Fortunate Wager (14 page)

Caroline beamed at him. ‘He would, would he not? Dear ma’am, do you mind being involved in this little subterfuge? Harry and Louisa are so in love.’

Her grace was looking delightfully diverted. ‘There. I knew I was right to leave Lizzy and Marshall together. Pray hurry to Mr Fortune and have him wrap the bait any way he chooses.’

Caroline sped outside and was lucky enough to find her brother heading for the house. ‘Do go, Harry,’ she urged, when she had finished the breathless recital, but not mentioning Mr d’Arblay. ‘The alderman would adore being able to drop into conversation that he entertained a duchess at his table before the assembly. And he will feel so kindly towards you for bringing him the news.’

‘Best of sisters,’ said Harry, giving her an exultant hug. He ran
indoors to change his coat, darted in to press a kiss to the duchess’s hand, then hied back to the yard without giving them a farewell.

‘You will like the alderman when you meet him, ma’am,’ said Caroline. ‘He is such an endearing snob, and so fond of Louisa. But he feels he has to be mother and father to her, you see, and simply cannot perceive that Harry would love her and look after her in exactly the way he himself would wish.’

‘And you don’t think Giles would?’ said Alexander. There was still a small wrinkle marring his forehead.

‘Oh no, dear,’ said the duchess, earning Caroline’s undying loyalty. ‘Even at his most charming, Giles will never love anyone near so much as his own self.’ She looked at her son serenely. ‘And I am afraid once the girl’s money runs out, he will not love her at all.’

At this, Caroline could feel Alexander’s anger. ‘You are a little harsh today, Mama.’

‘Am I, dear? Ah well, I daresay you know him best. Is he travelling with you tomorrow? Shall I take both of you up in my carriage?’

‘In truth, ma’am, we had not yet fixed the details,’ said Caroline quickly. ‘I shall be accompanying Mrs Penfold, of course, but I am sure if you offer Mr d’Arblay a place in your equipage, he would be delighted to accept.’

‘Aye, do that, Mama. I can always come back with you if I cannot stand Fortune’s handling of the ribbons for more than one trip.’

‘Or if a second fifteen-mile journey in the night air does not seem a wise move after dinner and dancing,’ murmured Caroline.

After his mother had taken her leave and they had seen her carriage depart along the Cheveley road, Alexander caught Caroline’s arm when she would have gone upstairs. She beat down the thrill his touch gave her.

‘Did you know?’ he asked. ‘Did you know Giles was going there tomorrow?’

Caroline moistened her lips. ‘Louisa wrote that Mr d’Arblay had been looking around the Church of St James when he happened to meet them on Sunday. Anyone who praises his town is always sure of a welcome in the alderman’s house.’

Alexander looked at her without expression. ‘Thank you,’ he said finally.

‘For what, my lord?’

‘For not saying that Giles probably didn’t mention his invitation because he assumed I would not be interested.’

Did that mean the scales were beginning to fall from his eyes regarding his friend? Caroline hoped so. ‘He may not even know you are going,’ she said diplomatically. ‘I daresay Louisa’s father merely commended him to come and take pot-luck with them before the assembly. Mr d’Arblay would not know that the alderman’s notion of pot luck runs to five courses with two removes and as much company as the table can hold.’

Alexander grinned wryly. ‘In that case, I’d give a monkey to see his face when my mother extends
her
invitation tonight.’

‘Lord Rothwell,’ said Caroline, oddly formal, at dinner. ‘I have a favour to ask you.’

Alex had to repress an indulgent smile. She was wearing a dark-pink gown tonight. He suspected from the cut that it had once belonged to Mrs Penfold and been inexpertly taken in, but anything was better on her than insipid blue with those dreadful ruffles. ‘If it is within my power,’ he said.

‘It is about Solange.’

He felt himself go cold. Surely her brother had not put her up to something? He shot a look across the table, but Harry was listening amiably to a rambling story of Mrs Penfold’s. ‘What of Solange?’ he asked.

‘I should like to buy her. What is her price, please?’

