The Rake's Rainbow (22 page)

Caroline allowed the final flourish to die away before lifting her hands from the keys. It always took a moment to return to the world, particularly after a piece with which she felt so closely attuned. The gathered audience must have felt the same way, for stunned silence continued a moment longer before she was engulfed in applause, accolades, and appreciation. Only Alicia refrained, her eyes blazing in fury.

“Encore!” shouted a male voice, and the cry was quickly taken up.

“Only one,” she agreed when Lady Pressington repeated the request.

This time she chose Beethoven’s gentle
Für Elise
, letting the notes slide across the room, binding her listeners in a seductive spell of love and peace. They exhaled in a collective sigh of loss when the last note died away.

“Remarkable talent,” breathed Drew as she passed his chair.

“Thank you.”

“Exquisite!”  Robert beamed. He had missed none of the byplay. “You certainly rolled up her catty ladyship.”

“I wish I could play half as well,” mourned Eleanor.

Thomas remained silent, his face a study of awe. But he turned a smile on Caroline that sent her heart racing. She remembered that smile.

Lady Darnley chose to play a challenging Scarlatti sonata. Caroline listened for some time before she identified the source of her disappointment. Though an excellent technician whose fingers executed the most difficult passages with ease, Alicia’s performance did not engage the senses.

Her mother had been right. You must throw your heart into your music, Caro, she had repeated often during her years of instruction. Think your way into the notes. Live there. Feel what the composer was feeling. Imagine what he was thinking. Only thus can you ever hope to engage your audience.

And it was true. Heartless Alicia felt no connection with either composer or opus. All emotion was missing. She might as well have been playing scales.

Thomas was also puzzled over his lack of response. But he finally discovered an excuse. Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte, taking advantage of its full, vibrant tone and exceptional dynamic range. Scarlatti had written for harpsichord. Any lack in Alicia’s performance was due to the composer’s restricted medium. Satisfied on an intellectual level, he nevertheless encountered no difficulty restraining his applause to the brief acknowledgement politeness demanded for any performer. The audience was on the move toward the refreshment room while Alicia’s last chord still echoed. No calls for an encore greeted her. Thomas refused to question either the situation or his own satisfaction over the turn of events.

He could not approach Caroline through her crowd of admirers and chose not to approach Alicia, whose face resembled a thundercloud. He instead turned to food and a new round of congratulations from friends and acquaintances that he wholeheartedly echoed.

Even the harpist proved anticlimactic.

Chapter 12

Caroline perched on a chair near the drawing room door, trying to avoid spilling tea on Lady Marchgate’s carpet as she fought to confine her laughter to a ladylike chuckle that would not attract the attention of Eleanor’s callers. Drew could be so droll.

“You impossible man,” she chided once she controlled her mirth. “How dare you embarrass me like this?”

Drew adopted a hangdog expression with eyes sad enough to induce sympathetic tears in the hardest heart.

“How can I forgive myself for so distressing you,” he intoned in a sepulchral bass.

Caroline giggled. “Stop that. Now sit down and behave like the gentleman you are not.”

“Ah, a mortal wound!”  But his eyes were laughing and he sat. “Who would have thought I would discover a lady with whom I could be friends?  You’ve added a new dimension to my life, Caro.”

“Fustian. There are any number of females who would enjoy friendship with you, cousin,” she declared. “But you will have to pull your brain out of bed to discover them. To say nothing of the rest of you.”

“That’s asking a lot, coz.”  He laughed. “I daren’t take you driving again for a while or the tabbies will gossip, but what about an early morning ride tomorrow?”

“All our horses remain at Crawley.”

“That is not a problem, sweet Caroline,” urged Drew, letting his voice resume its usual seductive cadence. “I can mount you whenever you wish.”

Caroline shook her head in exasperation. “Thank you, but not tomorrow. I have other plans.”

“Spurned again!” he exclaimed dramatically.

“Oh, do be serious, Drew,” admonished Caroline. “Eleanor’s ball is tomorrow night and I really must help.”

“Of course.”  He rose to take his leave.

