Four in Hand

Caroline, rapidly trying to gauge where this latest disconcerting news left her, came forward to sink into the chair indicated.

Outwardly calm, Max watched the unconsciously graceful glide of her walk, the seductive swing of her hips as she sat down. He would have to find a replacement for Carmelita. His gaze rested speculatively on the beauty before him. Hillshaw had been right. She was unquestionably a lady. Still, that had never stopped him before. And, now he came to look more closely, she was not, he thought, that young. Even better. No rings, which was odd. Another twinge of pain from behind his eyes lent a harshness to his voice. “Who the devil are you?”

The dimple peeped out again. In no way discomposed, she answered, “My name is Caroline Twinning. And, if you really are the Duke of Twyford, then I’m very much afraid I’m your ward.”

Her announcement was received in perfect silence. A long pause ensued, during which Max sat unmoving, his sharp blue gaze fixed unwaveringly on his visitor. She bore this scrutiny for some minutes, before letting her brows rise in polite and still amused enquiry.

Max closed his eyes and groaned. “Oh, God.”

It had only taken a moment to work it out. The only woman he could not seduce was his own ward. And he had already decided he very definitely wanted to seduce Caroline Twinning. With an effort, he dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. He opened his eyes. Hopefully, she would put his reaction down to natural disbelief. Encountering the grey-green eyes, now even more amused, he was not so sure. “Explain, if you please. Simple language only. I’m not up to unravelling mysteries at the moment.”

Caroline could not help grinning. She had noticed twinges of what she guessed to be pain passing spasmodically through the blue eyes. “If your head hurts that much, why don’t you try an ice-pack? I assure you I won’t mind.”

Max threw her a look of loathing. His head felt as if it was splitting, but how dared she be so lost to all propriety as to notice, let alone mention it? Still, she was perfectly right. An ice-pack was exactly what he needed. With a darkling look, he reached for the bell pull.

Hillshaw came in answer to his summons and received the order for an ice-pack without noticeable perturbation. “Now, Your Grace?”

“Of course now! What use will it be later?” Max winced at the sound of his own voice.

“As Your Grace wishes.” The sepulchral tones left Max in no doubt of his butler’s deep disapproval.

As the door closed behind Hillshaw, Max lay back in the chair, his fingers at his temples, and fixed Caroline with an unwavering stare. “You may commence.”

She smiled, entirely at her ease once more. “My father was Sir Thomas Twinning. He was an old friend of the Duke of Twyford—the previous Duke, I imagine.”

Max nodded. “My uncle. I inherited the title from him. He was killed unexpectedly three months ago, together with his two sons. I never expected to inherit the estate, so am unfamiliar with whatever arrangements your parent may have made with the last Duke.”

Caroline nodded and waited until Hillshaw, delivering the requested ice-pack on a silver salver to his master, withdrew. “I see. When my father died eighteen months ago, my sisters and I were informed that he had left us to the guardianship of the Duke of Twyford.”

“Eighteen months ago? What have you been doing since then?”

“We stayed on the estate for a time. It passed to a distant cousin and he was prepared to let us remain. But it seemed senseless to stay buried there forever. The Duke wanted us to join his household immediately, but we were in mourning. I persuaded him to let us go to my late stepmother’s family in New York. They’d always wanted us to visit and it seemed the perfect opportunity. I wrote to him when we were in New York, telling him we would call on him when we returned to England and giving him the date of our expected arrival. He replied and suggested I call on him today. And so, here I am.”

Max saw it all now. Caroline Twinning was yet another part of his damnably awkward inheritance. Having led a life of unfettered hedonism from his earliest days, a rakehell ever since he came on the town, Max had soon understood that his lifestyle required capital to support it. So he had ensured his estates were all run efficiently and well. The Delmere estates he had inherited from his father were a model of modern estate management. But his uncle Henry had never had much real interest in his far larger holdings. After the tragic boating accident which had unexpectedly foisted on to him the responsibilities of the dukedom of Twyford, Max had found a complete overhaul of all his uncle’s numerous estates was essential if they were not to sap the strength from his more prosperous Delmere holdings. The last three months had been spent in constant upheaval, with the old Twyford retainers trying to come to grips with the new Duke and his very different style. For Max, they had been three months of unending work. Only this week, he had finally thought that the end of the worst was in sight. He had packed his long-suffering secretary, Joshua Cummings, off home for a much needed rest. And now, quite clearly, the next chapter in the saga of his Twyford inheritance was about to start.

“You mentioned sisters. How many?”

“My half-sisters, really. There are four of us, altogether.”

The lightness of the answer made Max instantly suspicious. “How old?”

There was a noticeable hesitation before Caroline answered, “Twenty, nineteen and eighteen.”