Alex stared at the composed girl next to him as if she had run mad. ‘Forgive me, my hearing seems to be at fault. For a moment there I thought you said you wished to buy Solange.’

‘I do.’

‘This is not some scheme to void the bet should your brother lose, is it? I am afraid the entry in the book reads “
… will train the grey mare Solange, currently owned by….
”’

‘No, my lord, though that would have been a very good ruse if we had but thought of it.’

‘Minx. Then why?’

An intriguing wash of colour ebbed across her face. ‘I have taken a fancy to her,’ she said.

A bubble of amusement rose inside him. ‘I see. It is not that if she wins, her price would naturally increase, so you think to get her at a bargain rate?’

‘There. You have found me out. How unfortunate that you are of such a discerning turn of mind.’

‘Caroline, this must be nonsense. Consider, if I take you up on your offer, and she then unseats her rider and tramples him, you will have bought a killer.’

‘She won’t.’

‘I admire your confidence in your brother’s training. Have you thought that if she loses, the pair of you will be out by a thousand guineas
and
the price of the horse? And you will never be able to sell her on.’

‘I do not wish to sell her on! Indeed I can fairly promise you that I won’t.’

‘Then why?’

She took a deep breath. ‘You will remember how troubled and ungovernable Solange was before. She is
happy
at Penfold Lodge: I want her to stay happy. If you sell her to anyone but me, she will almost certainly be taken elsewhere.’

She cared. He could hear the passion in her voice. Something stirred in him. ‘Are you so certain, then, that I will sell her? Why should I not leave her with your brother, to race again at the next meeting?’

Caroline’s fingers twisted the fabric of her gown. Alex wanted to lay his hand over them to calm them. ‘You know as well as I that Solange is no racehorse. I do believe she will not disgrace us this time, but it would be arrant cruelty to force her into it again.’

‘But what other use could she be? A horse that might buck at any time is clearly not a lady’s riding mount.’

He knew he was teasing her, which was not the act of a gentleman, but he loved the agility of her mind. She did not disappoint him. ‘I believe she will prove an excellent mother,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘I am thinking of making a book on what colour foal she and Rufus will have first.’

Alex laughed. ‘Caroline, I cannot sell you Solange.’

Her face lost its animation, as if she was absorbing a body blow without wanting the pain to show. His own heart quickened.

‘I will give her to you.’

Her lips parted. She regarded him with disbelief. ‘Give? Why?’

Because you want her.
‘As … as an expression of my thanks for the excellent nursing I have received here.’

He saw her assimilate this. Interestingly, it seemed to please her no more than the body blow, but it did not stop her accepting. ‘Thank you, my lord. Then I will gladly take her on those terms. Will you write me an owner’s paper this evening before you change your mind?’

‘I will.’ He glanced again across the table. His voice dropped and his tongue took off without him. ‘But I should like it very much if you were to thank me with my own name.’

There was a moment of something nearly-there between them. Caroline held his eyes. ‘Thank you, Alexander,’ she whispered.

The deed was done, the transfer of ownership signed and witnessed by Mrs Penfold and the butler. And Caroline felt lower than a worm, crawling between the cobbles of the
stable-yard
.

There had been that warmth in his eyes again. He had wanted her to call him Alexander. He had
given
her a valuable horse. It felt horribly as though she had tricked him.

Caroline rested her forehead against the cool glass pane as she
looked out over the night garden. Up at the stable block, one of the grooms would be on watch. Flood was not taking any more chances with unwanted intruders. On the ground floor, to her left, a bar of oblique light showed that Alexander was also gazing out at the night. The footman outside his door had been dispensed with some days ago. It would be perfectly safe for her to slip down and ask again why he had given her Solange so easily. Safe as far as her reputation went, that is. Not safe at all in terms of her heart. Caroline shut her curtains with a decisive pull and climbed into bed. Alexander was the younger son of a duke and as far above her touch as the moon. One presentiment of danger at a time was all she could manage.

