by Tess Quinn
Sir John continued to shake his head in the negative, as Caroline went on. “Sir, I do not seek to become another spy in your employ. I will not be your disguise as a gentleman in society. I will not…”
“You mistake me, Caroline,” Sir John started, speaking with force to silence Caroline. “Perhaps I misspoke, for I am not asking you to become my minion. I…”
Caroline cut him off. “Sir, I believe I understand you fully. And I can give you my answer now, and freely. I do not wish to marry you. I do not wish to spy for you. I do not wish to match my ‘fire’ to your schemes. And I have no desire to waste any more of my time on you.” Sir John stood, glaring at Caroline, his jaws clenched in sullenness.
“Caroline –” The lady was unmoved by his overture. She hardened her countenance to him, faced him directly, and said “Leave. And be assured that this time you will not be called back.” Still she stood, shoulders back, head high, her eyes narrowed in anger and pain.
After a moment of silent appeal which went unanswered, Sir John looked down, shook his head, and turned to leave. He checked himself, however, and returned to Caroline. Taking her by her shoulders, he forced her through strength of will to look into his eyes. “You are wrong, Caroline. I do not require another spy to share my work, though in my fervour I may have sounded so. I have more spies than I can manage. I need a partner of the heart, of the soul. I need you to match me, fire to fire. It would probably not be a benign pairing; we would have to learn to live with the conflagration. But we would live! You cannot convince me you do not desire that. You cannot deny this –”
With that, Sir John held Caroline’s face in his hands, and kissed her. Though she resisted at first, his insistent attentions wore her down. He continued to kiss her, moving his hands to her waist and drawing her close to him. Caroline tried to feign lack of reaction, but could not sustain it; she could not refute the effect his closeness engendered in her. For one moment, she met him kiss for kiss, fire for fire, fuelled as much by anger as by desire. For one moment, there was nothing but this. Then suddenly, Sir John broke away and Caroline, remembering herself, slapped him, the imprint of her hand ruddying his cheek in a way the fire had not.
In a cold voice, he said, “Consider. Consider all you have heard tonight, and what you know of me instinctively, Caroline. And search your heart to judge if I am lying to you. I would have you for a wife, but only in total honesty – for a partner, with no secrets. If you should, on reflection, desire the same, then send me word.” He pulled from his jacket a slip of paper, with a symbol of a raven, and a name and shop address written on it. “This man will know how to reach me.”
He slipped the paper into Caroline’s hand, her fingers closing around it without conscious thought. Once more, Sir John took her face in his hands, more gently this time, and once more he kissed Caroline long and deep. “Tell me, if you can,” he whispered, “that this is the kiss of an employer.” With that, he turned and strode across the library, stopping at the door to look back at Caroline standing immobile where he had left her.
He opened the library door, and descended the stairs to the hall and the front door when he stopped. Remembering that Joss was somewhere in the house, he looked around for a likely location. Caroline had by now come to the downstairs as well. Seeing Sir John looking about, she realized his purpose, and wordlessly pointed at the opposite end of the hall toward a door. Sir John walked past her to the kitchen to reclaim his man, Caroline following behind him silently with a look of consternation. She did not speak again as she followed the two men to the front door and closed and bolted it behind their departure.
~~~~~~
And now, some three weeks and several sleepless nights later, here was Caroline in the drawing room of Robert Fenchurch, and Sir John Ravensby was walking into the room with the other gentlemen of the party. Sir John glanced around quickly, then walked over to where the Comte de Varlois stood. He engaged the Frenchman in conversation for a few moments, for all outward appearance oblivious to Caroline’s presence. Caroline made small talk with William Fotheringdale, but was hardly cognisant of what they said to one another. Her attention was surreptitiously given to Sir John.
After his converse with the Comte, Sir John then moved to speak with Mr Fenchurch and his fiancée, apparently thanking them for the evening’s invitation. On taking his leave of that couple, Sir John then walked directly to Caroline. He nodded to Mr Fotheringdale, who returned the greeting but then made a graceful exit under Sir John’s pointed gaze.
