My Lady Caroline

by Jill Jones

  Relief that he’d returned.

  Desire. Doubt.

  And then anger.

  “Where the hell are the damned memoirs?” she demanded immediately. He stared at her, his face carefully void of expression.

  “How would I know?”

  She laughed derisively. “Because you and that creep Hawthorne both disappeared like two thieves in the night, along with the memoirs. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the pair of you set me up,” she added cynically. Her blood was boiling. This man had colossal nerve showing up on her doorstep, with those insipid flowers, for God’s sake, like she was some simple little lamebrain who didn’t guess what he’d done.

  “Set you up?” He said it as if it came as a great surprise.

  “Don’t play games with me, Jeremy,” Alison sneered. “I am capable of putting two and two together.”

  Suddenly she saw rage on his face, an anger restrained only by a personality that was a master of self-control. “And coming up with five, it would seem.” He replied in a voice of steel. “Five, or seven, or ten, or whatever suits you, no matter what the truth is.”

  “I didn’t invite you here, Jeremy,” Alison bit back, “and I won’t stand by while you insult me.”

  “I find your accusations highly insulting. Why do you think you should have the corner on rudeness?”

  Alison wanted to throw something at him. Where was the ghost when she needed it? “You’re insufferable. You may think it rude to accuse you of stealing, but from what I know of you, honesty isn’t your strong suit. You used false pretenses to gain access to Dewhurst in the first place, according to what Gina told me. You were looking all over for the memoirs, and even though I can’t prove it, I’d bet money that if you’d found them on your own, you’d have sold them in a heartbeat to some private collector. Too bad you had to share the profits with Hawthorne,” she added nastily.

  Her breath was coming in sharp, short gasps, and she felt lightheaded. A pain shot through her somewhere near her heart. It hurt to verbalize the agonizing conclusions she had come to after Jeremy had left their shared bed, but she’d been unable to convince herself they weren’t true.

  Jeremy threw the flowers on the floor and took Alison roughly by the shoulders. “It’s about time somebody stood up to your tantrums,” he snarled. “You are dead wrong about all this, and you’re as big a fool as Hawthorne said if you believe that I had anything to do with the disappearance of those memoirs.”

  Alison cringed beneath the strength of his hands. She could feel his fury in his powerful clinch. “Then why did you leave?” she asked, stifling a sob. “When you and Hawthorne and the memoirs all disappeared conveniently at the same time, what else would I think?”

  “I left,” Jeremy replied, relaxing his grasp on her shoulders, “because…,” he paused as if groping for words, then finished in a voice so low it was barely audible, “I love you.”

  Alison raised her head abruptly, not believing she’d heard him right. “You what?” She could see in his eyes that he was fighting some kind of inner war that she didn’t understand.

  “I left you,” he said at last, “because you told me you wanted to work out your life on your own, that you resented everyone trying to tell you what to do. I’m the type of man who would likely try to do exactly that, I’m afraid,” he said, calmer now. “I’ve had to fend for myself since I was fourteen, and I’m used to taking charge of things. It seemed to me you had a good idea about turning Dewhurst Manor into a resort, and I thought it best if I gave you that freedom.”

  Alison guessed she’d heard him wrong. She thought he’d said he loved her, but he didn’t repeat that, so she must have misheard him. But what he had said went straight to her heart. She would never have dreamed that his leaving her had been a gift, but she saw now that it had been meant that way, and it was a gift she could deeply appreciate. She felt her eyes grow moist. “I misunderstood, obviously,” she whispered over a tight throat. “But why did you leave the way you did, in the middle of the night, after…”

  Jeremy pulled her against him and encircled her with his strong arms. He placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. “That part isn’t so easy to explain,” he replied after a moment. She felt his heart beating heavily in his chest, and her own heart echoed its rhythm. The man was an enigma to her, but she yearned for him to offer an explanation that would take away the pain she’d lived with for the past two weeks—the pain of his rejection.

