“Oh, Charlotte, isn’t it beautiful? Have you ever seen so many candles alight at once? I’m surprised no one has swooned in this heat. Why do you suppose the doors are shut? Wouldn’t it be cooler if they allowed some air in? And the flowers? Who could have imagined so many white roses in all of London? Oh, Char, look, just look at that lady’s gown. It’s scandalous! You can see right through to her frillies! I must have one just like it after I am married. Where are Dare and David off to?” Patricia’s face was aglow with excitement, in sharp contrast to the fallen expression of her sister-in-law.
Charlotte swallowed her disappointment, telling herself she didn’t really need Dare present to enjoy herself, but even as the thought formed, she knew it was an untruth. Just being with him made everything seem brighter, more exciting, and when he left, it all turned dull and tarnished.
“Alasdair felt a bit parched in the heat and has gone for some refreshment. I believe David is keeping him company. The rooms are closed no doubt because the Prince Regent is expected, and I doubt seriously if your husband would appreciate you parading around in a gown like Mrs. Cutter’s. She’s a notorious widow, and is not in the least the sort of person you should emulate.”
Patricia grinned and took Charlotte by the arm as they wove their way through the crowd. “Come, you promised to introduce me to all the people Aunt Whitney would not allow me to meet. Let’s start with Mrs. Cutter.”
Charlotte spent the next hour in a unique position previously unknown to her—chaperone. While Patricia was not a flighty young thing to be watched every moment lest she bring herself to ruin, she was young, excited, and utterly thrilled with a world in which she’d had little contact. She also possessed a spirited sense of mischief that Charlotte realized, with some horror, bore an uncanny resemblance to her own. Never before had she been responsible for another, and she did not much care for the sensation.
“I have a new respect for what my poor mother must have endured,” Charlotte grumbled to Caroline later as she intervened when Lord Briceland, a notorious rake responsible for many a young woman’s downfall, would have swept Patricia off into a secluded corner of the ducal gardens. Caroline snickered.
“I am betrothed, Charlotte,” Patricia protested as the two women dragged her along a cinder path edged with fantastic beasts rendered in topiary form toward the doors leading into the ballroom. “No harm can come to my reputation now. Lord Briceland has the dearest golden curls, don’t you think, Lady Beverly?”
“Oh, yes, very much like that dashing Lord Byron’s,” Caroline agreed.
“Puts them up in papers each night like Byron, too, no doubt,” Charlotte snapped and came to a halt to face the giddy young girl. She glanced around quickly, but there was little to be seen but a giant yew hedge marking the boundaries of a maze. “Good, there’s no one around so I can speak freely. Patricia, I cannot have you dashing about making a cake of yourself in this manner. I really cannot. What would Alasdair say if I allowed you to be seduced in the garden? What would David say? He’s bound to object. Men do about that sort of thing!”
“They do, they truly do,” Caroline said. “Why, I remember the time shortly before I was wed when dearest Algernon caught me admiring Lord Selfridge’s mustache—you remember him, Char, he had the most delicious blond mustache, almost silver it was—well, as it was, I was admiring Lord Selfridge’s mustache and I felt I simply must touch it to see if it was as soft as it looked, and do you know, it was. It was very soft indeed, and I was much tempted to kiss him just to know whether the mustache tickled upon one’s lip or not. But then dearest Algernon burst into the room ranting and carrying on in the most flattering way about me shaming him and giving away my innocence all for the sake of an attractive mustache—”
“Yes, thank you, Caro,” Charlotte interrupted. “We take your point, assuming you have one. As for you, Patricia, I must insist that you remain at my side and take your cue from my conversations. Honestly, I would have never allowed you to read Vyvyan La Blue’s book if I thought you were going to discuss the relative merits of the Minataur’s Dance versus the Eight Heavenly Gates of Apollo with Lady Jersey! Ridiculously hidebound and old-fashioned though she might be, she is one of the leading ladies of the ton. One does not discuss connubial calisthenics with her!”
