One Night Is Never Enough (13 page)

But she couldn’t stop her heart from racing minutes later when she reached into her reticule for her handkerchief and withdrew a note. There was only one word upon the page.

Soon.

Chapter 9

T
he Lancaster soiree was in full swing. Music spilled through the open doors and onto the patio beyond. People laughed gaily or talked in low, charged tones—forming ties—social and political.

Bethany Case pretended not to notice Charlotte as she and her group of followers cut directly in front of Charlotte’s path. Charlotte simply waited for them to pass before continuing on.

“Look at her. Far prettier than any of the other girls. Carries herself like a duchess too.”

Charlotte kept the stiff smile firmly in place as she passed her father holding “court.” She nodded to the group and fought the bile that twisted up her throat. The swirling feelings had been colliding against each other all day.

“Can you imagine the heirs?” A broodmare. “Stock like that . . . you can see it.” A porcelain vase. “Brought her up right too. Knows her position.” A mannered hostess who would turn the other cheek to indiscretions without comment or messy emotion. Her father had had an
indiscretion
for nearly all her lifetime.

She felt the chill invade, a chill that never seemed to dissipate anymore at these events. Her father’s behavior had mortified her once, but she was well used to it now. He used her future stock, her promise in the eyes of the
ton,
to get away with increasingly bad behavior.

She thought on Roman Merrick’s words to her instead. His words about beauty—that there was something far more interesting about her than her form and face.

Her smile tightened. Plagued by thoughts of him, even now, even here, in a place he couldn’t touch.

She kept her feet moving toward the refreshment table, wishing she could find a beverage spiked with whatever concoction he had poured. The drink had curled down her throat and coated her insides, allowing her nerves to settle without making her drunk.

“Miss Chatsworth.” Mr. Trant stepped before her, lifting her hand. “A pleasure to see you this eve looking so well.”

She tilted her head, keeping her breathing even. “Mr. Trant.”

He surveyed her, as if he could determine from the perusal whether she had been ruined the night before. Ruined, sullied, despoiled. A favorite crystal vase blemished by muddied hands.

He held up an arm and set her hand on it. “If you would do me the honor?”

She hesitated, but Trant’s arm tightened under her loose fingers. She nodded, and he swiftly moved them into the natural lanes around the floor where people had been treading paths all night. She felt odd holding on to his arm. Which was strange, since it was a natural gesture and position. Indeed, there were at least ten other couples engaged in a similar stroll. But she felt heated eyes watching her from somewhere, and her instinct was to push Trant away.

Ridiculous. She tried to shake off the thought. There were always eyes on one during an event. Even the least-watched wallflower was observed some of the time. It was the gossipmonger’s way to pick out even the most insignificant tidbit. And walking a path with a gentleman wasn’t insignificant. Nothing extreme, no, but worthy of comment all the same.

“You look beautiful tonight, Miss Chatsworth.” Unspoiled.

She thought of the conversation in the night regarding the state of a woman’s virginity. Roman Merrick had said . . . Her free fingers caught the skirt of her dress, clutching the fabric.

Stop thinking of him.

“Thank you, Mr. Trant. You look handsome as well.” And he did. Though his eyes were sharp and glittering. Always trying to find the flaw he had yet to discover.

She couldn’t imagine relaxing around a chessboard with this man. Oh, she had a feeling chess was a game he relished. Not for the pleasure of the game but to destroy his opponent.

Roman played to win as well, and was by far the more dangerous man overall. Still, there was an ease she had found with him, despite, or maybe
between,
the cracks of danger. Bewildering.

And she was still thinking of him.

Her fingers tightened on Trant’s arm.

“You are well?” he asked.

“It is as I told my father this morning. My untimely illness has passed, leaving me none the worse. In fact, said illness seemed merely to find amusement in creating its mayhem in the first place. I feel quite as I did two mornings past.”

Which said everything Trant wanted to hear. And was mostly the truth besides. She could feel the tension in Trant recede. The muscles of his arm relaxing.

“I am pleased to hear it. Though should your illness return, please notify me immediately, so I can extend my assistance.”

“I’m sure that will be unnecessary.”

Why did she feel the throb of hot eyes resting upon her?

“Nevertheless, some illnesses have a tendency to linger. Left untreated, they can fester and destroy.”

She laughed lightly, falsely. “Yes. Thank you for the caution and warning.”

“I worry about you, of course. And have a care for your future.” He steered them deftly about the floor. “Our future.”

She tried to replicate the laugh, but without the empty echo. She failed. “Though I am flattered, you step ahead of yourself, Mr. Trant.”

“It would be . . . unfortunate should anyone learn of the events. I only look after your interests, my dear.” He smiled, then relinquished his hold on her. “Perhaps a dance later?”

She murmured automatically, mechanically, as he bowed and stepped back. Leaving her to linger over his words, his carefully veiled threat.

Her gaze brushed her mother, who was observing Charlotte from her seat near a group of matrons. Sitting on the edge of the group, as always, never quite an integral part of the inner circle, where she could help her daughters.

Coasting through life without much notice or care. Malaise clinging to her like a second skin. Though this was one of her “good” days, and Charlotte was glad. Viola had henpecked Charlotte all day, leaving no time for Bennett to interrogate her. Since Bennett treated Viola as if she were a highly allergic substance, he had stayed far away.

Charlotte wasn’t going to question her good fate. She’d take her mother’s sourness over her father’s greed any day. Though, as she met her mother’s eyes, she wondered if she
knew.
If she had initiated the constant barrage of scolding over a guise of concern. But Viola had never shown a desire to save her daughter from any threat or fate.

