Mistress by Marriage by Maggie Robinson

understand—”
    “Good Lord, you’ll catch your death, dear—”
    “Oh! This is so romantic!”
    “Gor!”
    “Be quiet, all of you,” Caroline grumbled. “I cannot fire you, Hazlett, but I want to. You have aligned yourself with him one too many times.”
    “My lady,” the butler blustered, “he assured me he wouldn’t harm one red hair on your head! What has the villain done to you?”
    “Oh, be quiet. And fetch a ham out of the larder. Make us some sandwiches. You’re good at that. Find me a bottle of the most inferior wine we have. For him. Mrs. Hazlett, if I could trouble you for a cup of tea, I’d be very grateful. I need my wits about me. Ben, you are to go out to the garden immediately and forget you ever saw me in such disarray. Oh, hell and damnation, it’s raining. Sit in the shed, then, until Mr. Hazlett tells you to come back in. And Lizzie, please do something with my hair. I cannot go on like this.”
    Tea and hairpins and sandwiches miraculously appeared as a goggle-eyed Ben disappeared. Caroline sat silent as the three servants went out of their way to soothe her. A tray was laden and poor old Hazlett mounted the steps with it. She stood like a doll while Lizzie and Mrs. Hazlett draped and knotted the sheet so she was nearly presentable. No doubt Edward would strip her of it at the first opportunity, but at least she could walk upstairs without incident.
    Steeling herself, she returned to the scene of the crime. Edward was sitting in bed propped against pillows like an eastern potentate, a sandwich in one hand, a goblet of inferior wine in the other. She supposed she was designated to be the dancing girl.
    “You look very fetching in that sheet, Caro. You might even start a new fashion craze. Come join me.”
    She raised her haughty chin. “I’m not hungry.”
    “Come, come. This was all your idea. Have a bite.” He extended his sandwich toward her.
    The bread was fresh and studded with fragrant seeds, the mustard sharp in her nostrils. She could bite his pink thumb off and pretend she mistook it for ham. “No, thank you.”
    “Suit yourself. Old Hazlett made enough for an army. I’m sure we’ll work up an appetite and get to it later. He tells me that caramel dessert was nowhere to be found, but there’s pie. I know how you like your pie.”
    Oh, he was wicked. Andrew had told him about the Cherry Pie Incident and she had not denied it because she couldn’t. Andrew had told him so much that day, but not the whole truth, thank God. She’d been rooted to the floor, mute, disheveled. It had been the worst day of her life . . .
    Except for around midnight last night, when she thought Edward was gone forever. Now it seemed she couldn’t get rid of him. And she wanted to. She did.
    She collapsed on her dressing table chair. Lizzie had done wonders braiding her hair and pinning it into a rather regal coronet. She could pass for some Roman goddess, one of the obscure ones. Clementia, goddess of forgiveness, although just at present Caroline was full of righteous outrage. Sentia, who helped children develop. She’d helped Edward’s, hadn’t she, as best she could? And Ben, too. But never Disciplina. Caroline had been unable to control her passions all her life.
    Edward was not supposed to become her passion, just her husband. She’d seen his sangfroid as a benefit, not a detraction, when they’d first met. True, he was precipitous in his proposal, but she’d taken the ton by storm and was very much in demand. It was only sensible that a sensible man move quickly if he wanted to secure her hand in marriage. And it was only sensible of her to move quickly and accept, before her unpleasant past caught up with her. Edward was steady, reliable, boring, living in a world very different than the one she was trying so desperately to escape. But it had taken Andrew so little effort to insinuate himself into Edward’s world and back into her life. Her year of marriage had been fraught with