Midnight Temptations With a Forbidden Lord (5 page)

“I always thought high society fashion and the necessity for fripperies excessive. I suppose there is nothing to be done about it if we’re to keep up appearances.”

“How very practical of you.”

Why did Mr. Warren entertain the idea of marrying her when he so obviously disdained her? Genny arrived before long and Charlotte suffered through the next fifteen minutes of bland conversation, thinking the whole time about the duchess’s ball and a very different man from the one sitting across from her. Any life would be better than a life where she’d be forever known as Fallon’s wife. She’d find a way to stop the wedding and hopefully soon so she wouldn’t ever again have to sit the allotted fifteen minutes for tea with him.

*   *   *

While this might be Charlotte’s third Carleton event of the season, she realized for the first time that the marquess hadn’t actually attended any of the previous gatherings. She refused to think that he was unable to secure an invitation for the dinner party tonight. She was positive that she had captivated him just as much as he had intrigued her; he’d find a way.

Her gaze strayed to the entrance where guests came into the grandly appointed parlor. Would the marquess wander through shortly with his refined air and dashing image?

Why was she obsessing over a man she barely knew? Maybe the fascination lay solely in what she might uncover about his character?

Not in all her life had she ever been so attuned to one person. Aside from the fact that the marquess’s dangerous reputation interested her, she wondered if all rogues had a clever way with words and actions that attracted the innocent so easily. What a ninny she was. Of course they did; that was how they garnered the status of rogue in the first place.

Ariel nudged her elbow lightly into Charlotte’s side.

“I’m so sorry.” Charlotte placed her hand on Lady Hargrove’s gloved forearm as she returned her focus to those she stood with. “What was it you asked?”

She really was allocating too many of her thoughts to the marquess. She should not be the one wholly consumed by him. It should be the other way around if she was to convince him to aid her in her ruin.

“Dearest, you are rather distracted this evening.” Concern weighed heavily on the older woman’s brows. “Perhaps your laces are drawn too tightly.”

Charlotte glanced down at her dress with a sigh; it was senseless to argue with Ariel’s mother. The fashion this year was to cinch one’s waist to but a handspan. She’d succeeded in doing just that and had gone to great trouble to pick a perfectly demure yet sophisticated blush-rose silk gown that swept off her shoulders and belled out around her elbows. It was ruched over the front bodice with a fine lace overlay. Extra material gathered at both her hips and draped behind her in a train that hit the floor and flourished outward.

This was no simple evening dress by any means, but one meant to entice and to present the wearer in such a way as to appear larger than life. She would not chance Castleigh looking at any other woman present.

Charlotte clasped her folded fan tightly. Lady Hargrove was exactly the type of mother you cringed at the thought of being your own. She treated everyone as inferior, including her own daughter, and often said things that demeaned another’s character. But her husband was well connected, even if they weren’t as well set financially as some of the other members of the ton.

Because Ariel was her best friend—they’d attended the same boarding school for young ladies—Charlotte allowed the countess to address her as if she were a second daughter under her tutelage, with no sense of how to move in society without the older woman’s intrusive guidance.

Charlotte offered a smile. “I must apologize for my inattentiveness. Rest assured I will take advantage of the ladies’ resting room once dinner has concluded.”

And when she knew whether or not Castleigh attended this evening. Because if he did join the dinner party, the only place she planned to hie off to was somewhere secluded to better acquaint herself with him. She had come to a decision last night when she’d gone to bed: she wouldn’t simply deceive the marquess—he didn’t seem easy to fool—she would make an ally of him.

“Excellent, dear, I wouldn’t want you feeling faint.”

Ariel’s lips twitched; she was used to her mother’s caustic remarks.

Charlotte had to look away from her friend, lest she laugh at the absurdity of the conversation.

Lady Hargrove then asked, “What do you know of Lord Barrington?”

Charlotte’s head whipped in the countess’s direction. Goodness, word traveled fast. The earl had run into them while they were on their shopping excursion earlier in the day.

“He greeted us at the jeweler’s. He seemed most agreeable.”

And he hadn’t even tried to hide his interest in her cousin Genny. She’d never tell Lady Hargrove that bit of information.

“It was all about Town this afternoon,” Ariel said, filling her in, “that he purchased your cousin a hair comb!”

More ladies joined them, suddenly eager for any gossip that might be stirring.

“No, no.” Charlotte waved their assumptions away. While she might not mind her reputation suffering for encouraging the attentions of a rogue, she did not want the same for her cousin. “You should call her over and let her explain.” Because she didn’t really know what to say and didn’t want to dig a hole her cousin couldn’t easily step out of.

*   *   *

Tristan watched the women converse in the center of the room. Barrington had already joined the tittering crowd of ladies at the hostess’s insistence. On entering the house, Tristan stood with Lord Carleton to discuss business matters, but it didn’t appear as though Carleton had business in mind and instead nattered on about everyone at the dinner tonight.

It shouldn’t surprise Tristan that the first woman he noticed was Lady Charlotte. She was a vision in pink, with her hair curled and cascaded in spirals down her bared shoulders and upper back. The cinch of her waist only further emphasized the becoming width of her hips. Fripperies and fashions aside, it was her impish smile that drew his attention. And that laugh she had that was like a siren drawing in a flock of hapless seamen …

He was going to have to start calling her trouble. Did she not realize she was biting off far more than she could chew where he was concerned?

Carleton cleared his throat, not unoblivious to where his gaze was affixed. “My wife gets it in her head to match-make a few chosen members of the ton every season.”

“Is that so,” he said.

