Chapter 11
Wolfgang was in a foul mood.
To be fair, he found good moods hard to come by of late, first because he missed his brother like an ache, and second because it was damned uncomfortable to walk in another man’s shoes. Even the highly polished boots of a duke.
John was born to the title, and Wolfgang and Lysander were born to poke and bedevil him, thus ensuring that his head never grew too big for the coronet. “The Heir, the Spare, and the I-Don’t-Care,” as Lysander called them, before John got too ill and no one had the heart to jest.
But today’s mood was particularly foul, and the culprit wasn’t hard to identify.
Charlotte.
It had only been three days since the queen’s edict, and suitors already dogged his steps, clogged his street, and generally made a bloody nuisance of themselves, all because he couldn’t say no when the dowager wrote and begged him to stand in for Julian and field the many, many offers made for Charlotte’s hand.
Had the scandal put off no one? It didn’t seem so from the surge of men who’d stepped forward when the queen dangled an heiress before the ton.
At the foot of the stairs to his club, he turned around to face the weedy man who’d followed him since Pall Mall and was now hunched miserably against a wrought-iron fence across the street and clutching his hat. “You there!” Wolfgang bellowed. “The answer is no!”
The weedy man seemed to expect nothing less. His chest deflated, he jammed on his hat and slunk off without a word.
Another man, rounder and entirely more pleased with himself, took the opportunity to step forward. “Allow me to present myself, Your Grace. The Honorable Digby Barnabas-Jones, son of—”
“No!”
“But, Your Grace—” began the man, before wilting to a halt under the heat of Warrick’s glare.
The Honorable Digby Barnabas-Jones was a large fellow, although Wolfgang still thought he might be able to turn him upside down and truss him to a lamppost, his arms tied tight but his mouth left free so he could warn other would-be suitors away.
If the magistrate raised concerns, Wolfgang could sit him down and ask him when, precisely, a homicide was justifiable.
He could present as evidence the long line of men waiting outside his doorstep, or worse, the sonnet that some fool had thrust into his pocket only the night before.
Surely poetry that bad was an extenuating circumstance?
Barnabas-Jones seized his courage. “Your Grace, I—”
Wolfgang narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, Jones, are you acquainted with Lady Charlotte?”
The man blinked. “I—well, not as such. But once at Ascot I had the very great pleasure of standing somewhat near her.”
“Go toss yourself into a river, Jones.”
The man paled. “Pardon, Your Grace?”
“Toss yourself into the Thames before I’m tempted to do it for you.”
Wolfgang strode up the steps and into the blessed quiet of the club, in search of Lysander.
Damn Charlotte!
She’d been his own personal disaster from the moment they met, three years earlier, on a summer day down at Clare soon after he returned from Waterloo.
The first he’d seen of her was her hair. She was sprawled out on a settee, possibly napping, with the back of her head toward him so his vision filled with black curls, thick, rioting, and barely restrained by their pins.
When she heard the door open, she didn’t sit up or look over her shoulder.
Instead she took the laziest option, letting her head fall over the settee’s arm so her forehead greeted him first, and then a pair of slanted, sleepy green eyes that went suddenly wide, and two lips stained purple-pink as if she’d just come in from nibbling blackberries, and finally the point of what looked like a decidedly stubborn chin.
When those blackberry lips slowly curled into an upside-down grin, crooked and criminal, something turned over in Wolfgang.
There you are, rumbled a voice from deep inside, and for the first time since he’d realized how ill John was, the crushing worry Wolfgang carried lifted—just for a moment—and moved over to make way for a flicker of joy.
The tips of her toes peeped out from beneath her hem, and he saw a pair of ridiculous pink-and-gold slippers kicked under the table, and the thrust of—he’d given a jerky swallow—a pair of fucking perfect breasts.
He’d taken in the outrageous puff of her sleeves and the frenzy of lace frothing up from her neckline, and for the first time he’d wondered if clothing, of all things, might have a sense of humor.
He found himself drinking in every detail of her, from the embroidery hoop on the floor next to her where she’d been stitching—he squinted and coughed back a laugh—what seemed to be dead frogs, to the way she managed to look lively while flat on her back, just as puppies carry a hint of their playfulness even in sleep.
But what struck him most were her eyes. As she blinked out of sleep, he could almost watch her mind wake up behind them, whip-smart, curious, and just a bit restless, as if she were looking for a worthy opponent and had never quite found one.
