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“Who?” Lady Blackwell wondered aloud.
“The duchess.”
“He really married?” Lady Blackwell murmured with wonder. Caroline pretended to be busy arranging the spoons and napkins. She ought not to have been spying, but she needed to hear more. “To think that Robert’s death drove him that far from sanity.”
“Apparently,” Lord Edward laughed sadly. “He could have married you if he had been that desperate, in Robert’s stead.” Caroline could tell that Lord Edward was teasing, but Lady Blackwell’s cringe was visible. “We are both aware that he had more faith in you than he ever did in me,” Edward added.
“I think even he knew better than to suggest such a thing,” she replied.
“You were far too smart for him,” Lord Edward agreed. “You would have been a nightmare as his duchess.”
“That’s why I was better off with Robert,” she said in a soft tone.
“Of course, you were better off with me,” a deep male voice said with what sounded like a smile from the doorway.
Lady Lydia screamed and Caroline, her back turned to the doorway and therefore having no warning, threw the teapot into the air and watched in horror as it came crashing and splashing down at her feet. She bent at once to begin soaking up the scalding liquid before it ruined the beautiful carpet. The shards of ceramic lay scattered around her. She would have to be careful not to cut herself when she collected them. The lords and lady did not even take note of her mess. Or if they did, they did not mention it. Servants were meant to be invisible and ignored. Of course dropping the tea set did not lend itself to inconspicuousness.
“ROBERT!” Lady Lydia gasped when she had finally collected herself. The gentleman had approached the lady, grasped her by the elbows as if to take her in his arms, but Lady Lydia had pulled away and stared up into the gentleman’s face with unbridled horror. “You were dead,” she said.
“My demise was grossly overstated,” Robert replied.
“What happened? How… How are you here?” Lady Lydia stuttered.
Caroline could see nothing, but the back of the gentleman’s overcoat, but from her position on the floor she had a clear view of the shock and terror on the faces of the other two occupants of the room. Without even seeing his face, she could discern that he struck likely the most imposing figure that London had seen in a decade. He was taller than both of them, his massive, but lean form dwarfing the pair like a beast who stalked the night. That must have been exactly what the horrified pair were thinking, Caroline mused, that he was a specter raised from the dead.
“I came as soon as I could,” he explained. “I wasn’t on that ship. I had taken another post but the paperwork for the transfer hadn’t become official yet. When I realized that my death notice had been sent, I raced to Bath to meet father. There, I learned that he had gone north to Heatherton. When I got there, they said he had never arrived.”
Caroline wanted to clarify that there were a lot of pieces missing from that story, but there was no way that the gentleman could have known about the byway being washed out and his father’s delay.
“I took his usual route from Manchester to Bath in reverse hoping that we might cross paths and that I could tell him that I was alive and well.”
“Good God, man,” Lord Edward finally broke forth from his shock. He put one hand upon his brother’s shoulder, slowly as if afraid that if he touched him, he would dissolve into mist. “Father is dead. We found out this morning.”
“I know,” Lord Robert informed them with a solemn sigh. No, not Lord Robert. His Grace, Caroline corrected herself mentally. First, she had been married to the duke. Then, they had all thought Lord Edward the new duke. And now it seemed that the real heir, Lord Robert, had arrived, and he was in fact the new Duke of Manchester. It was all so confusing. She knew she should leave the room. Any good maid would do so, but as Mrs. Reilly kept reminding her, she was a terrible maid. She stayed where she was kneeling among the shards of the teapot, unabashedly listening.
“I happened to pass through the town where they found the bodies,” Lord Robert said. “They had identified him the day prior from the livery and sent the notice. I made a list of all of the usual belongings that he traveled with that would be recognizable. If any come up for public sale, we might be able to trace them to the culprits. It’s not likely, however, only a fool’s hope. I suspect they would be smart enough to smuggle their spoils to France or India where they would go unnoticed.” He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair and Caroline noted that he was as dark as his brother was fair. “I confirmed the identification and thought that, perhaps, if I rode fast enough, I might be able to arrive before the letter and tell you myself. I was delayed when they informed me of a certificate of marriage that had been found with him and that there was still no sign of his wife. I took the time to compose a letter to the lady’s father offering my condolences and informing him of the tragedy. From what I’m told it was pure ill-starred chance and there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it, not on that stretch of road.”
Caroline was dumbfounded. The late duke, his father, had not been exaggerating when he had claimed that his eldest son was efficient and skilled at managing all manner of situations. The murder had only been made public for a few hours and already he had taken the matter well in hand.
Her heart ached for her father, for the letter that he must receive. He would believe it at first, she realized, that she was dead. He would mourn her and the cross words that had been their final parting. As time passed, the investigation drew to an end, and if no body was found he might, only then, begin to hope. The constable would finally permit her father to put out a reward for any information on her whereabouts and that is when the ransom would be presented. The brigands would not waste resources on a ransom when all signs pointed to her demise. That process was still weeks away, she realized, but she was satisfied that she was now even one step closer to being free of this horrible plight.
Caroline had nearly finished amassing the last pieces of the teapot in her gathered apron when Lady Lydia made her way over to the table beside where Caroline stood and picked up a biscuit from the tray. She fingered the food, crumbling the corner onto a napkin, but did not eat. Caroline wondered if the shock of seeing her lover appear when she had thought him dead had made the lady shy. It certainly must have been a shock.
“I’ll bring more tea,” Caroline said loud enough only for the lady to hear.
“There’s no need,” Lady Lydia replied. “I shall be going.”
“Lydia,” The new duke said in a patient and just barely pleading tone. “We should talk.”
“Tomorrow,” the lady said with a shaky breath. Her gazed remained on the biscuit and she refused to look toward the men. She set the food down uneaten on the napkin and exited the room without bidding farewell.
Strange, Caroline thought. She was certain the duke had expected his betrothed to be elated with the news of his good health, but perhaps grief and then sudden happiness were too potent of emotions for the lady to handle with grace. Caroline hoped her own father was able to react with a bit more aplomb when she was finally returned to him. The baron had not shown her affection in years, but she at least hoped for a smile. Lady Lydia had given nothing of the sort.
“I should go as well,” Lord Edward’s charismatic voice broke the heavy silence. He was stiff, as if trying to balance being happy that his brother had returned and a pervasive dislike that seemed to ripple between the gentlemen. They did not get on, she determined, likely never had, and she realized, with their father pitting them against one another it was no wonder.
She reminded herself that the elder, so like his father, must have been a brute for the jovial and charming Edward to have grown up alongside, but he did not seem so formidable to her. Large certainly, and capable. Still, what she knew of the man from his own father’s stories told her that would have been enough to build an impenetrable wall between them. Hadn’t Lord Robert come in and taken immediate control even after being gone for more than five years and recently presumed dead? And Edward, without a single word, had been demoted to lesser son once more. She wondered if the traits men often boasted as admirable for leadership were really just disguises for the monster within.
Lord Edward brushed past her, grabbing a biscuit and giving her a covert wink before he left. Caroline was left standing like an idiot with an apron full of broken ceramic and an ugly dress whose entire front was soaked in tea.
