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Eleanor turned toward him. “Someone must.”

Charlotte’s smile came before she could stop herself. Alexander noticed. Of course he did. His gaze warmed as he greeted her, and that warmth stayed with her as Eleanor drew them farther into the room. The company was small enough to be comfortable. Elizabeth sat beside Julian near the hearth. Amelia and Dominic examined the cards, while Daphne listened to an elderly gentleman whose gestures suggested he was recounting some sporting triumph. Benedict stood beside them, looking quietly entertained.

“I was assured you liked them,” he murmured, bending his head a little so that his breath stirred the curl beside her ear.

“I am reconsidering,” she said, and tried to ignore the quick, bright skip of her pulse.

“Shall I ask them to leave?” he asked.

She looked at his mouth, which was a mistake. The corner had lifted, soft and teasing, and she remembered what it felt like to be on the other end of that smile years ago. She dragged her gaze up to his eyes. “Your sister might object.”

“She generally does with anything I do,” he said.

Eleanor glanced back, one brow lifting. “I heard that.”

“I intended you to,” Alexander said, and Charlotte pressed her lips together to keep from laughing aloud.

Their easy affection eased something in Charlotte. She had come prepared to be watched, perhaps teased. Perhaps even placed at Alexander’s side by people who thought they were being helpful. Instead, Eleanor offered her a glass of wine and asked after a mutual acquaintance.

Alexander stayed long enough to hear the answer, then excused himself to greet another guest. Charlotte watched him cross the room. He paused beside Elizabeth, listening with his head slightly bent. When she gestured toward the painting above the hearth, he turned to examine it with an attention that appeared entirely sincere.

“He has been looking forward to this evening,” Eleanor said. She said it lightly, adjusting a vase of flowers on the table as though the remark were nothing.

Charlotte gazed at her. From the far side of the room, Alexander stood speaking with Julian. Her heart gave a small, treacherous leap. “Has he?”

“My brother generally leaves the arrangements to the housekeeper.” Eleanor’s gaze was sharp and fond, and she did not look away. “This morning he had opinions about where the chairs should be placed.”

Charlotte glanced at the chairs, drawn close around the hearth in a warm, untidy circle. She imagined him walking through the room with his hands behind his back, frowning at them. The picture struck her as absurd and tender, and she pressed her lips together to keep her face composed. “Perhaps he feared we would be uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps,” Eleanor said with a small, knowing smile that asked for nothing more. Eleanor’s expression remained pleasant. Charlotte suspected she was being treated kindly and discreetly, and she was grateful for both.

Later, when several guests settled at the card table, Eleanor proposed an amusement for those who preferred to remain by the fire. Each person would ask the next a question, and anyone who couldn't answer would owe a forfeit. “Nothing cruel,” Eleanor warned as Dominic opened his mouth.

He looked injured. Amelia laughed. “What a pity. I was about to ask him something quite dreadful.”

“You may do so on the journey home,” Eleanor said.

Charlotte sat down on the sofa. Alexander joined her only after she shifted her skirts to make room. The questions began innocently. They asked Daphne which fashionable entertainment she would happily never attend again. Eleanor confessed to abandoning a novel three pages before its conclusion because she no longer cared who married whom. Dominic declined to explain the worst wager he had ever lost and, amid considerable protest, surrendered a counter.

When Alexander’s turn came, he looked at Charlotte, and the circle of firelit faces seemed to recede. Something in his shoulders told her he had been waiting for this. “What would persuade you to remain at an evening you had intended to leave?”

She raised a brow, a small shield. “A remarkably useful question for a host.”

“I hoped so,” he said, with a wry half-smile.

“Good conversation,” she answered, turning her glass slowly between her fingers. “And no one insisting I am enjoying myself.”

He nodded. “Very reasonable.”

“You sound relieved,” she said.

“I believe I may be able to manage both of your requirements.”

She smiled into her wine before she could stop herself, grateful for the glass's rim. The wine was warm and dark on her tongue, and a shy, pleased flutter moved beneath her ribs. She asked a question a few turns later. She considered several harmless subjects, a favorite book, the worst journey of his life, and discarded each one in turn. Her heart quickened as she realized she didn’t want to be harmless. Her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. “What did you hope would happen this evening?”

The words were quiet enough that only those nearest them heard. Daphne went still beside her, keeping her eyes on Alexander’s face. Alexander met her gaze. The laughter left his eyes, and something steady and unguarded took its place. For the first time since her arrival, he seemed not to care who might be listening. The fire popped in the grate, and no one moved. “I hoped you would want to see me again,” he said.

Charlotte felt the answer beneath her ribs. Beside the hearth, Eleanor began asking Daphne another question. Charlotte heard the shift in conversation without following any of it. Her attention remained upon the man beside her, his knee near hers, his expression open in a way she had once trusted without hesitation. “You might have chosen an easier answer,” she said.