My Lady Caroline

by Jill Jones

  There had been no sign of Jeremy Ryder.

  Not that she had expected there to be. He and Hawthorne were likely by now divvying up the profits from the sale of the priceless papers, laughing up their sleeves at her naiveté.

  It was more than naiveté they should be laughing at, she thought bitterly.

  Stupidity would be more descriptive.

  This whole thing had been an exercise in stupidity. She’d come here seeking famous missing papers and a chance to prove to herself she was capable of handling her own affairs. Instead, she’d lost the papers and made a complete fool of herself. She’d bought a huge, run-down property with which she had no idea what to do. She’d wasted almost a million dollars. But worst of all, she’d let down her guard and irretrievably lost her heart to a man who had only used her for his own gain.

  Alison didn’t know whether to cry or be sick. There seemed to be no other options. She couldn’t go to the police and file charges against Jeremy and Hawthorne. She had no proof that the memoirs even existed. How could she charge them with theft? As for the hijacking of her heart, there seemed little she could do about that either, except hope that time would somehow heal the ugly wound without leaving too much scar tissue.

  Lost in these and other equally morose thoughts, Alison didn’t hear the footsteps approaching her until she was overcome by the wet kisses of a large retriever.

  “Hey, hold on, boy,” she cried, trying to avoid the eager animal’s affectionate greeting. Recognizing the dog as Ashley T. Stone’s pet, she looked up and saw the owner silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky, his wispy hair standing away from his head, reminding her of one of those silly dolls you saw at the carnival.

  “Are we interruptin’ you?” he asked.

  “I need interrupting,” Alison replied, sniffing away her tears.

  “What’s th’ matter, missy?”

  “Just about everything.”

  “Mind if I sit a spell?” He didn’t wait for her reply, but took a seat on a large stone nearby. “Been havin’ lots of fireworks up at Dewhurst, I see.”

  “Fireworks?”

  “Caroline type fireworks. Somethin’ big must’ve gone on for what all I saw th’ other night. Kept me up most of th’ night.”

  Alison turned to stare at him. “You saw fireworks? For real, I mean like Roman candles and rockets?”

  “Not real fireworks, although when she gets worked up, the show’s almost as good.” The ancient one wheezed a laugh through crooked yellow teeth. “What happened?”

  Alison, glad to have a confidante, even if it was just the old poacher, smiled. “I’m not totally sure,” she explained. “I think I told you, I came here because Caroline needed help in bringing Byron’s memoirs to light. You said you thought they’d been burned, but Mr. Stone, I have seen them with my own eyes. Those memoirs were buried at the mouth of the old tunnel. Probably some of the…uh…fireworks you saw were Caroline’s rather explosive demonstration when she finally remembered where she put them.” Alison laughed at the ghost’s antics, and she realized she missed the apparition almost as much as Jeremy.

  “Ah, but what was the rest of it about?”

  “Some…of my erstwhile guests decided they would steal the memoirs once they’d been found. Guess it made her really mad. Neither of the thieves have been seen since.” Alison paused. “Well, at least Mr. Hawthorne hasn’t shown up back in the States yet. I haven’t looked for Mr. Ryder.”

  “Ryder. He seemed like a nice enough fellow.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Just met him by chance. Come t’ think on it, though, he was out snoopin’ around the property of Dewhurst. I mistook him for a pheasant in the brush.” He laughed. “Good thing I’m a bad shot.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Hey, there, young lady. Now why’re y’ so gloomy? They were just papers. Y’ didn’t have them when y’ came here. So what if y’ don’t have ‘em now?”

  “It’s just that…well, I trusted Mr. Ryder, and I shouldn’t have, and I feel like a dummy. And now the ghost is gone, too, and nothing is the same. I’m thinking of putting Dewhurst back on the market.”

  “I hope y’ put a high price on it again, so’s nobody’ll buy it, and I can go on enjoyin’ my huntin’. But you’re wrong if you think the ghost isn’t still there. She’s very much there.

