The Duke of Snow and Apples (7 page)

This house party was her last hope of finding someone better. Someone interesting. She just had to try harder, be more graceful, more alluring, more perfect.

How can I be more perfect than perfect?
Hopelessness rose like a stone in her throat, choking her. She hoped Aunt Hildy wouldn’t notice.
Why can’t I just be myself?

Before she could dwell on that unsavory thought for too long, Lamonte returned.

“Ah!
Kureole!
Wonderful choice of dress, my lady.” Her cheerful voice lacked any trace of surprise. She nodded at Charlotte, hefting the bundle of crimson silk she carried. “And you as well.”

Aunt Hildy’s breath drew inward in an awed gasp as the red—
not pink, but red
—gown unfurled from Lamonte’s hands as she shook it out. Charlotte sucked in air as well, until her throat closed up and she choked on it.

“Oh
Charlotte
.” Aunt Hildy fluttered her fingers over the gown. “My darling, it’s
gorgeous
. Stunning. You will thoroughly outshine me in this, you naughty girl. You should have warned me.”

There had to be some mistake. She’d given Lamonte express instructions that dress was never to be removed from her trunk. She couldn’t wear it. Not now. Not ever.

“
Encah
, it is lovely, no?” said Lamonte. If her voice possessed a slight edge, Lady Balrumple didn’t notice. “At first Miss Charlotte refused to wear it, but you must have spoken some sense to her,
ra’Viscountesse.
Her footman,
Frederique
, explained to me that she had changed her mind.”

Frederique?
Charlotte’s mind whirled. Impossible. She’d never said anything to him about wanting to wear a red dress, much less that she had one stowed in her trunk. “What about my pink muslin?”

“
Veleo
, Miss Charlotte, I could not finish it in time,” the lady’s maid replied. “I had to prepare your red one, not to mention help
ra’Viscountesse
with her own clothing. I am always very busy, very
fuchou
, so I put it aside for another day.”

“I am in awe of this dress,” said Aunt Hildy, voice hushed. “I worship this dress. If I wasn’t such a very loving, doting, and compassionate aunt, I would steal this gown for myself. Put it on right away, Charlotte, before I forget how loving I really am.”

“Turn around, if you please,” said Lamonte, holding the dress up by its shoulders. Charlotte flinched away. If she touched the fabric, she would burn. She was sure of it.

“My darling, what’s wrong?” asked Aunt Hildy.

Lamonte misread Charlotte’s hesitation. “Old, bitter Allmarchian madames, they say bright colors, they are a sign of decadence, and that they tempt the same Blight that devoured
Selence
. I do not think a pretty slip of a gown would be enough to anger God and his Maiden in that way.”

Charlotte shook her head, panic rising in cold waves. How could she tell her? How could she tell anyone? Of her shame? Her presumption? Her ultimate foolishness?

When she’d ordered the gown from the cleverest modiste her saved pin-money could afford, she’d imagined wearing it at her most triumphant moment. The crimson fabric would flare and ripple across the floor as she strode boldly to meet her destiny. The intricate gold embroidery would glimmer seductively by the light of hundreds of candles.

And Mr. Peever’s hand would be on her sleeve as the Maiden’s priest began the wedding service.

How stupid to order a wedding gown before she’d known for certain. And in such a daring, audacious style. A proper, unmarried woman with such precarious prospects as herself risked everything if she wore it in public.

What choice did she have? The pink muslin remained unsuitable. Lamonte had put it aside to prepare the red gown that
Frederick
had told her to choose.

Frederick
. A hot coil of rage unwound in Charlotte’s stomach as she recalled their conversation at the ruins. Was this revenge for throwing the apple? Did he believe she’d make a fool of herself? Charlotte clenched her jaw. If she missed this ball, she’d be throwing away one of the few opportunities she had left to her, and that meant letting Sylvia, and
Frederick
, win. She turned around and lifted her arms.

“Go ahead,” she said to Miss Lamonte—although, in her mind, she said it to Frederick, Sylvia and Peever as well, to everyone who thought they could humiliate her and get away with it.

Do your worst.

