Chapter VI
VI
London, England
Charlotte sits at the table the next morning, wishing for a book.
She had one with her when she stepped into the dining room, but her aunt gave her a withering look over her tea and proclaimed it indecent to read at a shared table.
“The greatest gift,” her aunt declared, “is one’s attention.”
A rule that doesn’t seem to apply to her uncle, Alfred, who sits at the head of the table, half-deaf and wholly content to be ignored as he reads the morning paper.
But quarreling is also frowned upon, so she resigns herself to buttering toast and listening to Margaret and Edith, whose delicate facades have crumbled, giving way to giddiness as they chirp like birds about the ball, recounting each and every dance.
Margaret paints a thin coat of jam on her toast and announces that she wouldn’t be surprised if a suitor came to call that very day.
“ Already? ” demands Edith, her poise cracking beneath the weight of envy.
The other girl flashes a smug little grin and takes a bite, but Amelia cocks a brow and says, “In that case, you best stop eating and go make yourself presentable.”
Margaret almost chokes on the bread, tries to swallow as daintily as possible before rising and rushing from the room.
Aunt Amelia turns toward Charlotte. “Well, my dear,” she says, “how did you find your first London ball?”
And even though her ribs are bruised and her feet are sore, the truth is, she found it lovely. But before she can answer, Edith cuts in.
“She only danced one time, and spent the rest of the night with a woman on the stairs.”
Her aunt’s expression narrows. Edith chomps on her toast and Charlotte wrings the napkin in her lap. “That’s true,” she says. “It was, I admit, an overwhelming night, and Edith and Margaret were both so busy, and I didn’t want to bother you. Sabine was kind enough to keep me company.”
She’s braced for a rebuke—but her aunt brightens at the name. “The young widow Olivares? Well, I see no harm in that. As far as new friends go, you’ve chosen rather well. She is the picture of propriety.”
Charlotte chews her cheek to keep from smiling. There are a dozen words she’d call on to describe the friend she made, but proper isn’t one of them.
Not that she’d ever say as much to Aunt Amelia.
“A widow?” asks Edith, crinkling her brow.
“Indeed,” says her aunt. “Her husband was a Spanish viscount, closely favored by the crown. I believe his family was in the business of wine—or maybe it was silk?” She shakes her head.
“Either way, good breeding, both of them, and newly wed. They had just come to London when he died.” She tuts. “A tragedy, to be alone so young.”
“She looked pretty enough,” says Edith, in a grudging way, as if her own looks could hold a candle to Sabine’s. “Why doesn’t she remarry?”
“I’m not one for gossip,” says Aunt Amelia briskly, and then, without a moment’s pause, “but from what I’ve heard, he was the love of her life.”
Charlotte frowns at the image, but it’s soon replaced by another. Sabine, beside her on the stairs. The odd light in her eyes when Charlotte said that she was sorry for her loss, and Sabine leaned in and whispered back, I’m not.
“I’ve heard her say she will never take another husband.”
“What a sorry life,” says Edith. But she’s wrong.
The woman Charlotte met at last night’s ball struck her as neither sad nor lonely.
Only free.
The bell rings and a servant arrives, announcing a suitor for Margaret, and with that the day plunges into motion, the subject abandoned with the breakfast plates, forgotten by everyone save Charlotte.
Three days later, and she is at her second ball.
The dread of that first night has been overtaken by a nervous hope, while the pale gold of her first dress has been replaced by a new one in a slightly warmer shade, on Aunt Amelia’s orders—God forbid she not be lighter than the silk—and thanks to the mercy of a maid who agreed not to cinch the corset quite so tight, she can even breathe.
It is a lovely, cloudless night, rare enough for London in the spring, and the ball seems to be spilling out from the hosting house like spokes of light, into the courtyard behind the property.
Lanterns hang from branches. Candles perch on walls, and the overall effect is rather wonderful, as if the stars have come down from the sky to shimmer just above the heads of every guest.
Charlotte finds a place along an ivied wall, content to watch the ball unfold from there, but as she scans the mingled guests and dancing couples, the young men in their coats and the girls in their dresses, she finds herself searching for a specific face, a coif of copper hair.
