Not Quite a Lady

  Charlotte could easily imagine how her father felt.

  He could not imagine how she felt. The wilderness next door was her refuge and had been for years.

  Months after the baby’s birth, when Charlotte continued ill and listless, Lizzie had taken her to Switzerland. There, walks along mountain paths, through Alpine meadows, and alongside rivers, waterfalls, and sparkling lakes, had gradually healed and restored her.

  When they returned to England, Beechwood took the place of the Swiss countryside. At Beechwood, thanks to Lizzie’s intervention, Charlotte was allowed a degree of solitude.

  Whenever she was troubled, she went the same way, across the stream that separated the two properties. The groom in charge of her did not cross the stream but waited there for her to return, while she continued down the path that ran alongside the pond. She went that way because there wasn’t—or hadn’t been until now—anyone about to see her. Within that wild place, she might be wild, too. She might for a time set aside all the rules she’d vowed ten years ago never again to violate.

  She’d vowed to be good, to do all that was right and proper and nothing that was wrong or even hinted of impropriety.

  But when she was alone where what she did could not displease or hurt or shame or shock anybody, she loosened the stays of propriety and let herself breathe.

  At Beechwood, with none but the wild creatures to look on, she might stride or stomp along, depending on her mood. She might wave her fists or give vent to long, muttering rants about whatever had most recently upset her.

  She wouldn’t dream of behaving that way along her father’s manicured pathways, where the outdoor staff or touring visitors might see her.

  Now her refuge was lost, forever.

  She walked to the fireplace and dropped her soiled gloves onto the empty grate. She should have fed the gloves to the pig, too.

  Good-bye, hat. Good-bye, gloves.

  Good-bye, freedom.

  She became aware of the lengthening silence. What had Lizzie said last? Oh, yes.

  “Agriculturalist, perhaps,” Charlotte said. “But as to kindred spirits—” She caught herself in the nick of time, before her wayward tongue got the better of her again. She made herself smile. “Naturally it is difficult for me to see any resemblance. I came across Mr. Carsington only a short time ago, and very briefly. One can scarcely call it a meeting, in fact.”

  Lizzie nodded. “Then I shall not call it one, and shan’t mention it to your father. He is looking forward so much to introducing the famous Mr. Carsington to everybody.”

  Papa would want to do so this evening, of course, at the gathering with neighbors that always marked their return from London.

  “This morning, as always, your father told me his plans for the day,” Lizzie went on. “First he would speak to you about his matchmaking scheme. Then he would speak to his gamekeeper. Then he would call upon Mr. Carsington and invite him to dinner.”

  “It is typical of Papa to wish to make Mr. Carsington feel welcome,” Charlotte said.

  Oh, Papa, why must you always be so welcoming? she thought.

  “There’s more to it,” said Lizzie. “I must speak plainly to you. Though the gentleman is merely an earl’s younger son, the earl in question is Lord Hargate. That connection, as you know, is a most desirable one.”

  A weight settled in Charlotte’s gut.

  She’d thought she was done with Lord Hargate’s sons.

  Last year, both families had tried to promote a match between her and Lord Hargate’s widowed heir, Lord Rathbourne. Charlotte had no difficulty with him. Though he was perfectly courteous, she could tell she might as well be invisible to him. She had only to make sure she did nothing to make herself more visible. To her relief, he had married someone else last autumn.

  “Bear in mind, too, that Mr. Carsington is a man of considerable prestige in the Philosophical Society,” Lady Lithby went on. “This well-regarded gentleman now has charge of the property next door, which your father has always wanted. Kindred spirit or not, in Lithby’s eyes these factors combine to make Mr. Carsington an acceptable marital candidate. We must add him to the list of eligible gentlemen.”

  She went out, closing the door behind her.

  Charlotte stared blindly at the door for a time.

  Then she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said under her breath. “I’ve contrived not to marry scores of men. I can not marry him, too.”

