Page 7 of Always the Chaperone
Instead, she leaned near his ear and whispered, “I shall give Miss Darby your regards.” Then she left him alone in the music room.
Chapter Three
No matter whatshe did, Charlotte could not get that strand of hair to stay put.
She sighed, breath misting the looking glass in the crisp April morning. It was ridiculous. She had never been concerned with her looks, even when attending her first Season. She was far more interested in seeing the people she had heard so much about from her oldest brother, Arnold.
Her nose scrunched.Arnold. Well, they were well rid of him.
And tonight was nothing special. Her mind unwillingly traipsed back to the week before.
“I look forward to it.”
Charlotte started and almost dropped her diamond earbobs, fingers tightening around them.
The Duke of Mercia. She was not going to get herself tangled over him, no matter how handsome he was. Not that she had noticed.
Blowing out a frustrated breath and concentrating this time, she carefully put on her mother’s diamond earbobs. They had been her favorite legacy, though she rarely wore them. There was little point. She was typically the third person at the opera, the third to dine, the third for a walk. An accessory to a courting couple. Largely ignored but necessary.
She examined her reflection critically. Well, her gown was at least five seasons old and starting to be truly out of fashion. Her hair was completely untamable. But the diamonds were perfect.
It was too much to hope that she and the duke would have a conversation, especially after she had been so dismissive. He had frightened her with his intensity, which drew her to him in a way she did not like.
That was what she kept telling herself.
“The carriage is here, my lady.”
Matthews’s voice echoed up the stairs, and Charlotte smiled grimly in the looking glass. It was time. Grabbing her pelisse, she walked downstairs to see the butler holding her reticule for her.
“The Axwick diamond earbobs,” he nodded. “I highly approve, my lady.”
Charlotte blushed. Matthews meant well, had meant well for all twenty-five years he had served her family. He was practically one of them. But that did not explain…
“Matthews,” she said briskly, taking the reticule, “may I ask you a question?”
The butler raised an eyebrow.
“Why did you decide to return with me to Bath? I would have thought Richard and Tabitha needed you at Stonehaven Lacey.”
If she had not known Matthews so well, she could have missed the flicker of pride across his face.
“They did inquire whether I would remain, my lady,” he said delicately, “but I made a promise to your mother that I would keep you under my care until…until you had a household of your own.”
Charlotte flushed. Love for her mother, embarrassment that her butler thought five and thirty was not sufficient age to look after oneself, and the hint at matrimony.
A knock on the front door interrupted them. Matthews stepped forward to open the door to reveal a shivering footman. “The carriage is waiting for Lady Charlotte.”
She sighed. They had managed quite well without a carriage for over three years while the family finances were in disarray. Having one now felt strange and more often than not, she left it in the country. One was always at the beck and call of the horses, never the other way around. She must send it back to Richard, where the horses could enjoy the countryside.
“I am ready,” she said and smiled at the butler again. “Thank you, Matthews.”
Miss Darby’s lodgings with her father were two streets away, so Charlotte gained little silent respite before she was joined by her night’s charge.
“But of course, I had seen Miss Tilbury had worn a similar gown, and so I wondered whether it was quite the thing, but I asked my father, and he said he knew the Earl of Marnmouth well, and so as long as my dressmaker…”
Charlotte could not help but smile. The bright eyes and flushed cheeks of Miss Darby were much easier to absorb in the evening dark of the carriage. She could remember her first time attending an opera, her first balls, the dinners she was permitted to go to by her father. So much excitement, so much promise.
Her smile faded as the carriage jolted around a corner. Those evenings were almost twenty years ago. She had come out to a different type of Season, with different nobility, dances, and novels in fashion. Miss Darby may not even have been born then.
