Technically, like Robert’s late mother, Penelope ought to be on the list of those who were No Longer Received, but the dowager duchess considered Penelope her own personal project (or, as the dowager put it, ‘Reminds me of me at that age! Good stuff in that gel!’). A twist of the arm – or, more accurately, a well-placed thump of the cane – had elicited a marriage proposal from Lord Freddy Staines; the promise of a title, even if only a courtesy one, had placated Penelope’s mother; and the dowager’s influence had ensured that the newlyweds would have a comfortable posting in India, where they would make their home until the worst of the gossip rumbled down.
Robert’s friend, Lieutenant Fluellen, had also offered for Penelope, more than once. Penelope remained firm in her refusal. It would be, she said, a nasty trick to drag an innocent bystander down with her just because he was fool enough to fancy himself in love. Penelope had always had her own sort of honour.
Meanwhile, Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder, if Lieutenant Fluellen were back in London, proposing to Penelope every alternate morning and twice on Tuesdays, where was Robert?
Lieutenant Fluellen wasn’t the only one to appear in London. Not only was Lord Freddy Staines back in town, preparing for his imminent nuptials to Penelope, but Martin Frobisher had been seen making improper proposals at an Assembly on Tuesday, and Lord Henry Innes was right in the next room, crammed into knee breeches, in attendance on the king. London, it seemed, was a very popular place at the moment. Except for the Duke of Dovedale.
He wouldn’t have gone back to India, would he? Not without telling her, at least. A transcontinental voyage would, she would think, require a bit more than a two-word ‘forgive me.’
With an effort, Charlotte dragged her attention back to Lady Uppington. Fortunately, Lady Uppington was just as happy speaking to herself as to anyone else, and was politely taking Charlotte’s glazed stare as a sign of interest rather than abstraction as she reminisced about her own short spell at Court.
‘Of course, the queen was much younger then,’ she was saying. ‘But then, weren’t we all? Ah, but these hoops bring me right back,’ she said, patting the protrusions at her sides.
‘I rather like them,’ Charlotte admitted, swaying a little to make her skirt swish. The sweep of her train against the carpet made a most fascinating sound. Skimpy, faux-Grecian dresses might be all the rage in the streets of London, but to gain entrée into St James, the old-fashioned hooped skirts of the previous century were de rigueur. The full-skirted style suited Charlotte far better than the fashions currently in vogue. Long columns of cloth weren’t terribly flattering unless one were a long column oneself, which Charlotte decidedly wasn’t.
She just wished Robert were there to witness the effect.
‘And the men look awfully dashing with their swords, don’t they?’ said Lady Uppington wickedly. ‘There’s nothing like a long blade to lend countenance to a man.’
Henrietta would have been rolling her eyes by now, as she always did when her mother made outrageous statements. Blushing, Charlotte said, ‘They do look quite dashing.’
‘Speaking of dashing,’ said Lady Uppington, her green eyes twinkling like a girl’s. ‘I just had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your mysterious cousin.’
‘My … cousin?’ Charlotte’s heart began hammering against her stays.
Lady Uppington looked downright mischievous for a woman of fifty-odd. ‘Tall man, blond hair, ducal bearing? I believe you might be acquainted with him,’ she said so blandly that Charlotte knew, just knew, that Henrietta had been telling tales.
But all that was immaterial next to the crucial point. ‘You mean Robert? Er, the Duke of Dovedale? He’s here?’
Lady Uppington was enjoying herself hugely. ‘Very much here, all present and accounted for, sword and all. I am pleased to say that he wears his sword with panache. But not too much panache,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘That would be common.’
‘Did you – did he ask about me?’ Charlotte was craning her neck wildly, knowing that she was behaving appallingly, but not caring in the least.
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself? The last time I saw him, he was’ – squinting, Lady Uppington peered about the crowd, gave a little nod of satisfaction, and levelled her fan like a cavalry captain signalling a charge – ‘right through there.’
