Perhaps you should go. So simple. The solution always was to those who didn’t understand the problem, and she couldn’t explain it to them, because it had become so bent and twisted inside her even she didn’t understand it. She knew only that she didn’t plan anymore, but acted as best she could at each given moment. She had no idea when she’d be ready to leave London. She only knew it wasn’t today. “Cam and Ellie don’t understand what’s best for me right now.”
“Do you?”
Charlotte might have been reassured if his tone were harsh or angry—she might have been able to convince herself he still had some flicker of feeling for her, some pale, ghostly remnant of what they’d once shared, but he was detached, even faintly amused.
A chill settled over her heart. She didn’t want to confide in him. She didn’t want him in her head, probing at her secrets, but if she told him just enough of the truth to make him understand, perhaps… “I cannot go back to Bellwood. I will not.”
“Which is it? You cannot, or you will not?”
“It amounts to the same thing. I will not, because I can’t. Not yet.”
“Oh? When, then? Next week, or next year? Or never?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, because she didn’t want to say the next words, but if they would move him at all, she had to. “If you ever cared for me, Julian, even just a little, then please—leave me alone.”
Charlotte kept her face blank and her gaze focused on Amelia’s back, but her breath stopped in her lungs as she waited for his answer.
Was it enough? Enough to persuade him?
He hesitated just long enough for her heart to leap with hope, but then he turned to her with a smile—that same easy smile that so charmed her friends. “Forgive me, but you never said what time I should collect you this evening.”
It hadn’t changed, his smile. But everything behind it had.
He wasn’t going to listen to her. He wasn’t going to stop, and he’d proved he could manipulate the only friends she trusted—her wicked widows.
The only friends she trusted, but one. She still had one friend who wouldn’t be taken in by Julian—a friend who’d proved his loyalty to her beyond the shadow of a doubt.
She still had Devon.
Chapter Eleven
“You haven’t answered my question, Lady Hadley.”
She hadn’t, and she didn’t now, but rode quietly next to him, her face expressionless. The dark blue ribbons on her hat fluttered in the breeze, but everything else about her was still. She looked neither right nor left, but kept her gaze fixed on Amelia, who ambled along ahead of them.
If you ever cared for me, even just a little…
If it had cost her an effort to say it, it didn’t show on her face.
Julian tried again. “Do you object to the evening’s entertainment? I grant you a rout is not as exciting as a whorehouse frolic, but with Lady Tallant as our hostess there’s bound to be a scandal or two to keep you entertained.”
Still no answer. She didn’t look at him, but he thought he could see haughty resistance in the set of her lips and her rigid posture.
The marchioness was not pleased.
Well. He’d made himself perfectly clear, then. It was futile for her to stay in London. He’d follow her everywhere, attend every entertainment until Devon gave up the chase and moved on to the next widow who caught his eye. Julian doubted the man would waste much time hunting down easier quarry. Devon didn’t look like the sort who’d deny himself his pleasures for long.
It was as good as done, and despite her sullen silence, Charlotte knew it as well as he did. “Or perhaps you prefer to skip the rout altogether? I doubt you’ll find much pleasure in it.”
At last she turned to look at him. “Oh? Why should that be? I suppose your think your presence makes that much of a difference to me.”
“I know it does. Lady Tallant extended the invitation to me despite your protests, I believe.”
Charlotte lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t deny I’d rather not have your company, but if you think to send me scurrying off to the country to avoid you, you’ll be sadly disappointed. I won’t let you chase me away from my friends, Captain.”
“Ah. Stubborn to the bitter end. But make no mistake, my lady. Thisisthe bitter end, whether you choose to admit it or not. Lady Tallant insisted upon having me tonight. She’ll insist again, and so will your other two friends. It’s telling how quickly they disregard your wishes. Perhaps you’re not such loyal friends, after all?”
“It’s to your benefit to make me doubt them.” She’d perfected that careless tone, but her fingers twitched nervously on the reins. “My friends are taken in by you. I offer my congratulations on a role well played, Captain. You set out to charm them, and you succeeded.”
