“Ah, there’s the Comtesse.” Julian spied the diminutive blonde just ahead. “I believe I’ll have a word with her.”
Robyn grinned. “Fetching little pocket Venus, isn’t she?”
“Quite. I have a taste for sin tonight, gentlemen.” Julian quickened his pace to catch up to the Comtesse. “And I have a feeling the fetching little Comtesse knows just where to find the wickedest entertainment in London.”
Chapter Eight
“Riveting. I believe that was the word you used, wasn’t it, Lissie?” Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest and tapped one toe on the carriage floor. “You’re no better, Annabel, with that speech about elegant manners and the glory of England. And you, Aurelie, what were you thinking, with yourtrès jeuneandtrès beau?”
A beat of silence, then, “She didn’t actually saytrès beau,” Lissie offered meekly.
Charlotte pressed her lips together. “It was implied.”
“Come now, Charlotte.” Annabel was occupied with smoothing her gloves over her elbows, but she glanced at Charlotte, her face amused. “You must admit it was diverting the way you insisted he despises you, and then in the very next breath he appears in your box, looking at you the way a pickpocket looks at a gold watch.”
“Oui!” Aurelie cried. “That is just how he looked at her. Like he wanted to snatch her away.”
Lissie cocked her head, considering. “No, it was more the way a child looks at a tray of lemon tarts right before he steals ones. He wanted to snatch her away, yes—so he could devour her in private!”
Charlotte gritted her teeth. Had Lissie just compared her to atart? “For God’s sake, Lissie.”
Annabel gave her glove one last tug. “You must admit he admires you, Charlotte.”
“I admit nothing of the sort. He doesn’t admire me.”
She hadn’t a doubt of that, but he’d gone to a great deal of trouble to make her friends think he did. Charlotte wasn’t sure what he stood to gain from doing so, but she was certain of one thing—whatever he gained, she’d lose. “You can’t mean to say you believed that rot about how anxious he is for my company, for I can assure you, Shakespeare’s wasn’t the only performance at Drury Lane this evening.”
Annabel leaned forward to pat Charlotte’s hand. “The question isn’t, my dear, whether or not he’s sincere in his admiration, but whether or not it’s likely to be amusing for us to indulge his antics.”
“But you don’t look diverted, Charlotte,” Lissie said. “Don’t say you’re concerned about Captain West?”
“As concerned as any fox with a drooling hound nipping at her heels. Make no mistake, my dears. He means to chase me out of London.”
“That blasted nonsense again?” Lissie frowned. “Really, Charlotte, it would be far more convenient if you had no family, like the rest of us.”
Charlotte couldn’t quite agree with that sentiment, so she remained silent.
“Other members of your family have tried to banish you to the country, Charlotte.” Annabel ticked them off on one hand. “Your mother, and Lady Eleanor. Both of your brothers—Lord Carlisle and Mr. Sutherland—and most recently Mr. West. Yet here you are in London still. None of them has proved a match for us, and neither will Captain West.”
“He proved a worthy enough match for the French, didn’t he? You’ve all read the papers. He’s not a man one trifles with.”
Annabel waved this away with a careless smile. “Now don’t fret, dear. It was only a visit to your theater box, nothing more. No harm done.”
Aurelie hadn’t said a word during this exchange, but now her face went pale, and she began to babble incoherently in French.
“What is it? For heaven’s sake, Aurelie.” Lissie grasped the Comtesse by the shoulders. “Enunciate!”
Aurelie wrung her hands. “Ah, well, that is…oh, dear. Charlotte, you’re going to be cross with me. You see—”
“Later,” Annabel hissed as the carriage rolled to a stop. “Devon’s right there on the street waiting to hand us out. We don’t want him to know all our secrets.”
In the next instant Devon opened the carriage door. “Lady Smythe?” He held out his hand to Lissie, then one by one assisted all four ladies from the carriage. Charlotte was the last to alight. “Ah. There you are, Lady Hadley. I hope you’ll be entertained this evening.”
Charlotte glanced up and down the quiet street. They were on the corner of Pall Mall and St. James’s Streets, several blocks south of White’s. She gave Devon a bemused look. “I have great faith in you, my lord, but even you can’t sneak us into White’s.”
Devon smiled down at her. “True enough, but what do we need with White’s?” He ushered them onto St. James’s Street toward Piccadilly, but they’d only gone a dozen or so steps before he stopped in front of an arched, gated entrance with a narrow passageway that let into a courtyard hardly bigger than a pocket handkerchief. There was but one gaslight fixed into the timbered roof at the end of the passage, and Charlotte stumbled a little on the uneven stones, but Devon caught her arm before she could fall. “Careful. We’re nearly there.”
“What an odd little courtyard,” Lissie said. “It’s rather darling, isn’t it? What is this place, Devon?”
