I am not uninteresting.” Charlotte sat at the dresser while Grace made quick work of the pins holding up her hair.
Her lady’s maid’s expression was completely sincere as she responded. “No, my lady.”
“And I am not sanctimonious.”
“Not at all.”
“And I am not a do-gooder.” Ugh. The word conjured up images of pious spinsters. Of bland women with nothing else to do but convince other people to support their cause. Which was not her at all. She had plenty of things in her life besides her projects.
“I mean, obviously I do good. I am a duke’s sister, after all. It’s my job to help the needy. I’m supposed to put the weight of the Wildeforde name behind worthy causes. But since when is that a bad thing? It’s something that should be aspired to.”
At that, Grace raised her eyebrows. “Your efforts mean a lot to many people, my lady. Don’t let some unkind words stop you from making a difference.”
The assurance mollified her somewhat. She was making a difference. More of a difference than any other young woman of the ton—except, perhaps, for Fiona. But no lady could compete with Charlotte’s sister-in-law when it came to impacting society. No lady had Fiona’s unique education or her experience as a businesswoman.
Instead, young ladies were supposed to turn their hands to social causes, rather than scientific. Charlotte had managed to increase the standing of several female playwrights through her patronage. She had launched a program to help destitute women find a life in service, started an animal rehoming organization for farm animals that had outlived their usefulness, and she had taken an active interest in the welfare of orphans.
She was helpful. She solved problems. She was who people turned to when they needed assistance. Drat Luella.
“I am not uninteresting. Luella is a spiteful cow, excuse my horrendous language, who resents me because I foiled her plot to trap my brother into marriage. That’s why she spreads such unkind rumors.”
It was infuriating. Charlotte worked so hard. She said yes to every committee she was asked to join; she was at every social event worth noting, and she still found time to lend her presence to those newer to society—the ones who needed a duke’s sister to make their ball a success. Her dance card was full night after night because the more bashful gentlemen of the ton knew she’d not embarrass them with a rejection.
She was beloved, even if she’d yet to find true love. Her future as a grande dame was set.
And then there was Luella. Equally sought after for no good reason.
“She is just awful, Grace. And how dare she criticize me for not yet finding a husband? She’s been out two years longer than I have and she remains unwed.”
Finishing the last of Charlotte’s braids and securing it with a ribbon, Grace caught her mistress’s gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “She may well be jealous, my lady. She had no proposals after that first one, and she is only human, not actually bovine.”
Charlotte only just held back a growl. She didn’t want logical and empathetic responses. She wanted somebody to agree that, yes, Luella was the devil. Certainly, her maid was right, but that knowledge gave Charlotte no satisfaction.
“This is not how it works, Grace. You are supposed to support me in all of my endeavors. Even my petty, myopic, self-indulgent ones.”
Grace laughed, and despite the clear affection in her tone, Charlotte still felt her companion pull away another fraction. Four years ago, Grace would have loyally agreed and helped to plot Luella’s demise, but since getting married last year to Swinton, Edward’s driver, the friendship had changed, almost as though Charlotte was being outgrown.
Grace hadn’t spent the night in Charlotte’s room since her wedding and Charlotte no longer felt she could share all of her secrets without sensing an undertone of you-will-understand-when-you’re-married in the responses.
It was not unlike the undertone that had worked its way into her closest friendships when one after another got engaged, then married, and were now even bearing children.
“Perhaps you should seek your sister if you wish for partial advice.”
“Perhaps I shall,” Charlotte said, trying not to let her disappointment show. She would seek Fiona. There was no one more used to cruel things being said about her than a Scottish female chemist, common born, who’d worked in a factory and had worn men’s clothing before marrying a duke and being subjected to all sorts of slander.
No one ever said Fiona was uninteresting, though. Odd, perhaps. Scandalous. An upstart—all insults that Fiona barely registered. She was who she was, and she made no apologies for it.
It was admirable. And if Charlotte was a little jealous that her new sister had changed the world, impressed half of society without bending backward for it, and found the love of her life, well, that jealousy was to be expected, surely.
Grace held out a dressing gown for Charlotte to step into. “Will you need me again, my lady?”
“No. Thank you. Please ask a footman to bring some hot milk to the study.” She tied her dressing gown with a knot and stepped into the slippers on the floor by the bed.
