by Maya Rodale
James didn’t give a damn where these people went at midnight when George Coney was expected to “read.” However, it was above all absolutely essential and imperative that Charlotte be in the west drawing room at midnight and that no one else be present.
Harriet, poor Harriet. It was her job to ensure just that.
To assist herself in that endeavor, she had written west drawing room on her palm. He had watched her do it.
James now watched her surreptitiously attempt to remove her glove so that she might discretely glance at the answer written on her hand and direct the throngs accordingly.
Charlotte glanced around her, absorbing the information.
James feared his carefully, well laid plans were unraveling by the second. It was deuced hot in this ballroom. Was this tension what Charlotte felt all the time since she was scheming nearly all the time?
“Well what is the worst that could happen if we go to the west drawing room and not the east one?” Lady Talleyrand asked with a piercing laugh.
Disaster, James thought. He tugged at his cravat, which had been tied awfully tight this evening.
“We shall miss a portion of the reading!” Lady Inchbald lamented.
“It’s in the library,” Lord Derby insisted.
George Coney doesn’t even exist, James thought to himself. He was sure Charlotte was thinking the same. He glanced at Charlotte—her brow was furrowed and she was furiously thinking, he could tell.
Harriet succeeded in removing her glove.
“Perhaps you should confer with the duchess,” Charlotte suggested. “Do let me know what she tells you. I would also perish if I were to miss this reading.”
“We shall do just that. I should hate to miss it,” Lady Talleyrand said.
“Indeed I am dying to hear from the book that is sold out in bookstores all over London! Not a copy to be had! I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it Charlotte,” Lady Inchbald added.
Charlotte was biting down on her lower lip. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. One could practically see the wheels turning and the steam rising. It was clear to him that she was completely vexed by all the nonsense.
Was it wrong he thought her adorable in that moment?
“Harriet, do you know anything about this?” Charlotte asked in a remarkably calm voice after the bothersome guests had departed in search of the duchess.
“About what?” Harriet asked. She blinked her eyes for effect.
“Harriet …”
“I am parched, utterly parched,” Harriet declared. Without further ado she strode determinedly toward the lemonade table—unwittingly dropping her glove where it was promptly trampled underfoot on the ballroom floor.
The Waltz
In times of uncertainty, ambiguity and chaos, Charlotte—like her dear brother—resorted to facts, and the facts were thus:
George Coney did not exist. Certainly not in human form. Once upon a time George Coney existed as a beloved pet rabbit, who met an untimely demise.
While gossip did have a way of getting twisted, contorted and badgered into new on dits, passed around on good authority, in the strictest confidence, Charlotte did not think mention of George Coney’s reading at midnight was the result of people’s idle chatter regarding her invented author and book at the Capulet ball Thursday last. Because …
Charlotte had a sixth sense for sniffing out plots, schemes, mischief and trouble of all kinds. Tonight, she detected a scheme.
Charlotte, it should be noted, was the grand master architect of schemes. She was not an unwitting pawn. However, tonight she suspected she was indeed an unwitting pawn!
Such were her thoughts when James approached her … in addition to thoughts that were utterly unladylike and completely wanton and had little to do with rumors and secret, nefarious plots and more to do with the removal of his attire.
“I believe you promised me this waltz,” James said, ever the gentleman. Though she might have detected a distinctly ungentlemanly gleam in his eye. For the first time she understood the saying “butterflies in one’s stomach.”
He held out his hand and she placed her palm in his. Then he whisked her into his arms and swept her onto the floor, in the crush of dozens of other waltzing couples. They spun and whirled around the ballroom in perfect time with the music.
“How are you enjoying your evening?” James asked with a polite smile. She was sure he was hiding something.
“It’s far more interesting than I had anticipated,” Charlotte replied, hoping to convey I know something is in the works so you might as well just tell me. Everything.
“What good fortune,” he said benignly.
She tried again.
“Like most of the people here, I am all agog for the reading of George Coney’s book, The Hare Raising Adventures of George Coney. I imagine you must be as well?”
“You look pretty tonight,” James said. Her mind went blank.
“Thank you,” she replied, smiling. And then she scowled as her wits returned to her. “Also, you are avoiding the question.”
“Your eyes are so blue. Like sapphires,” James murmured.
“My heart is aflutter,” Charlotte remarked dryly, though it certainly did feel as if her heart was aflutter. No gentleman had ever complimented her eyes before, unless to remark that she had a wicked, dangerous, maniacal gleam which she did not think was intended as a compliment though she took it as such nevertheless.
Sapphires, though. That was something.
“In spite of my fluttering heart, my suspicions are still raised,” Charlotte said.
“Your mouth. I want to taste you, Charlotte,” James leaned in close as he said this, so close that he could whisper it in her ear. She thought Kiss me. She thought Taste me. She thought …
“You are up to something. What is it?” Charlotte asked, unable to master subtly or discretion.
“Your intelligence is—” James began and she cut him off before he could finish that sentence.
“Vast. Deep. Sharp, all-encompassing,” she said as he grinned. “What are you not telling me?”
