The Husband List Read Free

mistake had been made. Jack should have been seated far closer to Papa so that they could continue to converse. Apparently not, since her mother wore a content smile, probably at the thought of having quashed business talk. O’Brien looked pleased with himself, too. Caroline would never understand how the butler managed to read Mama’s mind, but he was a master at it.
    The family settled in, and wine was poured. Mama and the twins talked of the tea they’d attended in the afternoon while most everyone else attempted to appear interested. Caroline, however, was too occupied by trying not to be so conscious of Jack.
    Warmth seemed to roll from him. She caught a hint of wood smoke that must have traveled with him from his afternoon’s adventures. She glanced his way and found that he’d been looking at her, so she pretended great interest in the silver of her place setting.
    The first course was served: a little quail that had been stuffed with something or another. After a tiny bite, Caroline set her fork on the plate’s edge. Good thing, too, because she was under extra scrutiny after this morning’s fitting.
    “We must improve Rosemeade’s grounds and refurnish it immediately. It’s entirely lacking in elegance. If we didn’t need to be in residence no later than July first, I’d say to raze the whole thing and start over. But with both Bremerton and the season upon us, I shouldn’t get carried away,” Mama said to Papa after being sure Caroline had left her quail to languish.
    “Do whatever you wish,” Caroline’s father replied. That was his stock answer for anything regarding the family’s residences, which he left wholly to his wife.
    Caroline wasn’t feeling quite so calm. Their Newport summer cottage was her favorite. While it was hardly small at forty rooms, its Tudor-style stone-and-timber exterior gave it a sense of simplicity that this house lacked. Rosemeade also held memories of the many summer days when she’d chased after Eddie and Jack. Her heart would break if those were wiped away.
    “Why would Rosemeade need improvement? It’s perfect just as it is,” she said.
    “Perfect? Perfect to entertain a duke?” Mama asked.
    Caroline could feel her hard-fought control evaporating.
    “What duke?” she asked. “Bremerton’s not a duke unless both his father and grandfather conveniently die.”
    Her mother couldn’t have looked more shocked if frogs had sprung from Caroline’s mouth.
    “Caroline, really!”
    “It’s true, Mama. That’s the one fact you have. What you don’t know is what sort of man he is … if he’s kind or smart or has a good smile,” she said, thinking of Jack’s smile. “And—”
    “Caroline, be quiet!” her mother commanded.
    But Caroline’s words might as well have been those frogs because she couldn’t stop them. “And for once, could we have something that isn’t made to look like something other than what it is?”
    She waved her hand at the room’s rosewood moldings that her mother had ordered covered in gold-leaf. “Could we have wood and not make it look like gold?”
    She pointed a finger at the marble fireplace that had been detailed to look like burled oak. “And stone that isn’t painted like wood?”
    She settled one hand against the half-high bodice of her silk-and-chiffon dinner dress, which, as far as she was concerned, was too fussy to be tolerated.
    “And me? What about me, Mama? Couldn’t we just agree that my hair is as straight as a pin and stop torturing it into curls? Couldn’t we stop dressing me as though I’m royalty when I’m just me … plain, unremarkable me?”
    Caroline’s words caught up with her, and her anger passed as quickly as it had come. She’d never been able to hang on to it, which she supposed was a decent trait. A handier one would have been keeping her frustration to herself.
    Her mother and father were staring at her, aghast. Amelia and Helen looked as though they were about to burst into tears.