The effect on Max was electric. “Good Lord! They didn’t accompany you here, did they?”

Bewildered, Caroline replied, “No. I left them at the hotel.”

“Thank God for that,” said Max. Encountering Caroline’s enquiring gaze, he smiled. “If anyone had seen them entering here, it would have been around town in a flash that I was setting up a harem.”

The smile made Caroline blink. At his words, her grey eyes widened slightly. She could hardly pretend not to understand. Noticing the peculiar light in the blue eyes as they rested on her, it seemed a very good thing she was the Duke’s ward. From her admittedly small understanding of the morals of his type, she suspected her position would keep her safe as little else might.

Unbeknown to her, Max was thinking precisely the same thing. And resolving to divest himself of his latest inherited responsibility with all possible speed. Aside from having no wish whatever to figure as the guardian of four young ladies of marriageable age, he needed to clear the obstacles from his path to Caroline Twinning. It occurred to him that her explanation of her life history had been curiously glib and decidedly short on detail. “Start at the beginning. Who was your mother and when did she die?”

Caroline had come unprepared to recite her history, imagining the Duke to be cognizant of the facts. Still, in the circumstances, she could hardly refuse. “My mother was Caroline Farningham, of the Staffordshire Farninghams.”

Max nodded. An ancient family, well-known and well-connected.

Caroline’s gaze had wandered to the rows of books lining the shelves behind the Duke. “She died shortly after I was born. I never knew her. After some years, my father married again, this time to the daughter of a local family who were about to leave for the colonies. Eleanor was very good to me and she looked after all of us comfortably, until she died six years ago. Of course, my father was disappointed that he never had a son and he rarely paid any attention to the four of us, so it was all left up to Eleanor.”

The more he heard of him, the more Max was convinced that Sir Thomas Twinning had had a screw loose. He had clearly been a most unnatural parent. Still, the others were only Miss Twinning’s half-sisters. Presumably they were not all as ravishing as she. It occurred to him that he should ask for clarification on this point but, before he could properly phrase the question, another and equally intriguing matter came to mind.

“Why was it none of you was presented before? If your father was sufficiently concerned to organize a guardian for you, surely the easiest solution would have been to have handed you into the care of husbands?”

Caroline saw no reason not to satisfy what was, after all, an entirely understandable curiosity. “We were never presented because my father disapproved of such…oh, frippery pastimes! To be perfectly honest, I sometimes thought he disapproved of women in general.”

Max blinked.

Caroline continued, “As for marriage, he had organized that after a fashion. I was supposed to have married Edgar Mulhall, our neighbour.” Involuntarily, her face assumed an expression of distaste.

Max was amused. “Wouldn’t he do?”

Caroline’s gaze returned to the saturnine face. “You haven’t met him or you wouldn’t need to ask. He’s…” She wrinkled her nose as she sought for an adequate description. “Righteous,” she finally pronounced.

At that, Max laughed. “Clearly out of the question.”

Caroline ignored the provocation in the blue eyes. “Papa had similar plans for my sisters, only, as he never noticed they were of marriageable age and I never chose to bring it to his attention, nothing came of them either.”

Perceiving Miss Twinning’s evident satisfaction, Max made a mental note to beware of her manipulative tendencies. “Very well. So much for the past. Now to the future. What was your arrangement with my uncle?”

The grey-green gaze was entirely innocent as it rested on his face. Max did not know whether to believe it or not.

“Well, it was really his idea, but it seemed a perfectly sensible one to me. He suggested we should be presented to the ton. I suspect he intended to find us suitable husbands and so bring his guardianship to an end.” She paused, thinking. “I’m not aware of the terms of my father’s will, but I assume such arrangements terminate should we marry?”

“Very likely,” agreed Max. The throbbing in his head had eased considerably. His uncle’s plan had much to recommend it, but, personally, he would much prefer not to have any wards at all. And he would be damned if he would have Miss Twinning as his ward—that would cramp his style far too much. There were a few things even reprobates such as he held sacred and guardianship was one.

He knew she was watching him but made no further comment, his eyes fixed frowningly on his blotter as he considered his next move. At last, looking up at her, he said, “I’ve heard nothing of this until now. I’ll have to get my solicitors to sort it out. Which firm handles your affairs?”

“Whitney and White. In Chancery Lane.”

“Well, at least that simplifies matters. They handle the Twyford estates as well as my others.” He laid the ice-pack down and looked at Caroline, a slight frown in his blue eyes. “Where are you staying?”

“Grillon’s. We arrived yesterday.”

Another thought occurred to Max. “On what have you been living for the last eighteen months?”

“Oh, we all had money left us by our mothers. We arranged to draw on that and leave our patrimony untouched.”

Max nodded slowly. “But who had you in charge? You can’t have travelled halfway around the world alone.”