“And your tenacity! ’Tis that of a terrier,” James said and when her mouth dropped open in shock he hastily added, “I mean that as the highest compliment.”
Charlotte loved sparring. But she hated not knowing. And she did have the tenacity of a terrier.
“You were going to say something,” she said. And then she gave him her most dazzling smile to compel him into sharing his secrets.
“And the rest of you Charlotte … You are truly sublime,” he said. The modicum of her brain that was still functioning processed this unparalleled compliment. Sublime: excellence and beauty inspiring awe. Also, so awe-inspiring as to be both magnificent and terrifying.
This was a good compliment in her book.
Her grip on him tightened. She was afraid to speak, for fear that she would confess to loving him, and to being weak-kneed with lust and delirious with desire for him.
“Oh,” she said in a manner half-spoken, half-sighed. And then, “Oh, no.”
They stepped quickly in three-quarter time, and James whirled them around so that he might see why she had said “Oh, no” in a very grave voice.
“Oh my God,” James said. His sun-kissed skin paled.
Charlotte did her best to lead them into another turn so she could confirm that unfathomable sight.
“Is that—?” she gasped. Of all the things she had ever seen at a London ball, this was new. This was novel. She had suspected a scheme, but this was entirely unexpected.
“It is,” James said, his sensuous mouth set in a grim line.
And then all hell broke loose.
In hindsight, perhaps the rabbit hadn’t been the best idea. In theory, there had been a certain poetry to the gesture of gifting Charlotte with a new pet rabbit, which he took the liberty of naming George Coney the Second.
He and Charlotte had first bonded over poor, rescued George Coney the First. Their chi
ldhood friendship had ended over him. Now George Coney the Second could symbolize a new start—the start of their future together as husband and wife.
He had searched high and low in London for the perfect warm bundle of soft brown fur, shiny black eyes and velvety floppy ears.
He had left it in a wicker basket with a lid in the west drawing room. He had shut the door. Or so he had thought.
And yet, now George Coney was hopping madly across the ballroom, leaving a swath of devastation in her wake.
Yes, her.
Only Charlotte would give her female rabbit a man’s name.
Women leapt aside, stumbling into each other as their legs tangled in their voluminous flounced skirts. Lady Talleyrand shrieked and jumped backward, effectively launching herself at Lady Inchbald, who staggered under the sudden onslaught of weight and crashed upon a footman bearing a tray of champagne flutes.
There was a terrific clatter as a dozen crystal glasses shattered upon the floor. It stole the crowd’s attention for just a second before all eyes once again returned to George Coney as she merrily hopped across the parquet floor.
For a second she paused. Her little black nose started twitching and sniffing at a vigorous pace. Her long and floppy ears were pressed back against her head. James could have sworn the rabbit’s eyes even widened, as if in alarm.
As if …
Oh bloody hell. The rabbit was definitely a bad idea.
Penelope had not been invited to join the festivities, of course, and yet she had just strolled into the ballroom.
That’s when the screaming began.
It was just a fox. Just the sweetest, bushy-tailed, sly-eyed creature that ever stalked a rabbit in a ballroom. Honestly, the haute ton was simply awash with delicate constitutions. Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw at least three women and one man swoon into the arms of their companions.
Penelope was in full huntress mode. She slinked around bodies as if they were nothing more than trees, and leapt over fainting bodies as if they were merely fallen logs.
“Who invited her?” James muttered.
“Penelope! Come here this instant,” Charlotte said.
The fox ignored her. Ignored everything except for the rabbit.
On the far side of the ballroom, the foolish rabbit stood frozen as lords and ladies bustled around it, attempting to flee the fox who was slowly, torturously stalking its prey.
Charlotte presumed that the fox had escaped—curses to her broken door!—and must have followed the scent of the rabbit. That begged the question: Why was there a rabbit in the house?
“Come here, Penelope,” Charlotte implored. But the fox continued its hunt, oblivious to the swarms of people bumping and bustling and generally falling all over themselves in an effort to get back and who hampered Charlotte’s progress in the process.
Except for one: the despicable, previously pet-eating Lord Dudley.
While most of the guests had simply made every effort to avoid the wild animal in their midst, Lord Dudley removed a pistol from his jacket.
A hush fell over the ballroom.
“No,” Charlotte said in a strangled voice.
Dudley leveled the pistol at the fox, who seemed to sense the danger in the situation. Her eyes, large, glossy and black, found Charlotte, and settled there, imploring her mistress for protection. For love. For life.
Charlotte stomped forward and placed herself directly between Lord Dudley’s pistol and her beloved pet fox.
“Charlotte!” At least seven different voices called her name in alarm, all from varying points in the ballroom. Well, she may be all kinds of trouble but she defended the defenseless! She protected the innocent! She loved fiercely and steadfastly.
“Lord Dudley, I’m quite sure it’s an egregious breach of etiquette to shoot the beloved pet of your hostess,” Charlotte declared loudly.
Lord Dudley burst out laughing.
Charlotte eyed his pistol, and considered lunging for it, and then bashing him over the head with it. Repeatedly.