Patricia giggled. Charlotte glared at her and mused for a moment on the fact that she might be older by six years only, but she certainly felt decades wiser. “Do not giggle at me, miss! Giggling is for ninnies, and if you continue as you are, you’ll end up like Caro here.” She shook her finger with a stern countenance. God’s elbows, wild as she was, she never was a ninny.
“Char!” Patricia objected, shooting a worried look at Lady Beverly.
Caroline drew herself up to her full height and looked down her nose at her friend. “I am not a ninny.”
“Don’t you ‘Char’ me in that outraged tone,” Charlotte lectured her sister-in-law. “A ninny is as a ninny does, just you remember that! Besides, it is impolite to giggle in public.”
“I have never been a ninny!”
“You said yourself we were alone here,” Patricia said, trying to wipe the smile off her face. “No one can hear us, and I am sorry, but oh, Charlotte, you do make me laugh! Ever since you married Dare you’ve become positively priggish!”
“To be a prig is worse than to be a ninny,” Caroline said darkly.
“Priggish!” Charlotte gasped, her eyes wide with outrage. “I am not in the least bit priggish! I am the most unpriggish woman in existence! Caro, tell her! Tell her that I am dashing and daring and do many things of a nature that is completely opposite that of priggish. Go ahead, Caro, tell her.”
Caroline eyed her friend. “It is a well-known fact that ninnies keep company with prigs, therefore, since you claim I am a ninny, it follows that you are the living embodiment of priggishness.”
“OH!”
“I think it must be the bedding that’s made you this way,” Patricia said thoughtfully. “Vyvyan La Blue says that lengthy and frequent bedding is recommended for shrews and women of a flighty nature since it balances their humors and eliminates their wild ways with the calming influence of motherhood. Although you certainly aren’t a shrew or flighty, you must admit that since you wed Dare, you’ve become very circumspect.”
“Hrmph,” snorted Charlotte, bored to tears with the conversation. She leveled a stern gaze at her friend, who frowned back at her. Then she took her sister-in-law by the arm and headed off down the path past the torch-lit opening to the maze. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read. In fact, I believe you should apologize to me here and now for saying I was priggish. Since your brother has not seen fit to do his manly duty by me, any circumspection I might have is due solely to the fact that your unthinking and careless actions are driving me to an early death.”
“Charlotte!” Patricia gasped, stopping so abruptly that Caroline trod on her heel. “You can’t mean that Dare didn’t…didn’t…that you and he didn’t…but the way he looked at you! And the way you looked at him! I was sure he…I just cannot believe that he wouldn’t bed you!”
“Shhh,” Charlotte hissed, glancing around her. Although the three women were alone, standing between the foot of the stairs leading to the verandah and the opening to the dark and uninviting maze, one never knew who could be lurking around. “The fact that my husband refused to consummate our marriage is not a subject I wish made public. In fact, it’s truly not any of your business what Dare and I do or do not do, so please forget I mentioned it at all.”
“Char, you can’t mean he hasn’t—” Caroline said at the same time Patricia said, “But, Charlotte—”
“Not another word! Look, there is David gesturing for you. It must be his dance. Go enjoy yourself. Caroline and I will be in momentarily. Do not, under any circumstances, repeat what I just said! I would die of shame if anyone found out that Dare refused…well, I would die if anyone
found out.”
Patricia assured her she wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone, and hurried up the steps to fling herself into her betrothed’s arms. Charlotte watched her for a minute, tempted to follow and make sure they spent the allotted time dancing and not sequestered in a dark corner, but quickly dismissed that idea when Caroline put her hand on her arm.
“Char, why?”
“Why what? Oh, why didn’t Alasdair bed me?” Caroline nodded. Charlotte sighed and looked into the darkness while she tried to muster words to explain something she didn’t quite understand herself. “He feels we need to know one another better. He wants me to be…oh, I don’t know what he wants me to be. His friend, I think. He said he wants us to have tender feelings for one another before we engage in connubial calisthenics.”
“That’s rather sweet,” Caroline said with a little smile. “I imagine most men wouldn’t think of wanting to be their wife’s friend before they did their duty by her. He must love you very much if he’s willing to wait until you have similar feelings for him.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You are a ninny, Caro. He doesn’t love me.”