  “I’m listening, for a change,” she murmured, encouraging him. She felt his short, silent laugh.

  “Like I said, I’ve been on my own since I was a teenager, and I’ve preferred to keep my distance from others, especially women. I’ve always believed that…permanent relationships usually foul up otherwise perfectly civilized lives. And I’ve been pretty successful at maintaining my independence—that is, until you came along.”

  Hope sprang in Alison’s heart, but she remained silent, not daring to believe he might actually have said what she thought she’d heard a moment before.

  “I left you in that manner because I was afraid,” he said at last. “I was afraid if I waited until the light of day, I might never leave. I knew that night, when I held you in my arms, and you talked to me and cried and let me know the real you, that I had fallen in love with you. And yet, because I loved you, I wanted you to have things on your own terms. You needed desperately to do this business with Dewhurst without my interference. And in order to give you that freedom, I knew that I had to leave.” He paused, then added, “Maybe it also had something to do with my all-important independence being threatened. Either way, I opted for the coward’s way out.”

  Alison raised her head and looked into his dark eyes, and she saw that he spoke the truth. She saw that it was a difficult truth for him, and she realized that she’d been so self-absorbed that she’d never considered his wants or needs. Or anyone else’s for that matter. She was exactly what Nicki had called her, she admitted to herself—a brat.

  But he loved her anyway.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” she murmured, a joy unlike anything she’d ever known filling her very being. “How can I ever tell you how sorry I am for accusing you like that?”

  Relief etched his handsome features. “Then you’re not going to throw me out after all?” he grinned.

  “How could I throw out the only man who has ever loved me?”

  Jeremy tipped her chin upward with this forefinger. “You do believe me? That it is you that I love, not your money?”

  Alison swallowed. It was a question that had before posed an insurmountable obstacle between her and the chance of happiness with a man. One that she may have aggravated unnecessarily in her paranoia and anger against her father.

  She considered the two weeks she had just spent, alone and miserable. She had wanted her way. She’d got it. No one had told her what to do. She’d been left to make every choice and decision for herself.

  And it was the worst two weeks she’d ever spent in her life.

  “I believe you, Jeremy,” she said, smiling at him. She splayed her fingers across his broad chest. “I believe everything. And I love you so much.”

  She ran her hands up his chest and behind his head, and closed her eyes as Jeremy’s lips touched hers. Suddenly her world tilted as she let go of the pain and grief and loneliness, the self-doubt, defiance and anger. Her demons left like ghosts in the night whose spectral energy finally had been exhausted.

  Go to her whatever the cause, little or great—it must be made up. If you knew what odeous reports people circulate when men part from their wives, you would act in this instans prudently…I have disbelieved all the reports until now; but I trust they are of far less consecuense than some pretend.

  —Lady Caroline to Lord Byron

  I have said of women that they are a sex I could not love. Indeed, I never loved any of them, although I made the show of doing so. It was a lie, & I paid the price, but I am justified in my conviction about the sex, for t
hose I had tried to Love the most—Caroline, Augusta, even Annabella, are those who eventually conspired to destroy me.

  The General of the armee fatale was Annabella, upon whom I admit having wrought grievous wrongs, the premiere being that I married her at all. The first recruit in her war of hatred was Augusta—Gus, dear Gus, whose nature was so sanguine & trusting, was unsuspecting when she placed in the hands of the General secrets of our liaison & the truth of Medora’s parentage, not knowing that she was actually giving witness against me.

  Caroline was an easier recruit. Although in the beginning she pretended to warn me against myself, I believe these warnings were a mere camouflage for the Treachery that followed. I, like many others, believed Caro to be mildly insane & did not deem her capable of thinking clearly enough to pose a threat to me in any way in the nasty affair cooked up by my Princess of Parallelograms. I never realized—until it was far too late—the depth of her wrath or the lucidity of the calculated Revenge she plotted against me.

