Charlotte rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t a newspaper, dear. It was a scandal sheet.”
Lissie ignored this. “Even better, he’s said to be devastatingly handsome. Give me those glasses, Aurelie. I want to get a look at him.”
“No need for you to stare, as well.” Charlotte snapped open her fan. “You’ve already had a look at him, Lissie, and a good long one, at that.”
Lissie made a grab for the glasses. “Nonsense. I believe I’d recall it if I had.”
Aurelie slapped Lissie’s hand away. “Indeed you have, my dear. He’s the devil!”
Charlotte smothered a laugh. That was one way of putting it.
Lissie rolled her eyes. “No, Aurelie—I saidhero, notdevil. They’re not the same thing in English. Or in French, come to think of it.”
Aurelie dismissed this comment with an impatient flick of her fingers. “No, no. He’sCharlotte’sdevil! The man from the brothel. The one who tied her to the bed, yes?”
“For God’s sake. He didn’t tie me—”
“It’s him, I tell you. See for yourself.” Aurelie held out the glasses.
Lissie made a grab for them, but Annabel was closer. She seized them first and raised them to her eyes. The ladies watched her silently, waiting for the verdict—all except Charlotte, who knew very well her friend would find Captain Julian West at the other end.
At last Annabel lowered the glasses and held them out to Lissie, who peered through them, then nodded. “One and the same. His isn’t a face a lady forgets, is it?”
“No. His figure, either.” Annabel gave Charlotte a sly look. “Quite a dashing example of manhood from every angle, in fact.”
All three ladies turned to Charlotte, and three pairs of eyebrows rose simultaneously. Charlotte gave her fan a casual flick, but when she remained silent, Lissie held the opera glasses out to her. “Would you care to have a look, Charlotte?”
No, she would not, and she would have preferred they didn’t either, though of course it was inevitable they’d discover the truth sooner or later. Charlotte shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. You’re quite right. Captain Julian West is, indeed, the devil.”
Annabel leaned forward. “Well, this is an interesting new development. Why didn’t you say so at once?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Because it’s far less interesting than you’d imagine. Captain West is my brother-in-law’s cousin, and of course that means he’s also my sister Amelia’s cousin as well, though she’s always called him uncle because of the disparity in their ages.”
Aurelie hovered so close to the edge of her seat she was in danger of toppling off her chair and into Lord Ambrose’s lap below. “And?”
Charlotte blinked innocently. “And what?”
Lissie threw her hands up in the air. “And what else, of course! Don’t try and tell us he went to the trouble of dragging you upstairs, gagging you, and tying you to a bed because he’s your sister’s husband’s niece’s uncle. Or cousin! Or whatever it was you called him.”
“For pity’s sake.” Charlotte scowled. “If you must know, there’s a bit of a…history between us.”
Annabel’s eyes widened. “Oh, we must know, and a great deal more than that, my dear. What kind of history?”
Charlotte studied the three rapt faces before her and pinched her lips into a prim line. “A lady never tells.”
Lissie snorted. “Perhaps not, but what has that to do with the four of us?”
Damnation. She may as well have it out now, for they’d never cease teasing her until she did. “Oh, very well. It’s a sordid history, of course. What else? I thought myself in love with him at one time; then I found out he’d lied to me, and he wasn’t the man I thought he was.”
Annabel sighed. “They never are, are they?”
Charlotte’s chest tightened. Hadley had been, for all the good it had done him.
“Yes? You wereamoureuxand then he wasn’t the man you thought, and then what?” Aurelie was pouting like a child whose bedtime story has been interrupted. “What did he lie about?”
“Well.” Charlotte hesitated. “It’s rather complicated.”
“Ah. Even better.” Annabel twitched her fan back and forth. “Well, go on with it. You don’t suppose we’re here to watch the play, do you?”