* * * *

Fists clenched, Thomas continued upstairs. He had passed the drawing room just in time to overhear Wroxleigh’s promise to mount Caroline and her breathless acceptance. Between his own history of flirtatious double entendre and his chancy temper, he immediately assumed they were arranging an assignation. Fury engulfed him, more intense than ever. The approval he had felt at the musicale had not lasted the evening, being blasted to shreds when he spotted her with Wroxleigh, their expressions demonstrating a closeness of spirit he had rarely witnessed.

It was time to do something about her escalating affair. She was his. He expected adherence to the same code of honor he himself espoused. That meant no dalliance. If he could refrain from bedding the woman he loved, she could certainly forgo a casual affair with a heartless, teasing rake like Wroxleigh!  He would never live down the ignominy if her actions became public. Imagine Thomas Mannering unable to satisfy his wife!  He must speak to her.

But she did not return upstairs, and when he questioned her whereabouts, Reeves informed him that she and Jeremy had gone to Somerset House to view the Royal Academy exhibition. Such independence ill became a lady. He longed for Alicia’s clinging helplessness. It was past time they held a serious discussion about propriety. But she did not return before he joined George at his club for dinner.

* * * *

Caroline had been delighted when Lady Marchgate asked her, shortly after her arrival, to assist with the preparations for Eleanor’s ball. Never having attended such a function, let alone planned one, she looked upon the experience as training for her own future entertainments. And the amount of work involved astonished her. Under the countess’s tutelage she learned the nuances of guest lists, precedence conventions, seating for the formal dinner preceding the ball, catering arrangements, wine choices, decorating, and a thousand and one other details. The logistics of hundreds of coaches converging on a single spot swirled through her head. Then there was the problem of accommodating five hundred guests, combining rooms to form a ballroom, setting up card rooms, refreshment rooms, retiring rooms, cloak rooms – the list went on and on. Servants, musicians, candles, flowers.

Her head spun. But she rapidly discovered that her talent for organization created order out of potential chaos. And by the day of the ball, the countess had dropped all pretense of formality. The two were fast friends.

Standing in the receiving line, she graciously welcomed each new arrival while striving not to detract from Eleanor’s come-out. The Marchgates had insisted that she receive, placing the final seal of approval on her introduction to London society although the ball itself was solely in Eleanor’s honor. After only a month in London, she was amazed by how many of the guests she knew.

Thomas stood beside her, his easy social smile firmly in place, but inwardly he seethed. He had found no opportunity to speak to her about Wroxleigh. Nor did he know what he would say when he did confront her. His lapse at Graystone still haunted him. Could he condemn her without confessing his own fault?  His thinking was becoming so muddled that he was no longer sure he could trust his own judgment. And that was dangerous, for it invariably led to failure. Every time it happened, someone got hurt. When he had dared Robert to ride a horse he could not control, Robert had nearly broken his neck. When he had stupidly decided to flaunt his expertise on ice, he had nearly drowned.

He stifled a shudder as another ancient memory surfaced. Even at twelve, he should have known better. His actions had been both reckless and dishonorable.

During a long break spent with George’s family, conversation had turned to ghosts, specifically to the gentleman who supposedly appeared each Midsummer’s Eve in Blatchford’s oldest wing. George’s sister, Mary, had openly scoffed at the legend, deriding the boys as fools for claiming to believe it. In response, Thomas had delivered an impassioned defense of the spirit world, daring her to confront the spectral visitor for herself.

But he would have done nothing more if George had not discovered a secret passage that very afternoon. It opened near the Elizabethan wing, its existence too provident to ignore. And so he had succumbed to temptation.

On Midsummer’s Eve, as full dark fell, a slender gentleman dressed in the doublet and hose of an Elizabethan courtier stepped from a seemingly solid wall to confront Mary Mason. She screamed and fled in panic. But Thomas’s glee turned to horror when she tripped on her hem and tumbled down a flight of stairs, breaking her leg. As servants converged on the spot, he threw honor to the winds and faded back into the secret passage, never telling a soul about his part in the debacle, though guilt assailed him for years afterward.

