Even if Silas wanted her, she couldn’t marry him. Not if she meant to be true to herself as she’d never had the chance to be true to herself before. Between her father and Freddie, her every moment had been under another’s control. Like a fox in a poacher’s trap, her soul had strained against that subjugation. These last months, she’d tasted the ambrosia of ordering her own life. The prospect of yielding that independence to a man, no matter how benevolent, made those chains around her chest tighten to the point of agony. Love was just another cage.
That meant if she wanted Silas, she must join the endless parade of his paramours. How long would she hold his attention? A week? A month? Even a year, unprecedented for him, would leave her devastated once it was over. What freedom was there in that?
The stark fact remained. She needed a lover, not someone she loved.
Anyway, if she was right, Silas wasn’t remotely interested in Caroline Beaumont. He was in thrall to sweet, charming, delicate Fenella. Even someone as jaded about marriage as Caroline could see how well they suited each other.
She winnowed her memories from the Oldhams’ ball for some indication that she was wrong about Silas and Fenella. Perhaps she’d overreacted, although it was hard to argue with Silas and Fen’s compatibility. But say he didn’t marry Fenella, he’d marry someone. Someone capable of giving him the wholehearted devotion that Caroline couldn’t risk because it meant accepting fresh captivity.
Silas wasn’t for her, no matter how her stupid heart keened after him.
Far better to enjoy a short, civilized liaison with a sophisticated man who offered pleasure without emotional involvement. West couldn’t hurt her because she could never love him. He was perfect.
Even if right now, the thought of handsome Lord West’s hands on her body made her stomach heave.
But first she had to make things right with Silas. She owed him an apology for acting like a harpy. Then she owed him her friendship. The excruciating truth was that unless she retreated to the country, she was doomed to see him again and again. He was her best friend’s brother. He courted—oh, wicked agony—another close friend.
But tonight, tonight with her love so fresh and so sharp, she’d give herself over to the luxury of imagining Silas Nash in her bed. She’d forget about the shackles of possession and commitment and obedience, and think only of the pleasure her rebellious soul denied her.
Tonight she’d pretend, then she’d put all such dangerous illusions away forever.
With a tremulous sigh, she tugged up the hem of her nightgown and raised her knees. Her hand slipped between her legs, seeking the slick, secret flesh.
***
Tracking Silas down proved more difficult than Caroline had expected. The day after the Oldhams’ ball, he left for Edinburgh to lecture on his experiments. From there, he went to Paris for meetings at the Sorbonne. When he returned, he retreated to his estates in Leicestershire. Fenella didn’t look particularly cast down by his absence, but Caroline wasn’t hypocrite enough to encourage confidences about her friend’s well-traveled beau.
The season capered toward its end. Caroline made a gallant effort to garner the same enjoyment from the endless round of social events as she had at the beginning. But without Silas, the excitement had gone.
She kept up the pretense that she pursued Lord West, but she doubted even he was convinced of her interest. In all these weeks, they hadn’t moved beyond some harmless flirtation and a few dances. She told herself the best cure for pining after Silas was another man’s attention. But she couldn’t make herself take that last step toward seducing West. And so far, he’d done nothing to deepen their intimacy.
She was surprised that Silas had spoken so slightingly of the man. He was good company and the admiration in his eyes staved off self-pity.
Yes, she liked Lord West but he would never set her heart cartwheeling. Only one man did that. And she’d give away penny of her impressive fortune to change that unwelcome fact.
***
“Damn it all to hell.”
Silas snatched up his latest spindly hybrid and consigned it to the incinerator heating his greenhouse. Although he didn’t live in the Nash townhouse with his mother and sisters, he’d built a laboratory in the back garden. Last year, everything he’d touched had turned to gold. He’d started to plan putting a new variety of cherry combining yield, hardiness and sweetness on the market within five years. But all his experiments in recent months had slammed into a wall. He might as well have gone rambling in the Lake District as waste his time poring over seeds and grafts and cuttings.
He’d worked in botany long enough to understand that a man went wrong more often than he went right. Patience was as necessary as soil and water and light.
But he also knew that the main reason behind his lack of progress was that his mind wasn’t on work. His mind was on a certain unattainable widow.
He’d used patience in pursuing her, too. And had ended up losing out to a more impetuous lover. Dear God, he hoped West was careful with Caroline, or he’d beat the poltroon to a pulp and turn him into compost.
“Bugger, bugger, bugger,” he muttered as he turned and knocked a stack of terracotta saucers to the tiled floor. He surveyed the shattered mess and told himself he couldn’t go on like this. Other men failed in love and survived. Surely he could learn from their example.
He’d spent the last month struggling to forget Caroline Beaumont. Precious little good it had done him. New faces, old friends, stimulating discussions, lectures, travel, research. Nothing had dislodged her from heart or mind.
He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t eating. Much more and he’d go mad indeed.
The worst of it was that none of his suffering brought him one inch closer to luring his beloved away from West. As a scientist, he admired efficiency above all. And his anguish over Caroline was the height of wastefulness. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t conquer it.
The best cure, he supposed, was to take a mistress. Or at least slake this turbulent, overpowering misery with a woman for a night. He’d reached the point of inquiring after the address of Edinburgh’s most fashionable courtesan. But when the time came, he’d turned away from that discreet door to walk the dark alleys of the Old Town until dawn. He felt sick enough with himself already. Another bout of meaningless copulation in a life of meaningless copulation wouldn’t cool his fever.
No, it was Caroline or nobody. God help him.