She nearly laughed. “That is hardly my fault.”
Victor gave a low hum that suggested he disagreed entirely. “You seem very eager to encourage admirers tonight.”
Charlotte stopped walking so abruptly that Victor was forced to halt beside her. “I did no such thing.”
Several guests brushed around them with curious glances while Victor folded his hands behind his back. “Did you not?”
“No.” Charlotte lifted her chin stubbornly. “But now that we are here, why should I not consider my own future and happiness?”
Victor’s expression shifted slightly.
Charlotte pressed on before she lost courage. “Should I never have a husband?”
Victor went completely still. For one unsettling moment, the noise of the ballroom seemed to fade around them. Charlotte suddenly wished she could read whatever dark thought crossed his face, but his expression shuttered too quickly. The warmth and irritation vanished from him entirely, replaced by something colder and distant.
Finally, he spoke quietly. “You are right.”
Charlotte frowned faintly.
“Excuse me for being so callous,” he continued in an unreadably calm voice. “Of course you deserve happiness, and I should not stand in the way of that.”
Before Charlotte could answer, Victor bowed his head sharply and turned away. Then he simply walked off.
Charlotte stood frozen amidst the ballroom while dancers and guests drifted around her in glittering waves of silk and candlelight. Her chest pounded strangely as she watched Victor disappear into the crowd without another glance behind him.
What on earth just happened?
A moment ago, he had been jealous enough to interrupt her dance with Morgan. Now he sounded almost… wounded. Charlotte pressed her fingers lightly against her stomach, unsettled by how deeply Victor’s abrupt departure affected her.
“He is impossible,” she muttered under her breath.
Yet despite the irritation swirling inside her, worry crept alongside it. Victor had looked angry before, but this had felt different somehow. Colder. Sharper.
And for reasons she could not explain, Charlotte hated it.
Before she could reconsider the foolishness of it, she gathered her skirts and quietly followed him through the ballroom.
She searched several corridors before finally spotting him disappearing into a smaller side room near the library. Charlotte hesitated outside the door only briefly before slipping inside after him. The chamber was empty save for Victor standing near the window with one hand braced against the mantelpiece.
He looked up immediately.
“Miss Brown,” he drawled softly. “Have you taken up spying?”
Charlotte shut the door behind herself. “You stormed off dramatically enough to invite pursuit.”
Victor snorted quietly. “I did not storm.”
“You very much stormed,” she said.
“I walked briskly,” he said with a smirk. One corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, though the humour faded quickly. “Should you not be entertaining your admirers?”
Charlotte folded her arms. “Should you not be terrifying them?”
Victor huffed a laugh under his breath and looked away toward the darkened window. Charlotte watched him carefully in the candlelight. Without the polished mask he wore in society, he suddenly looked exhausted.
The sight tugged unexpectedly at her heart. “You are upset,” she said softly.
“I am irritated,” he said with a sigh.
