Somehow, that didn’t seem quite adequate, either.
“Hello,” her cousin said back, as though it seemed perfectly adequate to him.
“Cousin?” echoed Penelope, who didn’t like to be left out. “I wasn’t aware you had any.”
The connection was so tenuous as to make the term more a courtesy than an actuality. The Dovedale family tree had been a sparse one over the past few generations, sending the title scrambling back over branches and shimmying down collateral lines until it reached Robert, at the outermost fringe of the ducal canopy. Robert was, if Charlotte recalled the intricacies of her family tree correctly, the great-grandson of her great-grandfather’s half brother, having been the progeny of her great-great-grandfather’s much younger second wife. Her grandmother had been furious at the quirk of fate that had sent the title spiraling towards an all but unrelated branch, with a claim more tenuous than that of the Tudors to the Plantagenet throne, but formalities were formalities and courtesies were courtesies, so cousins they were, as long as they bore the Lansdowne name.
Charlotte looked from her cousin to Penelope and quickly back again, just to make sure he was still really there. He was. It seemed utterly impossible, but there he was, after—how many years had it been? Closer to twelve than ten.
She had been nine, a silent child in a silent house, still in mourning for her mother, watching helplessly as her father lay dying in state in the great ducal bedchamber, a wax figure on a field of crimson and gold. Terrified of the sharp-tongued grandmother who had snatched her up like the witch out of one of the tales her mother used to tell her, shivering with loneliness in the great marble halls of Girdings, Charlotte had been numb with grief and confusion.
And then Cousin Robert had appeared.
He had must have been fifteen, but to Charlotte, he had seemed impossibly grown-up, as tall and golden as the illustration of Sir Gawain in her favorite storybook. She had shrunk shyly out of the way (she had got used to staying out of the way by then, after nine months at Girdings), a book clasped in front of her like a shield, but her big, handsome cousin had hunkered down on one knee and said, in just that way, “Hello, Cousin Charlotte. You are Cousin Charlotte, aren’t you?” and Charlotte had lost her nine-year-old heart.
He didn’t look the same. He was still considerably taller than she was—that much hadn’t changed—but his face was thinner, and there were lines in it that hadn’t been there before. The healthy, red-cheeked English complexion she remembered had been burnt brown by harsher suns than theirs. That same sun had bleached his dark blond hair, which had once been nearly the same shade as hers, with streaks of pale gilt.
But when he smiled, he was unmistakably the same man. The very stone of Girdings seemed to glow with it.
“Yes,” Charlotte said as a dizzy smile spread itself across her face. “This is my cousin.”
“I wish my cousins greeted me like that,” groused the dark-haired man, his eyes still on Penelope, who didn’t pay him any notice at all.
“Happy Christmas, Cousin Charlotte,” her cousin said, her hand still held lightly in his. It felt quite comfortable there. Giving her hand a brief squeeze, he relinquished it. Charlotte could feel the ghost of the pressure straight through her glove.
“But—” Charlotte shook her head to clear it. “Not that I’m not very happy to see you, but aren’t you meant to be in India?”
“I was in India,” said her cousin blandly. “I came back.”
“One does,” put in his friend, with such a droll expression that Charlotte would have smiled back had all her attention not been fixed so entirely on her cousin, who was leaning towards her with one elbow propped against a booted knee.
“I take it you didn’t get my letter.”
“Letter? No, we received no letter.” As witty repartee went, that wasn’t much better, but at least it was a full sentence.
The duke exchanged an amused look with his friend. “I have no doubt it will arrive eight months from now, having traveled on a very slow boat by way of Jamaica, Greenland, and the Outer Hebrides.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been to the Outer Hebrides,” drawled Penelope.
“No, just India,” said the newly returned duke, as though it were the merest jaunt.
India! The very name thrilled Charlotte straight down to her boot laces. She imagined elephants draped in crimson and gold, bearing dusky princes with rubies the size of pigeons’ eggs in their turbans. A thousand questions clamored for the asking. Was it all as exotic as it seemed? Had he ridden an elephant? Did the men there really keep multiple wives? Why had he come back? And why couldn’t he have come back on a day when she wasn’t wearing an ancient cloak with her nose dripping from the cold?
