The Best Man's Bridesmaid Read Online Free

agreed.
    ***
    As she entered her parents’ London town house the following evening, Caroline was prepared for an inquisition. The previous night, with the help of her parents’ major domo, a stanch supporter of hers, she had managed to evade them. With the servants help, she did not leave her bedchamber that morning until she knew each parent had departed the house. A picnic ride to Richmond had kept her busy all afternoon, and for a few hours she had forgotten her predicament to enjoy the company of the few true friends she had in the capital. At last, she conceded she had no option but to return to the house to prepare for the evening’s activities, and she braced herself for an inquisition. To her surprise, her parents were absent. “The countess is at Lady Croker’s, my lady, and your father at White’s. They hope you had a good day. Do you have any engagements this evening?” Her maid knew the answer as well as Caroline but observed the proprieties and helped her out of her gown and into a dressing wrap.
    “Primmy, you have been with me since forever,” Caroline retorted truthfully but ungrammatically. “You know as well as I do my social calendar. So, I am thankful, I have no engagement tonight, but I do need to slip out later. And it won’t be as easy here as at Chattels, so I will need your help.”
    “I thought you’d given up all that stuff since Lady Amanda became betrothed?” her maid said as she shook out Caroline’s gown before she put it over a chair to be tidied away later. She pursed her lips. “And now she is married, she’ll be too busy for any such nonsense, I’ll be bound. Surely you’re not carrying on that lark without her?”
    Caroline smiled and shook her head. “No, this is something else, but it needs to be done. Please, Primmy?”
    The older woman snorted.
    “You’ll be the death of me, young lady, how much longer do we need to keep up all this pretense? You’ll be exposed sooner or later, and then where will we be, eh?”
    Caroline giggled at her choice of words.
    Primmy shook her head. “You know what I mean. Is it all worth it?”
    Caroline sighed. The last few months had been very dull. “It was, and it is. Alas, it is now to all intents and purposes over, as well you know. We have so much perhaps to look forward to, but this is something else to be done.” Primmy’s scandalized look made her want to giggle again. Her maid was loyal, loving, and well able to curb any excesses Caroline may feel like exploring. “No, not that. Nothing too underhanded. I need to meet Charlie.”
    “Your fiancé? Why? Weren’t you with him all day?”
    “And a hundred others,” Caroline said in a voice she knew showed her frustration. “He is not at all as I remember him. Not in looks or personality. I need to understand more.” She forebode to mention the other times she had been aware of him, when there had not been a hundred others in close proximity and aware of every nuance, every word that passed between a couple. “I need to see him alone, and”—she grimaced and shrugged, her frustration uppermost—”I am now independent of my parents. Well provided for with my own home, my own fortune, albeit nowhere near as large as his. Therefore, I do not need to marry if I do not so desire. Primmy, I am three-and-twenty, an old maid almost. I missed my first two seasons, due to Eugenia not taking and then Grandmamma passing on. I had one season, during which I was told I would marry Charlie, and then…well, you know.”
    Primmy nodded. Caroline smiled. Primmy had been the recipient of many a bout of confidence and doubt.
    “So,” Caroline continued, as she was propelled into a chair and her hair brushed with long soothing strokes, “I declare, Primmy, I am not going to be coerced into something abhorrent to me.” Not that she thought marriage to Charlie would be abhorrent, but she needed time and encouragement to find out.
    “Well, be careful, missy. You know it’s what both