She said nothing, which was its own variety of mercy.
“I believe I was,” Lady Hayward agreed, with the serenity of someone who had decided to be useful. “Duchess?”
“Delighted,” said Esther, who had not been fooled either but had the considerable grace not to say so.
The two of them continued along the path at a comfortable pace, and Caroline and Laura fell back by mutual, unspoken agreement, adjusting the distance until they were outside the range of comfortable hearing.
Laura’s maid followed at a discreet distance behind, which was the arrangement they had established over the course of a year of friendship, close enough for propriety, far enough for honesty.
Laura waited without pressure but with a quality of attention so complete it communicated that she was entirely available to receive whatever arrived.
“I need to tell you something,” Caroline said.
“I thought so.” Laura’s voice was quiet, but there was an amusement that edged her tone. The Serpentine caught the pale morning light and broke it into slivers. “You have had that look for three days. You would be surprised how much high societyloves to gossip, especially about such highbrow nobles such as your unmarried self. Your brother mentioned it at dinner on Wednesday, apparently, though I heard it secondhand. He told the lady of the house that you seemed preoccupied.”
“Lewis notices everything except the things directly in front of him,” Caroline said.
“That is broadly true.” Laura glanced at her. “Do you wish to talk about the list?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Caroline cleared her throat.
A short pause ensued, measured only by their footsteps and the distant sound of a child’s voice from the direction of the boat launch.
“Which item?” Laura asked.
“The last one.”
She felt rather than saw Laura go very still beside her, with the particular stillness of a person who has arrived at a conclusion they had been quietly approaching for some time and now needed a moment to locate a steady surface upon which to place it.
“The kiss,” Laura said.
“Yes.”
“Caroline.” Laura’s voice was still quiet, but it had acquired a quality that Caroline recognized as the Laura-beneath-the-decorum, the one who liked mischief and had once admitted that she found the conventions of polite society simultaneously necessary and fundamentally absurd. “Are you telling me…?”
“I am telling you that I have successfully crossed that item off my list. I am one step closer to achieving my goal,” Caroline said, with the composure of a woman who had rehearsed this speech three times in the privacy of her own bedchamber and found that practice did not, in the least, diminish its impact. “The sixth item is accounted for…thoroughly.”
The silence that followed was rather longer than the previous one.
“By whom?”
Caroline looked at the path.
“Caroline.” Laura’s voice was needling now, and Caroline knew she could not get out of answering this. “By whom?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters enormously.”
“It was on the list,” Caroline said. “That is what matters. It is crossed through.”
“The list,” Laura said, and there was a quality in her voice now that was not quite accusation and not quite amusement and was composed of approximately equal parts of both, “was intended to give you experience before marriage. Not to—” She stopped, took in a breath, and started again. “Caroline. A first kiss is not a thing one simply…”
“I kissed someone, and it is done,” Caroline said. “That is all.”
At least, that was what she wanted to think, no matter that her own mind seemed to think otherwise.
Laura looked at her for a long moment with the expression she wore when she was deciding whether to be patient or direct, and evidently concluded, as she generally did, in favor of directness.