She leaned closer to him and said, “You have done this for them,” she said quietly.
Victor frowned slightly. “Done what?”
She gestured softly toward the room. “All of this.”
His expression shifted at once into something guarded. “You secured it yourself, Charlotte.”
“No.” She shook her head gently. “I carried responsibility. You gave relief.”
For a moment he said nothing at all. Then he glanced away first, “You think too highly of me and you should not,” he muttered.
Charlotte stared at him in confusion. “I do not think highly enough of you sometimes.”
That earned her a sharp look. His dark eyes searched her face with unsettling intensity, as though trying to determine whether she truly meant it. The air between them thickened again with that familiar tension.
“Charlotte,” he began quietly.
“Duchess!” Joan shouted suddenly from across the room. “Come save me from Irene before she destroys me at cards.”
Victor exhaled slowly through his nose while Charlotte laughed helplessly.
“You are needed elsewhere, Your Grace,” he said.
“You sound relieved.”
“Perhaps I am.”
She narrowed her eyes playfully. “You are behaving oddly tonight.”
“And you are observing me far too closely.”
“That is because you keep fleeing to London clubs and business meetings only to come home and brood in corners of your own house.”
One corner of his mouth lifted faintly. “Brood? Is that what I do?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You brood magnificently.”
To her delight, Victor actually laughed under his breath. The sound curled through her like warm honey.
Then, before she could think better of it, she reached out and straightened the edge of his cravat. The gesture was small, instinctive, terribly wifely. Victor went completely still beneath her touch.
Her pulse stumbled.
His gaze dropped to her hand before returning slowly to her face. “Charlotte,” he said again, lower this time.
The room around them carried on in joyful noise, yet suddenly she felt acutely aware of only him. Of his height towering over her. Of the warmth radiating from his body. Of the dangerous look in his eyes.
And then Oswald shouted triumphantly, “Ha! I win.”
The moment shattered instantly.
Victor stepped back first, clearing his throat. “I believe your uncle has conquered civilization through cards.”
Charlotte smiled despite the strange ache inside her chest. “A terrifying achievement indeed.”
He bowed slightly toward her, then, every inch the polished duke once more. “Enjoy your evening, Duchess.”
But as he walked away toward the gentlemen again, Charlotte could not shake the feeling that something had shifted between them tonight.
