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It was all her fault … and she couldn’t think of a single way to stop it.
‘Not what I think?’ Lady Melross echoed. ‘Gracious, Miss Denby, do you believe me a simpleton, unable to comprehend what I see right before my eyes? No wonder a little bird told me I might find something interesting in the conservatory.’
‘A little bird?’ Caro echoed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, I had a note … from someone who knew about your rendezvous. Or maybe you sent it yourself, Miss Caroline?’
‘Henshaw,’ Caro whispered, her eyes pleading with Max, who’d already stepped away from her, his face going grim and shuttered the moment he saw Lady Melross charging toward them down the glasshouse path, Lady Caringdon trailing behind.
Henshaw must have sent the note, wanting Lady Melross to find them with her gown in tatters, ensuring a scandal public enough that they’d be forced to marry.
Surely Max Ransleigh understood that?
‘You, Ransleigh,’ Lady Melross said, turning to Max, ‘I wouldn’t have expected something this lacking in taste and finesse … although after Vienna, I suppose maybe I should have. What a sly thing you turned out to be, Miss Denby,’ she continued as she snatched up Caroline’s cloak and tossed it over her shoulders. ‘There, you’re decent again.’
Lady Caringdon stared at them both accusingly. ‘Aren’t you a rum one, Ransleigh, sneaking around, keeping your distance from the company while you plotted to seduce an innocent right under the nose of her chaperone! And you, young lady, have got exactly what you deserve!’
‘Indeed!’ Lady Melross crowed. ‘Don’t you understand, you stupid girl? Ruining yourself with Ransleigh won’t earn you the elevated position in society you expect, for his father isn’t even receiving him! While you were immured in the country at that dreary horse farm, he was creating a scandal—’
‘Lady Melross,’ Max broke in on the lady’s tirade, ‘that is quite enough. Abuse me as you will, but I cannot allow you to harass Miss Denby. She has suffered a shock and should return to the house at once to recover. Miss Denby,’ he continued, turning to Caroline, his voice gentling, ‘will you allow these ladies to escort you back to your chamber? We will talk of this later.’
‘I should like to settle it now—’ Caro said.
‘No, in this at least, Ransleigh has the right of it,’ Lady Melross broke in. ‘You cannot stand there chatting in that disgrace of a garment! Come along, both of you. Though I cannot imagine what you could say that might excuse your behavior, Ransleigh, before you present yourself to Lady Denby, you’d best go and make yourself respectable.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if I talk with Stepmother first,’ Caroline conceded. Poor Lady Denby would be close to hysterics if the outcry about this disaster reached her before Caro did. She’d need to explain and calm her down before Max called on her.
Lady Caringdon sniffed. ‘Poor Diana. What a tawdry, embarrassing predicament—and with dear Eugenia set to make her bow next spring! Dreadful!’
‘Dreadful indeed,’ Lady Melross said, sounding not at all regretful. ‘Come along now, and wrap that cloak tight about you, miss. I shouldn’t want to shock any of the proper young ladies we might encounter on the way. Doubtless Lady Denby will summon you later, Ransleigh. Perhaps you’d better go and acquaint your aunt with the débâcle you’ve created in the midst of her party.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ransleigh said to Caro, ignoring Lady Melross’s disparaging remarks. ‘Get some rest. I’ll see you later and make everything right.’ Giving her an encouraging smile, he stepped back to allow Lady Melross to take her arm.
Having a sudden change of heart, Caroline almost reached out to snag his sleeve and beg him to walk in with her. If only they could face Lady Denby now, together, and explain what had happened, surely they could sort it out and keep the dreadful Lady Melross from spreading her malicious account of the events!
But she suspected Ransleigh wouldn’t deign to explain himself with Lady Melross present, and there was no chance whatsoever that the lady would let herself be manoeuvred out of escorting her victim into the house.
‘I will call on Lady Denby soon,’ he told Caro, then moved aside to let them pass.
