The Beauty

by Connolly, Rebecca

  The children had asked her if they all might put on a play for their parents before the party ended, and she was inclined to encourage it, but she had no notion of what was proper here. The older children were to ask their parents, and then they would see. Lord and Lady Mayfield seemed a good sort of people and seemed inclined to entertainment. The children had been invited to the party, after all, so why should they not have an evening together with the adults?

  Oh, Miss Sheffield would have a great many opinions on the subject, and the thought of her aghast expression alone made Caroline wish to continue it.

  “Miss Perkins!”

  Caroline raised her head and saw one of the youngest children, little Sophie Mortimer, aged three, peeking her head out of the library. “Good evening, Sophie.”

  The dark-haired girl gestured for her to come. “We’re all gathered, Miss Perkins. Come and read to us, won’t you?”

  “Of course, dear,” Caroline replied with a smile, the tension in her chest beginning to unravel a little. “I’ll come directly.”

  Sophie nodded her head and darted within the library.

  Caroline let her smile fade and sagged against the wall for a moment.

  Will had been so handsome tonight, as he was every night, but now that her heart was his, he grew more handsome and more dear with every moment. She would not be able to bear this for much longer. She would have to either confess herself or give up her situation.

  She could not properly see a way to do either.

  There was nothing proper about a tradesman’s daughter being in love with the son of an earl, even if he would not inherit the title. There was nothing proper about forfeiting the companionship of Lady Ashby when she had been so very generous with her.

  How proper was Charlotte Perkins, tradesman’s daughter and graduate of Miss Bell’s?

  Time alone would tell.

  Caroline dipped her chin in a firm nod to herself, then straightened up, squared her shoulders, and strode to the library to read to the children, who did not care if she was rich or poor, proper or wild, pretty or plain.

  Everything was far less complicated with them.

  And less complicated was what she needed.

  * * *

  If there was ever a scene destined to make Will convinced that Caroline Perkins was the perfect woman, it would be this one before him now.

  She had slipped out of the parlor not long ago, as she had taken to doing every evening, and this time he was determined to follow her. He wasn’t sure where she went every night, but he had to know. They had almost no time together since coming to Parkway Manor unless they were dancing, and he craved any interaction with her at all.

  He could not have imagined finding this.

  She sat in the library with all of the children in the house around her, the two youngest girls in her lap. She had been reading the story of Cinderella and the glass slipper, and Will had arrived just after the beginning, so he’d managed to experience most of the story along with them. The little girls were enchanted by everything, while the boys had only wished to know when the fighting would begin, though the animals being turned to footmen and horses had delighted them. The littlest girls, Sophie and Lady Adele, snuggled close to Caroline, seeming far too comfortable and fortunate there.

  Will knew it was fanciful, but with one of the girls bearing dark hair like his and the other being fair-haired like Caroline, it was all too easy to imagine them as their own daughters. To see them in the lap of their mother, enjoying a story read in dulcet tones, the voices of each character having distinct differences and sometimes comical airs. Caroline was a natural storyteller, and the warmest creature in the world. Any children of hers would adore her for eternity.

  He could only hope he would be the one to give them to her, for he would adore her along with them.

  When the happily ever after was attained, and the children clapped, Will slowly clapped himself. Caroline looked up and saw him as he was, leaning in the doorway to the library, his eyes trained on her. He smiled at her, warmth rising within up, and, he hoped, spreading into her.

  Sophie patted her face to get her attention and begged for another story, but it was already far too late, so Caroline kissed her brow and promised two stories on the morrow, which seemed to satisfy her. Lady Adele refused to leave with the nursemaids who had come until Caroline hugged her a second time.

  Will could easily understand that. He wondered if he could claim the same.

  The other children were content with clasp of hands or touching their cheek, but all required something from Caroline. Had this happened every night? What fortunate children, and what a heart the woman he loved possessed. He watched as she gave personal attention to every child, her eyes darting to him with an increasing frequency, her complexion growing more flushed as she did so.

  Will did not mind having to pause for the children before being alone with her. He would wait for an eternity with a smile and open arms.

  Only when the room was empty save for the two of them did Caroline look back up at him, and he had not moved from his position. It occurred to him that, for all his being a perfect gentleman, he was positioned rather like a rake or rogue. Which version of him would she have preferred, he wondered.

  He said nothing as he stared at her, could not. The face of perfection needed no words.

  Caroline rose and slid a loose strand of hair behind her ear, turning to replace the book on the shelf.

  “Do you have any idea, Caroline, what a remarkable woman you are?” he said, his voice low.

  Caroline did not face him, though she stilled at the shelf. “I am nothing of the sort,” she whispered, gripping the shelf slightly.

  The wavering tone of her voice made him chuckle, and he shook his head. “How in the world do you not see it? How can you be so entirely unaware of yourself?”

  Caroline swallowed hard and turned to face him, keeping her back against the bookcase. Her eyes were dark and luminous in the faint light of the room, and he moved towards her, watching her closely.

  “I am aware of myself, sir,” she murmured, her voice weak. “Utterly and completely aware, and that awareness only increases the more time I spend among people with whom I cannot belong.”

