She snatched away and refused to meet his eyes. If Silas picked up even a hint of why she was so distraught, she’d die of humiliation.
“No, I’m fine.” If she kept saying it, perhaps it would become true.
“You don’t look any better,” Helena said.
“Let me take you home,” Silas said gently. He sounded like the man who had been her friend and that only magnified her roiling misery. “The heat in here is unbearable.”
“I’ll come with you,
Caro.” Fenella watched her with such aching concern that Caroline felt like a witch for wanting to claw that sweet face to ribbons. “I’m visiting Brandon at Eton tomorrow which means an early start.”
What business of hers was it if Silas flirted with Fenella? Except she’d read more than passing attraction in his face. She’d read a closeness that made her feel bereft and lonely. She’d seen abiding affection and deep interest.
Dear God, she really was a shrew. Despite her pursuit of West, she wanted Silas’s affection and interest all to herself.
“No need to interrupt your enjoyment.” She prayed she didn’t sound as waspish to them as she did in her own ears.
“Nonsense.” Through the buzzing in Caroline’s head, she heard an unaccustomed note of authority in Fenella’s voice. Of course, the love of a man like Silas Nash would do wonders for any woman’s confidence.
Caroline’s protests came to naught. She ended up in Silas’s carriage, sitting opposite him and beside Fenella. She’d regained a little of her composure, but everything still felt vilely disjointed. No amount of self-castigation could silence the howling protest deep in her soul at the idea of Silas and Fenella in love.
To avoid questions she flinched from answering, she closed her eyes and huddled in the corner. On the short journey, Silas and Fenella spoke in low voices. It didn’t help Caroline’s raging, unacceptable, uncontrollable jealousy that their discussion centered on her welfare. Not even her nastiest suspicions detected anything but fondness in their remarks.
Silas. And Fenella.
It made such cruelly good sense. Fenella would appeal to Silas’s innate protective streak, the same protective streak that had led him to befriend a lonely widow from soggiest Lincolnshire. Fenella, like Silas, would face down lions for the sake of someone she loved. When she’d first met Fenella, Caroline had dismissed her as a clinging vine. But she’d come to respect her friend’s loyalty to her dead husband and her fierce devotion to her son. Fenella mightn’t look like a warrior, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fight.
What a pity that at this moment, Caroline wanted to shove her into a bottomless well.
If Silas pursued Fenella, it was likely that he had marriage in mind. And why shouldn’t he? Fenella would make the ideal wife—and unlike Caroline, she’d proven herself capable of bearing children.
That old, bitter failure stuck its claws into her anew. The prospect of Silas and Fenella producing a brood of perfect offspring made her feel like vomiting. Under cover of the darkness, she pressed a shaking hand to her churning stomach. She didn’t want to be the sort of woman who turned sick with jealousy. But apparently she was.
All the time, her conscience remonstrated with her that she should be happy for her friends, that she pursued Lord West, that people had a perfect right to set up alliances separate from Caroline Beaumont and her selfish whims.
She’d like to drown her conscience in that well, too.
Caroline only emerged from self-torture when the luxurious carriage drew to a stop and the door opened. She’d been too lost in her funk to realize they’d reached her house. She fumbled for her reticule and shawl as Fenella stepped out.
Oh, for pity’s sake, no. She couldn’t bear it. If that hussy—who also happened to be a dear friend—planned to stay behind to ensure her wellbeing, she’d scream like a banshee.
“Good night, Caro. I’ll come and see how you are when I get back from Eton.”
Caroline frowned through the gloom, one hand clutching her reticule, the other fisted in her cashmere shawl. Then she glanced over her friend’s shoulder to the footman holding the door at the top of the steps. Fenella’s, not hers.
“This is your house,” she said stupidly.
“Silas will take you the rest of the way. It’s only a few minutes—I doubt if even the highest sticklers would find that improper. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” Caroline said, meaning she’d rather cut off her head than suffer a private conversation with Silas Nash. Silas who would press for answers and who was smart enough to read between the lines to discern what a hag she was.
But Fenella took that croaked denial as consent. “Go straight to bed when you get home. Conquering society has overstretched you.”
She leaned in to kiss Caroline’s cheek. The brush of her lips burned like acid. Oh, Caroline Beaumont was a horrid person. She was the one who should be dunked in that well.
“Good night,” she mumbled, shrinking back into the unlit cabin and refusing to watch as Silas escorted Fenella inside. He was hardly likely to kiss her in public. Which didn’t stop Caroline imagining them falling into a passionate embrace the minute they crossed the threshold.
If Silas did kiss Fenella—even in her half-mad state, Caroline knew that was extremely unlikely—he didn’t take long about it. He was soon back in the carriage.