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Charlotte’s brow dropped. This was not the Lord Linfield she remembered. He’d always been kind and polite, but he’d never paid her much mind in the least. On the contrary, he’d always been single-minded. Charlotte had spent far more time with his late wife than with him, and he’d always monopolized her late husband’s time with talk of Parliament and war with the colonies.
This wide grin was wholly new.
“I find myself suddenly desiring some lemonade,” Charlotte said.
Lord Linfield lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a quick kiss there. “Allow me to procure some for you this very minute.” He strode off with a purposeful gait.
Charlotte turned her back on him. If only she could wipe her hand over her skirt to remove the feel of his lips there... but she couldn’t very well do as much where anyone might see her.
As she turned, her eyes alighted on the very person she most hoped to see.
Seth.
With a genuine smile, Charlotte made her way toward him. He was standing barely inside the doors, clearly having just arrived. Though he could not have been there for more than a moment, Lord Campbell was by his side. As she neared, Charlotte heard bits of their conversation.
“Quite the night for a ball, say what,” Lord Campbell’s loud voice carried easily.
Charlotte missed Seth’s response.
“And all the ladies. What finery, wouldn’t you say?” Lord Campbell continued with a chuckle.
Charlotte reached the men. “You and I may call it fine,” she said to Lord Campbell. “But I have it on good authority that Sir Mulgrave despises new dresses and would far rather we all wear the same thing one week to the next.”
It was doing the thing a bit brown. But her relief at finally seeing him had put her in the mood to tease.
“Nonsense,” Seth muttered almost too softly for them to hear.
Charlotte laughed lightly. “Is that so? Because your daughters have told me a very different story.”
Seth met her gaze, and she saw a flash in them the moment he decided to argue back. “Tell us, Lord Campbell, what do you think?” Seth turned toward the other man. “Do you, as a man of sense and good judgment, not think that a new dress each week is a bit excessive?”
Lord Campbell nodded, his chest puffing out slightly. “Sense does seem to agree that it is a bit much.”
Charlotte jumped in, “I think it’s disgraceful to expect that we do otherwise. What a bore it would be if we were forever wearing dresses we’d all seen one another in just last week.”
“True. True.” Lord Campbell’s head bobbed up and down.
“Think of the money one could save,” Seth hurried to add. “One could host an extra ball a year with all the blunt saved on dresses.”
Lord Campbell was clearly torn; he was always such an agreeable man. Being stuck between herself and Seth was obviously not easy or comfortable. “Another ball is always nice.”
“It’s nice because of all the fine dresses,” Charlotte said.
Lord Campbell’s face had gone quite stiff. All except for his wide eyes. They bounced between her and Seth with each new argument.
“It would be even nicer if not every gentleman in the room was feeling the pinch in his wallet from all those fine dresses.”
“Pardon me?” Lord Linfield walked up, two cups of lemonade in hand. “What fine dresses are we speaking of?”
“All of them,” Charlotte said, whirling about and taking a cup from him. “And now, I say you and I leave Sir Mulgrave here, where he might admire all the pinching of wallets from a safe distance.”
It wasn’t as though she actually wanted to leave Seth’s company, but who could resist a dramatic exit now and then?
Besides, it helped to sell the idea that she hadn’t set her cap at one very handsome knighted gentleman.
But she could feel Seth’s gaze on her as she walked away with Lord Linfield—and she would have been lying if she’d told herself she didn’t rather like it.
* * *
