by Lori Bond
“Well, it was the extenuating circumstances, of course.” Caroline had slipped into her Mrs. Wickingham persona again. Her voice became a little higher, a little more childish. “The duke had to intercede for Mother’s sake after Father died, you know. Ralph and his wife were being just too impossible.”
“Ralph,” said Jerry. His head was beginning to spin. “I thought you said your brother’s name is Ronald. You have to keep these details straight, you know.”
“My brother is Ronald,” said Caroline. She kept her face completely serious although her eyes had begun to dance in the reflected flames of the gaslights they passed. “I’m talking about Ralph, my father’s first son with his first wife. Naturally, he was the one that inherited Papa’s estate, not Ronald. It’s why Ronald had to buy into the Light Brigade. And Ralph’s wife and Mother have never gotten on, so when Ralph claimed the estate, Mother and I had to go. The only solution the duke could find was Mr. Wickingham. He had no sons, and so could leave his entire fortune to his wife. Naturally, your father wanted Mr. Wickingham to marry Mother, but Mr. Wickingham wouldn’t do with anyone other than me. So, I sacrificed myself to secure a small fortune for Mother and I.”
Jerry felt a strange sensation of appalled amusement. He suspected that Caroline had made the entire farce up on the spot, and yet the level of detail made the story compelling. He very nearly believed her, and he knew for a fact that none of the people she so confidentially spoke of even existed.
A bolt of realization slammed straight into Jerry. “You’re enjoying this.”
Caroline beamed one of her dazzling smiles at him. “Immensely.”
Jerry was enjoying this immensely as well.
The two had caught up to the Turntons, so they were forced to resume their roles as indifferent cousins.
“Have a nice chat?” Mrs. Turnton asked. The woman missed nothing. She would have made an excellent informant. If Jerry ever assembled his own network of spies, he would want women like Mrs. Turnton in prominent positions.
“Lord St. David had wondered how his father came to have a role in helping arrange my marriage,” Caroline told Mrs. Turnton truthfully.
“I’m sure he did,” Mrs. Turnton said, eyeing them again. For some reason, Jerry’s cheeks began to flush as if he were coming down with a sudden fever. To Jerry’s relief Mrs. Turnton turned her attention to Caroline. “I must confess some curiosity as well. I have a slight acquaintance with the Duke of Danvers, and I can’t say that he struck me as the sort to take any interest in matrimonial matters. Didn’t your father nearly forget to attend your sister’s wedding last year?” she asked Jerry.
Jerry managed not to laugh. His father hadn’t forgotten so much as turned up at the wrong church. “There were extenuating circumstances,” he replied.
Caroline smiled at all of them. “That’s just what I was explaining to Lord St. David—the extenuating circumstances.”
Jerry kept a straight face, but he was amused by Mrs. Turnton’s skeptical expression.
“I admit I didn’t pay close attention to the ship’s plans, but I believe this is the Second-Class Parlor,” Mr. Turnton said, pointing at a set of plain double doors.
Jerry stepped forward and swung them open for the party.
Inside, the Second-Class Parlor was about two-thirds the size of the one above. As in First-Class, the room was filled with bookshelves, chairs for reading, and card tables for gaming. The chairs were not as overstuffed as the ones two floors above, and the tables were less elaborately carved, but the room was still a comfortable place. In the corner, two men were fiddling country dance songs, and a few of the younger servants had pushed back some chairs and were dancing a reel. Jerry found Olive off to the side of the dancers clapping along to the music. To Jerry’s shock, he realized that one of the fiddlers was Wellburn.
Caroline clapped her hands together. “But this is wonderful,” she said. “Do you think we might have an impromptu ball upstairs as well?”
Mrs. Turnton gave Caroline one of those indulgent smiles that she seemed to save for the girl. She certainly never seemed to have an indulgent smile for Jerry. “I’m not sure the passengers upstairs would find it as enjoyable as the young folk down here. You and his lordship may be the only people under forty up there.”
