Charles glanced at Edward, who caught his eye with a grown-up expression of chagrin.
“What are the flavors and the fillings?” the customer asked. “It would help if the confectionery was labeled.”
“It has never needed to be labeled before,” Charlotte pointed out, as if these customers were particularly obtuse.
Charles nearly put a hand to his forehead. It had never needed labeling, he would wager, because a helpful shopgirl had always explained the confectionery and given samples.
An unpleasant scrabbling noise overhead, followed by a woman’s cry, caused the hair on his head to stand up, or so it felt. The customers looked up, too. Charlotte and Edward ignored it.
The whole encounter was so unpleasant that the three turned for the door without purchasing anything.
“Would you like a sample?” young Edward called after them, but they left, one of the women muttering about Chatman’s Chocolates on Regent Street.
Charlotte returned to the bowl of marzipan. When Edward settled in beside her, he said, “You used to always give out samples.”
She shrugged noncommittally and said nothing. Charles dreaded the entrance of any more customers as it was painful to watch her treatment of them.
“Would you like to taste the marzipan, my lord?” Edward asked.
“Hm.” He glanced at Charlotte, wishing she would offer him that smile he found so captivating, but she didn’t. As serious as a gravedigger, she fixed him with her deep-brown gaze.
“Some people don’t like marzipan,” she said softly.
“Ilike it,” Edward said, looking from Charles to Miss Rare-Foure, but she merely shrugged.
Where was the young woman who’d exclaimed in delight over swan-shaped pastry filled with meat at her sister’s reception dinner? Or the happy female who’d excitedly twirled to show off her Turkish costume at the fancy-dress ball? This Miss Rare-Foure seemed as bland and uninteresting as cheese.
Nonetheless, she reached beside her to the display case, withdrew a cream-colored leaf, and handed it to him.With her bare hand!
“My hands are clean for making confectionery,” she said when she caught him staring.
Taking off his gloves, he let her drop it onto his palm. Bringing this to his nose, he sniffed it.
“The scent makes my mouth water,” he confessed. And then he bit the leaf in half. “Sweet,” he said, “and with such a delicate flavor. Oranges, I think?” He said it as a question, hoping she would appreciate his effort.
She nodded without enthusiasm, nor did she look particularly pleased.
“Sometimes, Miss Charlotte adds rose-water and sometimes orange-water,” Edward explained. “You can buy marzipan paste already made, but she grinds the almonds herself and mixes in the sugar. Now I know how to do it.”
She nodded at the boy’s words.
Charles looked in the display case at the various shapes of her marzipan. “You’re truly an artist,” he said.
She stiffened. “If you’ll excuse me.”
With that, she disappeared swiftly into the back room through a heavy drape of blue velvet.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked softly, so she wouldn’t hear, then realized the inappropriateness of querying a child.
“Miss Charlotte is moody sometimes,” the boy responded.
Suddenly, there was a loud thump from upstairs, and then another.
“They’re moving out all the seamstress’s things today. Poor old lady. She gave me a pillow.”
“Did she?” Charles was starting to think the confectionery was a bit like Bedlam. On the other hand, he thought of how lovely Charlotte’s smile used to be and how sparkling her eyes and enthusiastic her temperament — the opposite of the law clerks at Lincoln’s Inn.
How desperately he wanted her happiness in his life!That startling realization was followed quickly by a question only he could answer:Was there a better time than the present?
