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Charlotte considered mentioning their previous meeting in town. She also considered mentioning the fact that it wasn’t necessarily customary nor appropriate for a man such as him to approach two ladies and introduce himself.
As the words brewed across her tongue, she glanced towards Louisa. Her eyes glowed, as though the origin of love itself had grown out of her heart to illuminate her eyes.
“And good evening to you,” Louisa offered, her voice in a kind of sing-song. She curtsied and blinked wide eyes towards him. Charlotte had seen her best friend flirt many times—it was the necessary evil of being someone’s best friend. This, somehow, seemed different.
Charlotte supposed it was all tied up in the fact that she couldn’t fully trust this man.
“My name is Louisa Major,” Louisa said. “And this is my friend. Charlotte.”
The man’s eyes grew dark with intrigue. He bowed slightly towards each of them and said, his eyes directed towards Charlotte’s, “I’m Jeffrey Lilley.”
“Jeffrey. Marvellous to meet you,” Louisa said, as though the name alone sizzled with enough vitality to keep her alive the rest of her days.
“You as well,” Jeffrey returned. He puffed his chest out a bit, reminding Charlotte of mating birds along the waterway. “Have you had a swell evening thus far?”
“Quite,” Charlotte returned, no longer able to hold herself back. “Yet it strikes me as funny to find you here.”
Jeffrey arched a thick eyebrow, seemingly incredulous. “I’m sorry. Am I not welcome at this estate?”
Charlotte lent him a half-smile. “You’re quite welcome, as far as I’m concerned. That is, I haven’t yet been hired as a guard.”
“Would you be far pickier in who you allowed within these walls?” he asked.
“Perhaps. Perhaps I wouldn’t allow men who, it seems to me, were following young girls like myself. Yesterday. In town,” Charlotte affirmed.
Jeffrey gave no indication that he knew to what she referred. “I’m sorry?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. There was nothing she detested more than men like this—arrogant men who wanted to have their way in the conversation.
“Yesterday. New to the fabric shop,” she said. “I turned around to find a man staring at me.”
“Sounds like a rather traditional day,” Jeffrey returned. “People walk through town, watching other people. It’s sort of the nature of community, isn’t it?”
Charlotte huffed. “You can side-step this issue if you like, Jeffrey Lilley, but I know it was you who stared back.”
Jeffrey tilted his head. “Incredible that it’s I who am blamed for the staring; as it seems, for there to be any sort of incident such as you describe, there must be two parties. The woman who turned to stare, and the man who already looked.”
“Thus, you admit that you were the very man,” Charlotte said.
Jeffrey’s lips curved into the slightest, almost cruellest smile. “I suppose so. Although I saw several women in the village yesterday. I can’t be sure that you were one of them.”
“Do we all really look so alike?” she asked.
“Long, glossy curls. Beautiful gowns. I don’t know. I suppose I see a lot of similarities,” he said.
“I cannot decide if your words are based in practicality or cruelty,” Charlotte said.
“Then allow me to say—once and for all—yes. I saw you. At least, I believe it was you. I watched as a young woman rushed towards the now-emptied building a few blocks from this fabric store. The girl I saw do this panicked flail against the door looked at the end of her rope. I couldn’t imagine what on earth a girl such as that could have wanted with the space—especially given the fact that, until recently, a mystic had taken up residence there.” He gave a light shrug. His dark eyes seemed to bore into hers.
Beside her, Louisa nearly jumped from her skin. “What’s that?” she said. “You returned to the mystic’s house?”
Charlotte cast her a dark look—one meant to describe just how much she needed Louisa to stay out of this strange business.
“Perhaps that was me,” Charlotte affirmed. “What of it? What does it matter?”
“Just curiosity, I suppose,” Jeffrey said. “I wondered why a girl such as that would need such an important meeting with a mystic.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t so important.”
