Alas, the place requires a woman’s influence. Would it not be famous if you were to write a harem-scarem type of play for these rough-and-tumble youngsters? Ruisdell and I would be happy to drive down from Ruisdell Palace near the end of the summer, say in August, to carry you off to Gloucestershire. I could help you chivvy the youngsters into playing their parts prior to performing for the local parish. We could have a lovely week or two together there before the little Season begins in London.
A worthy use for your talents, do you not agree? There are ten boys in all, ranging from ages five to ten. By August, there may be one or two more. I envision a play about ghosts and goblins, etc.
What do you think of my idea? Tell me if you cannot manage it. I will surely understand.
With love,
Elise
Caro immediately took the project to heart. In fact, her ideas for this drama almost drove her Mother Goose play from her mind. She determined finally to work on that play in the mornings before luncheon. In the afternoons, she worked with her committee of wives from the local gentry, officiating over the grand scheme of games, refreshments, costumes, and scenery for the play, and, of course, the plans for the outdoor dance that would take place on the green by light of a midsummer bonfire.
In the evenings, sitting in the comfortable peach-and-navy-blue saloon while her mother embroidered and her father played the piano forte or a game of solitaire, she sat at a writing table and worked on her Gothic melodrama. Occasionally, at the fond request of her parents, she would read passages aloud.
Gerald hears the sound of clanking chains advancing up the stairs. Looks around him desperately. Climbs inside an old chest. Ghost enters the room bound in chains.
Ghost: Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!
“I say, Caro,” her father said, “that thing grows more bloodcurdling by the day. Perhaps you ought to take up novel-writing like Serena.”
“Under an assumed name, of course,” her mother said.
“I have much more fun writing plays. It is a challenge to communicate everything through dialogue and stage directions,” Caro told them.
“Speaking of Serena,” Lord Jonathan said. “I had a visit from Jack this afternoon. We’re thinking of breeding my new mare with the stud Kate gave him for a wedding present. Beautiful animal.”
“And how is Jack, Papa?”
“Fit as a fiddle. Marriage suits him down to the ground. I never thought to see him married to anyone but you, my dear, but Kate is an admirable woman, I must say.”
“Yes,” Caro said. “I do like her. I am so glad she is happy here in Wiltshire. She is condescending to use her painting talent to do the sets for my play.”
“Admirable, admirable,” her father said. “You never told me what you thought of the new Marquis of Cleaverings.”
“I found him amiable. Did you?”
“I liked him well enough. I think Jack may be finding him a bit of an encroaching relative, however.”
“Why do you say so?”
“He has invited himself and his two sons to our fête. Am I wrong, or has he decided to marry one of them off to you, my dear?”
She chuckled. “He was speaking most persuasively about his eldest. He will have returned home from the Peninsula by now. The marquis wants to see him settle down and produce an heir.” Caro rose as the tea tray was brought in by Hitchens, the butler. “The younger son is a vicar. He has the living at Cleaverings now, I gather.”
Her mother spoke as she put down her embroidery in order to pour out. “Thank you, Hitchens. How does his matchmaking strike you, darling?”
She gave a small shrug. “It will be interesting to form a new acquaintance. However, I am not looking to marry at the moment.”
“You do not look to be happily settled like your friend Kate?” her mother asked. She could not disguise the hope in her voice.
“Kate and I are very different. Surely you have realized that by now! Though she loves Jack now, at first she was pursuing him single-mindedly in order to make a marriage of convenience. That was the only way she could gain guardianship of Joey, remember.”
“Yes, and he is such an engaging scamp.”
“Jack was head over ears for her the first time they met in Aunt Sukey’s saloon.”
She took her cup from her mother.
“Yes, I do believe her to be Jack’s equal in temperament,” Lady Jonathan said.
“A very lucky circumstance. I do not know of another woman of quality in London who is as headstrong as Jack.”