  Meanwhile, at Beechwood

  Darius’s hopes regarding the beautiful girl were dashed within moments of his reaching Beechwood’s stables, for there he met up with her father, who’d come to welcome him to the neighborhood and invite him to dinner.

  Though it took a moment to sort out a pig named Hyacinth from a daughter named Charlotte, Darius soon discovered that his lordship possessed only one daughter, who was not married, unhappily or otherwise, or widowed.

  The other children were four young boys, the two eldest of whom were staying with cousins in Shropshire at present.

  Darius promptly pushed the daughter to the back of his mind as not meriting further thought, and focused on her father, who did.

  Being Logic’s loyal servant, Darius had spent the fortnight before he came to Cheshire analyzing the problem he had to solve and gathering useful information.

  He’d learned that, of all those hereabouts, Lord Lithby was the man most worth cultivating. Generations of his family had lived here. He was the largest landowner. But most important, he was an agriculturalist and a natural philosopher, like Darius.

  Today came an especially agreeable discovery: Unlike Lord Hargate, Lord Lithby had a proper regard for Darius’s work. He even quoted from the pamphlet on pig farming.

  His mood improved by a generous dose of flattery, Darius happily accepted the invitation to dinner.

  Normally, he avoided Fashionable Society, preferring those circles where morals were known to be loose. That way, a man didn’t waste time pursuing women he couldn’t have.

  This time, though, Darius had to make an exception. His lordship was a valuable source of information and advice. Too, some if not all of the guests would be country folk—a breed Darius understood well and with whom he was fully at ease. And among these country folk he might even find an attractive widow or unhappy wife not overburdened with morals.

  He mounted his horse and set out for the inn.

  By the time he arrived, the beautiful girl had crept to the front of his mind again.

  How on earth had he mistaken her for a matron? he wondered.

  He was an intelligent and observant man. What had misled him?

  He brought her image back into his mind’s eye: the delicious face and figure…the trace of huskiness in her voice, with its expected cultivated accents and unexpected animosity. The hostility bothered him. To be sure, not all women melted instantly into his arms, but the few who didn’t never put up more than a token fight, either.

  What an absurd creature she was, as nonsensical as her hat. Tripping over her own feet. Squirming and kicking and elbowing when he tried to help her…

  She was quite good at dislodging a man, actually. For some reason, that had aroused him.

  Her haughtiness was provoking. Still, it had amused him to make a game of it, like flirtation—which everyone knew was an early step on the path to seduction.

  Why had he failed to—

  He slapped his head.

  Idiot.

  He’d sensed experience. That was what had thrown him off course. He’d sensed and reacted to it without articulating it to himself.

  Though it was never easy to determine a woman’s age precisely, any moron could identify a green girl.

  This girl was not fresh from the schoolroom.

  Darius was surprised, however, when he found out exactly how old she was.

  He did so, he was sure, merely to satisfy his intellectual curiosity. This was no different than his curiosity abo
ut the dragonflies. He approached the matter as he would any other scientific inquiry, though he was more discreet about it.

  At the Unicorn, while his manservant, Goodbody, sighed over the grass stains and mud on his trousers, Darius encouraged the pair of not-unattractive maidservants to gossip.

  This was how he learned that Lady Charlotte Hayward was seven and twenty years old.

  Seven and twenty and unwed!

  Darius could not make sense of it.

  She was the only daughter of a marquess.

  She was beautiful.

  Her father was no impoverished aristocrat but a high-ranking, well-liked, and wealthy one. What family in England would not wish for the connection? What gentleman seeking to fill his nursery would not wish to breed with such prime blood-stock? How was it that none had done so?

  Darius was so perplexed—not to mention exasperated—that he forgot about bedding the maidservants. Instead, following a wash, shave, and change of clothes, he left Goodbody to brood over his boots and continued his investigation in the Unicorn’s taproom.

  Here he found that theories—or rather, rumors—abounded.

