by Лорен Уиллиг
Turning, Charlotte smiled up at him. “Grandmama seldom lops anything. She pokes and prods, but her victims are usually left whole, if slightly bruised.”
“She seems to have taken a fancy to Tommy.”
“She’s made him her cane-bearer for the evening. It’s really a rather good position to be in. If he’s holding it,” Charlotte explained, “he can’t be hit by it.”
“Better him than me,” said Robert feelingly.
“She likes you, too,” said Charlotte, settling herself down on the stone bench. Cold still seeped through the edges of the warped old panes, but with the window closed, the draft was bearable. “I heard her say at breakfast the other morning that you were a Lansdowne ‘through and through, by Gad.’ ”
“Is that meant to be a compliment?”
“It’s generally better just to take it as one,” said Charlotte comfortably, fluffing her skirts out around her feet.
“Very wise advice,” said her cousin, sitting down next to her.
Against the stone floor, the silver embroidery on her green slippers looked like tiny stars. Charlotte wiggled her toes to make them twinkle. “Why were you in such a terrible snit just now?” she asked.
“I wasn’t — ” Robert broke off with a sigh as she looked at him. “It wasn’t a terrible snit.”
“One seldom has small snits,” said Charlotte. “They’d be barely noticeable as snits and then what would be the point of having them?”
“Shall we call it a snit of medium size and leave it at that?”
Charlotte’s lips quirked. “A snit of average snittiness?”
Robert leaned his forehead against the windowpane in an attitude of mock agony. “I think I’m all snitted out for the moment, thank you very much.”
“You still haven’t said what it was that set you off.”
For a moment, Robert seemed like he might be about to demur, but Charlotte pinned him with her very best inquisitive expression.
Pushing up off the bench, Robert strode over to the small, carved face of an angel on the opposite wall.
“It was just something Medmenham said,” he muttered, poking at the pointy end of the angel’s wing. “I may have overreacted.”
Charlotte wondered what Medmenham had said. Robert had shown himself to be fairly unflappable, even during his last visit all those years ago. Not even all the Duchess’s poking and prodding managed to elicit anything more than a raised eyebrow and a carefully composed riposte. He carried his very own shield along with him, welded to his skin. It was a nicely gilded shield, charmingly crafted and pleasing to the eye, but it was a shield nonetheless. Every now and again a flicker of stronger emotion flared up, but he always caught it and stuffed it back beneath his pleasant façade before she got to see anything interesting.
“Sir Francis does seem to have that effect on people,” she said carefully.
Robert looked up sharply from his angel. “Has he been bothering you?”
The idea was so absurd that Charlotte couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “Me? Don’t be silly.”
“I don’t see what’s so silly about it,” said Rob stiffly.
“I’m not the sort of girl Francis Medmenham bothers,” said Charlotte simply, as though that were that.
In Charlotte’s opinion, that was that.
Her cousin felt otherwise.
“If Medmenham asks you to go anywhere with him, don’t.” Robert searched Charlotte’s face for comprehension and found only polite attention.
What did he expect? Good God, the girl was even prepared to believe the best about the Dowager Duchess. She would be easy prey for a hardened rake like Medmenham. In Charlotte-land, gentlemen were gentlemen, everyone was exactly what they seemed, and indecent propositions were things that happened to other people.
Robert raised the level of urgency in his voice. “Don’t go anywhere alone with him,” he stressed. “Anywhere.”
“You mean someplace like here?” Charlotte teased.
“You probably shouldn’t be alone here with me, either,” said Robert grimly. “Not with anyone.”
Charlotte looked up at him from under her lashes. “Are you planning to make improper advances?”
Robert went red straight through to the tips of his ears. “Certainly not!”
“Well, there you are,” said Charlotte cheerfully, as though that explained everything.
Robert wasn’t quite sure how he had managed to lose that argument. “Someone else might have, though.”
“But that someone else wouldn’t be you.”
“You’re very trusting.”
