The Bride of the Unicorn

“Poor horses. None of it was their fault,” Caroline said, her small heart-shaped face wearing a woeful expression for a moment before she rallied. “Go on. There was no sign of the child, Lady Caroline?”

“None,” Morgan agreed, looking at Caroline curiously. She could listen, unmoved, to a description of the terrible murder of three human beings without batting an eye, yet was bothered by the destruction of animals. Was human death so commonplace in her life? He felt a faint stirring of pity toward her—it had to be no more than pity—then quickly, prudently, squelched it. “The woods lining both sides of the roadway were searched, on the off chance she was thrown from the coach when the horses bolted, but there was no sign of her. I was away at school—both my brother, Jeremy, and I—and we only heard about most of it in letters from our parents. But the late earl’s brother, Thomas, now the eighth Earl of Witham, spared no expense in searching for her.”

“Or so you heard,” Caroline broke in, pointing a finger at him, so that he noticed, not for the first time, that the nail was badly bitten. For all her show of bravado, for all her seemingly thick hide, the girl must have some vulnerability to fall prey to such a nervous habit. “Continue,” she ordered imperiously, so that he had to struggle to suppress a smile. “How long did the new earl search? Did he soon call it off so that he could enjoy his new position?”

Yes, the girl was smart, perhaps too much so for her own good—most certainly for his. “The new earl and his wife and son were devastated by the tragedy, and had the full sympathy of the neighborhood. There was a rash of arrests in the succeeding months, and many a highwayman hung in chains from gibbets up and down the roadway, although not one of them would admit to having taken Lady Caroline. But the murders had been committed in October, and with the coming of winter and several heavy falls of snow, hope for finding the child began to fade. In the end, there was nothing to do but assume that she was dead.”

“For fifteen years,” Caroline said, as if speaking to herself. “Yet you came searching for her—and found me. Why?”

Morgan abandoned his chair to move to the window and look out over the darkened inn yard. How much of the truth would he have to reveal in order to put an end to her questions?

He turned to face her, wishing her rather exotically tilted green eyes weren’t looking at him so closely, wishing that she didn’t look so vulnerable beneath her atrocious clothing and overlong mop of unruly dark blond hair. She was little more than a child, yet she had seen more in her few years than most old men. Could he, too, now use her and then discard her, as society discarded its orphans, and still live with himself?

“I met a man recently,” he began, deliberately tamping down any further misgivings about what he planned to do. “He was dying and made his last confession to me, including the admission that he had been involved in the disappearance of Lady Caroline. His last wish was for me to find her and return her to the bosom of her family, in expiation of his sin.” He smiled, spreading his hands wide as if to bestow a blessing on this dead sinner. “How could I, as a God-fearing Christian, refuse?”

Caroline looked at him levelly for some time from across the dimly lit room, then shook her head. “You’re lying,” she pronounced flatly. “Or, at the very least, you are not telling me all of the truth. But it doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I’m out of Woodwere, and Aunt Leticia, Ferdie, and Peaches are with me. I don’t need to know why you want to use me, as long as you keep your promise to take care of my friends.”

“Oh, so you noticed my reluctance to adopt those three sterling characters, did you?”

“I would have had to be blind as a cave bat not to,” Caroline returned, grinning. “They’ll be nothing but trouble, you know, even if they mean well. Except for Peaches, of course. She’ll be after your silver, bless her heart. So why did you? Adopt them, that is.”

That was a good question. Morgan, smiling thinly, squashed the cheroot into the tin dish holding a small candle. It had cost him a good deal of blunt to convince Woodwere that he could deal without Haswit and Miss Twittingdon, and he felt certain—as their relatives never visited anyway—that the director planned to continue to collect fees for housing them. “As soon as I have an answer for you, imp, I shall race hotfoot to report it to you.”

She uncurled herself from the chair and stood, tilting her chin at him defiantly. “You just do that, my lord. We made a bargain, you and me, and I’ll see that you stick to your end of it.”

Morgan stood and executed an elegant leg. “I am your servant, Lady Caroline,” he said mockingly, then added as he straightened, “although there has been one small alteration to my plans. I had not really counted on finding you—for from this moment on you are to consider yourself the true Lady Caroline—and my plans were more slapdash than well thought out. I cannot take you and the rest of our traveling freak show to Clayhill. It’s too dangerous, as I wish to keep your discovery private until I have groomed you sufficiently to take your place in London society.”

Caroline pulled a face, her mobile features turning mulish. “Aunt Leticia has been preparing me for my come-out for over a year. I know how to behave. I even know how to eat turbot.”