  “A terrible tragedy, that one,” said the innkeeper’s wife as she served his pint. “Lady Charlotte had her heart set on an officer, but he got blown to bits at Waterloo.”

  “Nothing to do with Waterloo,” one of her patrons insisted. “He was killed at Baltimore during that war with the Americans.”

  “Wasn’t no officer,” another argued. “A Count Somebody come to London with the Tsar of Russia for the victory celebrations. Caught a fever and died.”

  An argument ensued.

  At the inn’s stables, a less romantic point of view prevailed. Lady Charlotte had not buried her heart in any dashing officer’s or foreign nobleman’s grave. The reason she wasn’t wed was simple enough: No one was good enough for her.

  “I see,” Darius said. “Her suitors were an inferior lot of fellows.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” said one of the stablemen. “She had a duke after her. And a marquess.”

  “There was that earl’s eldest son last year,” said another. “The perfect one.”

  One of his fellows nudged him and muttered something. The man looked abashed.

  Darius didn’t need the hint. They referred to his eldest brother Benedict, Lord Rathbourne, also known as Lord Perfect.

  “Well, if Lord Perfect wasn’t good enough for her, perhaps she has an excessively high opinion of herself?” Darius said. She had been quite haughty with him, and perhaps made his pride smart a very little bit—because he wasn’t used to that sort of nonsense, he told himself.

  “Not proud at all, sir,” said the first stableman.

  “Sweetest lady in the world,” said another.

  “Never a unkind word for anybody.”

  “Always a smile and thanks, even for the smallest thing you do for her.”

  “All the servants say the same.”

  “The ladies, too. They all like her—and you know what cats they can be.”

  Then followed stories of Lady Charlotte Hayward’s various kindnesses to her fellow creatures, from the great to the insignificant.

  Darius tried to reconcile the picture they painted with the woman he’d met. It wouldn’t reconcile. This couldn’t be the same lady. Yet it must be.

  He turned the problem over in his mind. He looked at it from first one angle then another. The conundrum remained.

  This was annoying. He had more important things to do than puzzle over a woman he couldn’t bed. The trouble was, she was a puzzle, and whatever else Darius Carsington was capable of, he was no more capable of leaving alone an unanswered question than he was of resisting a challenge to his abilities. Which, after all, amounted to much the same thing.

  “In short,” he said with a trace of irritation, “the lady is a saint.”

  The men looked at one another. “Well, I dunno,” said one meditatively, “as I’d say that.”

  Drawing room of Lithby Hall, that evening

  Mr. Carsington had caught Charlotte unprepared the first time.

  This time she was fully prepared. Her head was clear, her demeanor all it should be. She had her company smile in place and all eighty-three thousand six hundred fifty-seven rules of proper behavior in the front of her mind.

  Nonetheless, when Mr. Carsington appeared, standing in the doorway for one perfectly timed dramatic moment, she felt a jolt, as though she’d touched one of those magnetic devices her boy cousins found so fascinating.

  She was distantly aware that others were not unaffected. Every head turned his way, and many faces—especially the female ones—expressed more than simple curiosity about the newcomer.

  The candlelight caught the gold in his hair and burnished his tanned countenance. Once again he seemed a golden god come among mortals.

  Apollo, that was the one, beyond question. The sun god, all glimmering gold. His hair. His eyes.

  And like a god, he seemed larger than life, his powerful frame filling the doorway.

  But he wasn’t a god, she reminded herself. Merely a man and, if she was not much mistaken, an all-too-common variety.

  A rake.

  The man who had destroyed her future was a rake. Among the many lessons she learned from that experience was the importance of learning to recognize the breed.

  She could spot one at fifty paces.

  Had she not taken leave of her wits during their first encounter, she would have immediately filed Mr. Carsington under the category “Rakes” in her private Encyclopedia of Men.

  Still, better late than never, she told herself while she adjusted her expression to one of polite welcome.

  Her poise faltered when he left the doorway and made straight for her.

