Page 39
He nodded.
“I suspect her real quarrel may be with you, but it is not my place to intervene there,” she said. “You must address the situation yourself.”
“I have been meaning to speak with her,” he said, stiffening at the gentle reminder. He might have had a heated moment of madness seeing Miss Swanley under the mistletoe, but she had plainly kept her feelings in check. She could speak of the business at hand, the favor she was doing for him.
“Of course,” she said. “Pardon my interference, but you do not want her to have any reason to doubt or distrust you when we go to Lady Hardwicke’s ball.”
“Must you be so wise and reasonable?” he asked. He reached up to the hanging boughs tied to the chandelier and slipped one of the branching stems free of the bunch. A gleaming berry dropped and fell to the tea table near her fingers.
She watched without moving. “Would you have me otherwise?”
“At least once,” he said. An idea of how he might break down the barrier she had put up had taken hold of him. “Will you dance with me at the Hardwicke ball?”
“Dance with you?” Her startled gaze flashed up to him. “You are forgetting the nature of our...connection.”
He turned the sprig of mistletoe over in his hand. “That we are cousins? I don’t think I’ve forgotten that for a moment.”
Her chin came up. Her gaze locked stubbornly with his. “That I am to be a model of propriety for your sister?”
“A keeper of rules and conventions?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He disliked the firm conviction in her answer. “But you are not indifferent to me,” he said.
“How can you say such a thing?” A quick move of her hand, knocking the velvet box of game cards to the floor, betrayed her. She straightened, trying for a composure that he could see eluded her.
“I am right, however. Give me two minutes under the stars, and I will prove it to you.”
A flush rose in her smooth cheeks, but she only said, “Then I’d best avoid the stars.”
“If you can,” he said. It would be the easiest thing in the world to take her hand and draw her into his arms, but he checked the impulse. Everything around them held her bound to propriety. If she needed stars, to release the fire of her nature, he would give her stars. “I promise to speak with Octavia in the morning.” He stuck the green bough through the top buttonhole of his waistcoat and turned away before the temptation of the moment overpowered him.
It is among family that one is first taught to love. The husband hunter may wish to reflect on the lessons she has learned from observing the degree of consideration and forbearance the members of her own family show in their relations with one another. As her acquaintance with an attractive gentleman grows, she will want to observe closely whether his solicitude for her comfort and pleasure is matched by an equal consideration of his sister, his mother, and even his aunt.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter 15
Charles studied his sister across the breakfast table in the blue morning room. In the country she had enjoyed her food unselfconsciously, always willing to accept treats from their cook, Mrs. Mullen. Active and energetic, she’d never had the sylphlike figure aspired to by London ladies. She had a robust natural prettiness of dark chestnut hair, large light brown eyes, and smooth rosy cheeks. This morning she sat listlessly pulling apart a piece of toast. He had yet to see her take a bite. As he considered it, he recognized the pattern he’d been seeing in her in London with bursts of energy followed by slumps. He did not know how to account for it.
She’d been most at home among the Luxboroughs, playing their ghost game. He had promised to take her to see them off to the country this morning. He hoped that the quarrel with Jowers or the Luxboroughs’ leaving might be the cause of her low spirits and not, as he feared, some secret burden she was unwilling to share for fear of his censure.
He put aside the intelligence report he was reading. After a good bit of analysis, he and Perry had decided that the marchioness had probably been in Paris after the Brussels campaign, and Charles had narrowed his search for her true identity to a group of young women, the daughters of three high-ranking Russian officers who had been in Paris during the occupation after Waterloo. At the fetes and balls and gatherings of the victors, these five women would have mingled with officers from every army of the alliance. And now those women would be the age of the marchioness. He was on the verge of exposing her, but before he did he needed to know the truth about the letter addressed to their old neighbor.
“Octavia, do you still wish to see the Luxboroughs off this morning?”
She glanced up, letting a piece of toast slip from her fingers. “Oh, sorry. I’m poor company this morning, aren’t I?”
He looked pointedly at the pile of toast bits on her plate. “Are you planning to feed the birds in the park?”
She smiled a wan smile. “Just not hungry. What was your question?”
He repeated it.
“Oh, of course.” She picked up the toast again. “Why do you think their games seem livelier than ours?” she asked. “Is it because there are more of them while we are just two? Or is it because they have Miss Swanley? She makes everything cheerful, doesn’t she?”
Octavia was right, he realized. Harriet Swanley, however reserved she was about her own situation, fostered merriment in her charges. In their company her eyes flashed with quick comprehension of a joke. She seemed to understand them all and to have mastered the art of letting them go without letting them come to harm. He, on the other hand, had kept his sister safe by keeping her at Wynford Hall, and now saw only where her eagerness for the notice of the world and ignorance of London might lead to her embarrassment or injury.
