One Night Is Never Enough (27 page)

Emily’s brows creased as she examined her. Hysteria rose within Charlotte.

Charlotte waved her shaking hand. “A note for Miranda that she shared with me last night. Snored something dreadful the other night, I guess. The note must have slipped into my cloak or dress.”

How long had he stayed? What if Emily had awoken when he was there?

Emily regarded her seriously. “Charlotte, you aren’t having an affair with Downing, are you? Miranda will be seriously displeased.”

The hysteria bubbled over.

Emily twiddled a pin between her fingers an hour later as Charlotte put the finishing touches on them both.

“My new correspondent is far more attentive than you have been. I’ll have you replaced in a thrice, dear sister, if you don’t increase your efforts.”

“A new correspondent, hmmm?” Charlotte pulled a brush through her sister’s hair.

“Yes, Lady Downing linked us together. He is incredibly prompt. Unlike some, hmph.” Emily gave her a look.

Charlotte stared at her sister’s image in the mirror for a long moment, uncertainty flowing through her. Only confidence in her friend stemmed troubling thoughts. “You started writing a man? Who?”

Emily shrugged. “Don’t know. The measured sort who is probably shy in person, but on paper he is quite the wittiest man I’ve come across. Probably some vicar’s son chafing at his binds.”

Charlotte felt the corner of her mouth tug. “A vicar’s son?”

“Held hostage somewhere, only my letters getting through to him. I’ve decided I will rescue and marry him.”

“Indeed.” The other corner joined the first.

“Don’t ruin my imaginings, Charlotte. You are far too sensible.”

“Someone needs to be,” she teased back, picking up a pink ribbon for her sister’s hair.

Emily said nothing for a long moment, and Charlotte looked in the mirror to see her sister staring at her with a doleful expression.

“What?”

“Nothing. Where are we off to first?” The bounce returned to her sister’s movements as Charlotte finished tying the ribbon. “Somewhere brilliant, I hope.”

“Lady Hodge’s parlor.”

Emily’s face fell. “Lady Hodge is eighty, if a day. There won’t be an amusement to be had.”

Charlotte shrugged and didn’t try to hide her smile. She’d need it for the coming morning. “Did you not want to come?”

“Fine, fine.”

“I was dreadful,” her sister uttered darkly after their fourth such visit a few hours later.

“You were wonderful. No one noticed,” Charlotte assured her, as they eased into the well-trod shopping lanes, unabated tension thrumming through her.

No one had given Charlotte any odd or satisfied looks. And one person had even gossiped that John Clark had suddenly decided that very morning to visit the Continent.

Charlotte prayed his accommodations didn’t include a wooden box.

“My cup hit my saucer so loudly it was as if I’d tossed her prized plates through the display glass.”

“No one noticed.”
Everyone had noticed.

“
Everyone
noticed. I might as well have thrown the plates. I’m doomed.”

“You aren’t doomed.” She wouldn’t let her be.

“I’ll never secure a husband.”

“Because your cup hit your saucer a tad forcefully? It was of no consequence,” she said as lightly as she could.

Emily gave her a disbelieving look. “Don’t try and convince me that you weren’t noticing such things about the other girls.”

“You will hardly find such harsh scrutiny elsewhere. It is in the dance of the older women where such a thing is required. And you are young. You did well.”

“I couldn’t answer a single question without babbling. And you were nice enough not to incline your head when I’d already put my foot in it. Damn tongue might as well be a straight toboggan on a sharply curved path for all of the grace it possesses.”

“Language. And you did a fine job.”

“I probably ruined
your
bloody chances too. You should put me out. To pasture.”

“If you don’t watch your language, I’ll consider it.”

“Father will be so angry.”

“At your language?” Charlotte looked down her nose. “Undoubtedly.”

“No, at my lack of skill.”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “You have plenty of skill. And Father will say nothing.”

“He will. He’s always going on about how . . . well, he just will,” she finished lamely. The words whispered between them anyway.

He’s always going on about how I have no beauty or grace to claim. How I will have to rely on you to make a good match. Or for someone to take pity upon me.

Charlotte stopped suddenly, Emily coming to rest next to her as the crowd moved around them. The tension
pulsed.
She put a forceful hand on her sister’s shoulder. “If the fools can’t notice what is in front of them, then you don’t need them,” she said, somewhat savagely.

Emily blinked in shock.

“You are the prettiest girl in England.” Bright eyes and cherried cheeks, so full of life. “And better than that, the
smartest.
”

Emily raised a brow, the lingering hurt retreating back. “I think you have gone blind.”

“And I think it’s those other fools who are.” Charlotte squeezed her shoulder and urged her back into motion, tension still throbbing. “Pay them no attention. We will change them. Force them to
our
will.”

“We will?”

“Yes.”

Her sister didn’t respond for a long moment.

“What happened?” Emily asked quietly as they crossed the street.

Charlotte tried to pretend ignorance. “They don’t know true beauty when they see it.”

“No. That isn’t what I was asking, and you know it. Don’t . . . don’t leave me out. You’ve been so happy in your letters—though infrequent and
vague
, don’t think I didn’t notice—but I assumed it meant this season was
good
. Yet, today, at the stops, you seemed . . . angered.”

Charlotte tried to smile. “I told you that I would make up for any uptight nonverbal reminders I might give.”