Fiona and Edward would be having a nightcap in their shared office. After Luella’s attempt to force Edward into marriage, there was no chance either of them would mirror Grace’s tolerance of Luella’s behavior.
Halfway down the corridor, her slippers began to chafe against the blisters. She kicked them off and picked them up, letting them hang from her fingers. It might raise an eyebrow with the footmen on duty, but both Ned and Fi had seen her in worse states of undress than this.
As she got closer to the study, she could hear Fiona’s laugh through the open door. Smiling to herself, she picked up her pace. David, the footman standing by the doorway, started forward, his eyes wide as he saw her in her nightclothes, barefooted with her hair in braids. He moved to block her entrance.
“Oh, David. It’s fine,” she said, rolling her eyes and stepping around him. “It’s not as though we have visit—” She stopped still, both her words and her feet, because they did have a guest. Seated in the armchair opposite Fiona was John Barnesworth, relaxed and smiling.
John, who had been the subject of all her childhood dreams.
John, whose name she’d scrawled over and over in her diaries.
John, who had never returned to London once he’d left for Oxford.
John, who had left for Boston years ago and she thought she’d never see again.
John, who was Lord Harrow now.
He was every bit as lovely as he had been when she last saw him. His longish chestnut hair, much in need of a trim, flopped into his eyes in a roguish manner. It was streaked with gold from the American sun. His skin was a shade darker than she remembered, and his emerald eyes stood out in contrast.
Emerald eyes that looked up as she entered, flaring in surprise. He stood quickly and bowed fluidly. She had always admired that about him—the gentleness and grace with which he moved. Her brothers were both overly tall, with a bulkiness that drove their seamstress to despair. John was all long, slender lines and graceful movement. He was the embodiment of a perfect gentleman.
As he moved, an urge to reach out to him almost overwhelmed her. As his gaze traveled her person, her dressing gown, and landed on her bare feet, she hugged herself instead, her slippers knocking against her side.
She had fantasized about seeing John again so many times, and in all of those fantasies, she’d been in a ballroom, surrounded by other men, dressed in her finest clothing. His eyes were drawn to her, and he would have a moment of double take as he realized the beautiful young woman in front of him was the grown-up version of the gangly girl he’d barely noticed.
She did not imagine him seeing her with her hair in braids and wearing nightclothes, as though she was unchanged from the child she’d been when he last visited.
“What are you doing here?” She regretted the words the moment she said them. It was bad enough that she was dressed as she was. Now she’d let her embarrassment make her churlish.
He raised an eyebrow as he straightened. “Leaving.” He gathered his jacket from the back of the chaise longue and slung it over his elbow. From the small table, he picked up a notebook, tucking it under his arm. He nodded to Edward and Fiona, the latter of whom rolled her eyes. “Get gone then, if ye dunnae want to stay. We’ll talk more of this tomorrow.”
As he passed Charlotte, he gave her a smile that was really more of a grimace, and left without a backward glance.
“Well,” she said, mortified. “That was rude.” Of course, he’d simply answered her rudeness in kind. She had no one but herself to blame if he didn’t bother with a basic greeting after all these years.
“Don’t mind John,” Edward said. “He wasn’t expecting to see a half-dressed girl appear wielding a pair of slippers.”
“I’m not wielding anything. My feet hur—” She narrowed her eyes as her brother chuckled. “Oh, you are bothersome,” she said, annoyed that he’d once again gotten a rise out of her. “What is he doing here?”
“John? He has returned to England.” Edward didn’t take his eyes off her as he swirled the brandy in his glass, an infuriating knowingness in his stare.
She knew exactly what he was doing, what he expected her response to be, yet she couldn’t put on the disaffected expression she wanted to.
“Clearly,” she ground out. Of course, John had returned to England. She’d been expecting his arrival for months. One couldn’t ignore a summons from the crown, and when one became a newly minted viscount, that was as good as a summons. “What is he doing here? At midnight? While I’m in my nightclothes?”
Edward cocked his head. “I don’t think any of us could have anticipated you being home this early, let alone ready for bed.”
Charlotte rubbed her forehead. “You’re being deliberately obtuse, brother.”
Edward sighed and rubbed the crease between his brows. “Given he’s Fiona’s business partner and my friend, he joined us for dinner. His cook has been…indisposed. But Char—”
“Well, it would have been nice to have been invited.” She knew Edward was about to scold her, and she interrupted before he could. “In my own home. After all the dinner parties I’ve thrown on your behalf, you can’t even invite me to this one.”
