Lady Caroline shook her head. “Oh, Papa.”
“I’m certain simply coming outside this morning will take a great deal of recovery.” Sherrington glanced about him before sinking onto a stone bench. “There. That’s better for now. You may have to summon Caruthers to help me back up to my bedchamber.”
“Really, Papa. Stop.”
“Do you see?” the duke asked Adrian. “She thinks she can order me about. Yes, it would do her a lot of good if someone stood up to her once in a while. Lord only knows I haven’t the heart when she’s the spitting image of her dearly departed mother.”
“Papa,” Lady Caroline grated.
“It’s hardly my place,” Adrian began. “Begging your pardon, sir.”
“On the contrary,” Sherrington returned. “It is your place when it comes to estate business. Your job is to do what is best for Sherrington, even if that runs contrary to my daughter’s wishes.”
The man might as well have added an especially in there, Lady Caroline glared so hard.
“If you wish to discuss any business,” the duke went on, “you must take it up with Lady Elizabeth. She has been overseeing matters in the interim. And you must include Snowley. It wouldn’t hurt him to take an interest in any plans, given that he’ll inherit someday. I take it you’ve had the chance to meet my heir?”
In spite of himself, Adrian let his gaze drift toward the high hedge, where Snowley had assumed yet another ridiculous pose. “Yes, I’ve had that singular honor.”
“Good Lord.” The duke had followed Adrian’s line of sight. “What is he doing?”
Adrian cocked his head to the side and squinted. “Preparing to throw the discus. That is, if he were holding a discus.”
The only reason he recognized the pose, or indeed knew the term discus, was because Wyvern had collected Greek statues. The marquess had sprinkled them throughout his garden, to the delight of his marchioness—the second one, who enjoyed the idealized male physiques. Adrian had spent more than his fair share of time weeding about the bases of those marble effigies, trimming the grass to the requisite height. Drawing unwanted attention to himself.
“Lord,” Lady Caroline commented, “Pippa must have promised Snowley she’d make him into some sort of Greek athlete.”
Sherrington turned his attention to Lady Caroline. “I don’t suppose there’s any hope that they might…” He waved a hand in a vague manner that apparently made sense to his daughter.
“Of course not.” Lady Caroline crossed her arms, and a line formed between her brows. “Pippa’s hardly the sort to let a title blind her. Snowley will probably marry someone exceedingly silly, and we shall simply have to put up with her.”
Who would wish a future duke to marry someone who can convince him to make an ass of himself?
Utter silence followed Adrian’s thought. Lady Caroline’s eyes widened. Jaw rigid, the duke pressed his lips into a firm line. The damning silence thickened. A warning prickled along the back of his neck.
Adrian backed up a pace. “Good Lord, did I say that out loud?” Christ, what a disaster. One day on the job and he’d set his foot in it. Overstepped so far, he might have been wearing seven-league boots. “Your pardon, your grace. Be assured that I know my place, and I will curb my tongue in the future.”
The duke cleared his throat.
Color rose in Lady Caroline’s and she let out a bubble of laughter. “Think nothing of it. In Snowley’s case, anything is an improvement.”
“A pity about Lizzie, though,” Sherrington said. “I’d held such hope for that match.”
Adrian backed up another pace. He ought to have extricated himself from this conversation the moment it broached topics that had nothing to do with his job. Getting involved in family matters was a grave mistake. Hadn’t he learned that lesson once?
“Oh, Papa.” Lady Caroline patted her father’s shoulder. “Lizzie was never going to marry Snowley. She has far too much sense.”
“Her sense is exactly why I wanted her for Snowley. But perhaps we ought to discuss your marriage prospects.”
Adrian turned. Time to get away now before he learned what sort of man Sherrington expected to match his middle daughter with.
Someone like Wyvern. Adrian’s gut twisted at the thought. Despite himself, he looked back. The velvet of Lady Caroline’s riding habit hugged her lithe figure. The morning sun glinted off golden hair, and the breeze had washed her cheeks with a becoming pink. A classic English rose, she was, at least on the surface. One her father wanted to sacrifice on the altar of matrimony to whichever man brought the most power and influence with him.
