Leslie Lafoy (23 page)

Maybe, if Caroline didn’t find someone to marry . . . He shook his head to dispel the notion, knowing that men would line up ten deep to offer for her. He had six months to work through and be done with his fascination with her. After that, they would go their separate ways, marry wisely, and never reach back. There were high risks involved between now and then, of course, but other than that, it was the only rational, sensible, logical, financially intelligent thing for them to do.

  Twelve  

CAROLINE STOOD AT THE FOYER TABLE WITH JANE
, watching the carpenters attach the fabric-draped valances atop the high narrow windows flanking either side of the main door. She smiled and congratulated herself on being right; luxurious draperies made all the difference in the world.

The medium dusty blue hue complemented the carpet on the stairs. The richness of the damask itself, the fullness of the panels, the pale gold fringe, and the generous jabots on the valances combined to balance the visual weight of the front doors and the stairs. What had been a cold and echoing chamber was now a welcoming and positive first impression of Ryland Castle. If all the rooms looked so improved when she was done with them, she’d be deliriously pleased. And exhausted, she adding, struggling to contain a yawn.

Wiltson, the estate’s head carpenter, came down his ladder and stood back to survey the effect. He gave his son on the other ladder a nod of acceptance and, as the young man climbed down, turned to Caroline and asked, “Will there be anything else tonight, madam?”

“No, Wiltson. We’ll declare it a day with this success.
If you and James will leave your ladders, Miss Durbin and I will quickly see to the pleating before we retire. Thank you for all your work. It’s much appreciated.”

He smiled, nodded, and motioned for his son to precede him toward the rear of the house. As they left, she and Jane gathered up the narrow strips of vellum from the foyer table and went to work on their last task of the day. Climbing halfway up the ladder, Caroline gently folded the width of a damask panel into easy pleats. “How does that look from down there?” she asked. “Too many? Too few?”

“Perfect,” Jane assured her, handing up a strip of vellum and a pin. “Tell me about Lord Ryland.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” she said, securing the paper collar around the carefully bunched fabric. “Until he became the duke, he was an officer in Her Majesty’s Artillery Regiment. He was just as surprised by his elevation as I was to be recognized as the old duke’s daughter.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Care,” Jane protested as Caroline stepped down a bit to repeat the folding procedure. “We’ve been friends for way too long for you to even think about lying to me and hoping to get away with it. The way that man looked at you when he left the workroom . . . He had you all but naked. And you weren’t blushing. In fact, if they slapped my hand on a Bible and made me tell the truth . . . You were hoping he’d sling you over his shoulder and carry you out.”

Of course Jane had noticed that momentary exchange. When it came to men, Jane never missed a thing. Even with her eyes closed. “I was more afraid that he’d actually do it.”

Jane handed her another strip of the vellum. “It was not fear twinkling in your sweet little blue eyes.”

No, it hadn’t been. She’d been remembering the ride together that afternoon, wishing that the fabric hadn’t arrived, and regretting that good judgment seemed to have recovered its strength. She pinned the paper sleeve in place, fighting back an unexpected sting of tears. Damn Drayton and the temptation he was.

“Are you all right, Care?”

No. No, she wasn’t. She ached—body, mind, and soul. And she wanted—no, needed—to share the burden with her friend. It was either that or walk into Drayton’s arms and let him make the world go away for her. She blinked back another searing haze of tears and came the rest of the way down the ladder, saying, “You have to swear to—”

“Take it to my grave,” Jane finished, holding up her free hand. She grinned and glanced around the foyer before quietly asking, “Is he good?”

Her mind danced through the memories, sending her heart racing and heating her blood. She closed her eyes, marveling at how her body so keenly remembered the sensation of his touch. “Oh,” she sighed, shaking her head and forcing herself to open her eyes and return to the present.

“I knew it,” Jane declared triumphantly, giving her a quick hug. “I’m so happy for you, Care. You deserve a good man.”

Caroline stepped out of her embrace and to the ladder on the other side of the window. “It was just the once,” she clarified, starting up. “Well, the one night, actually. It was the moment and—”

“Apparently,” Jane interrupted with a chuckle, “it was a series of moments.”

“Well, yes,” she allowed, the ache in her core oddly deepening. “But it can’t happen again. It just can’t.”

“Why?”

“Titles, money, and marriage to the best possible combination of the two,” she explained, gathering the fabric into pleats.

“So, marry him.”

“It wouldn’t be advantageous for either one of us.”

“What?” Jane challenged, handing up the paper and the pin. “Enjoying rolling around in a tangle with your husband doesn’t count?”

“Not really.”

“Who made up these ridiculous rules?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, stepping down a bit to repeat the process of arranging the folds.

“Well, whoever they are, they should be shot,” Jane declared. “And frankly, so should you if you’re turning your back on . . . What’s his real name?”

“Drayton. Drayton Mackenzie.”

“Oh, nice,” Jane murmured. “A Scotsman. You know what they say about Scotsmen.”

Her heart pounding, Caroline glanced down at her friend. No, she didn’t know about Scotsmen, but she did know Jane. And Jane’s disdain for any rules that might restrain her pursuit of pleasure. At the moment, Jane was imagining what sort of delights she could find with Drayton.

“You know, if you’re sure you’re done with him . . . ” Jane looked up and then laughed. “You should see your face.”

Caroline didn’t care how she looked. She glared at her friend, stuck out her hand for the vellum and pin, and said, “Don’t you dare, Jane.
Don’t
you
dare
.”