Caroline’s hand tightened on her arm. “I swear to heaven, Charlotte, if you call me that again, I shan’t be held responsible for my actions!”
“Call you what? A ninny?”
“Yes! I will not tolerate it again!”
“Really?” Charlotte asked with interest, tipping her head as she considered the angry countenance of her friend. “What will you do? Challenge me to a duel? Engage in fisticuffs with me? Tie me to a tree and shoot arrows at me? I’ve seen your archery skills, Caro. I wouldn’t have much to be concerned about there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I shan’t do any of those things. No, I shall do something much, much worse.”
“What?” Charlotte asked again, her curiosity getting the better of her. She knew Caroline well. A woman less able to say anything unkind or cruel did not exist. A flash of blue in the corner of her eye caught her attention as Caroline gestured wildly, her voice rising in distress.
“I don’t know, something terrible, something cruel. No, I do too know what I will do.”
Someone was coming from within the maze. Charlotte stepped aside, intending to pull Caroline after her so their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.
“If you persist in calling me by that unkind and wholly inaccurate word,” Caroline said in voice that pierced the night in righteous indignation, “I shall tell that awful Lady Brindley that your husband has refused to bed you because he is still infatuated with her.”
Charlotte’s mind skidded to an abrupt stop at the sight over Caroline’s shoulder. A woman emerged from the darkness of the maze into the golden pool of light cast by the torches. Dressed in midnight blue with a lighter-blue overgown, Phylomena, Viscountess Brindley, embodied the memory of every bad experience Charlotte had had during her two Seasons.
“Did I hear my name taken in vain?” Lady Brindley’s cool gray eyes examined Charlotte from crown to heels before she smiled.
Caroline gasped in horror, one hand covering her mouth as she stared with wide eyes at the woman Charlotte would gladly have seen struck down with a bolt of lightning.
“Oh, Char, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know she was there—”
Lady Brindley smiled. Charlotte gritted her teeth and tightened her hands into fists.
***
“It can’t be that bad, Dare,” David said as he strolled into the card room from the dance floor. “I know you have no love for these things—God knows, I don’t either—but we have to humor the ladies once in a while, and Patricia’s in seventh heaven that Charlotte is going to introduce her to all the fashionable folk.”
Dare tossed back a second whiskey and gestured to the footman for another with only a raised eyebrow and a grimace to indicate he heard his sister’s betrothed.
“If you feel so strongly against attending balls and such,” David said, “you shouldn’t have allowed Charlotte to talk you into this one.”
Dare took the proffered glass, saluting the younger man with it. “Talk? She didn’t talk. Talk I could have resisted. Talk might have meant I had a chance to reason with her. Talk would have been manageable. What she did was much more insidious. She’s a woman, and women don’t think like we do. Always remember that, David. They take the shortest route to what they want, which, in most cases, means they use their perfumed selves to drive you to the brink of madness, forcing you—out of sheer self-preservation—to give them what they want.”
David laughed again. “Do I take it, then, that your own good lady worked her wiles on you against your wishes?”
Dare allowed a smile to flirt on his lips before the memory of Charlotte at breakfast that morning returned. He was consumed with guilt when he considered the life he was forcing her to accept, overwhelmed with the worry that his steam engine wouldn’t succeed. He took a gulp of the whiskey, closing his eyes against the burn as it worked its way into his stomach, wondering if he would ever be free of the yoke of debt that had settled on his shoulders when he inherited the title. Worse yet, he admitted to himself as he tossed off the last of the drink, he feared his future with Charlotte. Could he go through life in love with a woman who didn’t love him in return?
“Dare?”
He pushed that thought aside and smiled a humorless smile at the concern in David’s face. “I’m all right, just a bit tired. I’ve been putting in extra time trying to get the condenser running at optimum capacity before your uncle arrives.”
David nodded. “You have another two months. His latest letter said he won’t be here until September.”
