Lady Caro by Marlene Suson Page B

minutes later, Ashley left the sofa and the Kelsie sisters to join Mercer and Emily. Jane, accompanied by Mary Milbank, promptly came up to Charles and Caro.
    It was not long before Jane had the audacity to compliment poor Charles’s nose, saying it gave him a noble appearance.
    “Do you truly think so?” he asked eagerly.
    “Oh, yes,” Jane cooed.
    Incensed by such duplicity, Caro detached herself from the group and moved away. Having never before been exposed to the haute monde or the mating game of its young, she was repelled by the machinations of the females as they honed in on male targets, even those they professed not to like. Hypocrisy shocked her, and she could not fathom how they could simper so sweetly to a gentleman after savaging him behind his back.
    “What has inspired such a furious look, Lady Caro?” inquired Ashley’s voice behind her.
    An odd little tremor of pleasure that he had sought her out coursed through her, and she turned to him with a smile. He was so tall and she so small that the top of her head did not reach his shoulder. Incurably honest as always, she told him of her cousin’s mendacity, adding passionately, “I would not object to her making fun of Sir Percival’s corset or of Paul Coleman’s front teeth, which he’s so foolishly filed into points. But I think it is excessively cruel and unjust to ridicule an unfortunate nose that one cannot help. Then to toad-eat him to his face is the outside of enough!”
    She looked at Ashley defiantly, half expecting him to tell her she was a silly goose, but he merely said gravely, “I quite agree.” He smiled at her, saying lightly, “I imagine all us poor males suffered from Jane’s faultfinding tongue.”
    “Oh, not you!” Caro exclaimed. “Even Mary Milbank seems to have forgotten your rakish tendencies. I daresay that between her and my cousins you shall not have a moment’s peace.”
    He frowned at her words, but before she could ask him what was wrongs Aunt Olive and her daughters bore down upon them like a flagship flanked by two frigates.
    “Dear Lord Vinson,” Aunt Olive began, “I do hope that dearest Caroline has not shocked or insulted you. She has the most wayward tongue. One never knows what will pop out of her mouth.”
    “To the contrary, I find her conversation charming.”
    “How gallant you are,” Aunt Olive twittered, coyly fluttering her fan. “Caroline dearest, do go repair your hair. It is flying all about. And I do believe you have spilled something on your new gown, too. What a clumsy child you are. You have surely given Lord Vinson a disgust of you, although he is too polite to say anything.”
    Caro, ready to sink at being chastised so in front of Ashley, turned away.
    As she fled, Aunt Olive said in long-suffering accents, “I have tried so diligently to make dearest Caroline into a lady, but I fear the task is hopeless, Lord Vinson. She serves to remind me, however, how fortunate I am in my own two daughters whom, I do believe, were born perfect young ladies, so superior have their behavior and manners always been.”
    Caro, humiliated by her aunt’s words, stopped in front of a mirror in the hall to examine her gown. She could find no trace of the spot her aunt had talked about.
    After the ladies and most of the gentlemen had retired to their rooms that night, Ashley opened one of the French doors that led from the drawing room to the terrace and slipped outside. The night had been very still and hot, but a cooling breeze was at last wafting across the terrace that ran the length of Bellhaven’s elegant south front.
    Seating himself on the stone balustrade that overlooked the formal garden, he considered with cynical amusement the guests who had been invited to Bellhaven. With the exception of Mercer Corte, the males were all bachelors of great fortune and impressive family. Some of them, like buffle-headed Paul Coleman or that malicious gossip, Percy Plymtree, had nothing else to recommend