“I’m taking Ivy. And outriders! And Maidstone is less than fifteen miles away. I’ve gone twice already, Gran.”
“Yes, and twice I’ve worried about you all day. I’m afraid it’s too much for my heart for you to travel these roads alone, especially when I’ve a soldier to escort you.”
“Your heart’s as healthy as mine.” Charlotte slanted Wolfgang a glance and turned back to her grandmother, whispering so low he strained to hear. “He’llsee, Gran, and I couldn’t stand it if he—”
“I won’t change my mind, darling. Your safety comes first.”
Charlotte knew when she was beaten, but she wasn’t gracious in defeat. Although come to think of it, she wasn’t gracious in victory, either. When she’d trounced Lysander at backgammon in three straight games the other day, she’d called out, “Oh dear, does it hurt badly? Are you brave enough to have another go?”
Now she heaved a sigh, threw her hands up, and said, “Oh, all right!” before stomping off across the pea gravel toward him. An exasperated expression flitted across her face and she whirled around to stomp back and press a begrudging kiss on her grandmother’s cheek. Only once the dowager patted her cheek did Charlotte set off once again for the landau.
Wolfgang handed Charlotte and her maid up into their seats, noting the upright collar and the gold frogging across the front of Charlotte’s red spencer that gave it a distinctly military feel.Brigadier Charlotte, he thought to himself, and wondered how hard she’d whack him if he offered a salute.
“Why are we going to Maidstone?” he asked as he settled on the opposite seat and the coachman clicked the horses forward.And what could “he’ll see” possibly mean?
“Ivy and I are going to Maidstone on aprivateerrand. You’re coming to Maidstone because…” She squinted at him. “I’mtempted to say it’s because my grandmother has turned you into her lapdog, but from that grin on your face, I have to assume you’re coming to bother me?”
Wolfgang’s grin only widened. Was it him, or had the sky lightened to an especially promising blue today? “By the way, that suitor of yours—”
Her eyes flashed a warning. “I’m not discussing Belozersky.”
“That suitor of yours—”
“No!” She surprised him by closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and holding it. He was on the point of asking if she needed some sort of restorative when he saw something that made his blood run cold.
It was her mouth.
If he wasn’t mistaken, it was quivering.
Bloody hell.
Wolfgang was a reluctant scholar of Lady Charlotte’s mouth. He knew all its moods and shapes—the strange squiggle it made on the rare occasions she was embarrassed, her crocodile grins, the astonishing width of her smile when she was pleased. He’d lost hours engrossed in the dip of her Cupid’s bow and the lush pillow of her lower lip, and the Lord above might as well send Azrael to fetch him, because he’d learned the taste of her mouth, too.
But in all the time he’d spent studying it, he’d never once seen it tremble.
His chest went tight.
What the hell did one do with a quivery Charlotte?
His first thought was to haul her to his chest, remove her bonnet, and whisper into her bramble of hair that everything was all right and he’d never let anything happen to her.
But that was ridiculous—obviously!—so he gave her silence instead.
She began to rummage through the basket Ivy had brought for her and pulled out her embroidery, sorting through the threads until she decided on a purplish-red one.
Something settled in Wolfgang as she began stitching.
“You’re embroidering,” he said gruffly. Everything was right in the world when Charlotte had her hoop in hand. “That’s good.”
Charlotte stabbed her needle into the linen even harder, and to his horror, her mouth began to quiver again.
Leave her be. Don’t say anything more.
But, as always, Wolfgang couldn’t resist.
“Damn it, Belozersky isn’t worth it!”
To his surprise, her laugh was sharp and bitter. “Misha’s worth more than you know, and I’m extremely cross with myself for how I treated him. Buthehasn’t upset—” She broke off and attacked her linen again.
