Chapter 26
Wolfgang woke late the next morning and bear-headed, as if he were emerging battered from his den after a winter of sleeping rough.
His body ached, his blood felt like poison, and his head was filled with such a black, noxious fog that he couldn’t make out his own thoughts, let alone string them together.
Worse, something nagged at him, something just out of reach.
He could remember the prince’s smugness, and also… it seemed improbable, but had Lysander sprouted four extra arms and wrestled him on the stairs? But there was something else, something…
Breast-shaped?
He shook his head and grunted, “Breakfast,” at his valet as he yanked on his shirt and buckskins.
“What was that, Your Grace?” Grimsby appeared beside him with a selection of starched cravats folded over his arm.
Wolfgang grabbed one and made a hasty mess of tying it, ignoring Grimsby’s wince. “Have I missed breakfast?”
“No, Your Grace. This morning it’s downstairs—”
“Christ, I must look far gone indeed if you think I can’t find the dining room.” Wolfgang shrugged into his jacket and tromped toward the door, each step hurting his teeth.
Grimsby, that fiend, only grinned. “You look like Death himself, Your Grace. And this morning, the others are—”
Wolfgang didn’t stay to listen, which was why he found himself staring stupidly around the empty dining room, trying to make sense of the abandoned plates and the hastily-pushed-back chairs.
“They moved to the back terrace, Your Grace,” said a young footman who was clearing away pots of marmalade.
“Coffee. Please. Where can I find it?”
“The coffee’s outside as well, Your Grace.”
Wolfgang lugged himself down the hall and outside onto the terrace, where the sunshine bounced so merrily off Clare’s yellow limestone walls that Wolfgang could only conclude it was taunting him. The peal of feminine laughter that greeted him felt like an axe to the head.
The ladies went abruptly silent when they spotted him. The dowager, Lady Skeffington, and all four Skeffington girls lifted their faces to him, each looking either guilty or aggrieved. Only Charlotte kept her eyes averted, and something about her profile made him once again think of… breasts?
Wolfgang growled low in his throat, disgusted with himself and also with the strong sense of longing that almost brought him to his knees before Charlotte’s chair. What in God’s name was wrong with him this morning?
He slumped over to a chair in the deep shade, trying to ignore the howling in his head.
Also the fractured memories of… a ruffly pink cloud?
Finally, he tried to ignore the mischief afoot, because not even pain could blind him to the fact that the dowager, Lady Skeffington, and Miss Alexandra were each trying their hardest to conceal something in their lap.
God spare me from intrigue, thought Wolfgang. A man with a bad head had no business investigating anything, except perhaps the complicated question of how best to fill his belly.
Toast?
Not substantial enough.
Eggs?
The thought made him queasy.
But a gentle helping of potato might—
“I want to see,” Georgiana said from farther down the table. “It’s not fair that all of you are looking and you won’t let me have a turn!”
“A turn at what?” Lysander, who loathed rising before noon, slunk out onto the terrace and blinked into the sun. When he caught sight of Wolfgang, he shouted, “HULLO, brOTHER! WELL MET THIS MORNING!”
Wolfgang winced. “God’s teeth, man, have pity!”
“IS IT YOUR HEAD? IS IT POUNDING?”
“Are you shouting on purpose?”
“Of course I am. I had my valet rouse me early so I could torture you, but now I see there’s other mischief to be found. Georgiana, my angel of truth, what are the ladies up to?”
“I don’t know!” The little white bow Georgiana wore in her hair quivered in outrage. “Misha went down to the river and—Mother, ouch! Why are you pinching me? He told me I could call him Misha.”
Lady Skeffington went red. “I didn’t pinch you, dear.”
“Yes, you did!” Georgiana clutched her arm and glared at her mother.
“Misha said he was going down to the river and all of you went quite strange. Why did we move breakfast out here? Why do you need your opera glasses and why won’t you let me have a turn?
Is there a heron down there? What are you looking at? ”
Lysander grabbed a plum and bit into it. “Georgiana, I suspect Misha has a bad head and has gone to clear it out with a swim. Your sisters have their opera glasses out in order to spy on him.”
Alexandra’s shoulders shook helplessly, her face alive with mirth. “Oh Lord! Georgie, really. Learn some discretion.”
“Right.” Wolfgang drained his coffee cup and pushed back from the table. “For once, Belozersky’s onto something. You lot are louder than screech owls.”
He paused by Georgiana’s seat. “You may call me Wolfie, if you wish.”
She considered. “Wolfie? And will you call me Georgie?”
“Certainly, Georgie.”
He flicked her nose and strode away toward the blissful quiet of the river.
“May I have an opera glass?” asked Charlotte after Wolfgang left.
Alexandra passed hers over and Charlotte tracked his meandering path down to the river, watching with grim satisfaction as he stumbled and got whacked in the face by a blackberry bramble.
