Crossed in Love, page 10
“What personal allusions can you make when you don’t know to whom the card will go? An ‘Ode to His Shining Eyes’?”
Blanche grinned in appreciation of this sign of Carolyn’s returning humor. “I can refuse to come down until someone meeting the description arrives. It’s only the first man I see that day that counts. I shan’t have to see anyone if I don’t wish.”
“Horrible child, that takes all the fun out of it. What if we had no servants? You would have to answer the door and accept the first man who entered.”
“I should sneak around and see who it was before I answered. If it was someone unacceptable, I should just pretend I was not at home. I’ll not give my favors for a year to a man with no wit to appreciate them.”
“You are spoiled beyond redemption.” Carolyn inspected the lacy creation of ribbons and paper that Blanche had painstakingly put together. “It is quite good without a poem. Do not give them any ideas.” She set the heart down and squared her shoulders. “It is a pleasant day. Would you care to accompany me for a stroll in the park?”
Blanche shuddered at the thought. Carolyn’s idea of pleasant weather was a day without rain. Never mind that icicles still hung from the eaves. And stroll translated as a fast gallop on foot through deserted lanes at a hideously early hour, when there was no one to notice them. It did not strike Blanche as a particularly elegant way to spend the morning.
At Blanche’s blunt refusal, Carolyn shrugged and went in search of her wrap. She had been confined inside for too long. She needed exercise to disperse these nervous fits and restless urges. A bruising horse ride would be more suitable, but that was not permitted in the crowded city parks and streets. A brisk walk would be just as beneficial.
Fetching her resigned maid to accompany her, Carolyn wrapped in a blue velvet pelisse lined with fur and set out.
The last patches of snow were disappearing into the grass, and icicles dripped rivulets from bare tree limbs. Ice patches glinted in the sunlight on the Serpentine, and Carolyn turned her mind to the beauty of the day. It felt good to stretch her muscles and breathe fresh air again. She had been quite childish in hiding from the ghost of her imagination.
A bright red ball bounced across her feet, nearly causing her to trip, but she was adept at eluding childish objects. With four younger siblings underfoot, she had learned to keep a tremendous store of patience. With a smile at this simple pleasure, she turned to find the runaway ball and return it to its owner.
With the object in her gloved hand, she sought the youngster who had thrown it. To the side of the road and down a slight embankment stood a tiny figure garbed head to foot in warm furs and velvet, her pitch-black hair streaming out from a fur cap framing a tawny face. She held back shyly, not willing to come forward to retrieve her toy from a stranger.
“Shall I throw it to you?” Carolyn offered.
When the girl nodded, Carolyn tossed the ball toward her mittened hands. They caught the ball with an adeptness that signaled the child had frequently played this game.
As the little girl smiled and clasped her ball, a dark figure unfolded from its relaxed position against a tree trunk and came forward. “Thank the lady, Amy.”
The voice smote her with the swiftness of a rapier, and Carolyn instinctively stepped backward. “Jack!”
Only then did the top-hatted head lift to peruse her. Gray eyes shuttered, and a leather-clad hand reached for the small shoulder of the child. “Carolyn.” He nodded warily.
An awkward silence fell, of which the child showed no awareness as she held out the ball. “T’ank you, m’lady,” she lisped carefully. “Will you play?”
As shaken by Jack’s presence as by the dilemma of the child’s appearance, Carolyn could make no reply. Dazedly she tried to orient herself, to find some perspective to approach the situation, but she could not. She only waited in bewilderment for Jack to rescue her.
Caught unaware, Jack, too, had difficulty surmounting a meeting that he had never anticipated. He had never intended to keep Amy a secret, but there had been no opportunity to mention her. His fingers squeezed his daughter’s shoulder reassuringly as his tongue summoned some form of polite introduction.
“This is my daughter, Amy. Amy, say hello to Miss Thorogood.”
As the two exchanged shy greetings, Jack regained some of his assurance, and he glanced around. “Are you with someone, Carolyn? Surely you did not come out here alone?”
