Lady of Seduction (24 page)

“And you were happy with him? He was the right husband for you?”

She looked at Grant. He seemed terribly serious, as if this was not merely conversation to pass the miles. He sounded as if
the answer mattered to him.

“Yes,” she said. “He was the right husband for me—then. I needed rest and quiet, needed time to find myself. But I think perhaps
what I needed at seventeen is not quite the same as what I need now.”

“So when you return to Dublin, will you seek out another man like him? Someone steady and dependable, like that horse?”

Caroline laughed and patted the mare’s neck gingerly. “I have no idea what I will seek out in Dublin. I’ve scarcely had a
moment to think of late. But maybe I won’t marry again at all. Just because my mother and my sister Eliza married again after
being widowed doesn’t mean I must. Maybe I will just be my family’s old widowed aunt who insists on telling Irish myths at
the Christmas dinner table. I could teach Lina how to embroider—if I was any good at it. Or I could teach them how to ride
their ponies. I seem to have the knack for it now, don’t I?”

Unfortunately, the mare chose that moment to veer toward the hedgerows again, and Caroline had to jerk hard on the reins to
get her to come back. Then the horse headed for a distant meadow.

Grant laughed and galloped after them. “I wouldn’t become too ambitious an equestrian just yet, Caro.”

“Well, maybe I won’t teach them to ride,” she said as he led them back to the road. “But I can teach them about old Celtic
ruins. What about you? What will you do when we reach Dublin?” Would she see him again once they were there? Or would he keep
his word and stay out of her life?

“I doubt I would be able to teach children anything at all. I can’t embroider worth a damn, either.”

“You’ll have to do something when we get there. Will
you move back into your beautiful house? It’s been all closed up since you left.”

“I probably won’t be in Dublin very long. I’m not planning to restore my house and renew my social life. Though it might be
amusing to see people’s reaction if I showed up at the Crow Street Theater one night, don’t you think?”

Amusing
wasn’t exactly the word Caroline would use. All these years later, Dublin Society still gossiped about Grant and all that
had happened before the fire. It would be like a galvanizing bolt of lightning if he suddenly appeared in their midst again.
And what would Anna and her husband say? Would there be a duel?

Perhaps he was right, and their lives should not meet again after they reached Dublin.

“It wouldn’t have to be the theater,” she said. “There are always the Rutland Square assembly rooms. They’re terribly crowded
every week since Parliament moved to London, and there’s nothing useful for anyone to do but dance and drink. You could make
your appearance there.”

He gave her a wry smile. “And would you dance the first dance with me, Lady Hartley?”

Caroline imagined taking his arm and walking with him onto the dance floor as everyone stared at them. He had been a fine
dancer, though she had never had the chance to partner him. She used to watch him from her seat beside the wall and envy the
way he touched his partner, the way he smiled down at her, the smooth, powerful grace of his movements. She was only a passable
dancer herself, but surely in his arms, being swept around and around, it would feel very different.

Even if everyone
did
whisper about them while they did that dancing.

“You know,” she said, “I just might. My sisters always got to be the scandalous ones—now it should be my turn. But I must
warn you, I am quite notorious for treading on my partners’ toes.”

“Then it’s probably fortunate for us both that I will never go to the assembly rooms,” he said.

“Yes,” Caroline murmured. “Most fortunate.”

“I will conclude my business in the city and then leave as quickly as possible. I don’t want to cause more trouble.”

“And where will you go? Back to Muirin Inish?”

“I doubt I would be welcome there with open arms. I think I’ve stayed there long enough, anyway. It was a place of refuge
when I left Dublin, someplace quiet where I could think about all that had happened, but maybe it’s time to see a new place.”

“What sort of new place?”

Grant shrugged. “I hear America is rather nice. Or India.”

America? India? Caroline’s heart sank. Those were so very, very far away. There would be no chance at all of meeting him again
if he sailed off to some distant shore. No chance to…

To do what? She didn’t even know. She had no claim on Grant, nor he on her. They were together for this short time only, this
brief period when she got to leave her life and have an adventure. He would go on to more adventures, and she would go back
to her work. She had always known that.

She shouldn’t feel sad about it now, and yet she did. Very much.

She shook that pang of regret away and gave him a bright smile. “They both sound terribly intriguing. I was
reading a book recently written by a man who lived in the forested wilds of America with the Indians. Shall you do that?”

“I may have to,” Grant said with a laugh. “It’s probably the only place in all the world where I could hide from you Blacknalls.”

“Hide?” Caroline scowled at him in mock indignation. “I assure you, Grant Dunmore, there is no need for that. We can always
find you, even in America.”

“Hmm. Well, perhaps the South Sea islands then.”

The afternoon passed in such engrossing speculation of what life would be like on a tropical island that Caroline almost forgot
she was on horseback. She forgot they were on an urgent errand with those secret papers, that she was far from all she knew,
and dependent on her own wits with a man she couldn’t fully trust. They laughed together, shared a midday meal under a tree
by the side of the road, and talked of their childhoods and all they had dreamed of doing then.

But as they neared the town of Kilmallock, where they planned to stop for the night, Caroline was painfully aware that she
had been in the saddle all day. Her thighs and backside ached, and she clung to the reins to keep from sliding off. She forced
herself to sit up straight and keep smiling, but as Grant lifted her down in the courtyard of an inn a moan escaped from her.

Grant frowned and slid his arm around her waist to hold her up until the numbness faded. “Are you quite well, Caro? I knew
we should have stopped at the last village and not pressed on.”

Caroline shook her head and gave him her most determined smile. “We had to press on if we wanted to make
good time. I’m perfectly fine. I just need to walk around a bit and stretch my legs.”

