“And?” Josie asked.
“And I don’t want to talk about it.” As she lay there trying to sleep, it had played on her mind how ridiculous she must have looked swathed in her voluminous nightgown. Not even one of hernicenightgowns, but the six-years-out-of-fashion but oh-so-comfortable nightgown that was now slightly too short to be appropriate. Good grief, she hadn’t even been wearing her slippers.He saw my toes.
She sank down in her chair, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her.
“Youdon’twant to talk about it? You, who talked of nothing else when you realized he would return to England?” Hen raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“Not to mention all those years prior,” Josie added. “We discussed him so often as children that he’s mentioned a hundred times inmyjournals.”
“One moment…”Henrietta’s brow creased. “How did you see him at dinner? You were with Peter and me for dinner last night and then we were at Francesca’s ball.”
“Quite,” Charlotte bit out.
“He was still there when you returned?”
“He was.”
“Well, that was lucky,” Josie said. “You looked splendid last night. Truly Madame Genevieve outdid herself with that blue silk.”
“She did.” It would be a snowy day in hell before she told her friends the truth.
“So why are you so snippy?” Josie asked, her brows drawn together in concern. “You saw John, your lost love, for the first time in what? Ten years? I thought you’d be ecstatic.”
Charlotte swallowed hard and did her best to appear unaffected. “It didn’t go as I thought it would.”
Her two friends shared an apprehensive look. “No?” Hen asked.
“He was…curt. And rather dismissive. Perhaps I was mistaken in my earlier assessment of him. Perhaps he wasn’t the gentleman I thought he was.” Even as she said the words, she knew them to be false. She’d as good as told him he wasn’t welcome with her shocked demand to know why he was there, and like a gentleman, he’d left. Drat.
Her friends’ looks of apprehension deepened, and then Josie, who could always be counted on for support, said, “Well, how foolish of him. He’ll find it a hard thing, moving in our circles after his brother’s death, and he wouldn’t have had a better ally than you.”
“True,” Hen added. “And if you deign to grace him with your assistance settling in, he had better show his appreciation of such fortune with better manners.”
Josie cocked her head, her lips pursed in thought. “Of course, if you were to help him, that would be the kind thing to do.”
Hen nodded in response. “Very true. Quite the charitable thing.”
Charlotte could see what they were about. Josie and Hen thought that if they appealed to her kindness, she would be bound to offer John her help, and then who knew what might happen next?
And they had a point. Offering to help pave his way into society would be a good excuse to see him. A good excuse to spend time together. His close friendship with Edward and Fiona made it almost expected that she would offer her assistance, didn’t it?
***
John was drifting in and out of somewhat peculiar dreams about toes—pink, soft, and slender. There was a touch, a caress, and the feet flexed; the soles arched; the toes curled. Through the fog of sleep, he could feel the throb of his cock.
A sharp knock at the door woke him.
“Damn.What?” From the floor beside the bed, Newton raised his head and barked, echoing John’s frustration. Mosely had been told not to wake John in the mornings. His best ideas came at night, and this morning he’d still been working on his projects as the chambermaids rose.
His bedroom door opened a crack, just wide enough for the butler’s profile to show.
“Lord Heywood and his daughter, Lady Luella Tarlington, to see you, my lord.”
“I’m not at home.” That was one of the few benefits of London society. It was perfectly acceptable to lie about one’s presence and refuse to see people. If he were in Boston, he would have had to open the front door himself and then pretending to be absent wouldn’t have been an option.
“They have a solicitor with them, my lord. They plan to wait until you are ‘at home’ regardless of how long that might be. Although they hinted that it should not, in fact, be long.”
Blast.John groaned. Walter’s ever-growing list of creditors was proving more and more troublesome. This was not the first time a lord had shown up at his door demanding money. Nor was it the first time he’d been approached by a solicitor. But it was the first time he’d had to face the lord and lawyer at the same time.
