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In fact…she rose to her toes and peered out the kitchen window to be rewarded with the sight of Arabella Seton ducking into her brother’s house next door.
Right on time.
“I’m afraid the tea isn’t fresh,” Caroline called out when she heard the front door creak open, though she wasn’t worried that Arabella would turn up her nose. It was all too common for her to be offered twice or thrice steeped tea in the Reeve household.
Arabella wandered into the kitchen. She wasn’t a woman who rushed, moving at the slow pace of life in Inverley, as if not only her head but her whole body was in the clouds far above. She was a dreamer, as optimistic as could be, and Caroline’s very best friend.
She was short and soft and comfortably plump all over, without an angle to be found on her anywhere—and Caroline had looked. Her spectacles perched on her snub nose; her round cheeks, the color and shape of a ripe peach, flushed at the slightest attention, provocation, or surprise; and her elbows and wrists had little dimples in them where the bend was, instead of sharp bone. Even her honey brown curls were short and full, bouncing around her face under her bonnet.
Caroline preferred to think of her as adorable, or sweet, both of which she was in spades. After all, Arabella wouldn’t be interested. And Caroline had sworn off the idea of any kind of dalliance with anyone who lived in Inverley, sticking to uncomplicated affairs with visitors’ companions or fellow spinsters who were in town for a few days at most. It helped prevent her from thinking of Arabella’s other assets, which distracted her eye far too often for comfort.
Her lush bosom, peeking above the neckline of her muslin evening dresses or nestled snugly under her cambric day dresses.
Her full bottom, which often pressed close to her own on benches and picnic blankets.
Her curved lips, overlarge and meant for kissing.
Caroline poured the tea with a little more force than necessary.
“I brought you a book from the library,” Arabella announced, the same as she did every Wednesday.
She set her reticule on the table and fished out a slender novel from its depths, spilling a trail of ginger comfits along with it. She thrust the book at Caroline, accepted a cup of tea in return, and satdown in a rickety wooden chair that she knew from long experience exactly how to balance against the table at the right angle to stabilize it.
“It’s the very newest Inverley has to offer. Scarcely two months behind London this time.” She beamed and pushed her wire-framed spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
She really was adorable.
“Thanks, Bell. I appreciate you going to the trouble.”
Caroline didn’t have time for novels, or money for a subscription to the lending library. But she couldn’t help squeezing in moments of reading here and there among the chaos that was the Reeve household, and Arabella knew it.
“It was no trouble at all.” Arabella sipped her tea and rebalanced the chair. “I picked up a new book on painting techniques for myself.”
Arabella sold watercolor landscapes to the visitors that swarmed the seaside each summer. Inverley made for pretty pictures, with its dramatic cliffs and walks, its shimmering sea and sandy shores, and its quaint village life that charmed Londoners out of coin every year. Caroline frowned. Most of the coins Arabella earned ended up in her brother’s pocket.
“Is Matthew going to stay out of it, then?” she asked, scowling down at the book.
“I might talk to him.” Her pretty face was full of the clouds that her head was usually immersed in, and Caroline hated the doubts that chased away Arabella’s good humor.
“You do that,” she said. “And if he doesn’t listen to you, then I’ll come over and set him to rights.”
Arabella laughed, her face clearing. “I know you would. But I wouldn’t ask it of you. You have too many family troubles of your own to handle mine as well.”
Caroline had to acknowledge the truth of it. She always had her hands full of Reeve problems.
Shelley, one of Arabella’s cats, leapt through the kitchen window and meowed a welcome at them. He was big, orange, and thick-witted, and an overall nuisance in Caroline’s mind—but the rest of the Reeves doted on him.
“He’s here for a visit,” Arabella crooned. “What a clever kitty.”
Shelley meowed again and pushed himself against Caroline’s ankles. She tried to nudge him away, but he leaned against her and started purring. “He’s just worried it’s market day and he’s missing out on fish.” He had been successful only once in his pilfering, but Caroline had held a dim view of him since.
Arabella scooped him up together with her reticule. “Well, I should be going. Shall we walk together to the Martins’ dinner party tomorrow evening?”
“I should like nothing better. Betsy and Susan promised to stay home and watch the young ones, and I have been looking forward to a free evening for ages.”
She loved her brothers and sisters and felt a fierce responsibility for their health and happiness, no more so than if they had been her own children. She had borne the responsibility of them since she had been eighteen. Nine years ago now.
She had no regrets.
