Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [90]
CHAPTER NINE
Caroline stood at the top of the landing, confused and wretched. The whole scene with Samuel had been acutely embarrassing, and she had no idea what had produced the change in his attitude. He had been friendly and open from the beginning, much less formal than an Englishman would in the same circumstances. She had found it refreshing and not in the least out of place. She had not misunderstood it for forwardness, and she felt that she had responded only appropriately.
Then today he had arrived at an unusual hour and behaved as if she had invited him—more than that, as if there had been something peculiarly intimate about her invitation, and urgent.
She racked her brain to think of anything she could have said which could be so misinterpreted, but nothing came. She had listened to all his stories with interest, perhaps more than courtesy demanded. But they were extraordinary and fascinating to her. Anyone else would have done the same. It was immeasurably more than drawing room chatter. And he was a relative turned up from nowhere, a brother-in-law she had not known she had. At a glance, before he spoke, he was so like Edward, perhaps she had offered a friendship more instant and natural than was normal, but surely she had not implied anything else.
Had she?
She was touched by guilt as she realized how much she had enjoyed his company. No, not just his company, the way he had flattered her by liking her so much, by the unspoken suggestion that he found her equally interesting, charming, attractive. It was such a welcome contrast to Cecily Antrim’s subtly patronizing air that she had reveled in. It made her feel feminine, in control of herself and the situation again.
Now it was completely out of control, out of even her attempts to understand what had gone so disastrously wrong.
What did Joshua believe she had done? Why had he come racing home from a rehearsal in the middle of the late afternoon and in such ice-cold anger commanded her to leave the room, and then seemingly ordered Samuel from the house? Did he really not know her better than to believe she had . . . what? Had an assignation of some sort, here in her own house? In his house! That was absurd! It was only the merest coincidence that Mrs. Ellison had not been in the room with them the entire time, as usual. And the old lady missed nothing; she was as quick as a ferret, and twice as vicious.
Should she try to explain? Samuel had left, but her courage failed at the thought of going down to Joshua. She had never seen him really angry before, and it hurt her more than she could have imagined. No, hurt was the wrong word. It frightened her. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of what she might lose, not to Cecily Antrim but because of her own behavior, something stupid, unintentionally immoral, she had done. It would not be that he had found Cecily more alluring, more exciting, but that he found Caroline contemptible, not to be trusted to behave with honor, with inner cleanness of spirit.
That cut to the heart.
And it was not true. Not really. If it was true at all, it was by omission, carelessness, misunderstanding . . . never intent.
She went down the first step, but Joshua came out of the withdrawing room and went straight across the hall and out of the front door without looking back. He had not even tried to speak with her. It was as if he no longer cared what she thought.
A new kind of darkness had begun, a pain inside she could not believe would ever heal.
She turned and went back up to her room, not her bedroom, which she shared with Joshua, but her sitting room upstairs, where she could be alone. She could not eat dinner, and she certainly could not face the prying, jubilant eyes of the old woman. She had warned her this would happen. She would