  The fire licked at the logs in the hearth, keeping the chill at bay in the master suite of Dewhurst Manor. Outside, a slow summer rain dripped from the eaves. Alison had given the servants the afternoon off, and she and Jeremy were at last alone.

  They lay together naked between crisp linen sheets, their desire sated, at least for the moment. Alison snuggled closer to Jeremy, allowing herself to get used to the idea that she could be loved by a man. Truly loved. He had spent the afternoon showing her just how much, both in word and deed. She felt languid, fluid, and deliciously happy.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Hmmm?” he replied, nuzzling her ear.

  “Should I keep Dewhurst after all?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “I have put it back up for sale.”

  “I know. It was the ad in the Times that brought me back here.”

  Alison rolled against him, her breasts pressed against his chest. “And all along I thought it was me,” she teased.

  Jeremy ran his fingers down the silken skin of her back and along the curve of her hips. “Actually, it was Hawthorne,” he grinned wickedly.

  “Don’t bring that bastard into our bed,” she cautioned, kissing his neck.

  “I came here to warn you that he and somebody named Fromme had plans for your money, once they got you to agree to put the insurance money into the trust.”

  Alison sat up abruptly. “How do you know about all that stuff?”

  Jeremy pulled her back into his arms and held her tightly, and his embrace reassured her that his intentions were good. “Hawthorne told me about the trust. He didn’t have much respect for client privilege. The rest I learned when I accidentally picked up the phone while he was talking to Fromme.”

  Alison sighed. “Too bad he ended up with the memoirs. Since I can’t prove the existed, it would be hard for me to file theft charges against him, but I’ve alerted Benjamin Pierce that I will do whatever it takes, including suing their entire firm, to get him out as the director of the trust.” She laughed. “Imagine me telling the formidable Benjamin Pierce what to do.”

  Jeremy kissed her again. “You still don’t realize your own strength, do you?”

  “Nobody has ever made me feel very strong. Only incompetent and stubborn and spoiled.”

  “I’d call you intelligent and capable and assertive.”

  No one had ever, ever talked to her that way. At the moment, it meant more than even the words I love you. Alison’s heart was so filled with love and gratitude she thought it would burst. She shifted in his embrace so that her face was above his.

  “That kind of talk will get you everywhere, mister,” she grinned, lowering her lips to his. “Everywhere,” she whispered as she moved to show him just how an intelligent, capable, and assertive woman makes love to a man.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When fortunes changed—and love fled far,

  And hatred’s shafts flew thick and fast,

  Thou were the solitary star

  Which rose and set not to the last.

  —Lord Byron, “Stanzas to Augusta”

  Caroline turned Traitor at the end, betraying the Love she swore she would carry for me into the Hereafter. She went to Annabella loaded with all the ammunition that Dreadful General needed to secure a separation & to destroy what was left of my life. Lady Byron completed her campaign against me as successfully as Wellington conquered Napoleon. I admitted defeat in April, 1816, signed an agreement to our separation, & prepared to go into exile. I was hated by everyone in the canting Beau Monde. Those who had rushed to adore me when I was Childe Harold would not now speak to me on the street. Young women would raise their skirts so as not to sully them if they were forced to pass where I had trod. There was but one, a sycophant named Claire, who offered me solace during those terrible days. In time I came to hate her as much as I now hated Annabella & Caroline. But I will deal with Claire & the offspring of that ill-fated liaison, Allegra, later in these miserable memoirs.

  I was rendered penniless & had no choice but to leave England & live in exile for the rest of my days. I left Mayfair just before dawn, mounting my carriage which had been stocked with two bottles of champagne, a cake, & some Jewish pastries for my travels. My good Friend John Cam accompanied me to the quay, & Dr. Polidori. In Dover, a bevy of chambermaids pressed close to get a look at the despicable Lord Byron, some of them strikingly familiar, as if I had been seated across from them at some long distant dinner party in Whitehall.

