Four In Hand (2 page)

Caroline could not help grinning. She had noticed twinges of what she guessed to be pain passing spasmodically through the blue eyes. “If your head hurts that much, why don’t you try an ice-pack? I assure you I won’t mind.”

Max threw her a look of loathing. His head felt as if it was splitting, but how dared she be so lost to all propriety as to notice, let alone mention it? Still, she was perfectly right. An ice-pack was exactly what he needed. With a darkling look, he reached for the bell pull.

Hillshaw came in answer to his summons and received the order for an ice-pack without noticeable perturbation. “Now, Your Grace?”

“Of course now! What use will it be later?” Max winced at the sound of his own voice.

“As Your Grace wishes.” The sepulchral tones left Max in no doubt of his butler’s deep disapproval.

As the door closed behind Hillshaw, Max lay back in the chair, his fingers at his temples, and fixed Caroline with an unwavering stare. “You may commence.”

She smiled, entirely at her ease once more. “My father was Sir Thomas Twinning. He was an old friend of the Duke of Twyford—the previous Duke, I imagine.”

Max nodded. “My uncle. I inherited the title from him. He was killed unexpectedly three months ago, together with his two sons. I never expected to inherit the estate, so am unfamiliar with whatever arrangements your parent may have made with the last Duke.”

Caroline nodded and waited until Hillshaw, delivering the requested ice-pack on a silver salver to his master, withdrew. “I see. When my father died eighteen months ago, my sisters and I were informed that he had left us to the guardianship of the Duke of Twyford.”

“Eighteen months ago? What have you been doing since then?”

“We stayed on the estate for a time. It passed to a distant cousin and he was prepared to let us remain. But it seemed senseless to stay buried there forever. The Duke wanted us to join his household immediately, but we were in mourning. I persuaded him to let us go to my late stepmother’s family in New York. They’d always wanted us to visit and it seemed the perfect opportunity. I wrote to him when we were in New York, telling him we would call on him when we returned to England and giving him the date of our expected arrival. He replied and suggested I call on him today. And so, here I am.”

Max saw it all now. Caroline Twinning was yet another part of his damnably awkward inheritance. Having led a life of unfettered hedonism from his earliest days, a rakehell ever since he came on the town, Max had soon understood that his lifestyle required capital to support it. So he had ensured his estates were all run efficiently and well. The Delmere estates he had inherited from his father were a model of modern estate management. But his uncle Henry had never had much real interest in his far larger holdings. After the tragic boating accident which had unexpectedly foisted on to him the responsibilities of the dukedom of Twyford, Max had found a complete overhaul of all his uncle’s numerous estates was essential if they were not to sap the strength from his more prosperous Delmere holdings. The last three months had been spent in constant upheaval, with the old Twyford retainers trying to come to grips with the new Duke and his very different style. For Max, they had been three months of unending work. Only this week, he had finally thought that the end of the worst was in sight. He had packed his long-suffering secretary, Joshua Cummings, off home for a much needed rest. And now, quite clearly, the next chapter in the saga of his Twyford inheritance was about to start.

“You mentioned sisters. How many?”

“My half-sisters, really. There are four of us, altogether.”

The lightness of the answer made Max instantly suspicious. “How old?”

There was a noticeable hesitation before Caroline answered, “Twenty, nineteen and eighteen.”

The effect on Max was electric. “Good Lord! They didn’t accompany you here, did they?”

Bewildered, Caroline replied, “No. I left them at the hotel.”

“Thank God for that,” said Max. Encountering Caroline’s enquiring gaze, he smiled. “If anyone had seen them entering here, it would have been around town in a flash that I was setting up a harem.”

The smile made Caroline blink. At his words, her grey eyes widened slightly. She could hardly pretend not to understand. Noticing the peculiar light in the blue eyes as they rested on her, it seemed a very good thing she was the Duke’s ward. From her admittedly small understanding of the morals of his type, she suspected her position would keep her safe as little else might.

Unbeknown to her, Max was thinking precisely the same thing. And resolving to divest himself of his latest inherited responsibility with all possible speed. Aside from having no wish whatever to figure as the guardian of four young ladies of marriageable age, he needed to clear the obstacles from his path to Caroline Twinning. It occurred to him that her explanation of her life history had been curiously glib and decidedly short on detail. “Start at the beginning. Who was your mother and when did she die?”