It’s none of your affair.
It wasn’t. It would never be, and he shouldn’t care.
“Mr. Crosby, where are you going?” Lady Caroline turned and started after him.
“It seemed my presence was no longer required. Surely your father isn’t about to ask for my opinion on your future intended.”
“That is exactly the point,” she grated. “We do not need to discuss this now.”
She reached out, and her fingers curled about his forearm, her grip solid, tiny muscles tight from years of holding the reins. The contact sent a forbidden jolt down his spine.
His mind flooded with a sudden image of her racing free on that hot-blooded mare of hers. An aristocratic husband would no doubt wish to rein in that energy and turn it to the bearing of an heir.
He went rigid. At his pointed look she dropped her hand.
“Don’t think I’m unaware of what you’re doing,” the duke commented affably enough.
Thank God, for he could well have chosen outrage at Lady Caroline’s familiarity with someone as lowly as an estate agent.
“You are avoiding the topic.” Sherrington lurched to his feet. “And not for the first time.”
“It so happens, I’ve invited quite a large party of men to ride to hounds across our lands.” Rather than address her father directly, she cast an arch glance at Adrian. Her eyes sparkled with challenge and triumph. Just try to stop me. She might as well have voiced that thought aloud. “They’ll be here in just under a fortnight. Some of them are married and will bring their wives along to watch, but I’m certain a few of them are unattached and acceptable.”
Adrian clamped his lips against a protest. Sherrington may have given him carte blanche when it came to arguing with Lady Caroline, but he knew better than to take advantage of that permission now. Not with the duke’s hearty approval of Lady Caroline’s scheme.
Sherrington nodded, a smile materializing amid the creases in his face. “Well, that’s settled. See if you can’t encourage some gentleman to offer for you.” But then his expression altered. “I say, I haven’t seen anything of that little scamp lately. Has he finally gone back to school?”
Adrian looked to Lady Caroline for clarification, but the line that marred the perfect skin between her brows answered before she could. “He means Gus,” she said quietly.
“Yes, the little imp hasn’t tried to sneak into my bedchamber in days, it seems. Do you know I caught him trying to sample my medicines?”
“Papa, Gus has met with an accident.”
The way Lady Caroline’s voice thickened tugged at Adrian’s heart.
“What sort of accident? And why did no one see fit to inform me immediately?”
“We didn’t think you’d wish to be troubled,” she replied. “He fell from a horse yesterday.”
“Good Lord. Why would you think I shouldn’t wish to know?” Sherrington blustered. His tone carried a great deal of force, more than might be expected from a man who claimed he was too weak to deal with estate matters. “Lizzie must be beside herself with worry. Has Dr. Fowler been consulted?”
“Lizzie’s been sitting with Gus since it happened. The doctor said there’s nothing he can do but wait for the boy to wake up.” Lady Caroline’s tone wavered alarmingly on the final syllable.
“Trust that child to get into a scrape,” Sherrington muttered
. “I shall look in on him. Perhaps we should write to Great-aunt Matilda. Sven may be able to do something for the boy.”
Adrian cast a questioning look in Lady Caroline’s direction. “Sven?”
“My great-aunt’s…well, I suppose he’s her manservant.”
“His cures are better than many physicians’,” Sherrington added. “Lord only knows the wonders he’s done for my various conditions over the summer. And now I’d best see to that boy.” He began to shuffle toward the house, still speaking under his breath.
Lady Caroline remained rooted to the spot, her shoulders stiff. She raised her face to the sky, blinking fast.
Before he could do something stupid, like reach for her, Adrian clasped his hands behind his back. He’d crossed enough lines today. The last thing he needed was to break down another barrier between them. Earlier in the stable yard, he’d had an all-too-brief taste of the long contours of her body pressed to his. Another might lend her comfort, but it wasn’t his place.
Wordlessly, she bowed her head, staring at the ground.