“I did not know you would be here tonight,” Sir John said quietly so as not to be overheard, “or I might have spared you the discomfort of my presence.” After a pause, he added, “No, that is not the truth. I would spare you nothing in this matter.” Caroline nodded coldly in acceptance of this remark. He continued, “But I would tell you that we have unfinished business. I will make myself available to you at any time.”
Caroline looked into his eyes to deny his remark, and found that she could not. This hawk’s gaze penetrated to her very soul, and she found herself unable to speak. Finally, aware that others in the room were beginning to take an interest in their exchange, Sir John whispered, “I will take my leave now. If you wish to meet with me, you have only to say the word, and I will comply.” Caroline’s head was spinning, but she retained her control in this suddenly overcrowded and inquisitive room. Sir John searched her face for a moment, and then bowed to take his leave, having already made his excuses to his hosts.
As he reached the door, he turned and glanced back at Caroline. She stood silent, yet just before Sir John turned to leave, she looked at him pointedly and nodded her head slightly…
Chapter Twenty:
They Meet Again
“P
erhaps he is an unacknowledged King’s bastard,” said Caroline in deadpan tone. “Perhaps the Prince keeps him close in his affections to try to prevent this secret half-brother from usurping his place.”
This remark had been made in exasperation when Caroline had been pressed for her opinion on the history of Sir John Ravensby. That some of her audience seemed to consider it seriously was a source of wry amusement to her.
Once again, every tongue at the Fenchurch dinner party had begun to wag on cue when Sir John took his early leave from the affair. Each person’s speculation seemed grander than the one before, in their eagerness to outdo one another. Caroline had at the first stood by quietly and not participated. She considered what she knew of the man and, notwithstanding her resentment of the manner in which their acquaintance had deteriorated, she realized that she could not – would not – betray the information he had imparted to her. Regardless of his motive in doing so, he had laid himself bare to her, and she felt some grudging responsibility to protect that vulnerability. She could not imagine why it mattered so to her – Caroline was not accustomed to keeping secrets, particularly when the telling might afford her a place of distinction. Could it be that Sir John also knew her secrets that kept her tongue stilled?
Finally, Phyllida Larkin had decided to weigh in, using her placement at table next to Sir John that evening as surety of the veracity of her judgment. “Do you know” Mrs Larkin had said, “after spending time in intimate converse with him tonight, I can assure you that all your speculations are for nought. The man obviously lacks natural breeding, and has not yet refined his skills at acceptable table discourse to fool me. I am quite certain he has not a drop of nobility in him, nor even born to it. For he has nothing of the happy manners of one of true class.”
Caroline directed a sneer in Mrs Larkin’s general direction, unaccountably offended of the woman’s insult to Sir John’s foster family.
“I am quite certain,” (Phyllida Larkin did love her certainty and flaunted it at every opportunity) “quite certain indeed that he must have risen through some trade –” At this, she violently shuddered, then went on, “some trade, to reach the attention of the Prince. One can always tell.”
Her husband,
Rufus Larkin, noted the listeners in their group prickling at his wife’s remarks, for indeed several of them had trade in their own family backgrounds. It was not to be avoided in these modern times, and the woman was impolitic to raise the issue. To deflect her from continuing in her current vein, he had addressed Caroline.
“Miss Bingley, you were partnered with the gentleman as well at dinner.” (Here he looked pointedly at his wife as he spoke the word ‘gentleman’ with emphasis.) “What did you manage to glean from him?”
“Very little, Mr Larkin, as I spent a good deal of the evening in converse with Mr Sutton. I am afraid that Sir John’s character remains as closed to me as it has ever been. The gentleman remains inscrutable.”
But the small group would not allow Caroline to retreat, they pressed for her opinion, certain from their own acquaintance with the lady that she would humour them with some scathing observation. Thus it was that she had made her outrageous supposition of Sir John’s possible circumstances. For they all knew, but never spoke of it, that Phyllida Larkin herself had to admit in her ancestral tree to a great uncle born to the wrong side of royal bedclothes.
