The Husband List (3 page)

“Is that what you hope for with your future wife? That you’ll
like
each other?” she finally asked.

He didn’t look as though he appreciated having the conversation turned back on him.

“I don’t have a future wife, and I don’t plan on looking for one,” he said. “But from my bachelor’s point of view, liking one’s spouse isn’t all bad.”

Caroline made a scoffing sound.

The corner of his mouth quirked in response.

“So what is it you want, then?” he asked.

Caroline rubbed her fingertip against the thin, silver-gilt edge of the cake’s plate. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what she wanted, and apparently could not have.

“I want passion,” she said. “I want to adore my husband so much that the thought of life without him crushes me. I want love. True, forever, burning love.”

He blinked. “You want
Romeo and Juliet
?”

The play happened to be one of her favorite Shakespearean works. She re-read it each summer by candlelight at Rosemeade. If that made her a romantic ninny, so be it.

“What’s so horrible about Romeo and Juliet?” she asked.

“Other than that they died stupidly young?” he countered before tucking into the cake.

She glared at him. “Do you have a romantic bone in your body?”

“I’ve got practical bones,” he replied. “Tough, Irish practical bones. And what do you know about burning love, anyway?”

Caroline knew about unrequited love. She knew how she felt nearly breathless—and not from a tight corset—when Jack entered a room. But she would never tell him that. He thought highly enough of himself already.

“I don’t know as much as I plan to,” she said aloud.

He laughed. “Your mother would keel over if she heard you say that.”

She took the fork from him. “Which is why I watch my words in front of her.”

“You’re smart,” he said. “And quick, too. If a little greedy with that cake.”

“Ha! You try being starved nightly and let me know how it works for you,” she said before taking more.

“Eat more in the afternoon,” he suggested.

Caroline smiled, but also wished life were that uncomplicated.

“Is it so bad having your future mapped out?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I want to do the mapping.”

“We both know that’s unlikely. You need to make the best of the situation. You’ll be a lot happier if you do.”

She had been thinking the same thing earlier, but that didn’t mean she liked hearing it from Jack, of all men.

“That’s easy for you to say, when your future’s your own,” she pointed out.

“Be practical,” Jack urged. “You’re lucky. You’re a wealthy heiress who happens to be witty and attractive.” He hesitated. “Some men might even find you beautiful.”

But not you, she thought.

“Yes, I have money,” she said. “And I can put words together, and I’m decent looking. But if you were in my shoes, would that and a spouse foisted upon you make
you
happy, Jack?”

He stared at her as though she were speaking in tongues.

“Well, that’s different. I’m a man.”

He couldn’t have chosen a worse answer. Caroline stood.

“Which gives you a list of rights I don’t have, but should,” she said. “I can and will take care of myself. And if you maintain this attitude about women, Jack, you’re going to wind up eating your cake alone.”

She picked up her plate and fork, and left. Jack Culhane was
not
gloriously perfect. He was another big, lumbering male who deserved no chocolate at all.

*   *   *

LATER THAT night, Jack sat in one of the pair of timeworn gold brocade chairs in front of the drawing room fireplace, at the home he shared with his father.

Home?

It was a mansion, though not as serious in its pursuit of the title as the Maxwell family’s near-palace. Less stuffed to the rafters, too. Having lived in a male household since his mother’s death twenty years before, Jack didn’t understand the apparent female need for clutter-gathering. And after dessert tonight with Caroline Maxwell, he was beginning to believe he didn’t understand females, either.

The scrawny little girl trailing after him had grown up. He supposed he’d known that for a while, but somehow Caroline had become part of the landscape to him. Until tonight. When her face had lit up as she’d started speaking her mind, he’d realized she was beautiful.

Her black hair and those thick lashes fringing light brown eyes weren’t what a man saw on the usual American Miss. Neither was her plump lower lip, which had riveted his attention. And her declaration of wanting to experience burning love wasn’t the usual talk from a demure debutante, either.

Jack stretched out his legs and smiled. He’d enjoyed Caroline’s opinions and independence, even when she’d turned on him. He’d bet that spark was going to be extinguished, though. Bernard and Agnes would marry her off to the highest title, and she’d end up in a damp ruin of a house with a man who would find her more odd than interesting. That was a shame, but it wasn’t his business.

