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Benjamin was by the door, clumsily guiding a partner of his own almost in time with the music. She was a yellow-haired, lithe thing, thisMiss Hally something-or-other, not quite beautiful but palatable. He must have said something charming, for she indecorously flicked her head back with a laugh. So consumed was Charlotte by her spying that she stepped on the tip of Gamston’s two-toned shoe.
“Drat!” she exclaimed before her cheeks flashed red. “I mean to say, whoops!”
“I’ve never known you a lady, Charlotte. I’ll forgive you the odd curse.”
Never known me a lady?And what exactly did he know her as? A painted pig?
“You seem quite taken with the young poet.”
Charlotte pinched his shoulder absent-mindedly. “What was that you said, Your Grace?”
“Call me Arthur, would you?” He grinned and shook out his foot. “You make me feel as though I should be living in a crypt.”
Charlotte breathed a laugh. “It hadn’t occurred to me you had a name.”
“What did you think my mother called me?”
“The Duke.” She beamed. “First name,The Duke. Last name,Gamston.”
She wreathed around him as per their next move. “And I suppose that would make my middle nameOf.”
“Or John, or Daisy, or anything of your choosing.” Funny that the cad should have some humor about him. “I wouldn’t say taken, exactly, as to your question, tormented bywould be more fitting.”
“When is love not torment?” He drew her in a little closer, and she let him. It didn’t feel quite as awkward as their acquaintance had become to be dancing with him. She was almost a six-year-old girl again in his hold, dancing on his feet at Christmastide. An effect of the wine. “There is none of that in his eyes.”
“Love... or torment?”
The Duke arched a knowing brow. “Does he treat you kindly?”
Charlotte laughed, for of all the things Benjamin Fletcher was—rather,Huxleywas—kind was not one of them. She paused. Then again, perhaps that was an unfair judgment.
She looked over at Benjamin once more. He was still gliding by the door, still dazzling his partner, still impossibly handsome, and funny, and well... yes, kind. He was kind to those awful men who took up tenancy in his home. He was kind to her in the way he had not outed her, in the way he went along willingly with her mad plan.
“He does,” she answered at last. “Treat me kindly, that is. Though I dare say, it isn’t his kindness that intrigues me.”
“His artistic spirit?” The Duke’s voice was low and soothing. There was no desire in it; God be thanked, no judgment either. “His ruggedness?”
She drew back, smiling. “Are men quite allowed to say things of that nature?”
“Well, if the ladies of the ton are not to say it, who shall? Tell me then what it is in him that intrigues you. What does it take to capture the heart of Lady Charlotte Fitzroy?”
“What does it take to capture yours, Arthur?” She realized at once what trouble she could have been inviting. His heart was hardly her concern, nor did she want it to be. “I did not mean to say—“
“No need to censure yourself on my account, Lady Charlotte. You’d be doing yourself a disservice.” He nodded as she quieted. “The Duchess was not kind, for one.” He hesitated, and their dance slowed with the music. “Light—that is what would enthrall me.”
Charlotte had not known the Duchess very long at all—two years at most before she had passed. It was hardly enough time to form memory. Her legacy, on the other hand, an echo of her reputation, she knew well. There was aught light about her if the stories were true.
“The Duchess was your light.”
There was a great silence then, and Charlotte worried she had crossed some sort of line. It dissipated as the Duke smiled sadly and said, “Not the Duchess, no,” before the music picked up again.
And there it was—that same sinking feeling of things not being right in the world. For if the Duchess of Gamston had not been the Duke’s light, who had? Or should it have been,whowas? Before she could think to dissuade him, they were spinning with the other couples again. She found herself dancing in the center of the room. There, she spotted Benjamin. They practically brushed elbows as he sauntered and flounced and did all the other things that were clearly outside his nature. He shot her a cautious yet amused look before averting his eyes. She hoped it was the Duke who had inspired such coy behavior and not her.
“Love, torment, light or darkness,” she heard Arthur begin, “Keep your wits about you, Lady Charlotte. Men are the most natural mummers.”
Sagging into the armchair before she could remember herself, Charlotte watched as the floor was cleared. Her feet hurt for her dancing, and the throbbing in her head had hardly subsided for the Duke’s confession. There was too much laughing in the hall, too much perfume on the air, and, quite frankly, too little of Benjamin by her side. He was still off with his dancing partner and her chaperone, still twinkling, though she supposed his shine was a thing only she noticed—or should one have saidhis light?
She turned to her father, who occupied the seat to her left—her poor, mercurial father. He was nodding in time with phantom music, the next piece having yet to sound. His soul seemed to wax and wane with the moon. There was little of her father to speak of that eve, a mere crescent, a sliver. She hoped whatever part of him had drifted away was safe with her mother.