F
RIDAY. ALEX HAD
slept abominably. He had felt himself to be constantly on the point of slipping into nightmare, so had kept waking up instead. He was restless and uneasy, the clouds outside were pressing down, and having decided that he couldn’t wait another couple of hours for his valet, and being disinclined to ring for him now and endure the man’s frowns and fussiness, he dressed and headed for the stable. Perhaps the early morning routine would soothe him.

In the yard, all was purposefulness and bustle. Stalls were being mucked out, horses were being wrapped with blankets and led into the damp, crepuscular dawn. Fortune was in working garb, talking to a couple of the men. Flood was checking girths and straps. Caroline, however, was nowhere to be seen.

One of the stable-hands noticed him. His eyes darted nervously over Alex’s shoulder as he pulled his forelock. Flood saw him too, and trod stolidly across the yard. ‘Off you go,’ he said, making a shooing motion to the nervous lad. ‘Mr Harry don’t pay you to stand around up here. Won’t you come under cover, milord? Miss Caro would have our eyes if you caught a chill in this nasty drizzle.’

‘Thank you. I thought she might be here, as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh aye, she’s around the place somewhere. Probably lending a hand with the men’s breakfast. The weather don’t make a lot of difference to Miss Caro.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw the nervous groom take
off at a run. He followed Flood into the stable block, already feeling more settled by the company and the sense of work being got on with.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said abruptly. ‘I wondered if there was anything I could usefully do?’

Probably there was a directive in the grooms’ handbook for Dealing With Recalcitrant Gentry because Flood eyed him measuringly and then set him to polishing leatherwork, much as his father’s head man at Abervale would have done. Sitting there, buffing cloth in hand, the scent of horse in his nostrils and busyness all around him, Alex dismissed once and for all the notion that these stables were concerned with anything shady. He bent his head to his work, imbued with calm.

A whinny behind him heralded Solange’s arrival. Alex turned, thinking to have a word with her rider, but it was one of the older men leading her in. She was sweating and hungry from the morning exercise and he marvelled again at how different she was from the rearing, kicking, biting animal they had brought here not three weeks ago. A little later, Caroline appeared, bearing a covered cauldron of porridge. Her hair was beaded with rain.

She met his eyes with surprise, and left the men to help themselves. ‘I did not think to see you here, my lord. If you are like to make a habit of it, I had best bring up an extra bowl.’

He smiled. ‘There is no need, for all I am being tolerated very nicely this morning. I merely thought employment might suit me better than being unable to sleep. It is the weather, no doubt.’

Her brow furrowed with concern, which gave Alex a quite inordinate sense of well-being. ‘Then you must have a mug of porridge,’ she said. ‘I dare not say so in the kitchen, but on those not conditioned to it, it is guaranteed to induce torpor within the hour.’

He laughed, but found to his surprise that once back in his room where a fire had been lit in his absence and Harry’s valet was cheerfully on hand to pull off his boots, he did indeed drop into a dreamless sleep.

The rain increased and kept everyone inside for the rest of the morning. Caroline would not have been able to work any more with Solange even if she had dared to after Alexander’s shock appearance in the yard whilst they were out on their early run. It really was becoming ever more difficult to keep her activities secret from him.

Towards afternoon the weather cleared, however, and the sky became brighter. ‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Harry in relief. ‘We shall be able to take the curricle after all instead of squeezing into the carriage.’

‘I am sure Mrs Penfold and I are equally pleased that you will not be crowding us and crushing our skirts,’ retorted Caroline.

Because of Mrs Penfold’s fussing about not being late, the ladies were amongst the earliest arrivals. Mrs Penfold was borne off by Louisa’s aunt, but Caroline remained near the door keeping Louisa herself company. Lord Rothwell and Harry naturally gravitated to their side, so all four had a first-hand view of the scene when Alderman Taylor, with swelling chest and beaming visage, was able to welcome the Duchess of Abervale to his house.

Her grace behaved beautifully, bathing everyone in her smiling warmth and praising every gilded touch. Watching her progress from the vestibule to the best spot in the salon leaving a swathe of complacency in her wake, Caroline thought she could very easily learn to love Alexander’s mama.

‘I had no notion you were recovered enough to junket about,’ remarked Mr d’Arblay presently, coming up to where Alexander was suffering his mother to quiz him about the adequacy of the hood on Harry’s curricle and the warmth of his travelling rugs.

