“Excellent.” Settling her hand on his arm, she stepped out. “Let’s see who else we meet.”
Two more hostesses, then, to their surprise, Muriel Hedderwick appeared in their path.
“Caro.” She directed a nod Caro’s way, then looked at Michael.
He reached for her hand and bowed over it. Muriel returned his polite greeting, then turned to Caro.
“Have you come up for a meeting?” Caro knew Muriel rarely came to town for anything else.
“Indeed,” Muriel replied. “The Older Orphans’ Temperance Society. The inaugural meeting was yesterday. Our aim, of course…” She launched into an impassioned description of the society’s predictable aims.
Michael shifted; Caro pinched his arm. There was no point interrupting; Muriel would say what she would say. Any attempt to distract her would only prolong the exercise.
Muriel’s eloquence finally ended. She fixed her gaze intently on Caro. “We’re holding a steering committee meeting tonight. As you’re now residing in England, I should think it’s the sort of association to which you would wish to devote some of your time. I would most strongly urge you to attend—the meeting will be held at eight o’clock.”
Caro smiled. “Thank you for the invitation—I’ll make every effort to attend.” From experience she knew this was a case in which a simple prevarication worked to everyone’s advantage. If she demurred and said she was already committed elsewhere, Muriel would feel compelled to argue her case until Caro broke down and agreed to attend. She made a mental note to make her excuses when next they met.
She felt Michael’s gaze, pressed his arm to keep him silent. Smiled at Muriel.
Who nodded, as haughty as ever. “We’re meeting at Number Four, Alder Street, just past Aldgate.”
Michael inwardly frowned; he glanced at Caro—she wouldn’t know London all that well, not beyond the fashionable areas.
She confirmed that by smiling and inclining her head. “I’ll hope to meet you and the rest of your committee there.”
“Good.” With another firm nod and a regal glance his way, Muriel made her good-byes.
He suppressed an impulse to tell her that if she was going to Aldgate, she should take a footman—a burly one—with her; Muriel would consider the comment unforgivably presumptuous.
He waited until she was out of earshot to murmur, “You’re not attending any meeting near Aldgate.”
“Of course not.” Caro retook his arm; they strolled on. “I’m sure the steering committee is full of eager and interested members—they’ll manage perfectly well without me. But Muriel’s obsessed with her societies and associations—she doesn’t seem to appreciate that others aren’t as interested, at least not to the same extent as she.” She smiled up at him. “But each to her own.”
He met her gaze. “In that case, let’s go to tea.”
Much more frivolous than a temperance society meeting—also much more relaxing.
They sat not in the formal drawing room but in a beautiful sitting room that gave onto the back terrace of the mansion in Grosvenor Square, drank tea, consumed cakes and scones, and caught up with the past.
Within seconds of taking Honoria’s hands and being pulled into a warm embrace, Caro felt as if the years had, if not fallen from them, then been bridged. Honoria was three years older than she; throughout childhood they’d been firm friends. But then Honoria and Michael’s parents had been killed in a tragic accident; the event had parted Caro and Honoria, not only physically.
They had been—still were, Caro suspected—alike in many ways; if Honoria had been and still was the more assertive, she was the more assured, the more confident in herself.
She had remained in Hampshire, the much-loved youngest daughter of the happy household at Bramshaw House—until she’d been swept off her feet into her marriage with Camden. While Honoria had been very much alone, she, catapulted into the highest echelons of society, had been wrestl
ing with hostessly demands that had initially been well beyond her years. She had coped; so had Honoria.
While Honoria glossed over the years she’d spent with distant relatives in the shires, virtually alone in the world but for Michael, Caro was quite sure those years had left their mark, as the accident itself must have done. Now, however, there was not the faintest vestige of cloud to be found in Honoria’s eyes; her life was full, rich, and transparently satisfying.
She had married Devil Cynster.
Over the rim of her cup, Caro glanced at the lounging presence talking with Michael; they had taken chairs opposite the chaise where she and Honoria sat. It was the first time she had seen Devil beyond a glimpse.
Within the ton, the name Cynster was synonymous with a certain type of gentleman, with a certain type of wife. And while Honoria certainly fitted the mold of a Cynster wife, Devil Cynster, from all she could see and all she had heard, was the epitome of the Cynster male.
He was large, lean, harsh featured. There was very little softness about him; even his eyes, large, heavy lidded, a curious shade of pale green, seemed crystalline, his glance hard and sharp. Yet Caro noted that every time his eyes rested on Honoria, they softened; even the austere lines of his face, of his lean lips, seemed to ease.
Power was his—he’d been born to it, not just physically but in every imaginable way. And he used it; that Caro knew beyond doubt. Yet talking to Honoria, sensing the deep, almost startlingly vibrant connection carried in shared glances, in the light touch of a hand, she sensed—could almost feel—that another power ruled here. That just as Honoria seemed to have surrendered to it, so, too, had Devil.