  Heart racing, she almost took a step backward. Then she became aware of her father at her shoulder.

  “Mr. Carsington, welcome,” Papa said. He introduced the man to Lizzie, and Mr. Carsington made her a graceful bow. Lizzie spoke to him, and he answered. Charlotte wasn’t sure what they said. Her head was buzzing as though filled with bees.

  “Charlotte, my dear.” Papa’s voice broke through the buzzing. “Here is our new neighbor Mr. Carsington.” She heard the pride in her father’s voice as he continued, “Sir, my daughter, Charlotte.”

  Inside her was a frantic flurry. She had all she could do to keep from trembling. She kept her muscles rigid while her heart beat so furiously that she couldn’t swallow or catch her breath.

  Yet she was aware, too, of Papa beaming at her.

  He loved her so much. She wanted so much to be everything he wanted her to be.

  She made her muscles relax.

  Mr. Carsington bowed. “Lady Charlotte.”

  “Mr. Carsington.”

  A pause ensued. It was not a quiet pause. The air seemed to hum, as though the bees had left her skull and now hovered between them.

  Mr. Carsington’s amber eyes slanted toward her father, who had turned away to say something to Lizzie.

  The gaze shifted back to her. This time she saw in his unusual eyes the same teasing expression he’d worn when he quizzed her about her hat.

  “But I believe we’ve met before,” he said in a rumbling undertone. Though he stood a proper distance away, the words felt like a secret breathed in her ear. Her skin prickled.

  “I think not,” she said, flashing him a warning look.

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  She lifted hers.

  She thought, Utter one word of what happened, and I’ll wrap my hands around your throat and choke you dead.

  She knew no one could read minds. He must have read something, though, because the quizzical expression disappeared, and he blinked.

  She watched his mouth curve slowly into a smile. “Have we not?”

  Under that lazy smile, something inside her seemed to unfurl, like flower petals opening under the sun.

  But that’s what rake’s smiles did, she reminded herself: They made w
omen soft and malleable.

  “No,” she said. She glanced at her parents. The rector and his wife had claimed their attention.

  “Perhaps you have a twin sister,” said Mr. Carsington. He made a show of looking about the drawing room.

  “No, I do not,” she said.

  “How strange,” he said.

  “It is not at all strange not to have a twin,” she said. “It is more common not to have one.”

  “I could have sworn that we met, only a few hours ago, by a pond at Beechwood,” he said, still in the We-Have-a-Secret undertone. “You were wearing—or rather, not wearing—a wonderfully frivolous hat.”

  He had teased her with the hat as a little boy might do, and for a moment she had wanted to play.

  Experience came to her rescue. The mischief in his eyes was no more boyish than it was innocent. What she saw in those changeable amber eyes was a rake’s guile.

  “A lady and a gentleman may not know each other unless they have been properly introduced,” she said coolly. “If they do not know each other, they cannot have met. Since we were properly introduced only a moment ago, we cannot have met previously.”

  “What a madly contorted logic that is,” he said.

  “It is a rule of behavior,” she said. “It needn’t be logical. There may even be a rule that rules of behavior must be illogical.”

  His eyes lit. At first she thought what she saw there was amusement, and she cursed herself, because she did not wish to entertain him. But then his gaze drifted from her face to her neck and downward, lingering upon her bosom before it swept down to the toes of her silk slippers. It came up again so swiftly that she hadn’t time to get her breathing back to normal. She could hide that, but not the rest of her reaction.

  Her face was hot. Everywhere was hot. Meanwhile, her tattletale skin was announcing the fact, she knew, spreading a blush over her neck and the extensive area of shoulders and bosom her gown revealed.

  He was enjoying her agitation.

  Anger crackled inside her.

  Once, only once, she would like to do something, instead of silently enduring a man’s insolent examination.

  But a lady must pretend not to notice when a man disrobed her with his eyes.

  It was not fair.

  When a man took offense at something, he was allowed to react. He was expected to react.