‘Speak with me first!’ she tossed back as, Lady Caringdon seizing her other arm, the two women half-led, half-dragged her down the path.
They marched her into the house and up the stairs, relentless as gaolers. Initially they peppered her with questions, but her refusal to provide any details eventually convinced them she intended to remain silent.
With a final warning that it was useless to turn mute now, as her character was already ruined, they ignored her and spent the rest of the transit speculating about how devastated Lady Denby and Mrs Ransleigh would be and how fast the scandalous news would spread.
While they chattered, Caro’s mind raced furiously. Should she ask Max Ransleigh to seek out Henshaw, drag him in so they might jointly accuse him? Was Henshaw still at Barton Abbey to be accused?
Trapped between the two dragons, she had no way of determining that. Should she try to explain immediately to Lady Denby, or wait until after she’d consulted with Mr Ransleigh?
She had only a short time to figure out what she wanted, while her whole life and future hinged on her making the right decision.
When she reached her rooms and her erstwhile ‘rescuers’ discovered neither her stepmother nor her sister was present, they finally stopped plaguing her and rushed off. Doubtless anxious to compete over who could convey the interesting news to the most people the fastest, Caro thought sardonically.
She hoped her stepmother would not be one of those so informed, vastly preferring to break the dismal story herself. In any event, Lady Denby’s absence gave her the opportunity to summon Dulcie and change before the tattered evidence of the disaster could further upset her stepmother. Reassuring her maid, who gasped in alarm upon seeing her in the ruined gown, that she was quite unharmed and would explain later, Caro sent her off to dispose of the garment.
Watching the girl carry out the shreds, Caro smiled grimly. It certainly wasn’t the way she would have chosen to do it, but the escapade in the glasshouse had effectively ruined her. At least now she’d be able to purchase gowns that didn’t make her wince when she saw her image in a mirror. With that heartening thought, she scrawled a note asking Mr Ransleigh to meet her in Lady Denby’s sitting room at his earliest convenience.
As she waited for her stepmother to return, she tried to corral the thoughts galloping about in her mind like colts set loose in a spring meadow. How could she turn Henshaw’s despicable conduct to best advantage, managing the scandal so she would be able to return to Denby Lodge and her horses, while leaving Mr Ransleigh’s good name unblemished?
Only one thought truly dismayed her: that having heard Lady Melross testify that she’d received a note bidding her come to the conservatory, Max might think, in blatant disregard of his wishes, she had arranged for Lady Melross to find them, trapping him with treachery into compromising her after persuasion had failed.
Trapping herself?
How to avoid that fate? Too unsettled to remain seated, she paced the room. In the aftermath of Henshaw’s unexpected attack, her still-jangled nerves were hampering her ability to think clearly. The bald truth was she’d underestimated the man, dismissed him as a self-indulgent weakling she could easily handle.
It shook her to the core to admit that, had Max Ransleigh not rushed to her rescue, she probably could not have successfully resisted Henshaw.
How understanding Max had been, lending her his warmth and strength as she had struggled to compose herself. Bringing her back from the horror of what might have been to a reassuring normalcy with his gentle teasing. Renewed gratitude suffused her.
They must find some way out of this conundrum. She refused to repay his generosity by trapping him in a marriage neither of them wanted.
But when she recalled his parting words, a deep sense of unease filled her.
‘I’ll make everything right,’ he’d said. Initially, she’d thought he meant to track down Henshaw and force him to confess his guilt. However, if Henshaw had already scuttled away from Barton Abbey, leaving Max bearing the blame for her disgrace, Ransleigh’s sense of honour might very well force him into making her an offer.
And that wouldn’t do at all. For one, he’d told her quite plainly he had no wish to marry and she could think of few things worse than being shackled to an uninterested husband. The image of her cousin Elizabeth came forcefully to mind.
Nor did she want to cobble her future to a man with whom she had little in common, whose wit engaged her but who agitated and discomforted her every time she was near him, filling her with powerful desires she had no idea how to manage.