“My felicitations, Lady Caroline,” Morgan returned affably, watching as she scratched an itch on her stomach—an itch that probably signaled the existence of a family of fleas that had taken up residence in her gown. “However, Miss Twittingdon’s undoubtedly comprehensive instructions to one side, I fear I must insist upon some further education in the ways of the ton. To that end, and because my father no longer moves in society, either in London or here in Sussex, I have decided to move directly to The Acres, his estate. There we can prepare you for your reunion with your relatives without them immediately locking you up somewhere as a disgrace to the family name. Now, are there any more questions, or may I bid you a good night, my lady?”

Caroline looked at him through narrowed eyes, then quickly snatched up another apple from the wooden bowl. “I think I understand everything now,” she said, her grin once more turning her into a scruffy wood sprite. “Good night, my lord. I look forward to seeing your father’s house. Is Mr. Clayton as arrogant as his son?”

“There is no Mr. Clayton, my lady,” Morgan told her, deciding to begin her education. “My name is Morgan Blakely, and I am the Marquis of Clayton, among other, lesser titles. My father’s name is William Blakely, and his most senior title is that of his grace, Duke of Glynde. Do you think you can remember that?”

“If I’m ‘well recompensed,’ I suspect I can remember anything—and forget anything just as easily. Miss Twittingdon didn’t teach me that, but Peaches did,” Caroline said, then skipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving Morgan to wonder if, this time, his revenge, his planned retribution for an unpardonable sin, was truly worth the bother.

And to wonder why Caroline Monday’s intelligent green eyes pleased him so—on a level much more personal than thoughts of revenge.

CHAPTER FIVE

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

Jean de La Fontaine

CAROLINE SAT COMFORTABLY on the soft leather seat of Morgan’s closed coach, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of having her stomach filled with good food. She had been eating almost constantly since driving away from Woodwere, and warranted that no single ambition in this life could be loftier than to continue filling her belly at regular intervals until she was as immense as a wheelbarrow and rocked from side to side as she walked.

Not that she believed she would get that chance, certain that she would soon be sent on her way. She had seen the marquis briefly this morning as they all exited the inn, before he climbed on his beautiful bay horse, vowing he would not ride inside with the four none-too-sweet-smelling additions to his entourage while he retained a single sane bone in his body. He had said much the same yesterday, Peaches had told Caroline, while the two of them were traveling to Woodwere, a statement that just proved that the marquis was “too high in the instep by half.”

But it wasn’t his desertion, riding ahead to The Acres and leaving the coach to follow along as best it could, that had forced Caroline to conclude that her introduction to polite society was still no closer to becoming a reality than it had been in Miss Twittingdon’s room as that lady taught her the correct way to curtsy to the Prince Regent. No, it was more than that.

Morgan Blakely, Caroline had decided, had spent the night adding up one side of his personal ledger with the benefits to be had from declaring Caroline Monday to be Lady Caroline Wilburton, then deducting the drawbacks to such a scheme on the other side. Peaches, Aunt Leticia, and Ferdie—who had taught her all she knew about ledgers—had to number on the minus side, as she probably did herself. He certainly had not gone to any great lengths to hide his contempt for them all.

The only thing that could make the ledger amounts tilt in her favor would be if the marquis had some very personal reason for wanting to have her declared the missing heiress. He hadn’t labored very long claiming that he was just an Englishman doing what was right. He had his own reasons for finding Lady Caroline, she was convinced, and his own plans for using her to his advantage. And, most probably, to someone else’s disadvantage.

But Caroline would leave off all this heavy thinking for a while, she decided, and enjoy her second ride in a coach in as many days. She had never before traveled in such style, having rarely left the orphanage for more than an occasional trip into the village, and had been transported to her position at Woodwere on the back of an open wagon. To be surrounded by luxury such as that provided by the marquis’s crested coach was an adventure that nearly outstripped last night’s treat of sleeping in a bed with only two other people, Peaches and Miss Twittingdon, sharing it with her.

Unwilling to miss a single moment more of the trip due to fruitless introspection concerning Lord Clayton’s motives for seeking out a plausible Lady Caroline Wilburton, she lifted the leather flap and looked out at the scenery that was flying by at a dizzying pace. According to the marquis, they were now traveling the same roadway the earl and his countess had ridden along that fateful night.

She squinted out at the trees, bare of their greenery in anticipation of the coming winter, and tried to imagine how they had looked that night fifteen years earlier, with the bare branches illuminated only by the light from coach lamps, like those on the marquis’s coach that had lit their way to the inn last evening. They would have been traveling quickly, the earl and his lady, in order to reach the warmth and comfort of their home, but not too quickly, because it would have been difficult for the coachman to see the road unless there was a full moon that night.

Did highwaymen ply their trade only during a full moon, or did they confine their activities to moonless nights? Peaches would know, Caroline felt sure, but did not bother to ask. It was enough to let her imagination set the scene.