‘No? If you thought me so infirm two days ago, I wonder you did not give me a head-start in our billiards game. I should then not have dropped that pony to you.’

Caroline laughed with everyone else, but continued to watch Mr d’Arblay. To her, at least, he did not appear so well pleased
with the company as the alderman’s other guests.

He seemed to take the reply in good part. ‘Well, and I am glad you are better. You won’t miss the Second Spring Meeting next week, and you will find it much more the thing at the White Hart. I daresay it is living so quiet that has made you slow to mend.’

Caroline’s eyes connected with those of the duchess, swiftly and urgently. There was a flash of comprehension before her grace tapped Mr d’Arblay’s hand with her fan. ‘Now, now, Giles, it is all settled that Alex will come to Cheveley with me for the week and we’ll go on to Abervale from there. I am sure the White Hart is a very good sort of inn, but a mother never really feels safe unless her brood is gathered around her, you know, especially when one of that brood has recently received a nasty knock on the head.’

Caroline waited for Alex to say this was the first he had heard about his removal from Penfold Lodge, but he was uncharacteristically silent. Doubtless he was too much the gentleman to contradict his mama in public.

When they sat down to table, it was clear that Mr d’Arblay had suffered another blow. The duchess, naturally, had been placed next to her host but it was Alexander who had been awarded the seat by Louisa. From her lowly position making competent conversation with a wool merchant on one hand and a banker’s son on the other, Caroline watched Giles outwardly charming the banker’s wife, but all the time darting needle-fine glances at Alexander and Harry.

Harry, who should also have been jealous of Alexander, was on the contrary in high alt. The whole group had seen the alderman lay his hand on Harry’s arm earlier and say sincerely that he depended on the young man to make his neighbour at dinner feel comfortable, for she was Louisa’s godmother – an old friend – and not at all used to society.

For all the array of dishes, the dinner was brisk; before too long the company were donning cloaks and taking carriages the short distance to the Subscription Rooms. Having observed the
slight, occasional twitch to his shoulders during the meal, Caroline was anxious that Alexander might consider his duty done and fail to ask Louisa for the first two dances, but it was evidently not one of his days for defying convention so she was able to breathe again that her friend had not been snubbed.

‘Well now,’ said the duchess, pausing next to Caroline a little later, ‘I have told your alderman that I have not enjoyed myself so much in ages, that I am very much obliged to Mr Harry Fortune for bringing tonight to my attention, and that the arrangements here are far superior to our country assemblies at home. Was that not well done of me?’

‘
Very
well done, ma’am,’ said Caroline gratefully. ‘And I could not tell you before, but I am so pleased that Lord Rothwell will be going with you to Cheveley instead of back to the White Hart. You know his disposition better than I do of course, but I cannot feel him to be quite as much recovered as he thinks himself.’

‘And no nurse likes to see her best endeavours thrown away. Quite so. I could not agree with you more. On which head, by the by, if it so happens that Alex finds himself a trifle
over-extended
tonight and Mrs Penfold does not care to leave early, I shall be more than happy to take her home in my carriage leaving the Penfold Lodge one available for you.’

That very subject had been exercising Caroline’s mind to a considerable extent ever since the outing had been proposed. Alexander would never admit to weakness in company, yet Mrs Penfold looked forward so much to relaying the whole business of the evening to her particular circle of friends that it seemed sad to curtail her gentle pleasure. ‘You are very good, ma’am,’ said Caroline gratefully.

‘Not at all, my dear. But I do have the best interests of my children at heart.’

When Alex was finally able to claim Caroline for his two dances, he saw her search his face worriedly. ‘Don’t say it,’ he warned. ‘Do not say I should not have come out tonight. If I have the appearance of being fatigued it is merely the effect of several
hours’ exposure to
duty
. And I may tell you that if Miss Taylor were not your friend, I might not have put up with it so long as I have.’

Caroline’s face flushed a delicious pink. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said. ‘I know she might chatter a little too much for your taste, but it would have been uncomfortable indeed for Louisa had you not danced with her after being her neighbour at dinner. I am sure you will be rewarded.’