  Will’s brow furrowed and he stepped closer. “It should,” he said with a slow nod, his voice turning stern. “It should increase with such interaction. It is, after all, only natural.”

  Caroline closed her eyes, though Will had caught the sheen of tears before they had closed. Pain was etched across her glorious features, and he could not bear it.

  He reached out and placed his fingers on her face, turning it up and smoothing away stray tears. “The more time you spend among us,” he whispered, “we weak and simple creatures with whom you cannot belong, you ought to be more and more aware of the limitless ways you transcend all of us. We do not belong with you, Caroline, but we would each give our souls to try, could we see it.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, searching his with an eagerness that undid him.

  He smiled very softly and stroked her cheek with the same sort of touch. “Will you never see yourself in truth?” he murmured as his fingers trailed from her cheek to her jaw.

  “There is nothing to see,” she breathed, trembling beneath his fingers. “I am the most ordinary sort of girl.”

  He cupped her face in both hands, his hold tightening just a little. “Would that I could rid such a thought from your head,” he said gently, his energy and fervency for her rising. “There is nothing ordinary about you, Caroline Perkins, and everyone sees that but you. I am not a flatterer; I cannot tell you what it is that you are with flowery words and sonnets… But the barest, simplest truth I can give you is this: You are beyond words. And anyone who says less should be damned for such lies.”

  She inhaled the slightest gasp at that, which drew his attention to her lips.

  Such perfect, full lips, and what a precious voice and soul proceeded from them.

&nbs
p; Will dipped his head just as she rose up, and their lips melded together on a shared breath. They kissed over and over again, slowly, gently, tenderly, and without hesitation on either part.

  Heaven could have no sweeter bliss than this.

  Caroline was innocently eager, her lips moving against his, with his, as though part of the symphony of his heart. The music that only she could create for him. He cradled her face as though it were porcelain, keeping his attentions gentle and sweet, determined to make this moment sheer perfection for her.

  But he could not overwhelm her, as he was being overwhelmed, and he began to gently pull back.

  To his surprise, Caroline pressed closer against him and raised up for more, and he blindly complied. He took the kiss deeper, and she did the same, her hands sliding up to his neck and gripping with a tension that shook his knees. Will wrapped an arm around her as the other hand pressed her jaw closer to his. He moved them both, pressing them against the bookcase for some semblance of stability as she thoroughly unmanned him from the inside out. She fused herself to him, and he was only too willing to let her do so, to give himself over, heart, soul, and mouth.

  He burned in every part of his body, heat and fire racing through his veins, and there was nothing to compare to it. His breath ached in his lungs, and he felt raw, open, and exposed in the arms of this woman.

  He would gladly remain so.

  Eventually, they drew apart, lingering but letting each other go, and Caroline sank weakly against the bookcase, his arm still locked around her. Will rested his head just over her shoulder against the nearest shelf, and then turned his face to kiss her cheek in a whisper of a kiss.

  “You are everything, Caroline,” he whispered against her skin. “Everything and so much more.”

  She shivered and curled into him more, and Will wondered if he would ever float back down to earth. He found himself praying to God that he might stay a while as thus.

  Slowly, realizing he could not, he pulled away completely, and it was then that one of the maids came.

  “Begging your pardon, Miss Perkins, but you are needed by Lady Ashby,” the maid said with a bob.

  She had no expression of surprise or dismay on her face, so the pair of them must have appeared as they always did.

  In Will’s mind, Caroline had never looked lovelier. He hadn’t managed to dishevel her hair much, though her color was high and her lips bright. It was the most perfect temptation to kiss her again, but he refrained.

  Caroline nodded, and hastened out of the library, avoiding his heated gaze and more heated body.

  Will remained in his place, breathing slowly in and out, and only when he found control once more did he venture back out to the company.

  As if heaven specifically wished to torment him, he found Caroline at the pianoforte playing for the company.

  She was lost in her music, and Will was lost in her. From the graceful turn of her neck to the impressive motion of her fingers against the keys, he was in awe of her. Music was the perfect extension of all that she was, and he vowed there and then that, should she deign to wed him, he would beg her to fill their home with music. Both what she could play, and what they could create together.

  For truly, she was the musician and he the instrument beneath her skilled fingers.

  When she finished, the applause was extensive, as it ought to have been. Will went to her to help her from the pianoforte like the polite gentleman he was. Her dark eyes hit his as their hands touched, and it was as though they were back in the library once more. He could scarcely breathe, and he could see that she did not.

  Love beyond expression surely shone through her eyes, and she would know it. But he could not look anywhere else, for he longed to have her back in his arms once more.

  And surely, she knew that, too.

  “I am terribly sorry, all, but I must retire,” Lady Ashby proclaimed loudly. “Miss Perkins, dear, if you would…?”

  Caroline’s hand slipped from his, and Will felt the coldness of loss keenly. “Of course, my lady,” Caroline said with her natural warmth, taking Lady Ashby’s arm.

