Chapter 11 #2
I think you’re wrong about your understanding of fashion, by the way.
A pair of stockings evoked a strong response in you—that’s how clothing speaks.
Perhaps having warm, dry feet proved to you that the battle was over, and more effectively than words ever could?
I’d wager the first time you wore Hussar blue made you feel more a soldier, just as I never felt more a young lady than in the gown I wore to be presented at Court.
Though it’s rather wretched that your uniform was designed to help you stride around, while my Court gown left me so trussed up that making my curtsey to the queen felt like a notable accomplishment.
Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but in a fit of rebellion, I embroidered a tiny skull and crossbones on the hem, simply to feel more myself.
Here’s another confession, and one that rather shocks me: I often dream up ideas for new gowns. Since I received your last letter, they’re all the color of peppermint.
Yours entirely,
Lady Charlotte
Wolfgang read that letter so many times the paper thinned to tissue, but it left him with a question. Damn it, what color was peppermint? Was it green? A red-and-white stripe?
The next time he saw Charlotte was at the first ball of the London Season, a hot, overcrowded affair at the Marlowe town house and the last place Wolfgang wanted to be.
John had sent him to town on business, neither of them acknowledging that he was slowly training Wolfgang to take over the estate.
But when one of Charlotte’s letters had arrived and Wolfgang learned that she was also planning to attend the Marlowe ball, a few nights away in London suddenly didn’t seem so terrible.
“Grimsby, do your worst,” he’d told his valet, trying not to mind how ridiculous he felt when Grimsby dropped the pile of shirts in his arms and raced for his needle for a hasty taking-in of Wolfgang’s jacket.
Grimsby made him tie his cravat six times before he was satisfied and even made noises about the powder pot until at last he gave up, sniffed, and pronounced Wolfgang “almost passable.”
He walked into the ballroom trying not to inhale too deeply in case his newly fitted jacket crushed his lungs, but discomfort fell away when he spotted a slim back and a riotous mop of black curls topped by a curling white ostrich feather. The gauzy gown she wore was an icy silver-green.
Peppermint.
A grin split his face. Trust Charlotte to name a color for how it tasted rather than how it looked.
“Ah, Lord Wolfgang!” cried Lord Marlowe, standing with his wife by the entrance. “May I bid you—”
Wolfgang walked right past them, too focused on Charlotte to register the Marlowes’ astonished expressions.
The crowd broke and there she was, perched on the arm of a chaise with her back to him, chatting away to someone he couldn’t see. His heart leaped, until she gave a laugh, so strained and false that it stopped him in his tracks.
“Mother, must you hound me about Lord Wolfgang?” She laughed once more and each strange, high note echoed inside his skull. “I know better than to throw myself away on a second son.”
Wolfgang froze.
He’d been hanging by a thread for so long, it was almost a relief when it snapped. There was a whoosh and he began to fall, hollowing out as the wind swept past him. Wolfgang was still falling when he left the party, astonishing Lord and Lady Marlowe all over again with the speed of his exit.
He fell even faster seven days later, when John died.
He fell and fell, and when he hit the ground at last, he had a new name.
Wolfgang Robert Latham, the Seventh Duke of Warrick.
A man with a rank Charlotte would consider, though he’d no longer consider her at all. All those letters that he’d clung to like a lifeline, each word he’d written that felt like a promise—had it meant nothing to her? Had she simply been amusing herself?
Wolfgang had stopped writing to Charlotte, of course, even though she wrote to him for several months more. When he inevitably ran into her on a London street late that winter, he’d barely greeted her because she felt like a stranger.
Wolfgang pushed the memories firmly out of his head and strode into his club.
“Wolfie! Over here!” Lysander was buried deep in one of the red leather chairs in the drawing room, a generous glass of brandy in his hand.
Too generous? Between Waterloo and John, they both had their dark days now, although it often looked like recklessness on Lysander, who rode too fast, boxed too hard, and seemed to have forgotten how to back away from a fight.
And was he thinner than before? He certainly had a brand-new black eye, and Wolfgang didn’t like to think where it had come from.
Christ! Don’t get yourself killed, Lysander. I couldn’t bear to lose another brother.
Lysander sat up. “You’re late. I’ve been cooling my heels in this god-awful place for at least half an hour.”
“Don’t speak to me of suffering,” growled Wolfgang.
“Oh?” Lysander folded his lanky bones back into the chair, always prepared to be amused by his older brother’s afflictions. “How many suitors have you turned away so far?”
“I’m not counting,” lied Wolfgang.
He’d turned down exactly twenty-six offers for Lady Charlotte’s hand, with more to come.
The fools and fortune hunters were easy to dispatch, but there was another type of man who lingered in Wolfgang’s mind after he sent them packing.
“What Lady Charlotte needs is a strong hand,” Lord Salford had said, his cold eyes flickering when he’d cornered Wolfgang at Brooks’s. “I’m just the man to break her.”
Wolfgang’s muscles had clenched, and it had nearly been Lord Salford who was broken.
“Bad, is it?” asked Lysander.
Wolfgang only grunted. “Why did you call me here?”
“I wanted to tell you I’m selling my commission.
” Lysander put down his glass. “Stewart and Baird are selling up with me and we’re looking to open an ironworks.
” He paused and eyed his brother up. “With you, if you’ll join us.
The estate has a parcel of land outside Portsmouth, and we want to build—”
“No,” Wolfgang said at once. “John wouldn’t have allowed it. I’ll invest, of course, but I will not provide the land.”
Lysander sprawled deeper into his chair and made a disgusted noise into his glass. “I told them you’d say that. You won’t take your seat in the House of Lords, you won’t make a single change to the estate. What the hell will you do?”
Now there was a question Wolfgang wasn’t prepared to answer. The future stretched out before him, so vast and empty that it might swallow him.
It should have been John’s life, damn it. Wolfgang didn’t want it.
“This summer, it seems I’m heading to Kent.” Wolfgang kicked his boots up on the table. “Have you heard of Lady Charlotte’s house party?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it. In fact, I also plan to be there.”
“You? Why?” Wolfgang sat forward. “You’re not one of Lady Charlotte’s suitors.”
He must have shouted the last bit, because Lysander stared. He pulled an envelope slowly out of his pocket and grinned as he held it up in the air. “Perhaps I am. Lady Charlotte wrote personally to invite me down to Clare. Do you think I have the edge?”
Wolfgang snatched the letter from him.
Lord Lysander,
Have you heard of my predicament? Why do I even ask—you’re a worse gossip than I am.
I’m writing to see if I can’t convince you to spend the summer at Clare.
I promise good shooting, a river cool enough for even your hot head, and the key to my brother’s personal wine cellar.
(Yes, Lady Ramsay gave it to me. No, she won’t mind if you drink yourself silly.
Yes, you coward, I’ll take the blame if Julian gets cross.)
Marby’s coming with all his sisters, and if that isn’t entertainment enough, Gran’s planning to march London’s eligibles down to parade in front of me. Won’t you help me look them over?
Yours in disgrace,
Lady Charlotte Louisa Aveton
Wolfgang cleared his throat. “Ah. I see. You and Lady Charlotte are… friends?”
“Exceedingly friendly.”
“Damn it, but you’re not, in fact, one of her suitors?”
His wretched brother only grinned wider. “No, not her suitor. But I’ll consider courting her if you promise to make that face again?”