As the Devil Dares (Capturing the Carlisles #3)(34)

Yet it was such a lovely dress, the color perfectly matching her eyes. And Elizabeth wanted so badly for her to have it…

“All right,” she acquiesced with a sigh.

“Good. Because we could all use some pleasant distractions this season, even in the form of a gown.” Elizabeth smiled at her as she fussed happily with the dress. “And I think that this season will be a good distraction for Robert, as well.”

Her mouth fell open. Carlisle? Well, the duchess was completely wrong about that! His interest in her season was purely mercenary. “What could he possibly need to be distracted from?”

“Oh, lots of things.” Elizabeth’s attention strayed to the drape of the dress, her gaze moving away from Mariah’s. She busied herself with adjusting the bodice, but Mariah could see a troubled concern cloud the duchess’s face. “His father’s death, for one.”

A stab of shame pierced her. She should have thought of that immediately. She’d lost her mother fifteen years ago, yet she still carried grief inside her and feared she always would. Of course Robert still mourned his father. The fact that he had been twenty-five instead of ten wouldn’t have lessened his loss.

“Richard’s death devastated all of us,” Elizabeth explained. Avoiding Mariah’s gaze, she picked up a velvet wrap from a nearby chair and placed it over her shoulders. “It was an accident. There was absolutely nothing that could have been done, but—” She choked off, then inhaled a deep breath before continuing, and the glimpse of pain Mariah saw in her at that moment ached into her own chest. “Robert blamed himself.”

Mariah’s gaze snapped to the duchess’s reflection in the mirror. Good God, to blame himself for that…For the first time, she felt a prick of empathy for him, and she understood completely why his mother believed he needed to be distracted.

“He seldom speaks of it,” Elizabeth continued, “yet it changed him. He’s not the same man he was before. For the longest time, I was so very worried about him.” Finally, she raised her eyes to meet Mariah’s, and hope sparkled in their cornflower-blue depths. “But this year, he’s finally setting a path for himself.”

“Oh?” Dread at what the duchess meant panged dully inside her. Because Mariah knew full well that Robert’s path drove right through her own.

Elizabeth smiled at their reflection, oblivious to the way that the hope for her son underpinning her expression sliced into Mariah’s heart. “This business venture with your father could prove to be the purpose he’s been searching for.”

Robert wanted purpose, and she understood that. But at what cost to her own dream?

Fresh frustration swelled inside her. Why did he have to pick Winslow Shipping? He could find another partnership in no time at all, while she…Well, it was the family business or nothing. She only wished Robert would realize that and gracefully concede.

Elizabeth smoothed down the skirt to check its fall around Mariah’s legs. “Then there was Diana Morgan, of course.”

“Of course,” she mumbled. Who on earth was Diana Morgan?

“You might know her. I believe she’s your sister’s age. Blond, very attractive…” She played with the drape of the gown. “A lovely girl.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” What the deuces did a very attractive blonde have to do with Robert?

“He courted her last season.” Elizabeth frowned as her attention fell to the skirt. “Do you like the hem? The pattern is awfully busy. We could ask Madame for a plain one, if you’d rather.”

“It’s fine.” She didn’t care a fig about the hem. What was this about Carlisle having courted someone? “And Miss Morgan?”

“We all thought he’d offer for her.”

A marriage offer from Robert Carlisle? Her chest squeezed, surely in sympathy for the poor girl. Without thinking, she blurted out, “I’m glad she escaped.”

With a gasp, she realized what she’d said. Her hand flew over her mouth in mortification. Heavens, how could she have been so thoughtless? To insult him like that in front of his mother, in such a cruel slap to her kindness—

“Me, too,” Elizabeth agreed, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

Mariah gaped at her. Instead of being angry, Elizabeth looked…relieved. “Pardon?”

“I agree with you completely, my dear. Miss Morgan isn’t at all the sort of woman Robert needs in a wife.”

Her mind reeled as she tried to follow this strange turn of conversation. And with his mother, no less. “Lovely, attractive…?”

“Unsuspecting,” Elizabeth confirmed somberly.

She choked on her surprise. Perhaps Carlisle hadn’t pulled the wool over his mother’s eyes quite as thoroughly as he’d thought.

“Robert doesn’t need a wife who agrees with him. What he needs is one who won’t hesitate to keep him in line, who knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to speak it. I’m hoping that this season he finds just that woman.” She paused, her gaze flicking to Mariah’s in the mirror. “Did you know that he was quite a handful as a child?” A faint smile played at her lips, as if she were amused by his behavior but afraid a full smile would condone it. “Always stirring up trouble of one kind or another, but never getting caught.”