Before she could analyse the matter any further, a rapid patter of footsteps in the hallway and the buzz of raised voices announced the imminent return of her stepmother.
Praying Lady Melross had not accompanied her, Caro braced herself for the onslaught.
A moment later, the door flew open and Lady Denby burst into the room, Eugenia at her elbow. ‘Is it true?’ her stepsister demanded. ‘Did Mr Ransleigh truly … debauch you in the conservatory, as Lady Melross claims?’
‘He did not.’
‘Oh, thank heavens!’ Lady Denby exclaimed. ‘That dreadful woman! I knew it had to be naught but a malicious hum!’
‘There was an … altercation,’ Caro allowed. ‘But events did not unfold as Lady Melross supposed.’
‘Surely she didn’t find you wrapped in Mr Ransleigh’s arms, your gown in disarray, your bodice torn?’ Eugenia asked.
‘My gown had been damaged, but it was not—’
‘Oh, no!’ Eugenia interrupted with a wail. ‘Then you are ruined. Indeed, we are both ruined! I shall never have my Season in London now!’ Clapping a hand to her mouth, she burst into tears and rushed into her adjoining room, slamming the door behind her.
Lady Denby stood pale-faced and trembling, tears tracking down her own cheeks as she looked at Caro reproachfully. ‘Oh, Caro,’ she said faintly, ‘how could you? Even if you had no concern about your own future, how could you jeopardise Eugenia’s?’
‘Please, ma’am, sit and let me explain. Truly, it is not as bad as you think. I’m certain that virtually nothing the detestable Lady Melross told you is accurate.’
Lady Denby allowed herself to be shown to a seat and accepted a glass of sherry, which she sipped while Caro related what had actually transpired. When she got to the part about how Mr Ransleigh’s timely arrival had prevented Henshaw from overpowering her, Lady Denby cried out and leapt to her feet, wrapping Caro in her arms.
‘Oh, my poor dear, how awful for you! Bless Mr Ransleigh for having the courage to intervene.’
‘I owe him a great debt,’ Caro agreed, settling her stepmother back in her chair. ‘Which is why we need to somehow stop Lady Melross from circulating the falsehood that he compromised me. I can hardly repay Mr Ransleigh’s gallantry by forcing him to offer for me, a girl he hardly knows. That would not be fair, would it?’
‘It doesn’t seem right,’ Lady Denby admitted. ‘But if you don’t marry someone … how are we to salvage anything? And my dear, the truth is, this scandal could ruin Eugenia’s Season as well!’
‘Surely not! She’s not even a Denby! Once Lady Gilford and Mrs Ransleigh learn the truth, I’m certain they will enlist their friends to ensure my difficulties do not reflect badly on my stepsister.’
That hope seemed to reassure Lady Denby, for she nodded. ‘Yes, perhaps you are right. Grace and Jane would think it monstrous for poor Eugenia to suffer for Henshaw’s villainy. But how are we to salvage your position, my dear?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Caro evaded, guiltily aware that she had no desire to ‘salvage’ it. ‘Will you allow me to discuss this alone with Mr Ransleigh first, before he speaks with you? I expect him at any moment.’
‘Very well,’ Lady Denby agreed with a sigh. ‘It’s all so very distressing! I must go and comfort Eugenia.’
After giving her a final hug, Lady Denby walked out. Knowing that she would be meeting Max Ransleigh again any moment set every nerve on edge.
The fact that, despite her agitation, an insidious little voice was whispering that wedding Max might not be so disastrous after all filled her with a panicky agitation that drove her once again to pace the room.
From the very first, he’d affected her differently than any other man she’d ever met. Being near him filled her with a tingling physical immediacy, a consciousness of her breasts and lips and body she’d never previously experienced.
