more reticent to appear before our Lord of Misrule. But whether Lord Edward took pity on me in my delicate condition and decided I’d been roasted enough by donning such a costume, or he’d simply run out of wicked ideas, the decrees he gave to us seemed to be rather mundane. From his Sheraton tulipwood mock throne, a paper crown tipped rakishly on his head, he’d directed me to dance with three gentlemen who were not my husband. This was no hardship, especially when others had been ordered to eat and drink the entire evening without the use of their hands or to howl like wolves whenever someone said the word night. Gage had been obliged to kiss three maids who were not his wife, a tame commission when compared with the gentleman before him who’d been tasked with pinching three bottoms.
Regardless, Gage promptly collected these kisses from Alana, my friend Charlotte, and her great-aunt, Lady Bearsden, before Lord Edward could change his mind. The three ladies and Gage, along with my cousin Rye, were waiting for me and Trevor at the edge of the ballroom after we’d danced our set. It had been a rather vexing experience, as my brother insisted on weaving and stumbling, much like the drunkard he was to play, throughout the dance. His theatrics had swiftly grown tiresome, and so I was leading him from the floor at a faster pace than was probably necessary.
“Whatever you do,” I announced to the ladies, “do not accept an offer from my brother to dance this evening. Not unless you want to be lurched about like a ship on a stormy sea.”
But far from being chastised, Trevor grinned. “How do you know I wasn’t plaguing only you?”
I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t suggest that’s a chance they should take.”
“I’ll risk it, love,” Alana declared, tossing the tresses that straggled down from her dilapidated topknot over her shoulder. She’d taken to her role as a draggle-tail doll with equal relish, even sending her maid to drag the hem of one of her gowns through the dirt in the courtyard. “Besides, I trust our brother knows what I shall do to him if he dares to fling me about.” She arched her eyebrows at him martially, before pulling him toward the dance floor.
I shook my head at the bedraggled pair they made. Though truth be told, the entire assemblage before me was a rather motley sight, where a lady in royal Elizabethan garb danced next to a chap who looked like a Punchinello puppet, and a dashing fopling stood next to a rather humdrum fellow. It was also apparent that Gage wasn’t the only man who had anticipated Lord Edward’s edict about kilts. A colorful array of tartan patterns swirled across the floor next to the ladies’ equally vibrant skirts.
I turned back to find Charlotte staring at me with barely concealed excitement. From the daringly low cut of her stylish gown and the light wash of rouge across her cheeks, I deduced she was supposed to be a coquette or a flirt of some kind. As such, the way she clung to Rye’s arm might just have been part of her character, but I could tell there was more to it. When Lady Bearsden spoke up impatiently, that confirmed it.
“Tell her. Tell her now, or I shall burst,” she exclaimed with her usual flair for the dramatic.
I could guess, for I had been expecting to hear such news for weeks, but I smiled in anticipation, wanting to hear it from my friend’s lips. “Tell me what?”
Charlotte could read in my eyes that I already knew, and she laughed, nodding her head in eagerness. “Rye has asked for my hand in marriage, and I have accepted.”
I stepped forward to envelop her in my embrace, not caring what sort of scene we might be making. After all that Charlotte had endured in her first marriage to a cruel, murderous man, she deserved this happiness.
I would never have dared to play matchmaker, but truly, there could have been no better mate for her than my cousin Rye. Quiet, kind, and darkly handsome, Rye had often hovered with me at the edge of the boisterous play of our brothers, sisters, and cousins, but at least we’d had each other. In the months since he’d begun courting Charlotte, I had watched both of them blossom. Charlotte was more confident, and Rye more natural and at ease. And there