The sensation unnerved her. She attempted desperately to quash it.
Her attempts didn’t succeed.
He bowed to them. “Miss Delia. Miss Highwood.”
Charlotte and Delia curtsied in response. It was all very proper in appearances, despite all the improper thoughts simmering inside her.
“Are you on your way to the village, Lord Granville?” Delia asked.
“No, I came in search of you.”
His gaze fell on Charlotte, dark and intent. Hungry. What with the wooded setting, she felt like Red Riding Hood confronting the wolf.
There’d been too much talk of folklore for one day.
“I do hope you’re well this morning, Miss Highwood.”
“I . . .” Could he sense her inner turmoil? Was it that obvious? “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Aside from flailing about, clutching your throat just now? You were ill last evening.”
“Oh, yes. That.”
At his mention of last evening, the breeze seemed to die. The air about her grew sluggish and warm.
“Come to mention it, you left the ball early the other night, too,” Delia said.
“It’s a concerning pattern,” he said. “Have you consulted a physician about these episodes, Miss Highwood?”
“They aren’t episodes.” Charlotte spoke through a smile that was composed of gritted teeth. “And I don’t need a doctor.”
“I will brook no argument,” he said. “If your condition recurs, causing you to miss even one more outing or dinner, I will send for my personal physician. He’s remarkably skilled with leeches and purgatives.”
Delia stifled a laugh. “How very good of you to offer, Lord Granville.”
Oh, yes. How very good of him indeed. Compelling her to appear at the dinner table under threat of leeches.
If Piers thought he could inhibit her investigations, Charlotte would prove him wrong. It wasn’t as though she enjoyed feigning illness, lying to Delia and her hosts. She was doing this for his own good, as well as hers.
“Shouldn’t the gentlemen be shooting or coursing or something?” she asked. “I thought this was a sporting holiday.”
“We had a bit of fishing early this morning, but now Sir Vernon is with his steward. I have business in town. It was suggested the ladies might like to visit the shops.”
Charlotte would bet sovereigns to pennies that her mother had been the source of that suggestion. Mama was likely tying her bonnet strings and gathering her reticule as they spoke. She would invent any excuse to put Piers and Charlotte in the same place.
“You and Frances should go, Delia. I’ll stay behind. There’ll be too many of us otherwise, and we wouldn’t want to make His Lordship’s coach cramped.”
“Have no worry on that score,” he said. “My carriage is more than large enough to accommodate our group.”
Indeed it was.
They emerged from the path onto the drive. In front of Parkhurst Manor sat the grandest, most elegant barouche-landau Charlotte had ever seen. A glossy, obsidian-black carriage emblazoned with a golden crest on the door. It was drawn by a team of four ebony-maned warmbloods—horses so perfectly matched they might have been struck from a mold.
Frances and Delia climbed in first, handed up by Lord Granville himself. Charlotte squeezed next to them on the front-facing bench.
Then it was Mama’s turn. “Charlotte, you must move. You know very well I cannot sit facing backward.”
“Actually, Mama, I can’t recall you ever saying that before.”
“It interferes with my digestion. Go on, then. Move to the other side.”
She was so terribly, painfully obvious.
Rather than cause even more of a scene, Charlotte moved to the rear-facing seat. Which meant, of course, that Piers sat next to her.
As expected, Frances glowered at her. At least Delia had the kindness to send her a sympathetic smile. It was nice to have one friend who didn’t believe her to be an audacious hussy.
Then again, perhaps she was an audacious hussy.
With Piers next to her, she couldn’t help but remember the night before. How his hair had felt sliding through her fingers. How he’d leaned into her touch and murmured such entrancing, indecent words.
The coach bounced off a rut, and Charlotte went momentarily airborne.
Piers caught her, drawing her to his side. Her insides cartwheeled in response.
What to make of this man? He was proper. He was passionate. He had the public demeanor of an iceberg, but he kissed her as if she were his oasis in a vast, arid desert.
What are you doing to me? he’d whispered.
Charlotte had no idea.
But whatever it was, he was doing it back.
In the draper’s shop, Mama went straight to a display of dreadful lace caps. “Come here, Charlotte. Tell me, which do you think is best?”
Charlotte grimaced. The fashion of married ladies wearing ugly lace caps composed at least one-third of her determination not to wed young. “None of them.”
“Let’s ask His Lordship.”
“Mama, no.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Remember? Silence.”
“Pish. We’re only discussing caps.” Her mother raised her arm and waved, calling across the shop. “Lord Granville! Oh, Lord Granville! Do come to our aid. Over here, by the lace.”
Piers lifted his head—slowly, as if hearing his name called from some far-off land of fantasy. Because surely, no one in this mortal realm would have the unspeakably bad manners to shout at a marquess as though she were hailing a hackney cab.
No one, that was, save Mama.
Charlotte wanted to hide behind the ostrich plumes, but it was useless. Oh, well. If Piers was truly considering marrying her, he ought to know what he was in for.
The dire truth seemed to be dawning on him as he approached.
“Now, Lord Granville,” Mama said. “A certain newly betrothed young lady of my acquaintance is debating which style of caps to wear once she is married. Which would you choose?”
Piers regarded the array of lace caps before him. “I don’t think any of them would suit me.”
Mama laughed, a bit too enthusiastically to be credible. “Not for yourself, my lord. What would you choose for your bride?”
“I would still have no opinion.”
Mama’s impatience began to show. “Surely you would wish for the future Lady Granville to be admired.”