, but even at the height of her popularity Ashley had not been one of them.

Mary Milbank was of superior breeding and fortune but far below the others in beauty and missish in the bargain.

Of the six young ladies on the list that he knew, Emily Picton was by far the best of the lot, combining beauty and a lively personality. He might even have been willing to offer for her had not his good friend, Mercer Corte, been wildly in love with her.

Ashley knew nothing of Lady Caroline Kelsie, the final name on the list, but supposed her to be Levisham’s daughter.

The earl, watching his son’s face anxiously, said, “What do you think of the young ladies?”

“I do not know Lady Caroline Kelsie,” Ashley replied evasively, looking out at a magnificent magnolia tree in the garden. It was in full flower, its big blooms creamy against the glistening green leaves.

“Nor is she known to me, but she is of most distinguished parentage,” Bourn said.

“I collect she must be the marquess of Levisham’s daughter.”

“Yes, and her mother was the most enchanting creature I have ever known except for your own dear mama. How poor Levisham adored her, but she died very young. He was so heartbroken that he retired from society, living as a recluse at Bellhaven.”

“Apparently he is returning to society, for I have been invited to Bellhaven for a spot of shooting and angling. I was astonished by the invitation, since I have never met the marquess.”

“Levisham wrote me, too. Before his wife died, we were good friends, but I have not heard from him in years. Until his letter, I was not even aware that his son died nearly two years ago of a putrid sore throat. Now he has only his daughter left.”

“Will you be going to Bellhaven, too?” Ashley asked. The earl shook his head. “No, Levisham wrote to tell me why he had invited you.”

“Why did he?”

“His is trying to matchmake. He was very candid—he wants to see his daughter married and settled. I am honored that he considers you as a possible son-in-law.”

Ashley, not feeling in the least honored, asked, “Why is it that I have not seen his daughter in London?”

“She does not come out until next season.”

“Surely you cannot wish me to marry a child scarcely out of the schoolroom?” Ashley cried, aghast at the thought.

“She is a trifle young,” the earl conceded. “But if she is as much like her marvelous mama as Levisham says, that won’t signify. Not even Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, could hold a candle to her.”

“So legend has it.”

“For once legend is correct. What a delight the marchioness was. She would say the most outrageous things, yet she was the kindest-hearted creature imaginable. And a great heiress in the bargain. Her fortune, by the way, was bequeathed to her daughter.” A teasing glint shone in the earl’s eyes. “So you need not worry that Lady Caroline might marry you only for your money.”

“How comforting,” Ashley said dryly. “If the girl is such a paragon, why is Levisham trying to marry her off before she has her first season?”

“That is for you to find out. Furthermore, four of the other young ladies on my list will also be at Bellhaven.”

“You cannot know how I abhor matchmaking parties,” Ashley said with loathing.

His father smiled sympathetically. “I daresay that I do, but there is no better shooting and fishing anywhere in England than at Bellhaven. It will relieve you to know that several of the kingdom’s most eligible bachelors, including Lord Sanley, have also been invited.” The quizzing glint reappeared in the earl’s eyes. “The young ladies will have so many to choose from that you may find yourself ignored.”

“I pray that may be the case,” his son said fervently.

Chapter 2

Ashley, driving his racing curricle with the skill that had justly made him a famous whipster, had left behind his entourage of traveling coach, baggage, groom, valet, and even his indignant tiger, who had predicted with less truth than wishful thinking that his master could not manage his high-stepping pair of chestnuts without him.

A brief, heavy rain had left the road to Bellhaven spotted with puddles. The leaves of the oak and chestnut trees were beaded with water. Rolling fields, lushly green in the rain’s wake, were decorated with golden patches of ragwort. Creamy honeysuckle and pink dog-rose poked from hedgerows, and delicate blue harebells were scattered along the roadside.

The viscount had wanted this solitary ride through the pretty countryside to sort out his troubled thoughts. By now he had reluctantly reconciled himself to the necessity, although not the desirability, of marrying. Titles carried with them obligations, and it was his duty as heir to the earldom to marry to produce children. He had always hoped for a love match, but his father was right. At eight and twenty, after years of having found the marriage mart’s finest offerings wanting, he was unlikely to fall hopelessly in love again as he had with Estelle. Since he must make a loveless marriage sooner or later, he thought gloomily, it might as well be sooner and set his father’s mind at ease.

Ashley was much troubled, too, about the possibility that Henry Neel could have been involved in William’s death. There had been bad blood between the two cousins for as long as Ashley could remember, and their hatred had intensified with the years. William, the high stickler, had regarded Henry’s scandalous career at the gaming tables and in the boudoir as an unforgivable blot on the Neel family honor, and had let him know it at every opportunity. Henry, in turn, had delighted in goading the humorless William into a fury whenever he could.