Damn it all. As exasperating as her pride might be, he hated this posture of defeat more. And so he extended a hand, his palm tracing across the whitened knuckles of her fist.
With a gasp, she looked up sharply, her eyes wide and overbright. Her grip relaxed, and her fingers tangled with his.
“He’ll be all right,” Adrian assured her. “You have to believe.”
Chapter 5
Mr. Crosby’s hand lay warm over Caro’s, his fingers tight and strong. She stared at the point of contact, where he dared touch her. She shouldn’t permit the familiarity, but no words of admonition pushed past the lump in her throat.
The best she could do was croak an echo of his last statement. “Believe.”
She hated the catch in her voice, hated that she’d nearly cried in front of him. If she wished to maintain the upper hand with him, she must present herself as strong and immovable. Instead, she’d cracked and shown vulnerability.
“Yes,” he affirmed, “believe.”
She steeled herself and drew on her well of resolve. “And you think that’s all it will take to bring Gus back to us?”
Impossibly, his fingers knotted about hers, his grip strong and steady, as if he’d seen through her ploy. “I can make no guarantees. You know that as well as I, but it can’t hurt to hope.”
She stared at their entwined hands. A man of her station would never presume. Crosby had reached for her naturally, and the touch felt so right. Lord, if it didn’t help her to fend off the wave of guilt and panic that reared up to drown her at the mental image of Gus lying small and ashen in that bed upstairs.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said at last. “I thank you.”
With a final squeeze, he loosed his hold. A wild impulse rose to clamp her fingers down, to fight for the contact, but she’d already crossed too many boundaries with him.
He’s an estate agent, she reminded herself. He’s staff. Not as low as a footman, not subject to the butler, but still in her father’s employ.
So are you.
Heavens, where had that rogue thought come from? Her heart, perhaps, or lower. The notion carried the sort of fundamental intuitive truth that came straight from the gut. She could not deny it.
She might be a duke’s offspring, but her father put her to his own sort of use when he pushed her toward the altar. Though he kept to his bedchamber most days, he still paid attention to the kinds of advantages a brilliant match might bring him—or at least the estate. Money, power, and connections benefitted man and title both.
And he had lost a third of that potential when Lizzie wed her Bow Street Runner. No matter the man gave Papa a connection to an earl, Dysart was still something of an outcast to his own family.
With almost military precision, Crosby stepped back, placed a palm on his chest, and bent at the waist in a crisp bow. Something in his blue gaze hardened. “Your servant.”
The reminder echoed in her brain as he turned and walked toward the back of the house, where a staff entrance gave access to the study. And at whom had he targeted that remark? Was the admonishment aimed at Caro or at him? But if he’d meant himself, that could only mean he, too, had noticed something was occurring between them.
She knew what that tingle that had taken up residence in the pit of her belly was. Attraction, and damned inconvenient, especially when Papa had just seen fit to remind her of her duty.
But how could she help herself? His rough woolen topcoat stretched tight from shoulder to shoulder, hinting at work-honed muscles beneath. His nankeen trousers managed to cling to thighs shaped by hours in the saddle. Next to the soft ton gentlemen of her acquaintance, there was no comparison.
She tore her gaze away from the portal through which he’d disappeared. She ought to follow him, if only to look in on Gus, but then she’d have to face Lizzie. And Papa would already be up in that too silent bedchamber, his fussing and complaints but a mask for his true feelings.
Even if Gus was no blood relation of the Wildes, Papa had taken to the boy. The duke longed for grandchildren. Gus was merely practice. Heaven forbid the child become a rehearsal for the sorrow of losing one so young.
Over by the maze, Pippa was gathering her drawing supplies. At some point in the interim, Snowley had disappeared. Caro made her way to her sister’s side and snatched up several sheets of paper.
On the first, Pippa had depicted Snowley crouched over, discus in hand, ready to fling the object. Their cousin nearly resembled the famous statue on display in Park Street, London, but for one significant difference.
“Isn’t the original rather…unclothed?” Caro asked.
