When she didn‟t respond, his eyes narrowed. "I will ship you off to another estate, if I need to. I‟d rather you stayed here and kept Sarah in line. She has always been best with you for whatever godforsaken reason. But if you put one toe out of line, I may just decide to take away everything. The village celebrations, your house, your money, your access to Sarah. Everything . Do I make myself clear?"
She could hear her own breathing. "Perfectly."
"Good. I need you at Roseford Grange tomorrow. Be by in the morning. You are dismissed."
The earl bent back over his figures, his plans, his empire building. The earl‟s heir was on the continent, fulfilling his last bits of education. Not that George would have gone against his father, but she could have used some help.
Caroline marched from the room, her own plans forming. She gathered the shrunken form of her companion outside the door and continued toward the east wing. "There‟s nothing for it, Sarah. We will have to work from within the tournament."
"Caro." The nineteen-year-old girl gripped her arm. "You shouldn‟t have argued with Father."
"Your father needs to be challenged every once in a while. Sometimes I think that is the only reason he allows me such liberties." But she had to be careful of going too far. She had read the threat in his eyes. The seriousness there. He might indulge her due to their entwined pasts, but that would last only so long.
"But—"
"Not here." The servants watched them, bowing to Lady Sarah as they moved toward Sarah‟s rooms.
As soon as they were safely ensconced inside with a pot of tea, Caroline tucked a blanket around her friend‟s legs. Six years‟ difference in age had firmly established their hierarchy of need, no matter the distance in social standing or family connection.
"We will need to look closely at each participant. Determine who is worthy and who is not."
"Does it matter?" Sarah leaned her head back against the chair.
"Of course it does! They can‟t all be bad, right?" She tried not to inject the uncertainty she felt.
Sarah shook her head.
"We will just have to cull Anthony‟s from the list."
Her friend forced a smile.
"I never liked him from your letters," Caroline said loyally, disliking the man she had never met. "He is the one lacking, not you."
"He was a lovely poet." Her friend‟s eyes sought the window. "He particularly liked to compare my skin to all manners of attractive things. Roses, lilies, dahlias. Once he even used a turnip to describe my lips."
Caroline set out a cup of milk and a few lumps of sugar, trying to hide a smile at Sarah‟s attempt at a jest. "Artists are a strange lot. And poets—always trying to find something to rhyme with rutabaga. It would have driven you mad."
Sarah‟s smile curved into something more genuine. "Yes, well, I won‟t have to worry about rogue rutabagas anymore."
The lines around Sarah‟s eyes grew.
"No. The King sees the whole competition as an incentive to make sure one of his godchildren is married well."
She took a deep breath before continuing. "I saw him a few days ago . He has signed a document promising the winner a victory. After the competition ends, he‟ll have the letters-patent drawn up and—" She waved a hand in a fatalistic manner. "I tried to beg him to revoke his blessings, but you know how I freeze up so terribly. He just patted me on the head and said the games were designed to weed out the unworthy. Only a true gentleman could win."
"A true gentleman."
"Yes." Sarah tugged at the bow on her dress, mangling it further.
A man who was good at shooting, boxing, gaming, and wenching could easily fulfill the terms of a "true gentleman." Not the type of man who was generous and understanding, courteous and patient. A man like Sarah needed it. Someone who could bring out her gentle spirit and appreciate her kindness.
"This competition will bring the winner a fortune, not just from me. That‟s part of the reason the King agreed to it, outside of his ties to the group. The monetary rewards are a joint offering from all the men sponsoring the tournament, and it „promotes good English stock and fun.‟ The winner will be"—Sarah waved her hand again, then dropped it to her lap—"celebrated and titled. Prestigious . A connection Father covets, like every other man of the town ."
"Yes, but—"
"Father is so pleased ," she whispered.