Briefly puzzled by this return to the mundane, Carolyn glanced around for some sign of her maid. “Florrie was right behind me. I do not know where she has got to.”
Knowing Carolyn’s galloping idea of a walk from old times, Jack shifted his daughter to his shoulder and climbed up the small embankment to the path. “There are still some dangerous patches of ice. We’d better look for her.”
Somehow, it seemed perfectly natural to be walking along at Jack’s side, his shoulder marching at the same height as her eyes, blocking half the view, but without disabling her in the least. She knew his sharp eyes would find Florrie first, and she need only concentrate on watching her step, since his arm was occupied keeping his daughter in place.
His daughter. How peculiar to think of Jack with a daughter. He must have married soon after he left London, to judge by the age of the child. Perhaps he had had someone else with a wealthy dowry waiting behind stage in case his first offer fell through. It pained her still to think these unkind thoughts of Jack, but she had to face reality. She had known he was in debt and would have to leave London. Now he was back and seemingly in funds again. There simply was no other explanation.
“That must be Florrie over there on the bench.” Jack pointed out a woebegone figure in heavy wool and bedraggled bonnet. The maid looked up, but she made no move to rise, and her expression became even more pitiful.
Carolyn broke into a quick stride. “Florrie! What has happened? I only just missed you. Why did you not cry out?”
By the time Jack trotted up, Carolyn was already kneeling in the mud, ruining her pelisse and walking gown as she examined the maid’s outstretched ankle. She glanced up as Jack set his daughter down and crouched beside her.
“She has twisted her ankle pretty severely. It’s beginning to swell. I must get her home.”
“My carriage isn’t far. Will you be all right waiting here? You won’t be too cold?”
His concern did not seem in the least feigned. Perhaps that was why she had believed in him so thoroughly all those years ago. He should have been an actor on the stage.
Carolyn quelled the haughty words. Florrie needed help. She had no right to question from whence it came. “I’ll be fine. Why don’t you leave Amy with us? You could fetch the carriage more quickly that way.”
Jack helped her to rise and glanced from Carolyn to his daughter’s trusting gaze. He had never left Amy with strangers before. He and her ayah and Mrs. Higginbotham were all he had trusted with the child. But this was Carolyn. He nodded in agreement.
“I’ll be back shortly. You’ll take cold if you don’t have a dry gown soon.”
He strode off, leaving Carolyn to stare after him with perplexity. Why should he be worried if she caught cold? She turned her straying thoughts back to her injured maid and the curious child. She had no business trying to read Jack’s mind.
By the time Jack returned with the carriage, Carolyn and Amy were laughing, and even the maid smiled at their antics. In her love for pretty and exotic objects, Amy had apparently charmed Carolyn out of the long, arched feather that had adorned her bonnet, and it now stuck absurdly from Amy’s furred cap. They both looked like naughty children when Jack jumped down, and he couldn’t help but laugh at their expressions.
“Had I dallied any longer, she would be parading around in your slippers with your pelisse flung over her shoulders and dragging in the mud behind her.” He pretended to pinch Amy’s nose, and the child laughed with the trill of a little bird. “She is dreadfully spoiled. Now, thank Miss Thorogood for playing with you and let me help Miss Florrie into the carriage, there’s a good girl.”
The pride and love on his face were plain to see and could scarcely be part of his theatrics. Carolyn felt a tug inside that she dared not recognize, and she turned away from Jack’s uneven features to help Florrie to her feet.
Had it not been for Carolyn’s father, that little girl could have been her own, and Jack would be looking at their child like that. It would not do to think along such lines. It was over and done and best forgotten.
Jack held Carolyn’s hand no longer than it took to help her into the carriage. He kept the conversation general as they drove the short distance to the Thorogood residence. Never once did he give any indication of the severed relationship between them. Carolyn was grateful for his discretion but left uneasy by it. He behaved the perfect gentleman. Could his disguise be so thorough?
