7. David

7

David

“ A re you sure you don’t mind doing this?” David asked, frowning over at Caroline.

She sat on the other side of his desk, half hidden by piles of paper. “I’m sure.” She beamed, looking as though she was picking out a new gown rather than sorting through a dusty old pile of papers. “Perhaps by the time you’re back from your trip to New York, I’ll have everything in tip-top shape.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, although the idea of leaving Caroline here to sort out a tipper lorry’s worth of dusty paperwork did seem vastly unfeeling.

While the accounting for the mining company was done in-house, the accounting for the marquessate itself was another matter.

And with his difficulties with reading and writing? The last thing David wanted to do was reveal those difficulties to the world—meaning he simply collected proof of the estate’s transactions for the year and sent them over to an accounting firm to categorise and report. It was a colossal job, but he paid them well.

He knew he was an intelligent, capable man, but he also knew that there would always be those who wanted to expose the difficulties of others for their own gain.

David had learnt that in his first—and only—term at Eton. His lower master, who oversaw the junior boys, had quickly taken issue with his work, swiping him with a birch and putting him on the Bill for good measure. A list of boys the headmaster demanded to see. It hadn’t taken long for his house captain to move in, caning and fining him for idleness and sloppy work.

He’d hidden everything from Father, embarrassed of being a failure.

Until he came home for Christmas, and his father saw the welts and bruises. David had never seen Father so much as cross before, but he had been in a vengeful fury that day, storming down to Eton to demand answers.

David never found out what happened there, but Father had tutored David himself after that.

On the wall opposite him sat the familial portrait his father had commissioned after David had reached his majority. His lips slanted into a smile as he beheld the four of them: Father, Mother, Sian, and himself.

He’d always known he was lucky to have such wonderful parents, but Caroline’s story of her brother only drove it home all the more. David couldn’t help but think of what would have happened if Father had used such brutal tactics with him.

The sun shone through the window behind him, bypassing the freshly delivered white rose bouquet, its golden beams making it look like Caroline’s blonde curls were lit from within, her blue eyes darting over what looked like an invoice from a tradesman. “Do you have a ledger I can put these in?” she asked.

“I don’t. I usually give everything to the accountants in its raw form.”

Her lips parted, the bottom one catching his eye. “That must cost a small fortune.”

“It does,” he confirmed, slitting open one of the letters that had arrived in today’s post. Another bill, most likely .

“What…what if I documented everything in a ledger for you?” Caroline shifted in her seat, winding a lock of her hair around her finger. “It’s not as if I don’t need something to do.”

David considered it. Before he learnt of Harry’s troubles, he’d had every intention of passing the estate on to him. There were no male heirs to the Menai marquessate; the title would die with him. Before Harry came into the picture, he’d originally intended to split his estate between Sian and a few charities. But with Caroline here…

His mother and father had been a team to the end, with Mother taking on just as much of a role in the marquessate as Father had. Caroline may not have the title, but with a bit of luck she and Harry would be inheriting the estate one day.

And when that day came, she would need to know how to run it. Why not start with this?

In the interim, David hoped that Harry would mature. He could put his son’s inheritance in a trust, perhaps—something to secure it against reckless spending and drunken antics. Harry was a good lad at his core. He’d thankfully been too young to experience the horrors of the Great War, but he’d served in the Waziristan campaign and received a Victoria Cross for his heroics therein.

David swelled with pride whenever he thought of it, even though Harry refused to discuss the matter—including what he was awarded the Victoria Cross for in the first place. Alice, Harry’s mother, would have known, and David could do nothing but add it to the list of questions he’d never get answers to.

“If it’s something you actually want to do, I think it’s a lovely idea, Caroline.” David sent her a warm, encouraging smile. He could get used to this—having someone to work with, to teach, to talk to, to care for. Goodness, but she was sweet. It was madness that Harry had discarded her like this.

Because, deep down, David knew that if he’d managed to earn the affection of a woman like Caroline, he’d never let her get away.

A fortnight later, David realised it hadn’t been a lovely idea.

It had been a revolutionary one.

