Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

If she were a man, she could push him into a piece of furniture or black his eye.

But she wasn’t a man, and she could not summon another man to do the job for her. Creating a scene would be disastrous as well as ridiculous. She was not a child. She was a woman of seven and twenty, a nobleman’s daughter with eight Seasons behind her. She was expected to possess complete self-control. She was expected to handle difficult or unpleasant situations with poise and courtesy.

She must not get even or punish him.

She must ignore it…and he knew she must, the beast.

She simmered helplessly for a time.

But Lady Charlotte Hayward was nothing if not resourceful. Even while she was fuming, her mind was working. She had dealt with scores of men. She could deal with this one, too.

Chapter 3

Mistake, Darius thought. Stupid, stupid mistake.

He couldn’t believe he’d made it.

Virgins are out of bounds.

His eldest brother Benedict had thrashed the rule into him when he was fifteen.

Long after he’d outgrown the thrashing method, Logic had verified the rule. Virgins, said Logic, were a waste of time, too much work for too little reward. When the virgin was a gentleman’s daughter, the price for this negligible amount of pleasure was marriage.

Move on, Logic told Darius. Now.

Darius always heeded Logic unhesitatingly.

This time, though, he hesitated, for three reasons.

One, she represented a puzzle.

Two, it was exceedingly difficult for a healthy male to turn his back upon a splendid physical specimen—and she was one of the finest physical specimens he’d ever seen.

Three, that dress. On her, the virginal white gown was anything but virginal. He saw not Diana but Venus, not the maiden huntress but the goddess of love.

The thought brought into his mind the painting in Florence that Benedict had dragged him to see years ago. It was about the only work of art worth seeing on that long, boring Grand Tour, in which far too many churches and far too few women figured.

It was the famous Botticelli painting of Venus standing naked upon an overlarge seashell.

Naturally, Darius imagined Lady Charlotte naked, like the Venus she so strongly resembled. Any man would do the same, whether he’d seen the painting or not.

Imagining was reasonable. Letting his eyes wander was deranged. Even he knew better than to look lasciviously at an unwed lady in that way—in public, and under her father’s roof, no less! It was a sure way to find himself (a) standing at the altar hearing the marriage service or (b) at the wrong end of a horsewhip, or (c) facing a pistol at twenty paces.

Fights to the death over females were common enough and all very well among the birds and beasts. Among reasoning beings, however, such behavior was absurd. Especially when the last thing a reasoning being wanted was to offend her father.

Darius hastily dragged his attention upward from the mouthwatering, maidenly pink blush spreading over her silken skin.

Too late. Murder, plain as day, stared back at him from her ice-blue eyes.

She’d looked that way a moment ago when he’d started teasing her about their previous meeting. He’d thought, She’s going to throttle me, and he’d wanted her to try to do it. That would be entertaining.

But she hadn’t tried to strangle him then and didn’t now.

To his surprise, she smiled a conspiratorial smile.

Then she leaned toward him, offering a better view of her perfectly rounded breasts, which the gown’s narrow bodice, aided by the upthrusting corset, displayed more of than seemed proper for a virgin.

All of his self-protective instincts went on the alert, along with the reproductive ones.

“Mr. Carsington,” she said huskily.

Trap! Trap! cried Logic. Run away!

“Lady Charlotte,” he said warily.

“Let us not stand on ceremony,” she said. “My parents are occupied with other guests.”

Darius knew he should have become occupied with other guests right after the introductions. He started to turn away.

She touched his arm very lightly.

His pulse rate accelerated.

He looked down at the gloved hand barely touching his arm. He looked up into her far-too-beautiful face.

She still wore the conspiratorial smile. “I know you will wish to meet your neighbors,” she said. “I shall be happy to stand in for Papa. I often do. We are quite informal here—and he does seem to be engrossed in his conversation with the rector.”

While she talked, she led Darius away from her parents and toward a small group at the other end of the drawing room.

At the last instant, though, she changed direction, and steered him toward a curvaceous redhead who stood at the pianoforte, examining the sheet music heaped there. Her name, he learned, was Henrietta Steepleton. She was a young widow with a breathless voice—no doubt the result of her talking at great length without stopping to inhale.

As soon as Mrs. Steepleton began talking, Lady Charlotte left them.

In the instant before she turned away, Darius saw her vacuously polite smile sharpen into a grin.

Drawing room of Lithby Hall, three and a half hours later

“It would have been kinder to strangle me,” Mr. Carsington murmured.

Charlotte stopped short, and tea sloshed to the brim of the cup she was carrying. She took a steadying breath and willed her hands not to tremble.

She had not heard him coming up behind her. She did not exactly hear him now. She felt his voice vibrating along her spine. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as though he’d touched it.

“That would be discourteous,” she said. She continued walking. The rector’s wife, Mrs. Badgely, sat at the other end of the drawing room near the fire, which burned solely for her on this warm June evening. Mrs. Badgely was crippled with arthritis. Even if she hadn’t been Papa’s cousin, one must see to her comfort. One must always see to the comfort of one’s guests.

Except for this one. There was a limit, after all, to what even the most dutiful of daughters would do.

“Strangling is discourteous,” he said. “That is an interesting viewpoint. I suppose I cannot accuse you of discourtesy in leaving me to have my ears talked off.”

She glanced at his too-handsome profile. “Please do not trouble yourself on that account. Your ears appear to be firmly attached to your head.” She wished they’d been the sticking-out kind of ears. She wished she could find something wrong with him that showed. Providence was not at all fair in that way. What it ought to do was leave an indelible mark on wicked men. Preferably a scarlet A on their foreheads.

But no, he was unblemished, unmarked. She had searched in vain for a physical flaw. She would be happier with herself if she could stop looking…and if her breathing would return to normal.

“Then they remain in spite of Mrs. Steepleton’s best efforts,” he said. “She commenced talking the instant you concluded the introductions. She continued until dinner was announced. At dinner—and why does this fail to surprise me?—I found myself seated next to her.”

Charlotte had tried not to look that way, but it was difficult, because he sat directly opposite her. At one point, he’d caught her eye and shot her an accusing look, followed by a martyred one, hastily erased when Mrs. Steepleton reclaimed his attention. Charlotte had wanted to laugh. She had found it unusually difficult to maintain a politely blank expression. She’d found it almost impossible to concentrate on the conversation about her.

“She talked,” he went on, “throughout dinner. She did not stop until Lady Lithby signaled the ladies to leave the table.”

“Think of the trouble she saved you,” Charlotte said. “You were not obliged to devise clever things to say. All you had to do was appear attentive.”

“I don’t devise clever things to say, Lady Charlotte,” he said. “I usually say what comes into my head. It makes life less complic

ated, I find.”

“Less complicated for you, perhaps,” she said. “You are a man.”

“You are most observant,” he said.

“Men seem to like candor in their own sex,” she said. “They are not so enamored of the trait in women, I have noticed.”

“Close-minded men don’t like it, perhaps.”