CHAPTER FOUR

C harlotte took her time lacing up the borrowed skates. In truth, she felt as though she needed a moment after the odd encounter with the earl. It was almost as though he’d sought to comfort her. Surprising, because she thought she did a fairly stellar job of pretending that the whispers and daggers thrown her way didn’t bother her.

But she had been feeling a tad nervous since it had been so long since she’d been invited anywhere by people who sincerely wanted her presence. And something of that had showed enough that the big, grumpy earl had felt the need to comfort her.

He wasn’t particularly good at it, she supposed. He had been gruff and abrupt. And yet there had been more authenticity in his rallying words than any sort of effusiveness. They had touched her, those words. And in more ways the one. Yes they’d made her feel braver. But he’d been so close, the scent of sandalwood surrounding her as he’d leaned in, making her heart pound frantically. And his voice, all rough and gravelly, had made her skin break out in gooseflesh.

Not just the words. The man had affected her. So much so that she’d waved the twins off to start without her under his watchful eye so that she could remember to breath properly.

Fluffing out her navy skirts, Charlotte cast another look around her. It wasn’t terribly busy but she recognized a lot of faces. Most of them ignored her. Some of them raised a brow and whispered. But one or two, she was relieved to see, offered miniscule nods of greetings.

It might have been because enough time had passed since Jane’s marriage. It might have been because she’d arrived her with a respected and powerful earl and his sought-after sisters. For there was no doubt in Charlotte’s mind that Harriet and Joanna would be the diamonds of their Season next year. Whatever it was, she was grateful for it.

Deciding that she would be capable of being around Lord Fewick without fainting or something, Charlotte stood up and carefully made her way to the edge of the pond. It had been an age since she’d skated. She and Jane used to do it back home when the large pond on their estate had frozen over. She only hoped that it was something her body would magically remember to do.

Setting one, wobbly foot on the ice she waited a moment to insure she wouldn’t slip before carefully putting the next one on. “Right, I’m still standing,” she whispered to herself. “That’s good. Great, even.”

She carefully pushed off, keeping her eyes closed and praying this didn’t end in disaster. Then, to her unending relief, her body did seem to magically remember and within minutes she was skating again. A wide grin broke out on her face as she glided over the ice toward where the twins were standing and talking to a dark-haired young lady that she vaguely recognized. A quick glance showed the earl sitting on a bench nearby, not skating, and glowering at all the other men present. Close enough to hear the conversation but not so close that he might get accidentally dragged into it.

Lady Harriet looked toward her as she approached. “Charlotte, there you are. How well you skate! You were being modest when you said you had a little experience.”

“I am out of practice,” she laughed. “But steady enough not to cause injury, I think.”

“Are you acquainted with Miss Louisa Tract? Her father is Sir John Tract.”

Charlotte smiled politely at the other lady, curtsying as much as possible in a pair of skates. Miss Tract nodded her head slightly, but she didn’t smile back and the look she turned on Charlotte was as cool as the ice upon which they now stood.

“I was just telling Lady Joanna and Lady Harriet how admirable it is that their brother is so attentive to them,” she said loudly, her eyes darting to the bench, leaving no doubt as to who the comment was really for. Subtlety, it seemed, was not Miss Tract’s strong suit. The eye-rolls from the twins suggested they noticed the same thing.

And Charlotte could not have said why that awakened an impishness in her. But it did. She pitched her voice loudly, too. “Hmm. Perhaps the earl is far too overprotective,” she said, casting him a sidelong glance to see him now scowling at her. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing.

Miss Tract’s eyes widened and she threw a simpering look Lord Fenwick’s way before answering. “I think it is wonderful for a gentleman to take his responsibilities so seriously,” she practically bellowed. “So magnanimous to give up what are sure to be important duties to oversee his sisters’ entertainment. It bodes well to chaperone properly.”

There was a subtle dig in there somewhere, Cordelia knew, based on the lady’s biting tone. “Of course, the epitome of magnanimity to take one’s sisters to the park.” Charlotte raised a questioning brow at the earl, asking him silently if he agreed with the profuse championing. His scowled deepened but his mouth twitched, and a look of begrudging amusement lit the icy-blue of his eyes. She smiled in return. Small and fleeting but a smile nonetheless. It felt like a little secret between them.