“You needn’t make it sound like it’s a bad thing,” said Charlotte with a laugh. “Isn’t it better to trust people than not?”
“Not always.” There were only a handful of people in his life who had proved themselves worthy of trust. Tommy. Colonel Arbuthnot. Charlotte.
Charlotte raised her chin. She still looked like an angel, but a very stubborn one. “I believe that people tend to live up or down to your expectations. When you trust them, you give them the opportunity to vindicate that trust.”
“And if they don’t? That sounds like a very dangerous philosophy. You shouldn’t trust anyone too far. Including me,” he added repressively.
“Why ever not?”
“I’m a rotten apple.”
A dimple appeared in Charlotte’s right cheek. “You certainly don’t look like an apple.”
“A rotten apple,” Robert stressed, just in case she might have missed the crucial point. It seemed, somehow, absolutely imperative that she be warned what she was dealing with. The product of taverns and ale-houses, drunken mess parties and rough marches. “Wormy and canker-ridden.”
Charlotte glanced at him sideways. “If you were really wormy and canker-ridden, you wouldn’t be admitting to it.”
Robert grasped at straws. “Can’t one be canker-ridden with a conscience?”
Charlotte shook her head so decisively that strands of her hair tangled in her eyelashes. Robert’s hand tingled with the urge to smooth them back. “It’s a contradiction in terms. Cankers have no consciences. Just look at Francis Medmenham.”
“Don’t,” Robert said irritably. “And hopefully he won’t look at you, either.”
Charlotte favored him with one of her disconcertingly level glances. “If you think so poorly of him, why do you spend so much time with him?”
For a moment, Robert was tempted to confide in her, to tell her the whole sordid story of the Colonel’s death and Wrothan’s disappearance. It would be a relief to have someone else to talk to; Tommy, good and loyal friend though he was, had all but disappeared in Miss Deveraux’s train, living for her smiles and moping at her frowns. It made him decidedly less than useful for plotting and planning purposes. Besides, he didn’t want Charlotte thinking that he patronized Medmenham for, well, for the obvious reasons, for his connections to gaming hells, opium dens, loose women, and other licentious pleasures. Robert wasn’t sure why Charlotte’s opinion mattered so much to him, but it did. She was his touchstone, his lodestar, his shining spot of virtue in a dark world, everything that was good and kind and pure.
And sheltered.
If he told her about the Colonel — she would understand, that much was for sure. Knowing Charlotte, she would immediately conceive of it as a glorious quest, St. George sallying forth to kill the dragon and make the world safe for afternoon tea, sticky toffee pudding, and all the good yeomen of England. Charlotte would want to play, too, not realizing that it wasn’t a game, but in deadly earnest. He didn’t want her anywhere near Wrothan. And even if she stayed clear of Wrothan, what of Sir Francis?
Charlotte was still looking at him, waiting for an answer. Robert shrugged, packing it with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
“Everyone needs a diversion now and again. Medmenham’s an amusing fellow.”
That was true as far as it went. Medmenham would be an entertaining companion but for that whiff of brimston
e that hovered around him. However, he was certainly not a fit companion for Charlotte. Under any circumstances.
It wasn’t so very long ago that unscrupulous men had made a practice of kidnapping heiresses as brides. When he thought what someone like Medmenham might do . . . Robert’s hand closed so tightly around the angel’s wing that it left a dent in his palm.
Robert forced himself to release his grip. It wasn’t as though Medmenham and his friends were going to kidnap Charlotte as a virgin sacrifice for their ridiculous Hellfire Club. At least, he hoped they didn’t have virgin sacrifices. And even if they did, they wouldn’t dare touch Charlotte. She was too well connected to be lightly trifled with, and by all that was holy, he would make sure that Medmenham and the rest of his crew knew it. No one toyed with the cousin of the Duke of Dovedale.
It was slightly lowering to know that the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale was probably more of a deterrent than he was.
