His problem wasn’t Darlington, Belozersky, or Vyse, and it certainly wasn’t the margrave, because if that man had any thoughts in his vegetal brain, they concerned only himself.
No, Wolfgang’s problem was Charlotte.
She wasn’t flirting tonight, or stirring up trouble, and she’d walked down the stairs into the Grand Salon with none of the usual sauce in her step. Even more alarming was her ensemble, an ivory silk gown with a boat neck, her hair tamed into a twist, and a single strand of pearls. She looked—Christ, how could he bear it?—modest and appropriate.
Charlotte in Defeat. Wolfgang sawed at his beef to stop himself from stabbing someone.
The other guests seemed just as flattened as Charlotte. There was no laughter at the table, or chatter, or even much noise beyond the clink of silver against porcelain. Lysander chucked a lone, mournful pea at Georgiana when Lady Skeffington wasn’t looking, but the older Marby girls stared at their plates. Only Lady Margot flourished, seated at a place of honor on Wolfgang’s left, her dark hair gleaming like jet in the candlelight.
She turned to the margrave. “Tell us, my lord, what is your ideal woman?”
The margrave was mid-chew and the table had to wait for him to swallow.
“My ideal wife? She should be beautiful, of course. She should know how to run a house and make the servants fear her. If she learns German, it is good? I do not concern myself much more.” He shrugged. “By the way, the beef is excellent.”
“Yes, quite right.” Lady Margot raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “She keeps to her sphere and you keep to yours. That’s how you make amarriageexcellent.”
“Yet it’s most unusual, my lord,” Miss Marby ventured, “that you’d care to offer for a woman you’ve never met?”
Lady Margot didn’t seem to like Miss Marby’s question, or explanations at all really, but she relented enough to say, “The grand duke has expressed a wish for stronger ties to England and the margrave is eager to oblige him. Charlotte is to have a political marriage, which would suit her talents, don’t you agree? I showed the margrave her miniature and it was done.”
“Like Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves?” said the dowager. “Auspicious, indeed!”
“I don’t understand. It doesn’t sound a bit auspicious,” Georgiana said to her mother.
Lady Skeffington’s titter winged high above the table, like a trapped bird. “Dear! We’ve allowed you to dine with the grown-ups, but let’s leave the talk to the grown-ups, shall we?”
“What’s the point of dining with them, then?” muttered Georgiana into her lemonade.
The exchange raised the faintest smile on Charlotte’s lips but it faded so quickly that Wolfgang wanted to pull the runner from the table, bring the plates and crystal glasses crashing to the floor.
Damn it, what was going on? She wouldn’t think ofmarryingthat man, would she? Surely she wouldn’t consider marryinganyof the suitors who’d come down this summer, and to hell with Her Majesty and the whole royal family. After all, the queen’s edict meant ostracism, notdeath.
Low, sonorous alarm bells began to sound inside Wolfgang’s chest as he reviewed the facts he knew.
A mother’s debt.
A rich suitor.
A daughter who felt love like a chain.
It was beginning to make a sick sort of sense, but damn it, not forCharlotte.
“I don’t believe in ideal women,” he announced to the table. “I wouldn’t want one—I’d be bored to tears. I prefer a scoundrel, someone impatient, poorly behaved, occasionally petulant—”
“She sounds a treasure,” said Lady Margot.
“Someone original and lightning quick who thwarts me at all turns. Someone strong enough to vanquish her enemies and write her own fate. Though, of course”—his voice darkened to a threat—“I’d grind the bones of anyone who stood in her way.”
The dowager’s blue eyes sparked and Miss Marby crossed her knife and fork neatly on her plate, no longer even pretending to eat.
“A woman with so many ideas that they leak out into sketchbooks,” he continued, “great piles of them, so that every day I fish a new one from between the pillows of the drawing room settees.”
A grin crept across Miss Alexandra’s face. “It’s true,” she whispered to Miss Helena. “I can’t tell you how many I’ve sat on.”
But Wolfgang barely heard her, too focused on Charlotte’s bowed head. “A woman who challenges and confounds me, and who dresses so memorably that I find myself naming each of her ensembles in my head. A rule-breaker, one who delights in setting society’s dictums on fire. Someone full of conviction, but who’s careful to hide what she holds dearest. I might underestimate a woman like that, at first. I’d have a hard time seeing past the enormous brims of her hats, or my own maddening reaction to her. But I’d wake up eventually, and when I did…”
Wolfgang drew a breath, because the last part was the hardest.