She thought she had successfully guided the discussion away from her own marriage when Mama asked, “Dear, I know you suffered a heartbreak during your Season. I would that I had been feeling well enough to accompany you to Town. Will you not confide in us? Just lately, you seem so downcast. You never desire to accompany me when go calling in the neighborhood. And you stayed home from the local assembly ball.”
“Mama, I am happily occupied with my plays and the fête. It is true that I was unhappy in London. But I am home now.”
With that, she hoped her mother would be content.
* * *
Rehearsals for the play began the week before the fête. Kate’s sets were a marvel. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall in the foreground of a pastoral scene Caro thought to be worthy of the National Gallery. The Dish ran away with the Spoon through a midnight landscape of shadows and moonlight. And Jack’s Beanstalk was as realistic as anyone might wish.
Caro’s only problem was with casting. Joey, Kate’s twelve-year-old stepbrother, had been asked to be the hero of the Beanstalk sequence. However, as soon as the painting was unveiled, this decision was challenged by the local bully, another large youngster named Will, the squire’s son. Joey, though very popular at Eton as a rousing cricketeer, was naturally reticent and inclined to give the bully his way. Caro, however, was not. She viewed the fête as an exercise in learning life’s lessons. Will would already win at least half the races. Joey was new in the neighborhood, as well as being an excellent example for the younger children.
When the squire himself confronted her over the choice, she said, “Sir, if your son is to be squire one day, it is important that he have the goodwill of the village. At present, all of the children are afraid of him. Do you not agree that he needs to learn some noblesse oblige?”
Squire Southerby harrumphed and snorted, virtually pawing the ground like a stallion, but was finally shamed into agreeing. After that, rehearsals went as smoothly as could be expected. Caro wondered, as she did every year, whether everything would sort itself out before the children’s big night. And, as happened every year, she knew that, in the end, she had to leave everything in the hands of Providence.
The night before the fête, she intended to have one last rehearsal. However, her mother informed her that they had received an invitation that could not be ignored. Kate’s cousin, Cleaverings, had arrived with his sons, Lord Henry and Lord William, and the Braithwaite family was expected for dinner at Northbrooke Park to meet the new arrivals.
Consequently, Caro was in poor humor when the family carriage drew up at the door and she was handed down by Jack’s footman. The new arrivals were awaiting them in the drawing room.
Kate moved forward to greet the Braithwaites, grasping Caro’s hands in hers.
“Thank you so much for coming,” she said. “You must meet my long-lost cousins!”
She drew them into the large, high-ceilinged room. Standing beside the dowager, Caro saw two gentlemen dressed in formal black evening clothes. The shorter appeared to have sun-bleached hair; the taller was a redhead. As she drew closer, she could see that they were both pleasant looking, with fresh, open countenances.
“Lord Harry, Lord William, I would like you to meet my dear friends, Lord and Lady Jonathan Braithwaite and Miss Braithwaite. Lord and Lady Jonathan, Caro, these are my cousins Lord Harry and Lord William, both anxious to make your acquaintance.”
As he moved forward, Caro
detected in Lord Harry’s dancing green eyes the appreciative glint she had often seen in the looks of her London suitors. Virtually ignoring her parents, he bowed over her extended hand. For a moment, she was afraid he would kiss it. The word dashing came to mind as she took in his tanned complexion, unusual in red-heads, his perfectly formed eyebrows raised as though in a question, and his square, determined jaw. Letting his eyes do all the speaking, he merely gave her a grin that bordered on a leer. She took her hand back.
Lord William, whom she remembered was a vicar, came forward and executed a respectful bow, quite different from his brother’s. Caro saw at once that his brown eyes were soft with kindness. First he addressed her parents. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord and Lady Jonathan.” Only then did he turn to Caro. “Miss Braithwaite, it is an honor. The marchioness has been telling us of your play and plans for the summer fête. I was most impressed.”
I have had enough of dashing men! I could possibly grow to like Lord William. Maybe. We will see.
