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“You aren’t making any sense.”
“Is that so? I feel quite as though I am the only one speaking English.”
“What?”
“What?” Charlotte grinned. “I’m toying with you, Ellie.”
Her sister slapped her knee before retreating. “Well, stop it—and don’t call me that. You sound far too much like mother when you call me that.”
“She would never allow you to marry a baron.” Charlotte felt suddenly quite sobered for the mention of their mother. “Then again, she didn’t allow much, did she?” She glanced around the room, trying to spy her mother in the details. Their entire London home was colored by the late Duchess’ ever-changing moods. One room in green, another periwinkle blue. Carpets torn up, parquets polished, more carpets laid down. A house smothered by constant dissatisfaction.
“What does it matter that Rafael is a baron when you are being courted by a poet with no prospects?”
Charlotte started. She was fairly certain the question had come from Eleanor, though it was altogether quite too sour a statement from her darling little sister. It sounded a little too much like a young lady’s rebellion. “I’d not meant to rile you up.”
Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, you have. You cannot say things without meaning them, Charlotte. It isn’t fair.” She shook her head. “People aren’t toys.”
“There you are,” came a cry from beside them as Benjamin and Pollock made their return with glasses of punch—and lemon water for Charlotte. The prickling was exacerbated for Benjamin’s presence, who, she had to admit, looked terribly dashing in black. If not for the scar, he could have passed for a gentleman. If not for the wicked glint in his eye, too.
She supposed she had been quite wicked, what with their fondling beneath the table at dinner. A lapse in her otherwise sparkling judgment—or not. She pried the glass from him. Pollock pulled up a stool beside Eleanor and trapped her in conversation. Her sister lit up at once, and Charlotte had to swallow down her envy.
“Am I missing something?” Benjamin drawled beside her. “Has there been a disagreement of some sort?”
She craned her neck to look up at him, pressing the cool glass to her forehead. “Oh, you know how sisters get.” She paused. “No, you wouldn’t know, would you?” She waved the topic away. “I believe I negotiated a waltz with Matthew... though I cannot remember the fact with any clarity.”
“Your fourth tippling. I remember it well.” He smiled. “Miss Hally something-or-other asked whether I would dance with her first. Well, what I mean to say is her aunt did. Ghastly woman.” He sipped from his wine.
“And what did you say?”
“I said yes.” His lips were colored red.
Charlotte gaped. Undoubtedly, Benjamin was not privy to the inner working of ton etiquette, but should he not have wanted to open the dancing with Charlotte regardless? She said as much. “You didn’t think to ask me?”
“Should I have?”
“Well,” she stammered, “Yes! The first and last dances of the evening are the most important. They have just cleared the second drawing room and are about to open the doors.” Benjamin looked away, suddenly quite sheepish. “Don’t tell me you signed away the final dance as well?”
“Her name was Augusta.”
Charlotte groaned. “Well, who am I to dance with now?”
As if on cue, her father joined the fray with the forever bug-eyed Duke of Gamston. She swiped her fan from her reticule and opened it wide before her face.
“Did someone mention dancing?” Gamston queried, tapping his cane against the painted floor.
“No,” Charlotte and Benjamin growled in unison before sharing a laugh.
“The year was 1788 when first I danced with your mother,” her father said. He stroked his whiskers. “Right there, in that spot.” He pointed to the mantle.
“I thought you said the two of you met in a castle of the Loire Valley.” It was Matthew, having reared up behind them with a glass of Claret. “Unless England is France, and we the French.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Charlotte mused, then quickly hid back behind her fan. She glanced up at Benjamin and mouthed, “Thank you ever so much.”
He merely shrugged.
It was thus that she found herself trapped in a waltz with the one man she abhorred above any other.Abhorwas perhaps too strong a word, though how else was one to qualify a feeling ofwanting to vomit whenever he was near?The Duke’s large, knobbly hand rested against the small of her back, pressing indelicately into her spine over the pleats in her gown. The music sounded, a forgettable quartet of brothers Matthew had picked up at Covent Garden, and they were off.
For all the Duke lacked in tolerability, he certainly made up for in grace. He twirled Charlotte around the floor as though the two of them were without weight or matter. She stifled a smile—heaven forfend he think she was actually enjoying their dance, even if she was, a little bit—and swept a glance across the drawing room.