Yesterday in the conservatory, that strange but powerful attraction had urged her to touch him, kiss him, feel his mouth and hands on her. Thought and reason vaporised into heat and need, into a burning, irresistible desire to know him, to let him know her. She’d craved that contact with a force and single-mindedness she would never have believed possible.
Even with the threat of the Curse hanging over her, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to bring her rioting senses under control and walk away if he’d made any move at all to entice her to stay.
The power Henshaw had exerted over her while she struggled to escape him had frightened her, but what Max inspired in her was even more terrifying … because she hadn’t wanted to escape it. Indeed, recalling him poised motionless on the bench, inviting her kiss, making no move to cajole or entice, letting her own desire propel her to him, was more coercive than any force he could have employed.
She’d been as powerfully in his thrall as … as her cousin Elizabeth had once been to Spencer Russell, the reprobate she’d married. The man who’d charmed and wed and betrayed, and almost bankrupted her cousin before a fortuitous racing accident had brought to an end Elizabeth’s humiliating existence as a disdained and abandoned wife.
Caro did not want to be ensnared by an emotion that dazzled her out of her common sense, nor be held captive by a lust so strong it paralysed will and smothered rational thinking.
Just as she reached that conclusion, a rap sounded at the door.
Her heartbeat stopped, then recommenced at a rapid pace as a stinging shock rippled through her, setting her stomach churning. Wiping her suddenly sweaty palms on her gown, she took a deep breath and walked to open the door.
Chapter Eight (#u9fd4fb25-6826-5a76-86c9-8d23bc3d619f)
As expected, Max Ransleigh stood on the threshold. Looking solemn, he took her hand and kissed her fingers.
A second wave of sensation blazed through her. Clenching her fists and jaw to try to dampen the effect, she mumbled an incoherent welcome and led him to a chair. Though she was still too agitated to want to sit, knowing he would not unless she did so, she forced herself into the place opposite him.
‘I’m so sorry to have involved you in this,’ she began before he could speak. ‘Though I did invite you to compromise me, I hope you realise I had no part in setting up the situation in the conservatory today! I would never have gone behind your back to create a scandal in which you’d already assured me you wanted no part.’
‘I believe you,’ he said, calming her fears on that matter, at least. ‘I expect it was Henshaw who sent Lady Melross the note, wanting her to find you with him in a state dishevelled enough to ensure you’d be coerced to wed him.’
‘Thank you. I would hate to have you think I’d use you so shabbily. Lady Denby has agreed to let me speak with you privately before she comes in, so shall we discuss what is to be done?’
‘Let us do so. You did get your wish, you know. You are quite effectively ruined.’
‘Yes, I know. I certainly didn’t enjoy being mauled by Henshaw, but it might turn out for the best. We need only tell people what really happened, establishing that you had no part in it, and all will be well. I’ll still be ruined, but with Henshaw showing his character to be so despicable, no one could fault me for refusing to marry him.’
Frowning, Ransleigh shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that is not the case. Society would still believe the only way to salvage your reputation would be for you to marry your seducer. However deplorable his present conduct, Henshaw was born a gentleman, so much would be forgiven as long as you end up wed.’
‘But that’s appalling!’ Caro cried. ‘The victim is expected to marry her attacker?’
‘Rightly or wrongly, the blame usually attaches itself to the female. But it won’t come to that. Accusing Henshaw isn’t possible; he’s already left Barton Abbey. Any evidence that might confirm he was your attacker—bloody nose, ruined cravat—will have been put to rights by the time I could run him to ground. Since he can now have no doubt that you’d refuse to marry him, he has no reason to corroborate the truth, especially since Lady Melross is circulating a version of events that relieves him of responsibility. Indeed, he will probably think it a fine revenge to see me blamed for his transgressions.’
Caro nodded, distressed but not surprised that Ransleigh’s assessment of Henshaw’s character matched her own. ‘I imagine he would, though I have no intention of allowing him the satisfaction. Whether he admits his guilt or not, I still intend to accuse him. Why should you, who intervened only to help me, suffer for his loathsome behaviour?’
