Chapter Twelve

Y ou're older than I thought you'd be."

Caro nearly dropped the book she'd been examining. How had the Dowager Duchess of Holland entered the library without her hearing? The woman must move like a cat.

At a loss for the best way to respond to that opening salvo, Caro curtsied. "Good afternoon, Your Grace."

The dowager took her time crossing the room, examining Caro all the while, then draped herself onto the settee. For an older woman, she moved gracefully. Fluid, unhurried, but not unfocused. She wore her hair in a simple, flattering style designed for a relaxed day at home that likely took her maid considerable time to achieve. From silvery head to satin-shod foot, she looked expensive and stylish, even while achieving a calculated effect of casual comfort.

When Caro enjoyed a rare day off, she stayed in her ratty wrapper and let her wool stockings slouch down her calves until they pooled at her feet like sad little gray elephant ankles.

"My son is an important man."

Really? I'd never have known. I thought duke was a friendly nickname given to him in childhood. "Yes, Your Grace."

"You're a cool one—I'll give you that." The dowager assessed Caro with a raised eyebrow, then abruptly changed tactics. "The Holland men are a lovable lot. It's one of life's great ironies that the best things are often short-lived. His grandfather died in his sleep at forty-eight. My husband, God rest him, dropped dead at thirty-six. No accidents, no illnesses. Neither were fragile, sickly men."

Why is she telling me this? "I'm sorry for your loss, Your Grace. That must have been terrible."

"My husband had no siblings. We only had Dorian. There is no one to inherit the title, girl. Do you understand?"

Dorian had said as much. Although he'd phrased it as more of a worst-case kind of thinking, not an actual possibility.

"There are those who needn't think of such things. They live their lives unencumbered by obligations. As a result, they follow their impulses without consequences." A distinct chill coated her words. "The Duke of Holland is not one of those people. My son has a duty to fulfill, and since your presence in our home, he's been showing a concerning lack of enthusiasm toward that duty."

When Caro said nothing, the dowager pressed, "You are aware my son seeks a wife, are you not?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Then you must also be aware that said wife needs to be well-connected, young enough to bear children, and comfortable in society, in order to raise the next Duke of Holland alone, should my son share his father's fate."

An expectant pause told Caro a verbal answer was required. "That would stand to reason, yes." Having a mother speak casually of her only child dying young was unnerving. The dowager's lack of emotion told Caro this entire conversation was more about manipulation than anything.

"Then you agree. Holland must do his duty while you disappear back into your dusty bookcases."

Well, that was simply uncalled for. Martin House bookcases were cleaned constantly. "Your Grace, please pardon my confusion. But if you have concerns regarding your son, why are you speaking to me instead of him?"

A brittle smile curved the dowager's lips. "These things are best handled between women, don't you agree?"

This entire bizarre conversation was like walking a tightrope made of spiderwebs over a pool of alligators. "Ordinarily I would concur that women are capable of navigating any situation with the aid of an ally. In this, though, I fail to see how I can be of help."

Quick as a curtain falling, the dowager's control slipped. "Don't dissemble, Miss Danvers. I'm fully aware of your affair with my son. Playing coy is a young woman's trick, and you are certainly beyond such things."

If I were having an affair, I'd expect to feel far more relaxed and satisfied, thank you. Caro drew in a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly. "Did the duke tell you he and I are involved?"

"A son doesn't speak of such things with his mother. However, I am capable of listening, and he speaks freely with Southwyn."

With her patience running low, Caro leveled the dowager with a look. "In other words, you eavesdropped. Your Grace, I understand your concerns. However, I suggest you take them to the duke." Because I'll be damned if I promise to keep my hands off a grown man just because his mother threw a fit over me being a weathered old crone.

"If you intend to remain in his life, I cannot stop you. However, if you distract him from his duty, I can and will make your life very uncomfortable."

Caro blinked. Had his mother just told her she could be Holland's mistress as long as he carried on with his plans to wed? Aristocrats were an odd lot. It was an inner struggle that lasted all of three seconds to realize she wouldn't be his mistress if he married. She couldn't hurt another woman like that and be able to look at herself in the mirror. Neither could she conceive of a situation where anyone fortunate enough to marry Holland could do so and remain emotionally distant. The man's sly humor and wicked grin, although hard-won, would conquer the hardest heart. Once he peered into a woman's eyes and begged to know the real her, tender feelings were inevitable.

