A Season for Love Read online

  A Season for Love

  Title Page

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  A Season for Love

  by Blair Bancroft

  Published by Kone Enterprises

  at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 by Grace Ann Kone

  For other books by Blair Bancroft,

  please see http://www.blairbancroft.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

  1Chapter One

  “Oh, miss, it’s ever so grand!” Heedless of the grimy glass, Nell Brindley pressed her nose to the hackney’s window. “Are ye lookin’, miss? ’Tisn’t nothing like them tall old buildings we seen earlier—the ones what looked like they wuz goin’ to fall down atop us. And all them raggedy people what smelled even worse’n they looked. This is nice, this is, miss. You oughter look, you sh’d.”

  Caroline Carlington made a futile attempt to push further back into the hackney’s not-so-well-padded squabs. She kept her eyes fixed on the hands white-knuckled together in her lap. For days, weeks, months, a whole long year, she had thought of little else but the necessity of this visit to London. Now that she had almost reached her destination—now that they had passed through the city’s noisome districts and were in the elegant streets of Mayfair—panic descended. She was arriving unannounced. The only invitation she had received was more than a year old. What if no one was home? What if she was unwanted? An embarrassment? A nasty surprise too big to be swept beneath the nearest carpet?

  What if her fate was to be escorted to the nearest coaching inn and put on a stage for the long journey back the way she had come?

  A week ago she had been so sure she knew what she was doing. Now, as dusk descended and an April fog began to roll an eerie white carpet through the city streets, Caroline recalled that she was just turned eighteen, a very young age, in spite of having had the responsibility of running her mother’s household for more years than she cared to remember.

  She had made a mistake. It was not too late to rap on the panel and instruct the jarvey to turn back. Money was not a problem. Caroline unclenched her fingers long enough to feel the comforting bulge of the coin pouch stitched into her petticoat. No, it would be easy enough to cry craven and return to Cumberland, to the comfortable thatched cottage tucked under a hill and overlooking a lake, the only home she had known for the past eight years.

  She would be sorely tempted . . . if she had thoughts for no one but herself.

  The hackney turned into Grosvenor Square, moving to the left around the central park, the driver evidently needing no instruction to locate the imposing residence known as Longville House.

  “O-oh, miss,” Nell Brindley moaned as the jarvey drove through the wrought-iron gate onto the semi-circular brick drive, “it can’t be here we’re goin’.” ’Tis too fine, it is. “Oughtn’t we be goin’ ’round t’ the back?”

  Caroline suppressed a shudder, grateful that her traveling cloak concealed the fine hairs that were standing up along her arms. There was no need to be frightened, she assured herself with grim determination. Or even nervous. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  Fine words. Back home in Little Stoughton she had been so sure.

  But darkness was nearly upon them, and the torchères along the brick drive had been lit, their bright light penetrating the ever-increasing fog. Caroline very much feared there were guests at Longville House this evening. Guests. She could not possibly meet him in the presence of guests. It was unthinkable. But she was Caroline Daphne Kenrick Carlington, and she would not turn tail and run. Besides, she and Nell could not possibly stay in a London inn alone. On the long journey from the Lake District they had managed, but two young women, alone in the city? Impossible.

  The jarvey opened the hackney door. Behind him, Caroline could see a tall footman in resplendent livery, undoubtedly wondering what guest to Longville House could possibly be arriving by hackney.

  “Miss?” Nell’s anxious tone broke Caroline’s reverie.

  She nodded to Nell, indicating her young companion should descend; then, after a brief moment to gather her courage, Caroline followed. Head high, she turned to the footman, who was all too obviously having difficulty repressing his disapproval. “See that our boxes are brought in,” she instructed in tones learned at her father’s knee. “My maid and I will be staying.” He couldn’t turn her away. Surely, he couldn’t.

  Indeed he could. The question was—would he?

  “Are you expected, miss?” the haughty footman ventured.

  “Is Sims still butler here?” Caroline countered.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Send for him,” she ordered, then turned and walked briskly toward the shallow front steps, a wave of her hand urging a pale and frightened Nell Brindley to follow her.

  The footman, deciding quite rightly, that no matter how young or country-dressed this new arrival might be, she had the hallmarks of Quality, rushed to catch up with her. “The duke has guests, miss,” he protested. “Sims be busy seeing to dinner.”

  “Mrs. Jenks?” Caroline asked, heart pounding, though her stern countenance never quavered.

  “She might could be spared a moment,” the footman conceded. “Wait ’ere.” He left the two young women standing under the porte cochère that sheltered the front door of Longville House. Only when Caroline felt a twitch of pain as a knuckle crunched did she realize how tightly she was gripping her gloved hands. She’d come so far. She was here in Grosvenor Square, where even the fog was familiar. The street, the park, the house, the butler, the housekeeper. But what about the owner? Would she know him? Would he know her?

  Did he want to know her?