Chapter Seven

Charlotte stared into the mirror. Lamonte had braided her hair with a bit of gold chain studded with garnets borrowed from Aunt Hildy, coiling the whole thing into an elegant crown about her head. Also thanks to her generous great-aunt, clusters of borrowed garnets sparkled alluringly at her ears and neck. Charlotte’s fair skin shone against the luster of the deep red fabric and jewelry.

Aunt Hildy beamed. “Give us a twirl, love!”

Charlotte obeyed, her spirits lifting against her will as waves of scarlet silk fluttered and rippled all around her. The gown made her look lithe and beautiful and powerful. It made her a princess. It made her a queen.

However, today she felt like a sham princess, a temporary queen allowed one last fete before rebels led her to the gallows. She wasn’t ready to wear this dress.

Aunt Hildy rose from her settee, her eyes glistening. “You are going to break the heart of every bachelor in that ballroom tonight. You should carry a small broom with you, perhaps, to sweep up the pieces.”

“She will have
Frederique
for that,” said Lamonte.

Ah yes,
Frederick
. Charlotte’s hands clenched into fists. If anything ended up broken and in pieces tonight, she would ensure Frederick was involved.

When no task remained with which to delay the inevitable, Charlotte glided out of the dressing room. Her gown’s light, rippling skirts made it impossible to merely walk. Heading toward the main staircase, she met Mr. Horace Oswald on the landing. Upon seeing her, he stopped dead as if hitting an invisible wall. After a startled hesitation, he took her hand and offered a kiss upon the back of her glove.

At last, he managed, “You are a rose in full bloom, Miss Charlotte.”

Charlotte’s anger settled back on its haunches. Perhaps she could wait until the morning to toss Frederick off Charmant Park’s highest battlements. “Thank you, Mr. Oswald. I realize daring hues aren’t quite the thing, but I couldn’t resist. Red, you see, is my favorite color. You must see so many varying shades of it in your work with horticulture.”

“That’s always the first thing most people notice about roses,” Mr. Oswald said. “However, even when I was a small child, I always noticed the many shades of green. The vines, the leaves, the
life
that supports the flowers. That’s always what’s drawn me to my passion. I don’t think I could ever tire of that color. I suppose that’s why I thought it was a splendid idea when I heard Viscount Elban was thinking of reupholstering his curricle in sage.”

Charlotte stiffened, as her rage surged to its paws, snarling for blood.
Green?
Lord Elban and Mr. Oswald’s favorite colors were
green?
The opposite of red?
This went beyond tossed fruit and mistaken information and presumptuous helpfulness. This was
betrayal.
This was
war
.

“Miss Charlotte?”

Tamping down her temper, she replied without thinking. “Marvelous choice, green. No better color for an expensive vehicle that requires two horses to pull it at a decent speed—the better to match the faces of the lowly dog-cart drivers who watch it pass.”

Mr. Oswald laughed, a fuller, richer sound than she was accustomed to hearing from him. “Quite true, Miss Charlotte. I’d never thought about it that way before.” He offered his arm with more grace, and escorted her down the stairs.

A crowd of sparkling, gaily-dressed ladies and elegant gentleman murmured and rustled in Lady Balrumple’s foyer, eager to split off into separate carriages to attend Lord and Lady Mettle’s ball. Blue-and-gold footmen circled the edges of the flock like diligent sheepdogs, helping guests into their great coats and pelisses, fetching gloves and scarves.

As Charlotte descended the stairs to join the group, she spotted Frederick. Shooed off with an order from Lady Enshaw, he darted across the black-and-white marble floor, only to look up and see Charlotte. His face opened in transparent shock, his jaw sagged downward, his eyes widened, and his dark eyebrows flew up like startled crows. He stared at her, transfixed, until his unseeing feet delivered him into an unforgiving column.

Charlotte smiled.
I hope that hurt
. She glanced at Mr. Oswald. He continued forward, having noticed nothing. She decided to do the same.

When they reached Lord and Lady Mettle’s estate, however, Frederick arrived to give fresh rise to Charlotte’s righteous fury. He waited by the carriage door, handing passengers to the ground, to all outward appearances an ordinary, easily overlooked footman in the same peacock finery all footmen wore.

When it was Charlotte’s turn to be helped down, she noticed the near-imperceptible rise of his lips as his eyes met hers. For one instant, she imagined he looked almost
smug
.
Bloody presumptuous cheek
! When she took his hand to be step down from the carriage, she dug her heel into his toes with a mite more force than was ladylike, and was rewarded with a less-than-masculine squeak and hiss of pain.
Ha! Charlotte Erlwood doesn’t lose so easily. Not to a footman.

