What Not to Bare: A Loveswept Historical Romance (6 page)

It was obvious her mother thought Charlotte—unescorted, young, and well-fortuned as she might be—was not likely to attract any kind of unwanted attention, so she needn’t tear herself away from the play to make certain Charlotte did not run afoul of anyone.

And wasn’t that a lowering thought. Even her own mother thought it impossible that Charlotte would be accosted when by herself.

Not that she
wanted
to be accosted, but it would be nice if her mother even entertained the possibility.

Charlotte stepped into the foyer of the theater. There were a few vendors there, but there were very few people, compared to inside. She took a deep breath, no longer stifled by overpowering scent and heat.

Unfortunately, one of the very few people was Mr. Goddard.

“Good evening, Lady Charlotte. Are you feeling well?”

He was tall, nearly as tall as her brother Christian, but with twice the width. He loomed over her like a menacing portent of something awful to come. Or perhaps that was just her imagination.

“I am feeling fine, Mr. Goddard. I just wanted to step out here for some air.”

His lips curled up into a smile. Or what she presumed was a smile. She really didn’t want to make a study of him. Suffice it to say his mouth moved up and she glimpsed teeth underneath his artfully styled mustache. “I am glad to run into you this evening. I mentioned to your mother that I was interested in making your acquaintance further.” His meaning was absolutely clear, so clear she did not need him to say, “I am planning on marrying you so you can provide me with a fortune and a mother to my children. It is just unfortunate you come in the bargain.” She might actually prefer it if he spoke that bluntly.

She tilted her head to regard his face. He wasn’t unattractive, but she didn’t want to look at him for long. Plus, there was the look in his eyes when he regarded her. More
like she was a large pile of pound notes than as if she were a person.

Still, she shouldn’t blame him for wanting to marry money. She could blame him for choosing her as the object of his fortune hunting, however. She wished, not for the first time, that Society wasn’t so acutely aware of how much money she had.

“My mother did say something, yes.” Her voice made her feelings as plain as the nose on his face. Or the mustache underneath it.

He chuckled, his tone entirely devoid of humor. Not to mention sounding completely affronted when he spoke. “Lady Charlotte, you must give me an opportunity to persuade you differently. I believe in due time you will see the benefits.”

To you having my money and me having you? And your children? Hardly
.

But she didn’t say any of that. Not because she wasn’t thinking it, nor because she felt any hesitation about saying it, but because she spotted Lady Anne in the hallway and wanted to do something to stop this entire line of conversation. “Lady Anne! Hello!” She waved to the woman, who immediately smiled and began walking their way.

“Lady Anne, what a pleasure. May I introduce you to Mr. Goddard?”

The introductions were made, with Mr. Goddard thankfully not betraying that he might possibly be miffed he couldn’t continue speaking to Charlotte alone.

After a few comments on the play, the crowd, and the weather, the bells rang, signaling that the intermission was over, and Mr. Goddard took his leave.

The two women watched as he threaded his way through to the door of the theater.

“Now, you must tell me. Is he your suitor?”

Charlotte was grateful that Lady Anne appeared to be as plainspoken as she was herself. She shook her head. “No. That is, yes, he is. Only I don’t wish him to be.”

Lady Anne raised one pale eyebrow. “He seems nice enough. He is tall, that is for certain.”

“If being tall were all it took to make a proper suitor, I could just go out in the woods and get a tree to marry me. Perhaps an oak or a maple.”

“As long as he’s not a sapling,” Lady Anne shot back, a grin on her face.

Charlotte burst out laughing, making a few heads turn at her … 
exuberance
. At least it wasn’t her gown attracting the attention this time.

Speaking of which—she looked down at her unexceptional gown, and its unexceptional color, and she felt entirely unexceptional. What had he said?
You now look like every other woman in Society
.

She did not want to look like every other woman. She glanced at Lady Anne, who was wearing an ivory gown trimmed with light-blue ribbons. Her hair shone like fire, and its brightness definitely overshadowed what she was wearing.