It was hard to see in the mad crush, with so many wide skirts and plum-coloured coats shifting like the pattern in a kaleidoscope, but with the fortuitousness of the sun breaking through a cloud, the pattern shifted, the heavens parted, and there was Robert. Or, rather, Robert’s back, but Charlotte was quite sure she could recognise him at any angle. He looked ridiculously handsome in the plum-coloured coat and knee breeches that were required of men at court, with dark blond hair neatly brushed and gleaming with hidden glints of gold.
‘Charlotte?’
Charlotte jerked abruptly back to life as Lady Uppington nudged her in the ribs with her fan.
‘Yes?’
Lady Uppington gave her a maternal shove on the shoulders. ‘Go.’
Charlotte went.
Heedless of her hoops and train, Charlotte hurried across the room, skirts swishing. Pride had no place in true love. And it was true love, true with a capital T, truest of the true, truer than the truest … well, that was the general idea. Charlotte all but flew over a protruding train, dodging sword hilts with love-borne ease. He had come for her! He must have gone to Girdings and heard she’d come to Court and …
The man he was speaking to tapped him on the arm and indicated Charlotte, whose precipitous progress was eliciting more than one amused smile behind a fan. Charlotte caught the word ‘cousin,’ and then the man faded discreetly away, leaving Robert to his familial responsibilities.
As Robert turned, his sword turned with him like a compass’s needle – pointing away from her. Charlotte decided to ignore that bit. After all, not everything in life could be accounted an omen. Only the happy things.
‘Robert!’ Without pausing for breath, she held out both hands, skidding to a stop before him, flushed and happy. ‘I’m so happy you’ve come!’
Robert bowed, managing his sword with credible prowess. ‘Charlotte.’
Was it her imagination, or did he seem slightly less thrilled to see her than she was to see him? No matter; men were silly about things like public displays of affection. It was his first time at Court, after all, so maybe he was nervous about committing a breach of etiquette. Not that he would ever admit it. As Henrietta was fond of saying, men were about as likely to admit they were nervous as they were to stop and ask for directions, which was why one found so many hopelessly lost courtiers wandering around the tangled by-ways of the Palace after a levee, tripping over their own swords and desperate for a chamber pot.
Realising that she was babbling in her own mind, Charlotte promptly bottled it all up and turned all her enthusiasm on its proper source.
‘Did Grandmama tell you I would be here?’ she asked breathlessly, beaming all over her face. ‘I left a message for you at Girdings, but I wasn’t sure if you would see it, especially if your business kept you away longer than you expected.’
‘I haven’t been back to Girdings,’ he said shortly. ‘Not since—’
He broke off abruptly, looking as though he had just accidentally sat on the business end of his own sword.
‘Since Twelfth Night?’ Charlotte filled in for him, smiling at the memories that evoked. ‘Are you staying at Dovedale House?’
‘No,’ he said curtly, looking over his shoulder as he said it. ‘I thought it best to take bachelor quarters. So that I can pursue, er, my own pursuits.’
‘I … see,’ Charlotte said, even though she didn’t see at all, and Robert knew it. He always knew.
Robert laughed raggedly, as though the sound had been torn out of his very guts. ‘No, you don’t see, do you, Charlotte?’
‘Then tell me,’ she said simply.
For the first time, she noticed
that there were deep circles beneath his blue eyes, and that the hair that had been brushed so neatly into place framed a face stripped of all its usual vitality. There was a sallow tinge beneath his tan, and lines along the sides of his lips that hadn’t been there two weeks before. Charlotte racked her brain for where she had seen that look before. It had been, she realised, on second sons, just come down from Oxford or Cambridge, who had found themselves playing too deep in the pleasures of the capital.
Charlotte took a deep breath, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘Robert, if you’re in some sort of trouble, don’t keep it to yourself. Let me help you.’
‘Help me,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes.’ She could feel her high-piled hair weighing her back as she tipped back her head to see him better. ‘That’s what people who care about each other do. As I care for you,’ she finished, a little awkwardly.
Against the granite of Robert’s expression, the sentiment sounded mawkish and flimsy, like rhymes worked by a fifth-rate poet. It had sounded much better in her head.
‘I’m sure whatever it is, we can work through it together,’ she tried again.