Caroline sat back and closed her eyes, deliberately using that imagination to conjure up two well-dressed people and the child who was traveling with them. She had seen detailed drawings of society people in the dog-eared fashion plates she’d often pored over in Miss Twittingdon’s room, so it wasn’t hard to picture what that doomed trio must have looked like, with their fancy clothes and curling feathers and elaborate jewels.

It had been late at night, so the child was probably sleeping—or crying. It was either the one thing or the other with children, Caroline knew, thanks to her years at the orphanage.

For the moment she’d pretend that the child was quiet, determined to stay awake past her bedtime, but on the edge of sleep, her head nodding wearily against her mother. And then, just as they all thought they were nearing their home, they heard shots, and a threatening, highwaymanlike voice called out the well-known words: “Stand and deliver!”

Caroline shivered, tensing as if she had actually heard the man’s command. She could clearly imagine the pandemonium that must have been unleashed inside the doomed coach at that terrible sound!

In her mind’s eye she could almost see the horses plunging to a halt, hear the coachman yelling, understand the countess’s plight as she was caught between fear for her husband and child and a reluctance to part with all her beautiful jewelry. And the earl. Poor man. Caroline could feel his frustration. How he must have wished to take up the pistols hidden in the pockets of the coach—like those she had earlier discovered in the marquis’s coach—and leap to the ground, shoot down the highwaymen, and protect his women.

Why hadn’t he done that? Caroline frowned, her eyes still squeezed closed, her palms damp. Why was she supposing that he hadn’t? Perhaps that was why he and his wife had been shot. Perhaps if he had stayed where he was, even hidden himself—hidden himself? and where could he have hidden inside a small coach?—the highwaymen wouldn’t have blown a hole in him, and his lady wife wouldn’t have had to scream and scream and scream….

“Caro, m’darlin’. It’s bored to flinders I am, and that’s a fact, what with these two loonies snoring louder than hens can cackle. Why don’t ye give us a song?”

“No!” Caroline’s green eyes shot wide open, her mouth suddenly dry, her heart pounding furiously. “Caro’s tired!”

Peaches crossed her arms beneath her flat breast and snorted. “Well, aren’t we cross as two sticks this mornin’? Tired, is it, with the sun climbin’ high in the sky and not a single turnip chopped or nary a chamber pot emptied? It’s a fine lady ye’ll make, little gel, and that’s fer certain—fer ye surely has the temper fer it.”

Caroline pressed trembling hands to her cheeks for a moment, then sighed. For a moment, just a moment, it had all seemed so real. Perhaps a single year was still too long for an imaginative person such as she to work in a madhouse. “I’m sorry, Peaches. I was just trying to suppose what it was like to be robbed and murdered. Do you think the real Lady Caroline saw what happened? Do you think they carried her off and sold her to the Gypsies, or did they just kill her and leave her body for the animals?”

Peaches waggled her head from side to side, chuckling softly. “Better not ever let his worship hear ye askin’ such questions, and don’t ye know. But since ye’re askin’, the way I figure the thing, the high-toby men planned ta sell the bairn ta the Gypsies—seein’ as how we all know how Gypsies like boilin’ up and eatin’ little kiddies—but she proved ta be such a trial that they got rid of her at the orphanage, sayin’ good riddance ta bad rubbish.”

“At the orphanage? In Glynde?” Caroline leaned forward and peered at Peaches intently. “Then you’re saying that I am Lady Caroline?”

“As long as his worship feeds me I’ll be sayin’ anythin’ he says, little gel, and so should ye,” Peaches told her, then closed her more than usually shifting, secretive eyes. “Say it, think it, and swear on m’mither’s grave ta the truth of it, don’t ye know. Now go ta sleep, iffen ye’re so tired, and so will I. We won’t be gettin’ ta his worship’s da’s place fer a while yet.”

Caroline, who knew Peaches was right—hadn’t she said almost the same thing to the marquis last night?—leaned back against the soft leather, knowing it would be impossible for her to close her eyes again without immediately conjuring up the horrific scene that had played behind her eyelids only a few moments earlier.

Instead, as Miss Twittingdon’s head nodded onto her shoulder and the snores of Ferdie and Peaches competed with the sound of the coach wheels as they rolled on and on along the roadway, Caroline Monday peered out at the passing scenery, gnawing on the tip of her left index finger until she had drawn blood.

THE ACRES MIGHT HAVE BEEN Morgan’s birthplace, but he had ceased many a long year ago to consider it his home. As he rode along the wide, tree-lined avenue that led to the four-story mellowed pink stone structure, he wondered why he felt that way and why it had been so impossible for his father to love him.

Perhaps, he considered thoughtfully, they had been too different or, as Uncle James had hinted, too much the same.

According to his uncle, Morgan’s father had seen his share of adventure in his salad days, before he ascended to the dukedom. Then, in short order, he had taken a wife, fathered two sons, buried that wife, and become so bloody responsible that laughter and frolic seemed to be foreign words, unable to be understood by the man.