A pity she couldn’t wear a dark forest green or a sapphire blue. Those intense colors would be more flattering than the washed-out hues a debutante was allowed.

Listen to her! It was almost as though she had a fashion column to write, even though she was herself an Abomination in fashion.

“Lady Anne,” she began, “may I share a secret with you?”

“David!”

He heard the sharp whisper as he strode up the steps to his house.

Louise? Here?

Was her husband waiting somewhere with a pistol?

Well, at least that would solve his problem of returning to India—he could go by coffin.

She stepped out of the shadows, just her, with her maid a hovering presence just beyond. For propriety’s sake? Perhaps, even though there was nothing proper about Louise. At least he didn’t yet spy her husband.

It took every bit of his diplomatic training not to stare at her with his mouth dropped open. He couldn’t speak for a moment, that was for certain. “Ah, Lady Radnor,” he said at last, taking her extended hand in his. “A pleasure to see you.”

As though ladies from India, ladies he’d had intimate relations with, always appeared at his doorstep in London.

Then again—

“Lady Radnor, is it?” She smiled in that conspiratorial, sensuous way that had so entranced him in India. In London, however, all it did was make him acutely aware that it was his mandate to avoid scandal if he wanted to retain his position.

She caused scandal constantly, with David just the latest in a collection of men who were not her husband. Louise was a beauty, her hair a riot of alluring dark curls, her eyes slanted, catlike, at the corners, her mouth a perfect rosebud for kissing. Not to mention her figure, which David knew firsthand was perfect.

Scandal was a given.

Especially if her husband was anywhere nearby. He cleared his throat, but she spoke before he could ask the obvious question. “William’s gone.”

Probably not to the country, judging by her tone.

“My condolences.” Damn, if this wasn’t going to make everything even more
complicated—Lord Bradford knew the source of the scandal that required David to leave India in the first place. That the lady in question was now a widow, and now in London, made things much more difficult.

Damn.

“Invite me in.” Her meaning was unmistakable, especially given the way she lifted her face up to his and grasped his arm.

Thankfully, she didn’t do more than that.

He gently pulled her hand off his sleeve. “I cannot. London Society has not changed so much as to allow a young widow to visit a bachelor’s quarters by herself in the evening.”

“No one would know,” she said, glancing around the empty street. She slid one finger into the opening of his waistcoat and tugged him closer. “I came straight here from the ship, after seeing to my luggage. And changing, of course.” Which meant, he did not say, that she hadn’t come straight here at all.

“Haven’t you missed me, David?” She spoke in a silky tone of voice.

He didn’t want to imagine what she would say if he told her the truth. But neither he nor his career could afford what would happen if he answered truthfully.

“Of course, Lady Radnor. But you should be on your way. Where are you staying?”

Her lovely face got a very sulky expression. “At my sister-in-law’s house. She is practically a hermit. All she does is play cards with a group of old women. Well, one man, but he is practically female.”

“But since you are in mourning …”

“Oh, William told me specifically he did not want me wearing mourning for him.” Like hell he did, David thought. William wanted to keep her hidden away before he died, so he certainly wouldn’t have wanted her to be out and about in Society afterward.

David spotted a hackney cab tooling down the street, and hailed it before he and Louise could debate what constituted adequate mourning procedures. He imagined they would disagree about whether “picking up a love affair from six months earlier” would pass muster; it seemed as though it would in her eyes.

“In you go.” He got Louise into the carriage and held his hand out to her maid.
The woman stared at him—either in horror or admiration, he wasn’t sure—and he helped her into the cab, slipping a coin into her palm at the last minute.

“Good evening,” he said as the cab started up. Louise stuck her head out the window, and he saw her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Thank God.

“That went well, didn’t it?” Gotam said, making him jump.

David rubbed his hand over his face. “Not at all, and you know it. She seems to think it will be the same here as in India, and the minister wants no scandal, and I—wait.”

Gotam gave him a suspicious look. “Have you had a brilliant idea? You have your brilliant-idea face on. Let’s hope it has nothing to do with cows and saris, because that was a debacle.”

