My Darling Caroline (27 page)

She dropped her gaze to her lap in reflection. “Caroline became his unknown champion, and at that tender age, she began to study his work enthusiastically and passionately. For years she did nothing but follow what she could of him and his experiments, laboring in the garden and greenhouse from dawn till dusk, breeding roses, varying temperatures as she could, calculating growth patterns and color hues and various soil conditions, and above it all, taking notes on everything she did.”

She raised her lashes to look at her brother-in-law again. “As a child and then an adolescent, roses were the center of her life, Lord Weymerth, because not only could her unusual talent with flowers be used as a means to achieve personal satisfaction from something she adored doing, but that same talent was also a means to escape from a society that had termed her odd from the moment she left the cradle.”

That confounded him. “Caroline has never struck me as a woman who would hide from society, Jane. She’s unusually clever, perhaps even intimidating to other ladies, but she’s also elegant and can handle her own at any social function. I’ve seen her do it, and she’s hardly shy.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Jane replied, shaking her head. “Of course she knows how to behave as a lady should, but you’re simply describing a well-bred, properly raised individual.” With deep feeling, she leaned toward him and soothed her voice to an impassioned whisper. “Caroline had no friends, Weymerth, not one. Children thought she was so strange when she would rattle off Shakespearean sonnets from memory at the age of seven and innocently announce things like…it would be one hundred and forty-three days until Christmas. Nobody understood her, and children can be very cruel, so in the end, after the tears had dried and she’d accepted the fact that she was different, she retreated to her garden. Caroline hid the hurt of loneliness and bitter rejection the only way she knew how, by absorbing herself in her plants.”

Slowly she sat up. He scrutinized her sharply, his narrowed eyes penetrating hers as if to discover untruths or distortions to her revelations of past events, but in an almost truculent manner, she refused to back down.

Then gradually, with a jagged, deep inhale, clarity seemed to wash through him, and he lowered his gaze to the floor, his features and his formidable posture softening as he leaned back heavily in his chair.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me this, Jane?” he asked quietly.

She shrugged. “Frankly, I think it embarrassed her, but probably more than anything she didn’t want you to be repulsed by her.”

His head shot up. “Repulsed? How could intelligence repulse me?”

“You don’t understand,” she gingerly returned. “When Caroline met you, she didn’t want you so she didn’t care. There was no point in telling you anything. After she grew to adore you, she was afraid of losing you. It’s as simple as that.”

Quickly he stood and walked to the grate, staring down into the flickering flames, his back rigidly set.

She waited, and when it appeared he didn’t want to voice his thoughts, she decided to just move on. “When Caroline was sixteen, she began attending Markham’s classes at Oxford—”

“Sixteen?” he interjected in disbelief.

Jane smiled. “Yes, sixteen.”

“And your father just allowed her to go?”

“My father has been flustered by Caroline since the day she was born. He’s never been sure what to do with her, so as she gently persuaded and pushed him, he finally consented, allowing her to attend Oxford University, chaperoned, with the condition that she keep to herself and Markham’s classes exclusively.”

“And she went for five years,” he softly said without turning.

“To my knowledge, she never missed a lecture, although by then I was married and living elsewhere.”

Carefully she proceeded. “From a very young age, Caroline was consumed with her work and then her studies. But over the years, she grew frustrated and discouraged because, I think—and this is my opinion entirely—as she matured she realized she was never going to be treated as a respected, gifted scientist, but as a woman. And as you are aware, in our world those are two distinctly different things.”

Her voice shook with compassion as she continued without pause. “Not once, in all the years she stood outside the door of Markham’s classroom, was she allowed to enter or speak to him. She took no tests, received no degrees of study or recognition of any kind. She was ridiculed by the men in his classes, laughed at, called an innumerable list of names no lady should hear. Some even told her bluntly she was surely headed straight to hell because it was blasphemous to want to be a man. That hurt her very deeply because Caroline has—has
always
had—an intrinsic belief in and love for God.”

The earl turned, stiffly, watching her closely.

She clutched her hands in her lap, sitting primly, staring him dead in the eye. “But my brilliant sister persevered because breeding flowers was her passion. She took notes, read Markham’s published works, and did what she could to emulate his experiments at home. And at last, about a year and a half ago, using only her mind and some of Markham’s expertise that she’d noted over the years, Caroline discovered how to create the lavender roses with dark purple tips that had escaped every other noted botanist in the world. In essence, she and Sir Albert had created an extremely unusual and delicate breed before anyone else. With pride and elation, giving some but not all of the details, she wrote Markham and told him, requesting only to be allowed to meet him, work with him, privately if he preferred it, and to get due recognition for the creation.”

“I saw it…” he whispered, frowning.

She blinked. “You saw it? The rose?”

He nodded negligibly. “She carried it with her the afternoon we met.” His lips turned up in smile. “I even criticized her for growing a flower so improperly that it came out two different colors of purple.”

Jane stared at him, repressing a laugh as she imagined how Caroline must have reacted to such utterly arrogant words spoken in ignorance.

“Well, then,” she maintained, “you had much in common with Sir Albert at the time, because instead of getting recognition and praise for doing something incredible in the botanical community, she received a letter from him, crushing her spirit by implying that a man had done her computations, and in the most condescending fashion suggesting she stay at home, raise babies, and grow flowers to impress her husband.”

Jane clucked her tongue in disgust. “His response may seem ordinary, even expected, to you, but imagine for a moment how you would feel if you had a brilliant, gifted mind, had studied and worked for years for one purpose that you felt was your reason for living, and then suddenly and quite casually you’re struck down by the very same person you admired and praised more than anyone else in the world, simply and only because you were born the wrong sex.”

He slowly dropped his gaze to the floor.

