Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

Even as she told herself she shouldn’t, she let herself lean forward into the waiting sanctuary of Jeremiah’s arms. When he drew her across his legs, she sighed and nestled closer, pillowing her head in the hollow below his shoulder as he held her. Beneath her ear his heartbeat was steady and strong, and she closed her eyes to let the sound fill her.

“Whatever Captain Bertle says, I’m not really so much like Lady Hamilton,” she said softly. “Why, I wonder? Is she that much bolder, more wicked, more wanton, more foolhardy than I could ever be? Or simply that she’s happier, because she dared to follow her heart, no matter what the cost?”

Tears stung her eyelids, and she buried her face against his waistcoat. “I don’t know, Jeremiah,” she said, her voice fracturing as her heart broke. “I don’t know, and now I never will.”

The wind fell off that night, and despite their expectations, the Raleigh did not enter the wide, curving arms of the Bay of Naples until dawn of the following day.

“It is lovely, isn’t it?” said Caro to Jeremiah as they stood on the deck. Washed in the rosy light of the rising sun, the castles and villas and pastel houses with their terracotta roofs and hanging gardens looked more like a painting from some artist’s imagination. “Not quite real, somehow, at least not by English standards.”

“Judge the world by English standards and you’re bound to be disappointed,” he scoffed, but without much bite to his criticism. “It will all be real enough when you’re there in the middle of it. From here it’s a pretty spot, but behind those gardens are more starving beggars than you’d ever dream could survive.”

He had walked the deck the night through instead of sleeping, and instead, too, of being tormented by knowing she lay above him, always beyond his reach. He was sure she hadn’t slept, either, no matter how still she lay when he’d finally returned to the cabin. Accomplished as she was at acting, she wasn’t good enough to cover feelings that deep.

He pointed across to starboard. “There—that’s Bertle’s famous volcano.”

“Don’t you feel threatened?” she asked lightly. Misted by clouds of steam near its peak, Vesuvius this morning looked no more threatening than she felt herself. “Tottering on the edge of disaster with me by your side and a volcano before you?”

He cleared his throat. “The only disaster will be when you’re no longer at my side.”

“You shouldn’t say such things,” she said quickly. She looked up to find his green eyes watching her so intently that she blushed, and he smiled wryly.

“Am I that bad at speaking gallantry?”

“If you’re that bad at speaking like a fashionable gentleman,” she said, her voice too brittle for the banter she was attempting, “then I am even worse at listening. I don’t, you see. I make that most grievous mistake for a lady of actually answering when I’m addressed. Frederick quite despairs of me.”

He was touched by the way she was trying so hard to be brave, and how wretchedly she was failing. What had passed between them on this voyage would end here in Naples, and he drew her protectively into the crook of his arm, keeping her to himself just a little longer. Instead of a bonnet, she wore a dark cashmere shawl draped over her head and shoulders, for the chill of night was still in the air, and he liked the feel of the cashmere, soft, like her.

“Don’t change, Caro,” he said softly. “Whatever happens, I wouldn’t want you to be any different than what you are now.”

Quickly she looked back at the city, determined not to slide again into the treacherous quicksand of emotions and loyalties. She would be lighthearted, the way she once had been with him; she would be independent and levelheaded. She had never been a weepy woman, and she saw no useful reason to become one now.

“There are so many English in Naples,” she said, striving for self-control by changing the subject, “that I don’t doubt that we’ll find some sort of decent inn for lodgings. Once we’re situated, I shall dress and call on her ladyship this afternoon. Not even she can refuse to see me after I’ve come so far.”

“You won’t be staying with her?” asked Jeremiah with surprise. “Whatever your differences, she’s your kin.”

“Only by a marriage she doesn’t recognize.” She had dressed swiftly, without her gloves, and without thinking, she looked down at her wedding ring, an oval ruby in a ring of pearls. “You remember that was Frederick’s reason for coming to her in the first place. He would still be safe at home in England if it weren’t for me. I’ve no notion at all of what my reception will be at his mother’s villa.”

“Then I’ll come with you,” said Jeremiah promptly. “I won’t let you face that old bitch alone.”

Though touched by his offer, she shook her head, her expression wistful. “I can’t take you, Jeremiah. You don’t belong there.”

“Why not? I’ve reason enough. I want to know what’s happened to Davy just as you’re looking for Frederick.”

“Not this first time,” she said as she drew the shawl up higher around her face. More pointedly than she realized, she eased herself free of Jeremiah’s arm, already making the break from him. “For Frederick’s sake and my own, too, I’ve no choice but to meet his mother alone.”

She’d give the brazen little chit credit for courage, decided Dorinda, Dowager Countess of Byfield. But nothing more than that, not if she could help it, and certainly not another penny of her son’s fortune.

Dorinda let her stand, Frederick’s whore of a wife, the better to consider what her real place was, while Dorinda herself sat at the far end of the room in the gilded Venetian armchair with the ice blue damask cushions. If the creature was reminded of a throne, so much the better.

“I said come forward, girl, so that I might see you,” said Dorinda, her voice echoing in the gallery’s arched ceiling. One wall was windows, all now thrown open to catch the breezes from the bay, while the opposite wall was mirrored from the floor upward so no visitor need turn their back on the magnificent view. “If you’ve come this far from Blackstone, another few paces won’t hurt.”

At last the younger woman came toward her, her kid slippers making no sound on the polished marble parquet. Grudgingly Dorinda admitted to herself that Frederick had at least chosen a girl who looked like a countess, her silver-blond head held high and her walk a fashionable glide, her white Indian cotton dress drifting around her legs. Her face was lovely, fine boned but distinctive enough to be an original, with a inborn charm that no amount of paint or trickery could create.

No wonder Frederick had been so besotted, and no wonder, too, this wife of his had been so quick to replace him in her bed. His wife, considered Dorinda bitterly, and then let her thoughts travel to her grandson’s letter, hidden in the lacquer box on the mantel, and of the greedy man who’d brought it this same afternoon. Who would have guessed so much would fall into Dorinda’s favor when, months ago, she’d written the first letter to that idiot, George? If even a fraction of what they said of this Caroline was true, then at last Dorinda could avenge the wrong that had been done the Moncriefs.

And to her. Most especially to her.

“Come closer, girl, so I can see you properly,” she ordered, beckoning sharply with her gnarled forefinger, the large square-cut diamond on it glittering in the sunlight. “I’m not a young woman any longer.”

Not a young woman, thought Caro, but certainly still a vain one, with cheeks and lips painted bright rose and her deep-set eyes lined with black kohl. The dowager countess was a tiny woman, and though shrunk and bent with age, she was dressed in a costly variation of the latest Directoire fashion, her high-waisted satin gown cut low over her shriveled breasts and on her head an elaborate wig of black corkscrewed curls with a diamond-tipped arrow thrust through the crown. There were more diamonds swaying from her earlobes, around her throat, clasped to her wrists, far more than was considered stylish now but a king’s ransom nonetheless, and Caro remembered how many times Frederick had worried that his mother might be wanting and ordered Perkins to increase the dowager countess’ allowance.