"Your Grace, I have quite a bit of work to do today. If that will be all, I'd like to return to it." If the dowager raised hell with the duke, Caro would relay every word of this conversation as her defense. Perhaps moving the library to a storage room closer to the shop would be a better idea, after all.

The dowager rose with war in her eyes. "You dare dismiss me in my own home, Miss Danvers?"

Caro dipped a shallow curtsy. "That is not my intent, Your Grace. Since I am a paid employee, I would hate for you to feel I am not fulfilling my assigned tasks." The words ate at her pride but soothed the silver society dragon somewhat, allowing her to leave with the illusion that Caro hadn't sent her packing.

When the library door closed on well-oiled hinges, Caro exhaled on a low groan. Now that she was alone, the emotional armor she'd donned disappeared. The dowager's verbal arrows might not have landed the way she wanted them to, but Caro felt the sting nonetheless.

After seeing the duke in the theater, she'd walked away with an unsettled feeling. The man who'd pulled her into an alcove and kissed her would need to find a wife, and the universe seemed to agree that wife couldn't be Caro. Not that she wanted the position. Not after bearing witness to the pain of her parents' marriage. In Holland's defense, he and her father were entirely different animals. But still. Wife? No, thank you. Lover? More and more, yes.

Which led to a moral dilemma she had no easy answer for and opened her to attacks like the one she'd just experienced.

Caro glanced down and snorted. She was still holding the same book she'd nearly dropped when the dowager took her by surprise. A gorgeous gilded volume of Shakespeare in excellent condition. Part of a set released by a specialty publisher, if she remembered correctly.

Behind the settee the dowager had abandoned, a clock chimed the hour. She'd stay in the library for at least another thirty minutes just to prove to his mother that her actions hadn't made Caro scurry away. She refused to run like a frightened rabbit after the dowager showed her teeth.

In the meantime, she searched for the other volumes in the set. Had it released with four volumes or five? She might have to look that up when she returned to the shop if she couldn't find them all here.

"Ah-ha. There you are, my beauties," she murmured, spying three more volumes scattered among the shelves. Since running across the first letter, she'd made a habit of flipping through each book.

At the end of last week, when she'd found the other two letters, hadn't they been in a volume of Shakespeare as well? Instinct made her fingertips prickle as she opened each book in this set.

One volume was simply a book. A pretty one that, as part of a complete decorative set, would be valuable to a collector. But just a book. The other volumes offered two more letters to reward her stubbornness. "So, Shakespeare is the key."

She didn't read them, but her eye caught on a few lines as she looked for the signature. One letter was signed Romeo, the other Sherman, both in the same handwriting.

Wait. "Who the hell is Sherman?" Oh God. It was her turn to sink onto the settee with considerably less grace than the dowager. "The duke didn't write these."

The Romeo and Juliet references made sense if the late duchess stored the letters in her volumes of Shakespeare.

Letters from her lover. A glance at the dates proved these weren't from a childhood beau she'd had before her marriage.

I'll wait for you always, my Juliet.

I love you unconditionally.

Trite. And a bit pathetic when one considered the words themselves. Unconditional love? She couldn't imagine telling a man she loved him no matter how he acted, or how he treated her. If she ever declared her love for a man, it wouldn't be unconditional. Her place in a relationship was entirely reliant on the condition that he treat her well and was equally devoted.

To promise more reeked of desperation. Caro winced and glanced at the letters. She could be honest with herself now that she knew Holland hadn't written them. Pity welled for anyone who lost a spouse to such uninspired attempts at romance.

Especially when the alternative to this Sherman person was a man who kissed like the Duke of Holland.

Except the duke had to have realized he hadn't written the first letter she found. Caro covered her face with her hands. Had she unwittingly revealed his wife's infidelity? The grilled bread and cheese she'd eaten midday threatened to make a reappearance.

What was the right thing to do here? Burn them? Bring them to the duke as promised—even if their existence hurt him? Thinking back on his reaction to the first letter rewrote that memory. What she'd witnessed probably wasn't grief over Juliet's death, but pain, shock, and possibly heartbreak. However, the last two had been read with considerably less emotion. That poor man, having to deal with these.

"Damn, damn, and double damn." Caro scanned the top letter again, then paused at a familiar phrase.

I am bereft, adrift, and needing your port to weather this storm.