  The front door opened, revealing a stately woman of late middle years, dressed in unrelieved black bombazine, the keys of her office dangling from her waist. “Yes, miss?” she inquired loftily, very much the guardian of the gate.

  Caroline removed her bonnet, revealing masses of golden blonde curls tied back, in schoolgirl fashion, by a velvet ribbon,. “Don’t you know me, Mrs. Jenks?” she asked, summoning a winsome smile. “I am Caroline.”

  In spite of a quarter century running a ducal household, the supposedly unflappable Mrs. Jenks was forced to stifle a shriek by clapping her hands over her mouth. She went so pale the footman rushed to her side, thinking she was about to faint. “Lady C-Caroline?” she stammered, while the footman clutched her elbow. “Our little Caroline all grown up?” she sniffed
as tears sprang to her eyes. “Ah, thanks be to God, you’ve come home, my lady. And about time is all I can say. Kerby,” Mrs. Jenks said to the footman, recovering her air of command, “see that Sims joins us immediately. And, Micah,” she added, turning to a second footman, hovering open-mouthed nearby, “take Lady Caroline’s luggage to the Blue Room. Immediately.” And then the shock of it swept back. The housekeeper’s face went from sheet white to burgundy red as she recalled her manners. “Oh, my goodness, what can I be thinking, leaving you standing on the step? Come inside, child—my lady—come in.”

  It was Caroline’s turn to feel pale and weak. Only the Carlington courage was keeping her on her feet as she and Nell stepped into the well-remembered foyer, ringed by marble statues in the classic mode and imposing portraits in ornate gilt frames, with splashes of vivid color provided by elaborate flower arrangements; the whole lit by a chandelier whose crystals gleamed in the flickering light of hundreds of candles.

  “Lady Caroline?” Nell Brindley hissed, close to her ear. “You’re a lady?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Caroline whispered back. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Sims, who had been butler to the Duke of Longville for as long as Caroline could remember, stalked into the foyer, obviously highly annoyed at being summoned from his supervision of the splendid repast being offered by the duke to his guests. Although he was still tall and lean as a lamppost, Caroline noted, Sims no longer seemed to tower over her like some wrathful judge from on high. Ruthlessly, she squelched a sudden resurgence of childish intimidation.

  “Well?” Sims barked. Silently, Mrs. Jenks pointed to Lady Caroline Carlington. The butler opened his mouth to demand the business of this interloper, took a second look, and gaped. “Is it possible?” he murmured to no one in particular. “My lady, is it you?”

  Until tonight, Lady Caroline Carlington had managed to convince herself she could weather any storm, but, suddenly, it was all too much. She still had no idea what the duke would say, but Mrs. Jenks and Sims had recognized her. She was not being turned away at the door. The tears which had threatened began to fall. She dug in her cloak pocket for a handkerchief, blew her nose. “I-I am very glad to be back,” she said. “I apologize for not letting you know, but the matter seemed urgent, so I simply boarded a coach and came straightway. I never thought I might arrive during a party. I will not, of course, disturb his Grace tonight. If I might go to my room, Mrs. Jenks . . . and if you could provide a cold collation, and, of course, something for Nell, who was kind enough to accompany me on my journey.”

  “At once, my lady,” Mrs. Jenks assured her, blinking rapidly.

  “I must inform his Grace,” Sims pronounced.

  “Oh, please, not tonight,” Caroline begged. “I would not think of interrupting.”

  “Come morning, he’d have my head, my lady.”

  “He would indeed,” came a strong male voice, echoing through the foyer.

  Sims and the footmen bowed. Mrs. Jenks dropped into a curtsy, pulling a gaping Nell Brindley down beside her. After one stunned glance at the man striding across the foyer toward them, Caroline ducked her head, dropping into the low curtsy she had practiced so many times as a child. And again last week when she had realized the moment to return to London had come at long last.

  In that one glance she had seen so much. He was older, of course. The wisps of gray at his temples stabbed at her heart. But otherwise his tumbled dark hair was as artfully arranged as she remembered. And, if possible, he was even more handsome. Dark eyes flashed above a nose of imposing aristocratic length. His chin was firm beneath a slash of mouth whose pronouncements could be as autocratic and imperial as a king’s.

  “It is you, Caroline, is it not?” The words floated over her bowed head. She had not the courage to look up. “Caroline?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she whispered.

  “Look at me!” the Duke of Longville commanded. “Am I such an ogre you cannot look? Up, up, up!”

  She had never thought it would be like this. She had thought to confront him in privacy, not here in the foyer in the midst of a dinner party and surrounded by a ring of avid-eyed servants. Although her stomach churned, she managed a cloak of icy calm as she willed herself upright, standing tall before Marcus Rexford Leyburn Carlington, eighth Duke of Longville.

  “I am exceedingly sorry to have intruded at an inopportune moment, Your Grace. If you will excuse me, I will go up to my room. My journey was long and tiring.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind. This is a family celebration in honor of my wedding, which is less than a fortnight away. It is most opportune you have arrived in time to meet everyone.”