When he reached the river, Wolfgang—oh bollocks!
When had she started thinking of him as Wolfgang again?
—Warrick called out a half-hearted greeting to Belozersky and yanked off his jacket and cravat before leaning against the trunk of an ash to strip off his boots and stockings.
Her breath hitched as he turned his back and pulled off his shirt in one fluid motion, filling her lens with acres of muscle and the long, thick indent of his spine.
Charlotte lowered the glass and squared her shoulders.
Drat the man. He’d had his mouth on her breast the night before and didn’t even have the manners to remember. Worse, he’d traced his fingers over her face, his touch so reverent that her skin still glowed.
I was born to adore you.
Such a little sentence—why should it make her want to cry?
Charlotte sank down into her chair and her hair, piled high up on her head, tipped forward to hang over her eyebrows and sulk, like a low-hanging cloud.
Her mother was right—feelings for a man led only to disaster.
She’d certainly felt oddly feeble after her first catastrophe with Warrick.
Her stomach had ached like a darkening bruise, her muscles cried out from strain, and she often found herself flinching, as if the slightest knock might break her.
The feeling lingered, no matter how many good works she did, or quadrilles she danced, or chocolates she gobbled, or gowns she ordered.
Not even mischief helped—Charlotte had barely mustered a smile when Julian confronted her with the unflattering portrait she’d embroidered on his new waistcoat.
“D’you know, a swim sounds just the thing,” said Lysander. “Lady Alice, would you excuse me?”
The dowager waved languidly. “Go on, go on. We English must seize good weather.”
Lysander saluted her with a piece of buttered toast and jogged down toward the river.
“May I have a turn with the glass?” Elizabeth asked her mother.
“Hmm?” said Lady Skeffington, absorbed by the scene at the river.
“It’s my turn next!” cried Georgiana. “Why are you all so bothered by a few men swimming?”
Charlotte tossed Georgiana her opera glass. “Go ahead and look for yourself. It’s nothing too scandalous—just men in their buckskins.”
“Thank you,” said Georgiana, though she pointed her glass not at the men but at the beaver lodge upstream.
“Mother, may I have a turn?” Elizabeth asked again.
“Oh, all right.” Lady Skeffington handed over her glass with one of her long-suffering sighs. “You see, Lady Alice? One never gets a moment of peace in a large family.”
The dowager shot Charlotte a pointed look. “Nor in a small family, either.”
Charlotte paid the dowager no mind, because Elizabeth was a touch too nonchalant as she raised her opera glass, training it not on the river but on the path.
On Lysander.
Oh!
Charlotte looked away, aware of treading somewhere tender.
Georgiana turned her glass on the group and knitted her eyebrows together. “Why would any of you stare at men when the beavers are out? There’s a little one, you know. If you wait patiently, he shows you his darling little tail.”
“A darling little tail?” said Alexandra. “I should like the next turn, please.”
“What’s it like, Charlotte?” There was an odd note in Elizabeth’s voice as she turned back to the table. “How does it feel to have so many suitors?”
As soon as the question was out of Elizabeth’s mouth, Charlotte could see she regretted it.
Still, it was said, and Charlotte couldn’t leave it to die on the table.
The plain fact of the matter was that Charlotte was rich and Elizabeth was poor, a fatal flaw on the marriage mart and one that killed slowly.
“It goes right to my head, if you must know, until I remember that they’re in love with my dowry, or because the queen declared me a prize to win. It’s very little to do with me.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly. “No, of course not.”
“I’ll tell you this, I’ve known more of real affection from friends than from suitors. Often I wonder—are love matches real or have we invented them?”
“Charlotte!” cried the dowager. “How can you say such a thing with your own brother so clearly smitten?”
“That’s one marriage in all the ton, Gran. Can you name another?”
Silence descended. Elizabeth opened her mouth, considered, and closed it again.
In the distance, a kestrel let out a mournful cry.
“Well,” offered Lady Skeffington, after much thought, “for the first few months, Lord Skeffington and I—”
“Oh, Mother!” Alexandra plonked her elbows on the table and cupped her perfect chin in her hands. “Now I shall be depressed.”
The dowager’s face lit. “The queen! Our own queen and king adore each other!”
“Good Lord, Gran. Is that the best example, given that they keep him under lock and key?” Charlotte shrugged at Elizabeth. “You see? I keep my expectations low.”
“What rot,” said Gran. “Are you three young ladies trying to tell me there’s not a single man in all of England who’s caught your eye?”
Together, as if they were under the same dark spell, Charlotte and Elizabeth glanced down toward the river.
“Prince Belozersky catches every woman’s eye,” Charlotte said firmly, turning back to the table. “He’s taking me on a picnic this afternoon and I intend to come back swooning.”