‘I don’t think accusing him would be wise.’
Puzzled, Caro frowned at him. ‘Why not?’
‘You were discovered in my embrace. I’m the son of an earl who exerts a powerful influence in government; you are the orphaned daughter of a rural baron. If you accuse Henshaw, who will justly claim he was in his room, preparing to depart when Lady Melross found us, there will be many who will whisper that I coerced you into naming another man to cover up my own bad conduct. Lady Melross in particular will be delighted to embellish the details of my supposed ravishment and assert such behaviour is only to be expected after my … previous scandal.’
‘You really think no one would believe me if I tell the truth?’ Caro asked incredulously.
‘What, allow such a salacious act to be blamed on some insignificant member of the ton rather than titillate the masses by accusing the well-known son of a very important man? No, I don’t think anyone would believe you. I can see the scurrilous cartoons in the London print-shop windows now,’ he finished bitterly.
‘But that’s so … unfair!’ she burst out.
He laughed shortly, no humour in the sound. ‘I have learned of late just how unfair life can be. Believe me, I like the solution as little as you do, but with your reputation destroyed and the blame for it laid at my door, the only way to salvage your position is for you to marry me.’
Alarmed as she was by his conclusion, Caro felt a flash of admiration for his willingness to do what he saw as right. ‘A noble offer and I do honour you for it. But I think it ridiculous to allow society’s expectations—based on a lie!—to force us into something neither of us desire.’
‘Miss Denby, let me remind you that you are ruined,’ he repeated, his tone now edged with an undercurrent of anger and frustration. ‘Fail to marry and you risk being exiled altogether from respectable society. Being cast out of the company of those with whom you have always associated is not a pleasant condition, as I have good reason to know.’
‘First, I’ve never really “associated” with the ton,’ she countered, ‘and, as I’ve assured you several times, polite society’s opinion does not matter to me. Certainly not when compared with losing the freedom to live life how—and with whom—I choose.’
‘But Lady Denby does live and move in that society and Miss Whitman’s future may well depend upon its opinions. We may be far removed from London here, but I assure you, Lady Melross will delight in dredging up every detail of this scandal when your relations arrive in London next spring.’
Caroline shook her head. ‘I’ve already discussed that problem with my stepmother. If they band together, I’m certain Lady Denby, your aunt and Lady Gilford can manage this affair so that no harm comes to Eugenia’s prospects. Since you are already accounted a rake, it shouldn’t much affect your reputation and ruining mine has been my goal from the outset.’
She’d hoped to persuade Max to accept her argument. Far from looking convinced, though, his expression turned even grimmer and his jaw flexed, as if he were trying not to grit his teeth.
‘Miss Denby,’ he began again after a moment, ‘I don’t mean to seem overbearing or argumentative, but the very fact that you have not much associated with society means you are in no position to accurately predict its reaction. I have lived all my life under its scrutiny and I promise you, once Lady Denby has thought through the matter, she will agree with me that our marriage is the only solution that will safeguard the reputations of everyone involved.’
He paused and took a deep breath, as if armouring himself. ‘So you may assure her that I have done the proper thing and made a formal offer for your hand.’
If the situation had not been so serious, Caro might have laughed, for he spat out the declaration as if each word were a hot coal that burned his tongue as he uttered it. His obvious reluctance might even have been considered insulting, if her own desire to avoid marriage hadn’t exceeded his.
But then, as if realising that his grudging offer was hardly lover-like, he shook his head and sighed. ‘Let me try this again,’ he said, then reached over to tangle his fingers with hers.
Immediately, heat rushed up her arm, while her heart accelerated so rapidly, she felt dizzy.
‘Won’t you honour me by giving me your hand?’ he said. ‘I know neither of us came to Barton Abbey with marriage in mind. But during our brief acquaintance, I’ve come to admire and respect you. I flatter myself that you’ve come to like me, too, at least a little.’