As Caroline matched Phyllida Larkin, disdainful stare to disdainful stare, following her statements, the others in the group debated the possibility of this latest speculation. Caroline was known to ferret information from many sources when intrigued, so could she have been hinting at a truth about the man? After all, some had noted that Caroline and Sir John seemed to have direct converse with one another shortly before he left. Did she, in fact, speak of the man from some real knowledge?
Caroline herself had tired of her sport as soon as she made her pronouncements. After a few moments of idle chatter, she excused herself from the group and made her way to her hosts.
“Althea… Mr Fenchurch” she greeted them. “As always, you present the most charming affairs. I have been highly entertained.” She hazarded a quick glance at the back of Mrs Larkin, still chattering away noisily in the group from which Caroline had recently excused herself. “But with your pardon, I will make an early evening. My sister is due back in town tomorrow and will want my early attendance upon her.”
Lady Parkhurst and Mr Fenchurch accepted the compliments, and Mr Fenchurch then went to call for the Bingley carriage at Caroline’s request and procure her wrap. Taking the opportunity while they were alone, Althea addressed Caroline.
“Do not let Phyllida Larkin disturb you, Caroline. Consider she is jealous – everyone knows Mr Larkin had a preference for you for some time. And she must live with the fact that even now his eye wanders a bit more than it should.” The ladies laughed with one another.
Caroline considered her hostess. She and Althea Parkhurst had been at school together and had become great friends out of the necessity. Caroline had been denigrated for the source of her family’s wealth in the establishment; Althea Parkhurst had no such impediment, but was gawky and her equine features and brash demeanour garnered her few other friends. So the two had gravitated to one another and the friendship had survived several years. They had experienced a cooling for a short time while both were rivals for the attentions of Mr Darcy; but now that he was married (and to neither of them) it felt good to revert to their former intimacy.
“Pay no notice, my friend, to all the gossip concerning Sir John. That he is circumspect regarding himself invites it; but that he does not deserve the character assaults, I can assure you. He is a most respectable man – and a good match – and he seems most taken by you. You could do worse than such as he. He is a handsome man, I must say.”
Caroline studied her friend closely, trying to see how much Althea knew that she was not saying. After all, she had first been introduced to Sir John, or formally so, as a ‘good friend’ by Lady Parkhurst and Mr Fenchurch; and they always seemed to abstain from gossip concerning the man’s background. “Althea, dear, what are you not telling me? What do you know of the man, truly?”
Lady Parkhurst blushed slightly. Her eyes flickered around the room, landing everywhere but upon Caroline’s curious face. Finally, with a sigh, she admitted that she knew as little as everyone else; but that her dear Mr Fenchurch had known the man for some years, and vouched for him unreservedly. Beyond that, he would not divulge, but Althea was certain her fiancé would not jeopardise his own placement in society by sponsoring someone of little merit or standing.
Caroline knew that Mr Fenchurch held a post in the government – was this the connection between him and Sir John? She was about to ask more when Fenchurch returned to say her carriage waited. Caroline made her goodbyes and departed, wholly unsatisfied with the evening.
~~~~~~
During the ride to Hanover Square, Caroline considered a return to Louisa’s house in Grosvenor Street once again when her sister returned, but she quickly put it aside. She was enjoying the mark of independence that remaining alone in Charles’s house afforded her and would not hear of uprooting herself yet again.
She then reflected that in one manner or another, Sir John was ruining her social life. When he was present at public gatherings, Caroline could think of nothing but her overpowering confusion about the man. When he failed to appear at events, Caroline had to suffer continually hearing about him. She could not decide which was the more trying. If she could not reach some level of accord with Sir John, her entire season just beginning would be ruined. For that reason, she told herself, she had grudgingly acquiesced to his request to meet again. After the silent communication they had shared when he left the Fenchurch townhouse tonight, Caroline fully expected to find Sir John at her residence when she arrived.