He handed Florrie over into the care of one of the footmen who ran down the stairs to open the carriage door. He bowed over Carolyn’s hand in parting, and he made no attempt to cross the portal from whence he had been barred. Carolyn stared after his departing carriage in something akin to shock. She had spent these last days thinking of him in terms of a devil in tailcoats. She could not twist her thoughts to consider him as a knight-errant.
The next day, however, she gladly accepted the call of a Mrs. Higginbotham and one miss Amy Chatham.
The child was garbed in layers of velvet and fur, as she had been the day before. Her hair had been pulled back in a coronet of braids and her hat no longer bore the swooping feather that had adorned it on parting yesterday. Mrs. Higginbotham held her hand as she grimly plowed into the salon. Carolyn held her breath, fearing the powerfully built matron might sit on the tiny child when they both attempted to occupy the same love seat.
“Good morning, Amy. Did you find a better hat to fit your feather on?” Carolyn offered the shy child a smile.
“That is the reason we are here, Miss Thorogood.” The jarring accents boomed from the matron’s massive chest, vibrating several figurines on the table. Carolyn tilted her head in curiosity to better observe this natural phenomenon.
Satisfied she had her hostess’s attention, the woman continued, “His lordship insisted that his daughter thank you for the gift of the feather. She is much inclined to take things she admires, and he hopes she has offered no harm to your apparel.”
Carolyn heard this with mild astonishment. Too well-bred to show her amusement at the woman’s artificial attempts at elegance, she nodded and turned her attention to the child. “I thought the feather much more becoming on you than on me, Miss Amy. I used to have a doll that liked to wear hats. Do you have one like that?”
Dark eyes lit with delight, and she nodded with a shy smile. Before she could say a word, her companion intruded. “The child has far too many dolls, in my opinion. Her father spoils her, and she does not know her place. I’ve not had much time to take the matter in hand, but I assure you, it will be accomplished in time.”
The woman’s encroaching self-importance was a source of amazement, but Carolyn had met her sort before. It was interesting how people with no claim to name or fortune could adopt an immense snobbery when they came in contact with people who possessed accomplishments. Perhaps it was a means of hiding a feeling of inferiority, but in this case, the child was suffering for it. Carolyn permitted herself a small frown.
“Miss Chatham seems singularly well-behaved to me, Mrs. Higginbotham. I have four younger sisters, and not one of them ever behaved so properly on a formal call at her age.” With this mild reproof, she returned her attention to the child, who had withdrawn her smile at the sounds of discord. “I would be pleased to have you to tea one day, Miss Chatham. My younger sisters are in the country, and I miss them. I should enjoy having your company. Would you like that?”
Again the dancing lights returned to the little girl’s huge dark eyes, and a smile illuminated her brown face. Before she could utter a word, Mrs. Higginbotham rose in a grand flutter of shawls and lace.
“You are too kind, Miss Thorogood, but I cannot let such a one be foisted off on respectable company. I came only at her father’s insistence. We would not think of intruding again. Good day to you.” She sailed from the room with Amy in tow.
Visibly annoyed now, Carolyn held her temper in check until her guests had departed, then contemplated sitting down and sending Jack a scathing note on the unsuitability of his choice of governess, if governess she were. By the time she reached her desk, however, common sense prevailed, and she set the pen aside. She had given up any right of interference in Jack’s life the day she had thrown him out of the house. He would only ridicule any message from her.
The memory of her anger at the encroaching Mrs. Higginbotham and her concern for the timid child returned when next Carolyn next saw Jack. It was inevitable that she see him again. She could ban him from her own home, but not from every house in London. A seemingly wealthy, eligible bachelor was welcome anywhere he went. That he would attend many of the same events as she was a foregone conclusion.
She looked absurdly sophisticated, Jack observed as Carolyn drifted across the music room, exchanging pleasantries with half the ton in her path. He could remember when she was just a charming girl with a delightful smile to single her out from the legions of young lovelies. It was hard to acquaint that young girl with this elegant young woman with her head held high and a polished smile affixed to her face, but he had seen glimpses of the girl the other day in the park. He pondered that anomaly as he realized he was actually Carolyn’s goal in crossing the room.