Jack strode forward and greeted Caro and her mother almost possessively by kissing their cheeks. “Lord Jonathan,” he said, shaking Caro’s father’s hand. Because she knew Jack, she immediately divined that he was not at all impressed with his wife’s cousin Lord Harry and his form of address.
“Glass of sherry, anyone?” he asked.
Caro accepted a glass, as did her parents. Uncomfortable under Lord Harry’s blatant scrutiny, she turned to his father, the marquis. “Good evening, your lordship. It is lovely to see you again.”
“You see, I promised I would bring my caper-witted son to make your acquaintance. He is so bowled over that he has apparently forgotten his manners.”
She did not have a reply to this. “I trust your journey was comfortable?”
“I traveled by carriage with the luggage. These two rode along beside to protect me from highwaymen!” he said with a laugh. “In truth, they wanted to try out their new mounts.”
“Do you ride, Miss Braithwaite?” Lord Harry asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “It is one of my favorite pastimes.”
“Perhaps you would do me the favor of riding out with me tomorrow morning.”
“Has Kate not told you of our fête?” she asked.
“But of course! She has talked of little else.”
“I believe the fête to be tomorrow, Harry,” Lord William said. “Miss Brathwaite will surely not have the time or the inclination for riding tomorrow.”
“Another friend of ours is to be here for the fête, tomorrow, Caro,” Jack said.
A premonition caused a flutter in Caro’s middle. “Who is that?”
“Beverley. He’s riding back to Cornwall and stopping here tomorrow. He has no idea he’s arriving for the fête and that we are going to drag him to the festivities.”
Before she could absorb all the ramifications of this statement, Kate spoke. “We are ready to go in to dinner. Jack, you will take your mother, of course. Your lordship,” she addressed the Marquis of Cleaverings, “will you please escort Miss Braithwaite?”
Caro was grateful for this prompt. Her parents followed her. Kate took Lord William’s arm and led the procession. Caro was amused. Her hostess was ignoring the etiquette of precedence. Obviously, Kate, too, thought Harry a bit too encroaching.
An idea formed in her head during dinner when she was making idle conversation with Jack on one side and the dowager on the other. As things now stood, the marquis’s sons could come in handy. When Beverley arrived, it should be a very easy thing to flirt with one of them, thus enabling her to demonstrate her indifference to his grace. She did not want to encourage Lord Harry, so it must be Lord William.
The former was seated across from her. “Is it true that you have written the entertainment for tomorrow?”
“You should not doubt my word, Lord Harry,” Kate said.
“It is no very great accomplishment, my lord,” Caro said. “I enjoy writing plays. And it is only for children.”
Her mother spoke up. “You must not be thinking that our Caro is a bluestocking. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Caro restrained herself from rolling her eyes by biting the inside of her cheek and applying herself to the task of slicing her fish into tiny bites.
“Can’t abide a bluestocking,” Lord Harry said.
“I find the desire to learn and create to be very attractive in a woman,” said Lord William with a gentle smile.
“Applause!” said the dowager. “If a woman is blessed with brains, why should she not use them?”
“There, Harry, that will teach you,” his father said. “Not only Miss Braithwaite, but both Lady Northbrookes are exceedingly talented. I find learned women to be refreshing conversationalists. Add to this the fact that you do not want to marry a woman who will be forever living in your pocket because she cannot amuse herself.”
The conversation was going from bad to worse. The marquis was obviously so anxious for Lord Harry to impress her that he was chastising him in her presence. Talking of marriage, no less! And why should a woman’s talents serve only to amuse her?
Her mother spoke. “My dear Caro had such a successful Season. She was the Incomparable, you know.”
She felt herself blush.
“I can well imagine,” Lord Harry said, grinning and raising his eyebrows as he looked at her. It was clear that the man had spent far too much time as a soldier and not enough time in polite society. He lacked subtlety.
“Miss Braithwaite,” Lord William asked, “what did you enjoy most about your time in Town?”
