Chapter Twelve

After travelling to Ipswich and setting up a trust for Jacqueline, the remaining portion of her dowry to be paid there instead, Caroline took her horse to Framlingham, where Jacqueline now lived. It was a small village, situated under the shadow of a ruined castle, and the high street consisted of two milliners' shops, a mantua-maker, and several stalls selling bread and fish and meat. A blacksmith's sign creaked in the wind, the sound of hammering metal clanging on the light breeze, and there was an inn at the end of the road that catered to all the few travellers who came to the place. There was also a coffee house within for the locals, Caroline presumed, although she didn't enter. At her age, and a widow, she thought nothing of walking around unchaperoned, but she didn't want to cause any gossip in the town her daughter lived in.

When she'd told her father of her situation—that she was with child—he had searched for a suitable family who might take her in as a ward. The family he had settled on were the Smiths, middle-class enough to have a respectable place in society, but in a position to welcome the financial incentive that accepting Jacqueline would bring.

Over the years, Caroline had suspected that Mrs Smith had grown overly reliant on this financial assistance, and might even have been tempted to use Jacqueline's dowry for her own purposes. However, she had become certain over the years that Mrs Smith had become fond of Jacqueline for her own sake—if not as a child of her own, then close.

Caroline lingered by the curved windows of a milliner's shop, pretending to examine the ugly bonnets inside as she waited. Her heart drummed inside her chest, and more than once, she was forced to wipe her damp hands down her skirts. The heavy June heat made her discomfort worse, and she was beginning to wonder if she had wasted her time when she caught a glimpse of blonde hair on the other side of the road.

The girl was tall, a bonnet's ribbons tied loosely under her chin, and her golden hair fell in loose curls around her face. She was walking with a shorter, slimmer girl perhaps a year or two older, and they had their heads together, laughing. The sounds of their mirth carried across the road, and Caroline stood still in shock as she watched her daughter, Jacqueline, the girl she had given birth to, walk across the road.

She wasn't immediately beautiful; her eyes were a soft brown and a little too large in her face, unbalancing it somewhat. Her nose was a button and her mouth too thin above a strong chin. But her figure was lush and rounded, and the expressiveness of her eyes went a long way to absolve the plainness of her face.

Caroline would have changed nothing about her.

Moving as though in a dream, she followed the two girls along the street, watching from a distance as they turned up a track towards a decently sized house on the outskirts of the city. Perhaps they were not rich, and they had no claim to the aristocracy, but they had enough to be comfortable, and the amount that Caroline had paid every month for the past ten years had no doubt added to their comfort.

All the things Caroline had feared—that Jacqueline would be neglected, unhappy, either too beautiful or too plain, or perhaps compromised herself—had been assuaged. Jacqueline was happy. It was evident she had her ‘sister' were close, and by the looks of the baskets under their arm, they had been visiting the poor.

Still laughing, the girls opened the front door, and Caroline held her breath as her first and last glimpse of her daughter came to an end. The door shut behind them, and the two girls were enclosed inside.

She had to fight the urge to go to the door and bang on it, demanding to see her daughter. This was the role she had assigned herself: the one of onlooker. She could never be present and a part of Jacqueline's life. That was the agreement when she had given the girl up at birth.

Her heart hurt. Joy and grief battled for prominence. Jacqueline was happy. Her life was not as privileged as it might have been, but it was comfortable. Caroline could not have asked for more.

And yet she was not hers.

She turned, a hand on her stomach as though to hold herself together, and slowly walked the path back down into the town. At first, she barely noticed the smart black coach on the other side of the street, and she might have passed it by entirely if a hand had not caught her arm, swinging her around to face him.

"Caroline," George said. "I've been looking everywhere for you."