Jerry couldn’t bear the disappointed expression that settled on Caroline’s face. Yes, they should be learning what Olive and Wellburn had discovered this evening. Yes, they should be focusing on recovering the drawings and stopping the Russian agent. Jerry didn’t care. He turned to Caroline and gave her a small bow. Reaching out his hand, he asked, “Would you care to dance?”
Chapter 16
Caroline wanted to say yes, but she wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be for her to dance with Jerry. Surely, she had only suggested a ball because she was so caught up in pretending to be Mrs. Wickingham—not because she had never been to a ball and longed to see what one was like. Caroline worried her bottom lip with her teeth and glanced at Mrs. Turnton. The older woman gave Caroline a small nod, almost as if granting the girl permission. It was all the nudging Caroline needed. Her face broke into a huge grin, and she accepted Jerry’s offer.
Jerry escorted her towards the dancers just as the reel ended. Before the dancers could so much as take a breath, Wellburn struck up a waltz. Relief flooded through Caroline.
“Oh, good,” she said to Jerry. “I know this one.”
He gathered her into his arms, a novel experience. Except for Olive, who she hugged regularly, Caroline rarely had any physical contact with other people, not since she had outgrown Nurse, who had comforted her when she was small.
Jerry placed his hand on the small of her back and pulled her to him until they were so close their fronts almost touched. Caroline wasn’t quite tall enough to peer over his shoulder, so she leaned slightly to her left so she could see behind him. When she moved, his hand grazed her back. She could barely feel it since her dress, corset, chemise, and various undergarments lay between his hand and her skin, and yet she was conscious of his hand in a way she’d never really noticed something touching her before. Since the train station, Caroline had felt a small fluttering of excitement every time she came close to Jerry, even for something as innocuous as a small pat on the hand. This close to him, Caroline was afraid that she might combust into a bundle of frayed nerves. And they hadn’t even begun dancing yet.
Caroline realized that he must be waiting on her, the way Olive always did when they danced in her room back home. She stepped back with her right foot, and the two of them began to waltz in time to the song.
Caroline had officially danced into Heaven. She knew she probably looked like she’d been struck by a falling star, dazed and glowing with an internal light. She caught Olive’s eye, and the girl smiled and then leaned over and said something to Wellburn. The comment must have pleased him because he gave the girl one of his rare smiles, all while never missing a note.
Caroline had never been allowed at any of her family’s parties, but she had snuck down from the nursery a time or two and spied on the balls her parents used to give at the Wickshire estate before they moved her to London full-time. This impromptu dance lacked the bejeweled women and slightly drunk men. Down in the Second-Class Parlor, the men and women wore their finest, but they were mostly hand-me-downs of their employers. Only Caroline’s and Mrs. Turnton’s dresses required a double crinoline. Even Olive, who having no luggage had been forced to make due from Caroline’s improvised wardrobe, had still chosen to wear a lovely bottle blue day dress instead of the purple peril with its remaining three layers of flounces.
While it may have lacked riches, the dance was as festive as those parties Caroline had spied on all those years ago. There were matrons, like Mrs. Turnton, nodding in time to the music and gossiping. The younger maids stood giggling along one wall, while the younger male servants and clerks stood talking in clumps along the other wall, eyeing the girls. The older businessmen and world-weary valets
sat at the card tables playing for penny stakes and sharing stories of various wars.
Caroline found the entire experience perfect, just as good as a Society ball, until Jerry opened his mouth.
“Is this your first time to dance?” he asked.
Caroline’s eyes snapped to his, mortification heating her cheeks and forehead. She was sure she was now redder than the crimson evening gown she’d donned for the evening. “Is it that obvious?” Caroline asked, positive that every eye in the room now pointed her way. She hadn’t realized before that the girls giggling along the wall were giggling at her. “Do you think anyone has noticed? Like Mrs. Turnton? I think she would find it hard to believe that Mrs. Wickingham has never so much as set foot at a ball.”
