Wolfgang tucked her up close and his questions faded away at the pleasure of listening to the kick of her pulse.
It was quite a bit later when they emerged, blinking, from under the oak to cross the meadow. As they approached the orchard wall, the click-clack of distant wheels caught Wolfgang’s attention. Dust rose on the road across the river. There was a flash of black between the trees and a carriage shuddered into view, marked by a crest, pulled by a team of six, and traveling much too fast.
“Good God,” he said. “Tell me you’re not expecting another suitor?”
Charlotte clutched his arm. “Oh. Oh no.”
“What is it? Charlotte, you’ve gone pale.”
“My mother’s come!” She picked up her skirts and began to run.
CHAPTER 42
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Had the clock on the mantel always been so loud when it counted out the seconds? Each click of the arm lashed at Charlotte’s ears and she had to fight not to flinch. Or fidget. Or reveal any expression at all, because she didn’t want to give herself away. Lady Margot kept her own face still at all times, which made her eyes, hectic and glittering, all the more unnerving.
What had happened? Why was her motherhere?
Charlotte jangled with the need to get Lady Margot alone and ask, but instead she smoothed the celestial blue satin overskirt of the morning dress she’d thrown on hastily when her mother arrived and said a prayer that her hair wouldn’t fall out of its pins.
“I wonder what’s taking so long with tea?” she ventured, when none of the others assembled in the Great Salon seemed inclined to speak.
“Yes, I wonder,” said Lady Margot. “The servants were better trained when I was mistress here.”
Her dig was aimed at the dowager, of course, but Lady Margot delivered it to the older of the two men who accompanied her.
Count Carl Frederick von Hohenstaufen, her mother’s debtor, was a tall man of middle age, with a thin frame except for a thickening around his midsection, who walked with his hands clasped behind his back and an exaggerated stoop, so that from the side he looked like ashepherd’s crook. Charlotte wondered if he’d developed the posture by peering down necklines, which he did immediately on presentation to each of the women in the room.
A born groper. Charlotte had to grip her hands together tightly so she wouldn’t gouge at his face, or hustle her mother out of the range of his long, pinching fingers. Damn it, why hadn’t she heard from Julian’s man of business yet?
The second man, sitting by Lady Margot, was a margrave, or “Markgraf Christian Ulrich, also of Hohenstaufen,” as he announced in his clipped accent, clearly expecting everyone to fall down in awe at his name. He outranked his uncle and carried himself with a sense of importance that said he knew it. There was something malign in his dull, flat gaze as he looked Charlotte up and down, as if her only value were in whether she could please him, and he sat with his legs spread wide open with the air of a man who owned the room or thought he should.
The margrave’s eyes lingered on her, and Charlotte squirmed.
Across the room, Wolfgang sprawled back in his armchair and frowned around the salon as he tried to make sense of the thickening atmosphere. When he felt Charlotte’s gaze on him, his eyebrows rose.
Which body do you want me to bury first?he mouthed, and Charlotte had to bite back a startled laugh.
“How did you find the drive down, Mother?” she tried again. “You’re in excellent looks, which I hope means you’ve had a pleasant journey?”
Lady Margot must have been greatly agitated to bring Hohenstaufen down to Clare, but as usual, there was no hint of her feelings in the way she was dressed. Her lustrous silk traveling gown fell in burgundy folds to the tips of her polished walking boots, and the light pelisse she wore over it came to a stark point below her bust andbelow her shoulder blades in the back, finished with darker burgundy tassels that swayed slightly with the rise and fall of each breath. As always, the result was immaculate and, frankly, daunting, as if she dressed to show others their flaws.
The count put his hand on Lady Margot’s shoulder and squeezed it, and the clock continued to tick.
Knots of dread tied themselves tighter inside Charlotte, and her stomach started to cramp.
“Mother,” she prompted, “how was the journey?”
Elizabeth, bless her, seized her courage and waded in. “Yes, we’ve had rain and I’ve been curious about the state of the—”
“The drive was as dull as ever, which is why I’m most grateful to the count and his nephew the margrave for providing me with company.” Lady Margot turned to the margrave. “My lord, as you can see, I haven’t exaggerated my daughter’s beauty or our family’s wealth. Her scandal was simply high spirits, and the queen, of course, supported her in the matter. Charlotte will make an excellent—”
“Mother!” cried Charlotte.
“There’s no need to sound alarmed. I’ve come up with a solution to please us all.” Lady Margot smiled. “Mother has brought you the perfect suitor, darling.”
After a summer of ghastly dinners, Wolfgang had already determined that the silver candlestick at the center of the table was the heaviest, but the one within arm’s reach was solid enough and more convenient if he had a sudden need for a weapon. Unfortunately, despite his many rich and detailed fantasies of bashing suitors about the head, violence wasn’t the answer.