The last time he’d seen someone adding and subtracting this quickly, the man had been using a Dalton Adding Machine, but Caroline seemed to function on sheer magic.

“Do you know.” He frowned, standing next to the second desk he’d had brought into his office for her and shouldering on his coat. “If we lived three hundred years earlier, I think you’d have been tried for witchcraft.”

She paused, the nib of her pen coming to a standstill on the paper. “That’s an alarming thought.” She looked out of the window as though she was expecting to see a mob gathering out on the cliffs, pitchforks in hand. Her throat shifted as she swallowed, eyes on the yellow chrysanthemums that the florist had delivered this morning. “Do you really think I would have been?”

David sat on the edge of her desk, taking her chin in his palm and turning her head back towards him. “No,” he murmured possessively. “Because I never would have let them take you.”

Caroline’s plump lips were slow to part, as though it had never occurred to her that someone could be possessive of her .

The moment stretched between them and somewhere within it, David realised just how delicate her skin was. How soft. How unbearably lonely she seemed to be. How bright her smile had been in the days since she’d started helping him with his office. How much he’d started to look forward to coming downstairs in the morning, knowing he would see Caroline.

Until he remembered that she was his son’s wife.

“Besides,” he carried on, clearing his throat and the air both, “it would take me forever to find a replacement who could do sums as quickly as you can.”

Twin pink patches appeared on her cheeks. “Especially when they’re all being tried for witchcraft,” she said tartly, clearly trying to hide a smile.

David let out a bark of laughter. “Quite. Shall we be off?”

She put the lid back on the fountain pen with a click , rising to follow him out of the office. “Very well, although I can always stay behind if you’d prefer. Walking into town as a family friend is one thing, but coming with you as an assistant is something else. The man you’re having a meeting with might think it odd that you have an assistant so...”

By the front door, he held up her coat, waiting for her to slip her arms into it. “So what?”

Caroline shook her head, nibbling on her bottom lip and refusing to look at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me.”

Her brows pulled together with the kind of jittery unease he’d only ever seen in men suffering from shellshock. “I don’t want him to think less of you for turning up with me, that’s all.”

They made their way over to the Rolls Royce, but David was still missing something. “Why would people think less of me for turning up with you?”

“Because I know that, among other things, men judge other men on the attractiveness of the woman on their arm. Particularly in male-dominated environments. And as a…rotund woman, I also know that I am the bottom of the barrel in terms of desirability.”

“Caroline…” he said softly.

David sighed, noticing she had a drop of ink on her lips. “If I’d have realised my ‘seeing a man for a meeting’ excuse was going to cause you so much worry, I would have chosen another destination.”

“Excuse?”

“There is no man I’m meeting with this morning. We’re going into town to see a dressmaker. I was going to surprise you as a thank you for all of your hard work over the past fortnight. I called her a few days ago to make an appointment for you.”

Her blue eyes were wide as she blinked up at him. “Oh.”

“But I think that’s rather beside the point at present.” David touched her elbow gently. “What the devil has given you the idea that you’re at the bottom of the barrel?”

Brows notching together in disbelief, Caroline gave a huff. “Have you ever been to London during the Season?”

“Many times.”

“Then you know what it’s like. Young women vying for husbands. Wealthy men hunting for the most attractive wife. My place in society was never made more obvious than during the Season. Men disregarded me as soon as they looked at my body. The kindest of them simply walked away, whilst the most spiteful publicly remarked that he had seen more blubber on the seals off Skegness—to the amusement of the crowd around us. It isn’t an idea . It’s a fact.”

With that, she turned, opening the car door and sinking down onto the seat.

Neither of them spoke on the short drive into Holyhead. David found himself fuming at Caroline’s experiences in London. Men could be such hateful creatures. He knew that all too well from his own London adventures.

Young men could be callous to the point of brutishness, lacking the life experience necessary for compassion to develop. But older men could be far worse, precisely because they did have the life experience necessary—but chose to ignore it, wielding cruelty like a blade until they dealt a killing blow.

And an innocent like Caroline? She wouldn’t stand a chance.

Just like she hadn’t stood a chance against her mother shredding her confidence.