Jerry shook his head trying to quell her obvious horror. “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” He gave her a friendly smile. “It’s just customary for the gentleman to lead you know. You wouldn’t have to keep peering back over your shoulder if you let me steer.”
“Oh.” Caroline tried to relax and not turn her head. She hadn’t even realized she was leading, whatever that meant.
“If it helps you resist the urge to turn, it helps to look at your partner’s face. I have been told that mine is quite aristocratic.” Jerry turned his face to the side and gave her a haughty expression, like one of the portraits of royalty that had been displayed recently to the public. Caroline laughed. He did have a Roman nose, but Jerry was too handsome to be one of the Royals.
Jerry looked back down and smiled. “That’s better.”
They danced a few more times around. Caroline smiled at Olive and Mrs. Turnton every time she passed either one.
“Who taught you to dance?” Jerry asked after a few moments. “I assume parents who are pretending their daughter is deathly ill don’t normally hire dancing masters.”
Caroline gave him a dirty look for reminding her about her parents’ lies. “No, they do not. When I was small, the servants at the Wickshire Estate used to take me to their dances on their holidays. Olive’s parents in particular were fond of a good country dance. Olive’s mother was the housekeeper at Wickshire before we moved to London full-time and my parents closed the country house. Olive’s father manages the home farm there.”
Jerry nodded as if she had illuminated a mystery for him. He had probably wondered why she and Olive were so close. Since the two had grown up together and been virtually isolated together in London, it would have been stranger if they had not been almost sisters.
“But it was my brother that taught me to waltz during one of his kinder moments.”
“And which brother would that be again?” Jerry asked in a teasing tone. “Ralph with the difficult wife or the possibly dead Randall?”
“Very funny.” Caroline made a childish face at him, which caused Jerry to smile. Caroline felt another wave of warmth pass through her. “And it’s Ronald, not Randall, who bought into the Light Brigade.” She stared off to the side not really seeing the faces that floated by her any longer. Instead she was seeing a different sort of parlor, the one in her family’s townhouse. As if she were a ghost on a wall, she watched a slightly younger version of herself stumbling through the waltz while her older brother coaxed her on. Olive stood laughing and humming the tune so they could dance. “My older brother taught me,” she said, the laughter gone from her voice.
Jerry’s smile faded as well. He nodded, understanding who she actually referred to this time. “Do you miss them?” he asked softly.
Caroline thought for a moment, watching Olive laugh with a young clerk who seemed to be flirting with her. Wellburn still played their waltz, but he also seemed to be keeping a paternal eye on the girl, frowning when the boy moved a step closer.
“Yes,” Caroline said, turning back to Jerry. “I do miss them.” It surprised her that this was true. “I miss the easy smiles and laughs from before the country house closed and we all moved to London. I miss the days from before I was deemed such a disappointment that my parents felt the need to lock me away and tell the world I was ill.” Caroline didn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. She turned away so she wouldn’t have to endure Jerry’s pity.
The waltz came to an end. They stopped moving, but Jerry didn’t drop her hand or move his own from her back.
“Is that what you really think?”
Caroline didn’t bother to answer.
“Caroline,” Jerry whispered so softly no one else would have a chance of overhearing. “Look at me.”
Caroline took a step back so that Jerry’s arm was no longer around her waist, but she did look at him.
“From what you’ve told me, your parents have been in dire financial straits for years, yet they’ve been trying to live as if nothing is wrong. When you were born, your promised dowry was thirty-thousand pounds. I’ve seen the number in the books at the clubs. Your parents didn’t hide you because you embarrass them. They hid you because they were embarrassed that they no longer have your dowry. When you had attracted a suitor, and you would have attracted many, they would have been forced to supply a dowry they did not have.”
Caroline made an inarticulate doubting sound. “I’m well aware I’m not the sort of girl men want to marry.”
