Chapter 46
Charlotte wore her own silk to the first ball of the Season, hosted once again by Lord and Lady Marlowe.
There was no time to design and weave a new pattern, but she worked with the dyers to come up with a silvery color, somewhere between moonlight and gunmetal, and paired it with an overlay of silver net.
The Aveton-Wells Mill embroiderers stitched the puffed sleeves with silver thread, beads, and seed pearls, and the result was both sparkling and ferocious, a gown of armor.
“Charlotte of Arc,” Wolfgang said approvingly, when she showed him the sketch.
Charlotte and the dowager, in royal blue with the Ramsay sapphire-and-diamond aigrette pinned into her snowy white hair, stood on the steps of the Marlowe ballroom and paused for a long beat to make sure all eyes were on them before they swept down the stairs.
“This is risky, my darling,” whispered the dowager after they greeted the Marlowes.
“Yes, I know! I’m thoroughly overexcited already.
” Charlotte’s nerves sparked and jumped as she surveyed the ballroom and saw so many staring back at her.
Some, like Lysander and the Marby crew, were grinning, some whispered out the sides of their mouths, and even more glared daggers, because she and Wolfgang had spent the past few weeks making mischief together and it was reverberating throughout the ton.
Their plan revolved around scandal, but not the petty scandals of young women who showed too much ankle or unhappy wives who strayed.
Instead, they made a list of what they deemed real scandals—the people who used their weight and power to make others smaller—and wrote them what Wolfgang called encouraging letters and Charlotte called flat-out blackmail.
“We mustn’t forget Bishop Mayhew,” Charlotte had said on one of their last nights at Clare, tucked up against Wolfgang’s chest after the rest of the house had gone to bed.
“He points his fingers at so many people for improper behavior, but I happen to know he owns a brothel down in Covent Garden. Perhaps I should embroider the brothel’s name on a handkerchief and send it to him? ”
Wolfgang had kissed the tip of her nose. “Inspired.”
Once they cleared up Charlotte’s scandal, they intended for Charlotte to open another mill while Wolfgang took his seat in Parliament and went after the largest scandals of all, such as the neglect of returning soldiers, and the marriage laws that provided so little protection to women.
“I realize I miss a good fight,” Wolfgang had said, and kissed Charlotte on the little hollow between her collarbones. “Although I’m done fighting with you.”
Charlotte had let her fingers drift low on his abdomen. “Really? You seem to like fighting with me in bed.”
“Only because we both win.” He’d pulled her on top of him to demonstrate.
Charlotte dragged her thoughts away from the bedchamber and focused on the ballroom around her.
“Do you see the queen?” she whispered to Lady Alice as they took up their position at the edge of the dance floor.
“Yes, on the divan in the far corner. And, darling, look—Warrick’s arrived.”
Charlotte’s blood thrilled at the sight of Wolfgang at the top of the stairs, his shoulders wide enough to block the entrance, and his navy eyes fierce as he strode down the steps. A rockslide of a man coming for her.
“His jacket really is much too big,” Gran said, beside her. “Have you ordered a new wardrobe for him?”
“I thought I would, but decided against it.” Charlotte’s face went quite pink. “Oh God, Gran, don’t gloat, but I find I like him exactly as he is.”
Although she also quite liked the thought of him in his old regimentals. Perhaps she could convince him to try them on for her, and some night soon they could…
Once more, she had to drag her thoughts away from the bedchamber.
“Lady Alice, Lady Charlotte.” Wolfgang lifted Charlotte’s hand to his lips, and the warmth of his kiss made her cheeks flame even brighter. “Are you ready?”
“We’d better be,” said Charlotte. “It’s already begun.”
Across the room, Lady Hervey dipped into a deep curtsey in front of the queen.
She spoke urgently for several moments, before Lady Jersey joined her and added a few comments of her own.
There was quite a crowd around Her Majesty, and Charlotte’s heart soared to see how many in it were Wolfgang and her friends, or people who’d received one of her helpful handkerchiefs.