  I see as I review these notes that I have turned churlish. In writing down my memories of what took place in those dreadful years, I sought to resolve my confusion over the whole mad affair with Caroline Lamb, but I believe there can be no resolution. She writes to me still, as if she had nothing to do with my downfall. It is possible that she does not remember. I understand she has taken to heavy drinking & is quite wasted now. She tells me she will Love me through all Eternity, & that if I do not reply, she threatens to haunt me after she is gone. I do not reply. It is only her madness talking, & at any rate, it does not matter anymore. Nothing matters. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity…

  “I’m famished,” Alison said, much, much later after she and Jeremy awoke, entwined in each other’s arms as naturally as if they’d been lovers always. Jeremy’s hard-fought battle to stay uninvolved was lost, but he no longer cared. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now. He was involved, and hoped he always would be involved with the copper-haired, golden-eyed sprite with whom he’d just spent the most enchanted afternoon of his life.

  “Do you suppose Mrs. Beasley would get upset if we broke into her kitchen and raided the refrigerator?” he asked, his own appetite whetted by the energy he’d expended in making love for several hours. “Fleming gets rather agitated by that sort of thing, unless I’ve asked her to leave me a snack.”

  “Who’s Fleming?”

  “My housekeeper.” He was amused at the look on Alison’s face.

  “You have a housekeeper?”

  “Who do you think you’re looking at, a pauper?”

  She laughed and sat up. “More like a prince, I’d say.” She cocked an eyebrow. “The question is, Prince Charming or Prince Machiavelli?”

  “Maybe a little of both,” he laughed, taking in the sight of her slender and exquisitely feminine body. It was as if he could not get enough of her. He felt desire flooding again to his groin. How long could he endure this powerful, if delicious passion? He was almost relieved when she got out of bed before he had time to take her back into his arms and ravish her again.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said, pulling the bedcover around her modestly. “Let me take the first shower, then I’ll make us some supper. That way, I’ll bear the brunt of Mrs. Beasley’s wrath if she discovers we’ve invaded her domain.”

  “Separate showers?” he said, genuinely disappointed, but understanding. For all of her natural passion, he sensed Alison was inexperienced as far as the opposite sex was concerned. He even found
her demure attitude toward standing naked before him captivating. He grinned and nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll just lie here and dream of my other lover.”

  Alison threw a pillow at him, and they both laughed, remembering the shower of feathers Caro once had rained on him.

  But he did have another lover of sorts, he thought after Alison had left the room. Caro. He was certain it had been the ghost of Lady Caroline who somehow had infiltrated his dreams and aroused his passion. But she hadn’t shown up since he’d left Dewhurst. Perhaps because dreams of Alison had taken her place.

  Where was the ghost now? He wondered. Had it given up after Hawthorne made off with the memoirs? Or had it, he considered with a grin, followed the despicable little man across the ocean? He rather hoped it would stalk Hawthorne until he gave up what was rightfully hers.

  Jeremy sincerely regretted the loss of the memoirs, just as the tantalizing puzzle was beginning to come together. The real-life Caroline Lamb must have been either as crazy as they said she was, or so in love and obsessed with Byron that she deluded herself, thinking that by revising his memoirs, she could convince the world that he had truly loved her. And then not destroying his original, which if history could be believed, likely gave evidence to the contrary. That poor, pathetic creature, he thought.

  He wondered about Lord Byron himself. Had Byron loved her? Or only led her to believe he loved her? Had he strung her along? Or had he been the innocent victim of an unstable and revengeful Caroline, as most Byron biographers portrayed her? From all that he’d read, Byron’s favorite adjective to describe himself—wicked—seemed apropos, and having witnessed the fury of the ghost firsthand, Jeremy could believe that a man with an ego as huge as Byron’s could easily and wickedly have played mind games with Lady Caroline Lamb. He sighed.

  Too bad the world would never know.

  Alison emerged from the steaming bathroom clad in sweats and a heavy pair of socks. She was beautiful even in the baggy sportswear. “I’m going to have a time getting used to this weather,” she remarked with a smile.