He might laugh now …
“I don’t understand why you keep killing my pets, Lord Dudley,” Charlotte said, summoning tears. Quite a few gasps were heard round the ballroom. “After all, it’s a well known fact that true gentlemen are kind to animals.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. You are mad, Charlotte.”
“Lady Charlotte. And I know you’ve been inconsolable since I refused your marriage proposal on the grounds of that humiliating report from your physician …”
Dudley paled.
Charlotte bit back a triumphant crow. It had been a calculated guess that such a vile creature harbored some disease. As unkind as it was, she hoped it was something slow, painful and incurable. It was also, for the record, a complete fabrication about the marriage proposal.
Color started to reemerge in Dudley’s face, from ashen to a faint orange, ripening into a crimson and then swiftly turning into something resembling mashed grapes. His eyes bulged and Charlotte detected a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
The man was enraged.
And the gun remained pointed at her, and her pet.
James, darling beloved utterly mad James, stepped into the fray. Not only that, he stepped between the despicable Dudley and herself.
It looked like she was going to be saved, or rescued, or tragically heartbroken.
She thought about swooning and decided against it.
This was too romantic to miss.
If there had been a doubt in James’s mind about marrying Charlotte, the sight of a pistol pointed at her lovely, mad self put the matter entirely to rest. His heart lodged in his throat and his life—their life together—flashed before his eyes, ending before it even began.
He gave her a moment in the spotlight to take her turn extracting revenge on Dudley because she would never forgive James for taking that from her. But he edged closer all the while for the inevitable moment when Charlotte was just a bit too … Charlotte.
That was when he stepped in between his future wife (not that she knew it yet) and his former friend.
“Dudley, put the gun down. It is the lady’s pet,” James said in the sort of voice that left no room for negotiation. Or so he had intended. Dudley had always been a selfish blockhead.
“Pet? Pet? That is clearly a wild, rabid animal and it is scaring the ladies,” Dudley replied which was laughable because Dudley was not known to demonstrate the slightest concern for the feelings of others, particularly of women.
“The matter is not negotiable, Dudley. Lower your damned pistol,” James said, this time his voice more tense, more angry. His hands clenched into fists. His jaw held firm.
“How cute. Defending the eccentric debutant and her mangy pet,” Dudley retorted.
Charlotte issued a garbled sound of rage.
And then Harriet …
Oh, Harriet.
She crept up toward Dudley from behind, bearing a curious weapon in her shaking hands. James noticed splashes of the liquid sloshing down the sides of the silver pitcher, undoubtedly smearing the essential message of west drawing room that had been inked there earlier.
Clearly Harriet had a trick up her sleeve. She stepped even closer to Dudley, who took no notice of the shy, retiring wallflower. She stepped just to the side of him—and still he was sneering and brandishing his pistol like a madman and carrying on about defending the guests from wild vermin scurrying about in their midst.
Harriet tossed the entire pitcher of lemonade in Dudley’s face.
James took that moment to lunge, knocking Dudley to the ground and delivering precisely six devastating blows to the man’s jaw and nose. One for George Coney the First, one for his threats against George Coney the Second, one for Penelope, two for Charlotte and one more just because the man was awful and deserved a lot worse.
James then fought to wrench the pistol from Dudley’s grasp. He grabbed the man by his wrist and slammed it onto the parquet floor, where
just minutes before he’d been waltzing with a beautiful woman in his arms.
The pistol went off.
A bullet pierced the chandelier, shattering a few crystals and sending a flurry of glass shards to the ground.
Women screamed. Men screamed too.
Penelope terrorized everyone with one of those screaming barks and lunged for the rabbit, which recovered its wits and dashed out to the terrace and into the garden. The fox followed.
“Penelope!” Charlotte cried, rushing after her.
“Charlotte!” James yelled, running after her.
Brandon and a few others took care of disposing of Dudley, who was certainly ruined socially forever. It was the least he deserved.
And Charlotte … James dashed after her into the garden. Ahead, she picked up her skirts and hurried after Penelope, who at first stuck to the gravel path but then took to leaping over raised garden beds and low hedges, all in pursuit of that vexing rabbit.
Finally, the rabbit discovered a safe retreat in the hollow of a gnarly old oak tree and the fox barked and scratched and otherwise haunted the poor thing.
Charlotte leaned against the tree, gasping for breath.
“Are you all right?” James ventured as he approached Charlotte.
“All right?” Charlotte echoed. “All right?!”
Charlotte’s thoughts were racing, her heart was racing, everything was racing like mad and it took a moment before she could do anything other than repeat what he had said.
“Oh, James, I’ve never been better,” she said breathlessly. “That was marvelous!”
Yet another ball interrupted. Dudley getting his comeuppance. A wild animal chase through a ballroom and at least seven people fainting. And now here she was in the garden, alone with James, on a moonlit night. Did life get any better than this?
“I’m so glad you think so,” he said. She thought he seemed relieved and grateful.
Charlotte smiled mysteriously at him.
“I wonder if it is a coincidence that there is a rabbit hopping through the ballroom on the same evening George Coney is reputed to be in attendance,” she remarked.