Page 12 of Her Passionate Duke

“That may be.” Linnet understood that possibility, for she had an uncle who had been in the military, and there were parts of his job which he was forbidden from discussing, even with her father. “In any case, I can’t see this ending in anything but heartache - ‘these violent delights have violent ends’.”

“My mother has often quoted me the same line,” Lady Caroline replied with a disdainful sniff. “I’m sure you think that I’m a fool for getting involved with a French diplomat, who could be a spy, for all I know, when my own betrothed is in Italy, expecting a warm homecoming… at some point.”

“I understand that sometimes the heart can’t help what it loves,” said Linnet.

Lady Caroline nodded tranquilly.

“Maybe by the time Lord Brandon returns this will all have ended and we need never speak of it. Just one of those buried-but-never-forgotten romances that every woman seems to have in her youth. And then Lord Brandon and I will get married, and lead a boring but not unhappy domestic life for the next forty years or so.”

“I suppose there are worse fates.”

Linnet was, she realised, completely insincere in those words – she thought it sounded like a terrible fate, to spend one’s life doing nothing in particular, with a man one barely cared for. Where was the passion in that?

“Time will pass in a wink.” Lady Caroline turned and looked earnestly at Linnet. “And just think — in forty years we’ll have eaten more than 40,000 meals together. Forty thousand meals, morning, noon, and night – well – assuming that we had three meals each day, and always together.”

“Somehow that seems an enormous number… and a little pointless to consider….”

Lady Caroline shook her head sadly.

“It does seem a little overwhelming, and yet… unimportant at the same time. And I don’t know if I want to eat all of them with him. I don’t know if I want to eat any of them with him.”

Here she collapsed onto Linnet’s shoulder and cried quietly for some time. Linnet patted Lady Caroline’s back feebly, wishing that she could offer more substantial comfort.

“I’m sure this will all be resolved in time.”

Internally, Linnet was not so sure - she was beginning to wonder if this would, in fact, become an impossible tangle.

Lady Caroline was still crying softly when her brother, Lord Charles, came walking into the parlour. He was neatly dressed as always, and looked as if he was preparing to go out for the rest of the afternoon. When Lady Caroline saw him, she turned away from Linnet’s shoulder quickly, rose, and went to stir the logs in the fireplace with a long iron.

“Lady Linnet,” Lord Charles gave a bow in her direction, “I haven’t seen you quite some time,” said Lord Charles, leaning against the divan with the ease and assurance of a generally well-liked young man. “What brings you here today?”

“Good day to you, Lord Charles.” Linnet hesitated a moment, wondering why he even asked. For most of the years that she had known Lady Caroline, Lord Charles had tended to ignore her, or tease her. “I just came to see if Lady Caroline wanted to go with me to visit St. Agnes’ Orphanage. I can’t be in my house this morning because there’s a cat coming over.”

Lord Charles looked at her, as if he thought her slightly mad, then spoke again, his tone suggesting that he was humouring the mad woman.

“Couldn’t you tell it to go away?”

“Unfortunately, no. Lord Theodore and Mother insisted on its presence.”

Lord Charles looked even more doubtful when faced with this pronouncement.

“I can’t go with you,” said Lady Caroline sadly. “I have a pianoforte lesson at two and Mother would be very cross if I missed it. And then tonight we’re going to the Theatre.”

“I would try to avoid St. Agnes’, in any case,” said Lord Charles disdainfully. “It’s likely a nasty place, just like all orphanages — miserable, foully dirty, and smelly.”

Linnet glared at him indignantly. She suspected that several of the guests at the Duchess of Grantsham’s dinner thought exactly what Lord Charles had just said, but it was a shock to hear it so frankly expressed. An unexpectedly fierce anger rose within her, and she spoke again before really thinking about what she would say.

“Then perhaps you would be interested in contributing to its upkeep, so that those conditions could be improved.”

“I’d rather not,” he replied. “Why should my money, or yours, go to the welfare of children whose parents were too lazy to take care of them? Every beggar you see clutching a tin can is a man who should have worked harder.”

Lady Caroline put a hand on Linnet’s arm, as if she wanted to interject, but Linnet ignored her, feeling utterly enraged.

“Do you REALLY think that?”

Linnet realised that her voice had risen to most unladylike levels, but in that instant, she found that she did not care. Her mother would have been beyond shocked, should she have witnessed it.

“I do! There’s a crossing-sweep I drive past every day. I’ve seen him pocketing fistfuls of money from sympathetic women, all of them under the delusion that he’s a starving beggar — sometimes as much as a pound a day.”