Jerry looked at her as if she had sprouted orange spots on her face. “You are exactly the sort of girl lots of men would want to marry.”
Caroline wanted to ask if Jerry could be included in that group of men, but for once she didn’t blurt out every thought that came into her mind and instead glanced down at the floor in an embarrassed silence.
Chapter 17
I would happily marry you, Jerry almost said. It was on the very edge of his tongue, ready to be spoken when he managed to bite it back. He stared at Caroline in mute horror, terrified at where such a thought had come from. He wasn’t ready to marry anyone, not even the delightful girl before him. He still had a life to build, his father’s small empire of businesses and politics to learn, and his worth to prove. He couldn’t do that if he sat at home all day with a wife. A small voice in his head pointed out that Caroline didn’t really seem like the kind of person to want to sit home all day either, and a girl who could spot signs of embezzlement from the household ledgers would probably be useful in managing a small empire. Jerry told that voice to hush up.
Caroline stood staring at the floor, so she hadn’t noticed his look of terror, but Mrs. Turnton had. She stood at the side of the room near the other matrons a satisfied smirk on her face. One of the older women said something to Mrs. Turnton, and the meddling woman turned to answer. By the time she turned back and Caroline looked up, Jerry had gotten himself back under control.
“We should collect Olive and go,” he said. “You’re right that it will be safer for her if we all escort you both to your room.”
Caroline nodded and smiled, but it was a pale imitation of the sparkle she’d had before. Jerry would do anything to bring it back. Anything short of proposing, that was. Besides, he wasn’t sure she would even accept him if he did make a foolish offer. They’d only met because she was fleeing matrimony. She’d refused when he had wanted her to pretend to be his wife. Marriage was the furthest thing from this girl’s mind.
Jerry realized that Caroline had left his side to get Olive and that he still stood alone in the middle of the now empty dance floor. Wellburn had handed the fiddle back to someone. They stood to the side as if waiting for him to gather his thoughts and rejoin them.
By the time Jerry reached them, Caroline had perked up. Olive was recounting the evening, and Wellburn was keeping an eye on both girls as well as all of the passengers. He gave a subtle nod to Jerry and then pointed his head in the direction of a tall young man standing near the card tables. The man was older than Jerry, but younger than many of the men he stood near. He was also better-looking, with a better cut suit than many of the men on this level. It was not nice enough to call attention to the man, but it was of a higher quality than most of the others. Jerry pegged him as one
of the more prosperous clerks or a young gentleman’s gentleman.
Jerry didn’t make a move in the man’s direction, but he made a note of his features and his sturdy build. Wellburn had pointed the man out for a reason. This was a man that would not have any trouble tossing someone like the odious Bickle overboard. Jerry mentally gave himself a shake. He should be focusing on the Russian agent. The man didn’t look particularly Russian with his blonde hair cut slightly longer than was fashionable and his snub nose. If anything, he looked German or perhaps Danish. However, that meant nothing. It wasn’t as if a Cossack was going to conveniently appear with a sash marking him as a Russian spy.
“Will you walk with us?” Caroline asked, pulling him back into the moment. “Or do you plan on woolgathering all evening?” Her small smile took the sting out of the words, especially since he knew that the bite in them wasn’t directed at him but at her absent parents. He couldn’t really blame her. His father had made all of his children feel valued and wanted. Jerry couldn’t imagine thinking his parents found him to be an embarrassment, and if the Earl and Countess of Wickshire truly were embarrassed of Caroline, then they were greater fools than she believed.
“I would be honored to accompany you,” he said with a small bow. He turned and bowed to Olive as well. “I would also be honored if you would join us.” He offered each girl an arm, and they both accepted, Olive with a nervous giggle. He suspected she’d never been escorted from a room before, and certainly not by a lord.
A glance at Caroline told him he had made the right decision. Her delight shone in her smile, and he was glad he was treating her almost-sister as one of their own.
