Rumours that Ruined a Lady. Marguerite Kaye
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given her daughter? Bella still hated her. Papa still acted as if he cared nothing for her—or any of his daughters. And Caro was still faced with the prospect of either making a good match to please him or spending the rest of her life looking after Bella’s many progeny. Her stepmother had already given birth to two boys, and she was increasing again. Killellan stripped of all of her sisters would be unbearable. Cressie, in her second Season, was bound to make a match in the near future, and Cordelia made no secret of her desire to wed as soon as possible in order to escape home, where Bella and her infant sons ruled the roost. Caro sighed. Why was it that doing one’s duty seemed sometimes so unrewarding?
Having assured George that his Nancy, like Kitty’s mama, was very happy and at peace, Mrs Foster slumped back in her chair with a deep, animalistic groan which distracted Caro from her melancholy thoughts. Her hand was released. As if by magic, though obviously with the impeccable timing of practice, the maid appeared to turn up the lamps. Caro rubbed her eyes. Across the table from her, a woman was sobbing delicately into her kerchief. The aforementioned Kitty, she presumed, and obviously wholly convinced that she had just communed with her mother. Lucky Kitty, to be so easily placated.
Caro stared at her, fascinated. The woman was voluptuously beautiful. Tears sparkled on her absurdly long dark lashes, but signally failed to either redden the woman’s nose or make tracks down her creamy skin. When Caro cried, which she hated to do, her nose positively bloomed and her skin turned a blotchy red.
A prickling feeling, a sense of somebody watching her, made her drag her eyes away from the beauty to the man at her side. Her heart did sickening somersaults as she looked quickly away. It could not be he, it simply could not be. She sneaked another glance. It was him! What on earth was Sebastian doing here? Surely not, like her, in the hopes of communing with his dead mother!
It was almost four years since they had met, four years since she had tumbled headlong into that girlish crush which she ought to have recovered from long since. Which of course she had recovered from! It was a shock, that was all, seeing him here, looking even more raffishly handsome than she remembered. He had garnered a frankly wicked reputation in that time, while she had turned him, in her imagination, into her dashing knight in shining armour, riding to her rescue in her dreams, taking her away from the tedium and loneliness of her life at Killellan.
Kitty appeared to be his companion. There was something proprietary about the way the woman put her hand on Sebastian’s arm. And something not quite proper in the way she was dressed. Too much bosom on display, even if it was quite magnificent. Caro’s eyes widened. She must be his mistress. Yes, definitely his mistress, and a—what was the saying?—yes, a pearl of the first water, more than worthy of Sebastian’s reputation. Of a certainty, someone of his poise and experience would not look twice at a gauche stork-like female with carrot hair and no bosom to speak of. Except that he was staring, frowning at her, oblivious to his mistress’s tears.
He looked shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, so taken up with her foolish hopes had she been, but she supposed her presence here was a bit shocking. And now she was blushing. Caro pushed her chair back, intent on leaving before he could approach her, because though the thing she wanted most in the world was to talk to him, the thing she wanted least in the world was to be chastised by him, especially in the presence of his beautiful companion. Stumbling from the table, she was halfway across the room when Sebastian caught up with her.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Caro turned. He was not quite so tall as she remembered, though that was probably because she had acquired so many extra inches as to make her a positive maypole, according to Bella. And he did seem bigger—broader, more solid, more intimidating, if she was of a mind to be intimidated, which she was not! ‘Good evening, my lord. I seem to recall you asking me a similar question when we last met in your grounds. I see your manners have not improved much in the interim.’ Her voice sounded quite cool, she was pleased to note. ‘As to what I am doing here, I could easily ask you the same question. I had not thought you the kind to be interested in the afterlife.’
‘One life is quite enough,’ Sebastian replied feelingly.
Damned right, was her instinctive reply. She swallowed the words with a small, prim smile. ‘If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I doubt very much that Mrs Foster has access to it.’
‘I am relieved to hear that you were not taken in by the charade. What the devil brought you here, and alone too?’
His eyes were shadowed, with lines flanking the corners of them which had not been there before. Two more lines drew his brow into a permanent furrow. His mouth still turned down in that fascinating way. He had not the look of a happy soul. ‘If you must know, I came here for the same reasons as everyone else—yourself excepted. I had the stupidest notion that I might contact my mother. I thought—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought, Sebastian, it is none of your business.’
‘Does your father know about this escapade?’
‘Certainly not. He has no interest in speaking to Mama. Oh, you mean he would disapprove of my being here. You may rest assured that he is quite oblivious, as is he seems to be of everything I do, provided it does not damage the prospects he has lined up for me.’
‘His game of matrimonial chess has begun then,’ Sebastian said.
‘You remember that!’
Sebastian grinned. ‘You almost gave me an apoplexy when you leapt on to Burkan.’
Goodness, but she had forgotten the effect his smile had on her. Caro tried and failed to suppress her own. ‘I don’t know why I did it, except that you were so very certain I should not.’
‘And is that why you are here tonight, because you know you ought not to be?’
‘What a very false impression you have of me. I will have you know, that of the five sisters, I am known as the dutiful one.’
At this, he gave a bark of laughter. The deep, masculine sound of it brought the attention of everyone in the room, including the beauty he had escorted who, having recovered her black-velvet evening cloak, was sashaying towards them, all creamy skin, black-as-night hair and voluptuous figure. Caro felt her own shortcomings acutely.
‘My lord,’ the beauty said, ‘I am much fatigued by this experience, and would return home.’
Sebastian was looking suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Obviously, introducing his mistress to his neighbour’s newly-out daughter was not a task he relished. His discomfort stirred the devil in her. ‘My lord,’ Caro said, ‘will you not introduce me to your companion?’
Now he looked appalled. Emboldened, she held out her hand. ‘How do you do? I am Lady Caroline Armstrong.’
Kitty, herself looking slightly taken aback, dropped a curtsy. ‘Miss Garrison. I am honoured, my lady. Mrs Foster has a remarkable gift, has she not?’
‘I’m afraid Lady Caroline is rather more of a sceptic than you, Kitty,’ Sebastian drawled.
‘Lady Caroline prefers to keep an open mind,’ Caro said pointedly. Did he not realise that his mistress was most likely content to be duped? ‘Really, Sebastian, you are every bit as rude as I recall.’
And a good deal more attractive to boot. Heavens, but she must not let him see the effect he had on her, it would be mortifying. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you again,’ Caro said, ‘but I must go.’
Sebastian took her hand and surprised her by bowing over it, brushing his lips over the tips of her fingers. His mouth was warm on her skin. His kiss was no more intimate than many she had received since coming out, but it felt very different. She wondered what it would like to kiss him properly, and suddenly remembered wondering the exact same thing that first time they had met. It was a struggle to retain her composure, but she managed. Just.
‘Sebastian, I think we had best be on our way,’ Kitty said with a pointed look at her lover. ‘All this excitement has quite overset me.’
Caro snatched back her hand. Sebastian