“And of course,” Lady Fitzwilliam added, “Rare Confectionery had the most creamy marzipan.” Her ladyship sighed. “Due to mismanagement, inferior ingredients, and the like, apparently they went to the dogs, as the expression goes. A pity!” she finished.
Charles felt the young woman beside him go from simmering to a decided boil and clasped her hand, not caring who saw him while he still hoped to stave off the inevitable. He’d once seen Charlotte publicly give an earl’s daughter a severe dressing down at Pelham’s house. That, too, had been in defense of Amity and also the quality of Rare Confectionery — and she’d been wonderful. Jeffcoat, along with other guests, had watched open-mouthed, and Waverly had been unable to stop remarking on the “saucy shopgirl” for a month of Sundays.
But his gathering was not being hosted by someone as tolerant as the Duke of Pelham.
Abruptly, Charlotte wrenched her hand out from under his quelling grasp.
“No, we most certainly did not go to the dogs!” All eyes in their immediate vicinity turned toward her.
“Who said that?” Lord Fitzwilliam asked from the other end of the table, attempting to see who was speaking, causing all the heads to swivel toward their host.
Apparently taking it as an invitation to introduce herself, Charlotte stood up. Charles shook his head before he could stop himself, wishing he could yank her hand and drag her back down into her chair. As it was, he and every man at the table made a motion to stand with her.
“I did,” she said. “Please, sirs, remain seated. I am Miss Rare-Foure of Rare Confectionery.”
A collective gasp rushed around the long table like the whisper of wildfire as it caught dry grass.
“How did you get in here?” Lord Fitzwilliam asked as if she’d wandered in from the street and taken an uninvited seat at his table.
“Why, I...,” she glanced uncertainly down at Charles. Before he could say anything, Lady Fitzwilliam jumped in.
“You own a confectionery, at your tender years?” The heads turned to their hostess.
Charles thought it might not go so badly unless she confessed to—
“No, my parents own it. I work in the shop, and I make the marzipan. The creamy one you mentioned.” The guests’ attention was firmly back upon Charlotte.
“My word!” exclaimed her ladyship. “Why on earth would you confess to such a thing?”
“True, true,” voices muttered.
“Because I am proud of my family and our shop. And most proud of our confectionery. I hate to be contradictory, your ladyship, but Rare Confectionery has not slipped in quality.”
“How did she get in here?” Lord Fitzwilliam asked again, this time directing it to his wife while he slapped the table.
Charles sighed and rose to his feet. “I brought her as my guest.”
“Well that was ill-advised of you,” his lordship said. “She a pretty thing to be sure, Jeffcoat, but rather common. Like inviting our butcher just because we’re serving a roast,” he added.
Her ladyship gasped since her reputation as a gracious hostess was in terrible danger. Not to mention the fact that her husband had insulted a viscount by insulting his companion.
“My lord,” Lady Fitzwilliam called down to the other end of the table, “surely any guest of Lord Jeffcoat’s is welcome in our home. Besides, it is not the same at all since we are not serving her roast. I mean, her confectionery. They are going out of business.”
“No,” Charlotte insisted, and all heads turned to her again. “We are not. In fact, we are expanding. There will be a delightful café upstairs above our shop.”
Lady Fitzwilliam liked being the first to know things and definitely didn’t enjoy being gainsaid at her own dining room table.
“Young woman, I read the article,” she insisted.
“What article?” his lordship called out, then he added, “More wine,” and gestured to a nearby footman.
Lady Fitzwilliam ignored her husband. “The writer stated some egregious faults that would indicate—”
“A series of unfortunate occurrences,” Charlotte interrupted. “That’s all it was. A rainy day, a mix-up of sweets—”
“Burned toffee,” someone else interrupted. All heads turned to the new informant. “I read it, too,” said a woman with heavy jowls like one of the bulldogs on Charles’s country estate.
“Indeed!” said her ladyship. “Burned. And that is why I didn’t order anything for tonight.”
