Caroline and the Duke: A Regency Short Story by Sabrina Darby

CAROLINE AND THE DUKE
    “Yes, once I was seventeen and brimming with stupidity,” Caroline admitted. The rapid flutter of her eyelashes blurred the brightly lighted ballroom and left her with a mild ache behind the eyes, but the gesture had been worth it. Of course, no physical action could reveal the depths of her derision for Bath’s marriageable youth. Perhaps she didn’t care for the way time had hollowed out the rosy curve of her cheek or left its mark in the tiny creases at the corners of her mouth, but she would never wish to turn back the clock, to once again be the hopeful, naïve young lady who had fallen in and out of love with the movement of her fan.
    “You think you are any less susceptible to romantic idiocy now?” Julia asked archly. Her friend’s voice held the distinct mocking tone that usually led to a dare. And since they were both currently watching the wickedly handsome Lord Sutbridge dance with one of those unfortunate seventeen-year-old innocents, Caroline suspected danger lurked in these waters.
    “I make no pretension to wisdom, darling,” she said, glancing away from Sutbridge to note all the other couples on the floor, all the maidenly blushes and masculine wiles. “What time, however, has gifted me is experience. As a girl, the mere touch of a man’s hand on mine sent my pulse fluttering,” she paused for effect, liking the shape of the sentence, of the image her words projected, “and my imagination soaring into the wilds of fantasy. I know now that love is a lie, but passion and lust are real and to be desired above all things. I know now that men live their true lives outside of marriage, in the warm beds of women they pay and honor the more because of it.”
    “So you wouldn’t marry again?”
    Caroline bit the inside of her cheek. Julia was intentionally drawing her out and there must be some larger purpose to this. Their friendship had always been that tense balance of devotion and competition.
    “Unless he were a duke, a wealthy one at that, why, having finally gained some measure of freedom, would I subject myself to such bondage again? I’ve done my duty. Given my late tyrant of a husband his heir and spare.”
    “Really, Caro, I won’t let you near my daughter with that sort of speech.”
    Caroline laughed, pleased that she finally had some sort of unmeasured reaction from her friend. “You, with your string of lovers and a husband still sharing your bed on the odd night? You are one to talk.”
    “Lovers are perfectly acceptable.”
    Caroline turned away, the air in the room suddenly oppressive and her chest ridiculously tight. How quickly a mood could change. She blinked back the hot sting of self-pitying tears. For all her playful words, the truth remained. At the advanced age of nearly thirty, she was now a widow. She had spent the most attractive years of her life on a man who had been horrid to her, who had used her body for the business of procreation and then spent his pleasure and money on his mistress. Caroline spoke of passion and lust being real, but she knew the sensations only as desires unfulfilled. If it weren’t for the fierce pleasure her own hand between her thighs gained her, she would think the attainment of passionate fulfillment as much a lie as love.
    “Why don’t you take one, Caro?”
    And there it was, what Julia had been angling toward all this time.
    “Sutbridge, I suppose?” Caroline choked his name out, past the heat that swept across her body and made simple words nearly impossible to form. Julia knew, of course, of Caroline’s long-ago fascination with the man. He had been a facet of that youthful stupidity during which she had been utterly consumed by her ridiculous infatuation. She had thought he held her in some regard. Indeed, she knew he still did. Only, she hadn’t had the luxury of waiting for him. At twenty, a young man may idle away his years of immaturity. At eighteen, a young lady must make a proper match. Especially