"Well, that is hardly—"
"It‟s so hard, Caro." Fingers wrung the blanket. "Your parents loved you unconditionally, even when you went against them. But it‟s so hard to please Father. And the diamonds fairly sparkled this year before they were snatched up. There were so many at the mart at the beginning of the season. I thought myself a fairly decent catch before I left, especially with your confidence behind me. But the competition…I was just lost in the shuffle. And without you—"
Sarah‟s voice lowered. "You know there is no way for me to make a powerful marriage otherwise. I need Father‟s help. I‟m just not—"
Caroline tipped her chin up. "You are a wonderful woman, Sarah. The right man will see that. You need to see it."
Sarah bit her lip, tears shimmering in her eyes.
Caroline steepled her fingers on the table, anger at the ton and at the earl battling with the need to comfort Cheevers‟s daughter. "We‟ll just have to run away, nothing for it."
She grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from a neatly stacked pile. "Find some handsome prince for you. Perhaps a solid businessman for me."
Sarah choked.
"Shall we go to France?" She tapped the table. "No, too continental. India?"
She wrote it down. "Plenty of tea, but too dangerous." She crossed it out.
"Spain?" She pretended to think about it. "Too hot."
Sarah cracked a smile and resumed sipping her tea.
Caroline leaned back in her chair. "America? Too colonial, I think."
Some of the tension left Sarah‟s shoulders.
She picked up the teapot again, not giving away the fact that she was only half joking. Sarah was her sister in everything but the eyes of the world. If the competition turned out to be disastrous, despite the ill-suited nature they both possessed for running away, and their limited funds, Caroline would attempt to smuggle her out of the country.
"Well, until we can come up with the perfect destination, let‟s see what we can do about this competition. Illegitimate children and latter-born sons, hmmm…"
"Hungry, to the last."
"Do you know any of them?"
"A few. But they are mostly rogues and rakes and men not interested in wallflowers. There are fifteen of them." She rattled off a few names that Caroline recognized from notes, the London sheets, and the earl, but few that she could identify by face, never having had a season herself.
"In a few days most of them will be here to look over the documents." Sarah‟s voice grew weary.
"Lady Tevon has been trying to drum excitement into me.
She would be overjoyed to share all she knows—I know Father has told her everything. She sleeps in his room, though they think I don‟t know." Caroline blinked, momentarily sidetracked by Sarah‟s glib announcement of the earl‟s new mistress. "I can have you over for tea, and you can ask during the visit."
"Excellent."
She kept up a steady chatter designed to keep Sarah laughing, all the while plotting which part of the competition she planned to destroy first.
Caroline tiredly dropped her papers onto a curved stone bench in the front garden of the vacant, but charming, Roseford Grange. She‟d completed a pencil sketch of the grounds and now needed to illustrate the house proper on the page.
The words of the earl and Sarah‟s new chaperone played through her mind.
She had exhausted most of her ire during the carriage ride, but the product remained.
Lady Sarah‟s marriage to the tournament winner will be the event of the season. Married to the new viscount. A man demonstrating strength in all areas and supported by the most powerful men in England. Think of your father‟s pride, Lady Sarah!
With great difficulty Caroline had restrained herself from giving Lady Tevon a box on the ears for dangling the earl‟s regard before Sarah like a carrot on a stick. Repeated over and over, the effect had been brutal.
"Your father wants to see you married well. His affection for you would be untold. The sheer amount of pride he would have in you—unfathomable."
Caroline mimicked the speech, the authoritarian power that Lady Tevon dripped with every new word. Her anger with the earl grew ever larger.
She gave a vicious little tug of her black chalk over the paper. Undoubtedly the winner of this redoubtable tournament would make a powerful match—Lady Tevon was correct.
That didn‟t mean that the contestants themselves would be wonderful. Men in power, or seeking it, rarely were. And several of the men were widely known as out-and-out rakes. Men who seduce women into believing they were special.
Men who moved on as soon as the next beautiful or powerful thing crossed their paths. Men like…..