Caroline had come unprepared to recite her history, imagining the Duke to be cognizant of the facts. Still, in the circumstances, she could hardly refuse. “My mother was Caroline Famingham, of the Staffordshire Farninghams.”

Max nodded. An ancient family, well-known and well-connected.

Caroline’s gaze had wandered to the rows of books lining the shelves behind the Duke. “She died shortly after I was born. I never knew her. After some years, my father married again, this time to the daughter of a local family who were about to leave for the colonies. Eleanor was very good to me and she looked after all of us comfortably, until she died six years ago. Of course, my father was disappointed that he never had a son and he rarely paid any attention to the four of us, so it was all left up to Eleanor.”

The more he heard of him, the more Max was convinced that Sir Thomas Twinning had had a screw loose. He had clearly been a most unnatural parent. Still, the others were only Miss Twinning’s half-sisters. Presumably they were not all as ravishing as she. It occurred to him that he should ask for clarification on this point but, before he could properly phrase the question, another and equally intriguing matter came to mind.

“Why was it none of you was presented before? If your father was sufficiently concerned to organize a guardian for you, surely the easiest solution would have been to have handed you into the care of husbands?”

Caroline saw no reason not to satisfy what was, after all, an entirely understandable curiosity. “We were never presented because my father disapproved of such…oh, frippery pastimes! To be perfectly honest, I sometimes thought he disapproved of women in general.”

Max blinked.

Caroline continued, “As for marriage, he had organized that after a fashion. I was supposed to have married Edgar Mulhall, our neighbour.” Involuntarily, her face assumed an expression of distaste.

Max was amused. “Wouldn’t he do?”

Caroline’s gaze returned to the saturnine face. “You haven’t met him or you wouldn’t need to ask. He’s…” She wrinkled her nose as she sought for an adequate description. “Righteous,” she finally pronounced.

At that, Max laughed. “Clearly out of the question.”

Caroline ignored the provocation in the blue eyes. “Papa had similar plans for my sisters, only, as he never noticed they were of marriageable age and I never chose to bring it to his attention, nothing came of them either.”

Perceiving Miss Twinning’s evident satisfaction, Max made a mental note to beware of her manipulative tendencies. “Very well. So much for the past. Now to the future. What was your arrangement with my uncle?”

The grey-green gaze was entirely innocent as it rested on his face. Max did not know whether to believe it or not.

“Well, it was really his idea, but it seemed a perfectly sensible one to me. He suggested we should be presented to the
ton
. I suspect he intended to find us suitable husbands and so bring his guardianship to an end.” She paused, thinking. “I’m not aware of the terms of my father’s will, but I assume such arrangements terminate should we marry?”

“Very likely,” agreed Max. The throbbing in his head had eased considerably. His uncle’s plan had much to recommend it, but, personally, he would much prefer not to have any wards at all. And he would be damned if he would have Miss Twinning as his ward—that would cramp his style far too much. There were a few things even reprobates such as he held sacred and guardianship was one.

He knew she was watching him but made no further comment, his eyes fixed frowningly on his blotter as he considered his next move. At last, looking up at her, he said, “I’ve heard nothing of this until now. I’ll have to get my solicitors to sort it out. Which firm handles your affairs?”

“Whitney and White. In Chancery Lane.”

“Well, at least that simplifies matters. They handle the Twyford estates as well as my others.” He laid the ice-pack down and looked at Caroline, a slight frown in his blue eyes. “Where are you staying?”

“Grillon’s. We arrived yesterday.”

Another thought occurred to Max. “On what have you been living for the last eighteen months?”

“Oh, we all had money left us by our mothers. We arranged to draw on that and leave our patrimony untouched.”

Max nodded slowly. “But who had you in charge? You can’t have travelled halfway around the world alone.”

For the first time during this strange interview, Max saw Miss Twinning blush, ever so slightly. “Our maid and coachman, who acted as our courier, stayed with us.”

