Chapter Twelve
The next morning, Charlene had no appetite. Nor thirst. She stared at the cup and saucer on the small table in her parlor.
The tea had cooled in Charlene’s cup, though she held it steady, vainly pretending to sip. Instead, she stared into the soft amber liquid, her mind tangled and heavy. The pressure of her teacup’s delicate handle reassured her fingers, but her thoughts were far from orderly.
The kiss.
She could still feel it, could still summon the faint warmth of his lips against hers.
Adam Cross.
She barely needed to close her eyes to remember how he’d looked at her, how the world had gone achingly quiet in that single moment despite the blasting cracks of the fireworks outside.
It was the light inside her chest that he’d kindled, and it brightened her every thought—even though it shouldn’t.
Because he was a Cross, of course.
No, Char, rein your nerves in, it couldn’t have been that good a kiss.
And yet, it was.
“Charlene. Did you hear me?” Ashley broke through her thoughts.
“Yes, yes.” Charlene blinked and looked up.
Ashley sighed and set her cup down with an air of exasperation.
She leaned forward, the light catching the small emerald ring on her left hand—Thomas’s most recent token of affection.
“Honestly, my dear, you’ve been away in your thoughts since you arrived.
I was simply asking what on earth has you so distracted? ”
“She’s been distracted since she walked in.” Maddie arched one brow, her eyes faintly narrowed. “It’s quite the sight to witness, since you are usually so clear-headed.”
Charlene sighed. Both women watched her expectantly, and Charlene realized there would be no slipping past their inquisition today. “If you must know, I… kissed him,” she said bluntly. Her hand lifted to her mouth as if she could catch the memory of the kiss.
Ashley’s face split into a wide, delighted grin, and she clapped her hands softly, barely managing to contain herself. “Oh, that’s utterly smashing! I told you there was something between you and that duke of yours.”
“He’s not mine,” Charlene snapped, her face heating.
Maddie’s lips pressed thin. “You kissed him?” Her voice dropped low, as though the very notion might summon scandal to the room like a ghostly specter. “How improper. What could have possessed you to allow such a thing?”
“Possessed me?” Charlene sat up straighter, the heat on her cheeks now prickling into irritation. I wish he possessed me as I wish to possess him, but that’s unfortunately not the case. “I don’t know. It simply… happened. He was there, and then suddenly…”
Ashley leaned closer, her eyes alight with interest. “Did you like it?”
“That’s hardly the question she ought to answer,” Maddie interrupted, looking between the two of them as if scandal might burst through the door at any moment. “What matters is what will be done about it.”
Ashley waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, Maddie, don’t be such a bore. She liked it—I can see it written all over her face. Didn’t you, Charlene?”
Charlene opened her mouth, but the words couldn’t seem to come. Did she like it? Yes. No. Perhaps. Could she admit how much she’d liked it, even to herself? “It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake. All of it.”
Ashley leaned back, blowing out a breath. “He’s kissed you once. I’d wager my emeralds he plans to do it again.”
Maddie’s eyes widened in horror. “You cannot encourage this! She’ll be compromised! Like you almost were! Like Sera almost was!”
“Keyword, almost,” Ashley muttered.
Maddie pushed her chair back and stood, walking with her usual precise steps to the writing desk in the corner of the room. Charlene’s brows furrowed as Maddie, the picture of propriety, opened a drawer and retrieved a slim, well-worn book bound in faded green leather.
Maddie’s cheeks flushed the faintest pink as she turned back to the group, the book clutched tightly to her chest. “If we’re to discuss such impropriety,” she said primly, though her voice faltered just slightly, “Did you consult the handbook?”
Charlene’s breath caught. Not that book. The one whispered about among her friends, passed along with furtive glances when they were alone. A compendium of advice, as it was euphemistically called, though everyone knew it to be far more daring.
“The book doesn’t know everything.” Ashley waved grandly in the air as if she didn’t need any advice.
“And yet there is a section on kissing, isn’t there?” Maddie said almost proudly as though she’d found the only collection of maps to matrimony, even though the book was something else entirely.
“Well, I never needed the book to know how to kiss Thomas,” Ashley said.
But I don’t know what to do about Adam. “What does it say indeed?” Charlene pressed on.
Maddie was already rifling through the pages. “Let me find a passage that suits the facts. Fans… balls… masquerades… neighbors… ah!” She turned the open page over to Charlene. “Kisses!”
A kiss is no trifling matter for a lady.
