Chapter 22
She was my goddess, my bright angel. Love burned in me like an inferno. But I was ever myself, too wary of a misstep to speak. Wordlessly, I adored her. Hopelessly, I worshipped her. Now only a thin plume of smoke wafts from the rubble.
“Oh, fiend take it, what rubbish!”
—Lawrence Sinclair, crumpling up the page and tossing it into the fireplace.
“Is everything packed?” Lawrence asked his valet, looking up from the last of his correspondence. Once these missives were delivered, all his accounts would be settled.
“Yes, sir,” Dudley grumbled as he fastened the strap on Lawrence’s trunk. “Will there be anything else?”
“Deliver these round to White’s, my tailor, and the landlady.” Lawrence handed him the sealed letters containing various payments. Then he reached into his pocket for a handful of coins. “Give these to the boy and send him to the coaching inn to buy three tickets for Cumberland. There’s a coach leaving London this afternoon, and I intend that we should be on it.”
“Billy is like to run off with your money, sir.”
“I think not. The boy’s never been anywhere. He won’t be able to resist a chance to go to the country.”
Lawrence stood to go, but Dudley didn’t leap immediately to help him into the jacket that had been draped over his chair. He even had to reach into the cupboard to retrieve his own hat.
Good thing I’m not accustomed to having a valet.
Dudley wasn’t the best of servants in normal times. Now, he was nearly useless, pining for Alice before he’d even left her.
“Don’t know why you’re set on taking Billy with us,” Dudley said morosely. “The boy scarcely does a thing around here, and besides that, he must have worms, the way he goes through his victuals without putting on a bit of flesh.”
Lawrence suspected Billy didn’t really eat that much. More than once, he’d caught him squirreling away buns and sausages in his capacious pockets. The boy shared some of his bounty with friends who were still shifting for themselves on the street. Lawrence couldn’t fault him for that.
“I have plans for young Mr. Two Toes.” Lawrence hoped to arrange for the boy to stay on at Ware as a stable hand. The country air would do him good. “And plans for you as well.”
He hadn’t told Dudley about India yet. The valet was upset enough over leaving his sweetheart for the wilds of Cumberland. Dudley would be apoplectic over a sea voyage to the most distant outpost of the British Empire. However, Bredon had insisted Lawrence keep Dudley on and was willing to continue paying his salary to make it so; there was no sending him back to Lovell House. It would have seemed ungrateful. Though his friend had fobbed off a problem servant on him, Lawrence wouldn’t dismiss the less-than-adequate Dudley. Given time, perhaps he’d warm to his duties. Given the sack, he would be at the mercy of London in short order.
Even as a boy, Lawrence had never been able to resist picking up a stray.
“I shall meet the pair of you at the coaching inn,” he said in a tone that brooked no further argument. Then Lawrence left his suite of rooms on Rathbone Street for the final time. He had one loose end to tie up before he left London.
He’d rather have faced a dozen well-armed Frenchmen than settle this final debt, but there was nothing for it.
He owed Caroline a good-bye.
* * * *
Caroline was beyond out of patience with men in general, and with Lawrence Sinclair in particular. It had been three days since Lord Frampton’s ball. How could the man announce to his uncle that he intended to marry her and then blithely ignore her?
He’d left the ball without even saying good night.
The next evening, she’d casually inquired at supper if her brothers had encountered him at White’s. Evidently, he’d not made an appearance at the exclusively male club because all she heard were grunts of denial from the men around the dinner table.
Surely Lawrence would ask her father’s blessing before he proposed. It was the done thing, after all. So she wondered aloud to the earl whether or not Mr. Sinclair had been round to discuss anything with him.
“Anything at all?”
If Caroline had sprouted a second head, the earl could not have shot her a more surprised look.
“I don’t believe Mr. Sinclair and I have any points of common interest,” her father had said, raising a quizzical brow. “He’s Bredon’s friend, not mine.”
Her brother Teddy studied his dinner plate with absorption. If he was privy to Lawrence’s whereabouts, he wasn’t telling.
Frederica and Horatia were no help either. They’d been to a flute recital, a dinner party at Lady Eastbrook’s, and a lecture on the beauties of mythology at the Society for the Preservation of Our Classical Heritage since Lord Frampton’s ball.