Ashley was positive that the key to William’s death was an evil-looking man that his good friend, Mercer Corte, had seen near Bourn House early on the morning of William’s race. Corte had been returning home, a few doors down from the Bourn House on Curzon Street, at about four
a.m.
when a hulking figure, moving with astonishing quietness for a man of his size, had emerged from the path that led to the Bourn stable.

“I knew immediately that he could be up to no good,” Mercer had told Ashley later. “I’ve never seen an uglier-looking blackguard. His right ear was missing. He had two ugly scars on his face, one on his forehead and the other down his left cheek, and his nose was flattened. He was clearly a man who belonged in the rookeries of St. Giles, not on Curzon Street.”

Ashley was certain that the one-eared man must have been the one who had tampered with the Wheel of William’s curricle, but had he been hired to do so by Henry? To answer that question, Ashley would have to locate the man among the tens of thousands crowded into London’s slums, a virtual impossibility if one did not know where to begin looking.

Ashley’s equipage reached the high iron gates of Bellhaven. A stout porter hurried out of his stone cottage, which was half covered with ivy. The viscount wondered whether his lack of attendants and baggage would appear suspicious enough for the gatekeeper to deny him entrance. But the man merely said, “Aye, and ye must be Lord Vinson.”

“How did you know?” the surprised Ashley asked.

“Ye be a day late. The others came yesterday. Only other body ’pected today be his lordship’s solicitor.” The porter cast an appraising eye over Ashley’s quietly elegant attire and expensive rig. “An ye be no solicitor.” The man swung wide the gates so that Ashley could drive through them. “This road takes ye to the house, but it be a fair piece.”

Ashley urged his horses up a broad avenue, lined with linden trees, that wound through Bellhaven’s park. As he drove, he considered again his father’s list of marital eligibles. Neither Lady Margaret White nor Elizabeth Trott would be at Bellhaven. But the beautiful Kelsie sisters, Mary Milbank, and Emily Picton would. The first three held no attraction for him, and Emily Picton was spoken for. That left only the marquess’s daughter Caroline, and Ashley had come by default to pin great hopes on this unknown young lady, basing his optimism on her papa’s report that she was much like her mother.

By all accounts, the late, legendary marchioness had been the most outrageous and captivating of beauties. Talk of her had revived in recent days with word that Levisham, after mourning her in solitude all these years, was at last inviting guests to Bellhaven again.

There was much curiosity about her daughter and only surviving child, but nothing was known about Lady Caroline. She had been hidden away with her father at Bellhaven all of her life, and none of the ton had set eyes upon her. But it was universally agreed that if she favored her mother she would be ravishing—and a great catch. No wonder that every eligible bachelor who had been invited to Bellhaven with Ashley had accepted.

Ashley’s own curiosity about Lady Caroline, born of desperation, had reached a high pitch, and he could hardly wait to see her. Although he was badly put off by the thought of a bride out of the schoolroom, he grimly reminded himself that she would grow older. If only she would not turn out to be a dead bore.

Turning his attention to Bellhaven’s park, which was as lovely as his father had said, Ashley slowed his chestnuts to a walk. Green glades and thick woods of beech, sycamore, and oak spread over rolling hills. When the winding avenue topped a hill, Ashley saw in the distance Bellhaven’s splendid north front glistening in the bright sun, its great portico’s columns and triangular pediment freshly washed by the rain.

Seeking a better view of the mansion and its lovely setting, Ashley stopped his horses, jumped down from his curricle, and made his way to a high knoll crowned by a solitary oak. What a magnificent view of Bellhaven he would have from that tree, he thought as he strode toward it. Its massive trunk was gnarled and thickened with age. Heavy branches, low to the ground, twisted off from the main trunk to form inviting crooks for a man who in his youth had been an accomplished tree climber. Ashley was sorely tempted to see how much of his skill, unused for years, he had retained.

Staring up through the veil of green leaves, he discovered to his profound astonishment that the tree was already occupied. Dainty little feet, shod in muddy half boots that peeked from beneath a faded blue skirt, were balancing precariously on one of the upper notches.

“What the devil are you doing up there?” he demanded.

His rough question caused the girl to start violently. She lost her balance and grabbed at a branch to steady herself, sending a miniature shower of water drops from the leaves, still wet from the earlier rain, cascading down on Ashley. Her hand missed the branch and caught instead a slender subsidiary that promptly broke away, and she fell.

Ashley had the presence of mind to put out his arms, and a wisp of a girl tumbled into them. The force of her fall brought Ashley to one knee, but he did not drop her.