“Char…” There was a faint note of warning in his tone. They had argued about John before. Edward had a ridiculous notion that she and John would not be a good match, which might have been true when John was a second son who never ventured out into society, but he was the viscount now. And in London. He would have to be out in society. John would be a perfectly acceptable match.
“The least you could do is inform me that we’re having guests for dinner, given that it will throw my entire meal plan off for the week.”
“He is not for you and you are not for him,” Edward said bluntly, ignoring her comment.
Charlotte’s face heated. “You’re being quite presumptuous to think that he’s even on my mind.” But of course, he had been. The moment she’d heard of the previous Lord Harrow’s passing, the possibility of John returning had wormed its way into her brain.
Her silly little heart had leapt and the equally silly voice in her head had whispered that he was who she was waiting for. He was why she’d never accepted a proposal, even when she’d decided she would. He was why the word no had snuck out of her mouth every time, unbidden. She’d never have admitted it to herself when he was gone from England and unlikely to return, but now that he was home, she couldn’t hide from the fact of it.
And Edward suspected the truth. She was sure that he did. She would not give him the opportunity to wrest it out of her, though. “Good night, brother,” she said before their conversation became a spat that the duke would inevitably win. “I’m going up.”
* * *
John’s cheeks burned the entire walk home. It wasn’t a long walk—Harrow House was on the other side of the Mayfair block. The two homes even shared a garden wall—and by the time he strode up the front stairs, his embarrassment had not abated.
His behavior had been unacceptable. It had been unacceptable for a viscount, who would be expected to manage basic conversation, and unacceptable for a gentleman, who would be expected to treat his friend’s younger sister with at least a modicum of cordiality.
But John hadn’t been prepared to talk with anyone other than Wilde and Fi tonight. Socializing with strangers consumed an enormous amount of energy, and untangling his brother’s financial knots had left him with little to spare. The sight of Charlotte, grown now into a woman, had felt—big. Consequential. He couldn’t accurately describe it.
It was as though the very sight of her burned through every molecule in him and hearing her voice would burn through the remnants of that, leaving him changed in a way he wasn’t prepared for.
Perhaps, if the conversation had started out more benignly—a “Good evening. How do you do?”—he might have mustered up a few lines before excusing himself.
What are you doing here?
Lady Charlotte’s terse inquiry had been a sharp reminder that he was unlikely to find an easy welcome in this society. Not from people who adored Walter, who mourned his passing and likely resented John’s presence. Not from people expecting a lord and getting a poor facsimile instead. And apparently not from someone who, had he thought about it, might have been predisposed to give him a chance, given his close relationship with her family.
Had Charlotte crossed his mind at all in the past few years, he would have hoped that during their first encounter in almost a decade she’d have been a little less…frosty. As it was, the appearance of Edward’s sister had come as a complete surprise. More surprising was the realization that the child who’d hung in the peripheries during his youth was a child no longer.
No, Charlotte was all grown up. Tall, willowy, with a jaw as stubborn as her brother’s, a complexion that had flushed pink as she’d seen him, and penetrating deep blue eyes that had, for a brief moment, stolen all breath from him.
Had she crossed his mind at all in the years since he’d seen her, he’d have anticipated that she’d be a beauty. It was logic. She shared the striking Wildeforde features.
She hadn’t crossed his mind, though. In his head, Charlotte had remained a spindly young girl in braids, a pinafore, and pantaloons. Perhaps it was that dissonance that had thrown him off. Rarely was his brain so out of step with reality.
He pulled a large key from his coat pocket. Yesterday, upon returning to Harrow House for the first time in a decade, he’d been forced to let go the people who worked there. It had been regrettable. He didn’t like to put anyone out of work, but he couldn’t pay the wages for more than a skeleton staff. He would make do with a butler, a housekeeper, and a cook. That was still three more servants than he was used to. Three people with whom he shared his space.
Given he’d been opening his own front door since he left for Oxford, he’d discharged Mosely from that duty, along with most other duties as recompense for the half pay. The butler could attend the door for visitors, but John needed no such assistance.
Besides, the fewer people forced to live his odd hours, the better.
