Chapter 25 #2
Victor stood near the hearth with Gerald and Uncle Oswald, one hand tucked behind his back while the other held a glass of punch.
He looked devastatingly handsome in evening black, his broad shoulders commanding attention even when he merely stood still.
Charlotte could not help noticing how distant he seemed tonight, polite yet removed, as though part of him lingered elsewhere entirely.
Every now and then, he glanced toward her, but the moment their eyes met, he looked away again.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Irene, you cannot simply invent rules because you are losing,” Joan cried dramatically.
“I am not losing,” Irene replied with dignity. “I am strategically delayed.”
Penelope snorted loudly. “That sounds precisely like losing.”
Harriet pressed a hand to her forehead as though deeply afflicted. “Why did the Lord curse me with daughters who treat cards as warfare?”
“Because you raised us,” Joan replied sweetly.
Oswald barked a laugh from across the room. “The girl speaks the truth for once.”
Harriet pointed accusingly at her brother. “Do not encourage them, Oswald.”
Charlotte laughed softly despite herself, grateful for the noise because it distracted everyone from noticing how often she glanced toward Victor.
Ever since the garden party, he had been strangely elusive, vanishing into London for business and returning with shadows beneath his eyes.
He still kissed her hand before others and called her Duchess in that sinful voice of his, but there was distance in him now, a carefulness that had not existed before.
It unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
Why is he acting this way? What did I do?
Arabella drifted toward Charlotte, carrying two glasses of ratafia cordial. “You look troubled,” she murmured knowingly.
“I do not,” Charlotte lied.
Arabella raised a brow. “You are staring at your husband as though he personally insulted your bonnet.”
Charlotte nearly choked on air. “Arabella.”
Her cousin smirked. “Ah, there she is. That blush tells me everything.”
Charlotte accepted the cordial just to have something to occupy her hands. “He has merely been… quieter than usual.”
“Perhaps because he is married now,” Arabella said. “Most husbands become quieter after marriage. Gerald certainly did.”
Across the room, Gerald overheard and called, “That is slander, my dear.”
“It is truth,” Arabella answered cheerfully.
Laughter filled the room again while Charlotte stole another glance toward Victor.
He was listening to Oswald discuss trade routes with the intensity of a man negotiating peace between nations rather than discussing wool shipments.
Yet even from across the room, she noticed the tension in his jaw.
His fingers tapped once against the side of his glass before stilling entirely.
Elizabeth sat comfortably upon the sofa, observing everyone with delight sparkling in her eyes. “This is exactly how a household ought to feel,” she declared. “Loud, cheerful, and entirely impossible to control.”
“That describes the Browns perfectly,” Victor said dryly.
Charlotte startled slightly at the sound of his voice behind her. She had not noticed him approach, and now his nearness instantly warmed her skin. His fingers brushed hers for the briefest moment, yet the touch felt intimate enough to steal her breath.
Before she could say anything, Joan appeared between them like an eager storm. “Your Grace, I demand you settle a dispute.”
Victor blinked slowly. “I fear those words rarely end well for me.”
Joan ignored that. “If a gentleman says a lady has enchanting eyes, but then later tells another lady she has the finest smile in England, is he courting both?”
Victor considered with maddening seriousness. “How wealthy is the gentleman?”
Penelope burst into laughter while Joan gasped. “That matters not.”
“It matters greatly,” Victor replied. “A rich man is merely foolish. A poor one is strategic.”
Even Charlotte laughed at that. Victor’s mouth curved slightly at the sound, and something in his gaze softened as he looked at her.
“See?” Elizabeth called from the sofa triumphantly. “Marriage suits him already. He smiles more.”
Victor groaned quietly. “Grandmother, must you announce every expression I make?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth answered without hesitation. “Otherwise no one would notice them.”
The room erupted into amusement once more while Victor shook his head. Yet Charlotte saw it then, the faintest hint of genuine ease crossing his features.
For all his distance lately, he looks more relaxed surrounded by my chaotic family than he ever has among the ton.
Bridget began another tune upon the pianoforte, lighter this time, and Irene immediately seized Penelope’s hands. “Dance with me.”
“I absolutely shall not.”
“You absolutely shall.”
Soon, the sisters were laughing while turning clumsily through the middle of the drawing room. Harriet protested loudly about furniture being endangered while Oswald encouraged them simply to spite her. Arabella leaned against Gerald, smiling fondly at the spectacle.
Charlotte felt warmth bloom inside her chest.
This. This was what I’ve always wanted for them. Security, laughter, full stomachs, instead of worry.
And Victor had given it to them.
The noise around them seemed to dim for one strange suspended moment as she looked up at him. He looked distant still, but there was something else there too, something almost vulnerable beneath all that arrogance and restraint.
She leaned closer to him and said, “You have done this for them,” she said quietly.
Victor frowned slightly. “Done what?”
She gestured softly toward the room. “All of this.”
His expression shifted at once into something guarded. “You secured it yourself, Charlotte.”
“No.” She shook her head gently. “I carried responsibility. You gave relief.”
For a moment he said nothing at all. Then he glanced away first, “You think too highly of me and you should not,” he muttered.
Charlotte stared at him in confusion. “I do not think highly enough of you sometimes.”
That earned her a sharp look. His dark eyes searched her face with unsettling intensity, as though trying to determine whether she truly meant it. The air between them thickened again with that familiar tension.
“Charlotte,” he began quietly.
“Duchess!” Joan shouted suddenly from across the room. “Come save me from Irene before she destroys me at cards.”
Victor exhaled slowly through his nose while Charlotte laughed helplessly.
“You are needed elsewhere, Your Grace,” he said.
“You sound relieved.”
“Perhaps I am.”
She narrowed her eyes playfully. “You are behaving oddly tonight.”
“And you are observing me far too closely.”
“That is because you keep fleeing to London clubs and business meetings only to come home and brood in corners of your own house.”
One corner of his mouth lifted faintly. “Brood? Is that what I do?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You brood magnificently.”
To her delight, Victor actually laughed under his breath. The sound curled through her like warm honey.
Then, before she could think better of it, she reached out and straightened the edge of his cravat. The gesture was small, instinctive, terribly wifely. Victor went completely still beneath her touch.
Her pulse stumbled.
His gaze dropped to her hand before returning slowly to her face. “Charlotte,” he said again, lower this time.
The room around them carried on in joyful noise, yet suddenly she felt acutely aware of only him. Of his height towering over her. Of the warmth radiating from his body. Of the dangerous look in his eyes.
And then Oswald shouted triumphantly, “Ha! I win.”
The moment shattered instantly.
Victor stepped back first, clearing his throat. “I believe your uncle has conquered civilization through cards.”
Charlotte smiled despite the strange ache inside her chest. “A terrifying achievement indeed.”
He bowed slightly toward her, then, every inch the polished duke once more. “Enjoy your evening, Duchess.”
But as he walked away toward the gentlemen again, Charlotte could not shake the feeling that something had shifted between them tonight.
And for the first time since their wedding, she feared that perhaps her heart was no longer the only one in danger.
For he acts as though our connection is more fragile than it has ever been… or am I imagining this?