  Alison jerked her head up sharply. “How do you know?

  “I can see the glow from here,” he said, gesturing in the direction of Dewhurst. “My guess is that there must still be unfinished business over there. She’s wantin’ those memoirs maybe.”

  “I guess she’ll have to go on wanting them,” Alison replied glumly. “There’s no telling where they are by now.”

  Three great men were ruined in eighteen & fifteen—Brummell, myself, and Napoleon.

  Lord Byron

  That year saw the decimation of my health, my marriage, & my finances. I slept fitfully if at all, my dagger & pistol by my bed—& a vial of laudanum. I longed for the freedom that I’d so carelessly tossed away—to this I had married in part to spite Caroline! I would have been better off to have eloped with her instead. It is possible I could have been happy with her, happier than with the dour, humorless, pious, dog-faced Annabella. I began to dwell upon Caroline again—in fantasy only, a safer practice than to resume our affair—& I was delighted when I received the news that she & her dear William were about to separate. I never liked the Lamb. But Lady M. squelched the rumor at once, assuring me that the pair were together at Brocket Hall & to all appearance like two turtle doves. Her declaration sent me into an even darker despondency, which I took out upon Lady B. who was by this time large with our child.

  Other events happened which turned my already Infernal existence into pure Hell. My sick attraction to Caroline led me to write ill-conceived letters to friends, ask of her, & the stories that were related to me only whetted my avaricious appetite for what I could never have. Caro, ever the exhibitionist, continued to outdo herself as she & William traveled from England through the Low Countries to Paris. If I had been present, I would have despised the scenes she excelled in provoking, but from a distance & with an overwrought imagination, every antic, every detail of Caroline’s behavior I received through my friends’ correspondence titillated me until I thought I might go mad. She became, without ever knowing it, as effective a tormentor from afar as she had ever been when stalking my apartments in London.

  Two weeks had passed, and summer was in full dress green, even in the heart of London. Jeremy had managed to keep his vow to stay away from Dewhurst Manor, although thoughts of Alison were never far from the surface of his consciousness. It was for the best, he kept telling himself. She didn’t want him interfering in her life, and he had his own life to lead.

  But his life, at least, had lost some of its luster. He seemed to be going about it almost robotically. The enthusiasm for his business had faded, and he found himself snapping at his employees over minor mistakes he once would have ignored. He had turned, he realized grumpily, into something of a misanthrope.

  Sunlight streamed through crystal clear windows and onto the snowy linen tablecloth where his housekeeper had laid out a hearty Sunday morning breakfast, with a copy of the Times alongside, according to the tradition the two had lived by since Mrs. Fleming had come to work for Jeremy almost five years before. It had seemed like an extravagance at the time to Jeremy, who was then not yet thirty years old. But his lifestyle was fast paced and time intensive, his income was substantial and growing, and his personal tastes required a more orderly household than he was able to maintain by himself. Some men would have looked around for a wife, but Jeremy preferred the detached relationship between employer and employee. It kept things more orderly in every respect.

  The bells of the old Wren Church in Piccadilly chimed ten o’clock when Jeremy sat down at the only setting laid at the table. He placed his napkin in his lap, and as the matronly Mrs. Fleming poured his first cup of coffee
, Jeremy allowed his gaze to survey all that he had brought together, treasures that comprised a most satisfactory lifestyle. The dining table was from the late seventeenth century. He ate from Limoges china. An original Arras tapestry hung upon the wall. The silver service was from the royal court of Russian. Handmade linen napkins were perfectly folded on the inlaid Georgian china cabinet. The Persian carpet had been a gift from his Uncle Clive.

  Everything gleamed in orderly profusion, the only way Mrs. Fleming would have it, of course.

  It was the gentleman’s townhouse Jeremy had dreamed of since he was a boy. Why did it now seem so cheerless?

