Sarah‟s chin lifted. "For a match with Father, maybe. For good breeding stock as a daughter of an earl, maybe. But not for me . I know it. You weren‟t there this season, Caroline. The matches I could make weren‟t good enough. The matches Father wanted me to pursue weren‟t remotely interested in me. The silent, mannerly girl my mother raised just isn‟t interesting to most men. Look at Father. How many mistresses has he had? I‟m just surprised he doesn‟t have a bastard out there competing in this tournament." She smiled a thin smile. "Though that would remove me from the competition then."
Caroline swallowed. "And the earl thinks these men are better than ones you could choose? Men like Deville and Bateman?"
"He was nice to me once."
Caroline couldn‟t credit that she could be talking about him . "Which one?"
"Deville."
A tiny bit of anger that felt an awful lot like a worse emotion threaded through her. "He was likely trying to worm his way past your skirts, Sarah," she said pragmatically, trying not to wince. It was obviously one of the man‟s traits.
"Caro!" she admonished. Her expression turned thoughtful. "No, I don‟t think so. I don‟t rate his scale of regard. You should see him in action at a thon event, Caro. It‟s—" She shivered. "I
can tell you that nearly every unmarried lady fancies him to some extent. I wish for just one night…"
Caroline grimaced, the notions striking too close for comfort. "Lovely."
A smile cracked Sarah‟s face. "Oh, of course you wouldn‟t be taken in, Caro. But he veritably prowls the rooms. And he is everything that the other men are not. It makes things so simple for him. I can‟t believe no one has eloped with him, though he seems as far from marriage-minded as a man could get."
"It sounds as if he has the ton firmly in his grasp." Irritation ran through her at the games he obviously played. At the one he‟d played with her, not that she‟d been an unwilling participant, but all of a sudden there was something personally stinging about it. "Little reason for him to participate here."
"No. It is the opposite. He is an outsider, only occasionally invited to the best parties, and only when someone is hoping for a scandal. The duke has never firmly sponsored him."
"But you said—"
"Don‟t ask, because I don‟t understand either. It is something none of us do.
But being an outsider—it just adds to his allure, don‟t you see? The debutantes drop like flies. The older married women do as well. Scandal simply swirls around him."
Caroline muttered under her breath.
"As much as I can joke about all of the women wanting him in their beds—" Sarah‟s knowledge of the marriage state had Caroline silently cursing the earl and his steady stream of mistresses.
"I—I can‟t—" She looked away. "I don‟t want a marriage like my parents. Mother was miserable."
Caroline remembered the pasty-faced woman the earl had married. The oldest daughter of a duke, she had been secured for power and property and then been disposed of at Meadowbrook.
"Sarah—"
"No." She took a deep breath. "I will do my duty. Forgive me my weakness?"
Caroline took her by the arms. "It‟s not a weakness. I…"
If only she hadn‟t made the mistake with Patrick…she might have been able to help Sarah in London…to prevent this fiasco of a contest from occurring. She could have begged the earl to let her go as Sarah‟s companion. Could have…
She shoved the thoughts firmly away. She had a chance to make the right decision this time, to help Sarah, and she would.
Caroline slipped an arm around her. "Things will work out. I won‟t let them work out in any way other than the best for you."
She‟d keep her away from the likes of Sebastien Deville. Make sure that he and his kind did not win.
"How?"
"With magic, if need be." She gave her a bright smile, which Sarah tentatively returned.
Sarah turned back to the spectacle. "Oh no. There‟s Lady Tevon." Lady Tevon searched the crowd, features furrowed.
Sarah tugged the sleeve of Caroline‟s dress. "We should join them. Or else she will bring Father‟s attention to my absence and he will be displeased with me."
Caroline opened her mouth to tell her to go ahead, but Sarah‟s pleading gaze stopped her.
Reluctantly, she nodded. It was way too late for recriminations.
Way too late to avoid her fate.
As soon as they emerged from the grove, Lady Tevon‟s face cleared and she beckoned them over. "Lady Sarah, where have you been?"
"I was walking with Caroline while the grooms readied the horses."
Lady Tevon shot her a look of disapproval. "Mrs. Martin, I thought we had come to a thorough understanding of how best to improve Sarah‟s chances."
Chances for unhappiness? she wanted to respond. "Yes, Lady Tevon," she said instead, her voice sounding thoroughly chastened, even if it was because of another event entirely.
