“Colonel Morrell?” Charlotte said. “How does he come into it?”
“Ah, yes.” Mr. Carsington studied her face. “I’d forgotten. You have no idea. Not surprising. He isn’t at all obvious. In most cases, that would be a great disadvantage, but he’s no fool, and I’ll wager—”
“What are you talking about?”
“He wants you,” Mr. Carsington said.
She would have laughed, but she could tell he wasn’t teasing her now. Uneasy, she said, “He doesn’t. He can’t. He’s a good friend, no more. I think you see a rival where there isn’t one. I know he’s been invited to join the house party, but that’s because he’s a neighbor.”
“Colonel Morrell has spent most of his life in the military,” Mr. Carsington said. “He did not rise as rapidly as he did by being a fool. He has a strategy, you may be sure. I daresay he’s observed you as carefully as he might observe a town he means to capture. Having observed you, he must have decided that camouflage was in order.”
What had Colonel Morrell seen? Charlotte wondered. And how had she failed to see?
“I should have noticed,” she said.
“Then what?”
“Then I should have done something,” she said.
“Such as?”
“I should have got him to not marry me,” she said. “I’m quite good at not getting married.”
“Are you, indeed?” he said. “I wondered how you managed it for so long. I shall be interested to hear your technique. The question has puzzled me no end.”
She was more concerned with the other puzzle. “Colonel Morrell was in London during the Season,” she said. “He attended many of the same affairs. If he observed me so closely, he must have found me out. Still, I don’t—”
“Don’t fret about him,” Mr. Carsington said. “He’ll understand my strategy easily enough. I’m the youngest of a nobleman’s five sons. I have no profession, no source of income apart from my father, and no assets except for a dilapidated estate. My main advantage is proximity to the object of desire. He can hardly blame me for exploiting the advantage. He would do the same in my place. Males will do whatever is necessary in these situations, and they are not overly scrupulous about their methods.”
“You greatly underestimate yourself,” she said.
“Not as a marital prospect,” he said. “I have considered the subject with ruthless objectivity.”
“You have overlooked several other assets,” she said. “For instance, there is your considerable intelligence.”
“Intellect is not necessarily an advantage,” he said. “Many women prefer men stupider than they are, because dolts are easier to manage.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But remember, most women have a keen aesthetic sense, too, as well as a desire to produce strong, beautiful offspring. Consequently, they prefer men who are tall, strong, and attractive. We must add your prodigious good looks to your list of assets.”
“That is not where a man wants most to be prodigious,” he said. “Good looks are common enough. We suitors will be more concerned about the prodigious size of our rival’s procreative organs.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “It’s not as though we can see them and make comparisons.”
“Ridiculous or not,” he said, “it is true. We all behave as though this is something the average young lady, with limited or no experience of such matters, will take into consideration. As though the girls would take out their rulers or measuring tapes and make comparisons.”
Instantly she saw her young cousins, innocents, all of them, with dressmaker’s tapes in hands, soberly assessing the gentlemen’s assets. She let out a whoop of laughter, and hastily covered her mouth.
How on earth was she to behave herself for the next month, pretending to allow him to court her? Properly. She wondered if he knew what proper was.
“You’ve made me forget what I meant to say,” he said. “We need to—” He broke off and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Then she heard the voices outside.
She didn’t have time to hear the conversation. Mr. Carsington pulled and pushed her into a far corner of the room, onto a heap of sheets. He picked up a large basket of laundry and dumped its contents onto her. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Try not to breathe too much.”
She heard him walk quickly away.
Darius had hoped the voices belonged to servants, either coming to deliver more dirty linen or simply passing by. But as soon as he neared the door he recognized the stentorian tones of Mrs. Badgely and the lighter notes of Lady Lithby.
Grimly he opened the door.
“Ah, there you are,” said Mrs. Badgely. “This will not do, sir, you know.”
He did not let his gaze stray to the heap of laundry at the other end of the room. He merely regarded the rector’s wife with an expression of polite inquiry.
“He is a single gentleman, Mrs. Badgely,” Lady Lithby said. “Single gentlemen often find it simpler to send their things to one of the local laundresses.”
“Mr. Carsington is not a single gentleman in lodgings in London,” Mrs. Badgely answered. She turned to him. “You are a gentleman of property, sir—a not-inconsiderable property. You will set a bad example, to leave your laundry standing vacant and unused. In doing so, you encourage immoral behavior among the servants. Their sneaking about the stables is difficult enough to suppress. When one leaves buildings unattended, one extends an open invitation to fornicate.”
Let them, Darius thought. It was a natural instinct, and one of the two main pleasures the lower orders had in their lives: copulation and intoxication.
Normally, he would have said as much, thereby enhancing his reputation for being aggravating. That was not the way to get rid of Mrs. Badgely in a hurry, though.
The way to get rid of her was to use the Lithbys’ method: Appear to listen attentively, then do as one pleased.
He said, “Those are excellent points, Mrs. Badgely. I shall certainly take them into consideration. If it is not too much trouble, perhaps you would look about you as you make your rounds of the parish, and advise me as to any superior candidates for the position. Mrs. Endicott is not familiar with the local families, and I’m sure she’ll be grateful to have the benefits of your knowledge.”
“She would, indeed,” said Lady Lithby. “In fact, I wonder if I might prevail on you to help us determine what to do with some an
cient gowns of Lady Margaret’s we’ve found here. I think we might keep one or two for fancy dress. But what to do with the rest is the question. There is a great deal of usable cloth in the collection, yet I fear it is too fine for the servants, let alone the poor.”
“Gowns, really?” Mrs. Badgely was intrigued. “I always heard that Lady Margaret was a leader of fashion in her day.”
Mrs. Badgely might be a tiresome scold, but she was a woman, too, and Darius saw her eyes light up when Lady Lithby mentioned the gowns.
In a moment, the two women were gone, the laundry forgotten. He waited until they were out of earshot, then closed the door.
He hastened to the heap of dirty linen in the corner.
An apron caught him in the face.
He saw Lady Charlotte’s upflung hand before he saw the rest of her.
The household linens and items of attire became a writhing mass as she struggled to extricate herself.
She sat up, sputtering, a pair of his drawers on her head. “You,” she said. “You.”
He bit his lip. He coughed. He snickered. And finally, he let it out, a great whoop of laughter.
She scowled at him. “I was afraid to breathe,” she said. “Then my nose itched, and I dared not scratch it. Then—”
She broke off, glaring at him—no doubt because he must be grinning like an idiot.
“What?” she said. “What?”
“On your head,” he said. “My drawers.”
She looked up.
“You have my drawers on your head,” he said.
A pause.
Then, “Oh, that,” she said. “Yes. I do that sometimes. Wear drawers on my head. It’s one of those interesting habits one gets to know about the other person as one gets to know the other person.”
“I should not wear them outside if I were you,” he said.
“Oh, very well.” She sighed. “I suppose you want them back.”
“Well, they are mine.”
She lifted them off with two fingers and threw them at him.
Seeing her sprawled among rumpled bedclothes, he could easily picture a future involving pillow fights…and underwear flung hither and yon…