The Earl, both breathless and angry, did not make the entrance he had no doubt intended to make. For a start, his cravat had started to loosen a little at the neck—quite possibly from Sebastian having tugged at it while he waited—and his hair was similarly rumpled.
“Sit, Lowood,” Aaron commanded, sliding the bottle of port and a glass across the desk. “You look detestably warm.”
“Release my cousin from this engagement,” Lowood said, not touching the port. Aaron took a moment to look the Earl up and down. They were similar ages, but while the Earl had only obtained his Earldom within the past year, Aaron had been the Duke as long as he could remember.
“A tip,” he said, seeing Lowood had no intention of letting the subject rest. “When you are emotionally invested, it doesn’t pay for the other party to know.”
Lowood scowled. “She has no desire to be married to you.”
“Have you asked her?” When the silence confirmed Aaron’s suspicions, he smiled. “My dear fellow, you can’t hold her back just because you have no wish for her to marry me.”
“She was as shocked as I was to hear of this engagement,” Lowood said, his teeth gritted. There was a distinct similarity between him and Lady Marcella, who’d made such a futile attempt to prevent him from speaking to Charlotte. So, the cousins didn’t want her to marry him. Intriguing, and unfortunate for her, but it made no difference to him.
“It came as a shock to us all.” Aaron sipped his drink and set the glass down. “But let me be plain, Lowood. You have come here insisting the impossible: that I release a lady from an honorable engagement. Surely, you must understand, I would not do such a thing at your request.”
Lowood clenched his fists. “I am her legal guardian.”
“And I am the Duke of Hexham.” Aaron raised a lip as he looked at the other man. “Does she have a prior attachment or engagement I should be informed of? Because I can assure you, I’ve spoken to her extensively on the subject. If she’s lied to me, I should like to know.”
Lowood spluttered as Aaron knew he would. There was no prior attachment, but Lowood wanted there to be. No wonder, she had the tentative, half-unfurled beauty of an opening flower, oblivious to her potency. She was a woman Lowood thought he could control, marry, and adore, who would be satisfied with his blathering words and modest life.
But the temper Charlotte had, on occasion, shown Aaron told him, she was not a woman who would merely settle. And the taste of her—
He wrenched his thoughts to the man sitting before him. “As I conclude she didn’t lie, and she isn’t promised to another, I can see there being no reason for us to continue,” he said, noting with grim triumph the way Lowood’s face reddened. “I have no intention of relinquishing Lady Charlotte, and ifsheshould wish to be freed from this engagement, I must insist she speaks to me directly.”
Something, he was certain, Lowood could not induce her to do. She may not want to be married to him, but she wanted to be courted by her cousin even less.
“Good day,” Aaron said, turning his attention to his ledgers and ringing for the butler. When the butler arrived, he nodded to Lowood. “We’ve finished here. Please be so good as to see the Earl out.”
“We have not finished,” Lowood said with an attempt at grandeur.
“I think you’ll find we have. Do not act rashly, dear fellow, or you might damage your reputation as well as your cousin’s.” Aaron smiled. “You can be certain my reputation will not suffer.”
With a curse, Lowood rose, and Aaron watched him go, the smile fading from his face. When eventually the engagement did end, he hoped for Charlotte’s sake that she found a kind enough man that wouldn’t treat her with such possessive irreverence.
ChapterSeven
Before leaving to meet Charlotte as agreed, Aaron went in search of his aunt Octavia.
“There you are,” he said on finding her in the parlor. “I have a request for you.”
She put the vase she’d been carrying on the table. “As long as it isn’t too demanding. I have my own commitments, you know.”
“This concerns both a ball and your dear friend, the Dowager Countess of Lowood. I have a wish to celebrate my newfound engagement with a ball, and I must ask that you arrange it with the Countess.”
“Isn’t it customary for the bride’s family to arrange such things?”
“It is, but considering their dire financial straits, I couldn’t ask it of them.” He stopped short of admitting he had, for one ill-thought moment, asked just that of Charlotte. “I would also hasten to add that the Earl of Lowood is in no way favorable to the match.”
“I believe he had thoughts of marrying her himself.”
“A poor match as it would have been, but that’s none of my concern.” He glanced around the parlor. “Why the flowers, Aunt?”
“Did you not think they are particularly pretty?”
“They are pretty enough, but I would have thought them better suited to remain in the hothouse.”
“But they will bring us such joy here,” she mused, staring at the flowers and already lost to him.
