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“The dinner parties aren’t my doing,” Charlotte told her. “His dear friend Peter wants him to settle so desperately, that he seats him beside the nearest single woman …”
“I’m just as single as you are, and Peter hasn’t bothered to seat me with Jeffrey,” Louisa affirmed, almost accusatorially. “I just think you’re belittling your association with him, just the tiniest bit. That’s all.”
As Charlotte shook her head, her eyes caught sight of a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man towards the far end of the ballroom. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight of him. There he stood: Jeffrey, in all his glory, his eyes hunting for her and her alone.
“Your face just changed so much; I knew you’d seen him,” Louisa said with a laugh.
Charlotte pressed her lips together as he turned towards her, approaching with that classic saunter of his.
“We’re just friends, Louisa. I look just the same when I spot you,” she told her.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Louisa said, her voice simmering with sarcasm.
“Good evening.” Jeffrey appeared before them both. He seemed to ensure to make eye contact with Louisa first—perhaps as a means of politeness, or just because he felt that he had to force it. His eyes seemed only truly interested in Charlotte’s.
“Good evening to you,” Charlotte said. Her voice seemed to jump an octave, proof of her nerves. “I thought you’d said that you wouldn’t be in attendance this evening.”
Louisa’s eyebrows rocketed up her forehead. “Is that so?”
“I felt it necessary to remain at home tonight, yes. Until I actually fell into the act of it,” Jeffrey said. “There I sat with a book before me, ready to enjoy every aching minute of my lonely existence. And then I remembered—”
“That there’s a whole world out here waiting for you?” Louisa asked.
“Something like that,” Jeffrey said. His smile widened playfully. “I suppose you think that silly, Louisa.”
“A bit. Although I’ve never been a literary sort. I enjoy days inside—once every six months or so. Otherwise, give me the world. I want all of it,” she said.
“Based on the depths of your intelligence, I have to guess that you’re being overly humble,” Jeffrey said softly.
They studied one another for a long moment. Charlotte’s throat tightened still more. When she glanced to her right, she spotted Louisa, who gave her a knowing look. Obviously, all her talk about not caring so much for Jeffrey had just flown out the window.
She couldn’t avoid her feelings.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to get some fresh air with me,” Jeffrey said, his voice still far beneath the simmering conversation around them.
Charlotte could only just make out what he’d said.
“Okay,” she breathed.
His hand wrapped around hers; the touch felt akin to lightning across her skin. He turned swiftly and led her out towards the garden, where the moon again hung low, its colouring orange, its mood sinister. They reached the outer edge of a rose garden and slid between the gates, which creaked softly, the sounds joining the sweeping winds that shot out from the moors.
Here, they were out of sight. They were alone. They might as well have been a thousand miles from anyone they’d ever known.
Suffice it to say: Charlotte’s heart nearly burst into pieces.
After a long, strange pause, Charlotte forced herself to speak.
“Have you discovered anything else?” she asked. Her words seemed clumsy, inarticulate. “I mean, with regards to Brooks and his potential affair?”
Jeffrey gave her a sad shake of his head. “I’m afraid that regardless of who I discuss it with, it seems that I continue to run up against dead end after dead end. I don’t wish to give up. It isn’t in my nature to. It’s only that, whoever has this information is quite cagey about it.”
“I see.”
From the ballroom, there was another sound of breaking glass. A man hollered out, “Be careful, Marvin!” Another woman cackled.
The sounds seemed as though they belonged to an entirely different world.
“I feel disheartened by our dead end,” Charlotte whispered.
