“How could I say no?” She asked, smirking. He closed the distance, reaching for her dance card. He couldn’t say no. In fact, he didn’t want to say no. With that said, however, he knew he should have said no if given the choice. Arthur’s rakish ways looked all the more appealing from this angle. Not that he would in good conscience ruin her. Not that she’d even let him get close enough.
As he scrawled his name onto her card, he couldn’t help but keep his eyes on her. If she were to walk out the door, he would have followed her. It was exactly thoughts like that that made him realize how cruel it was to be a man. It was as if she had access to water and he had been wandering a desert his entire life. Lust was no good for anyone, but with distance, it was a great deal easier to cure than love.
She looked back at him, eyebrows knotted and lips wavering between a smile and a frown. It was as if she was going to laugh at him. Like she thought it was funny that they had so clearly repelled each other in spirit but were forced together for the sake of propriety. But something flickered in her face the longer he looked at her. Maybe it was the soft peachy blush that crawled across her cheeks or the feeling of their shared pulses roaring in each other's veins as they each pressed a finger to the other’s wrist. Did she feel it too or was his ego getting the better of him?
When he finished, she looked at her card and raised her brows. “How I will always remember the first and likely only gentleman to sign my dance card so…” she paused, looking at his name. “So…chaotically.”
William frowned, glancing at her card. He probably should have paid some attention to his own hand when he was writing. His penmanship looked boorish.
When she finally walked away, William frowned, and his mother offered him an amused look. Short of death, there was no way he was getting out of this dance. That much was certain.
ChapterTwo
“And so I looked at Timothy and I asked him ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’And he looks at me and you know what he says?‘I am painting’Oh, I could have killed that boy. The walls were destroyed!” Mary Ann was animated as she told her story, arms gesturing widely through the air, acting the part of both her and her son.
Arabella laughed hard and Benedict stood by, grimacing as if he remembered it clearly, but hadn’t decided if it were funny just yet. He had always been very neat and orderly. A child scrawling all over his walls with a pen made Charlotte laugh for the simple reason that Benedict would have done the exact opposite. She was glad that Timothy was acting up after all the annoyance Benedict had caused her growing up. It certainly served him well.
Benedict had married Mary Ann a few years prior, and within two months of their union, announced they were having a child. Mary Ann usually observed before she got involved with anything. It was her careful and analytical nature that had attracted Benedict to her in the first place. Their love was quiet and understated, but it was clear that the two were crazy about each other. They simply were very private people when they were around others.
Despite trying to laugh it off, though, Charlotte was still a little nervous about her dance. First of all, she was not an accomplished dancer. Usually, Arabella was the one that had a full dance card while Charlotte unapologetically rejected the attentions of suitor after suitor because she worried one might get the wrong idea and attempt to court her. No one had, and so she had considered herself quite lucky in that regard. Some might suggest however that that was completely her fault.
This was different though. Lord Holdford would never court her. In fact, it was very obvious to her that he liked nothing about her at all. He was certainly handsome, but he couldn’t keep up with her. Maybe if a man could, he might impress her, but as far as Charlotte was concerned, she was on a dais all her own. She was not better, per say, just wittier and sharper.
Thetonliked to talk about men and women as if they were in different groups, and only certain ones had the pleasure of mingling with others. Visually, Charlotte likened herself to rank low. She wasn’t average enough to be considered handsome, nor was she exquisite enough to be rare. Intellectually, Charlotte liked to believe that she was somewhere above all the noise, but she also realized this meant she had a tremendous ego. And maybe that was simply why Lord Holdford did not like her.
Once this dance was over, Charlotte would avoid him. It was that simple. He did not wish to associate with her, and she certainly wished nothing from him, even if he appeared to be carved out of marble.
As the current song came to an end, Charlotte’s heart beat just a touch faster, and she tried not to look as Lord Holdford made his way over to the group. Benedict smiled easily, lifting a hand in greeting. Charlotte hadn’t been aware that the two were friendly. She’d never met Lord Holdford, but she was never one to gawk at her brother’s friends. There were far too many much handsomer and more emotionally intelligent men in literature. A fictitious beau was the only one Charlotte needed, because he rarely complained, and only spoke when she wanted him to.
“Holdford!” Benedict called. “How are you, my friend?”
“I was doing well,” he said. Everyone had missed thewasexcept for Charlotte. William seemed pleased with himself when she soured her look.His gaze was challenging when he looked at her briefly, but he didn’t look angry. It seemed that he maybe enjoyed their rivalry.
“Allow me to introduce my wife, Mary Ann, Countess of Pemberton, my sister, Lady Arabella, and my other sis–”
“We are acquainted,” William stopped him, holding out a hand.
Benedict drew his mouth back slightly and sighed through gritted teeth. “My apologies for her behavior.”
“Brother!” Charlotte tried to stop him, but he ignored her.
“I fear…” he leaned in close and brought his voice down to a whisper. “She was dropped as a baby.”
Mary Ann nudged him, but he joined William in laughter. Charlotte angered, her face reddening this time with frustration rather than embarrassment.He had always seemed to love poking fun at her in a way that he would never have done to Arabella. She supposed it had something to do with him not having to worry about messing with her prospects.
“That is not true!” She assured the group. “I was far more advanced than most of my peers, I can promise. I have always been very intelligent.”
It seemed for once, Mary Ann was completely on her side. “How can you say something so awful about your own blood?”
“I am sorry,” he said, huffing on laughter. “Did I say dropped? That did not come out the way I intended.”
“You meant to say thrown?”
“I did!” And again, the two began cackling. Charlotte squinted and crossed her arms. If she had said that he wasn’t witty or clever before, then she stood corrected. It was irritating that he was now controlling the conversation just outside of her reach when only moments before, she had done the same to him.
“Well, on that note,” he smiled sheepishly at Charlotte, holding his arm out. “I believe the next song will begin shortly.”
When Charlotte grabbed ahold of his arm, she made sure to configure herself in the most obnoxious and uncomfortable way possible so as to convince him that she had never been led by proper society. If anything, it was to prove to him that she might have been thrown as a baby if that is what it might take for him to leave her alone.