“You know that as well as I,” Pippa replied. “But do you really wish to contemplate a naked Snowley?”
Caro conceded the point, even if Snowley did look rather ridiculous posed as an athlete while wrapped in a morning coat with a beaver hat perched on his head. She flipped the page. Deft strokes of charcoal portrayed their cousin sporting a scaled tail, brandishing a trident, and spouting a stream of water from his mouth, in an uncanny imitation of the fish fountain in front of the manor. “I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a merman wearing a cravat.”
Pippa sighed. “I think I’ve come to the end of what I might learn from studying Snowley.”
Caro eyed her sister. That statement might imply Snowley had refused to pose for her again. “You’ll never talk Dysart into standing on his head or holding a rose between his teeth.”
“Sadly, no. Do you think I might convince Mr. Crosby?”
“You think he’d stand on his head for you?” Caro laughed, but it sounded forced even to her ears. “Besides, he has duties. He can’t spend the afternoon pretending to be Apollo or Poseidon.”
Blast her imagination, it had immediately homed in on more Greek gods, ones normally portrayed in marble without a stitch of clothing.
“I don’t know.” Pippa stared off into the middle distance for a moment. “A trident might suit him. What do you think?”
There was a very dangerous question. Already her mind was conjuring an image of Mr. Crosby rising bare-chested from the ocean foam, a trident raised in his muscled arm, prepared to strike. Droplets of salt water clung to his sun-burnished skin. “I think you’re mad. What’s more, he’s certain to refuse.”
“I thought it might be fun to do a series. I could re-create the pantheon. Dysart could be Ares.”
“That would make Lizzie Aphrodite, and I’m fairly certain she would refuse to let you draw her standing naked on a scallop shell.”
“Yes, that’s true. And what would we do with Snowley?”
“He’d probably wish to be Heracles.”
Pippa clapped a hand over her mouth. “Can you imagine? But I suspect you’re right.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no god of fastidiousness and being a slave to rules.”
This time, Pippa giggled. “True.” Her smile faded somewhat, and her green
eyes took on an ominous gleam. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I could start with you. Which goddess do you see yourself as?”
“Oh.” Caro made a mental note to avoid her sister until this bout of madness passed. She had no desire to spend her afternoons assuming some ridiculous pose for hours on end. And she most certainly wouldn’t take off her clothes. “Artemis, I suppose.”
“But that means you’re forever unattached.”
“Yes, and I’d like to keep it that way, if only Papa would let me.”
—
The following morning, that wish chimed through Caro’s mind like the echo of a bell when Caruthers approached, proffering a salver. She plucked the white rectangle of vellum from its silver bed.
Arthur Dawes, Lord Allerdale
Good Lord, what could he want? He’d been a guest at Sherrington Manor earlier this summer, though he’d shown Caro no particular interest. But then, Pendleton’s accusations had occupied most of her attention last June.
Enough that she’d overlooked Allerdale, an heir to a marquessate. On the scale of social acceptability that ranked him very high indeed—high enough that Papa would be more than delighted with such a match. Not that Allerdale was going to offer. He’d never shown any sign of that sort of interest in Caro. In fact, she’d no idea why he’d pay her a particular call.
As she trailed behind the butler toward one of the receiving rooms, however, she could not help but notice her surroundings. For some unfathomable reason, the gilt frames on the family portraits lining the corridor shone more brightly than usual in the morning sunlight. The carpet she walked on every day cushioned her footsteps with greater softness. The woodwork appeared more ornately carved.
Luxury embraced her every waking hour. Servants stood ready to respond to her smallest whim. Papa had given her all this, and in return what did he ask?
Only the rest of your life.
But she needed to consider giving him that much back. Surely she could find a gentleman who would fulfill both Papa’s ideals and hers.
“My lady.” Smiling broadly, Allerdale approached, his booted feet thumping soundly on the parquet. Buckskin breeches encased his thighs, and his smartly tailored dark topcoat of textured wool was too rough for Town—but perfect for riding.
To Tame a Wild Lady Page 4
