“The headache and whatever else ails you.” Lissie snagged a second glass of champagne from the footman’s tray. “After a few more glasses I won’t even notice the pain in my toes, I’m sure.”
“Have you a pain, darling?” Annabel asked.
“Yes. My slippers are too tight.”
“My dear,” Aurelie protested. “Champagne does not cure tight slippers.”
“Indeed it does. Enough champagne, and one doesn’t care anymore how much they pinch.”
Annabel laughed and retrieved two more glasses from the footman. “Now, my dear Charlotte. Perhaps some quiet would help? I’m sure Captain West would be delighted to escort you to the library. You can have a brief rest, then return once your headache has passed. Here. Take some champagne with you.”
Dispatched to the library with Julian and champagne?How subtle. For pity’s sake, it was one thing for her friends to invite him tonight, but quite another to hold her neck between his jaws. She glared at them, but they only blinked innocently back at her.
“Oh, very well.” Charlotte snatched the glass of champagne from Annabel. “Must you drag me along behind you like an animal with a carcass, Captain? Or am I permitted to take your arm?”
Lissie snickered. “Why, Charlotte, I do believe you’re feeling better already.”
Wretched, wretched widows.
Then again, the library wasn’t far from the card room, and Devon had said he’d wait for her there. She only had to reach him, to tell him—
“Lady Hadley?” Julian loosened his grip on her elbow and held out his arm. “I await your pleasure.”
“Indeed? I was under the impression my pleasure was the least of your concerns.”
He drew her arm through his and wound his way through the crush of bodies. The noise of the crowd faded as they approached the private wing of the house, then vanished abruptly as he closed the library door behind them. “And I was under the impression your pleasure is youronlyconcern, and so I need not consider it at all.”
Her pleasure. It had been so long since she’d taken pleasure in anything she couldn’t recall the last time…
A sudden, sharp pang in her chest brought her to a halt in the middle of the library.
Dear God.
The last time she’d felt real happiness had been withhim—with Julian, before she discovered he’d lied to her, before he’d left London and her life had fallen apart. A year…no, longer than that. So much time, and she’d had to drag herself through every day of it, every moment, to force herself to endure it.
She gasped around the panic crowding into her throat. She couldn’t keep on like this, couldn’t keep struggling—
“You look pale, Lady Hadley. Perhaps you’d better take your friends’ advice and lie down.”
Charlotte sank onto the nearest settee before her knees could give out beneath her. “Just for a moment.”
Julian cursed under his breath, strode over to the sideboard, and sloshed some amber liquid into a glass. “Here.” He pressed the glass into her hand. “Drink this. It’s more bracing than champagne.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte took the glass but avoided his gaze, focusing instead on the cold fireplace. If she looked at him now, he’d see the truth in her face, and God knew what he’d do then, how he’d use it against her—
“Devon will not give you up easily.”
Charlotte gulped at her brandy, coughed.He wanted to discuss Devon?
“No. He won’t. I suppose you asked him to?”
He sank down on the settee next to her. “No. I didn’t ask. I demanded.”
She smiled a little at that. Devon wasn’t the type of man who responded well to demands.
“He’s quite your champion,” Julian went on. “He told me it was an insult to you to suggest he could simply find another widow to replace you; then he accused me of treating you like a pair of Hoby boots, or something equally foolish.”
So Julian ordered Devon to quit her, and Devon refused.Dear Devon. If she hadn’t had ample reason to trust him before, she did now.
