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“Who is it?” Jeffrey called. He stuffed his trousers back together and gripped Charlotte’s gown, returning it to her.
“It’s Louisa! I’m looking for Charlotte.”
“Darling, I’ll be right out!” Charlotte called.
“Oh. Okay.” Louisa mustered a light giggle, then. “It’s only that it’s nearly time for dinner. I don’t want you to miss it. You seemed on the verge of fainting. I know how you get when you haven’t eaten.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes playfully towards Jeffrey. He guffawed as he assisted her with her gown.
“I’ll be right down, okay?” Charlotte said to the thick door.
“Of course.” After another pause, Louisa said—her words slurred drunkenly, “I suppose you were always right about that stupid mystic.”
Charlotte grinned wider. “Don’t be silly.”
“But I was the silly one. I dragged you out there. I hadn’t a clue that she was a murderer. But it stands to reason that she was up to no good. Besides, she really only ever told me what she probably tells every other single woman who wants to marry. I’m sure it’s also what she told you, right? That you would soon marry? Have children?”
Jeffrey pulled together the last of the gown buttons and patted them tenderly, proof that she was now completely dressed. Charlotte pressed her hands at her curls, hoping they remained at least partially upright.
“Yes, Louisa,” she said, lying. “That’s precisely what she told me as well.”
“I knew it. It’s all drivel. Although—” Louisa paused once more, contemplating. “Although it seems you did meet Jeffrey only moments later …”
Charlotte arched her brow. She then shot towards the door, tugged it open, and delivered a funny smile to her dearest friend.
“Are you suggesting that the mystic really did know what she was doing?” she asked.
Louisa shrugged. Her cheeks glowed pink from too much drink. “I don’t want to say that it’s a certain thing. Only that, here you are with Jeffrey. And here I am with …”
“It’s back on, isn’t it?” Charlotte breathed.
Just then, Zachary stepped out of the shadows. He delivered a half-wave, then gestured towards the bedroom in which Charlotte and Jeffrey now stood.
Ah! So Louisa hadn’t been there to tell her about dinner.
She’d come to have her own little session.
Louisa’s eyes sparkled mischievously.
“Dinner, then?” Charlotte said teasingly.
“I’ll meet you there,” Louisa affirmed. She then spun around, gripped Zachary’s hand, and pulled him into the belly of the eggshell blue bedroom.
Charlotte and Jeffrey stood in the shadow of the hallway, blinking at one another. Charlotte burst into laughter first; Jeffrey followed.
“Did Louisa just steal the guest bedroom from us?” he asked.
“I believe that’s exactly what she did,” Charlotte said.
“A master,” he said. “I’ve never seen a woman conduct business in that way.”
“You would have thought she might have fallen into another of the bedrooms …”
“But she wanted ours, and she took what she wanted,” Jeffrey said.
He wrapped his arm around Charlotte, and together, they walked, chuckling, back towards the dinner party. Charlotte felt a great deal of inner peace as she sat beside him, sipping her wine, half-listening to the stories the other guests told one another. Occasionally, Jeffrey’s hand found her thigh, an assertion that he remained beside her and would care for her, regardless of what happened next.
He always would.