Holyhead was teeming with life at this time of day. The savage winds that had plagued the area lately had vanished, replaced with clear blue skies and gentle breezes. Gulls shrieked above their heads as David opened Caroline’s door for her, leading her inside the four-storey building that comprised the largest dressmaker’s salon in northern Wales, Sylvestre.

Despite its popularity, David had never actually been inside the building. Had his mother been an early client of Madame Sylvestre, perhaps? He couldn’t quite remember. There had been a dressmaker that came to Castell Du'r Arddu sometimes, but he’d be damned if he could remember her name.

He blinked as the clean, tastefully dressed assistant welcomed them into the building. From the outside, it was like any other in town—albeit larger, but the interior was a masterclass in elegance from the chandelier downwards. Mannequins were bedecked in everything from traditional finery to shockingly short beaded dresses that toed the line of social acceptability.

On the walls hung simple silver photograph frames, at odds with the geometric pattern of the wallpaper—a black background with shimmering silver arches stacked on top of each other. The photographs themselves ranged from catwalk models to women at extravagant parties, presumably wearing Sylvestre dresses. A few looked vaguely familiar to David, until—

“Roeddwn i'n ddigon ffodus i fod yn wisgwr Ei Harglwyddes.” I was lucky enough to be Her Ladyship’s dresser.

The statement came from an older woman standing in the doorway to the dressing room, according to the slanted Welsh script above it: ystafell wisgo . Dressing room. The woman herself, presumably Madame Sylvestre, wore a dress that paired an intricate, luxurious silver fabric with a practical design.

“That’s comforting to hear.” He nodded, answering in English for Caroline’s sake. He stepped closer to the photograph of his mother; it had been taken at some party or another, but there was no mistaking the stern glance Mother was giving the camera. “I admit I couldn’t remember whether you had ever dressed the late Lady Menai.”

“Extensively so.” Madame Sylvestre followed his lead and switched to English. “But on the phone you mentioned today’s appointment is for Lady Caroline, is that correct?”

“It is.”

The dressmaker smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling with age. “Wonderful. If you come through here, my lord, I’ve laid out a few options for you.”

Within, they found a selection of plain-looking dresses as well as a huge array of fabrics, everything from the practical to the outrageous. The décor was much the same as the main room, but the dressing room had more of a personal touch—between the geometric-patterned screen dividers, display cabinets full of accessories, and dressing gowns hanging up, he thought they might have stepped into a wealthy woman’s actual dressing room.

“Are these all for me?” Caroline said, her voice quiet as she glanced up at him.

“They are,” Madame Sylvestre answered, low jazz music playing from somewhere nearby. “I’ve prepared ten different dress designs for you, which can each be customised in hundreds of different fabrics. The dresses you see here are toiles , with which we can test how each dress fits you and make adjustments accordingly. Afterwards, we can make the dresses themselves.” She moved over to a railing full of dresses bursting with colour, sequins, and beading. “I’ve also laid out some of our more daring choices here. These should all fit you, according to the sizes sent over by Pretoria.”

Caroline’s eyes leapt from dress to dress, her lips slowly parting, until her gaze finally landed on him. “David…”

He knew what she was going to say. It was too much, but after everything his family had put her through, somehow he didn’t think it would ever be enough. “Think of it as your trousseau ,” he murmured, unable to stop an apologetic grimace spreading across his face. “Or perhaps your uniform if you’re to carry on taking charge of the office.”

He saw the moment she gave in, a fissure of excitement folded between disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“More than anything.”

Before long, David was ushered into a reasonably-sized antechamber; the only room in Sylvestre that had clearly been designed with men in mind. The delicate crystal chandeliers and geometric patterns gave way to dark, richly upholstered furniture and warm oak panelling, augmented with the scent of aged cigar smoke .

Taking a seat, he leant forward to peruse the selection of periodicals and books laid out by Sylvestre. Next to a well-used ash tray lay the typical broadsheets such as The Western Mail and The Times, but so too were there Welsh-language periodicals such as Y Traethodydd. It was with a jolt of sadness that he realised there was also a booklet with a collection of Hedd Wyn’s Welsh language poetry.

