“Even if you are not?”
William laughed again. “Pardon me, I cannot stop thinking about how amusing it would have been if your mother was around to hear me accuse her of throwing you as an infant.”
Charlotte glared at him, tightening her grip to his hand in an attempt to show off her strength. “Could you let that go, perhaps? Such a silly jest.”
“I do not think she meant to do it.” He laughed, trying to suffocate his amusement.
“You are just being cruel now,” she said. “Like every other lord out there. Cruel, loutish, and cavalier.”
“Oh, no do not compare me to Lord Gouldsmith. That is ridiculous.”
“Are you upset now, my Lord, that the joke is now in your expense?”
He paused, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief before quickly depositing it back into his pocket. He made a noise, somewhere deep in his throat as if to convince himself that he no longer found the thought humorous. “I believe we can easily agree that you are odd and perplexing, but it cannot be agreed that I am loutish.”
“But you will accept cavalier?”
After some thought, “I will.”
“So then if we are bargaining, I will take perplexing, but not odd.”
William shrugged. “Then it is settled. I am cavalier and you are perplexing. Does that not make an attractive couple?”
“Couple?” Charlotte couldn’t help but to bare her teeth. A couple? How could he accuse them of all of that? She had trusted that he disliked her but now he was likening himself to be with her? “I will never be part of a couple, I will assure you.”
He pressed his lips together and made a face that would suggest he was thinking. He thumbed his ear, and the silence grew, until it was fizzing at the top of Charlotte’s chest. “I think we are more similar than you realize. I too, have been hurt while courting.”
Charlotte made a point of accidentally stepping on his foot as they spun in circles. “Then we are not similar at all. I am not the courting type. I never have been. I never will be.”
The two broke away, as per the choreography and looped hands with another partner. Maybe she would have recognized who she was sharing a dance with, if her eyes hadn’t been on William as if he was the only man in the room. It was ridiculous. She was uncomfortable, but she was also keenly aware of a heat growing at the top of her thighs. It felt sort of miserable as if it only served to remind her that even on her best days, she was still bound to desire and want.
When the dance brought them back together, Charlotte was acutely tuned in to every touch–his hand on hers, his fingers just a touch lower on her back than what should have been, fingertips grazing her curves and sending a tremor down her legs. “You have never been hurt by these so calledcruel, loutish, and cavalier lords? Never?”
The space between her eyebrows twitched momentarily. She understood his words, but not the context. The thought that he might be leading her into a conversation designed to get the better of her made her feel sick. “I am sorry. I wish I had some desperately pathetic backstory for you to sink your teeth into. I am unaffected, untethered, and simply uninterested.”
“Never? You have never been hurt?”
“How could a man that I am not in want of hurt me?” When she phrased it like that, and it was too late to take back, she could hear just a tinge of pride. Did she really believe it to be some supernatural ability like she said? When everyone else was falling in love around her, it made her feel invincible to have avoided it for so long.
It was true. She likened herself to be capable of things others were not. Her pride rested upon it, no matter how stifling it might be. One man couldn’t make her doubt herself, though. She had never fallen in love. If she was twenty-three and unattached, then it was very clear that she never would be. The only difference now was that she was eager to prove it to anyone who doubted her, because maybe a small part of herself was also doubtful.
“I do not believe you,” he said.
“Is that so?”
“I think you are lying to me. It does not make you appear nearly as tough as you think. We all feel things.”
“I am not doing it to be tough. I am not doing it at all. It simply does not happen.”
William scoffed, fingers dancing slightly on her back. She shifted uncomfortably, but it was clear that he had hardly registered his own touch. “You are speaking of things you have no experience with. If you have come here with every intention to avoid marriage yourself, then you are so entitled, but do not bring every other lady down with you. For many of us, marriage is exactly what we desire,” he hissed. “There is not much more assuring than the promise of a good life.”
“For you as well?” She couldn’t help but ask. He had said as much, but just as he doubted her, now she sensed he was lying in turn.
“Well maybe not…” he made that same noise at the base of his throat again, animal enough to make her fingers feel fuzzy like she was craving a bit more than such a simple touch. There it was again, that pesky feeling of want. Of course, she was not immune to that after all. It was a far cry from love. The forces of nature were designed to push and pull. If they repelled each other this much, then they were bound to pull back in the other direction. That was just the way the world worked. Magnetism was sort of sick like that. Made absolutely rubbish sense. “Maybe not now,” he finished. “But eventually, yes.”
“Just not now,” she reiterated.
“No, not now.”