It signifies courtship, a binding promise of intent, and, in most cases, a scandal of the highest order.
Such an act, even in private, is fraught with peril and must be approached with the utmost caution or not at all until after an engagement is secured.
To steal away for such an intimate gesture is a bold and reckless endeavor, one that may ignite the fires of gossip or, worse still, lead to legal repercussions should the union fail to materialize.
~ Handbook on Seduction and Matters of the Heart
“So don’t do it!” Maddie poked at the book as if it laid down a law she’d obey at all cost.
Charlene pinched her lips into a flat line. “It says caution—”
“Courtship. Engagement. Scandal. That’s what I read.” Maddie nodded gravely.
And Charlene didn’t know what to say. It was too late now. And honestly, courtship, engagement, and all that wasn’t so scary if Adam was in the picture.
“I agree with that pause,” Ashley chirped. “I encourage love, dear Maddie. Forget the book, Char. Follow your heart.”
There was nothing to follow! What did her heart know? Cross brothers were scandal, warnings, and ruin. But Adam was a temptation. She wanted to do what Ashley suggested; she just didn’t know if it was her heart she was heeding. Or something else.
“And a lady waits to be followed in this book.” Maddie opened it to what seemed a random page and handed it to Charlene. “Take a look if there’s a cure for your ailment or else I’ll go to the apothecary for you.”
Adam followed her. And then he kissed her.
Charlene sat frozen under their watchful gazes. “I don’t want a cure!”
“Oh, so you do like him!” Ashley clapped and smiled with the knowing way of a blushing bride-to-be madly in love.
She wasn’t!
But… Something had changed. Charlene knew that much even though she had no words for the way she felt, nor could she look them up in something as grounded and trivial as a book.
Cherubs in butterfly wings should let down lovely scrolls of declarations with the fanfare of trumpets to even slightly begin to describe the fireworks Adam had placed in her chest—since the kiss during the fireworks.
What a kiss!
Oh, how confusing everything had become. Still, she hadn’t felt like herself since it happened, and some small part of her dreaded and longed for it in equal measure.
The door opened. Charlene exhaled in relief at the distraction and turned to find her brother, Waylon, stepping inside.
Charlene’s relief drained away the moment she saw Waylon’s face, his mouth pulled into a grim line and a folded piece of paper crushed in his hand.
His boots scuffed against the polished floor as he shut the door firmly behind him.
“You won’t like what I’ve just discovered,” he said, his voice low and weighted as he handed it to her.
Charlene unfolded it and her heart sank as soon as she recognized the header of the M-Press.
At Cavendish House’s Guy Fawkes revelry, one scarcely knew where to train their gaze, with the newly betrothed Earl of Linsey and Lady Ashley garnering much attention.
Yet, it is not glowing sparks that linger in this observer’s mind, but rather the peculiar absence of Lady Charlene Fielding and the Duke of Rotheworth during the fireworks.
What pressing matter, one wonders, could draw them from such a spectacle?
Charlene swallowed hard and looked at her brother. There was just a moment that was so intense, panic rose to her throat. Ashley tapped Charlene on the arm and took the paper, skimming it as Waylon seemed to keep up appearances.
“Ladies,” he said, inclining his head. His tone was heavy, as his olive-green coat caught the muted afternoon light.
Behind him, a stranger followed. A young man, clean-shaven and impossibly poised.
His light hair was cut crisp, and his well-fitted coat suggested wealth—but it was the effortless ease of his smile that softened the space between them. Why did he seem familiar?
“This is Henry Grafton,” Waylon said. “A friend from Oxford. He’s to stay with us for the week.
” Her brother turned to her. Waylon spoke politely but Charlene knew that it didn’t escape him when Maddie now took the M-Press paper from Ashley and gasped.
“I trust you’ll make him feel welcome,” Waylon added.
He trusted her to do what? What exactly did he mean by that?
Waylon, you are dead.
“How can they write this? How did they even know?” Maddie said, folding the paper nervously into quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and then just a package of what it was—rubbish and bad news.
Henry stepped forward and bowed with deliberate politeness, his gaze landing on Charlene. “Lady Charlene,” he murmured, “an honor to make your acquaintance.”
Oh the voice!
Charlene recognized it from the masquerade ball.
“I reckon you don’t pay much heed to gossip. For neither do I.” Mr. Grafton bowed and Charlene did as custom demanded—held out her hand and let him place a kiss on her knuckles.
It was respect. Formality.