“Good,” Dare replied, settling back to have a comfortable talk about the world of marine engines. “I’ll need every hour of that time to get it running its best. I’ve been thinking how best to demonstrate the engine, and I believe I have a solution—”
“Carlisle! Carlisle, where are you man? Has anyone seen—there you are. Come quickly.”
Dare looked up in surprise at the flustered man who stood before him. “Beverly. Is something amiss?”
Lord Beverly’s eyes bulged out in an alarming manner. “I’ll say there is! You must come quickly. It’s your wife.”
Dare was on his feet and headed out of the gaming room before Beverly could blink. “Is she hurt?” he tossed over his shoulder.
“No, not at all.” Beverly panted, trotting to keep up with Dare’s long-legged stride. Dare stopped abruptly, grabbing the man to keep from running into him.
“If she isn’t hurt, what is the hurry?”
Lord Beverly pulled out a silk handkerchief and mopped at his red face. “She’s…she’s…she’s making a scene! You can’t want that! She’s your wife!”
Dare took a deep breath and turned back toward the comfortable leather chair he had been sitting in. “Is that all?”
“All?” Beverly asked in confusion. “All? All? Did you hear me? She’s making a scene! In front of everyone!”
“Then I’m sure she’s quite happy,” Dare said with a grin to David. “There’s nothing Charlotte likes more than an audience to one of her tempers.”
“But…but…aren’t you concerned? Don’t you care?”
“Not really,” Dare answered, resuming his seat. “To tell you the truth, I rather hate to spoil her fun. She’s had so little the last few days. What is it this time? Is she telling Lady Jersey off again?”
Beverly stared at Dare as if he had a duck dancing on his head. “No, no, it’s not Lady Jersey,” he choked out. “It’s Brindley’s wife.”
Dare’s head snapped up at the name.
“Lady Carlisle seems to have taken exception to something Lady Brindley said, consequently dumping the punch bowl over her head.”
Dare swore as he leaped to his feet a second time, dashing for the door with David and Be
verly fast on his heels.
“The watch! Someone send for the watch!” Phylomena was screeching as he burst into the disordered scene in the ballroom. “She tried to drown me! You all saw her attack me! She’s mad, quite, quite mad!”
“I am not mad. My hand slipped,” Charlotte argued.
Dare pushed his way forward to where the most elite members of the ton stood in a loose circle around five people. The three clustered together—his wife, Patricia, and Lady Caroline—he ignored, focusing on the remaining two.
“Slipped? You held the punch bowl over my head and turned it upside down!”
“I was merely trying to assist you to a cup of punch. A full punch bowl is not an easy thing to handle, you know. I imagine anyone’s hands would have slipped in a similar situation.”
“I don’t care what you say, you can’t stop me from telling everyone that—Carlisle!” the bedraggled, punch-soaked figure in blue screeched, pushing away the man who had been attempting to comfort her. Three blue ostrich feathers hung down to her shoulders as hair, formerly coiffed into sable ringlets, dripped red punch down the front of her gown, her bosom bedecked with orange and lemon slices. If Phylomena hadn’t one of the sharpest tongues and most vindictive natures he’d known, he would have been tempted to find the situation humorous. As it was… “Save me from that…that…madwoman, that hellion you wed!”
Dare put up a hand as she rushed toward him, his face tight. “I’ll thank you to remember you are speaking of my wife and moderate your tone. We can discuss the situation after you have attended to yourself.”
“Yes, truly, you are a mess.” Charlotte nodded virtuously, showing her dimples for her husband. “Thank you for your support, Alasdair. You know how against my naturally shy and reserved nature it is to be any part of a scene. I am available for the next waltz if you wished to partner me, but do watch your step. Lady Brindley’s unfortunate episode has made the floor quite slippery.”
“Unfortunate?” Phylomena spat, glaring at Charlotte with a venom that was quick to fire Dare’s anger. He stepped protectively in front of Charlotte, blocking her from his ex-lover’s glare, his scowl fearsome to behold. Lady Brindley, however, was not daunted. She took a step closer to him. “Unfortunate? The only thing unfortunate about the episode is that your husband didn’t have the good sense to wed me when he could!”
Noble Destiny Page 15