The footman cleared away the fish and served partridges together with a cassoulet of baked summer vegetables.
“Galloping in Rotten Row,” she said. “And the resources of the Lending Library.”
“What?” Lord Harry said. “You were indifferent to the balls? I cannot believe it.”
“They grow exceptionally tedious after a time.”
“Even for the Incomparable? I would have thought any woman would enjoy having gentlemen surround her with their attentions,” Lord Harry said.
An unassailable desire to be honest visited her. “I do not think it possible to form a meaningful acquaintance with a man who knows nothing about me except how I appear in a ball gown. It is very difficult to forge true attachments in such a social setting.”
“So you do not enjoy flirting?”
“I must confess that flirting was an enjoyable pastime. Particularly if the gentleman I was flirting with employed a witty address. Wit can make up for so many flaws, I find.”
Caro’s father’s booming voice sounded across the table as he said to Kate, “Lady Northbrooke, your sets for Caro’s play are quite remarkable.”
“Yes!” Caro added with enthusiasm. “Dear Kate is an exceptionally gifted artist.”
The remainder of the meal was spent discussing the plans for the fête. Caro avoided the eyes of Cleaverings’s eldest son.
Following dinner, port, and cigars, her father accompanied her mother on the piano forte as she sang several Scottish airs. Caro always enjoyed hearing her parents perform. She had not been blessed with their gifts.
After her parents’ recital, she was exceedingly disconcerted when Cumming announced a new arrival. The duke of Beverley strode into the room with his accustomed vigor, held out his hand to shake Jack’s, kissed Kate on the cheek, and bowed over the dowager’s hand. “I thought to arrive tomorrow, but found I was able to push through tonight. I hope you do not mind my intrusion.”
“Not at all,” Jack said. “You remember the Marquis of Cleaverings? These are his two sons.”
He made the introductions while Caro observed from her seat on the sofa. The room was so large, he had not seen her yet. The duke made every other man, excepting Jack, appear small and insignificant. He breathed vitality into the stilted atmosphere. He was a feast for her eyes—his broad shoulders, deep chest, fine legs, and those remarkable, deeply set eyes, now lit with int
erest as he made the acquaintance of Lord Harry and Lord William.
Then he turned and saw her. For a moment, he only stared, obviously nonplussed. “You had not thought to greet me, Miss Braithwaite? Am I fallen that far out of favor?”
Rising, she went to him, offering her hand. He kissed it lightly, but even the small caress set her senses flaming. He retained her hand in his until she answered, “In my eyes, you remain an unregenerate blackguard, your grace.”
“You are to be witness to all of Caro’s hard work tomorrow, Ned,” Kate said.
He turned sideways to look at his hostess with interest.
“The fête,” Kate said. “You could not have timed your arrival better.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IN WHICH OUR HERO IS DISTURBED
The moment that Ned saw Caro Braithwaite sitting on the sofa in his friend’s drawing room, he was forced to admit to himself that he had hoped he would see her again. Was that not what was actually behind this stop on his way to Cornwall? And the fête! Though he never attended such festivities in his own parish, he found himself anxious to see Caro at work among the youngsters and to view her play. As Kate said, he could not have timed his visit better.
The entire time he had been seeing to the business of the orphanage, he had been imagining Caro there, picturing the effect of her presence on the surly youngsters. Could she offer them something that would turn their minds temporarily from their grief over their lost families? This was something he had not been able to do. Most of them did not really like the orphanage and longed to be back in their element, even if it meant starving. Perhaps she could even offer some help with the curriculum. As of now, they really had no incentive to learn to read. And what good would a classical education do them? Instinctively, he felt that Caro Braithwaite could find the correct middle ground that would appeal to these youngsters.
Now he saw the desirable figure of his thoughts only an arm's length away, dressed in some divine creation of ivory lace foaming over wine-colored silk. Her warm skin was rosy with one of her delightful blushes.
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