Jane’s hazel eyes twinkled as she passed the supplies. “You said that you can’t, you couldn’t. Not again. To me, that sounds as though he’s free for the taking.”

Seething, trying desperately to control the impulse to throw herself off the ladder and paste her to the marble floor, Caroline warned tightly, “Jane, don’t test our friendship.”

“Then claim him, Care,” Jane said with a shrug. “Straight-out. You don’t have to love him, you know. And you don’t have to intend to marry him, either. All you have to want is to keep him for yourself until you find someone more interesting. Claim him and I won’t go anywhere near him.”

“All right,” Caroline declared, coming down the ladder. She squared up to Jane and firmly announced, “He’s mine.”

“There,” Jane said, beaming, “don’t you feel ever so much better?”

“No, I don’t,” she admitted, turning and grabbing the ladder, knowing she’d been manipulated—artfully.

“You will as soon as you drop him onto the sheets,” Jane assured her, trailing along as she carried the ladder to the other window. “Infinitely better. Trust me.”

Trust Jane? On anything, with anything, except men. Why hadn’t she thought of that before so blithely insisting that she join them at Ryland Castle? Because, the logical part of her brain supplied through the red haze of anger, she’d insisted Jane come along before she’d discovered what a wonderful lover Drayton Mackenzie was. At the time he’d been a pompous ass standing in her shop, making declarations and seizing control of her life. She’d wanted to bludgeon him, and Jane had been the closest thing she’d had to a weapon. Now she was paying for neither one of them having been honest with each other in those moments.

That was the thing about lying and denying, she reminded herself as she went up the rungs. Sooner or later they turned around and bit you. As her mother had always maintained, the truth would eventually come out. And when it did . . . On top of everything that you’d been trying to avoid with the lies and denials was the inescapable fact that you were a coward, too. Better to accept and own the truth from the beginning, no matter how awful it was, than to be caught trying to run from it.

How all that related to Drayton . . . God, it was disheartening to realize that she really wasn’t one bit more refined or reserved than Jane when it came to the pursuit of physical pleasure. That she didn’t make a regular habit of surrendering to temptation was something of a consolation. A very small one, she knew, because she didn’t regularly face temptation. There had been Peter, of course. But in the wisdom of hindsight and the experience of life, she knew now that he had been the love of a very young, very romantic heart. Life together wouldn’t have been kind to their matching and they’d have both come to regret the hasty, breathless decision to ease their guilt by agreeing to marry.

Drayton was different. Different from Peter, different from any other man she’d ever met. And God knew that she wanted to be with him, to make love with him again. The truth, the most fundamental, absolute truth, was that she wanted him however she could have him. And that all the rules and proscriptions didn’t do one damn thing to change that.

They determined how it would all end, of course. But between now and then she didn’t want to lie or deny anymore. She didn’t have the strength or the energy for it.
And if Jane’s presence was the consequence for being dishonest with each other at the beginning, the consequences of living the rest of her life regretting that she hadn’t had the courage to be honest now were just too dismal to contemplate, much less endure.

“Tell me about Haywood,” Jane said quietly, intruding on her thoughts. “Is there all that much mystery to him?”

Caroline sighed, and taking the strip of vellum from Jane, answered, “Actually, no. He’s a lot like you.”

“Really?” she asked, her voice dropping to a mere whisper. “Is he always hovering about like that?”

That?
Which implied . . . She looked over her shoulder. Drayton stood at the hall entry to the foyer, Haywood at his elbow. “Yes,” she supplied, her heart skipping as Drayton slowly smiled at her. Her breathing shallow, her head light, she swallowed and turned her attention back to the drapes.

“I would imagine,” Jane said, laughter rippling through her whisper, “that you’d appreciate having him distracted.”

It took a long second for the import of that to sink through the haze of her own sense of anticipation. “For God’s sake!” she gasped, looking down, hoping—futilely, as it turned out—to stop her friend from acting on the impulse.

“Mr. Haywood!” Jane called, sailing across the foyer, the pincushion in one hand, the vellum strips in the other, and the tails of her head scarves fluttering behind her. Drayton stepped aside, losing an obvious battle to contain a grin. Haywood remained rooted to the spot, looking a bit, Caroline thought, like a man about to be run down by the queen’s carriage—both honored and horrified.

“Might I impose for just a moment or two of your time?” Jane asked, sweeping to his side, twining her arm
around his, and tilting her face up to turn the full force of her charm on him. “I need help with something and only a big strong man like yourself will do.”

Drayton stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and made another attempt to control his grin as he stared up at the chandelier. Caroline rolled her eyes as Haywood sighed and looked adoringly into Jane’s gaze. “Anything you require, my dear Miss Durbin.
Anything
at all. I’m your obedient servant.”

Practically glowing in delight, Jane led him off across the foyer toward the parlor. As she passed Drayton she paused to hand him the vellum and the pincushion, saying, “Here, your grace. Just give a strip and a pin to Caroline when she snaps her delicate little fingers.”

She didn’t wait for Drayton to accept the responsibility. No, in typical Jane style, she simply assumed that he had nothing better to do and proceeded to haul Haywood off into the shadows of the parlor. Drayton, clearly abandoning any further effort to contain his amusement, grinned and wandered out to the center of the foyer to watch their progress. Caroline couldn’t help herself, either. Jane really was a marvel when it came to twisting men around her fingers. Poor Haywood wouldn’t know what had hit him until—