Alex looked down at her quizzically. ‘When?’ he asked.

He saw the startlement in her eyes. ‘In … in the fullness of time, naturally,’ she stuttered.

‘Ah, I was afraid it might not be until then.’ He led her to the set, berating himself for letting the teasing question out. He must be more tired than he thought. ‘Good God,’ he said aloud. ‘Giles has beaten your brother to be Miss Taylor’s next partner. How remiss of Fortune.’

Caroline gave the candid chuckle he had come to enjoy. ‘Not at all. However much you may doubt it, Harry does think ahead when it suits him. He will have put himself down for the supper dance. And look – he is leading your mama into this set. That will be a considerable feather in his cap with the alderman.’

The supper dance. The evening suddenly seemed endless. And Mama making an enchanting exhibition of herself and Giles sniping both at him for being born higher and at Harry Fortune for his careless address. ‘I suppose this is not a waltz by any chance?’ he said.

Caroline looked shocked. ‘Certainly not, or I would be sitting it out. Young ladies are not permitted to waltz.’

‘That is a pity. I could have leant on you under the pretence of leading you around the room.’

Now she was alarmed. ‘I thought you said you were not fatigued.’

How astonishing to
like
her concern, to solicit it even. ‘The thought of having to last out beyond the supper dance has changed my mind.’  

The music started. Caroline seemed to match her steps to his
without thinking. She ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. He had noticed it was a trick she had when nervous or unsure of herself. ‘Your mama did say that if you chanced not to be equal to the whole evening, she would convey Mrs Penfold home leaving the Lodge carriage for you and me.’

Mama had said that? Alex turned to stare at his oblivious parent. ‘That was very good of her,’ he said slowly. ‘But I would not wish to suspend your pleasure by having you leave the assembly early.’

‘What pleasure would I have in knowing you were ill? Do not be ridiculous, Alexander. You have been so very sick that if you are like to be unwell again now, we should most certainly leave.’

Alexander. She had called him Alexander.
His hand clasped hers as they came together then apart. ‘We will see this dance out,’ he said, ‘and then yes, I own I should like the carriage to be called.’ After all, as a dutiful son, who was he to go against his mama’s express directions?

Alex took his hat off with a sigh of relief and put it on the opposite seat. ‘That is better,’ he said.

‘Do you have a headache?’ asked Caroline.

‘A little. I daresay it will ease off now we are away from all those chandeliers. The subscription book must be full indeed to afford so much display. Do you wish to remove your bonnet? We have a way to travel.’

She grinned. ‘Very much, but if I do, my hair will disgrace me. Mrs Penfold’s maid has a most ruthless way with pins. I have endured them all evening so as to appear just a little more poised than normal, but I have to admit to pulling several of the more stabbing ones out before cramming on my bonnet to come home.’

Happiness was stealing up on Alex with every unconventional word Caroline uttered. He could feel it happening and was in no way moved to prevent it. ‘I promise I shall not tell a soul,’ he said. ‘And once we are out of the town gate, there will be no flares to light the interior so I shall not see
any thing amiss.’

‘My lord, there is a full moon in the sky.’ But she untied her bonnet strings and laid it on the seat next to his. Then she grimaced and pulled out another hairpin, putting it carefully in her reticule. A lock of hair promptly fell down.

He touched it, unable to stop himself. ‘Do you need any help?’ he said, a laugh in his voice.

It was a moment priceless beyond all others. She looked up at him, her face open and shy. ‘Are you
very
experienced in these things, Alexander?’

Alex’s heart turned over. ‘Not
very
,’ he said gently. ‘But some.’

‘Well … well that is good. For it is as well that one of us knows what we are doing, don’t you think?’

There would never be any beating about the bush with Caroline Fortune. No simpering smiles or coy misunderstandings. Alex felt around her silky hair for the rest of the pins. Strands slithered over his fingers, straight and fine. ‘I am not sure I
do
know what I am doing,’ he said. ‘That’s the lot, I think. Do you?’