Did the countess plan to set him up with someone? Or was she more interested in seeing Leo settled into a nice marriage? Marriages were a typical result of the Carletons’ infamous summer parties, but they were always mired in some sort of scandal. He would be quite happy to escape any of her machinations.

Lord Carleton rubbed his hand over his short-cropped gray beard and gave the ladies in attendance an assessing look. “I would never have guessed that she would include you with this lot of women.”

That was what Tristan had been thinking. There were three debutantes, four widows with daughters in their midtwenties and nearly close to being unmarriageable spinsters, chaperones of varying ages and forms, and two henpecking mothers. Aside from Lady Charlotte, Tristan really wanted nothing to do with the lot of women attending the Carleton dinner party tonight.

“Perhaps the match is for Leo?” he suggested. “Lady Carleton was a close friend of Leo’s stepmother. She’d want to see him well settled and all that rubbish.”

Carleton slapped him on the shoulder and gave it a fatherly squeeze. “True enough, but you are a son to her, too.”

True, since Lady Carleton had never had children of her own she had in a sense taken him under her wing. She’d been a strong female presence in his youth, right up until his parents had died in a terrible storm at sea when he was sixteen. After that, he’d tried desperately to find his own way in life and had distanced himself from the Carletons in his youthful anger. He’d eventually come around. But there had been a strain in their relationship after he’d grown up and become the man he now was.

The Carletons had been close friends with both Tristan’s and Leo’s parents. They all owned sugar plantations that occupied a large portion of Barbados—three adjoining properties that made many men envious. The three older men had fought hard together to make sure slavery had been stamped out and abolished in the West Indies in their heyday. It was a legacy that had been hard to live up to. Tristan had never made any significant contribution to society other than to sire a bastard, which the world had far too many of already. Thank God for girls because Ronnie could never be heir to his title. The boy, Rowan, he’d adopted as his own, not that anyone knew the child wasn’t his.

Regardless, he would always be a shadow of the man his father was, so he focused on what he loved most aside from Ronnie and Rowan: women.

And that brought him right back to Lady Charlotte. He grinned at her from where he stood. He saw that she took notice of him because her color rose and her fan flicked open to waft cool air on her pink cheeks.

The dinner bell rang, breaking the spell that had ensnared them. Hopefully they would be sitting next to each other. If not, he’d steal a moment of her time afterward. The doors between the parlor and the dining room slid open and everyone filed into the room to find their names on the table. One didn’t sit by rank in the Carleton household; that would be utterly boring and predictable.

He shouldn’t be surprised to find his place card next to Miss Camden’s, but he was nevertheless disappointed not to be seated next to the woman he’d finagled an invitation to see again.

Miss Camden seemed amused by the seating arrangement, for she said: “Lady Luck is on my side this evening. Lord Castleigh to my left, as he should be,” then more quietly added, “Though it would be equally satisfying to put you in that position, Lord Barrington.”

Tristan smiled and could barely contain the chuckle building in his chest. When Leo didn’t take her bait, Tristan did. “I’d enjoy playing your devil anytime, Miss Camden.”

And because he knew Lady Charlotte was watching their exchange from across the table—where she sat with an elderly man that looked as though he’d fall over at any moment—Tristan gave her a wink and motioned disappointedly to the seat next to him that was still empty.

Sitting next to Miss Camden afforded him the opportunity to learn a few things about Lady Charlotte; things she might not otherwise share with him since she seemed bent on luring him into her little game of seduction. Lady Charlotte glanced at him, then at her cousin as the soup dishes were set out in front of them.

He didn’t let his eyes stray from hers too often as he conversed with the dinner guests on either side of him. He talked about nothing of importance, at least not anything remarkable enough to remember as he stared across the table at the one woman he was more than eager to learn all about.

By the third course, Lady Charlotte seemed flustered by his constant attention. And so the dance between them began.

Chapter 4

None other than Mr. T
^____
has spent an inordinate amount of time with Lady H
^____
and her daughter. Could there be two weddings imminent this season with the inseparable Ladies C
^____
and A
^____
?
—The Mayfair Chronicles,
May 1846 It was just Charlotte’s luck to be sitting next to Lord Chester—a man who couldn’t be a day under eighty—a man she wasn’t sure could even chew his food properly. Perhaps he had to gum it to death just to get it down. The worst part about having to sit next to him was that she had to shout so he could hear her over the conversation going on around them.

Lord Chester was a kind old man, and he could tell a good war tale better than any of her father’s friends, but he tended to talk with food in his mouth and his bad eye was very eerie with the way it
saw
her but didn’t really
see
her. She was sure it was glass, but she would not ask such a vulgar question to prove her guess true or false.

Because Lady Hargrove sat on the other side of Lord Chester, Charlotte pretended great interest in her dinner and let the other woman do most of the talking.

It was difficult to eat, however, with the marquess watching her so closely from across the table. A shame they hadn’t been able to sit closer; she would have liked to talk to him instead of being forced to stare at him like a lovesick puppy. Not that she was infatuated with him, but it must look like that to the other guests since her gaze so obviously kept straying in his direction.

He hadn’t said a word to her since his arrival. True, he’d appeared only fifteen minutes before dinner was served and had been discussing something privately with Lord Carleton, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t offer up a “Good day.”

It was unsettling the way he stared at her, however, as though she were the only woman in the room. She took a sip of her water, hoping it would clear the nervous lump in her throat. It didn’t.

What gave him the right to unnerve her from across the dinner table? If he didn’t approach her after the last course and explain why he’d come to the Carleton party but hadn’t bothered to seek her out, she would have to corner him and find out for herself.