Without saying a word, Robert took her arm and led her through the crush, towards a relatively untenanted window embrasure. It couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be called private, but it was as private as could be found in the crowded room. Charlotte’s broad skirts provided a flimsy barrier against the rest of the room.
Robert rested an elbow against the window embrasure, the lace on his wrists spilling in an expensive stream along the painted sill. In the unforgiving afternoon light, his face looked unutterably tired. ‘Charlotte, what happened at Girdings …’
Charlotte tilted her head eagerly up at him, already hearing the words she wanted to hear. Come live with me and be my love. She had been waiting for this moment for weeks. Her heart hammered unevenly against her corset. ‘Yes?’
Robert pressed his eyes shut. ‘It was a mistake.’
‘A what?’ Charlotte’s mind refused to process the word. Unless, of course, he meant that it was a mistake to have left so hastily, with which she absolutely agreed. They should, she thought dizzily, have never left the roof. They could have stayed up there and lowered down a rope for food, built a little bird’s nest among the statues, watched the garden start to bloom …
‘A mistake,’ he repeated. ‘A bit of Yuletide madness.’
‘Madness, maybe,’ said Charlotte, hating the pleading note she heard in her own voice, ‘but a very lovely sort of madness.’
Robert looked at her with regret. The expression she saw there chilled her to the bone.
‘Lovely,’ he said softly, ‘in its place. Remember what you said about enchantments, Charlotte? You were right. They can’t survive in the workaday world.’
Even now, the sound of her name on his lips sounded like a caress. Charlotte shook her head very hard, so hard her ears rang with it. ‘Not all of them, perhaps, but this one …’
‘Is over,’ he said with gentle finality.
It was the gentleness of it that ripped through Charlotte’s composure, piercing her straight to the very core.
She lifted her head, her ostrich plume standing high. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, with all the dignity she could muster. ‘You wouldn’t have’ – she twisted over her shoulder and lowered her voice to a whisper. There was no point in being ruined like Penelope – ‘kissed me if you hadn’t meant it. I know you, Robert.’
‘Do you?’ That had clearly been the wrong thing to say. Something dangerous flickered beneath the cerulean surface of his eyes, something dark and unpleasant, like a sea serpent stirring under otherwise placid waters. ‘Do you really, Charlotte?’
There was a barbed undertone to his silken voice that suggested that answering would be a very bad idea.
‘How long did we have together at Girdings? Ten days? Twelve?’
‘Fourteen,’ blurted out Charlotte, a little too quickly. She had counted over each one hundreds of times, thumbing through her memories like beads on a rosary.
‘Fourteen,’ acknowledged Robert. ‘A whole fortnight.’
Put that way, it did sound rather paltry.
‘A whole fortnight to see directly into someone else’s soul.’
‘Sometimes it doesn’t even take a fortnight,’ said Charlotte stubbornly. ‘Sometimes you just know. As I know you. Good heavens, Robert, I’ve known you since we were children!’
‘For all of, what, a month? Two months? Twelve years ago?’
‘Character doesn’t lie,’ Charlotte said doggedly. ‘You were so kind, so good to me—’
‘Who else was I supposed to talk to? Your grandmother? You were my only option.’
‘As I was this time?’ Charlotte demanded, making a face at him to underline the absurdity of it all. They had been surrounded by a house party full of people, for heaven’s sake. Admittedly, some of them, like Turnip Fitzhugh, weren’t exactly in the running for an England’s Best Conversationalist competition, but it wasn’t as though anyone had twisted his arm and forced him to seek her out at the breakfast table or sit with her in the library for hours every afternoon.
Robert, however, seemed to miss the humour in it.
He looked at her long and hard, his face as impassive as the guardsmen stationed by the doors. ‘Yes.’
Charlotte could only stare at him, in complete bewilderment. Who was this, and where had he hidden the real Robert?
Robert saved her the trouble of saying anything more. Bowing over her nerveless hand, he said smoothly, ‘Thank you, Lady Charlotte, for enlivening an exceedingly dull sojourn in the country. I don’t believe our paths need cross in town.’
