“I could do with a few more candles,” Caroline said to James.
“Yes, I can see where it would grow quite dark in here,” he replied. “That window is abysmally small.”
“Where have you BEEN?” Blake roared.
Caroline and James looked at him with identically blank expressions.
“Were you talking to us?” James asked.
“I'm sorry?” Caroline said at the very same time.
“Where,” Blake said through clenched teeth, “have you been?”
They looked at each other and shrugged.
“I don't know,” James said.
“Oh, out and about,” Caroline added.
“For two hours?”
“I had to fill him in on all of the details,” she said. “After all, you wouldn't want him to say something wrong to Penelope.”
“I could have told him all the pertinent facts in under fifteen minutes,” Blake grumbled.
“I'm sure you could have done,” James replied, “but it wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining.”
“Well, Penelope wants to know where you've been,” Blake said testily. “She wants to throw a fête in your honor, Riverdale.”
“But I thought she was planning on leaving in two days,” Caroline said.
“She was,” he snapped, “but now that our dear friend James is here she's decided to extend her stay. Says it isn't every day we've a marquis in residence.”
“She's married to a bloody earl,” James said. “What does she care?”
“She doesn't,” Blake replied. “She just wants to marry the lot of us off.”
“To whom?”
“Preferably to each other.”
“All three of us?” Caroline looked from man to man. “Isn't that illegal?”
James laughed. Blake just shot her the most contemptuous of stares. Then he said, “We've got to get rid of her.”
Caroline crossed her arms. “I refuse to do anything mean to your sister. She is a kind and gentle person.”
“Ha!” Blake barked. “Gentle, my foot. She is the most determined, interfering woman of my acquaintance, except, perhaps, for you.”
Caroline stuck out her tongue.
Blake ignored her. “We need to find a way to get her to go back to London.”
“It should be easy to fake a message from her husband,” James said.
Blake shook his head. “Not nearly as easy as you'd think. He's in the Caribbean.”
Caroline felt a pang of heartsickness. He'd once described her eyes as the color of water in the tropics. It was a memory she'd have to carry with her the rest of her days, as it was becoming increasingly obvious that she wouldn't have the man.