"We were here before the game began," Sarah said in her quiet way.
"Fashionably walking in at just the right moment," Caroline added with as much spark and innocence as she could muster.
Lady Tevon frowned, nodded, then switched her gaze back to Sarah. "Well then, I suppose that is good. But be careful in the future. You don‟t want the competitors to think you are hiding from them, do you?"
Caroline had the distinct impression as they patted their horses, made ribald jokes, and eyed the available women that most of the competitors didn‟t even notice Sarah‟s presence, nor did they care—more fools they. Sarah was a prize far greater than these men deserved.
Her eyes collided with a whirlpool of aquamarine, and suddenly she could hear nothing above the hammering of her heart, the beat of her bell tolling, the promise of a painful death as she looked into Sebastien Deville‟s eyes. A slow smirk curved his mouth as one hand absently played with his horse‟s reins.
Sweat broke along her brow. She gathered every last reserve and purposefully turned away.
"Well, Lady Sarah, at least you show a little more spirit with Mrs. Martin around." Lady Tevon pinned Caroline with a glance. "See to it that she chats with the competitors. Nothing like adding a little incentive to the proceedings."
Lady Tevon tried to inject some excitement into the statements, but unfortunately, she didn‟t even look like she believed her own words.
Why no one could see the kind, beautiful girl beneath Sarah‟s calm demeanor, Caroline didn‟t know. It seemed obvious to her, but then people rarely looked beneath that which they wanted to see.
Caroline nodded to Lady Tevon, smoothing her hands over her dress in an effort to calm her body. "The party should prove a perfect venue to do so."
Should she survive the week, the day, with her already spotty reputation intact, the party would be a perfect venue to see which competitors she would allow to continue, and which ones she would seek to crush. There was one man already firmly on the latter list.
"Quite so." Lady Tevon definitively agreed. "The men will be strutting after the game this afternoon."
"Line up," a voice shouted.
The fifteen riders trotted into place at the starting line. She tried to catalog each of their expressions, but her eyes continued to wander to Deville sitting on his horse, perfectly still, waiting.
A crack sounded and sixty hooves beat down on the earth. The riders galloped over the flat expanse, leaning forward, the best horseflesh and most skilled riders breaking away from the pack as they rode harder. Deville was in the front with three others—the golden Sloane, Lord Benedict, and the hook-nosed man Sarah had identified as Timothy Timtree. Deville‟s horse took a tight turn and he held out a gloved hand to a branch. He must have caught the ring, because a few of the riders behind veered off to the other side.
Caroline had walked the course earlier looking for opportunities—the circuits of the wide expanse were useless, but the forays through the forest paths had held promise. Rings were placed throughout, so that more than one participant could gather them. Two riders riding together could each grab one from a different side and break even. The men who had set the course would be baffled if they could see the rings now, however. Some were hanging in slightly different homes.
She had heard the excited stable hands talking about a complicated calculation between the time one finished the race and the number of rings collected. The calculations hadn‟t interested her, but the stable hands‟ undivided attention on one another, and off the stalls, had. Her helpmates had encountered no trouble completing their tasks.
"What are they doing?" Lady Tevon peered through a pair of opera glasses.
"I believe they are looking for their second rings. They seem to be encountering difficulty doing so." Caroline tried to rein in her self-satisfied smirk, she really did.
The men moved along the field, jockeying for position as they madly searched the area where the rings should have been prominently displayed.
Sarah gave her a questioning glance, then raised her own glasses. Caroline raised hers too.
It was a mad field. Horses everywhere, men shoving bushes hither and yon. A few clueless ones scratched their ill-used noggins and wandered aimlessly. This was a favor to them really. As either an early weed-out, or good practice for the hunt that would be held in a few weeks.
She wasn‟t surprised when Deville reached up to grab something. Bateman shoved sideways, nearly unseating Deville. Deville‟s horse buckled beneath him, but at the last moment he leaned back, the horse righted itself, and they sped off. Sloane‟s hand also closed around something shiny, and he too raced forward to the next thicket.
The rest of the pack raced after them. Midway to the next grove, one of the men turned sharply and galloped down the course, following the un-tampered-with markings.
"What is Mr. Timtree doing?"
"Smart man," Caroline murmured. "He saw the trouble they were having and has decided to forgo the points collected from the rings."
"What do you mean?" Lady Tevon demanded.