Recognition made the hairs at her nape stand on end.

The double entendre wasn't lost on her, just as it hadn't been lost on the audience the week before at the Theatre Royal. Checking the date again, Caro counted backward. The play had been Mr. Bartholomew's latest—Leo said the actors barely had time to read and memorize their lines before opening night. Yet this letter was seven years old. There was no chance the author was quoting a bawdy line from the play, because that play hadn't existed yet. But Mr. Bartholomew had.

Did that mean the dead duchess had been having an affair with… a playwright? When and how had that relationship developed? Not questions she could ask without kicking a hornet's nest, but she wanted to be nosy and poke for answers anyway.

Between the duke's mother foretelling his imminent demise and Caro's suspicions about the letter writer's identity, there wasn't any way to talk herself out of giving these letters to Holland.

He hadn't been home when she arrived this afternoon. Was it cowardly to hope he was still not at home, so she could simply leave these on his desk? The man could connect the clues as easily as she had, since he'd been at the theater too.

Caro sighed, then stood from the settee. In the hall, Hastings informed her the duke had arrived home a few moments before and was in his study.

Steeling her spine, she knocked on the door.

Once Dorian finished reading this morning's report from the solicitor, he would let himself casually wander into the library, kick out Howard if needed, lock the door, and then pin Caroline against the nearest bookcase and kiss her silly. He hadn't seen her in four days, and the urge to touch her again made his palms itch.

But damn, Gerard Bellmore wrote a dry legal report. "Incentive, Holland. It's called incentive." He flipped to the next page as he sipped the cup of tea the ever-efficient Hastings had waiting when he arrived home.

A knock on the door made him glance up in irritation. Interruptions would only delay visiting the library and kissing the woman who'd been on his mind all day. "Enter."

That irritation vanished as soon as the door opened. Caroline carefully closed the door behind her, and his hopes rose in direct proportion to his cock. "Two more letters, Your Grace," she said, holding them out to him.

Hope and… everything else deflated. However, these letters might hold more clues that could help Mr. Bellmore in his quest to explain Juliet's finances. Dorian pushed the legal brief aside and rose. As he rounded his desk to greet her, something in her expression made him wave her to a chair instead of kissing her properly. "Would you like to sit?"

Rather than take the letters from her, he leaned against the desk and crossed his feet at the ankles. Caroline took the offered chair but had yet to smile, and the set of her shoulders was so straight she could have balanced a book on her head. He nudged the toe of her walking boot with the toe of his polished Hessian. "Let me into the pause."

Her gaze flew to his, and she swallowed hard. "You didn't write these letters."

Dorian drew in a deep breath. "No, I didn't write them. But I'd dearly like to know who did."

In her lap, her thumbnail flicked the edge of one of the letters as she watched. "Did you already know about the affair? Is that why you reacted like you did when I brought the first letter to you?"

"I knew." His voice sounded rough, even to his ears. But his pulse wasn't pounding loud enough to echo in the room, and his palms weren't sweating. This wouldn't be like last time. He wouldn't read the letters and feel each word like a knife to the gut. This time, he'd breathe. He'd stay in the moment and not let the feelings steal his composure. "However, that letter, and these"—he nodded toward the two she clutched in her fingers—"seeing it literally in black and white made it all incredibly real. I won't bore you with details, but suffice to say, I loved my wife. Very much. Adored her, really. And I thought it was mutual. But during those last few years, I was on the Continent, and something always prevented her from joining me. Getting letters through or around enemy lines was difficult, which meant we weren't able to hear from one another frequently." The cravat his valet had tied that morning seemed to tighten incrementally with each word, but Dorian cleared his throat and pressed on. "I didn't know of the affair until she passed."

Caroline heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Then, I hadn't accidentally destroyed the memory of your wife by bringing you that letter?"

"God, no. Is that why you came in here looking like this?"

She nodded. "Also, your mother said you are going to die young, so I needed to not interfere with your marriage plans."

He reared back. "My mother said what?"

Caroline canted her head and studied him. "At the theater, you mentioned needing an heir, but I thought it was just pragmatism. I didn't realize you have reason to contemplate your own mortality."

A curse slipped out on a sigh. Damn his meddlesome mother.

"You see, then, why this afternoon has left me with several questions." Rather than the wry humor he was beginning to associate with her, Caro appeared genuinely disturbed as she bit the side of her lip.

