“A borzoi!” Georgiana cried ecstatically. “Oh look! He and Rupert like each other!”
“Of course they do,” muttered Wolfgang.
Lysander’s horse fell into step next to his brother’s. “Wolfgang, there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. I had another letter from Stewart about the ironworks, and—”
“Not now, Lysander.”
Lysander flicked his eyes to the carriage ahead. “I see. Too busy brooding to discuss estate affairs?”
Wolfgang didn’t reply. Instead, he leaned over and smacked the rump of Lysander’s horse, sending his brother spurting ahead to join the others.
CHAPTER 24
Wolfgang had experienced any numberof unpleasantries in his life. War, for one, and all the everyday misery that accompanied it, such as long marches in the driving rain, the leather of his boots sticky and swelling. Or sharing a tent with Lysander, who ate like a horse and farted like one, too.
But that night at dinner, as he sat outside at a polished table under the merry but somehow mocking light of three chandeliers strung in the hornbeam tree, he realized he’d take war anytime over attending a house party with Charlotte. He’d also rather face down the whole Russian army than one blasted Russian prince.
Belozersky ranked above Wolfgang and sat in the seat of honor to the right of the dowager. Wolfgang was on the dowager’s left, which gave him a perfect view of Charlotte and her prince, his close-cropped hair bent toward her storm of curls. She was dressed like a damned rose for the evening, in a gown of dark pink with what Wolfgang could only think of as fabric petals cut wide across her shoulder and plunging into a deep V. The prince seemed on the verge of dipping his nose into her décolletage and taking a long, deep sniff.
Charlotte Unthorned, thought Wolfgang, a name for her ensemble rising unbidden to mind.
He turned deliberately away and directed his attention to Miss Marby. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s that great tome I seeyou lugging about? Are you a mathematician, like your sister Miss Helena?”
“No, Your Grace. If you must know, I’m reading a gothic novel, full of witchcraft, murder, and frankly”—she frowned up at him—“well, frankly, quite a bit more rape than I should like to read. The author is a man, Matthew Gregory Lewis, but he clearly writes for women. So I ask you, why include any rape?”
Wolfgang gave a startled laugh. “Why, indeed?”
“Quite!” Miss Marby sighed. “The trouble is, I can never put a book down unfinished, even if I loathe it so much that I must cover my eyes and read through my fingers. Are you a reader, Your Grace?”
“Yes. I’m especially drawn to Roman—”
“Roman history?” Miss Marby’s eyes brimmed with laughter. “Yes, so many men say they are. But I ask you—is English history really so dull? Or French? Why not read natural history, or poetry, or diaries, for that matter? What is it aboutRomanhistory that draws men like nothing else?”
Wolfgang lowered his voice to match hers. “Often it’s because our tutors made us read Tacitus and most of us have read nothing else. But in my case, I enjoy the scale of it. There aren’t that many civilizations that occupied so much of the world. Lysander tears through novels, though.”
Miss Marby dropped her eyes to the table. “Yes, I noticed.”
Ah.
Wolfgang eyed Lysander doubtfully. As an object of affection, his brother had serious shortcomings, primarily that while he was old enough to take a wife, he still seemed more interested in shooting things.
What was it about Clare? Why was it infested with so much sicklymooning?
Across the table, the prince leaned toward Charlotte and the sleeve of his jacket brushed against her arm. “Dushenka, may I offer you another slice of pheasant?” he said.
“Why, thank you, Your Highness.”
Wolfgang couldn’t help himself.
“What does that word mean—dushenka?” It rasped on his tongue like a curse.
“It means ‘darling,’ or at least that is the common translation. But it comes from the rootdusha. ‘Soul.’ A word to make you Englishmen shudder.”
“Dogs have souls,” piped Georgiana from farther down the table. “I feel that very firmly.”
“Dogs do have souls,” Belozersky agreed. “Englishwomen, too, though it took me some time to understand that. But Englishmen?”
He shook his head sadly.