A smile sprouted and grew across her face, as large and tenacious as a weed.
I’ll show Frederick. I’ll show Sylvia. I’ll show them all.

At first, she walked stiffly around the ballroom as other ladies arrived in their silver taffeta and Barjovian lace, trailing intricate spells that surrounded them with pixie lights or made the embroidered figures on the hems of their gowns caper with delight. All these women, too many women, dripping beautiful charms and spells. For an instant, Charlotte could only remember her plain, square features, and her natural ineptitude for fire that made the magical strain from even the simplest glamours leave small burn-blemishes on her skin when she wasn’t careful.

Augusta, Lady Tamsin, called her name, causing Charlotte to turn around, and the movement flared her red skirts seductively. The moment of self-criticism popped like one of the rainbow bubbles floating off Lady Enshaw’s gown. She loved the ripple of the scalloped hem that rendered every step fluid and graceful, the silk that sang against her skin, the cut that traced her curves with worshipful attention. Had she really considered locking this gown away without ever wearing it? All because of Mr. Peever?

She tried to hold onto her anger. She deserved to be angry. However, she couldn’t guard her tongue while imagining setting Frederick on fire at the same time.

For instance, in casual conversation Viscount Elban admitted he’d written the sheet music she’d borrowed the day before. As they spoke, a footman bearing a tray of wineglasses passed by. Not Frederick, of course, but the mere reminder of him sent her mind scurrying in the opposite direction, leaving her tongue unguarded. Instead of fluttering her fan and muttering, “How delightful,” Charlotte blurted, “How can you write such lovely music and not show it to the world?”

“You don’t think I’ll only end up compared to my grandmother?” Viscount Elban asked. “That I’ll only be seen as a paltry Enshaw copy?”

Viscount Elban occupied a social sphere as far above Charlotte’s as could be, and yet, as he grimaced, Charlotte experienced a shock of recognition and sympathy as potent as a bolt of lightning. She almost laughed, even as she felt something loosening, unknotting inside of her, falling away to leave her feeling free.

“Clearly music runs in the Enshaw family,” she replied. “The truly paltry decision would be never to share it.”

Perhaps thanks to the heat of the room, the blazing flame of her dress, or the rising tattoo of her heart, problems and annoyances and rules melted away to drip onto the floor. Everything about the ball slowly quickened and transmuted into something lighter, easier. Minutes and hours melded together instead of marching onward with staid, regular politeness. The glimmering of the candles and lampstones stretched into streaks of light as she spun around the dance floor with her partners. She felt awake and light-headed, as if even the blood sped faster through her veins. Somehow, thanks to some mysterious, unknown alchemy, she was enjoying herself at a ball for the first time in years.

During one small bubble of silence and stillness, when everyone in Charlotte’s circle happened to pause at the same time to sip at their lemon fizz or flag down a friend, Charlotte swayed with sudden disorientation. Why were the smiles around her so much wider? Why were people suddenly animated in discussion and debating topics Charlotte actually found interesting? Where had comments on the weather, the sorry state of the nation’s poor, and the latest trend for phoenix feathers in bonnets disappeared to?

Surely I can’t have this much fun without paying for it later.
The familiar pins-and-needles sensation of self-consciousness climbed up the back of her neck.
Maybe it’s only the dress. Maybe once I wear something else the spell will be broken and people will notice all the things wrong with me. Maybe this is really some dastardly clever practical joke at my expense, or some secret magic cast by the Seven Dowagers.

Miss Katherine, one of the girls in Charlotte’s circle, leaned over conspiratorially. Charlotte and the other girls did the same. “Don’t look now, but that’s the
fifth
trip little Miss Sackcloth has taken to the refreshments table. I suppose
not
being asked to dance must be thirsty work.”

“Don’t you mean
Lord
Sackcloth?” said Miss Imogen. “I heard her mother Lady Eugenia hides her away on their dreadful estate without any embroidery or music, and forces her to wear breeches. She hasn’t even been properly introduced to court or society with a Blooming. You all know Lady Eugenia’s finest wish is to have her daughter mistaken for a
son
.”

