Free Lady Caro by Marlene Suson Page A

circuitous route through the park, Caro showing him all the favorite spots where she and her brother, Brandon, had played. By the time they headed back toward the stable an hour later, Ashley had acquired, from her running comments interspersed with adroit questioning on his part, a fair notion of the isolated, protected life that she had led.
    She and her brother had grown up with only each other as playmates, except when Emily had visited her grandfather, who lived on a neighboring property.
    “Since my brother died, there has been no one else to talk to when Papa is busy with the estate.” Caro’s face clouded. “I miss Brandon so. We did everything together. Do you have a brother?”
    “I did, but he, too, is dead.”
    “Oh, I am sorry,” she cried, reaching out to touch Ashley’s arm in an instinctive gesture of comfort, her big gray eyes radiating sorrow and sympathy.
    Ashley, used to far more sophisticated, scheming women, was struck—and touched—by Caro’s innate, uncalculating sweetness.
    “You must miss him dreadfully,” she murmured.
    “I mourn for him, but I fear we were never very close. He was much older than I.” Ashley had loved his half brother, but pompous, humorless William had had no patience with a mischievous, fun-loving little boy nine years his junior, especially one who could not learn to treat the elder brother with the deference and respect William had thought his due.
    It was clear from what Caro said that her father had cut himself and his children off from not only the ton but most of his neighbors, too. Apparently finding the latter—including the drunken Mr. Burk, Sir John Wesley, the wastrel, and Mr. Potter, the wife beater—brutish and boring, the marquess had restricted his social circle to Barton Picton, Emily’s paternal grandfather, the Reverend Laken, who held the living, Dr. Baxter, the local physician, and Sir Ronald Foster and his daughter, Abigail, who had clearly been an important influence on Caro.
    Ashley had known Abigail Foster, a very pretty, witty woman who would be twenty-eight now since she was his age. During her first season in London she had turned down several excellent offers for her hand. She had done so, Caro confided admiringly to Ashley, because she refused to give herself over to the uncertain mercy of a husband. Instead she devoted herself to her father, an example that Caro was determined to emulate. Ashley suspected that Abigail Foster had had a stronger influence on Caro’s views of marriage than Lady Fraser.
    By the time they returned to the stable, he had learned that Caro had never been farther from Bellhaven than the local village, and that he and his fellow guests were her first exposure to the fashionable world to which she had been born.
    As they reached the stable, she said, “Promise me that you will not tell my aunt or my father about our ride. She would ring such a dreadful peal over me, and Papa will not like it either.”
    “I promise I won’t tell your aunt, but it is my duty to tell your father.”
    “If you do, you shall be in my black books permanently,” Caro said firmly.
    Ashley was saved from this dire fate, however, because her father was in the stable yard when they stopped their mounts. Giving Ashley a cold, searching look, he demanded, “Where have you and my daughter been?”
    “Don’t fly into the boughs, Papa,” Caro said calmly, jumping down from her horse. “He saw me leaving and would not permit me to ride alone. I own I do not apprehend why riding alone sinks me below reproach.”
    She handed the reins of her pony to a groom and strode into the stable to collect her skirt.
    Her father turned his weary, sunken face to Ashley. “I collect that I owe you both gratitude and an apology. I had an uneasy moment.”
    “Yes,” Ashley said dryly, “your daughter informs me that I have a reputation for rakish tendencies. However, I assure you that I have never trifled with innocents.”
    “If you knew Caro