“It’s good to see you again, Miss Thorogood,” he intoned as he bowed over her hand.
Concentrating on her purpose, Carolyn tried not to notice that Jack looked at home in any environment. Gold and jewels glittered at throats and wrists all around them. Diamond stickpins, gold watch fobs, and pearl shirt studs adorned the formal attire of all the gentlemen. In simple black with nothing more glittering than his pristine cravat and intelligent eyes, Jack still appeared the part of arrogant nobility.
“I’d like a word with you about your daughter, my lord,” she said boldly. When his dark brow rose a fraction, she refused to retreat. “I know it is not my place to interfere, but you must admit that I have some experience with young girls, and you do not.”
He nodded in acknowledgment of that. In truth, he could do little more. The faint scent of lavender and wildflowers enveloped him, forcing him to concentrate on keeping his hands at his sides and his eyes on her face, when it seemed much more natural to sweep her into his arms. Even focusing on her face wasn’t helpful. He had reason to remember the passion and promise of those rose-pink lips. Unlike calculating young maidens, once Carolyn had given her heart, she was lavish with her affection despite the fact that there was no formal engagement. She had trusted him.
When Jack made no further effort to encourage or reject her observations, Carolyn cautiously phrased her complaint. “This Mrs. Higginbotham seems somewhat overbearing for a child as timid as Amy. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Higginbotham isn’t the cause of her timidity.”
That elevated his attention to a more respectable level. Jack straightened from his casual position against the newel post to take Carolyn’s arm and lead her toward a quiet alcove. When he had settled her on a backless velvet-upholstered settee, he frowned down at her.
“I could not bring Amy’s ayah out of India. Mrs. Higginbotham had only just lost her husband, and she offered to accompany me and care for Amy on the journey home. She has been indispensable. What rackety notions have you got in your head now about that proper lady?”
His harsh words brought an equally caustic reply. “She is no lady. She’s an encroaching mushroom intent on crushing your daughter into a nonentity for some obscure reason. I cannot know anything about your household, but Mrs. Higginbotham seems prepared to rule it. She as much as said that you spoil Amy and she will not allow it to continue.”
To Carolyn’s surprise, Jack’s expression grew weary and unhappy instead of angry at this declaration. Rocking back on his heels, he stared at the garish painting over her head before replying. Aware that a room full of people could watch their every action, he kept his words curt.
“Amy is not legally my daughter. I daresay Mrs. Higginbotham has taken it upon herself to protect society from such scandal. I will have to speak with her.” He held out his hand and gestured to the room behind them. “I can feel your father’s eyes burning a hole in my back. Perhaps we should join the others?”
Carolyn reluctantly placed her gloved hand in his and stood beside him. He smelled faintly of sandalwood and some musky scent that was all his own, and again that feeling of comforting familiarity at his size and strength swept over her. Other men tended to make her nervous and uncomfortable when they stood this close. Not Jack. Never Jack. He fitted beside her as neatly as her glove fitted her hand. It was a most depressing thought.
“I did not mean to cause anyone trouble,” she murmured as they stood there, unwilling to return to the milling crowd. “But Amy seemed to be such a sweet, eager child. When we are in town, I miss young Penny. I thought it would be fun for Amy as well as Blanche and me if she came to visit. Mrs. Higginbotham informed me in no uncertain terms that that wouldn’t be permitted. If those were your orders, I shall understand, but Amy seemed disappointed and intimidated.”
Jack sighed and squeezed her hand before he realized he should no longer be holding it. He released her but made no effort to lead her back to her father. “Perhaps Mrs. Higginbotham is right. I cannot believe your family would approve of your associating with a half-Indian child from the wrong side of the blanket. It isn’t done. I’ll have to move her to Dorset, but she has been so frightened by all these changes in her world, I couldn’t bear to send her away just yet.”