  Caroline’s golden blonde tresses might have been a far cry from the duke’s own coloring, but her firm chin, determined temperament, and remarkable amber eyes were definite chips off the paternal block. “I could not consider meeting your betrothed’s family in all my dirt,” she announced, “nor have I the proper clothing for meeting them at all. Therefore, I beg you will excuse me until morning.”

  There was not a soul in the foyer, from Nell Brindley to the duke himself, who doubted Lady Caroline was capable of carrying this argument as far as necessary. No amount of persuasion would get her to enter the ducal dining room chock-full of strangers while clad in a countrified gown that had just suffered through three days on the road.

  “Ten o’clock tomorrow in the bookroom,” Longville conceded in a rare bending of ducal will.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Caroline’s curtsy was the height of gracious respect. Perhaps it was the militant light in her eye which gave all present—including the duke himself—the impression she was mocking His Grace, the Duke of Longville.

  But instead of the expected display of anger, the duke’s lips twitched. “I seem to recall you used to call me something else,” he told the stubborn young lady before him. She stood silent, obviously a victim of Carlington obstinacy. Descending from his ducal high horse, Marcus Carlington held out his arms. “Welcome home, Caroline,” he said.

  With a sob, Lady Caroline threw herself into her father’s arms. The father she had not seen in eight long, and frequently bitter, years. For better or for worse, she had come home. Tonight there was joy. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, reality would reduce their joy to rubble. Tomorrow they would all discover she was the worm in the woodwork, the messenger come to destroy the duke’s fine plans for a second marriage. But tonight she could tell herself her father cared about her, that the residents of Longville House were delighted to have her home. Tonight she could bask in the glow of being the beloved daughter.

  Caroline tightened her arms around her father’s back, daring to give him a genuine hug. This might be the one and only time she could do so. Then she stepped back, bobbed one final curtsy. “Please rejoin your guests, father. I look forward to seeing you in the morning.” With regal dignity she turned toward the stairs, hoping Mrs. Jenks would be close on her heels, for, truthfully, she could not quite remember the location of the Blue Room.

  Later, when they had eaten and Nell was settled on a cot in the dressing room, Lady Caroline found she could not sleep. Wrapping herself in her wool robe, which she suspected was as out of fashion as the rest of her clothing, she curled up on a needlepointed bench in front of the window that looked out over Grosvenor Square. The duke’s guests were beginning to leave, to the clank of harness, the slow rumble of coach wheels, murmured voices, the occasional shout from a footman. The view was almost mystical, more imagined than seen, as fog swirled so high that at times only the coachman’s tall hat was visible poking up through a haze of white. Most carriages were accompanied by link boys with torches, creating a steady, if wavering, river of light as each vehicle moved off, fading, fading until swallowed up by the London fog. It was strangely beautiful, Caroline thought. And so peaceful, all sounds muffled by the all-encompassing blanket of mist.

  For a moment she longed for the anonymity of the fog. Longed to be someone other than Lady Caroline Car
lington, the long-estranged daughter of the eighth Duke of Longville. She wished she had not had the running of her mother’s household during the many years of Amy Carlington’s disinterest in the life around her and during the even longer months of her final illness. Caroline wished she had not had to listen to her mother’s bitterness, recriminations, and occasional vitriol. She wished her life might have been more . . . more normal. Perhaps she might have attended some of the assemblies in the Lake District, learned to dance, talk with young men. She might even have learned to flirt. Even though her mother continually assured her that men were the Great Abomination.

  Now, in this magical hour between darkness and dawn, she could dream that a normal life might yet be hers. How singularly foolish. In the morning her papa would learn that she and her mother had conspired against him. That they had kept a secret through all the long years of Lady Amy Carlington’s separation from her husband. That Caroline, alone, had kept it through the year since her mother’s death.

  His Grace, the Duke of Longville, was going to be very angry.

  Unless, of course, he was so astonished he forgot to be furious.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Two

  Anthony Norville, Viscount Frayne—known to his intimates as Tony—held his glass of brandy up to the firelight, lazily contemplating the shifting patterns reflected in the excellent, if undoubtedly smuggled, amber liquid. His prospective brother-in-law maintained an outstanding wine cellar, indeed he did. If only as much could be said for the quality of his dinner parties.

  There were those who considered Viscount Frayne a useless fribble, nothing more than the topmost whorl in the tail of the ton’s array of strutting peacocks. It was even said he dared look on Brummel with a superior, and somewhat supercilious, smile. Then again, Lord Frayne was so lazily good-natured that the great Beau forgave him. Tony Norville’s friends envied his figure, which was tall and slender, the perfect body to display the current fashion of skin-tight clothing for men. His light brown hair curled naturally in the disheveled look many young gentlemen took hours to imitate. His noble brow topped a pair of unexpectedly sharp blue eyes, a nose and mouth that might have been the models for ancient Greek statues.