“Mr. Sinclair wasn’t at the recital or the dinner,” Frederica had told her.
“Freddie slept through most of the lecture, so she wouldn’t have noticed if Zeus himself had paraded past her,” Horatia had confided.
“I wasn’t asleep,” Frederica insisted. “I was merely resting my eyes.”
“Accompanied by a charming little snore.” Horatia patted her forearm. “But if Mr. Sinclair had been there, Caro, I promise, I’d have noticed.”
No one had seen the elusive Lawrence Sinclair. Caroline’s nerves were wound tighter than the longcase clock.
So when Price announced that Mr. Sinclair had come to call, Caroline nearly went to pieces. Hat in hand, Lawrence filled the parlor doorway with his uniquely masculine presence.
This is it. Calm yourself, she ordered herself sternly. The tone she set now might color their entire married life. Begin as you mean to continue.
“Lawrence,” she said, once Mr. Price left them in the parlor, with the door properly open to ensure propriety was observed, of course. It’s good to see you, she meant to say, but the words stuck in her throat.
It wasn’t just good to see him. All she could do was see him. The rest of the world melted away around him like a chalk drawing in the rain.
So tall, so strong, so dreadfully wounded inside.
She knew now where his hurts were, and she was confident she could heal them if he’d let her.
“Caroline.” He, too, seemed unable to make his voice work.
She gave herself an inward shake. “Shall I ring for tea?” Fussing with a teapot would keep her hands from trembling.
“No, thank you,” he said with distant politeness. He turned the brim of his hat through his fingers. Evidently, his hands needed something to do, too. “I don’t expect I shall be here long enough for tea.”
“Then perhaps you should come to the point,” she said. An edge of impatience crept into her tone, but she tried to force it down. This moment was something she would remember all her life. She wanted Lawrence’s proposal to be a pleasant memory, not one accompanied by the jumble of frustration that churned through her now. So she smiled at him and said lightly, “If you’re not quick about it, I’ll send for crumpets in any case, so you’ll have something to do with your hands besides wear the felt off that hat.”
He stopped fiddling with the gray topper, but he didn’t lift his gaze from it.
Anticipation made this moment take forever to arrive, but an actual proposal was a very simple matter indeed. They could complete the whole thing in three words.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
Of course, every girl wanted hearts and flowers, poetry and a fellow on bended knee, but Lawrence wasn’t that sort of man. Not that he didn’t feel things deeply. She knew he did. His proposal would be unadorned. Probably unconventional.
But she was sure it would be heartfelt.
Once she’d given her consent, they’d both have so many things to do in preparation for the wedding, she didn’t even mind that he couldn’t stay long. They’d have the rest of their lives to take tea together.
Lawrence finally spoke. “I’m leaving London. This afternoon, in fact.”
A piece of her heart broke off and crumbled inside her. “Where are you going?”
“You guessed it,” he said with a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “I’m going to Ware.”
“Oh.” She smiled back at him, remembering how his confusion over where and Ware had led to that tortured first conversation in this very parlor.
“My mother—” he began.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Caroline interrupted. How could she have been so selfishly stupid? Lawrence had not seen his mother since he and Bredon returned from the Continent. “Naturally, you wish to assure her you’re home safe and sound.”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, it’s not only that,” he said, finally meeting her gaze. “She’s…ill. Consumption. According to my uncle, she’s in the final stages. I only just learned of it.”
Caroline sank into a nearby chair. “Oh, Lawrence, I’m so sorry. Please, sit.”
“No, truly, I cannot stay.”
“But you may as well sit until you leave,” she insisted. “Honestly, why must you be so difficult?”
“My apologies. I don’t mean to be a trial. I merely came to say good-bye.”
She rose and crossed to stand in front of him. “You felt it important to tell me good-bye?”
“You must think it so, my lady,” he said with another small smile. “After all, you once followed me across London so you could chide me for neglecting to do so.”
She nodded. “Indeed I did. I fear I have some very unladylike tendencies.”
“Which only I seem to bring out,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Perhaps my leaving is for the best.”
No, she wanted to cry. How could parting from each other ever be best? Now she’d have to wait for that proposal until he’d seen to his poor mother’s comfort. “When will you return?”