“There was wine involved that time. No, I was thinking—if Lady Radnor is here, then we can return to India sooner than we had originally hoped. If the scandal has followed me here, then I can leave again, don’t you think?”

Gotam frowned. “Can we go inside? This London air is far too chilly for me to think in.”

The two men stepped inside, David’s brother’s butler clearly still uncertain about how to treat the Indian valet, especially as he and David were so obviously friends.

“Gotam, in here, please,” David said, gesturing to the small study where his brother presumably took care of his correspondence.

David poured a very large glass of brandy for Gotam and a smaller one for himself. He handed the glass to Gotam and gestured to one of the chairs. “Sit.”

Gotam—for once—did as he was told and sat, crossing one leg over the other and holding the glass up to his nose for an appreciative sniff.

“I will speak with the minister, but with Lord Radnor now deceased and his widow here in London, there is no danger of scandal at home anymore, is there?”

Gotam paused and took a large sip. His face scrunched up as the liquor burned down his throat, then he uttered a satisfied noise and his expression cleared. “There is nothing like English brandy.”

“Except that it is French,” David pointed out in a dry voice.

Gotam waved him off. “Whatever. But there is still the matter of his niece.”

David took his own sip. Gotam was right about the quality of the brandy, even if he was unclear as to its country of origin.

“A few weeks to avoid Louise, avoid scandal, and pay enough attention to Lady Charlotte so that she is intriguing to Society. Dealing with a temperamental
mirza
will be a relief when we return to Bombay.”

Gotam finished the last of his brandy. “And I will enjoy watching you handle it all, Mr. Gorgeous.”

***

Charlotte’s maid, Sarah, came close to giving her notice when she saw what Charlotte planned to wear out that evening. The only thing that stopped her, she said loudly, was that no other lady would hire her if she knew where she had worked previously.

“But I think this teal goes marvelously with this dark-fig color,” Charlotte exclaimed, a mischievous smile on her face. She did honestly find the blue-and-brown combination irresistible, but she knew full well nobody else shared her opinion.

She was especially looking forward to seeing Lord David’s face when he first saw her. He would rue the day he told her to dress as she pleased.

Even her mother—who should have known better—remonstrated with her when she made her appearance in the small salon prior to leaving. “Charlotte. You look hideous,” she said nearly as bluntly as her own daughter would have. “You must change. Immediately. Mustn’t she?” She threw a look of entreaty at Charlotte’s father, who was busy having a pre-card-party nap. He shook himself awake and blinked a few times.

“What, dear?”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Charlotte, will you change?”

“Don’t change, dear,” her father interjected. “You are perfect the way you are.”

“Not her personality, you—” Charlotte’s mother huffed out a deep breath as her eyes rolled yet again. Too much more of that and they might get stuck that way. At least then Charlotte wouldn’t be the most stared-at member of the Jepstow household. “Never mind,” she repeated. “We don’t wish to be late.”

“I will see you at home later, dear,” Charlotte’s father said, blissfully unaware of
the currents of clothing hatred swirling about in the salon. “Miss Collins’s sister-in-law has just arrived from abroad; we will have a new partner for whist.”

“Excellent,” her mother replied in an absentminded tone of voice.

“You must be sure to tell me all about it,” Charlotte said as she took her shawl from the butler. She nodded her thanks to the servant, then flung the garment about her shoulders, secretly relishing how her mother winced at the sight of the bright orange pattern of the shawl against the teal bodice of her gown.

She drew on her gloves, which were white, as fashion required, but were embroidered in yellow and orange thread. All over.

It was a pleasure—a bittersweet one, to be sure, but a pleasure, nonetheless—to torment her mother so. Plus, as she’d told both Emma and Lord David, she really did like all the combinations she conjured up, and she didn’t see anything wrong with doing what she wanted and wearing what she wanted. If it kept certain people away? So much the better.

It was just Society insisted she do and wear certain things, and if that was what Society wanted, Charlotte wanted nothing to do with Society.

Until she was allowed to do what she wanted, however, she would do what she wanted. Or something like that.