Bravely she stood. “You above all people should realize how resilient Caroline is. She knew her experiments would be worth something to someone, but she’d also learned a very difficult lesson. When Markham wanted nothing to do with her, she wrote to Columbia University, only this time she presented herself as a man. Needless to say, she was accepted with open arms, applauded for her work, and practically begged to set sail immediately.” She paused, then carefully articulated, “But she still had a huge complication standing in front of the only thing she’d wanted for nearly fifteen years.”

“Your father,” he quietly acknowledged.

“My father.”

Folding her arms over her chest, she began to move toward him, dropping her voice to a fierce plea. “If there is one thing you need to realize, Lord Weymerth, it’s that she never intended to hurt you. My father loves Caroline, but he’s also an English baron who had a spinster daughter to protect and an impeccable reputation to uphold. There could have been significant disgrace to his good name if society learned that this same spinster daughter had sailed to America, all alone, with the intention of studying a man’s science at a foreign university. Caroline knew this. And what would happen to his reputation if the American university turned her away after discovering her sex and she had to return home? Speculation about her conduct, even her virtue, could run wild among the
ton.
At least an annulment would be looked upon mildly in comparison, probably forgotten eventually in society at large. Neither you nor my father would be blamed for her brazen behavior. He found her a respectable husband in you; you had private reasons for annulling the marriage. The only reputation likely to be scarred would be hers, and that really didn’t concern her.”

“But she never considered how I would feel,” he said almost angrily, “how I would react to her desire to leave.”

Jane snickered softly. “You came along and provided her with the tremendous and timely opportunity of freeing my father’s grasp without scandal. She never considered that any of her thoughts and plans would concern, much less hurt you. You were just another gentleman, and not one gentleman in twenty-five years had ever paid her the least bit of attention. She was certain you’d allow her to do as she pleased, and would probably be overjoyed when she finally discussed an annulment—”

“If that’s what she wanted from the beginning, then I don’t understand why she never asked for one,” he rebutted quickly, indignantly. “I would have at least listened to her needs.”

Jane shook her head. “Truthfully, Lord Weymerth, from what I know of you, you would no more annul your marriage than divorce your wife. You’re far too loyal to her and the vows you spoke to ever consider it, and I think, after you were married, Caroline suspected this as well.”

She hesitated, then moved even closer to him. “But the main reason she didn’t bring the subject to your attention was because she found herself thoroughly confused by your attraction to each other. From the beginning of your marriage, she was drawn to you, growing to care very deeply for you as the days went by, and you, in return, seemed to want her as a woman, something I’m sure she found positively baffling. No man had ever desired her, so why would you? She was a spinster, she was unusual, she was old and unattractive—”

“I thought she was beautiful,” he whispered.

His soft admission made her smile. “She is beautiful, but she’s as unique as her lavender rose. You love her inside, for who she is, and that is the only reason I’m here right now instead of helping her pack her bags for her trip to New York.”

She stood directly in front of him, two feet away, her side to the fire burning in the grate at her feet.

“I told you I came for two reasons, Lord Weymerth. One was to explain about my sister, the other is to tell you this.” She calmly waited until he looked up to give her his full attention.

“Caroline is enormously determined, and for nearly all of her life she has dreamed of nothing but becoming a renowned botanist. She
never
would have gone to your bed if that wasn’t precisely what she wanted, because when she became your wife physically, she was fully cognizant of the fact that she was ending that dream.”

He stared at her strangely, probably shocked by words from her that gently bred ladies did not utter to men they hardly knew, regardless of their relation. She, however, was sick to death of such conventions. Adult, married people had sex, and they all knew it. One should be able to discuss it without disclosing intimate details.

“Since you are not the type of man to force your wife,” she boldly continued without the slightest trace of embarrassment, “my personal belief is that she became your wife the night of your dinner party nearly three months ago. Caroline hasn’t told me this, but I witnessed for myself the adoration on your face and the look in your eyes, since, I might add, you couldn’t take them off her for nearly four hours. Of course this is only conjecture, but it also coincides with another matter, which I will explain momentarily.” She stopped, thinking, then added, “I realize this is none of my business, but I do have a point.”

“I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t,” he fairly drawled, suddenly amused.

She eyed him candidly. “My sister needs you and wants to be with you, but she is too proud ever to return here on her own after the insensitive way you tossed her out.”

His eyes flashed in irritation, but she continued tenaciously. “I’m absolutely positive she will leave for America on Friday. Her intentions are clear, and she’s made her decision. What you don’t know is this, however. When she leaves for Columbia University she will leave with nothing. She has almost nothing in the way of notes for breeding her fragile roses, no complete records of her computations, and above it all, no proof whatsoever that she was the scientist to create them because”—she took a deep breath—“she sent everything she had to Oxford University last November.”

Jane watched him closely. For a second he appeared confused; then, slowly, as the meaning of his wife’s actions gradually sank in, the blood drained from his face, and he lowered his eyes to stare blankly at the floor.

“Whatever happened between you the night of your dinner party changed her forever,” she cautiously, quietly confided. “The following day, she bundled years of paperwork together, keeping only the briefest notes so she would be able to breed the roses at Miramont for her personal gratification, then sent everything to Albert Markham. Even after his rude treatment of her and her acceptance to a foreign university, she sent them to the man she’s admired more than anyone in her life, because he is her mentor, he is English, and she wanted him and England to receive the praise for creating them.”

Her eyes never left his face as his expression quickly moved from shock to pride to sadness. That satisfied her as she had never felt before.

“Not only did she do this for you, Lord Weymerth,” she added huskily, profoundly, “but I know you’re aware of the fact that roses are named.”

He looked back into her eyes.

“Caroline emphasized in the letter she sent with her notes to Sir Albert that by generously giving him the rose, the only thing she wanted in return was to have it named
Rosalyn.
”