The airiness of the reply did not deceive Max. “Allow me to comment, Miss Twinning, as your potential guardian, that such an arrangement will not do. Regardless of what may have been acceptable overseas, such a situation will not pass muster in London.” He paused, considering the proprieties for what was surely the first time in his life. “At least you’re at Grillon’s for the moment. That’s safe enough.”

After another pause, during which his gaze did not leave Caroline’s face, he said, “I’ll see Whitney this morning and settle the matter. I’ll call on you at two to let you know how things have fallen out.” A vision of himself meeting a beautiful young lady and attempting to converse with her within the portals of fashionable Grillon’s, under the fascinated gaze of all the other patrons, flashed before his eyes. “On second thoughts, I’ll take you for a drive in the Park. That way,” he continued in reply to the question in her grey-green eyes, “we might actually get a chance to talk.”

He tugged the bell pull and Hillshaw appeared. “Have the carriage brought around. Miss Twinning is returning to Grillon’s.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Oh, no! I couldn’t put you to so much trouble,” said Caroline.

“My dear child,” drawled Max, “my wards would certainly not go about London in hacks. See to it, Hillshaw.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Hillshaw withdrew, for once in perfect agreement with his master.

Caroline found the blue eyes, which had quizzed her throughout this exchange, still regarding her, a gently mocking light in their depths. But she was a lady of no little courage and smiled back serenely, unknowingly sealing her fate.

Never, thought Max, had he met a woman so attractive. One way or another, he would break the ties of guardianship. A short silence fell, punctuated by the steady ticking of the long case clock in the corner. Max took the opportunity afforded by Miss Twinning’s apparent fascination with the rows of leather-bound tomes at his back to study her face once more. A fresh face, full of lively humour and a brand of calm self-possession which, in his experience, was rarely found in young women. Undoubtedly a woman of character.

His sharp ears caught the sound of carriage wheels in the street. He rose and Caroline perforce rose, too. “Come, Miss Twinning. Your carriage awaits.”

Max led her to the front door but forbore to go any further, bowing over her hand gracefully before allowing Hillshaw to escort her to the waiting carriage. The less chance there was for anyone to see him with her me better. At least until he had solved this guardianship tangle.

———

As soon as the carriage door was shut by the majestic Hillshaw, the horses moved forward at a trot. Caroline lay back against the squabs, her gaze fixed unseeingly on the near-side window as the carriage traversed fashionable London. Bemused, she tried to gauge the effect of the unexpected turn their futures had taken. Imagine having a guardian like that!

Although surprised at being redirected from Twyford House to Delmere House, she had still expected to meet the vague and amenable gentleman who had so readily acquiesced, albeit by correspondence, to all her previous suggestions. Her mental picture of His Grace of Twyford had been of a man in late middle age, bewigged as many of her father’s generation were, distinctly past his prime and with no real interest in dealing with four lively young women. She spared a small smile as she jettisoned her preconceived image. Instead of a comfortable, fatherly figure, she would now have to deal with a man who, if first impressions were anything to go by, was intelligent, quick-witted and far too perceptive for her liking. To imagine the new Duke would not know to a nicety how to manage four young women was patently absurd. If she had been forced to express an opinion, Caroline would have said that, with the present Duke of Twyford, managing women was a speciality. Furthermore, given his undoubted experience, she strongly suspected he would be highly resistant to feminine cajoling in any form. A frown clouded her grey-green eyes. She was not entirely sure she approved of the twist their fates had taken. Thinking back over the recent interview, she smiled. He had not seemed too pleased with the idea himself.

For a moment, she considered the possibility of coming to some agreement with the Duke, essentially breaking the guardianship clause of her father’s will.

But only for a moment. It was true she had never been presented to the
ton
but she had cut her social eyeteeth long ago. While the idea of unlimited freedom to do as they pleased might sound tempting, there was the undeniable fact that she and her half-sisters were heiresses of sorts. Her father, having an extremely repressive notion of the degree of knowledge which could be allowed mere females, had never been particularly forthcoming regarding their eventual state. Yet there had never been any shortage of funds in all the years Caroline could remember. She rather thought they would at least be comfortably dowered. Such being the case, the traps and pitfalls of society, without the protection of a guardian, such as the Duke of Twyford, were not experiences to which she would willingly expose her sisters.