Chapter Ten

The worst part was, Caroline was tempted.

After her husband's death, she had never once been inclined to marry again. Her lifestyle was unorthodox, but she had chosen it, and she was happy to maintain her independence the way she saw fit. Jacqueline's payments had placed an extra burden on her shoulders, but she had been willing to bear it.

Then George disrupted her routine. He infiltrated not just her bed but her life, her peace of mind. He seduced her in every conceivable way, and the only way to have him was to embrace poverty. To ruin him and her daughter in one fell swoop.

Yet she could see it now, a life with George. Picnics in the country, laughter and desire and the kind of happiness she had once dreamt she could have with another gentleman. And she wanted it. The life she had been denied at seventeen.

It felt like a farce. A joke. Fate laughing in her face as it ripped the one thing she had ever wanted since the boy who ruined her first.

Panic turned the corners of her vision black as she fought to keep her head. This should not be happening; he should not have fallen in love with her. He should not want her, when she was five years his senior and could not be guaranteed to produce him another child.

Cruel of him to ask her when it would be harming his reputation.

Yet if it were not for Jacqueline's dowry, she might have accepted.

Clearly, she was out of her mind.

"Caro?" George touched her face, and when she blinked, he was before her, naked and glorious, and she loved him. She ached with it.

"This should have ended long ago." Her voice didn't sound like her own. "That was my error."

"End? Surely not." The hurt in his eyes filled her vision. "If you won't be my wife, then continue to be my mistress."

"It's a flattering offer, but no." She hunted for her clothes. Why had she let him remove them from her and cast them about the room in all directions? "I have—I have obligations. Things I must . . . and you must marry a wife better suited to you."

"There is no one more right for me than you."

"Nonsense." She laughed, but the sound was brittle, and heavens, she felt as though she was breaking apart. "You missed me and are blinded by post-coital bliss, but your father was right: I would not make you a good wife. Think of the scandal."

"Are you afraid of it?" he asked, looking at her intently.

"Not for me, but for you. What viscount marries his whore? Think, George."

"Many a man across history has married his mistress," he said, cupping her jaw in his hand. "There may be a small scandal, but the ton will recover, and it will all be forgotten. You never told me who you were before you married, but you are Lady Augustus Spenser, and you married the son of a duke. Nothing about you is beneath me."

"So many things about me are beneath you."

"Then tell me them."

She should, perhaps. Hammer the final nail into her coffin and confess to Jacqueline. Instead, she reached a hand to her bare throat; she wore no jewels. "I sold everything you gave me," she said, and watched as confusion crossed his face. "Every last piece that you chose for me so carefully." Her breath was harsh, and she was going to have to be careful or she might cry. "They are gone. Do you not see? I cannot marry a poor man, and I will not give my heart to a man who will marry another." Not again. She dashed a hand across her eyes as she buttoned up her dress poorly. Never mind—her pelisse would cover it. All she cared now was about leaving. "It's better this way. Believe me. You'll forget me soon, and then you will be glad I had the sense to refuse you."

His eyes were dark, the expression pained. "There is nothing about this that I will look back on with thankfulness."

There was nothing more to say. For the second time in her life, Caroline had fallen in love, and she wished she might have done it with a less honourable man so she could have the luxury of hating him in peace.

As it was, she had nothing and no one but herself to blame.

#

Caroline had forgotten she and Louisa had planned on visiting the Royal Academy until she heard her friend stride through the house as though she owned it.

"In here, darling," she called, pushing herself up from her reclined position on the sofa. The half-opened bottle of sherry was on the table before her, and she took hold of it, pouring herself a glass.

Louisa swept into the room and stopped. She frowned. "You look dreadful."

"You are always a balm to my wounded feelings."

"What happened to wound your feelings?"

Caroline was not a lady, and she did not succumb to ladylike habits; she tossed back her thimbleful of sherry. "George proposed," she said shortly.

"Oh no."

"Yes."

Louisa sank into the sofa beside her. "And you refused him?"

"Must you really ask me that question? I am not so far gone that I would let him waste away his life with me." Caroline wished she were in the mood for cake. Everything would be easier if she could eat her feelings into oblivion. Sadly, the very prospect of food made her feel ill. Hence the sherry.

Good decisions had never been her forte.

Louisa's eyes were still wide. "Is he in love with you?"

"That's what he claims," Caroline said, pouring herself another drink. "Would you like one?"

"It's ten in the morning, dearest."

"Is it? I barely slept, so I suppose I have the luxury of classing today as last night still."

Louisa looked at her with amusement. "So you love him too, do you?"

"You warned me I would fall in love and regret it, and you were right." The lesson had been a cruel one, but she would learn from it. In time. "I love him far too much to marry him."