He unhooked a lamp from beside the front door and lit it using the sole burning wall sconce. With his financial situation the way it was, there was no budget for leaving rooms and hallways lit when he wasn’t home.
He made his way to the study, smiling to himself as a loud, snuffling snore broke the silence. Newton, the Scottish deerhound whose long body stretched the entire length of the chaise longue, had his head propped up on the arm of it. He opened one eye as John placed a lamp in the corner of the desk, and his tail waved slowly, before his eyes closed again and the snoring resumed.
There was just enough light from the lamp for John to read. To distract himself from his misstep with Charlotte. The new edition of German Review of Physics sat on his desk between his correspondence with a biologist from Paris and the latest business reports from the engineering firm he shared with Fiona and their business partner, Benedict Asterly.
The firm was on track to deliver its next shipment of steam engines by the end of the year. There would be a lump sum payment on delivery, but that was too far away to be of any use to John’s current situation. They had discussed the idea of expanding the firm’s production capabilities, but that would require an upfront injection of cash—an investment he was no longer in a position to make.
Damn. He pushed away from his desk and stood at the tall windows that looked out into the darkness of the garden. As he rested his arm against the glass and his head on his arm, the trappings of a London town house almost disappeared. He could pretend for a moment that he was back in a small, one-room house on the outskirts of Boston.
* * *
She couldn’t help it. Charlotte had gone back to her rooms in a huff and had been about to climb into bed when she’d noticed a flare of light from the darkness outside her window. Habits formed a decade ago kicked in. She quickly padded to the window.
Her bedroom, on the topmost floor of Wildeforde House, directly overlooked Viscount Harrow’s backyard. Nothing of interest had occurred in that garden for years—not since John had left for Oxford. Walter, the last viscount, and his father before him had occasionally taken a stroll along the manicured paths, but neither had caught Charlotte’s attention. The thirteenth Viscount Harrow had been old and mean, and the fourteenth Viscount Harrow had been all too aware of his own good looks and supposed charm. London had fallen at Harrow’s feet and the women of her acquaintance had fluttered and fawned at his attention, but he’d always given Charlotte the shivers.
The fifteenth Viscount Harrow, well, he’d had her attention from the moment she’d first set eyes on him. He’d been the most beautiful young man she’d ever seen. He’d been sitting beneath the large oak, leaning back against the trunk, a book in his hands and a pencil tucked behind his ear. Over the days that followed, he’d alternated between sketching and sleeping, his chestnut hair flopping into his face. Every now and then, he would run his hand through it, tugging at the ends as though something in his mind needed evicting. It never took long before his locks stood out at wild angles and smudges of charcoal stained his face and his perfectly cut, perfectly fashionable clothing.
The notebook was quickly replaced by another, and then another, each covered with cloth of a different color. Lady Harrow must have been spending a fortune on supplies.
Finally, after a week, the tableau changed. Edward joined John in the Harrows’ back garden and from then on, the two had been almost inseparable. But if Charlotte had thought that her brother’s newfound friendship would lead to her meeting their neighbor, those hopes were quickly dashed. Edward had always been quick to shoo her away.
So, in the past decade, her relationship with John had not progressed beyond more than the very occasional and brief salutation.
She had watched as John had become taller, had filled out across the shoulders, had grown fashionable side beards and started pulling his hair back into a gentlemanly queue.
She’d listened as Edward had talked of the fun the two boys had at school together. Then one summer, John hadn’t returned from Oxford as he usually did, and she’d not seen him until tonight, when the first words out of her mouth had been…brusque. How could she blame him for leaving abruptly when she had spoken so churlishly?
The gardens now were pitch black. The light that had flared a moment ago came from a room on the ground floor. She couldn’t see into it, but, as though fate were intervening, John came into view, leaning against the windowpane, staring out into the darkness.
His expression was bleak, and her fingers twitched, wanting to smooth away his frown.
“Notice me,” she whispered. It had been all she’d wanted as a young girl, and it had never happened. “Notice me.” And just like that, he raised his eyes in her direction.
“Drat!” She spun to the side, her back flattening against the wall by the window, her heart thundering. “Drat it all.” How humiliating to be caught mooning over him like some child. She snuffed the candle and prayed that he hadn’t seen her.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said as she fumbled her way back to her bed, stubbing her toe in a painful reminder that this was real life, not a fantasy, and that she’d had enough of John noticing her in her nightwear, thank you very much.