It wasn’t that Charlotte hadn’t known he would come back someday. He was the Duke of Dovedale. He had estates and tenants and all sorts of responsibilities that were supposed to be his, even if her grandmother had blithely appropriated them all years ago, as though the existence of a legitimate claimant were nothing more than a troublesome technicality. It was just that in Charlotte’s daydreams, his return had usually occurred at the height of summer, in a choice corner of the gardens. She was also usually a foot taller and stunningly beautiful, too, neither of which seemed to have occurred in the past ten minutes.
Charlotte looked hopelessly at the barren stretch of ground, the empty stairs, the thick smoke from the torchères that smudged seamlessly into the early December dusk. This was no fit welcome for anyone, much less for the return of the duke after a decade abroad. There should have been fanfare and trumpets, servants in livery, and Grandmama there to greet him with her own peculiar brand of regal condescension. There was something shameful about so shabby a welcome.
“Had we known you were coming, we would have made proper provision to welcome you home.”
Her cousin’s eyes flickered upwards, over the vast and imposing façade of Girdings. “Lined the servants up and all that?”
“Something like that,” Charlotte acknowledged, feeling very small on the broad stairs with the vast stone bulk of the house towering behind her. “Grandmama does like the grand feudal gesture.”
“I think I prefer this,” said Robert, in a way that made the sentiment into a nice little compliment to her. “I can do without the banners and trumpets.”
“Although a blazing fire would be nice,” added his friend plaintively, rubbing his gloved hands together. “A flagon of ale, a few plump—”
“Tommy.”
“—pheasants,” finished Tommy, with a wounded expression. “We’ve been traveling since dawn,” he added for the ladies’ benefit.
“And by dawn, he means noon,” corrected Robert. “Cousin Charlotte, may I present my comrade in arms and thorn in my flesh, First Lieutenant Thomas Fluellen, late of His Majesty’s Seventy-fourth Foot.”
Lieutenant Fluellen bowed with a fluid grace spoiled only slightly by the broad grin he gave her in rising. “Many thanks for your kind hospitality, Lady Charlotte.”
“It’s really Cousin Robert’s house, so it’s he you have to thank.”
“I’d rather thank you,” said Lieutenant Fluellen winningly, but his eyes snuck past her to Penelope as he said it.
“Behave yourself, Tommy. It’s been a very long time since he’s been in the company of gentlewomen,” Robert explained in an aside to Charlotte.
“I would never have guessed,” said Charlotte staunchly. “I think he’s doing quite well.”
She was rewarded with a beaming smile. “My five sisters will be more than delighted to hear that. They all took it in turn to beat some manners into me.”
“And all the sense out,” finished Robert, banging his hands against his upper arms to warm them. His breath left a fine mist in the air.
“Won’t you come inside?” said Charlotte belatedly, gesturing towards the doors. The doors obligingly swung open, spilling out light and warmth. The servants at Girdings were impeccably trained. Charlotte looked guiltily f
rom Lieutenant Fluellen’s red nose to her cousin’s faintly blue lips. “I don’t know about the ale, but there’s plenty of hot, spiced wine to be had, and a very warm fire besides.”
No one needed to be asked twice. The gentlemen trooped gratefully into the entrance hall, where a fire crackled in one of the two great hearths. The other lay empty, waiting for the Yule log, which would be ceremonially dragged in later that evening. The Dowager Duchess kept to the old traditions at Girdings. The holly, the ivy, and the Yule log were always brought in on Christmas Eve and not a moment sooner.
Robert looked ruefully at the red ribbons Charlotte had tied around the carved balusters on the stairs. “We hadn’t meant to intrude on Christmas Eve.”
“Can you really intrude on your own house?” asked Charlotte.