The devil of it was, he probably was overreacting, prey to morbid fancies and all that rot. Feeling that he had already belabored the point far too much, Robert scuffed his shoes against the worn flagstones of the floor and said, “Just be wary of Medmenham, that’s all.”
Charlotte rose from her perch on the window seat and touched a hand lightly to his arm. Her gloved fingers were tiny and very pale against his sleeve, like a china miniature. “You’re very sweet to look out for me.”
“Sweet?” said Robert, with feigned indignation. “You’ll have me laughed out of my regiment.” The words were already out of his mouth before Robert remembered that he no longer had a regiment. It was an oddly empty feeling, no longer belonging to anything.
“Kind, then,” she said, smiling at him as though he were Lancelot, Sir Galahad, and the rest of the Round Table all wrapped into one.
Robert’s hand closed over hers. “You make it very hard to refuse a compliment.”
Charlotte tilted back her head, tossing a loose curl back over her shoulders. “I’ll just keep throwing adjectives at you until you accept.”
The faint light of the distant torches slanted through the uneven old windowpanes, sending golden flecks dancing along her curls like angels on pins.
Robert leaned forwards, his hand tightening on hers. “I’d better accept then, hadn’t I?”
Her lips looked very pink and soft as she smiled up at him, that small, close-lipped smile that was so distinctively Charlotte’s. It would only take just a whisper of movement, barely a movement at all, to lean forwards and brush those lips with his, to tangle his hands in that net of golden hair and kiss her until the torches in the garden flickered and died.
What in all the blazes was he thinking?
Dropping her hand, Robert stumbled back a step, bumping into his old friend, the carved angel. The angel’s wing jabbed him painfully in the ribs, like an outraged duenna.
Robert clapped a hand to his bruised side. He could swear the bloody stone angel was smirking at him. It served him right. What had he — no, he didn’t want to go into what he had been thinking. It was best to think about something safe and neutral, something that didn’t have anything to do with lips or kissing or other decidedly uncousinly concepts. Like refreshments.
“Would you like some ratafia?” he asked hastily. “I’ll fetch you some ratafia, shall I?”
“I don’t think there is any ratafia,” said Charlotte, blinking at him as though he had just gone mad, which, to be fair, he had.
“Lemonade, then,” he said, backing away towards the doorway. “Everyone likes lemonade.”
“Lemonade would be lovely,” said Charlotte, bemused but game.
Robert offered her his arm, a very stiff arm, held a full six inches away from his body, just in case her guardian angel decided to get feisty again.
“Shall we?” he said. “Let me take you back to the gallery. It’s getting a little chilly in here.”
“Really?” she murmured as she accepted his arm. “I found it quite warm.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“Lemonade,” gabbled Robert as he all but pushed her back through the arras, into the warmth and light and, most importantly, people. Lots and lots of people. “Let’s get you that lemonade.”
“That would be lovely,” Charlotte said, and smiled up at him with her big, innocent, pale green eyes.
It was deuced uncomfortable being a canker with a conscience.
Chapter Seven
As they ducked under the tapestry, the glare of the candlelight hit his eyes like an attack of conscience. After the dim confines of the chapel anteroom, the light of the gallery was blinding, with all the candles in their mirror-backed sconces blazing away, beaming off of the gilding on ceiling and walls and the jewels worn by ladies and gentlemen alike. The sudden glow left spots in front of Robert’s eyes, like fireworks on the King’s birthday. Wincing, Robert imagined this must be what it would be like on the Judgment Day, with truth winkling out all the dark places in one’s soul.
“Hullo!” Lord Frederick Staines hailed him across the room. “There you are, Dovedale. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?” Robert deliberately looked anywhere but at Charlotte.
It was an entirely unnecessary measure. Staines looked right over Charlotte’s head as if he hadn’t even noticed her presence at Robert’s side. Admittedly, being a good foot shorter than the two men, she was well below Staines’s eye level. And Staines wasn’t the sort of man to notice anything that didn’t immediately touch his own concerns.