He didn’t look convinced. “I’ll hire a phaeton tomorrow to take us to Ballylynan.”

“Nonsense! I’ll be able to ride tomorrow. Now go find us a room for the night. I’ll just walk around a bit out here.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

Caroline laughed. “I’m a lad, remember? And no one is here to see me except that boy coming to take the horses.”

At last she managed to get him to go inside—and she immediately collapsed onto the nearest mounting block. She was sure her
legs didn’t want to hold her up for another minute.

Once she felt strong enough, she pushed herself up again and walked around the empty courtyard. The movement did help, and
slowly the ache faded away to a faint twinge. A carriage clattered in, and more servants came scurrying out of the inn to
tend to it. Caroline hurried past the gates to get away from the chaos and stood just outside on the walkway.

Kilmallock was a bigger place than Killorgin, full of shops and tall, old buildings built close together along the cobbled
street. Carriages, people on horseback, and pedestrians hurried by, and the shopkeepers were lowering their shutters and locking
their doors for the night. The sky was a dark blue above the rooftops and chimneys, and a couple of faint stars blinked along
the horizon.

The scents of roasting meats and stewed cabbage floated out of the inn, making her stomach rumble. It seemed a long time since
their earlier meal.

A horse suddenly galloped around the corner at the end of the street and came careening up the lane. It was so fast, so out
of control, that the other people scattered with shouted curses. The horse’s hooves pounded like thunder on the cobbles, and
the rider’s black coat flapped behind him like a demon’s wings.

A woman stumbled next to Caroline and dropped her market basket. Vegetables and a loaf of bread fell onto the walkway. Caroline
stooped to help her gather them just as the out-of-control horse hurtled past them.

Caroline looked up to add her curses to the others, but the shout strangled in her throat. The rider wore no hat, and his
angel-gold hair gleamed. The pure, etched profile looked just like Captain LaPlace.

LaPlace, who she had pushed down the ledge and left for dead to rescue Grant from the dungeon. Whose body she hadn’t seen
as they left the island.

She pulled her cap lower to hide her face, but he was gone in an instant. There was only the street full of irate people left
in his wake. Caroline handed the woman her basket and made sure she was unhurt before running to the corner where the horse
had turned and disappeared. She desperately scanned the street, but there was only more of the same—scattered pedestrians
and vegetables spilled on the walkway.

Was it LaPlace? Could it possibly be that he had lived and found his way off Muirin Inish? He had seemed in a terrible hurry.
If it
was
LaPlace, he was surely after the papers and probably after revenge, too.

Caroline turned and hurried back to the inn. She had forgotten her sore muscles in the excitement, but now they ached all
over again. Her heart was pounding erratically.

“There you are!” she heard Grant shout. He ran out the gates to take her arm and help her into the inn yard. “I leave you
alone for five minutes, and you vanish on me.”

“Oh, Grant,” she whispered as she clutched at his hand. “I think I just saw LaPlace.”

A
re you certain it was him?” Grant asked. He and Caroline made their way along yet one more street of Kilmallock, scanning
every face as they passed, looking in every barroom and doorway. The night was fully dark around them by then, the lamplighters
tending to the street lanterns as girls in revealing, cheap satin gowns stumbled out to begin their rounds.

They had found nothing yet except people who remembered the wild horseman galloping down the road and were angry at being
knocked aside. No one had seen him again, and the only other inn in town besides theirs had no such guest.

But Caroline’s face had been pale with shock, as if she had indeed seen a ghost. If it was LaPlace, he was gone now. Grant
had to protect the papers—and protect Caroline, too. He knew men like LaPlace, men filled with anger and bitterness, determined
to avenge themselves on the world.

Grant knew because he had been such a man himself once. Until a pair of solemn brown eyes looked into his soul and woke him
up.

“No, I’m not entirely sure,” Caroline said. “He went by so very quickly, but it looked like him.”

She stumbled on a cobblestone, and he caught her arm. She still looked so pale, with dark circles like bruises under her eyes.
Grant felt a sharp pang of guilt.

“If it was him, he is long gone,” Grant said. “He won’t find us tonight, and I have no desire to go chasing him across the
countryside in the middle of the night. Let’s go back to the inn. You need something to eat.”

Caroline bit her lip. She looked as if she wanted to argue, to keep on looking, but she nodded. “You must be hungry, too.”

“Mostly I just want to sleep in a real bed.” With her beside him. “We can leave early tomorrow. With any luck, if that is
LaPlace, we can avoid him by taking the country roads until we reach Dublin.”

They made their way back to the inn, which was now blazing with light and filled with guests looking for a drink. Caroline
seemed to relax as they came closer to the noise and bustle. The fear faded from her eyes.

But Grant felt his fury born anew that LaPlace could still frighten her, even after she had defeated him. He never wanted
her to be afraid again. Her life should be only peaceful and happy, and once he had her safe with her family again, away from
the darkness of his own life, she would be.

He would make sure of it.

Once their chamber door closed behind them, he took her in his arms and kissed her gently. Her lips were soft beneath his,
and her arms wound around his neck. He felt such a vast tenderness come over him at her touch, and a fierce protectiveness.
She was
his
, his beautiful, sweet
Caroline. He belonged to her as he had never thought to belong to another living being, and it made him feel stronger—and
weaker—than ever before.

“I have to go out for a while,” he told her quietly.

“Go out?” she cried. “Now?”

“Not for long. I’ll have them send up bathwater and something to eat, and I’ll be back before you know it. Just keep the door
locked and the pistol on the table.”