“Is it?” Robert said. His eyes roamed along the high ceiling with its panorama of inquisitive gods and goddesses, leaning out of Olympus to rest their elbows on the gilded frame. His gaze made the circuit of the hall, passing over the vibrant murals depicting the noble lineage of the House of Dovedale, from the mythical Sir Guillaume de Lansdowne receiving his spurs from William the Conqueror on the field of Hastings, past Charlotte’s favorite hero of Agincourt, all the way up to the first Duke of Dovedale himself, boosting a rakish-looking Charles II into an oak tree near Worcester as perplexed Parliamentarian troops peered about nearby. “I keep forgetting.”
“It is a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” Charlotte automatically reached out to touch his arm and then thought better of it. Letting her hand fall to her side, she tilted her head back to stare at the familiar figure of Sir William Lansdowne, who really did look remarkably like Robert, if he had been wearing gauntlets and breastplate and waving a bloodied sword. “I felt that way, too, initially.”
“I remember,” Robert said, looking not at the murals but at her. And then: “I was sorry to hear about your father.”
Charlotte bit down hard on her lower lip, willing away a sudden prickle of tears. It was ridiculous to turn into a watering pot over something that had happened so very long ago. Eleven years ago, to be precise. By the time her father died, Robert had been five months gone from Girdings, far away across the sea.
“It was a very long time ago,” Charlotte said honestly.
“Even so.”
Lieutenant Fluellen looked curiously from one to the other, his brown eyes as bright and inquisitive as a squirrel’s. Fortunately, Charlotte was spared explanations by the intrusion of a rumbling noise, which became steadily louder.
Both Penelope and Charlotte, who recognized it instantly for what it was, stepped back out of the way as the noise resolved itself into the synchronized rhythm of four pairs of feet. The four sets of feet belonged to four bewigged and powdered footmen, who bore on their shoulders a litter covered with enough gold leaf to beggar Cleopatra. On a throne-like chair in the center of the litter, draped in purple silk fringed with gold, perched none other than the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale, the woman who had launched a thousand ships—as their crews rowed for their lives in the opposite direction. She inspired horses to rear, jaded roués to blanch beneath their rouge, and young fops to jump out of ballroom windows. And she enjoyed every moment of it.
The skimpy dresses in vogue had struck the Dowager Duchess as dangerously republican. The Dowager preferred the fashions of her youth, so she had never stopped wearing them. In honor of Christmas Eve, she was garbed in a gown of rich green brocade glittering with gold thread. Her hair had been piled into a coiffure reminiscent of the work of agitated spiders, crowned with a jaunty sprig of mistletoe.
As the Duchess rapped her fabled cane against the side of the litter, her four bearers came to a practiced halt.
“Good evening, Grandmama,” said Charlotte primly. “You do remember Cousin Robert—”
“Of course, I remember him! I may have lost my looks, but I still have my wits. So, you’ve come home at last, have you? Took you long enough.”
“Had I known I would receive such a gracious welcome, I would have come sooner.”
“Hogwash,” the Duchess snorted. She gestured imperiously with her cane. “Don’t stand there gawking! Help me out of this thing!”
The footmen stood, impassive, holding their gilded poles, as Lieutenant Fluellen rushed into attendance.
“Wouldn’t a wheeled chair have sufficed?” inquired the prodigal Duke blandly.
The Dowager paused with her hand on Lieutenant Fluellen’s arm, one leg extended over the side. “And break my neck on the stairs? You only wish, my boy! I used to have these lot”—she waved a dismissive hand at the footmen—“carrying me around, but I didn’t want them to get too familiar. Gave them ideas above their station.”
Robert’s mind boggled at the notion of the blank-faced footmen being stirred to uncontrollable passion by the Dowager’s wrinkled face and grasshopper arms.
Tommy simply looked stunned, although that could, in part, have been because the Dowager had landed on his foot in passing.
“Ah, these old legs aren’t what they once were,” mused the Dowager, wiggling a red-heeled shoe. “In my day I could outdance half the men in London. Outrun them, too.” She emitted a short bark of laughter. “Except when I wanted to be caught, that is. Those were the days.” She shook her cane in the face of a practically paralytic Tommy. “Who’s this young sprig and what is he doing in my hall?”
Robert very nobly refrained from pointing out that it was, in fact, his hall. “May I present Tommy Fluellen, late of His Majesty’s service?”