She doesn’t see Sabine arrive.
But she feels it.
One moment, the wall just beside Charlotte is empty, and the next, it is not, and her heart picks up, and she knows, even before she turns her head, that it’s her.
She’s dressed in a gown the color of caramel, her hair a burnished cloud around her head. She leans back against the wall, arms folded loosely and eyes on the dance, as if she has been there all along.
Charlotte brightens. “I was just thinking of you.” The words come tripping out of her, heat rushing in their wake. Jocelyn would have blushed, or looked away, embarrassed for them both. But Sabine’s mouth only twitches in a catlike smirk.
“What a coincidence, Miss Hastings. I was thinking of you, too.”
The same words, simply echoed back, and yet Charlotte feels a little dizzy, wonders if the corset was tightened after all.
“Oh,” she says, finding her breath, “if I am to be Miss Hastings, then you must be Viscountess.”
Sabine’s expression cools. “If I had wanted you to call me that, I would have told you.”
“Still,” says Charlotte. “If I had known that you were titled—”
“It was another life,” she says with a shrug. “Believe it or not,” she adds, lowering her voice, “I have had more than one.”
There is an invitation there. A door, ajar. But before Charlotte can reach for it, Sabine brightens, and breezes on. “Besides, we are already friends, and therefore, we have no need for family names and foreign titles. I am simply Sabine.”
“Very well,” says Charlotte with a smile. “Then you shall call me Lottie.”
But to her surprise, the other woman shakes her head, and she feels a little wounded, until Sabine says, “If it’s all right, I’d rather call you Charlotte.”
She frowns, confused. “Why is that?” she asks.
Sabine turns toward her, one shoulder tipped into the wall, and even though they’re both on their feet, in the middle of a ball, it reminds Charlotte of stretching in the grass, nose to nose with Jocelyn.
But Sabine doesn’t look away.
She studies Charlotte with those unblinking hazel eyes, and it must be the many candles that make them look like they are burning.
“A name is like food,” she says. “It has a flavor. Some are bland, and some are bold, some bitter and some sweet.” She nods at a passing woman, and then, as soon as she is gone, tips her head toward Charlotte’s and says, “Take that one. Mary. Plain as milk.”
“What about Margaret ?” she asks, summoning her aunt’s first ward.
Sabine purses her lips, as if tasting the letters. “Like tea without sugar.”
She bites her lip to keep from smiling. “And Edith ?”
Sabine scrunches up her nose. “Burnt toast.”
She cannot stop herself. “And Charlotte ?”
A smile tugs at the corner of Sabine’s mouth. The smallest thing, and yet, she feels like she is falling toward it.
“There you are,” declares Amelia, sweeping up impatiently, as if Charlotte is a shawl that she’s misplaced.
“I hope you don’t intend to spend all night like a weed growing from this w .
. .” Her aunt notices Sabine and her whole demeanor shifts.
“Viscountess!” she says brightly. “I do hope young Miss Hastings hasn’t been imposing on your time. ”
Sabine’s smile changes, too, takes on a practiced air.
“Not at all,” she says. “She has been the picture of politeness. A testament, no doubt, to your instruction.”
Charlotte can practically see her aunt’s mood lifting at the praise. “Kind words indeed, coming from someone so esteemed.”
Sabine lifts her chin, and Charlotte marvels at the change as the widow and the aunt exchange their pleasantries, the way Sabine has slipped into this other self, her coy smile and her teasing air replaced by something smooth and cool and distant.
Then Aunt Amelia peels Charlotte from the wall, nudging her on and talking about someone she just has to meet. Sabine nods blandly, as if she doesn’t care, and it’s such a small, convincing cruelty that Charlotte almost flinches as her aunt leads her away.
But when she looks back, Sabine is herself again, head cocked and arms crossed.
One gloved hand flutters in a wave.
And then they turn the corner, and she’s gone.
That night, as the maid tugs the pins from her hair and frees her from her dress, Charlotte turns her own name over on her tongue, guessing at the taste.