Which made him want to bite her lip. Dorian closed his eyes and rubbed at a spot on his temple where an ache bloomed. Just once, he'd like her to be in his study and not feel ill at ease. This room was a sanctuary for him, but she was going to start associating it with horrible events if this pattern continued. "It sounds like we might be due for a conversation."

It wasn't until he opened his eyes and looked at her again that she answered. "As much as I'd like to interrogate you, it's not my place. However, can you answer one question?"

She held out the letters, and he took them. Somehow, they'd become less important than he'd thought possible, considering what they likely contained.

"Yes, of course." Why did he want to follow that with the word anything ? A problem to contemplate another day.

"Are you ill, Your Grace? Is that why you need an heir posthaste?"

He turned the letters over in his hands, noting the fraying of the paper along the folds and edges before returning his attention to her. "No. No, I'm not ill. I simply come from a line of men who don't live very long, don't sire many children, and happen to have a tremendous amount of responsibility placed on their shoulders from birth." Worry eased from her face, and she drew in a breath that made her rather glorious chest expand under her gown. Although, the word glorious made him think of Gloria, his mother. "What did my mother say, exactly?"

A quirk of her lips made the tension leach from his shoulders somewhat. "I understand she wanted to manipulate my emotions, so I'm not going to give too much weight to her comments. It's important to her that you marry."

"Did she insult you, Caroline?" The letters crinkled in his fist, so he busied himself by smoothing the paper onto his desktop.

She shrugged. "Nothing that wasn't true." Nodding to the letters, she said, "I'll confess I skimmed those. A line of text caught my eye. It's from the short comedy we saw the other night. The new one from Joseph Bartholomew."

"I, ah, wasn't paying attention. I was looking for you on the floor. I recall everyone laughing, though."

She tilted her head, which beckoned his gaze to the creamy skin of her neck. "Did you find me?"

"No, and not for lack of trying." He opened the first letter to see if he could spot the line in question. Maybe he'd been paying more attention than he realized. At the bottom of the page, a name leapt from the paper.

Sherman. Juliet's mystery lover who'd made him a cuckold. The swirling S of ink on the page blurred in his vision. A glance at the date made his heart ache. Dorian had been on the Continent, desperately pleading for his wife to join him. Yet Juliet always had a reason to delay.

Fucking Sherman. Literally, no doubt. Dark humor didn't dull his anger at the confident, cocky scrawled S . "This letter predates last night's play by several years."

Caroline offered a small smile. "Exactly. Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I doubt it. Sherman could be a nickname, or he might have given her a false name to hide his lower status in society."

"You think this Joseph Bartholomew person was my wife's lover." Hard to imagine but no more difficult to grasp than the idea of Juliet having a lover to begin with.

Another shrug. "Either way, it seems a pertinent clue to his identity. It could be nothing. It could be something." She stood. "I need to be going, Your Grace."

Dorian stared at the letter, then deliberately set it aside and reached out a hand to thread his fingers through hers. "You know, I'd planned to finish reading a horribly boring report, then find you in the library. All day, I've looked forward to kissing you. I planned to press you against the bookcases again, or perhaps coax you onto the settee and kiss you until you made that delicious little noise in the back of your throat."

She framed his face with her hands and brought his lips to meet hers. It wasn't the frantic lovemaking of mouths he'd anticipated, but it somehow felt more intimate. Sweeter. Surer because they'd shared secrets.

"Perhaps we can make that happen another day, when I haven't been awake since four in the morning and made to feel like a grizzled old crone by your mother."

Dorian laughed against her mouth. "I'm so sorry about my mother. I'll speak with her."

"That's not needed right now." She traced a finger over one of his eyebrows, and he nearly purred. How could an eyebrow feel so sensual? "However, I must make a demand."

He smiled at the idea of Caroline demanding things from him. Preferably in the bedroom. Or on this desk, if she was willing. "What is your demand?"

Her eyes turned serious, and he knew her mind had not been entertaining the same sort of thoughts. "When you choose your wife, please do me the courtesy of telling me. Whatever this is between us must end once you settle on someone."

Declaring an end before they'd truly begun. It was realistic but gutting to consider. Dorian placed a solemn kiss on her lips. "I promise."

Once again, he was left alone in his study with letters he didn't write. But this time he had a name to investigate and a woman to thoroughly woo before he wed another.