“Welsh?” demanded the Duchess.
“With the leek to prove it,” Tommy replied cheerfully.
The Dowager regarded him thoughtfully. “There was a Welsh princess married into the family in the twelfth century. Angharad, they called her. I doubt you are related.”
The Dowager Duchess turned her gimlet gaze on the Duke, for an inspection that went from his bare head straight down to the mud on the toes of his boots.
“You do have the Lansdowne look about you,” she admitted grudgingly. “At least you would, if you weren’t burnt brown as a savage. What were you thinking, boy?”
“Not of my complexion.”
“Hmph. That’s clear enough. Still, you look more of a Lansdowne than Charlotte.” The Dowager jerked her head in Charlotte’s direction by way of acknowledgment. “She favors her mother’s people.”
Charlotte was well aware of that. She had heard it often enough over the years she had lived under her grandmother’s care. The Dowager Duchess had never forgiven Charlotte’s father, the future Duke of Dovedale, for running off with a humble vicar’s daughter.
It hadn’t mattered one whit to the Duchess that the Vicar had been the grandson of an earl or that Charlotte’s mother had been undeniably a gentleman’s daughter. The Duchess had had her heart set on a grand match for her only son, the sort of match that could be counted in guineas and acres and influence in Parliament.
They had been happy, though, even in exile. Or perhaps they were happy because they were in exile. When she tried very hard, Charlotte could remember a golden age before she had come to Girdings, when she and her father and mother had lived together in a little house in Surrey, a quaint little two-storied house with dormer windows and ivy growing over the walls and a stone sundial in the garden that professed only to count the happy hours.
The Duchess had never forgiven them for being happy, either.
Ignoring the Duchess, Robert bent his head towards Charlotte. “I regret I never had the honor of meeting your mother.”
“She was not a Lansdowne,” the Duchess sniffed.
Robert cocked an eyebrow at the Duchess. “If everyone were a Lansdowne, where would be the distinction in being one?”
“Impertinence!” The Duchess’s cane cracked against the tiles like one of Jove’s thunderbolts. “I like that in a man.”
Her cousin caught her eye, making a face of such mock desperation that Charlotte had to bite her lip to keep from s
miling. His friend simply looked mesmerized.
“You’ll have the ducal chambers, of course,” said the Duchess. “Don’t look so frightened, boy! You shan’t find me through the connecting door.”
“I wouldn’t want to dispossess you.”
“I occupy the Queen’s chambers.” Having established her proper position, somewhere just to the right of Elizabeth I, the Duchess waved a dismissive hand. “These gels will introduce you to the rest of the party. You may find some acquaintances from India among them. Not a one worth knowing in the lot of them.”
She snapped her fingers, and the polebearers dutifully sank to their knees.
“You!” she barked, and four different potential yous stood to attention all at once. “Yes, you! The one with the leek!”
Lieutenant Fluellen snapped into parade-ground pose.
“Well?” the Duchess demanded, batting arthritic eyelashes. “Don’t you know to help a lady into her litter?”
“It would be my honor?” ventured Lieutenant Fluellen.
The Duchess favored him with a smile as her polebearers struggled to their feet. “Correct answer. You may keep your head. For now.”
And with that, she swept off, her bearers’ feet beating a staccato tattoo against the marble floor.
“Good Lord,” breathed Lieutenant Fluellen. It wasn’t a prayer.
“Grandmama seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
“A fancy?” echoed Lieutenant Fluellen incredulously. “I’d hate to see her take against someone.”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte hastened to reassure him. “Grandmama generally just ignores people she doesn’t like. She doesn’t believe in wasting her energy on them.” She caught Robert’s eyes on her again, too shrewd for comfort, and hastened to change the subject. “Do you have any baggage?”
“Our bags are in Dovedale village. We thought it better not to presume upon our welcome.”
There it was again, the past, jabbing at them. Charlotte lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry if Grandmama was . . . unkind, all those years ago. She—”
“She had every right to be,” her cousin interrupted flatly. “She was remarkably well behaved under the circumstances.”
Pink Carnation 05 - The Temptation of the Night Jasmine Page 3