How many men stood up straighter, trying to live up to those eyes?
Wolfgang had leaned back against the wall and crossed one boot over the other. “Lady Charlotte, I presume? I see I’ve caught you napping.”
What he meant was, Shall we cross swords?
That crooked grin of hers had widened. She’d sat up and raised her arms for a good, long, and frankly insolent stretch before peeping over her shoulder at him. “What you call napping, I call a prudent rest before battle.”
He laughed. “If that’s a challenge, I accept.”
What he meant was, When I play, I aim to win.
It was Charlotte’s turn to study him. “Who are you, sir?”
“Lord Wolfgang Latham, here at your brother’s invitation.”
She had such a mobile face. Every feature got into the business of beaming, even the ever-so-slightly-off-center tip of her nose. “Lord Wolfgang! I’ve heard so much about you. Shall I fetch my hat and take you to Julian? I warn you, it’s a bit of a walk.”
He jerked his chin toward the mess of linen and thread on the floor. “Tell me first—what the hell are you embroidering?”
“Oh!” She looked down at her hoop and collapsed with laughter. “Don’t tell Julian, but that’s his pillowcase. He won at whist last night and I’m taking my revenge.”
“With dead frogs.” He nodded. “As one does.”
“As one does,” she said gravely.
“Perhaps we ought to play our own game of whist?”
“Oh, we’re certainly going to play.” When her green eyes sparked, they lit something inside him. “I intend to beat you badly.”
But they had only one afternoon together before he got a letter from Stoke House informing him that John’s health had taken another turn and calling him home.
Wolfgang found it harder than it should have been to leave, so on impulse, he stopped his carriage halfway down the gravel drive and crunched back to the house to scribble out a quick note:
My dear Lady Charlotte,
I must cut my visit short, but I deeply regret our missed game of whist. May I suggest a game of letters instead? If I write you and you write me back, I have a feeling both of us will win.
Lord Wolfgang
It was their first letter, and soon many more winged between Charlotte at Clare and Wolfgang at Stoke House, which was growing bleaker by the day.
Each sheet of paper from her felt like a shout of laughter, and Wolfgang couldn’t bear to let his darkness touch it.
He said nothing about the weakness in John’s legs, or the first time John fell, or the day the doctor brought the wheeled chair.
As the summer went on, her letters slowly became more revealing.
Once he baited her by saying he didn’t see the purpose of silk when good old cotton or wool would do, only to get a pert essay back on the importance of Spitalfields silk to the nation.
Of course, being Charlotte, she included a handkerchief of Spitalfields silk with an elaborate, looping border stitched in deep, inky blue.
When he folded the handkerchief according to her instructions, it spelled out a secret message: Lord Wolfgang is a clothhead.
Even John had smiled at that one, and Wolfgang had sent his warmest letter yet in response.
My dearest Lady Charlotte,
I’m not a clothhead. I’m a Lady Charlotte head—I think so often of you that my hair’s gone curly. Though, I’m sad to report, I’m no better dressed than I was before.
You seem to believe that fashion is some sort of language, but try as I might, I can only read “functional” or “fussy” in the clothing I see. Although, now that I think of it, after nine hours in the mud at Waterloo, I did get rather misty when presented with a pair of reasonably dry stockings.
It’s a strange thing—I seem to have blacked out most of Waterloo, but I have a vivid memory of the stockings and also the peppermint twists I kept in my uniform to steady me after.
I keep peppermints on me now, too, but they don’t taste nearly as sharp, and if I think of it too carefully it shames me—it seems wrong to feel most alive in the midst of misery.
I wondered if anything would feel as electric again, until I went down to breakfast this morning and saw your letter.
Your handwriting on a sheet of paper and I lit up like a lightning storm.
Lord Wolfgang
It wasn’t long before Charlotte’s reply arrived, and Wolfgang grinned before he even read it, because she’d etched the outline of a peppermint twist into the plain red wax of the seal.
My dear Lord Wolfgang,
I’d recognize your handwriting from thirty paces—spiky, dark, pressed hard into the paper, and often rather blotchy.
Is there a meaning behind the blotches? Are they a sign of deep feeling?
Or a quick, impatient mind? Or are you simply lazy about sharpening your nibs?
You’d be shocked how much time I spend, speculating.