  Lady Ashby looked at Caroline, then at Will, and smiled very slyly. “So sorry, Mr. Debenham. I appreciate your pain most keenly.”

  With a wink, she shuffled out with her now-flushed cheeked companion, whose dark eyes flicked to Will’s knowingly.

  Will grinned after them, both, thinking Lady Ashby might have been the finest woman of his acquaintance.

  “I should probably see to my aunt,” Sheffield murmured with some awkwardness as he made his own way out. “And Miss Perkins must have her due praise.”

  Despite everything, Sheffield’s attention did not bother Will in the slightest. Caroline was his heart’s desire, and he was sure now that she felt just as much for him. No matter what Sheffield wanted or thought, Will no longer saw him as a rival. He could not love Caroline as Will did, and there was no risk of her being swept away by any other.

  She was his, and his alone.

  Tomorrow Will would ask for her hand, and after what had passed between them this evening, he had every reason to hope that her answer would be a favorable one.

  Chapter 11

  The docks were quiet in the mornings.

  That seemed a significant thing for Caroline to forget yet forget it she had. It was only recently that she had experienced it once more.

  Only five days, to be precise.

  Five days since her world collapsed on itself, and everything changed.

  Caroline sat at the window of Mrs. Briggs’ boarding house kitchen, ignoring the bustle of the place while they prepared breakfast for the guests staying there. She was not one of the staff as yet, only a quiet boarder with the freedom to move as she wished, by orders of Mrs. Briggs herself. And this quiet corner of the kitchen, out of the way and unobserved by most, was where she chose more often than not.

  Only five days ago, perhaps six, if one counted travel, the letter had come to Caroline while at Parkway Manor. It had come by express, of all things, though thankfully it had not disturbed any of the household. Most of the guests and the family had still been entertaining themselves in the parlor with their usual evening activities.

  Caroline and Lady Ashby had only just retired, though Caroline had considered it to be a lucky escape from the delicious and heady attentions of Will Debenham.

  Oh, how he had kissed her that night! And how she had kissed him! She had never known such freedom and exhilaration as she had found in his arm in the library. Such dreams had swirled in her mind in the aftermath, even while she had played the pianoforte for the gathering. Things she had never dared to hope for herself were suddenly possible, and joy beyond imagination at the tips of her fingers.

  Then the letter had come, just as she had settled Lady Ashby into her bed.

  The letter was from Mr. Coolidge, her father’s man of business, and it appeared that Caroline’s father had indeed found a way to ruin her. Mr. Coolidge had not gone into much detail then, but Caroline had since learned that her father had managed to convince the necessary parties that his daughter was, in fact, not his daughter. She was, he claimed, the illegitimate daughter of his late brother, and thus no longer entitled to the earnings set up for her.

  In short, Mr. Coolidge lamented, Caroline’s fortune was gone. All of it.

  All she had to her name was the pin money she had received from Lady Ashby, which was a pittance, considering her greater kindness was to sponsor her in Society. She would have nothing to live on but those meager earnings, and, perhaps worst of all, it was even more impossible for her to have Will.

  Mr. Debenham, she reminded herself. The distance between them was greater than ever, and utterly impassable.

  She was ruined.

  Caroline had confided in Lady Ashby at once, quietly relating everything she had not dared to express before, and, much to her credit, none of it seemed to perturb her ladyship in the slightest.

  “My dear Caroline, how hard this
must be for you,” she had murmured, putting a hand to Caroline’s cheek. “There will be nothing I can do for you at first. The ramifications of such revelations will be catastrophic, you know.”

  Caroline could only nod to that, unable to meet her ladyship’s gaze.

  But Lady Ashby had tipped her chin up and given her a severe look. “But after the first of it, and the worst of it, you may be quite sure I shall be able to do quite a good deal. Let us leave first thing in the morning, and when we return to London, I will lay it all out for you. Take heart, Caroline. At last, I may have something to truly offer you.” She had smiled and insisted they both get a wink or two of sleep, leaving Caroline to silently sputter to herself.

  It was an impossible idea, Lady Ashby doing anything for her in her present situation, but she had also learned never to doubt the woman. There had been no course but to do as it was suggested and attempt to sleep.

  They had left Parkway Manor as quietly as possible the next morning, only informing the necessary parties of the Mayfields and Mr. Sheffield. Lady Ashby and Mr. Sheffield saw Caroline back to London, claiming to their hosts that her ladyship was too weary to continue the party. They did not make any farewells to the others, so as to not raise questions or suspicions. Mr. Sheffield had assured Caroline that he would help her, but she did not, and would not, expect that, nor deserve it.

  Upon returning to London, Caroline took her leave of Lady Ashby and of Ashby House almost from the moment of her arrival. Tearfully, Lady Ashby declared she would hire Caroline in earnest when she retired to the country after Christmas. It seemed that, for all their time together, her ladyship despaired of being worth anything to Caroline beyond opportunity, and she was only too pleased to, eventually, be able to keep her.

  More than that, she vowed she would still help Caroline to find a respectable husband. It was a kind thought, but Caroline had little hope of its coming to pass.