He didn’t laugh. Or even smile.
“That last bit . . . It was a joke, my lord. There’s a line from a novel—”
“Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I’ve read it.”
Of course. Of course he had. He’d served for years in diplomatic appointments overseas. After Napoleon’s surrender, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Vienna. He was worldly and educated and probably spoke a dozen languages.
Charlotte didn’t have many accomplishments, as society counted them—but she did have her good qualities. She was a good-natured, forthright person, and she could laugh at herself. In conversation, she generally put other people at ease.
Those talents, modest as they were, all failed her now. Between his poise and that piercing blue stare, talking to the Marquess of Granville was rather like conversing with an ice sculpture. She couldn’t seem to warm him up.
There must be a flesh-and-blood man in there somewhere.
She stole a sidelong look at him, trying to imagine him in a moment of repose. Lounging in that tufted leather chair with his boots propped atop the desk. His coat and waistcoat discarded; sleeves uncuffed and rolled to his elbows. Reading a newspaper, perhaps, while he took the occasional sip from a tumbler of brandy. A light growth of whiskers on that chiseled jaw, and his thick, dark hair ruffled from—
“Miss Highwood.”
She startled. “Yes?”
He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “In my experience, quadrilles—while they may feel interminable—do, eventually, come to an end. You had better return to the ballroom. For that matter, so had I.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’ll go first. If you will, wait ten minutes or so before you follow. That will give me time to make some excuse for leaving the ball entirely. A headache, perhaps. Oh, but then we have a whole fortnight ahead. Breakfasts are easy. The gentlemen always eat early, and I never rise before ten. During the day, you’ll have your sport with Sir Vernon, and we ladies will no doubt have letters to write or gardens to pace. That will see us through the days well enough. Tomorrow’s dinner, however . . . I’m afraid that will have to be your turn.”
“My turn?”
“To feign indisposition. Or make other plans. I can’t be claiming a headache every evening of my stay, can I?”
He extended his hand and she took it. As he drew her to her feet, he kept her close.
“Are you quite sure you’ve no marital designs on me? Because you seem to be arranging my schedule already. Rather like a wife.”
She laughed nervously. “Nothing of the sort, believe me. No matter what my mother implies, I don’t share her hopes. We’d be a terrible match. I’m far too young for you.”
“So you’ve made clear.”
“You’re the model of propriety.”
“And you’re . . . here. Alone.”
“Exactly. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and yours is clearly—”
“Kept in the usual place.”
Charlotte was going to guess, buried somewhere in the Arctic Circle. “The point is, my lord, we have nothing in common. We’d be little more than two strangers inhabiting one house.”
“I’m a marquess. I have five houses.”
“But you know what I mean,” she said. “It would be disaster, through and through.”
“An existence marked by tedium and punctuated by misery.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“We’d be forced to base our entire relationship on sexual congress.”
“Er . . . what?”
“I’m speaking of bedsport, Miss Highwood. That much, at least, would be tolerable.”
Heat bloomed from her chest to her hairline. “I . . . You . . .”
As she desperately tried to unknot her tongue, the subtle hint of a smile played about his lips.
Could it be? A crack in the ice?
Relief overwhelmed her. “I think you are teasing me, my lord.”
He shrugged in admission. “You started it.”
“I did not.”
“You called me old and uninteresting.”
She bit back a smile. “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
Oh, dear. This wouldn’t do. If she knew he could tease, and be teased in return, she would find him much too appealing.
“Miss Highwood, I am not a man to be forced into anything, least of all matrimony. In my years as a diplomat, I’ve dealt with kings and generals, despots and madmen. What part of that history makes you believe I could be felled by one matchmaking mama?”
She sighed. “The part where you haven’t met mine.”
How could she make him see the gravity of the situation?
Little could Lord Granville know it—he probably wouldn’t care if he did—but there was more at stake for Charlotte than gossip and scandal sheets. She and Delia Parkhurst hoped to miss the next London season entirely, in favor of traveling the Continent. They had it all planned out: six countries, four months, two best friends, one exceedingly permissive chaperone—and absolutely no stifling parents.
However, before they could start packing their valises, they needed to secure permission. This autumn house party was meant to be Charlotte’s chance to prove to Sir Vernon and Lady Parkhurst that the rumors about her weren’t true. That she wasn’t a brazen fortune hunter, but a well-behaved gentlewoman and a loyal friend who could be trusted to accompany their daughter on the Grand Tour.
Charlotte could not muck this up. Delia was counting on her. And she couldn’t bear to watch all her dreams dashed again.
“Please, my lord. If you would only agree to—”
“Hush.”
In an instant, his demeanor transformed. He went from cool and aristocratic to sharply alert, turning his head toward the door.
She heard it, too. Footsteps in the corridor. Approaching.
Whispered voices, just outside.
“Oh, no,” she said, panicked. “We can’t be found here together.”
No sooner had she uttered the words than the library became a whirlwind.
Charlotte wasn’t even certain how it happened.
Had she bolted in panic? Had he swept her into his arms somehow?
One moment, she was staring in mute horror at the scraping, turning door latch. The next, she was ensconced in the library’s window seat, concealed by heavy velvet drapes.
Pressed chest to chest with the Marquess of Granville.