Her Sudden Groom (48 page)

Edwina stared down at her fingernails. “I love Alex to death. He’s actually my favorite brother, but...” She shrugged.

“
But?” Caroline prompted.

“
Don’t tell him I said this, but sometimes he lives up to his nickname, Arid Alex,” Edwina said quickly, a forced smile on her face.

Caroline had to catch herself from laughing. “All right. What’s going on, Edwina?”

“
I’ve taken an interested in astronomy, and I’m afraid if I ask Alex for help, he’ll ruin it.”

This time Caroline did laugh. She couldn’t help it. “And you think I can help you?”

Edwina nodded. “Alex told me you know a lot about astronomy.”

“
I don’t know that much,” Caroline admitted.

“
But you do know something about telescopes, don’t you?”

Caroline nodded sadly. “I know some.”

“
Good,” Edwina said cheerfully. “One of my friends at school loves astronomy and she got me interested to looking at the different constellations and reading
England Astronomy.
This morning I was reading this month’s addition, and it said tonight, Uranus will be visible in the southern sky. I’d so dearly like to see it, but my study of astronomy is fairly new and I’m not positive I’ll be able to find the planet. I know Alex would help me, but I just want to see it, not hear all about its rotation patterns, size, and who knows what else he might think my astronomical education would not be complete without knowing.”

Caroline smiled at her. Edwina was correct in her ascertainment about Alex. He’d not only love to show her the planet, he’d also want to give her as many details as her brain could hold. He’d probably insist on giving her an examination afterward, too. “I think I can find it for you. Why don’t you meet me here about eleven, and we’ll walk out to the gazebo together?”

“
Thank you, Caroline,” Edwina said, giving her a hug.

Like Caroline expected, at precisely eleven, Edwina showed up at the door to her sitting room, lantern in one hand,
England Astronomy
in the other. “I thought I’d bring this just in case.”

Caroline grabbed one of her lanterns and closed the door. “Let’s be off.”

The two talked of Edwina’s recent interest in astronomy and what her favorite constellation was as they walked to the gazebo.

“
Oh dear,” Edwina said when they reached the gazebo. “I’ve got all sorts of mud on my slipper. Go on in and look for it. I’d better scrape this off or Alex will know I’ve been in here and he’ll want to talk me to death about astronomy.”

Caroline chuckled. Most people would have been concerned he’d be upset she’d tracked mud inside, not worry he’d want to talk about astronomy.

She went in and hung her lantern on a nail that was poking out of the wall. She remembered Alex’s telescope was directly to the right of the entrance because she’d nearly tripped over the bottom of the ladder when he’d first brought her here. She frowned. The ladder wasn’t there. She looked around and her eyes caught on the sight of the ladder across the gazebo. How odd.

Her eyes followed the ladder up to the top and collided with the eyepiece-end of the telescope. She blinked. Surely he had not moved and remounted his telescope. She walked forward and climbed the ladder.

At the top, she froze in shock. This wasn’t his telescope at all. This was hers. How had he gotten it? And why had he bothered to mount it? Besides it being broken, he seemed to have no feelings whatsoever for her.

For reasons she couldn’t identify, she put her eye to the eyepiece. It was broken, of course. She just wanted to pretend for one minute it wasn’t. She moved the lever on the bottom and aimed it at the sky, then took her face away and blinked. Was it just her or had the images appeared clear and close? She looked through it again and moved the telescope around. “Well, I’ll be,” she muttered. He’d fixed it. How or when, she’d never know, but he’d fixed it and mounted it for her. Her traitorous heart swelled. His father had been right. He cared for her. He just did an awful job of showing it.

She looked around the sky for Uranus, thinking about Alex as she looked. He had to have fixed it in the past three weeks. If he’d done it before then, he’d have told her. And he certainly hadn’t done it today or yesterday. That only left sometime in those three weeks after his father had passed.

She moved the telescope up and down, searching the sky for Uranus. Edwina had been gone much longer than she ought to be for wiping mud off her shoes. Caroline frowned. As soon as she found the planet, she’d go drag Edwina in here. If Alex asked who tracked mud inside, she’d just lie and say it was her.

A minute later, she’d found the planet and the door swung open. “I’ve got it,” she announced, twisting the dial to sharpen the focus.

“
And who has you?” a male voice murmured from behind her as its owner stepped on the ladder and closed his hands around her waist.

She stilled. “Lord Watson, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said tightly.

“
Lord Watson?”

“
That’s who’s in here with me, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “I suppose he is.”

“
Well then, what’s the problem?”

He climbed another rung on the ladder, pushing his body against hers. “No problem. I was merely surprised to hear you call me by my title. You don’t have to, you know.”

She shrugged. “I know, but it seems the nice man I married named Alex packed his things and left, shortly after being falsely informed I’d planned to lead him about by a particular body part of his. A cruel man who has no interest in me named Lord Watson has since then taken his place.”

He sucked in his breath as if he’d just been punched in the gut. “That’s not true. He has plenty of interest in you. He even made an overnight trip to London to purchase the right lens and spent most of the day fixing your scope for you.”

“
Your sister is due back here any minute. She would like to use the telescope without your interference.”

He snorted. “No, she wouldn’t. She just said she would. Weenie can be a very persuasive actress. Particularly when being promised new gowns when she returns to school in a week.”

