She paused outside the drawing room and drew in a deep, slow breath. If she wanted to make her friends see sense, she must remain calm. Cool-headed. There could be no shouting and no hysterics, and above all she must refrain from referring to Julian as a false, deceitful, manipulative, ruthless scoundrel.
Surely she could manage to do that for one afternoon.
“My dears,” she said as she threw open the doors and breezed into the drawing room. “I didn’t realize you were aware there was such a thing as daylight hours.”
Lissie blinked at the window. “I vaguely recall something about it from my childhood. It feels less wondrous now than it did then, somehow.”
Annabel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “So do most things.”
“Such cynicism!” Aurelie frowned at Annabel. “It can’t be good for your complexion,ma petite.”
“Frowning isn’t good for it either, and anyway, who’s cynical? I saidmostthings, notallthings. Gossip, for instance.”
“Did you see the scandal sheets this morning, Charlotte?” Lissie settled herself on a yellow tufted divan with the air of one who intends to stay there for quite some time. “Captain West’s presence in your box last night didn’t go unnoticed, and now all of London is pining for a romance between the wicked widow and the war hero. I did warn you that story was irresistible, didn’t I?”
“Another day, another scandal sheet. I could write them myself by now.” Charlotte pulled the bell to summon a servant. “I suppose we’d better have tea.”
“Oui.” Aurelie sat down on the settee next to Lissie. “Tea, or something stronger.”
“Like smelling salts?” Annabel asked. “We may find ourselves overcome by Charlotte’s tales of the delicious Captain West.”
Charlotte glared at her. “You were certainly overcome by him last night. Honestly, Annabel, how can you be taken in by him? Underneath that charming smile he’s a false, deceitful, manipulative, ruthless scoundrel.”
Well. That hadn’t taken long.
“Oh, you mean to say he isun sauvage?” Aurelie gave a little wriggle of delight. “Even more delicious!”
Charlotte threw her hands into the air in disgust. “Well, I can only hope the next gentleman who fleeces my pockets is of a lessedibleturn of countenance. Then perhaps I can depend upon my dearest friends to do more than stand by and gape at him.”
Annabel glanced at Lissie and Aurelie, then back at Charlotte. “Do you mean to say he cheated at piquet? Because that would change things entirely. I can’t abide a cheat.”
Charlotte bit her lip. Oh, how dearly she’d love to claim he was a cheat and a liar, for he was both, but he hadn’t, blast him, cheated at piquet last night. “Not as such, no, but he—”
“He didn’t fleece you at all then, did he?” Lissie let out an irritated sigh. “Honestly, Charlotte, I can understand why you’re so wary of him, given your past association, but you refuse to even give the man a chance.”
I gave him a chance once. He broke my heart, and I haven’t another one to spare.
“Besides, what would you have had us do?” asked Annabel. “Tackle him to the floor right there beside the piquet table and beat him senseless with our reticules?”
“That would have done nicely, thank you.”
Lissie tapped a finger against her chin. “I suppose we could have done, but it would have attracted an awful lot of attention. Not quite the thing, to beat a gentleman about the head with one’s reticule during piquet, you know.”
Charlotte let out an irritated snort. “What nonsense. Since when do you three care about attracting attention, for any reason?” She knew her friends were right, of course—there was little they could have done that wouldn’t have made the situation worse, but was it too much to ask they not refer to Julian asdelicious?
Even if it was true. Especially then.
“But it had nothing to do with the attention,” Aurelie said. “We didn’t try and stop him,ma chou, because one could see from the moment you sat down to piquet nothingcouldstop him. It wasinutile, you see.”
“Quite useless,” Lissie agreed. “He was determined to have you to himself no matter what.”
“Determined to snatch my jewels, you mean.” Charlotte scowled at them. “And you’re all determined to make it sound as if he was motivated by some tender feeling, which is exactly what he wants you to believe. I can assure you, it was nothing of the sort.”
Lissie leaned forward in her seat, her expression eager. “What happened after he dashed into the night after you, determined to halt you in mid-flight?”
“Lissie! Stop that. He didn’tdashanywhere. He dragged me, with his huge bear-like paw clamped around my wrist, deposited me without ceremony in my carriage, and then dumped me on my doorstep like so much baggage. There was nothing delicious about it.”
Except there had been those moments, in the courtyard…