And Trant had initiated a threat. There would be no cause for Trant to share her whereabouts last eve—if she were pledged to him. Otherwise . . . well, Trant would remain silent only for as long as it was in his self-interest to do so.

Her father would simply tell her to clean up the mess. Then obtain him what
they
desired. For the good of their family.

She watched a friendly young man ask a friendly young woman to dance. A pretty blush bloomed on the woman’s face—as did similar high color on the man’s. They exchanged besotted gazes as they walked to the floor.

She wished she were at home, tucked beneath her covers.

She watched other young women laugh and play, dance and make merry with the gentlemen of their choice. Gentlemen who were enamored of
them.
Individually charmed. Not with some false notion of beauty and winning. Gaining a trophy, then shelving it, when she proved not as exciting as first thought, the glow of the win falling to dissatisfaction.

She watched a group of unattached young women whispering behind their hands. Waiting for a lick of gossip to spread—or starting it themselves. Thus far, Charlotte had proven unavoidably boring to the gossip mill, and had thus skirted much of the negative flow. There was nothing exciting about ice except when it started to melt into a messy puddle, spreading in all directions, falling down uneven ground. Destroyed.

Her mother had been beautiful once, so she’d been told. On a good day she could see a hint of it in the curves of her mother’s cheeks. But it was her father’s mistress who received his attention. A mussed woman half as pretty but twice as vibrant.

Such was the life she had thought, a year past, that she would split with Miranda. But Miranda, warm, vibrant Miranda, had it all.

Unfortunately, Charlotte would likely take after her mother in more than just icy blond looks and cold-mannered regard.

Though she couldn’t imagine her mother lounging about the bedcovers across from a man with his shirt open, gaze untamed. Lighting sparks within her, causing silly dreams that held no basis in reality.

Stop thinking of him!

Who was to say that Trant wouldn’t love her for herself? That he wouldn’t dig deeper and help her uncover all that she wished to be. Thawed and vivacious. Or that Marquess Binchley wouldn’t?

A bitter laugh escaped at the image, and she quickly coughed into her hand.

She looked to the shadows beyond the open doors. The garden blooms and night whispered of release. Away from the games and conversation. Strategy and laughter. Laughter that wasn’t hers.

She tried to shrug off the heavy feeling that seemed to pierce through the ballroom doors, straight from the dark shadows outside. Dark shadows that whispered of danger.

Her feet moved toward the open doors and the shadows that lay beyond. The lure of escape.

Of breathing free air.

She crossed the stones, exchanging pleasantries with people lingering outside, then headed for the greenery, the garden calling to her more forcefully.

She passed a hand along the trailing clematis vines falling from the wall bordering the property. She had danced earlier with the Earl of Tewksbury, a man whose rheumatoid did not promote a second turn, which meant their one dance would be cause for comment. She had danced twice with an increasingly bleary-eyed, red-rimmed Marquess Binchley. And Trant would claim at least one dance later.

Fine old titles with the first two, high ambition in the third. She’d secure a solid social place with any of them. More than one of the women inside would happily dismember her for her melancholy. Those same women would never realize that when she let the emotion free, Charlotte felt jealousy toward
them.

But now . . . now instead of an empty pit, there were strange new emotions and sensations swirling within her, dark and uncomfortable, restless and unnerving. But they were
there.
Filling the distention.

Making her feel as if she were ascending
in
the balloon, the ground far below, the restless excitement overwhelming, springing and growing over the past few days. A mirror of Miranda’s expression. Of Charlotte’s disgraced country neighbor. Of the young ladies free to choose their beaus.

It was frightening and exhilarating at once, for what was she to do with the knowledge? The feelings?

The edge of a silken purple flower slipped from her fingers, and she walked farther into the low garden without breaching protocol. It was a lovely spot, easily seen from the terrace. She needed a few moments to herself. A chance to dream other dreams.

However, seeking freedom came with consequence. If any young buck had noticed and decided to follow her, she would be forced to speak to him in the garden shadows. But the more rakish men who flourished in the shadows usually left her alone. She was too cold for their tastes, too distant.

What Roman Merrick had seen in her, she didn’t know. A simple challenge most likely. A challenge that would come to a disappointing end.

For it seemed easy for men to see that she was a crystal vase, not a warm bulge of clay.

She shook her head, biting her lip hard, and looked ahead. From other escapes, she knew there were two benches in the back of the open garden and yard, near the more wild and twining vines and higher bushes along the wall, and she could see the vague outline of one bench as she moved closer. If the stone wasn’t too damp, she could sit back, lift her feet, breathe in the scents of sweet jasmine and gardenias. Take a few stolen moments to watch the guests on the veranda, and keep to herself.

She ran her fingers along the surface of the bench. Still dry. She pivoted and sat, a relieved breath escaping her as she lifted her legs slightly off the ground, the nearest guests far enough away so as not to bother her unless they were expressly seeking her out.

Was it wrong to feel the echo of his fingers in her nape, of his mouth on hers? Better than a well-executed twirl on the dance floor. Something alive and wild. Something that was intimately
hers.

She put her hands on the stone and leaned her head back, lifting her face to the moonlight and closing her eyes.

“Much lovelier with all of that gorgeous freedom upon your face.”

She jerked her head forward and to the side. The voice, straight from her imaginings, caused the hair at her nape to tingle, her skin to heat, her lips to part.

Unrelieved black met her view. Only the gold of his hair—flashing silver in the slight moonlight—and the flesh of his carved skin stood out from the shadows of the high bushes in the corner. A scandalous alabaster statue garbed in twilight. Legs on the bench and head tilted back to the darkness.