  He sighed and opened the paper, glancing cursorily at the front page, then turning by habit to the classified advertising, a place where he often came across listings of valuable antiques for sale at favorable prices. His eyes scanned the antiques section, then he turn to the estates that were for sale. Lady Julia was not the exception in owning an estate she could not afford to keep up, and such landowners often began to liquidate heirlooms in an effort to pay the heating bills on huge and drafty mansions.

  His gaze traveled down the long slit, when it caught suddenly on an ad placed by Gina Useppi.

  Dewhurst Manor was back on the market.

  “What…?” he said aloud, startling Mrs. Fleming, who almost dropped the platter of eggs she was serving.

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing,” Jeremy muttered, scowling. What had happened to all of Alison’s big plans for Dewhurst. He recalled how her face had lit up when she talked about renovating the old manor house into a resort, with—how had she put it?—laughing, happy people there. What about her comment that she had found a home a Dewhurst? A sickening thought enveloped him. Drew Hawthorne must have worn her down. Jeremy had never told her about the phone conversation he’d overheard between Hawthorne and somebody named Fromme, who obviously had their own plans for her money.

  He had to warn her. He had to keep her from being manipulated by the very attorneys who were supposed to be looking out for her best interests. They might be doing just that, he acknowledged, but intuitively he knew better. He slammed his napkin back onto the table and stood up.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Fleming,” he apologized for his peculiar behavior. “Something’s just come up. I’m going to be leaving for the day. Don’t bother about dinner. I’ll eat at the club.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Jeremy appreciated Mrs. Fleming’s taciturn nature. The woman seemed not to have a nosy bone in her body.

  Going into his study, he opened a small drawer in his desk and drew out the envelope that contained the strands of Byron’s hair that he’d retrieved from Malcomb McTighe. At one time, he might have been tempted to keep them, since nobody knew he had them. But since his sojourn at Dewhurst, it had never crossed his mind to keep something, even as small as a piece of hair, that belonged in that incredible library. He wondered fleetingly if Alison’s servants had been able to put it back together in some kind of reasonable order. He still did not know what to make of the destruction in that room.

  The return of a few pieces of hair, the relating of a warning he should have given before now, and nothing else. Those were his reason, his only reasons, for traveling to Dewhurst Manor. But as the Porsche sped northward on the A1, Jeremy felt his entire body infused with new energy. As every mile clicked by on the speedometer, he felt the lethargy and listlessness of the past two weeks lift from his shoulders, replaced by an eagerness he would like to deny but couldn’t—a pressing desire to see Alison again.

  He left the motorway and drove along the outskirts of Hatfield, when he spotted an old woman sitting beside a cart of flowers along the roadside. He recalled the strange but appreciative look on Alison’s face the night he’d given her the two flowers he’d filched from the vase in the Great Hall. Money and flowers had smoothed Gina’s ruffled feathers when she found out he’d used her to get at the antiques at Dewhurst. Alison didn’t need money, but maybe flowers might assuage the wrath he expected when he knocked at her door.

  He stopped and turned off the ignition, then went to the flower cart and carefully selected the reddest rose he could find. And the pinkest carnation.

  Lady Byron could never cohabit with her noble husband again. He has given her cause for separation which can never be revealed; but the honour due to the female sex forbids all further intercourse forever.

  Opinion of Dr. Lushington on the Question of Divorce

  I traveled with my millstone Annabella to Six Mile Bottom to visit my beloved Augusta. Caroline was safely in Paris, although unexpectedly, she had begun to write again, imploring me to come there & implying she would flee with me to Switzerland where we could abide together in peace & contentment outside the trying eyes of all those in Society. Apparently she had found my Sin forgivable after all.

  But I could not bring myself to travel to the city that had so recently been the stronghold of the great Napoleon. Rather I would find some comfort in familiar arms, & dandle my “Godchild” Medora upon my knee, all the while showing the pious Lady B. what a loving relationship could be like. It worked for both of the women well, I believe. One evening, for the sport of it, I lay upon the sofa & required each to take turns kissing me. It gave me pleasure to see the outrage on Annabella’s face when I reported the results of the test—that Augusta’s kiss was far more satisfying.

