That would be…Miss Cynthia Beauvais, also recently graduated from her second season.
“Captain Baumrucker is in my cousin’s unit,” Lady Ivy Fenton said. “The weavers up north are discontent, and the army has been dispatched to keep the peace.”
Smart woman, and she didn’t put on airs.
“What do you mean, Charlotte Windham is ruined?” Miss Monmouth asked. “My brother says she’s an Original. Is she ruined-ruined, or has she been scolding His Grace of Wellington in public again?”
“She was teasing him,” Lady Ivy said. “My mama overheard the whole exchange.”
“Ouch! You stupid girl!” The sound of a hand smacking flesh brought the gossip to a momentary halt.
“At Haverford’s house party this summer,” Miss Beauvais said, “Miss Charlotte was observed to suffer poor digestion. The ruse of a megrim was put about, but I know of only one cause that renders an otherwise healthy young lady prone to casting up her accounts.”
The problem had been bad ale, or nerves. House parties were a circle of hell even Dante had lacked the courage to describe.
“The dress Miss Charlotte has on today did strike me as a bit loose,” Miss Monmouth observed. “She was definitely pale when I saw her clutching Mr. Sherbourne’s arm.”
“She wore a walking dress,” Lady Ivy replied. “Mr. Sherbourne is something of a challenge for us all.”
Do tell.
“Even if he’s common as coal and rough around the edges,” Miss Beauvais said, “no man with so much lovely, lovely money is too great a challenge, according to my mama. I doubt even he would put up with Charlotte Windham’s waspish tongue and haughty airs.”
Haughty again? Did polite society really have such a limited vocabulary?
“She’s a Windham,” Miss Monmouth said. “They are quite high in the instep, but Charlotte Windham needs ruining. None of us will have a chance next spring if she’s still being invited everywhere.”
So don’t invite me, please don’t invite me. Charlotte’s prayer was in vain, of course. As the last unmarried Windham, she’d become her Aunt Esther’s de facto companion, and even prayer did not stand much chance against Her Grace of Moreland’s wishes.
“I see no harm in admiring Miss Charlotte’s fashion choices,” Miss Beauvais said, “even if they are curiously loose about the waist and bodice.”
“I’m leaving,” Lady Ivy informed her companions. “As you plan this assassination, please recall two things: First, in a few years, you might stand in Miss Charlotte’s slippers. She warned me away from that dreadful Mr. Stanbridge, and for that I will always be in her debt. Mama had become convinced of his worthiness.”
“Whatever happened to Mr. Stanbridge?” Miss Monmouth asked. “He was a fine dancer.”
Stanbridge had developed a pressing need to admire the glories of ancient Rome after Charlotte had sent him an anonymous note, totaling his debts of honor such as she’d been able to winkle them from her cousins. Stanbridge’s illegitimate daughter was kept in near penury, while her dashing papa wooed decent women by day and scandal by night.
Charlotte had used her best imitation of Uncle Percival’s handwriting and threatened to reveal the sum of Stanbridge’s debts to Lady Ivy’s papa.
Alas, a compulsion to travel had overcome Mr. Stanbridge’s version of true love.
“Who cares about Mr. Stanbridge?” Miss Beauvais asked. “We must look to our futures. Miss Charlotte Windham was pale this morning, and did anybody notice that she started her walk with Lord Neederby but returned to the buffet with Mr. Sherbourne?”
“His lordship has the loveliest hair,” Miss Monmouth said. “I would adore to muss it up, but it’s already so adorably mussed.”
“I wish you both good-day,” Lady Ivy said, “and leave you with one final thought: Charlotte Windham’s uncle is the Duke of Moreland, one of her sisters is married to the Duke of Murdoch, another to the Duke of Haverford. I need not enumerate the cousins and in-laws she’s connected to, any one of whom could ruin you without saying a word. And then there’s Her Grace of Moreland to consider.”
Another silence stretched, this one respectful, if not awed.
The door opened and closed.
“Poor Lady Ivy,” Miss Monmouth said. “She’s getting long in the tooth, and one can’t quite call her pretty.”
While the blond, dimpled Miss Monmouth was all that was ugly about polite society. Had Charlotte not already suffered Neederby’s proposal by the river, she might have marched forth, smiled brilliantly at the two young fools—they were still more foolish than malicious—and been about her business.
But marching forth took bravado, and her stores of that staple were depleted.
“Let’s see if Miss Charlotte has turned loose of Mr. Sherbourne,” Miss Beauvais suggested. “She must be luring him on for an eventual set down. She does that, you know. One must admire her skill even if she’s not very nice.”
They went tittering and conniving on their way, though theirs was not the first such conversation Charlotte had overheard. She remained on the tufted bench, more dispirited than she’d been since watching Elizabeth and her duke drive off to Wales.
“They’re gone, miss,” said a soft voice. “Best come out now before the next batch arrives.”
Charlotte pushed to her feet, smoothed her skirts, and unlatched the door. The maid sat on her stool, her left cheek bright red.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, fishing a coin from her skirt pocket and passing it to the girl. “You should put some arnica on that cheek when you have a moment.”
The maid smiled wanly. “The young misses are slappers, but I do fancy the vales.”
Pennies, hoarded up against the day when a young miss decided a maid must take the blame for a spilled bottle of ink or something even more trivial.
Charlotte hadn’t such a desperate need of pennies, but what resources would she have when her family’s influence, or the common sense of a Lady Ivy, was no longer adequate to protect her from ruin?
As she left the retiring room, a dangerous question popped into her head: Did she even want that protection? Her sisters were all married, and their reputations were safe.
For Charlotte, ruin was becoming perilously hard to distinguish from rescue. She had the odd thought that none of her family would understand her reasoning, but Lucas Sherbourne—blunt, common, ambitious, and shrewd—would grasp her logic easily.
*
The more Sherbourne considered offering marriage to Charlotte Windham, the more he liked the idea. Many a debutante married on short acquaintance, provided the suitor met with her family’s approval.
Those debutantes didn’t often marry a Welsh nobody, though, regardless of the nobody’s wealth. Nonetheless, a letter sat on Sherbourne’s desk from no less exalted a dunderhead than Julian, Duke of Haverford. Sherbourne’s neighbor hinted, in a roundabout, ducal, indirect way, that Charlotte Windham was in need of marrying.
“I must determine what I have that can tempt the lady into looking with favor upon my suit,” Sherbourne informed his cat.
Solomon went about his ablutions, licking his right paw and swiping it about one black ear. The feline sat on the sideboard in the front foyer, occupying a gold tray intended to hold the day’s correspondence.
“Elizabeth Windham is keen on books—and on being married to His Grace of Haven’t-a-Clue—but all I know about Miss Charlotte is that she’s a highly skilled archer and does not suffer fools.”
Sherbourne checked his appearance in the mirror over the sideboard. He loved fantastically embroidered waistcoats for town attire—the only spot of color gentlemen’s fashions allowed—but his valet had advised moderation.
“I hate moderation,” Sherbourne muttered, tilting his hat a half inch on the right. “Better.”
Solomon yawned, showing every toothy detail of his mouth.
“Same to you. I’m off on reconnaissance.”
Which for Sherbourne meant presenting himself on the Duke of Moreland’s doorstep. Sherbourne’s townhouse was larger but lacked the profusion of potted heartsease on his portico.