“It’s almost indecent, how satisfying this is to watch,” Charlotte said as Bishop Mayhew shot her a foul look and stepped forward for his own moment with the queen. “I begin to think I adore a good scandal.”
“Child! Don’t give me palpitations,” said the dowager. “Especially because I do believe it’s time.”
Charlotte kept her spine straight as they crossed the ballroom, ignoring the whispers as they waited their turn to pay respects to the queen.
The dowager, who preferred to leave nothing to chance, had written to her friends among the ladies in waiting and learned that the queen was not enjoying her usual good health.
When it was their turn to curtsey, Charlotte could see that Her Majesty looked gray beneath her powder, and the royal hand shook slightly when Charlotte kissed it.
Still, the queen’s eyes were as sharp as ever as she looked Charlotte up and down. “I take it from the stream of people urging clemency for you that you have no husband to present to me. Is that true?”
“I do intend to marry at some point, Your Majesty.”
“Hmph! Yet I believe I desired for you to announce an engagement tonight. Were you hoping to encourage me to forget, with the gifts you sent all summer long?”
The dowager looked over at Charlotte in surprise. “Gifts, darling?”
“Yes,” said the queen. “The most impressive was a length of pink velvet embroidered with the design of my diamond nuptial crown, but I also quite liked the bolts of silk for my daughters and the Kentish cherries.”
The dowager coughed back a laugh, which sent the queen’s eyebrows flying.
“Lady Alice, you sound surprised, and yet you sent me quite a rare orchid for my collection, as well as a series of most amusing letters. I particularly appreciated how descriptive you were about young Belozersky and his swim.”
The dowager curtseyed once more. “May I say that you and your opera glass are welcome down to Clare at any time, Your Majesty?”
The queen’s mouth softened slightly. “Well, Lady Charlotte, at least you come by your temperament honestly. I also hear from my advisors that it’s not the first time a young woman’s had an encounter with Major Dumbarton.”
“It’s always more than once, with a man like him,” said Lady Alice.
“I shudder to encourage either one of you, and yet I admit to a soft spot for young ladies of strong character.”
“I only hope to live up to my namesake, Your Majesty,” said Charlotte.
Queen Charlotte smiled. “Nicely done, child. I hope I don’t regret it, but”—Her Majesty raised her voice so others could hear, though it seemed to cost her some effort—“your queen lends you her support, whether you marry or not.”
Charlotte’s knees weren’t quite steady as she sank into her deepest curtsey. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Elizabeth and Alexandra, standing nearby, raised a little cheer, and the dowager curtseyed one last time and hustled Charlotte off, lest the queen change her mind.
Wolfgang waited for her at the edge of the dance floor, lit up with pride. “My waltz, I believe?”
Charlotte put her hand in his. “Always.”
He swept her onto the dance floor, and she laughed as the ballroom whirled around them. She was so full of feeling that she wanted to lay her head against the wide expanse of Wolfgang’s chest, but it wouldn’t do to start another scandal.
At least, not yet.
On a swooping turn, Wolfgang brought her closer.
“General Marlborough just confirmed that he’s discharging Major Dumbarton from the Horse Guards.
The major’s ruined, not you. Although, I ought to tell you—I scuttled an economic venture of his at the beginning of the summer.
I wanted to pummel the man, but I thought a hit to his pocketbook would cause more lasting pain. ”
Charlotte grinned. “And I wrote Dumbarton’s mistress and convinced her to publish her memoirs this fall. She’s so terribly unflattering about him, and especially about what’s in his breeches, that one could almost feel sorry for the man.”
Wolfgang’s hand tightened on hers. “It’s all happening as it ought to have from the start, if we’d been thinking clearly.”
“Yes, everything’s all right at last.” Charlotte’s eyes were brilliant as she raised them to his. “It’s the first night of the Season at the Marlowe ball and I’m dancing with you.”