The pungent scent of the peat his father had shipped from Ireland wafted from the fireplace, drawing Jack from thoughts of Caroline Maxwell’s circumstances. Others had struggled and won; she might, too.

Da had taken on America and ended up owning timber tracts and coal mines from here to the Mississippi. And he’d raised Jack to understand the benefits of hard work. One trip to Da’s birthplace in hardscrabble County Donegal had driven that home.

And so Jack worked. Today’s purchase had been six months in the making. After he picked up one more brewery he had his eye on in Rhode Island, his holdings would be complete. Da was proud, though he wished Jack had chosen whiskey over beer. But Jack had been keeping a close eye on the temperance groups. Hard spirits stood a greater risk of eventually being outlawed. And Jack liked beer, as wrong-headed as whiskey-loving Da might find that.

The fat, round-faced clock on the mantel had just chimed ten when Jack’s father entered. Jack knew he was seeing what he’d look like in thirty years. They shared the same stubborn set of the jaw and the same dark Irish skin. And like his father, he’d probably still be dressed in his day clothes well into the night, with shirtsleeves rolled up and wrinkled after a hard day’s work.

“You, again?” Da asked in a teasing voice as he settled into the chair next to Jack’s. “Does it not bother you, livin’ under my roof? When I was your age, I was long gone from home.”

“I’ve seen the place. You had more incentive to leave.”

Da gave a bark of laughter. “True enough. I should have made things rougher on you.”

Jack grinned. “Are you kicking me to the curb?”

“I could have ten of you under this roof and our paths would still not cross more than once a day.”

Jack noted the lack of a real answer. Da was crafty with his words.

“You are home early, though,” his father said.

“Dinner was cut short. Domestic drama at the Maxwell’s.”

“No surprise there.” Da gave Jack a sideways glance. “Are you not going to ask me why I’m home before midnight on a card night?”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Jack replied.

His father grinned. “Sure, you do. I won myself a Newport cottage off Harry Benton. The man doesn’t know when to quit, and I do.”

But Harry had also once won a tract of Michigan timber from Da. Jack had no doubt that winning the cottage had felt sweet.

“How large a cottage?” he asked.

“A house on Mill Street, looking over Touro Park. The place is small, I’m hearing. Less than twenty rooms, but more than a Culhane has owned there before.”

“Great, but what are you going to do with it?”

“Why, sign it over to you, of course,” Da said. “You can fix it up. It will make a grand gift for your bride.”

“I don’t have a bride.”

“At your age, you should.”

If today’s warm spring air had spurred all the marriage talk, Jack hoped for a cold snap.

“Keep the house, Da. You might marry again.”

“No other woman could be what your mam was to me. You, though … it’s time you found a wife.”

“I like being single.”

“I’m meaning this, Jack. There comes a time when a man needs to move on. This is yours. You’ve had your fun, and it’s time to think of the future. Do you want to be alone?”

“I’m not. I’ve got you to bother the hell out of me.”

Da snorted. “Only when you’re being an arse. I’ve not given you many orders, and mostly you’ve done what you should. But now I’m telling you to get married and be sure there’s an heir to grow what we’ve both built.”

It looked as though Caroline’s parents hadn’t cornered the market on empire building. Now Jack had an inkling of how she felt. Of course, he had money of his own and could walk if he chose. But he respected his father and would hear him out.

“Is there any special sort of heiress you think I should be shopping for?” he asked, letting out some of his general annoyance.

“Don’t be an eejit,” Da replied. “The money doesn’t matter. Marry for love.”

Love.
That, at least, should buy him some time.

*   *   *

CAROLINE’S SATURDAY started with an early summons to her mother’s sitting room. Mama let Caroline linger on the thick, floral Aubusson rug outside her door for a few minutes before she was allowed inside—just long enough for Caroline to begin to worry about the repercussions of last night’s speech. She could take a lecture, but not another curtailment of her freedom. She’d had precious little of that since her last London season, when her methods for running off suitors hadn’t impressed her mother.

“Good morning, Mama,” Caroline said after her mother’s maid had finally ushered her inside.