“No, not those. I appreciate those, as idiotic as it all is. I mean, who
cares
if you take a sip of your tea? Maybe someone is
thirsty.
”

“Emily—”

“No, don’t distract me. I’m not sure what to make of it. You
don’t
seem to enjoy socializing or the
ton.
I remember the bubbling excitement when you were set to debut. The notes and thrilled words. And I thought you had recaptured that . . . but you haven’t, have you?”

No. She had been ignoring the pit. Filling it with
Roman, Roman, Roman.
But the cavity still remained, deadly, patiently waiting. Waiting for her return like an old friend.

She didn’t wish to lie to Emily. But she also wanted her sister to look forward to her first season, unhindered. Full of anxiety about her success, undoubtedly—there was little to calm those types of nerves—but with all of her optimistic illusions still in place. She could walk through the ballrooms and feel the lively air and dance the night away without a care. What the young were supposed to feel. What many of the young women enjoyed.

If Charlotte made a grand match, she could ensure that Emily wouldn’t be a puppet on their father’s string. She could have all the time she needed, could revel in the parties and fun. Emily wouldn’t even have to marry should she choose not to. Charlotte had always planned to work it out with her future husband. On the side, away from their father.

That was what she had always planned—where she had concentrated her efforts. But now other possibilities bloomed, disjointed and new. Tenuous and dangerous.

. . . as long as Emily was happy . . . as long as Charlotte could
make
it so.

“Just a rough night, is all, nothing to worry over.”

Emily said nothing, but Charlotte knew her sister didn’t believe her.

“You said you wanted to go to Grubbins’.” Charlotte pointed at the milliner’s ahead, and Emily’s eyes lit up. “And we are here.”

“Oh! Margaret Smith will be over-the-moon jealous.” Emily tore from her side the last few steps through the crowd and slipped inside.

Charlotte clutched her reticule.

Perfection. It was what she had clung to all her life.

If she could marry perfectly. If she could
be
perfect. Surely, she could make everything well for Emily.

For herself.

She hadn’t believed in fairy tales and white and black knights come to save her.
She
was their white knight. Emily’s white knight.

She had drifted so far from the path of perfection, though. And into an unknown, exciting, frightening place. One full of all of her fears—ones which keenly whispered that one day she would look into icy eyes and see nothing there but disinterest. Murmuring wary commands to her to control that disinterest by conquering or rejecting it before it appeared.

So much easier and safer surely to be a perfect portrait, unblemished and still. Coldly calculating. Rebellious thoughts crushed to marble.

Warmer, softer thoughts plunged into the hollow under her fear.

Perfect.

Someone bumped her elbow and her grip involuntarily opened, popping the bag from her hand. A thief’s tactic. She hurriedly bent down to retrieve it and her fingers met strong golden ones already clasped around the fabric.

She suddenly couldn’t remember how to breathe.

She stared at the long, strong fingers. Ones that could handle a knife or the delicate ivory of an expensive queen.

The fingers brushed hers, and shivers spread through her limbs. Out and about during the day so rarely, but somehow always running into her whenever her thoughts strayed . . .

Her eyes rose slowly, halting at his lips, staring at them, pulling her own between her teeth. Knowing how they
felt.
On hers, against her neck, pulling perfectly across her skin.

“Well, this is an unexpected surprise,” those lips murmured.

The way his mouth curved she knew it wasn’t a surprise in the least. She couldn’t pull her eyes away.

“If you keep looking at me like that,” he whispered, his lips moving slowly over the words, savoring them, “I may give in to my urge to do something very
undisciplined.
”

That snapped her eyes straight up, along with her body. He seemed to anticipate the movement and gracefully rose with her, the bag still clutched between them.

She stared into eyes the perfect shade of frost over a clear blue lake. Frost that was violently melting under the searing look he was giving her.

“Let me go,” she whispered, words unable to separate from her breath. The hard edge of propriety that she always crowned herself with in public disappeared like so much fog under the blazing sun.

“I don’t think I can.” His words held the edge of her whisper. “Unless you wish it.”

She needed to spare a look to the passing crowd, to see if anyone was watching, but she couldn’t look away. The faceless crowd sifted around him, bodies, both male and female, drawing toward her companion, then subtly shifting away. Something about him still both pulling people to him and pushing them away, on edge. A deadly predator wrapped in an entrancing hide.

The thought that she was just as susceptible to his lure as anyone else on the street made her uneasy. Any feigned perfection disappearing like mist. He always made her feel
raw.

And with that rawness, stripping away all the artifice she had carefully cloaked about her over the years, was the fear that there would be
nothing
left on which to cling.

“Are you well, Miss?” he asked loudly, his previously intimate look and question replaced with a stranger’s propriety. “Let me help you to the side.” He slipped his warm palm beneath her elbow, steering her out of the path of the people passing by and into the vacant area in front of the shop. His dangerous aura pocketed them from stray limbs.

She set her chin. Trying to push away the sly, undermining thoughts that she could give away her control.

“It’s the middle of the day. You aren’t supposed to exist,” she murmured, then, for the benefit of anyone listening, said loudly, “Thank you, sir.”

“Of course, Miss.” He handed her the bag, bending toward her as he did. “Afraid that I will take over your waking hours as well?” Slippery graveled words full of promise.

She had no illusions that she would control all of her fate, but she could forge a large part of it behind the scenes once settled. Subtly manipulating, coldly crafting, hiding her warmer feelings under a carefully wrought veneer only broached by a chosen few. The clear path toward a ruling matron written like a recipe on a page.