Caroline closed her eyes. She’d been tricked. “In that case, I’d like to retire for the evening.”

His hands climbed to her ribs and settled below her breasts. “You don’t want to use your newly repaired telescope?”

“
No. Not tonight.”

“
Hmm,” he said, drumming his fingers against her ribs. “That’s not the response I was hoping for.”

“
And what response were you hoping for, my lord? Did you think you could trick me into coming out here and we could stargaze together and act as if nothing is wrong?”

“
That would be nice. But not exactly what I’d intended.” He leaned his head down to rest his forehead on her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do to make this right, Caroline,” he whispered solemnly, as something hot that felt oddly like a tear hit her skin. “I didn’t mean any of those things I said. I was angry with you and I thought I had all the facts, but you were right, I didn’t. I didn’t know you’d gotten an upsetting letter from your father. I thought you were telling my mother you hated me for finding what I’d written. That’s why I assumed you were trying to use your body against me. I didn’t realize you truly didn’t feel well or that you’d been crying about your father. I thought it was about me.”

“
You give yourself far too much credit, my lord,” she said crisply. “I’d forgiven what you’d done only hours after I’d read it. Most gentlemen plan their courtships out. Fortune hunters, mainly. You’d just taken it a step further by writing it down, checking the steps off as you’d accomplished them, and even jotted down some rather uncomplimentary comments—that’s the only difference.”

“
I’m sorry about that,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have written any of down it in the first place.”

She pursed her lips. “But you did. Which, as I already said, isn’t the part that hurt. It was the humiliation of being compared to a soiled dove.” She clamped her eyelids down tight to keep her tears in check. “Alex, though I never truly understood Olivia’s implications until recently, very recently, in fact, she always used to—” She bit her lip for a minute and blinked again. “Olivia used to imply
I’d
be a lady of ill-repute if not for her father rescuing me. That’s why it hurt so badly that you’d think of me that way, too.”

He swallowed hard. “I wasn’t thinking of you that way,” he said hoarsely. “When I wrote the part about finding a soiled dove, it was only to make light of a bad situation. Before my pen even scratched out the first letter on that sheet, I knew I wanted to marry you.”

“
I just don’t understand why you had to write any of it,” she replied, her voice cracking from hurt and frustration.

“
Caroline, as you found out a few weeks ago, your cousin and I share a birthday. While my father and your uncle were celebrating her birth, they got carried away and decided to draw up a betrothal contract for their children. Eight years later, it was amended to say if I married someone else before the thirtieth anniversary of my birth, there would be no repercussions. I didn’t know of any of this until the day I came to Ridge Water to talk to Marcus. That’s what was in the papers he looked over, and his suggestion about treating something like a science experiment had been about my search for a bride in such a short time.”

She nodded. She’d thought it odd Olivia had suddenly claimed she was to marry Alex when she’d never spoken kindly of him before. “So then you took Marcus’ sage advice and applied it straight to me?”

“
No,” he said, rubbing his thumbs on her back. “When he left us in the library together, I was trying to make a list of potential brides. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really think of any. I was too distracted by you, but never put you on my list because I didn’t think you even liked me, what with the
Society
rejection and all. Then you left and Marcus took my list, crossed every name off and put yours at the bottom. That’s why I decided to pursue you. Marcus seemed to think I had a chance, and I liked you. A lot. So I placed all my bets on one horse and pursued you relentlessly.”

She rolled her eyes at his poorly chosen phrase, but let it pass. “What do you really want? It seems you wanted nothing to do with me before you learned of my alter-ego, E. S. Wilson. But now you’re going to all lengths to fix my broken telescope and bribing people to help you create a situation where I’m trapped into listening to you.”

“
That’s not why. I was actually rather angry at Marcus for what he’d done. He had no—wait, how did you know? You were locked up in your room so I didn’t get the chance to tell you yesterday.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t have to. I’ve known for years what he was doing. Marcus just thought he was being sneaky. He wasn’t. I found out six months after he started. My uncle borrowed a copy of the circular from your father and brought it to Ridge Water to let me to read it. I recognized the article as mine right away. When I checked the box I stored my work in, I discovered it was out of order a bit. After that, I paid Emma to subscribe so she could bring me the circular to read because I was afraid if it was delivered to Ridge Water, Marcus would stop sending in my work. I didn’t realize until yesterday what he’d been doing with the money though. I’m assuming that was what comprised my dowry that neither of us knew I had?”

“
You’re very smart,” Alex mused, applying slight pressure to her midsection with his fingers. “You have excellent deductive reasoning skills.”

Caroline cracked a slight smile. “I’d thank you for the compliment, but there were enough clues present even Olivia could have solved that mystery.”

He chuckled, his light breath hitting the bare skin exposed at the top of her back, sending a shiver skidding down her spine. “Why didn’t you say something to him?”

“
I knew it was the only way to ever get my work read. I don’t care that it was under another name. But that’s not up for discussion. Your rotten behavior is.”

“
Do you want it under your name? I’m sure I can get something worked out for it to be under Caroline Banks, Lady Watson, in the future.”

“
I don’t really care,” she said offhandedly. If they’d have been having this conversation earlier this week she would have jumped at the chance of having her articles styled that way, or even Mrs. Alexander Banks, Lady Watson, or Alexander and Caroline Banks, Lord and Lady Watson. But not now. E. S. Wilson would suffice.