replied. Even then her answer was vague, drawing a taunt, and then giggles from two of the others.
There was something familiar in her unease, and then Charlotte realized that she was Angeles Castelbranco. Her dress was utterly different from the ball gown she had worn at the embassy, but the resemblance to her mother should have been sufficient for Charlotte to recognize her again, even at a slight distance and from an angle.
There was more laughter. A young man passed close to them and smiled. Discreetly he regarded all of them but clearly it was Angeles who took his eye. Beside her the others looked pallid, even ordinary, though today her dress was extremely modest and she made no attempt to hold his glance.
The young man smiled at her.
She gave a very slight smile back at him, then immediately lowered her eyes.
He hesitated, uncertain whether he dared speak to her when she had given him no encouragement.
One of the other girls smiled at him. He inclined his head in a small bow, then walked on. Two of the girls giggled.
Angeles looked unhappy, even uncomfortable. She excused herself and moved away toward where Isaura was still involved in conversation.
Charlotte found Vespasia again. Together they strolled over toward a magnificent bed of mixed flowers, bright with pink and blue spires of lupin and dozens of gaudy oriental poppies in a profusion of scarlets, crimsons, and peaches.
Charlotte described to Vespasia how she had seen Angeles act, the other girls and the young man.
“And it troubles you?” Vespasia asked quietly.
“I’m not sure why,” Charlotte admitted. “She looked so ill at ease, as if she had a deep unhappiness she was trying to overcome, but could not. I suppose I have forgotten what it was like to be sixteen. It is an alarmingly long time ago. But I think I was awkward, rather than unhappy.”
“You were not engaged to be married,” Vespasia pointed out.
“No, but I would’ve liked to have been!” Charlotte said ruefully. “I thought about it nearly all the time. I looked at every young man, wondering if he could be the one, and how it would happen, and whether I could learn to love him or not.” She recalled with embarrassment some of the wilder thoughts that had passed through her mind then.
“Of course,” Vespasia agreed. “We all did. The grand romances of the imagination were …” she smiled at her own memories, “… like reflections in the water—bright, a little distorted and gone with the next ripple of wind.” Then her amusement vanished. “Did you sense something more seriously wrong with her?”
“Perhaps not. It was an arranged marriage, you said earlier? Sixteen is very young to feel that your fate is already decided, and by someone other than yourself.”
“It is a common practice,” Vespasia pointed out. “And I daresay our parents’ choice for us was no more reckless than our own would have been. I remember falling in love at least half a dozen times with men it would have been disastrous for me to have married.”
Charlotte drew in her breath to ask if the choice Vespasia had made in the end had been so much better. Then she realized how appallingly intrusive that would be. From the little she knew of Vespasia’s life, her marriage had been tolerable, but not a great deal more than that. The great love she had known had been elsewhere, brief and ending in all but memory when she returned from Italy to England. What Vespasia had felt Charlotte did not know and did not wish to. There are many things that should remain private.
Charlotte watched a bumblebee meander lazily through the blossoms.
“I thought I would die when Dominic Corde married my elder sister, Sarah,” she said candidly, turning the conversation back to her own feelings. “I cherished an impossible infatuation with him for years. I don’t think he ever knew, thank heaven.”
“Perhaps Angeles Castelbranco likes someone rather better than she liked her fiancé, and finds it difficult to reconcile herself to keeping her promise,” Vespasia said, smiling a little in the sun and watching the same bee as it settled in the heart of a scarlet poppy. “Life can tend to lurch from one wild emotion to another at that age. Of course, with a lot of laughter, excitement, and soaring hopes in between. I don’t think I could bear all that anguish again.”
Charlotte looked at her quickly. Vespasia was still beautiful, but—in spite of her poise, her wit, and all her accomplishments—perhaps she