  My life continued just this side of Hell. I was deeply in debt, & returned one morning from a night of gaming at my club to find to my horror that a bailiff had slept overnight at my house so as not to miss me. Utterly debauched, I proceeded to lose myself in dissipation. Caroline was ever in my thoughts, although I was glad enough to be spared her company which would have only made matters worse.

  My sole legitimate child, whom I named Augusta Ada, was born on a cold December night, with Annabella upstairs wailing whilst below I drowned my despair in wine & bashed the bottles to shards. I later sought out Susan Boyce, a dull but willing actress with whom I had a liaison during the time of Annabella’s encroaching accouchement.

  I hated my wife & passed up no opportunity to prove it, even threatening to bring Susan to live with us just after Ada’s birth. It should have come as no surprise to me then, when in a fit of melancholy I ordered Annabella to leave the house and take the child with her. That she did, & chose never to return.

  Annabella was accustomed to my attacks of misanthropy & I fully expected her to return as if nothing untoward had taken place. Indeed, her first correspondence was pleasant enough, & gave no hint of the vicious plot she was setting against me.

  It was an ungodly alliance that moved against me from this time. It started with Annabella, urged on by her righteous parents. I may have hated my wife, but that is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings again her mother & father. Lushington & Romilly, despicable lawyers hired by the Milbankes, connived to spread a campaign of whispers about what abominations I had forced upon Annabella, without saying exactly what it was I had done, & this, on top of my reputation for indulging in incest, proved my final undoing. Once I was the Darling of London Society, but now, they poised like vultures to devour me. Annabella & her vile copartners were not alone in plotting my downfall. Innocently my own beloved Augusta was lured into Annabella’s plot, & not so innocently, so was Caroline.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Alison sat at the harpsichord in the first receiving room, running her fingers idly over the keyboard, picking out tunes that she vaguely remembered from her days of private music lessons as a child. She was lonelier than she’d ever been in her life. If it hadn’t been for Kit and Kate and their rowdy but delightful young friends on the swimming team who had come to practice almost every day in the pool at Dewhurst, Alison thought she might lose her mind.

  She hated that she was putting the old place up for sale again, but her earlier enthusiasm for creating a resort had flown with the disappearance of the ghost…and Jeremy Ryder. The house was just a b
ig, old empty mansion, no different really from the ones in Boston and Palm Beach. She had no need for such a huge place, no desire any longer to pursue it as a business. In one respect, Drew Hawthorne had been right. It had been a mistake to invest in the derelict property.

  But she’d put it on the market at a more reasonable price and would sell the antiquities separately. The total would add up to a nice profit on her investment, even though guilt nagged at her about separating the house and the furnishings that made it the special place it was. The sale of the books in the library bothered her especially.

  She and Kit and Kate had tried to restore order to the havoc wreaked by the ghost, but only the shelves reorganized by Jeremy had made any sense. Books were still stacked along the walls, and Alison had no heart for the task any longer.

  Alison had no heart for much of anything. Her life was empty, a frivolous waste, it seemed. She had wanted to control her destiny, but what good was that if her destiny was to live as a rich but lonely brat? She’d wanted her own way, and she’d got it.

  If only she knew what to do with it.

  The doorbell rang, and she heard Mrs. Beasley open the door. Who would be calling on a Sunday? Alison wondered. Gina would have phoned ahead if she were showing the property. Curious, she scooted off the bench and went to the doorway to the Great Hall. Her heart lurched when she saw the tall, handsome man who had come to call…lurched, and then almost came to a standstill.

  Mrs. Beasley was professionally and loyally making her excuses why she could not let him come in, but Alison interrupted her.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Beasley,” she said, her words catching in her throat. “Please, come in, Mr. Ryder.”

  The servant left the two of them standing in the cathedral-like ambience of the ancient hall. Alison’s pulse raced as emotions swirled through her.