well, as a friend, I advise you to grasp the opportunity. You don’t dislike Sir Alexander?”
“No!” The fierce denial escaped her lips before she could clamp them shut. Charlotte closed her fists in her lap and looked away. She was so far from disliking him… She thought of him constantly; memories of his hands on her set her aflame. “But there is no chance of… what you mean.”
“Whyever not?”
Because she was penniless, had been married to his wretched uncle, and was suspected of murdering her own husband. Because Sir Alexander meant to contract a brilliant, “suitable” marriage with no complications of love. He would never offer for her. He only held her in a way that melted her bones.
She would have given anything he asked, Charlotte acknowledged. She would have tossed propriety to the four winds. But he hadn’t asked. She’d thought he hadn’t been interested enough to ask, but what if she was wrong? Margaret said she was. If he cared for her as she did for him…?
“If you need someone to give him a hint,” Margaret suggested. “I could play the matchmaking ‘mama.’”
“No!” Margaret knew nothing of his family history, of his determination not to make a love match. Sir Alexander Wylde’s wife would be suitable in all the ways Charlotte was not—prominent family, heaps of money, serene and expert in the ways of society. She could almost picture her, in all her polished, hateful glory. Most of all, she would be a woman who did not love him. That was what he intended. He had made it clear. She fell short on all counts, because… Charlotte had to swallow a rush of emotion. If she was honest with herself, she had to acknowledge that she had fallen in love with him over these weeks. Perhaps she could have gone on denying her feelings without Margaret’s prodding. Now, they crashed over her like a summer squall. He was everything she wanted.
“You needn’t feel shy,” Margaret added. “It’s done all the time. Just a little push, nothing…”
“Can we talk of something else?”
Her tone drew a frown. “Very well.” Margaret’s voice had gone cool. She’d offended her, Charlotte thought—this woman she’d hoped to make a friend. But that regret was overwhelmed by the turmoil in her mind. The conventional sequence of events that Margaret proposed was impossible. Yet the older woman, far more versed in the subtle signals of society, was convinced that Sir Alexander had shown a clear attraction to her. So perhaps he had been driven to those kisses they shared as strongly as she. He hadn’t spoken of it directly. He was too much a gentleman. What if… what if she did?
The remainder of the drive was nearly silent. Charlotte tried to make conversation, to mend her fences with Margaret, and she made some progress. But the rhythm of easy comradeship they’d begun to develop did not resume. There was no mention of another outing when she climbed down from the phaeton and bade her good-bye.
Inside, Charlotte found Lizzy, Anne, and Frances all awaiting her in the drawing room, cozy around a tray of tea and Mrs. Trask’s mouthwatering scones. Callie’s variegated fur overflowed Lizzy’s lap. “Lucy said you’d be back soon, so we waited,” the youngest Wylde told her.
“Insisted on waiting,” said Frances, with an ironic look at her youngest charge. Lizzy wrinkled her nose and concentrated on the cat.
“I’m so glad you did. Just let me take off my hat. I’ll be right back.” It soothed Charlotte’s spirit, five minutes later, to return to them, at ease in her home as if they were family. “Georgiana says that no one goes to Ranelagh any more,” Lizzy was declaring when Charlotte re-entered the drawing room. “It is utterly passé.” Frances and Anne exchanged an amused glance. Charlotte already knew that “Georgiana says” had become a refrain in Lizzy’s conversation since she’d begun the visits organized by her Aunt Earnton. She learned herself, during Lizzy’s increasingly rare calls, not to dispute any maxim of the omniscient Georgiana, at the risk of scorn heaped upon her head by her faithful acolyte. Charlotte imagined Georgiana Harrington as one of those sturdy, horse-mad girls, with pale hair, slightly bulging blue eyes, and a nerve-scraping laugh. She had no idea if this vision was correct and no desire to find out. She’d gently discouraged all Lizzy’s offers to bring her for a visit.
At last, Georgiana’s latest maxims were exhausted. “Oh!” continued Lizzy, sitting up straighter and eliciting a protest from the