That much was true, and he’d made damn sure John knew it.
The waltz faded, a new song rose, and they swayed together.
“Will you answer a question for me?” Wolfgang asked, trying not to get distracted by the feel of her in his arms.
“Of course.”
“Why did you lie to your mother that night?”
Charlotte tensed. “Oh God, Wolfgang, I’m so sorry, I—”
“You already apologized and I forgave you. I simply want to understand.”
She took a deep, shuddery breath. “My parents—you must have heard of their marriage?”
Wolfgang nodded.
“Everyone forgets how young she was when it ended, only twentyfour. The best I can understand is that my father wounded something inside her, or brought out an aspect of her character she can’t quite control. She’s not always steady, so Gran took charge of me and of course that was another wound. She doesn’t like men much and she certainly doesn’t trust them, and if I told her about you…” Charlotte shot him a warning glance. “Iloveher, of course, and I know she loves me, but—”
“But what?”
Charlotte shrugged, and Wolfgang’s instincts lit up. Shrugs and laughter in the face of difficult things—they should play whist again because at last, he knew her tells.
“Sometimes love feels like a chain, doesn’t it?”
Oh, Christ.
Wolfgang pulled her more tightly into his arms. The night was soft and the air heavier than usual, promising more rain. The darkness and the chirps of the grasshoppers and the calls of the marsh frogs wrapped around them, and he wished he could lift Charlotte up and bundle her in the peace of the night as if it were a blanket. For oncehe was even grateful for his enormous and, frankly, inconvenient size, if it meant his body could offer her shelter.
“You needn’t maul me, Wolfgang,” she said, even as she nestled in closer. “The real tragedy is that my mother needed a gran, and all she has is me.”
“You’re more than enough.”
Charlotte shook her head, the slightly off-kilter point of her nose drawing lines across his chest. “No, we all need lots of people. My mother’s alone except for me, so I must—”
She paused, and he heard volumes in her hesitation.
“What must you do, Charlotte?”
“If you must know, my mother got into a bit of debt this summer. But I believe I’ve handled it.”
“Debt?” He had to stop and fight for reason, or at least not fall on all fours and paw at the ground at the thought of her struggling by herself. “Charlotte, damn it, my whole purpose in being here is to lend you assistance. If you need help—if you needanything—you must know I’d move worlds for you.”
She leaned back in his arms to look up at him, and Wolfgang didn’t declare himself again, but neither did he hide from her. Everything he’d ever felt for her was naked on his face.
The music crashed to a halt and Miss Alexandra called out, “LORD VYSE, ARE YOU HEADING FOR THE TERRACE?”
Wolfgang stepped away from Charlotte, though it took some effort to make himself let go of her hands.
CHAPTER 38
The guests drifted, as ifby mutual accord, back into the Grand Salon, and Charlotte choose a spot on the settee by her grandmother. She nestled in, aware of Wolfgang on the opposite side of the room, his outline burnished by the fire Gran had requested because the night was cooler than usual. Flickering light traced his profile, his nose a little too large and slightly crooked, his blunt chin.
Charlotte reached for her embroidery basket, her head so full that she needed to spill her thoughts across a stretch of linen. There was pale pink in her hoop already and she began absently to stitch white silk French knots, piling them up until she realized they were the bells on a sprig of lily of the valley.
Are Wolfgang and I starting again?she asked herself.
A voice inside answered.Have you ever stopped, really?
