Caroline turned to North and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Thank you,” she said simply. She wished she could tell Owen to take the ancient gig and drive it to London, anything to give her more time with North, but she said instead, “Will you come dine with us this evening?”
He shook his head and said, “Yes.”
She smiled wickedly, lightly touched her fingers to his chin, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, her tongue lightly touching his warm flesh. She said into his ear, “There, that should have Polgrain, Coombe, and the inimical Tregeagle in a dither for at least an hour.”
He was breathing quickly, wanting her right this moment, here on the front steps, perhaps in the gig with her sitting on his legs, or bent over, leaning on the opposite seat of the gig, her petticoats thrown up about her head—good Lord, the gig didn’t have an opposite seat. He was fast becoming a half-wit, a lust-sodden fool. North shook his head. He gave her the coldest look he could dredge up. “Damn you, Caroline, you did that on purpose.”
“Yes, but it was so very nice, North. I will see you this evening. Now, I’m off to see that everything’s in order for my pregnant ladies.”
“Take care,” he said. “Tonight, you and Owen and I will discuss what the devil to do with his damned father.”
“Er, North,” Owen said, drawing close. “Your men haven’t kept him in a dungeon, have they?”
“No, Owen, he’s in a small room up there in the east wing. He isn’t happy, but on the other hand, he isn’t free to go after Caroline again.”
“If he saw Caroline kissing you then he must realize that all will soon be lost.”
North jerked as if he’d been shot. “What the hell does that mean, Owen?”
“Why, the two of you, the way Caroline looks at you and she’s always smiling when you’re nearby and touching you whenever you’re close enough to touch. And you, North, your eyes get all dark when she’s about and you look at her like a man would at a meal when he hasn?
?t eaten for a week, and well, it’s very obvious to everyone that, well, that is—”
“Nothing is obvious to anyone,” Caroline said. She firmly took Owen by the arm and led him to the gig. “Do you want to drive, Owen, or shall I?”
Owen was staring up at the east wing, his body suddenly as stiff and tense as a maiden aunt at a horse mating. “Oh dear, do you think he’s watching us?”
“I hope so,” she said, then grinned and kissed Owen lightly on his chin, and hugged him tightly for a moment. She gave him another kiss for good measure. “There,” she said with a good deal of satisfaction, “let him think I’ll be a bigamist.”
“Caroline!”
“Oh goodness, Owen, don’t be such a prissy prude. Now, let’s go home.”
Owen clicked the old nag forward and Caroline found herself looking back at Mount Hawke. North was still standing on the steps staring after her. She raised her hand and waved. He turned and strode back into the castle.
North hadn’t really seen her, she thought. He was perhaps shortsighted, that was it. He hadn’t seen her wave. She shivered then as she looked upward at the third floor of the east wing. Somehow she knew Mr. Ffalkes was there by the window, watching her, watching and waiting and planning.
Caroline looked at each of the three young women who were now her responsibility and hers alone. Only one of them was younger than she—Alice, only fourteen years old, her belly huge on her thin body. She was so very pale and frightened; if Caroline ever met up with the man who’d forced her, she was certain she’d kill him. She felt such fury for a moment that she held herself very still and very silent.
When she’d managed to control her rage, she said, “Would you like another biscuit, Alice?” This time, she was careful not to make any sudden movements. She’d already done that and poor Alice had nearly jumped out of her pregnant skin. “They’re filled with currants and ever so delicious. Mrs. Trebaw thinks we need to fatten you up a bit.”
“Thank you, Miss Caroline,” Alice said, speaking slowly and very carefully. “They do look wun-wonderful.” Even the girl’s fingers were thin and so very white, the blue veins clear beneath her skin. She looked more fragile than the small Dresden shepherdess on the mantel.
Caroline turned to Evelyn, a girl now almost twenty who’d been seduced by the young gentleman of the house. When she’d become pregnant, the young gentleman had informed his fond mother that Evelyn was a wanton trollop, that she’d come into his bedchamber and climbed into his bed, and just look at what she’d tried to do: compromise him so he’d have to marry her. Of course, she’d been dismissed without a character. She’d not wanted to go back to her parents, which was understandable, since there were already eight children in the small house in Mousehole, and her father was mean when he drank, which was most of the time now. It had been then that Miss Eleanor had found her crying her eyes out in Penzance, there, alone, sitting on the beach, unmindful that the tide was coming in fast and edging closer to her slippered feet.
“Another cup of tea for you, Evelyn?”
“Thank you ever so much, Miss Caroline. It do be a treat. Rather I should say it is very nice of you to offer, very nice indeed, don’t you agree, Miss Mary Patricia?”
“Most assuredly, Evelyn,” said Miss Mary Patricia. “And the company is so very refined.”
Caroline grinned at Miss Mary Patricia, no simple Mary for her. She had a good deal of presence for a young woman who was twenty-two years old and one of five daughters of a vicar who lived in Dorset. She’d been trained to be a governess, and on her first post with two very young, very spoiled children who had nearly killed her with misery, the master of the house, a Mr. Trenwith of East Looe, had caught her in the gardens at the back of the house and raped her. “One time,” Miss Mary Patricia had said, “just one time, and here I was, my life in ruins, not knowing what to do, and this babe growing in my womb.” Aunt Eleanor had found her in a taproom in Truro trying to get a job as a barmaid.
Caroline now handed Miss Mary Patricia a cup of tea and a small cucumber sandwich. It occurred to her then that Owen Ffalkes and Bennett Penrose, both in residence here at Scrilady Hall, were men. Men had done this to her three sparrows. No, she thought, frowning over the name Bess Treath had given them, they weren’t sparrows. They were all individuals and she hoped they would all eventually be able to do what it was they wanted. No, not sparrows by any stretch of the mind.
She saw that Alice was trembling again. Perhaps she knew there were men in the house. Oh dear, what was she to do to reassure them? She knew there was no harm at all in Owen, but what about Bennett? He looked like an angel, true enough, but he was more like a Devil’s familiar, never pleased with himself, and thus impossible for him to be pleased with others. Oh dear.
It was Alice who whispered, “I seen… that is, Miss Caroline, I saw a man. He’s not old and he’s handsome and seems to live here.”