"That logic is faulty and you know it."

"That's because I never told you the full of it." Caroline reclined again, her head spinning and her body aching. Age, that was what it was—growing old was an indignity. "For the past ten years, I have been funding my daughter's dowry and living situation."

To her credit, Louisa barely blinked. "You have a daughter?"

"Not Augustus's," Caroline hastened to clarify. She had not become with child with her husband, thank the Lord. "Small mercies, I suppose."

"Then whose?"

"No one of concern. He's now portly and lives in the country with his much younger wife; I've had no occasion to meet him in town." Another reason to be thankful, although it hardly felt as though she had amassed all that many. "The fact of the matter is, I am financially responsible for her, and if George were to marry me, his father has threatened to cut him off. I would not have the money to send to Jacqueline, and I could hardly expect him to bankrupt himself for the sake of a child that was never his." She pressed her fingers against her forehead. "It would be easier for him to forget me, and I think it will be easily done once I am not seeing to his needs. He was not thinking clearly."

"I think he is the best judge of that."

Caroline poured herself another glass. "He doesn't know about Jacqueline."

"You never told him?"

"Why should I saddle him with the knowledge of another man's child? Besides, I'm too old for him, and he would be penniless if we married. It's better he forgets me." She waved a hand. "Go, darling. Let me suffer in peace. I will finish this sherry and eat some cake and by the end of it, I will be myself again." And prepared to do whatever she must to secure the future of her daughter.

#

"You fool," Louisa said as she entered George's breakfast room the day after. "You utter fool, George."

His head ached. After Caroline had left the previous morning, he had over-indulged. As a result, he was not in the mood to entertain Louisa's sharpness.

"Thank you for your consideration," he muttered, sipping his coffee and wishing the world was not so bright.

"Have you no sense?"

"It appears that allowing you entry into my house displays a distinct lack of it."

She ignored him, whirling to the curtains and yanking them open. He squinted in pain at the sudden burst of sunshine. "You deserve that," she informed him. "And more. What were you thinking?"

"Evidently I was not."

"If you were intending to propose, why did you let her think you were penniless?"

"I said no such thing."

"You said your father would cut you off."

"From the bulk of his fortune, certainly, but I have a tidy inheritance elsewhere. It's not a vast fortune, perhaps, but it will suffice perfectly nicely." He squinted at her. "Why, have you spoken with her?"

"We had an engagement—she had forgotten but I had not." She took a seat beside him. "Did she give her reasons for refusing?"

"I gather she thinks she is too old and too notorious." He winced at the memory. "And she has been selling the jewels I bought her."

"Of course she has," Louisa said pragmatically. "How else did you expect her to survive?"

"I told her on more than one occasion that if she wanted for anything, I would provide it. And I thought she was left some money by her late husband? My gifts—they were designed as fripperies, things she could wear to the opera. Not necessities."

Louisa sighed, massaging her eyes. "I had not thought you so foolish."

"What obligations does she have that I was unaware of?"

"Are you in love with her?"

"What an obnoxious question."

"I take it that's a yes."

In the past, a sonnet or two had been enough to bleed his love away, until he had concluded it had not been love at all. Usually, he tired of his lovers within weeks. Caroline was the only one who stayed the night, who awoke sleepily at dawn to climb atop his body. Who, laughing, recited the historical facts he had relayed the night before as she rocked above him, her words devolving into gasps.

"What do you want from me?" he asked wearily. "Yes, I love her. It's entirely possible I've been in love with her since the very first moment I laid eyes on her. I want her to be mine even if it's foolishness and the world turns its back on me—so long as she wants that too."

"Very well, then." She tapped her fingers against the table. "Caroline had a child out of wedlock before she married and moved to London. From what I understand, she has been providing for the girl all these years—and she had too much pride to put the burden of her dowry on you when she learnt you would be cut off from your father."

He froze, the implications of this coming tumbling down around him. The lover from her childhood had left her with his bastard, and she had been picking up the pieces ever since. No wonder she had raged against the injustice of the world when she had been forced to bear its cross.

Relief flooded through him, mingling with his anger. "Did she truly suppose that I was asking her only to drag her into poverty with me?"

Louisa raised a brow. " You made it sound like that, George."

"She left before I could explain the terms of my inheritance," he said impatiently. "This daughter—how old is she?"

She shook her head. "I know none of the details. The only reason I'm telling you is because her pride won't let her."

"The little fool. As though I should have balked at providing for her daughter."

"There are other considerations," Louisa reminded him. "She's older than you."

"I care nothing for that." He rested his elbows on his thighs, painful gaze fixed on Louisa. "Tell me, as a friend, how am I to make this right?"