Staines’s cheeks were flushed with what might have been wine or windburn or both. Judging from the matching color in Miss Deveraux’s cheeks, apparently he had been enjoying the amenities of the balcony, despite the inclemency of the weather.
“Are you coming?” Staines demanded, jerking his head in the direction of the door.
“Where?” Robert asked warily, prepared to politely extricate himself from high-stakes card games and absurd wagers, like betting on how many times Turnip Fitzhugh could hop the length of the gallery on one foot while balancing a glass of port on his head.
“To the tree.”
“I beg your pardon?” Robert might be going mad, but he wasn’t quite that mad. King George might occasionally think that he was Noah and lived in an ark, but Robert was fairly sure one didn’t go calling on trees at midnight. Or ever.
Staines looked at him as though he suspected Robert might be just a little bit thick. “To the Epiphany tree.”
Charlotte came to his rescue, stepping in before he could embarrass himself any further. “It’s an old country tradition,” she explained. “On Epiphany Eve, the gentlemen gather round the biggest tree on the estate — or at least the most convenient big tree — to scare away the evil spirits.”
“How does one go about doing that?”
Lord Henry Innes clapped Rob on the shoulder in passing. “You shoot them, man. What else?”
Robert eyed the pistol Lord Henry was idly swinging from one finger. He hoped to hell it wasn’t primed. “Does the Duchess know you have that in her ballroom?”
“It’s your ballroom now, old sport,” said Lord Henry, and went on swinging.
“Brilliant,” muttered Robert. “Why don’t you go along outside and I’ll grab up a weapon and be right with you.”
“No need.” Lord Henry produced the twin to the pistol in his hand. He twirled it professionally before handing it over to Robert. It was not, Robert was relieved to see, loaded. At least, not yet.
“Thought you might not have come prepared, having been away and all that.” Some of Robert’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Lord Henry added, “You’re one of us now. We take care of our own.”
“Not quite one of you yet,” said Robert guardedly, all too aware of Charlotte at his side.
Lord Henry brushed that aside with a sweep of his pistol. “Soon enough. Now we just need the rest of the kit for tonight.”
“The rest of the kit?”
Freddy Stain
es, who had been unabashedly sizing up the ladies as the men talked, popped back into the conversation. An expectant grin spread across his face, all but dislodging his ridiculously high shirt points. “The cider.”
Charlotte held up her hands. “I can’t tell you anything about the cider, other than that it is also a local tradition.”
“No old stories about it?” Robert teased. “No local lore?”
“Well . . . ,” began Charlotte, but Lord Freddy’s loud voice overrode hers as though she weren’t even there.
“To tell stories, you need to remember them,” said Lord Freddy sagely. “And you won’t after this cider.” Raising his gloved fist in the air, he called out, “To the tree!”
“To the tree!” echoed raggedly throughout the room.
The cry was seconded as loudly by the local men as it was by the London bucks. From around the room, red-faced squires rousted out muskets that looked like they had last been used during the War of the Spanish Succession and charged towards the ballroom door as though personally on their way to stave off a French advance. Or a horde of maddened trees.
Robert had assumed the locals had been invited as a courtesy to the county set; now he wondered whether they were part of this ceremony of the tree. Yet another thing he didn’t know about his own estate. Not for the first time, he heartily wished himself back in India. Among other things, in India, he wouldn’t be freezing in the January cold, shooting at a tree.
“Coming, Dovedale?” tossed off Innes over his shoulder. “It is your tree.”
Medmenham was heading to the exit with the rest, holding an elegant pistol with silver chasing and mother-of-pearl inlay as though he knew exactly what to do with it. Robert looked down at Charlotte’s golden head. She didn’t seem the least bit alarmed at being surrounded by an inebriated mob of heavily armed men, although whether that was the result of a country upbringing or because her imagination transmuted them all to dashing cavaliers, he wasn’t quite sure.
At least if Medmenham was outside shooting at a tree, he wouldn’t be inside with Charlotte.