“What?” Harriet asked innocently. “I merely pointed out the opportunity before you.”
Charlotte felt heat flood her face instantly. “There is no opportunity.”
Penelope smirked. “You sound defensive.”
“I sound sensible,” Charlotte said.
Harriet studied her carefully now. “Charlotte,” she said more gently, “you cannot pretend this is not extraordinary fortune.”
Fortune?
The word twisted uncomfortably inside Charlotte’s chest.
Because some terrible, traitorous part of her understood exactly what her mother meant.
A duke. Security. Protection for her sisters. An end to years of worry and sacrifice.
Charlotte hated herself slightly for even thinking it.
“I have no intention of trapping a man into marriage,” she said firmly.
Harriet waved a dismissive hand. “Men trap themselves into foolish situations constantly.”
Joan snorted into her tea.
“Besides,” Harriet continued, “if he truly objected, why continue the charade at all?”
Charlotte opened her mouth.
Then closed it again.
Because… honestly? I do not fully know.
Victor could be arrogant, infuriating, and impossible to understand. One moment, he looked at her as though she irritated him beyond endurance, and the next, he was agreeing to sponsor her sisters without hesitation.
And then there had been the kiss.
Charlotte quickly pushed that thought away.
Absolutely not.
“I simply wish to untangle this disaster quietly,” she insisted.
Harriet looked deeply unconvinced. Charlotte suddenly felt exhausted. For years, every decision she made had revolved around protecting her family. Selling jewelry. Stretching money impossibly far. Sacrificing her own prospects so Joan and Irene might debut properly.
And now?
Now even this absurd false engagement suddenly felt tangled together with her sisters’ futures.
If marrying Victor truly could secure all of them…
Charlotte’s stomach twisted painfully. She did not like the idea of trapping a man into marriage, especially one who so graciously agreed to sponsor her sisters.
No.
She refused to think like that.
Before anyone could continue the conversation further, the parlor door opened, and Viscount Lambourne entered alongside his daughter Bridget.
