ThefifteenthViscount Harrow, well, he’d had her attention from the moment she’d first set eyes on him. He’d been the most beautiful young man she’d ever seen. He’d been sitting beneath the large oak, leaning back against the trunk, a book in his hands and a pencil tucked behind his ear. Over the days that followed, he’d alternated between sketching and sleeping, his chestnut hair flopping into his face. Every now and then, he would run his hand through it, tugging at the ends as though something in his mind needed evicting. It never took long before his locks stood out at wild angles and smudges of charcoal stained his face and his perfectly cut, perfectly fashionable clothing.
The notebook was quickly replaced by another, and then another, each covered with cloth of a different color. Lady Harrow must have been spending a fortune on supplies.
Finally, after a week, the tableau changed. Edward joined John in the Harrows’ back garden and from then on, the two had been almost inseparable. But if Charlotte had thought that her brother’s newfound friendship would lead to her meeting their neighbor, those hopes were quickly dashed. Edward had always been quick to shoo her away.
So, in the past decade, her relationship with John had not progressed beyond more than theveryoccasional and brief salutation.
She had watched as John had become taller, had filled out across the shoulders, had grown fashionable side beards and started pulling his hair back into a gentlemanly queue.
She’d listened as Edward had talked of the fun the two boys had at school together. Then one summer, John hadn’t returned from Oxford as he usually did, and she’d not seen him until tonight, when the first words out of her mouth had been…brusque. How could she blame him for leaving abruptly when she had spoken so churlishly?
The gardens now were pitch black. The light that had flared a moment ago came from a room on the ground floor. She couldn’t see into it, but, as though fate were intervening, John came into view, leaning against the windowpane, staring out into the darkness.
His expression was bleak, and her fingers twitched, wanting to smooth away his frown.
“Notice me,” she whispered. It had been all she’d wanted as a young girl, and it had never happened. “Notice me.” And just like that, he raised his eyes in her direction.
“Drat!” She spun to the side, her back flattening against the wall by the window, her heart thundering. “Drat it all.” How humiliating to be caught mooning over him like some child. She snuffed the candle and prayed that he hadn’t seen her.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said as she fumbled her way back to her bed, stubbing her toe in a painful reminder that this was real life, not a fantasy, and that she’d had enough of John noticing her in her nightwear, thank you very much.
Chapter 3
Really, Josie. I hardly think that level of detail is necessary.” Charlotte’s tone was more abrupt than usual, but a night of fitful sleep would do that, and her dearest friends would forgive her.
Indeed, Lady Josefine Augustus Pembroke responded by sticking out her tongue and then retrieving a spool of gold thread from her basket.
“They are orphans, not actresses,” Charlotte continued. “Where do you expect them to wear something like that?”
Josie shrugged and licked the end of the thread. “It’s pretty. Don’t orphans deserve something pretty?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t like what they’re wearing; I’m simply saying that you could sew five dresses in the time it’s taken you to embroider that one.”
Unfazed by Charlotte’s logic, Josie took the hem of the dress in hand and added accents to the elaborate edging she’d been working on this past fortnight. “Well,” she said. “I would prefer one pretty dress to five plain ones.”
There was no arguing with her. Josefine was as impractical a person as Charlotte had ever met. Thankfully, her lack of common sense was offset by the sweetest of natures. Charlotte turned to the third in their party, Lady Henrietta Hastings, for support. Hen deliberately kept her eyes trained on her own work, staying well out of the spat.
Charlotte finished casting off the blue knit jumper she had been working on since last Tuesday. She’d become quite good at knitting these past months. It wasn’t a craft she’d bothered to learn when she was younger—embroidery was more appropriate for a woman of her station—but when she’d heard that the Hollyhock Orphanage was in dire need of clothing to dress the young girls in their care, she’d quickly formed a circle to meet the need. With the weather as it was, a knitted jersey would be far more practical than a sewn pinafore.
Henrietta wrinkled her nose, a frown forming between her brows as she studied the project in her lap. “Have you decided how you are going to approach Mr. Drumwithel this time?” she asked, without looking up.
The Reverend. Insufferable man.Charlotte had never met a more arrogant, condescending man, and her brother was a duke. She entertained the most arrogant lords in London on a daily basis. “I’m going to refuse to hand over any of these clothes until he lets me through those orphanage doors,” she said as she wove the loose end of the yarn through the hem.
“Perhaps Mr. Drumwithel is correct. Perhaps it’s not an appropriate place for a lady to be,” Josefine said.
“And perhaps we should be the ones to determine what is and is not an appropriate place for us to be,” Charlotte said. “The Reverend is more than willing to take the money we raise and the clothes we make, but he has yet to demonstrate any evidence that these clothes are even making it onto the backs of his wards. Why, for all we know, he is selling these for a profit and those children could be wearing rags.”
Hen held up the jersey she’d been working on, lopsided with dropped stitches and one arm significantly longer than the other. “You think he’s selling these for profit?”
Josie snorted, and Charlotte, had she not been trying to prove a point, would have done the same. “Well, not yours, obviously,” Charlotte said. “But Josefine’s could fetch a pretty penny. One more reason you should focus on quantity, not quality,” she said to her friend. “So Drumwithel isn’t tempted to sell them.”
Josie stuck out her tongue once more and continued on with her tiny, tiny stitches.
“Has anyone heard anything about a certain viscount?” Henrietta asked before the bickering could start in earnest. “This morning’s papers say that he was seen arriving in London two days ago.”
Charlotte turned her attention back to the perfectly knitted jersey resting on her knees, but not before she saw both friends train their eyes on her. Neither of them spoke, and after a long, frustrating minute, Charlotte balled the knitting in her hands and stared back.
“Fine. I saw him last night. He joined Edward for dinner.”