He picked it up. When had he last read these poems? It had to have been during the war. He certainly vividly remembered learning of Hedd Wyn’s death in the Battle of Passchendaele. David had been sitting in a dressing station being stitched up after the Battle of Jerusalem, reading the hideously out of date copy of The Times that had likely passed through hundreds of hands before it reached his.

How many stitches had he been given again? Five? Perhaps not even that. He’d survive the battle unwounded only to injure himself on a shard of broken glass when he was hauling some poor bugger on a sand sled to the advance dressing station. David wondered what the man’s name had been. And then he wondered if he’d made it.

He couldn’t have said how long he sat in the men’s waiting room for, revisiting poems he hadn’t read in years. Eventually, however, the antechamber door opened. Madame Sylvestre stood there, her grey hair pinned back in a sharp bun. “Lady Caroline would like your opinion, Your Lordship.”

“Then she shall have it.”

When he re-entered the dressing room proper, David found Caroline standing in front of several full-length trifold mirrors, all angled to give the wearer as much perspective as possible. She had her hands on her waist as a long, flowing dress fell to her feet. “What do you think of this dress in this fabric?” she asked him, holding up a small, square patch of a leafy green pattern .

David nodded his approval, gentle jazz music playing from the gramophone—quiet enough that it was surely on its last legs. “Very sensible.”

“Do you think it’s too gaudy?”

“Not at all,” he replied, wanting to clear the frown marring her brow. “Have you tried on this one?” he asked, striding over to the railing of ready-made outfits, picking up a sparkling emerald dress covered in beading and ending in tassels.

Her eyes were as wide as saucers. “That is not suitable for office work.”

He shrugged. “Why don’t you try it on anyway? I’d venture a guess and say you’ve chosen ten sensible everyday gowns, would I be correct?”

“Perhaps.”

“Madame Sylvestre said this should fit you, so why not try it on?” He approached her from behind, holding the dress up under her chin to give them a semblance of what it would look like on. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Her lips pressed together. “When would I ever wear this?”

David shrugged. “Maybe I’ll throw a party.”

It was only then that his eyes fell upon a cabinet gramophone. He assumed there must have been a jazz band playing in the distance, because he’d never heard of a gramophone that allowed users to control the volume before.

“Will you now?” She laughed, before giving a long sigh. “Fine. I’ll try it on.”

Once again, he was ushered into the men’s waiting room, but a few minutes later Madame Sylvestre opened the door to release him from his masculine cage.

He found Caroline standing in the same spot in front of the mirror, her front teeth buried deep into her bottom lip. Her shoulders lifted, but the quiet excitement of before had been shrouded in insecurity. “Well, I tried it on.”

David’s long, assessing look swept over her every curve, realising that this is what his son had abandoned. What the fuck is wrong with you, Harry? He turned to Madame Sylvestre. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

She got the hint, exiting the dressing room and closing the door behind her.

By the time he’d turned back to Caroline, she was shouldering on a thin dressing gown, pulling the lapels over her torso until it cloaked her entirely. The jitteriness of earlier had returned, her gaze darting anywhere but towards him.

David approached her slowly, until she was less than an arm’s length in front of him. He knew how to approach this. “What do you think of the music?”

In the mirror, her eyes finally met his. “The music?”

“I thought the gramophone was broken,” he admitted.

Caroline’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. “Why?”

“I just didn’t realise there were gramophones on which the volume could be adjusted.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “Have modern gramophones not made it up Castell Du'r Arddu’s driveway yet?”

He took her hand, turning her to face him. “I’m not a fully out of touch old codger, just partially.”

“You’re not out of touch.” Caroline was full of sympathy. “You’re just…sheltered.”

Now his eyebrows were rising. “Sheltered, am I? And I notice you didn’t contradict my use of old codger . ”

She shrugged, an air of mischief surrounding her as she grinned up at him. Her free hand no longer held shut her lapels, instead letting a hint of shimmering emerald through. “If the hat fits…”

David let out an amused snort. “Well, thankfully, I have a Bright Young Thing who can educate me on her modern ways.”

As pink bloomed on her cheekbones, she looked unreasonably pleased. “I am not a member of the Bright Young Things.”