Over Robert’s bowed head, Charlotte could see his friend Medmenham approaching. What was that Penelope had said, five hundred years ago? Something about the company Robert kept. Penelope had been right. Didn’t animals tend to run with their own kind? So, apparently, did rakes.
In a voice like dead leaves, Charlotte said tonelessly, ‘So I was simply your country entertainment. Like a mummers’ play.’
‘Only much prettier,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Ah, Medmenham. My cousin was just leaving.’
Medmenham lifted her fingers lingeringly to his lips. ‘Pity,’ he said.
As if from a very long way away, Charlotte could hear Penelope again, in the ballroom at Girdings. I heard your precious duke tell Sir Francis Medmenham that you weren’t the sort he’d be interested in dallying with … He left you, Lottie. By going off to carouse with Medmenham … going off to carouse with Medmenham … with Medmenham.
Charlotte could feel colour rising in her cheeks, not out of shame, but rage. Two could play at that game, couldn’t they? ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she said, and her voice had a shrill edge that hadn’t been there before. ‘Would you walk with me, Sir Francis?’
Medmenham waved a languid hand. ‘To the ends of the earth.’
‘I had in mind the end of the Presence Chamber.’ Charlotte smiled winningly at Medmenham, unshed tears making her eyes brilliant. There was nothing like heartbreak to lend colour to the complexion. ‘Will you excuse us, Cousin Robert?’
Even now, when she found she knew nothing about him at all, she knew enough to tell that her erstwhile betrayer was decidedly not happy. Displeasure exuded from the sudden stiffness of his shoulders, the belligerent angle of his jaw. Short of making a scene, however, there was nothing at all he could do.
‘All right,’ he said smoothly, ‘but just this once.’
There was something in his tone that said that he meant it.
Charlotte took Medmenham’s arm, holding her head so high, it hurt. So he didn’t want her monopolising his friends, did he? Well, too bad for him. He wasn’t the only one who might find her ‘entertaining.’ Charlotte’s heart clenched painfully at the memory. At least Medmenham was an honest rogue. He had never pretended to be a knight in shining armour. Charlotte blinked back angry tears.
‘Do forgive me,
Sir Francis,’ she said thickly. ‘A spot of dust in my eye.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Sir Francis. ‘The Court is confounded … dusty.’
‘But peaceful,’ said Charlotte. It was peaceful, usually. Too peaceful. She thought of the king’s daughters, kept at Court in perpetual monastic confinement, and had to suppress a shiver.
‘As the tomb,’ agreed Sir Francis. ‘And you know what the poets say about that.’
‘One poet, at least,’ said Charlotte. ‘But not one, I think, of whom Their Majesties would approve.’
‘Do you base all your actions on the approval of Their Majesties?’
‘When I am under their roof, it seems the least I can do.’
‘Roof’ had been the wrong word to choose. In the back of Charlotte’s head, drooping nymphs crooned an elegy about the illusions of love. That night on the roof, she had been so very happy, so very sure that Robert had meant everything he said. It wasn’t even so much what he said, since, in retrospect, he hadn’t said so very much, but the way he had looked as he had said it, tenderness written in every line of his open, honest face.
So much for that.
All this while, she had thought she was living out Evelina, where the heroine’s virtue and charm won the admiration and love of the honourable Lord Orville. Instead, she seemed to have dropped into Clarissa, seduced by the rake Lovelace for his own amusement. She had always thought herself able to tell the one from the other. And Robert had always seemed so honourable, so truthful – so kind.
If she let herself start believing Robert didn’t mean what he had said just now, she would go mad. Like Ophelia. There was a heroine she most certainly did not want to emulate.
Medmenham ducked closer. ‘Is the presence of a roof your sole criteria for the moderation of your activities? What about the royal courtyards? Or the Palace gardens? Would you forebear to gather your rosebuds there for fear of offending your monarch?’
‘I believe,’ said Charlotte solemnly, ‘that, like balconies, gardens and courtyards must be taken as extensions of the overall structure, and dealt with accordingly.’