She did not. Sir John was not waiting outside her home, nor did she find him lurking in the library as he had done on their previous meeting occasion, nor in her own chambers though the window latch was not secured. Caroline was confused; she was certain that he had acknowledged her nod tonight as he left, that he had interpreted it as a willingness on her part to meet yet again. Why was he not here? Had he expected her to remain at the affair longer? Perhaps he would yet come…
After an hour of pacing the library in anticipation, Caroline determined she would wait no longer. She rang for Allen, and went upstairs to retire. Once in her own chambers, however, she had the thought that perhaps Sir John would yet come to her via the plane tree to her bedchamber. Convincing herself this was the case and that she would yet see the gentleman tonight, she released Allen almost as soon as the maid arrived, preferring to remain clothed in case Sir John appeared at her window. She then took up her pacing again in her own room, growing more and more agitated with each moment that the disobliging man failed to appear.
~~~~~~
Sara returned to her attic room yet again, shaking her head as she went along. This was the third time she had been called to prepare her mistress for bed, and the third time that Caroline had changed her mind when Sara arrived. The first time, the maid had just begun to unpin Miss Caroline’s hair when the lady decided she would remain dressed for a while, as she was not prepared to turn in. While Sara found that strange, she accepted it. Miss Caroline had made stranger decisions in recent months.
The second time she was called, Sara was turned away again as soon as she reached the threshold of the room. And this last time, the hair had indeed come down, but no sooner had her slippers been removed than Miss Caroline once again balked at changing into her nightclothes. She was restless, she said, but without much conviction. Rather than a sleeping gown, Miss Caroline selected a morning gown of soft green to wear. Sara did not question her mistress; she assisted her in dressing and withdrew yet again. But she thought she knew the source of Miss Caroline’s restlessness.
Her lady must be hoping for a visit from Sir John this evening. For all her pacing and preparations, Sara hoped Caroline would not be disappointed. After that interesting evening some few weeks ago, there had been no further nocturnal visits, and Caroline’s temper had been out of sorts. She had gone out several times to call on her friends or t
o evening affairs, but had always returned unsatisfied and disinclined to share gossip. But what would have brought on an expectation of a visit tonight? she wondered. Had Sir John been in attendance at Mr Fenchurch’s affair? If he had, Miss Caroline remained mute concerning that as well.
If Sara was bold enough to think it, she herself would not mind if Sir John turned up tonight. For where he appeared, there was every expectation that Joss would soon follow. Sara had thought much of Joss in the last few weeks. Indeed, her interest in the young man had only been heightened by not seeing him during that time after forming such a positive first impression of him. In her mind, his handsome countenance took on epic proportions, and her memory only magnified the pleasant appeal of his laugh, the strength apparent in his arms as they helped her stoke the fire, and the saucy twinkle in his eyes. Oh, yes, she would not mind at all if he came calling once again, with or without his master.
Sara reclined on her cot, but did not change into her nightclothes, knowing that she would have to yet again attend to Miss Caroline when her mistress was ready. Soon she had fallen asleep, a smile crossing her features as she slipped into a dream featuring a certain young rogue.
~~~~~~
While Sara dozed in her cot, Caroline had finally worn herself out with pacing, and she flounced on her bed. At times like these, she reflected, it was a shame she did not enjoy reading more, to pass the time more easily. She began to count all the reasons that she loathed Sir John to make the minutes slip away.
~~~~~~
Sara awoke disoriented. She knew she was in her own room, yet could not think why she came to such sudden awareness with a feeling of unfinished work. She sat up, shaking the last cobwebs from her head, her natural ringlets bouncing, and noted that she was still dressed. This detail brought her memory back to her, and she recalled that she was yet awaiting a summons from Miss Caroline to prepare her to retire. Sara knew from instinct in her windowless room that it had grown very late. Half fearing that her mistress had called for her while she slept, Sara decided to attend her lady. She straightened her uniform as best she could, and started down the back stairs. Bypassing her lady’s floor, she decided first to go to the kitchen and make a warm drink. Perhaps Miss Caroline’s humour would be assuaged by an unsolicited cup of cocoa if she was still awake.