Caroline kept her gaze trained on her mother. Mama’s quarters tended to distract her, and she needed to be focused.

“Good morning,” her mother replied from her perch at her ornate little Louis XV writing desk. Pomeroy, who looked quite imperial this morning, sat on a gold-embroidered pillow at her feet. “We need to consult about your schedule for the week.”

“Yes, of course,” Caroline said. Then, because she preferred to take consequences head on, she added, “But don’t you want to address last night’s dinner with me?”

“We’re going to pretend it didn’t happen,” Mama replied as she paged though a sheaf of papers.

Caroline knew her mother was constitutionally incapable of holding back a lecture. And Caroline didn’t want to pretend. After nearly a year of keeping her emotions bottled up, she felt ready to explode. It was wrong, though, to vent on Mama. She was only doing what she thought was right. Jack, though, had made an intriguing target. And she’d already forgiven him for thinking like a man. He could hardly help it.

“Are you
smiling
?” her mother asked.

Caroline started a bit. “I might have been.”

She’d been thinking of Jack, after all.

“You were, and I can’t see why, after last night.”

“You were right to say we should let it go, Mama.”

Her mother nodded firmly. “And so we shall. We’re all under some pressure with the summer season about to start, and I can appreciate that your nerves might have gotten the better of you. But today is a new day, and we must begin to plan for Lord Bremerton’s arrival.”

And that was about the best one could hope for Mama letting something go.

“I will be occupied with the improvements to Rosemeade,” her mother said. “I plan to leave for Newport this afternoon. If Mrs. Longhorne cannot accommodate me at Villa Blanca. I might have to stay at Rosemeade during the work,” she said with a delicate shudder at the thought of such inconvenience.

“I’m sure Mrs. Longhorne will help out,” Caroline said. Villa Blanca, which had been built six years prior for Esmé Longhorne’s debut, had more than a dozen guest rooms.

“We shall see,” Mama said. “I will expect you and the twins to follow your weekly schedules in my absence. No making a worry of yourself for your papa, and no extra eating.”

“Of course, Mama,” Caroline said. Her toes were twitching within her ankle boots at the very thought of getting out of the house and breathing free air.

Her mother held a piece of paper a distance from her eyes. “It says here…” She squinted, and Caroline bit down on the impulse to hand Mama her spectacles. “Ah, yes. It says that you have a luncheon with Harriet Vandermeulen, and later in the afternoon a group of you are scheduled for a bicycle ride in Central Park. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Mama.”

That was the official activity, though Caroline had long had another destination planned. Because, of course, the best way of working with Mama was to work around her.

Her mother set the paper down. “Harriet wears knickerbockers when she cycles, does she not?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“No matter what they say, knickerbocker outfits are unseemly,” Mama said with a rueful shake of her head. “You must pedal away from Harriet.”

That, Caroline was guaranteed to do.

THREE

Bicycling with a pack of giggling debutantes wasn’t something Jack relished. Or even generally subjected himself to. But tomorrow he was heading to Newport to see the new cottage, and later in the week he planned to meet with the owner of the Providence brewery to negotiate a sale. That left him today to pretend to be wife-seeking. If he didn’t go through the motions, Da would never let the idea rest.

This morning Jack had accepted a cycling invitation that Charles Vandermeulen had sent over a week ago. Whether it was a case of better late than never remained to be seen. The Vandermeulen family was anxious to see Charles’s sister, Harriet, married off. And Charles seemed to have decided that he’d like Jack as a brother-in-law. Jack, however, found Harriet disinteresting, though well-mannered. In short, she was the total opposite of Caroline.

Jack approached the group gathered on the edge of Central Park where it met Fifth Avenue. A dozen future rulers of New York society stood by their bicycles under two broad and leafy sycamore trees, avoiding the bright afternoon sun. He wondered how the wool-clad group would avoid dropping of exhaustion on this unseasonably warm day. He worried about the women, especially, in their jackets with both blouses and vests beneath, not to mention their long skirts. Even those who wore shorter skirts with voluminous knickerbockers peeking from beneath would feel the heat. Because Jack chose not to roast, he’d grabbed a yachting blazer made of cotton. Functionality interested him, not fashion.