A Season for Love Read Online Free PDF

an
additional person intrude when you are newly married.” And where
had that cloying sentiment come from? She doubted her papa would be
marrying Lady Eugenia at all.
    Which was fortuitous, considering the scene
in this very room only a few hours earlier.
    “ Nonsense!” the duke decreed. “Lady
Eugenia is well aware that one of her duties will be to arrange
your entrance into the ton .
You are my daughter, Caroline. Now that the period of mourning is
complete, I am scarcely going to leave you moldering in the wilds
of the Lake District.”
    “ Papa,” Caroline ventured, her heart
thudding even more erratically than it had last night when she
gazed up at the handsome stranger from her ignominious perch on the
bookroom floor, “there is something I must—”
    “ Caroline—” The duke leaned forward,
thrusting long aristocratic fingers through the black hair his
valet had taken such pains to arrange. “Caroline, you are old
enough now to understand what happened between your mother and
myself—”
    “ No!” Caroline’s protest was close to
wail. “No, I do not wish to hear it.”
    “ You will,” the duke declared, “for I
find I cannot tolerate your thinking the fault was all
mine.”
    “ I never thought the fault was all
yours.”
    Father and daughter stared at each other.
“You do not think me a villain?” the Duke of Longville inquired on
a note of disbelief.
    “ No, papa, nor do I think my mother a
saint.” Lady Caroline toyed with the folds of her beige wool gown,
scalloped at neckline and hem in dark blue. Her very best gown,
packed with exactly this momentous meeting in mind. When she raised
her eyes to meet her father’s, Caroline was astonished to see
vulnerability, even pleading. Whatever had happened eight years
ago, it was time to let the animosity go.
    “ I confess I do not have a good opinion
of the ton and its ways,”
Caroline admitted. “I must tell you the manners and morals of the
people I know in Cumberland seem far superior to those of London
society. But, then, it is possible the on
dits I read in the newspapers and the gossip I hear in
Little Stoughton are greatly exaggerated.”
    The look he gave her was so full of gratitude
Caroline was almost totally disarmed. Perhaps it was not going to
be so difficult to tell him after all. “Papa . . . you must listen
to me now,” she declared earnestly. “I did not come to London for
the wedding or to make my come-out.” Amber eyes, so like her own,
grew darker. Behold, the Duke of Longville, bewildered. It was a
moment Caroline would cherish.
    If he didn’t wring her neck before she had an
opportunity to enjoy it.
    “ I want you to understand,” Caroline
said carefully, “that I have been bound by a promise to mama. I
have never understood why she felt so strongly about secrecy, and I
have always known that, promise or no, I would one day have to tell
you. As it is, I have been able to observe a year of mourning for
mama and can now come to you with a clear conscience. This, you
see, was something even mama knew she could not keep from you
forever.”
    “ For God’s sake, Caroline,” the duke
snapped, “stop this roundaboutation and say what you have to
say!”
    Caroline peered at the duke over hands
clasped tightly under her chin. The moment had come, and she was
nearly petrified. The words stuck in her throat. He was going to be
so angry. “When we left, mama and I—”
    “ Get on with it!”
    Caroline gulped. “Mama—well, you see
mama was enceinte .” Somehow
the French word was easier for her to say. Not quite such a blatant
blow.
    Slowly, the Duke of Longville straightened up
in his chair, his piercing eyes fixed on his daughter’s face. “You
are saying there is a child?” he whispered.
    “ An heir,” Caroline nodded. “Kenrick
Laurence Carlington, age seven.” It was Caroline’s turn to lean
forward in an unconscious plea for her father’s forgiveness. “Do
you recall the Gainsborough portrait at