Charlotte followed the direction of their pointed barbs to the refreshment table, where Augusta, wearing a plain-cut gown in the dullest shade of brown imaginable, sipped from a glass of lemon fizz, and tried very hard to look absolutely delighted with it. She wore no elbow-length gloves, no ribbons, no jewelry—her gown was little more than a walking dress with an errant bit of lace stitched onto it.

Cold shame dowsed Charlotte’s enjoyment. She’d always known people must have gossiped behind their backs about
her
, but it was no more pleasurable to be considered part of the group that did the gossiping rather than the other way around.

“If you would excuse me.” If the glamoured rose arbor on Miss Katherine’s bodice had been real, it would surely have shriveled from the chill in Charlotte’s voice.

Her skirts rippled and flowed around her legs as she stalked around the ballroom.
Think of the red gown. I can do absolutely anything as long as I’m wearing it.
She marched past Augusta to where the dazzling Viscount Elban held court over a circle of handsome male acquaintances and ambitious, sophisticated women. Charlotte didn’t slow her step.
My gown must have some sort of charm or magic in it, else how could I even think of doing this?

She approached Viscount Elban, her heart thudding violently underneath her intricately embroidered bodice. Without waiting for a break in his conversation, she said, “Lord Elban?”

The beautiful peer broke off mid-sentence, his face a jumble of surprised features arranging themselves into a semblance of polite inquiry. “Yes, Miss Charlotte?”

His eyes narrowed, and Charlotte gulped. “I hope you will pardon my forwardness, but I feel compelled to remind you that this ball is almost over…and you have not yet honored your promise to dance with Augusta, Lady Tamsin.”

His gorgeous green eyes flared wide in surprise. At her audacity? Or her falsehood? Charlotte felt herself suspended in one of those timeless moments that preceded either a triumph or a catastrophe. Viscount Elban shot a glance at the refreshment table, where Augusta availed herself of another piece of Barjovian pastry, isolated and oblivious.

He curled his lips into a gentler version of his searing grin, salted with a touch of rueful humor. “I’d nearly forgotten. I’ve been terribly remiss. I hope the dear Lady Tamsin will forgive me.” With a nod, he left behind a group of Pure Blooded who couldn’t have looked more shocked if Charlotte had asked Viscount Elban to strip naked. Across the room, Charlotte saw the viscount offer his hand to Augusta. Even from this far away, Charlotte caught the shy blush of unexpected pleasure coloring Augusta’s cheeks.

A queer flash of blue from one of the windows took Charlotte’s attention away from the dancing couple. Odd. By now it should have been far too dark to see anything through them. Just as fast as it appeared, the light winked out.

What was that? An errant witch-light? And such a peculiar shade of blue…
Tingling awareness unfurled beneath her skin, that same now-familiar sensation of being watched, and her anger returned anew.

…

Blast! Did she see me?
Frederick fled from the window, stubbing his left foot against an unseen hunk of statuary. He silently cursed the stone Fey (or lion, difficult to tell in the dim light) and raced back around the side of the manse to Lord Mettle’s carriage house as fast as a man with a pronounced limp could. His left foot throbbed, while his right still smarted from Charlotte’s heel. His shoulder continued to ache from his unfortunate collision with the column.

At last, Frederick understood why Charlotte had hesitated to wear that particular scarlet gown. She wore an object of great and terrible power that, if used properly, could send armies of men stumbling over unseen pieces of heavy, painful furniture. A plague of bumped foreheads, barked shins, broken toes, and bruised hearts would sweep Allmarch, leaving every hot-blooded man with injuries physically minor but emotionally fatal. Just thinking about that moment on the stairwell, with Miss Charlotte outfitted like a queen, her face incandescent with suppressed rage…

He’d never seen any woman so beautiful in his life, and the pain of that realization cut more sharply than anything a column or stone lion could inflict.

He reached the carriage house and threw open the door, taking comfort in the masculine smells of smoke, mulled wine, and leather. Off to the left, Lord Mettle’s coachman had a private room of simple but comfortable design. Inside, the visiting grooms, coachmen, footmen, and the odd postilion took their ease from the chill of the evening. A healthy fire crackled at the far end of the room, and clutches of servants played cards, rolled dice, and drank hot wine seasoned with cinnamon.