LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Eleven

      Little more than thirty hours later, Caroline climbed down from the hackney that had brought her back from the solicitor’s office and walked slowly up the stairs into her cousin Elizabeth’s modest town house. A house that been part of her cousin’s marriage settlements, fortunately, Caro thought, making it one of the few assets her profligate husband hadn’t been able to squander.

      Oh, fortunate Elizabeth.

      A dull ache in her head, she felt the weariness of every sleepless hour she’d endured, from her last night at Denby Lodge, briefing the trainer and preparing for the journey, to the long dusty, uncomfortable transit into London. She’d barely taken the time to greet Elizabeth and inform her about her urgent mission before leaving for Mr Henderson’s office.

      Where she was met by the chilling news that her trustees, approved by the Court of Chancery under her father’s will to care for her inheritance, definitely had the legal right to sell off any land or assets they saw fit, for the good of the estate.

      Lady Elizabeth was out, the butler told her as he let her in. Her chest so tight with pain and outrage she could barely breathe, too exhausted to sleep, Caroline went to the small study, took paper and scrawled a letter to Harry, pouring into it all her anguished desperation.

      Not that it would make any difference; she probably wouldn’t even post it. By the time the letter reached Harry, even if he wrote back immediately, agreeing to marry her by proxy, it would be too late. The sale, Mr Henderson had advised her this afternoon, was already near to being concluded.

      She was going to lose the stud.

      That awful fact echoed in hollowness of her belly like a shot ricocheting inside a stone building, chipping off pieces that could wound and maim. She felt her heart’s blood oozing out even now.

      She might as well shoot herself and get it over with, she thought bleakly.

      A rustling in the passageway announced her cousin Elizabeth’s return. Not wishing to leave the letter there, where some curious servant might read her ramblings, she quickly sanded and folded it and scrawled Harry’s name on the top. Setting it to the side of the desk, she rose to meet her cousin.

      Elizabeth took one look at her face and gathered her into a hug.

      ‘Men!’ she said bitterly, releasing Caro before linking arms and leading her to the sofa. ‘They shape our world, write its laws and pretend we are helpless creatures who cannot be trusted to manage our own lives. So they can take it all.’

      ‘At least you have your house. Maybe I can come and reside with you, once … once it’s gone. I don’t think I can bear to live at Denby Lodge, afterwards.’

      ‘You’d certainly be welcome. I don’t have nearly the income I once did, but it’s enough for us to manage.’

      ‘Oh, I should have wealth aplenty for us both, especially after the sale. My kind trustees are managing the estate so brilliantly, I should be awash in guineas. Lord Woodbury would doubtless approve my buying every feminine frippery under the sun … as long as I don’t do the only thing in life I care about.’

      Elizabeth poured them wine and handed Caro a glass. ‘Come and live with me, then. We’ll be two eccentric bluestockings, keeping pugs, reading scientific tracts and nattering on about the rights of working women and prostitutes, like that Mary Wollstonecraft creature.’

      Caro attempted a smile, but with her whole world disintegrating around her, she didn’t have the heart to appreciate her cousin’s attempt at humour. ‘You should think twice before making such an offer. I’m a social pariah now, remember.’

      Her cousin merely laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard the fantastical tale Lady Melross has been spreading. You, baring your bosom to snag a gentleman? Max Ransleigh, rake though he be, mauling a gently born girl in his own aunt’s conservatory? No one who knows either of you could possibly believe it.’

      In no mood to recount the story again, despite the curiosity in her cousin’s eyes, Caro merely shrugged.

      Tacitly accepting her reluctance, Elizabeth sighed. ‘Is there no way to get around Lord Woodbury?’

      ‘Only if I could find a fortune hunter desperate enough to escort me to Gretna Green tonight.’

      Elizabeth shuddered. ‘Don’t even joke of such a thing! Besides, wouldn’t Woodbury put a stop to that, too?’

      ‘He couldn’t; I’m of age. And, once married, my new husband would take ownership of everything from the trustees, with the power to cancel the sale.’

      ‘I trust you are only jesting,’ Elizabeth said, looking at her with concern. ‘Gaining a husband would give you no more control over your wealth than your trustees do, as I learned to my sorrow. Oh, if only Harry were not so far away in India!’

      ‘I know,’ Caro said, feeling tears again prick her eyes. She’d never expected that at the most desperate hour of her life her closest childhood friend would be too far away to help her. ‘I wrote to him tonight, useless as that was. But the plain fact is he’s not here, nor could he possibly return before the sale goes through … and then the stud is lost to me for ever.’

      Merely saying the words sent a knife-like pain slashing through her. Lips trembling, she pushed the image of Sultan from her mind.

      ‘That soon?’ Elizabeth was saying. ‘I’m almost willing to draw up a list of eligible gentlemen.’

      ‘He could have all my money, as long as he left me enough to maintain the stud. If only I knew someone besides Harry who’d be honourable enough to make such a bargain and keep—’ Caroline broke off abruptly as Max Ransleigh’s words echoed in her ears: You could run the stud with my blessing …

      A near-hysterical excitement blazing new energy into her, she seized her cousin’s arm. ‘Elizabeth, you are acquainted with the Ransleighs, aren’t you?’

      ‘I haven’t moved in their circles since my début Season, but I still count Jane Ransleigh as a friend. She’s Lady Gilford now, one of society’s most important—’

      ‘Yes, yes, I know her,’ Caroline interrupted. ‘Is she in town? Could you get a message to her?’

      ‘I suppose so. What is it, Caro? You’re as white as if you were about to faint—and you’re hurting my arm.’

      ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, releasing it at once. Lightheaded, desperate, feeling every hour she’d gone without food and sleep and rest, she said, ‘I must get a message to her cousin, Max Ransleigh. Tonight, if possible.’

      ‘Max Ransleigh? Ah, the man who …’ Comprehension dawned in Elizabeth’s eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘I am. Though I’m not at all sure, after the scandal I dragged him into, that Lady Gilford would agree to give me his direction.’

      ‘You don’t have to ask her. Max is here now, in London. Jane told me at tea last week that he’d come to town to meet with the colonel who used to command his regiment.’