Why had the memory returned now?  Was his conscious castigating him for ravishing Alicia?  Or was he in danger of initiating some new disgrace?  His pain and anger over Caroline’s liaison with Wroxleigh was nearing the explosion point, as was his frustration. Was he on the verge of again doing something stupid?

His temper worsened as the evening progressed. Caroline talked even less than usual as he led her into the opening dance. Nor could she hide an involuntary flinch as his hand touched hers unexpectedly. It was the first time she had ever demonstrated that she found his presence repulsive, and it confirmed his suspicion that she was seeking satisfaction elsewhere.

For Caroline, Thomas’s presence constituted a burgeoning problem. Daily she watched him flirt with countless women, charm self-conscious  maidens, advise green cubs, and converse intelligently with worthy gentlemen. He demonstrated a character she could only admire – except with herself and Lady Darnley. Despite his aloof expression when in Alicia’s company, Caroline could feel his desire. She was aware of every look he bestowed on his idol and every longing glance when he believed himself unobserved.

And despite his parody of being an infatuated husband when in her company, she could feel his frustration behind the ice wall that stood between them. How could he continue to dance attendance on a self-centered, manipulative baggage like Lady Darnley?  Did the man not have ears?  Tales of Alicia’s scandalous behavior were so ubiquitous that even innocent maidens knew of her exploits. Yet he continued to adore her. Why was Caroline the only one aware of his obsession?

She had no answers and refused to acknowledge the pain residing in her heart. She concentrated on her own circle of friends, her own social calendar, her own interests. Aside from an occasional dance together, she spent no time in his company. But the hour standing shoulder to shoulder in the receiving line had been pure torture. The passions he had aroused remained unfulfilled, tormenting her nights.

Nor could she expect the future to differ, she reminded herself when her body strained for contact with her husband. But it took time to reestablish control. When he accidentally brushed his hand against hers as they took their places for the first set, she flinched at the heat. His lips twisted in distaste with the contact, obviously regretting their hasty marriage and wishing that it had never taken place.

As assistant hostess, she could not spend her evening entirely carefree, but she found time for her friends. Her performance at the Pressington musicale still engendered a surprising amount of comment.

“You never cease to amaze me,” swore George as he spun her through a waltz an hour later. “But I demand a chance to hear you play at the earliest opportunity. You’ve no idea how I regret not attending that musicale.”

“I believe the situation has been exaggerated,” she protested with a laugh. “But sometime soon you can judge for yourself.”

“Lady Darnley is still seething,” he reported. “She never could tolerate coming off second best.”

“Actually,” confided Caroline, “she planned to thoroughly embarrass the country nobody by maneuvering me into floundering in public just before her own polished performance. If looks could kill, I would still be stretched across the Pressington pianoforte.”

George burst out laughing, nearly tripping them both.

“Dear God, I wish I had been there!  What a remarkable miscalculation. And such an utterly fitting revenge. How was her performance, by the way?”

“Technically brilliant but heartless and emotionally dead,” she said succinctly. “Very like the lady herself.”

“Too true. How did Thomas react?”

“He seemed almost satisfied,” she murmured in surprise. “I must have misread his face. He has not mentioned it since.”

“Interesting,” was George’s only comment as the music swirled to an end.

Caroline left to check the refreshment room for potential problems. Robert claimed a set upon her return.

“Thuch a lovely gown, my dear,” he began as usual. She was clad in ivory lace over dusty blue silk.

“Thank you, Robert. And you present your usual sartorial splendor.”  His coat tonight was bright green, his breeches yellow, and his waistcoat embroidered in every color of the rainbow, an appearance that brought to mind Helena’s descriptions of her grandmama-in-law’s lurid decorating. She nearly giggled.

The dance separated them.

“Do you think Brummell and Prinny will make up their quarrel?” he asked when they next came together.

“Has something new occurred?” she wondered. “The last I heard, the Beau had slighted Lady Fitzherbert.”

“Oh, yes,” tittered Robert. “The Prince is furious, for Brummell has now disparaged his choice of snuff.”