Passionately Yours (Hellions of High Street 3)

Caro bit back a laugh. “Anna and Prince Gunther would not have suited each other. Not at all.”

“Nonsense! You girls have been reading too many silly novels about love and romance. Princes do not grow on trees…”

Thank God for that, thought Caro. Otherwise her mother would have her making a tedious tour of every garden in England.

A scowl pinched at her mother’s mouth, then suddenly gave way to wistful smile. “But they do, on occasion, visit Bath to take the spa waters. Perhaps one—”

“If one does arrive in town, he would likely be advanced in years, Mama,” interjected Caro, determined to nip this particular matchmaking idea in the bud. Thank goodness she had been able to cut off any hints that Andover might be brought up to scratch. Even her mother had to admit that if the fellow hadn’t succumbed to Anna’s winsome charms, the youngest Sloane was unlikely to fare any better.

“Maturity is an excellent quality in a husband,” countered Lady Trumbull after a

moment of thought.

“You are quite right, Mama.” She flashed a winning smile. “Why, perhaps you should think of setting your cap at him, if such a paragon of perfection appears.”

Lady Trumbull’s eyes lit with a speculative gleam. “My figure is still rather pleasing…”

Exhaling a sigh of relief, Caro quickly excused herself to make a visit to the local bookshop and run some other errands, leaving the baroness murmuring to herself about the latest styles in ballgowns and bonnets.

Caro couldn’t blame her mother for wanting to see all her daughters well settled. Life had been hard for the family after their father’s death. Money—or rather, the lack of it—had been a constant threat shadowing their every move, like a lurking wolf with snapping jaws. Society was not kind to young ladies without dowries, and the thought of being swallowed up into genteel poverty had been terrifying for the baroness.

Now, of course, with Olivia married to the exceedingly wealthy Earl of Wrexham, such fears had disappeared.

But old habits were hard to change. And not only for her mother. The unsmiling face of Alec McClellan came to mind…

Determined to push such musings aside for the moment, Caro entered the bookshop and made her way past the display tables to the nook-and-cranny comfort of the back rooms.

Squeezing between two towering cabinets of architectural prints and a chipped Argand lamp, she pulled a book down from the crammed shelves, setting a cloud of dust motes to dancing through the blade of sunlight cutting in through the diamond-paned window. Apparently poetry was not nearly as popular as guidebooks to the area or the latest novels from Minerva Press, for the small alcove was deserted, save for herself.

She was not unhappy to have a bit of solitude, for even though she understood her mother’s concerns, the none-too-subtle hints about marriage always left her feeling unsettled. But the chance to spend a quiet hour perusing the bookshop’s excellent selection of verse was already proving to be a balm for the spirit.

Setting the hard-to-find edition of McAdam’s complete works on the window ledge, Caro then added a slender volume of odes by another Scottish poet whose work was unknown to her.

Was Alec familiar with his work? she wondered as she reached for a third book.

No doubt he would not approve of her current find. The odes of William Wordsworth and his fellow Lake Poets were so quintessentially English in their celebration of Nature and all its many splendors.

Opening to a random page, she began to read aloud, “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free—”

“What a singular bookshop,” murmured a voice behind her. “Why, even the very walls resonate with lyric verse. And in a wonderfully beguiling voice, I might add.”

Flustered, Caro spun around so quickly the little volume slipped from her grasp.

The gentleman moved and deftly caught it before it hit the floor. “Fie be it that such lovely words would suffer any knocks or bruises.” He buffed the spine with his sleeve before holding it out to her. “Forgive me for startling you.”

“Th-thank you, sir,” she replied, trying hard not to gape like a mooncalf schoolgirl. With the angled light feathering his face in a soft caress, he looked like a Greek god. The smoothly sculpted features—straight nose, high cheekbones, tapered chin, framed by ringlets of hair the color of burnished bronze—radiated a classical beauty, saved from being too effeminate by the strong shape of his full, firm mouth.

Wrenching her gaze away from his lips, Caro hugged the book tight to her chest. “That was very quick thinking and kind of you to keep it from suffering any harm.”

“It was the least I could do, seeing as I was the cause of the trouble,” he replied, quirking that marvelous mouth into a smile. “Please assure me that you won’t hold it against me.”

“I…” A quick breath helped still her fluttery nerves. “I shall consider it,” she answered, hoping to appear more composed than she felt.

“Is there nothing I can do to win back your good graces?” Spotting the two books she had placed on a rather precarious perch by the window, he tucked them under his arm. “Perhaps I can start by holding these until you are ready to proceed to the sales counter, Miss…”

“Caro Sloane,” she replied.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Caro Sloane. I am Edward Thayer. Though I apologize again for the circumstances.”