“I disagree.” He pulled her over to the centre of the room. “I bet you could run rings around me on the dance floor.”

The little smirk she gave him was everything he didn’t know he needed. “You said it, not me.”

David leant in until almost all of the space between them had been crossed. “Then prove it, Starling.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse him, but then she relented, allowing herself to be pulled into a slow, easy dance to match the gentle jazz from the gramophone. It didn’t take long for her to take control of their dance, guiding him into a routine he wasn’t familiar with.

His shoulders heaved as they danced, not because he was out of breath—but because his hands were on her waist, her arms around his neck. She’d stolen his focus, but for the life of him, David didn’t want it back.

“This wouldn’t have been permitted when I was younger,” he murmured, his lips scandalously close to her temple.

Her teeth flashed in a dazzling smile. “Sometimes rules are made to be broken.”

Were they? Daringly, David removed his hands from around her waist—instead lifting them to the lapels of the dressing gown she wore, pulling them apart to reveal the glittering emerald dress beneath. “Then break them with me. ”

There was something forbidden here—the act of him undressing her, even if she was clothed underneath. As he slid the fabric off her shoulders, he let the back of his hands run over her skin, devouring the hitch in her breath.

His own breathing wasn’t exactly steady, his lungs taking deep drags of her scent. Him removing her outer layer of clothing wasn’t inherently wrong. The insecurity in her eyes had been wrong. The jittery nerves of trauma were wrong.

All David wanted to do was bring her to life .

He let the dressing gown fall to the floor, unveiling the short, scandalous dress that caressed her curves so tightly it almost made him jealous. David forced himself to keep a respectable distance between them, not allowing his hands to venture any lower—or higher —than her waist.

The steps of the dance were fairly simple—far simpler than when he’d been a lad. But he almost wished Caroline was leading him in something difficult, something he needed to concentrate on, because otherwise the only thing he had to focus on was her.

Caroline’s nerves were on show for the first few seconds without the dressing gown, but her smile soon returned as she discovered the tassels would sway as she moved her hips, until her expression was brimming with a delight so lovely he couldn’t stand it.

“Are you enjoying the tassels?” He laughed, trying to ignore the unintentionally sensual flick of her hips.

She gave him an exhilarated smile, her eyes glowing with joy. “Maybe. I’ve never worn a dress with tassels like this before.”

David could almost feel the moment her expression seared itself into his mind. The men that had discarded her during the Season were brutes. Harry was a clod. Because David knew then and there that leaving her at Castell Du'r Arddu to do his fucking accounting was a preposterous idea. He was taking her to New York, to show her the sights and sounds of the New World.

Sian would love to meet Harry’s wife—even if she’d never met Harry. She’d help David to bring Caroline out of her shell, to show her there was more to life than Castell Du'r Arddu and his dusty office. There were movie theatres and jazz clubs, the Statue of Liberty, the Plaza Hotel, and Carnegie Hall.

As the record came to an end, he caught her gaze, still holding her hand. “Don’t ever think that your worth depends on the opinions of others, Caroline. You know your worth, and so do I.” There was a sly curl to his lips. “And I’m buying you that dress.”

“It probably costs a fortune!” she exclaimed, smoothing her free hand over the beading.

“You never know when you’ll have need of it.” He winked. But then he raised his shoulders in a shrug, absent-mindedly running his thumb over the back of her hand. “New York—if you came with me.”

She deserved to see the world.

Caroline’s brow marred in endearing incredulity, but her voice was a whisper. “David…”

Instinct clawed at him to pull her closer, to transform his words into actions, to demonstrate the physical effect her body was having on his, to put that effect to good use, to rid her of her erroneous impression that she was the bottom of the sodding barrel.

But she was his son’s wife.

Harry may have been a clod, but David wasn’t a villain.

“Think about it. I’ll pay for everything. Let someone spoil you, Starling.” He stepped back, giving her nothing more than a kind smile. There was something about her that made him want to give in to his rakish desires. “I’ll send in Madame Sylvestre to assist you undressing. ”

Before she could utter a single word, David fled—before those villainous instincts won the battle over his chivalrous intentions.