to her position, she instinctively leaned closer to listen to the argument between the two pompous oafs on the other side.
“I’ll pay you whatever you’re asking, but I refuse to marry for what rightfully belongs to me,” she heard a stranger’s voice say in a deep, husky timbre. “My property was sold unfairly, probably illegally.”
“Everything was purchased legally, Weymerth, and I can prove it.”
The voices lowered, and after a moment of listening to words too muffled to understand, she heard them again, this time louder in tone but softer in urgency as the man tried to reason with her father.
“This has nothing to do with you, Sytheford, but if I ever decide to marry, I’d rather she be someone of my choosing, not a daughter of yours I’ve never met.”
“Caroline will give you a smart, sturdy son—”
“That is not the issue here!”
“A man in your position—”
“Listen to me well,” she heard the earl quickly counter in a dangerously subdued voice. “I do not want to wed your daughter. I don’t care how many other worthy noblemen have asked for her hand. I don’t care that she is the loveliest creature this side of the Continent, that she has hair the color of sunshine or eyes the color of amethysts. I care only for my property, and by God, you’re going to return it to me fairly. This conversation is finished.”
A long, deadly silence ensued, then she heard her father’s deep growl fill the air. “Perhaps you should take a look at this.”
After precisely fifteen seconds the earl yelled, “Oh, Christ!” A fist slammed hard against the desk.
Her father said smugly, “It’s a bill of sale. Come Monday, they’re gone.”
“You can’t do this—”
“I will unless you marry my daughter.”
Then…nothing. Silence.
Caroline’s heart started pounding. For several seconds she couldn’t breathe as the realization hit her like a brick in the face.
This could not be happening. She had plans, she had dreams, she had…thought her father understood.
Horrified and disoriented, Caroline slumped her shoulders and dragged her body across the hall and into the morning room. Sunlight streamed in through beveled glass to create a peaceful feeling in the sparsely decorated room, but it did nothing for her ever-increasing sensation of panic. She sat heavily on the yellow sofa and stared into the cold fireplace, forcing herself to take deep breaths.
She felt shocked. Enraged. Even scared. She swallowed hard to fight back tears, for if nothing else, she needed to keep her wits intact and think things through before her father came out of his study to inform her that he’d chosen her a husband.
The thought made her shiver with revulsion. In her heart Caroline knew her father’s love for her was genuine, deeply felt, but she also knew that out of the five daughters he had sired, she was the disappointment.
She was the middle child and so very different from the others. Her sisters were, every one, blessed with long, graceful figures, light blond hair, light blue eyes that were so like her mother’s, lovely faces, and perfect marriages. Even Stephanie was just recently betrothed to the Viscount Jameson after only one season. To their credit, they made her father quite proud, as they all fit the image of gently bred women, settling down nicely in polite society.
But Caroline took after her father with her small form and dark brown hair and eyes. Plain and unbecoming, she had heard some say. Over the years, it had grown to matter less and less to her, though, because she had found her destiny. She knew what truly mattered in her life.
She was smart, exceedingly bright in the areas of mathematics and botany. At the age of four she could calculate numbers, multiplying them two, three, even four times simply with her head, baffling most everyone who knew her, especially because she was female. Females had no business understanding mathematics, even if it came to them naturally, or so she’d often been told.
Caroline, however, without being formally taught, possessed such unspeakable knowledge. By age nine, she could calculate not only numbers, but the age and growth of each plant in her mother’s garden. She would spend hours with the flowers and greenery, estimating growth patterns, determining ages and variations of color and size with such precision that before she had even reached her twelfth birthday, most people, including her loved ones, assumed her to be the strangest girl in En gland.
At that age she didn’t care what others thought. Her family loved her despite their inability