For a moment, they stared at each other, too surprised to speak. Her face, which seemed to be all huge gray eyes, reminded him of an elf. He judged her to -be about thirteen. Her thin, boyish body as yet offered only a hint of the woman she would become. Her complexion was too brown and her face was too thin to be pretty. These defects were accentuated by the way she wore her long brown hair carelessly caught up in a knot atop her head. Several strands had escaped and curled incorrigibly about her head. The bedraggled skirt of her old calico gown bore the unmistakable imprint of several very muddy paws.

He restored her feet to the ground. Rising from his knee, he discovered that the child did not even reach his shoulder. He wondered whether she was a homeless waif who had taken refuge in the tree. Certainly she looked like one.

“You so startled me that I lost my balance,” she said indignantly.

He was nonplussed by her genteel, educated voice, which was at such variance with her impoverished appearance. “My apologies, but I was equally startled to find a girl in the tree. Are you hurt?”

His question only served to increase her indignation. “Of course not.” Her great gray eyes flashed dangerously. “I am not so cowhearted as that. It is not the first tree that I have fallen out of.”

Ashley, more accustomed to girls who would swoon at the thought of climbing a tree, was so bemused by her reply that it took him a moment to recollect his duty as an Older Person to warn her of the danger of her ways. “If you continue to tumble out of trees, you most likely will break your pretty little neck.”

“My neck isn’t pretty,” she contradicted. “My aunt says it is as scrawny as a chicken’s.”

Ashley, startled by such self-deprecating candor, examined the offending feature and concluded that her aunt did it an injustice. It was, in fact, long and rather elegant, ending at a pretty little chin. She had some good points, taken individually, including a charming button of a nose and a sweet mouth. “You do not seem cast down by your aunt’s criticism,” he observed.

“I do not tease myself with what I cannot change.” The eminent good sense of these words caused Ashley to reassess this odd little creature. She wanted conduct, but he could not help admiring her spirit. Her voice still puzzled him, though. It was too genteel to be that of the common servant or poor rustic’s daughter that her clothes indicated. The unhappy thought that she might be a runaway struck him, and he asked, rather more sharply than he intended, “Who are you?”

“Caro,” she replied as though no other identification were necessary. “Who are you?”

Annoyed that she had not seen fit to disclose her surname, he responded curtly, “Ashley.”

Inspecting his green double-breasted coat, one of Weston’s masterpieces that more than made up in quiet elegance what it lacked in ostentation, Caro decided, “You must be the new solicitor. I heard that you were to come today.”

Although startled at being mistaken for a solicitor, Ashley, who had never been puffed up with his own consequence, was amused rather than insulted. He doubted, however, that Weston would have been quite so forgiving. “You are not so astute as the gatekeeper,” he remarked with a grin.

The big gray eyes were puzzled. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Ashley?”

“It is not Mr. Ashley,” he explained, deciding that she must be the daughter of one of Levisham’s retainers. “Ashley is my given name. My family name is Neel.” Since she clearly thought him a hireling of Levisham’s and therefore her social equal, he would not embarrass her by using his title.

“No doubt you wonder what I was doing in that tree,” she said.

He grinned knowingly. “Not at all. The view from it must be well worth the climb.”

She visibly warmed to him. “Indeed it is. That is why it is one of my favorite spots.” Bequeathing him a smile that lit her little face in a beguiling mix of mischief and innocence, she announced warmly, “I like you.”

“I am honored,” Ashley said gravely. He gestured toward his curricle. “May I offer you a ride?”

“Oh, yes,” she cried enthusiastically. “Those are prime cattle you drive. What I should not give to have a pair like that.” Before he could help her, she dashed to his curricle and clambered up.

When he joined heron the seat, she instructed, “Follow the avenue, and we will come to my home.”

As they trotted along, she proved to be far more impressed by his driving skill than she had been by Weston’s coat, proclaiming him a regular out-and-outer.

“I wager that you would put that odious Paul Coleman in the shade even though you have not filed your teeth to points as he has to ape coachmen,” Caro said. “He says it is all the crack to do so, but I think it crackbrained.” Which aptly described the son and heir of Sir Thomas Coleman, Ashley thought with twitching lips. Poor Paul had far more blunt than brains.

“And he is a frightful braggart, too, about what a top sawyer he is with the ribbons, but he is not nearly so odious as Lord Sanley, who pinches maids’ bottoms!”

Startled, Ashley looked at her sharply. “Did he pinch your bottom?”

“No, he would not dare, for I am Levisham’s daughter,” she said cheerfully, apparently not in the least offended at having been mistaken for a servant.

Ashley’s head spun round, and he jerked the reins in his surprise. His horses, mistaking this for a command, stopped, but the viscount did not notice. His startled eyes stared at the thin brown face with the long, unruly wisps of hair fluttering about it and at the tiny, childish body in the faded, paw-stained old gown. For the first time in recent memory, Ashley’s breeding and polished address failed him, and he blurted, “Good God, you cannot be Lady Caroline Kelsie!”