“I don’t believe I will. At least not for longer than it takes for me to board a ship at Wapping Dock,” he said. “Colonel Boyle has offered me a major’s commission.”
Taking ship? They could be married by the captain once they put to sea. How refreshingly different. How utterly romantic. Caroline couldn’t have arranged matters better herself.
“Where would w—I mean, you be posted?”
“India.”
“The Gorgeous East! How marvelous.” Caroline’s heart pounded with excitement. The love of a good man, adventure, travel—she was only a few words away from everything she’d ever wanted. “Just think on it. You’ll be seeing the world, Lawrence.”
“But I won’t be seeing you.”
If this was the man’s way of proposing, he was doing an abysmal job of it. She’d have to give him a nudge. “There is a way for you change that, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “And once I’d dared hope…that perhaps you…”
Out with it! She’d never had to pry the words from her other suitors. Lawrence was singular in so many ways. She just wished this wasn’t one of them.
“You are right to dare,” she said softly, “because there is always hope.”
“No, Caroline. Sometimes there isn’t. Trust me when I tell you, this is how things must be. You will not see me again. Good-bye, my lo—” He stopped himself. “Good-bye.”
He turned and started toward the door.
He wasn’t proposing. He was leaving. Forever.
“Good-bye? Is that all you have for me?” she said in a strangled voice.
The sob in her words must have stopped him, for he turned to look at her. His dark eyes were a study in misery.
“Do you not love me?” Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes and found their way down her cheeks. “Even a little?”
Something like hunger was etched on his features. Then, suddenly, he crossed the room in only a few long paces, grabbed her, and pulled her to him, close, so close she could feel his chest expand with each breath. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her closed eyes. His hands found her hair and her coiffure faced ruin, but she didn’t care. Not as long as he kept kissing her. There was little tenderness in his embrace. In fact, she suspected she’d have more than one bruise from the way he held her so tightly, but she wouldn’t have pulled away for worlds.
The low ache inside wouldn’t let her. She pressed herself against him, need and desire so mingled, she wasn’t sure who was savaging whom.
Sometimes love isn’t fine. Sometimes it’s fierce. Who’d have guessed?
It was Lawrence who finally broke off their kiss. He palmed the back of her head and pressed her cheek to his lapel, holding her still. The storm had passed. This was the calm that followed when the world was fresh and new and the frenzy of the tempest had worn itself out.
Except the turmoil still roiled within, because his heart thundered beneath her ear.
“Yes, Caroline, yes,” he said softly as the great muscle in his chest began to settle. “I loved you.”
Her heart leaped, but then she realized he’d said loved.
Past tense.
“I loved you from the moment I saw you,” he went on, stroking her hair as he spoke. “I worshipped you in hopeless silence. I envied every smile, every nod, every look you ever gave another man. I’d have opened a vein had you asked it of me. I loved you most desperately.”
She pulled away just enough to look up at him. “Then why will you not ask me what is in your heart now? I want you to. Most desperately.”
He dropped his arms to his sides and took a step back. “Because I no longer love you in that way.”
“But, Lawrence—”
“No, Caroline, please. I deceived myself and you with what was only calf-love. I know that now. I must go.” He bent to retrieve his hat. The topper had been dropped and trampled upon sometime during their embrace. It would never be the same.
Neither would she.
Then he made for the door without looking back. “Try not to hate me, will you?”
“How could I hate you?” she whispered after him. “I love you.”
He didn’t stop. After he closed the door behind him, she sagged against it, sure her legs would not support her otherwise.
“I will always love you, Lawrence Sinclair,” she said to the empty room.
Then Lady Caroline Lovell—the breaker of dozens of hearts, the seasoned debutante who never suffered fools gladly, the independent-minded miss who had plans for her life that didn’t include a man, thank you very much!—sank to her knees and sobbed like a lost child.
* * * *
On the other side of the door, Lawrence stood motionless, one hand fixed on the knob. His feet wouldn’t move. He knew he should go, but his heart was still on the other side of the door.
What he’d told her was true, as far as it went. He didn’t love her like some soppy, self-involved boy anymore.
He loved her like a man. And as a man, he wanted only the best for his beloved. Even if that meant he had to give her up.
“Good-bye, my darling,” he whispered. “I love you still.”