Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

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.”