That was a very dangerous thought.
And so, Anthony put his hat on and showed himself out before he had the time to think about what he had just agreed to do.
Chapter Four
“—and of course, one simply learns to manage,” Mrs. Holt was saying, with the serenity of a woman who had arranged her face into an expression of contentment so many years ago that it had settled there permanently. “The first year is an adjustment. After that, one finds one’s rhythm.”
“One does,” agreed Lady Fenwick, who was twenty-six and had been married for four years and spoke of it with the careful, slightly glazed air of a person recounting a foreign expedition they had survived. “Routine is everything.”
Caroline held her teacup and said absolutely nothing, because nothing she wished to say was worth sharing, nor would these women want to hear her thoughts. Additionally, her mind was deep in thought because Laura had pulled out after learning of the Duke’s involvement in their affairs.
“I simply cannot risk it,” she had said, her voice shaking.
She had tried but failed to talk Laura out of her fear and anxiety. Now it would be just her.
The drawing room of the Marchioness of Briar’s townhouse was full of women in various stages of the same arrangement: married, managed, and settled into their respective rhythms. There were a dozen of them, ranging across settees and chairs in the particular formation of a gathering that called itself informal.
In truth, it was as precisely ordered as a military exercise.
Esther, her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Grayston, sat beside her, composed and warm, and Laura was wedged between two matrons on the far settee, looking as though she had been inserted there by a well-meaning but misguided hand.
“The key,” Mrs. Holt continued, lowering her voice in the manner of someone imparting a great confidence, “is never to expect conversation after supper. They simply won’t provide it. Accept that early, and you’ll spare yourself a great deal of disappointment.”
A ripple of knowing laughter moved through the circle. Caroline’s smile held.
Is this it, then? Is this the path I am walking towards?
She thought about her list, folded carefully in the back of her memory. Five items were still unchecked. Now, she busiedherself with thinking about the tallow-smoke smell of the Black Boar, how she’d walked inside that tavern…
She’d been real, undecorated, and alive.
She thought about how she had clapped at the end of the match and felt, for a single unguarded moment, entirely like herself.
She had spent three years of her life being remade into something manageable. Lady Hayward had been thorough: the posture, the diction, the particular art of declining impertinent questions with a smile so gracious that the asker left feeling they had been complimented.
She was grateful, she supposed. Lady Hayward had meant it kindly, and Lewis had meant it kindly, and everyone who had ever handed her a set of instructions for herself had meant it kindly. Heavens, she was tired, down to the very marrow of her bones. Tired of being the grateful recipient of other people’s good intentions.
“Lady Caroline.” One of the matrons near the window was looking at her with an expression of benign inquiry. “Surely, you must be thinking of it now. This is your first proper Season, albeit a bit delayed.”
Caroline tried to keep her expression gentle. Before she’d reached seventeen, she’d pleaded with her brother to delay her debut, and Lewis, being the decent man that he was, had allowed it. But on the condition that she accompanied their aunt, Lady Hayward, on her travels.
And now, here she was, at twenty-one, forced to face the very thing she’d done her best to avoid.
“I am,” Caroline said at last. “Very much.”
“And has your brother introduced you to anyone promising?”
“Several gentlemen,” she said carefully. “All of them very… promising.”
From across the room, Laura caught her eye. A brief wince passed between them like a letter passed under a door.
The conversation moved on, back to the safe territories: the merits of various subscription libraries, the question of whether Hyde Park was becoming overly crowded, and the appropriate length of a morning call. Caroline listened, smiled, and refilled her teacup when it was empty. She felt the weight of the afternoon accumulate in her chest like silt.
She excused herself, eventually, on the pretext of refreshing her cup at the side table, which was laid with lemonade and a quiet remove from the circle. She stood there for a moment, simply breathing.
A footman appeared at her elbow. “For you, my lady.”
She looked down. A note, folded small and sealed without wax, done in a hurry, then, or by a man who did not concern himself with formality.