CHAPTER 1
June 1818
Lady Charlotte Louisa Aveton knewall the rules, and better yet, she knew how to break them. Which was why, in the inky depths of a London night, she wasn’t cozied up under her covers but rather rolling men’s silk stockings up her long legs.
“This is a terrible plan,” said her maid, Ivy, not for the first time. But she handed Charlotte her breeches.
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Charlotte. “I’ve been longing for a terrible plan.”
“You’ve been longing for something,” muttered Ivy, not quite under her breath.
Charlotte pretended not to hear. It was always a good trick to refuse to hear anything unpleasant, or to stare blankly at anyone who had the bad taste to repeat themself.
She stepped into the breeches and shrugged on a lawn shirt, and she and Ivy spent a good half hour wrestling with her hair until the rioting black curls were powdered white and pinned in neat coils against her head, ready to be hidden by the hood of the black domino she’d stolen from her brother. Then came the most darling little black waistcoat and the task of tying her cravat into the perfect Mathematical—the gentlemen made such a fuss over the folds, and yet it wasn’t atall difficult—before topping the whole thing off with a man’s evening coat. The final touch was a black velvet demi-mask that dangled from her fingers on grosgrain ribbons.
At last, Charlotte was ready to assume a completely new identity.
“My lady, are you sure you must go?” said Ivy.
“Yes, Ivy, but you mustn’t worry. No one will know me dressed likethis.”
Charlotte swished the domino over her shoulders and adjusted the hood so only the curve of her mouth showed. Tonight, she was sneaking out of her grandmother’s town house and heading to a masquerade. It was rash, ill-advised, and reckless—everything she adored.
Too bad it wasn’t thrills she was seeking.
Wolfgang Robert Latham, the Seventh Duke of Warrick, was ambling home in the darkest hours of the morning, enjoying the rare stillness of the Mayfair streets and the even more unusual stillness of his mind, when a slight figure crossed the street in front of him and looked up into the sky. The flickering light of a lamp reached out to tap the tip of her nose before lingering on a wide, generous mouth that tilted up at the corners, as if it belonged to a cat that had only tasted cream.
Charlotte.
He recognized her at once, even though she was dressed as a man. The powdered hair peeking out from beneath her hood couldn’t fool him, nor could the way she loped along with her domino billowing out behind her, revealing a perfectly cut evening jacket and showing off her long legs in breeches—
Wolfgang looked away sharply and growled to himself, but it was too late.Christ. Now her legs were etched on his brain forever.
He didn’t need any moreCharlottein his head, smiling up at him with upturned eyes to match her upturned lips. He noticed too damn much of her already—how she held herself arrow straight when something captured her interest, how badly she slumped the second she was bored. Once he’d watched her sink deeper and deeper into the settee at a lecture at the Horticultural Society, until the upholstery swallowed her up and all he could see was the top of her despairing curls.
He even noticed her dresses, and that was especially irritating, because he cared nothing for clothes. But what Charlotte wore signaled her mood. Sugary pinks and lavenders or any effort to look sweet meant she was up to no good. The more excited she got, the brighter the colors she wore, and when she was angry, she either threw on a cape or buttoned herself into one of her many military jackets. And for some reason, he thought darkly, flounces always spelled trouble.
What the hell did she mean by dressing as a man?
Nothing good.
At the corner, Charlotte turned, and he muttered a curse and followed her.
What could she be up to, skulking over London’s cobblestones in the pitch-black? Although—he narrowed his eyes—that lope of hers could hardly be called skulking. That was the thing about Charlotte. Everything about her was so damn brazen, as if half her pleasure was in doing exactly as she pleased, and the other half was in rubbing everyone’s nose in it.
Didn’t the bloody woman realize it was dangerous to be out alone so late at night? Wasn’t she afraid of pickpockets, or footpads, or drunken idiots? Although knowing Charlotte, her walking stick concealed a sword. Knowing Charlotte, she knew how to use it.
You donotknow Charlotte, he reminded himself grimly. He’d thought he had once, after a summer full of letters, both of them writing back and forth until—
Wolfgang squashed the thought under his boot, grinding his heel for good measure. It was an unfortunate fact of life that Charlotte’s half brother happened to be Julian Alaric William Aveton, the Earl Ramsay and Wolfgang’s closest friend. Even more unfortunate, Ramsay was out of the country for several months and had left Charlotte in Wolfgang’s care.
Ramsay had ambushed him one afternoon, lying in wait in Wolfgang’s study and sipping a glass of his finest port. “Excellent stuff, my friend,” Ramsay had said, putting his long nose in the snifter and inhaling deeply. “I’ll pour you one, shall I?”
“How generous of you.” Wolfgang accepted a glass of his own liquor and settled into his chair, propping his boots up on the ever-growing piles of paper strewn across his desk. “Why have you come?”
Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “Can’t a friend stop by anymore?”
“Not since you’ve been married. I can’t recall the last time you left your countess’s side.”
