If he returns to the townhouse before five o’clock in the morning, we will carry on as if nothing happened.
Holding that barter with fate in her heart, she broke away from her circle of friends and family, and darted out of the house through the kitchen doors to where the carriage awaited.
There were lights aglow in the windows of the townhouse as the carriage came to a standstill outside. The warm sight cheered Caroline’s spirits, giving her immense hope as she leaped out of the carriage and ran up the porch steps.
She threw open the door and called out, “Max? Max, are you here?”
But it was a different man who jumped up from the chaise-longue in the entrance hall, where he had clearly been dozing. He rubbed his eyes and bowed his head. “Caro. I apologize for the intrusion.” He cleared his throat. “And I am sorry that I have not called upon you sooner.”
“Dickie?” Disappointment weighed heavy in her chest, for the obvious similarity between the brothers only made Max’s absence more painful. “What are you doing here? Do you knowthat Max is out searching for you? He will not think to look for you here, or is that the point?”
Dickie stepped forward. “I am here as a friend and a messenger.” He offered out his hand, but she would not take it. “Can we go into the drawing room? There is a lot to be said.”
“Very well.” Pulling back her shoulders, Caroline marched toward the drawing room and sat down on the settee, tapping her foot impatiently as Dickie settled opposite.
Powder Puff, who had evidently been waiting for the return of her master and mistress, prowled over to Caroline and jumped up into her lap. The cat chirped and mewled, nuzzling her furry head against Caroline’s stomach, as if the feline could sense her mistress’s anguish.
“That is new,” Dickie said, gesturing at the cat.
Caroline leveled her tired gaze at him. “What did you come to say, Dickie?”
“I came to apologize.”
“You do not need to apologize. I told you not to come to the church—you were doing as you were asked,” Caroline insisted. “Ishould apologize for not warning you that I was going to reveal the truth, for it is sure to make your life more difficult from now on. Although, in my defense, I did not know I was going to reveal the truth until it happened.”
Dickie shook his head. “No, Ishouldapologize. I should apologize for accepting your suggestion too quickly, out of my own selfish desire to avoid marriage. I should apologize for not being at the church, regardless of what you said.” He furrowed his brow. “I knew the full extent of what that would do to your reputation, and I still stayed away.”
“It does not matter, Dickie,” Caroline urged, running her hands through Powder Puff’s soft fur, soothed by the rumble of the cat’s purring. “No harm befell me. It is only now that it might, but that wasmydecision, and I am braced for any storm to come.”
Dickie got up and went to the rear window, which looked out onto the garden. “I should thank you, really,” he said, almost to himself. “Your scheme served me better than I could have imagined. You see, there was another reason that I accepted your suggestion of a jilting so easily.”
“Oh?”
“I was in love with someone else,” Dickie confessed. “The day of our wedding, I rode to tell the woman in question of my feelings. She told me that she had feelings for me in return, but when I offered marriage, she refused me. She said I was not serious; I was not responsible, I was not someone reliable, and I could not argue with her, considering I had just proven her accusations to be true by jilting you. I love her still, but now I know that she will never have me. I wouldnotknow that if I had married you that day.”
Caroline paused in her stroking. “Andthatis something that served you well?”
“For my character, yes. I want to be a better gentleman because of her and because of you, but after tonight, it is a certainty that I cannot have her as a wife. Phoebe would never permit it.”
Caroline nearly choked on her own breath. “Phoebewould never permit it? Who is the lady in question?”
“Ellen,” Dickie said quietly, as he wandered back to the opposite settee and sat down. “The moment I met her, I knew… that she was everything I wanted and could never have. She is the only reason I have emerged from my hideaway over the past few weeks, and she is the one who came running to me tonight, to inform me of what had happened. She told me to come to you. She told me what I had to do to make it right, and if that is the only thing Icando for her, then so be it.”
Caroline tilted her head, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I have already discussed matters with Max, and he is in agreement,” Dickie said hesitantly. “He is going to the archbishop in the morning to request an annulment, and once he has received the confirmation papers and they are signed,Iwill marry you myself. As I should have done in the first place. I know it is not what either of us would have imagined for ourselves, but I must do the right thing, just once in my life. For you, for myself, for Max, and for Ellen.”
Caroline blinked at the man opposite as if he were a stranger speaking in tongues, for not a lick of what he said made any sense to her. She told him as much, once she had found her voice again. “If you love Ellen and she has affection for you, then what on earth is wrong with you? Why would you even suggest such a thing? Or… was it Max’s suggestion?”
She braced for the blow that would surely crumble her to dust. If Max was the one who had conjured such a scheme, then it meant that he was done with her.
“It was mine.” Dickie looked at her with curiosity, a softness gleaming in his eyes. “And yes, I do love Ellen, which is why I am asking you to do this. Becauseshehas asked me to do this, and I understand that I must. It is the only way that both of us will emerge from this scandal relatively unscathed.”
“Relatively unscathed?” Caroline barked, her head reeling.
Indeed, she felt as if she were back at her brother’s house on the morning that Dickie had proposed. Cornered and panicked and utterly determined to not do what was being demanded of her.
“Are you quite serious, Dickie?” she continued. “I was in Phoebe’s ballroom for all of ten minutes after I revealed the truth and, let me tell you, the response from the guests was not remotely mild.”