The twins giggled, too. But Miss Tract looked decidedly less than pleased. “Perhaps if you and your sister had had a conscientious older brother, your sister would not have ended up where she did,” she bit out, an ugly sneer stamped across her face.

The twins gasped. The earl sat forward, suddenly intensely interested. And though Charlotte was used to such sentiments, having them spat at her in front of Lord Fenwick made her stomach roil. She already knew he didn’t particularly approve of her since she’d broken the twins out at last night’s party. And though she suspected he knew her situation given his kindness earlier, to have it laid out like that was humiliating.

Still, she had never cowed to such sentiments before and she wasn’t about to now, all this time later. “You mean married to the man she loves with a beautiful child? How desperately sad for her if she hadn’t,” Charlotte said as calmly as she could.

The twins looked fit to be tied but Charlotte refused to create a scene and have her name brought up at gossipy At Homes again. So she merely stared the other girl down, waiting to see if she’d bite back or leave. The silence grew interminable but after eons, Miss Tract lowered her eyes first. “I should be going,” she said, her tone saccharine. “Lady Harriet, Lady Joanna, I do hope you will consider my offer to join me at the theater on Friday. And my lord,” she turned to face the earl, effectively turning her back on Charlotte and giving her the cut direct. “You are of course, more than welcome to join us. My father would love to have the company of another gentleman there.”

Charlotte didn’t hear what the earl’s response was, there was a roaring in her ears far too loud to hear over. She knew that she should be the bigger person. That she should rise above such things as this and walk away with her head held high.

And she really was going to try to do just that. But then Miss Tract turned a viciously cruel smirk on her and, well, she decided that taking the high road was overrated.

Usually taking the high road meant allowing small people to get away with their actions. And it might be the good, Christian thing to do to let them. But God was just going to have to forgive her this time.

For as Miss Tract made to skate away, Charlotte subtly stuck out her foot, right as the lady barged past.

She screeched like a dying seagull before landing in an ungainly heap right in front of where the earl sat.

The twins broke into gales of laughter as all around them people gathered to help a now red-faced Miss Tract back to her feet.

Charlotte’s own grin faded as she looked up and straight into a pair of arctic eyes. He grimaced and she knew it was another mark of disapproval for her. But as he made for wailing young lady, though there were already plenty of people fussing over her, for goodness sake, he stopped by Charlotte and murmured so quietly only she could hear. “I suppose that’s a point to the wolf.”

***

J asper sat and watched his sisters.

No, that wasn’t true. Much as he tried not to, he watched his sisters’ companion. It seemed that after the debacle with that irritating little chit earlier, he hadn’t been able to stop watching her.

He saw every time she stumbled then laughed at her own clumsiness. He saw when she spotted a nervous little boy struggling with his nanny and offered to help him. He saw when she ignored more than one lascivious leer sent her way, as though she didn’t command the same respect from the cads here as the other young ladies.

And he saw every time she watched him right back.

He’d tried, so damned hard, not to be impressed or amused by her antics earlier. When she’d handled Miss Tract’s cruelty with ladylike aplomb, he’d thought perhaps it would be fine to have the twins around her. And then she’d stuck out her foot to trip the girl.

It had solidified his opinion that she wasn’t exactly the best company for them. But try as he might, he couldn’t help but find it hilarious, too. Perhaps even a little admirable that she didn’t just let these people away with treating her badly.

But that was neither there, he reminded himself. The fact was that she wasn’t a good influence for the twins who were already a handful. And that was all there was to it.

The sky grew darker and people began to return to their conveyances. Thankfully, the twins followed suit and they skated toward him, Miss Forrester in their wake. He left the ladies to change out of their skates while he called out to his driver to ready the carriage. Turning back, he was just on time to see Miss Forrester attempt to leave the ice and lose her balance. She let out a yelp of surprise but he was there, moving at lightning speed to catch her in his arms.

He felt her body slam into his, warm despite the cooling temperatures.

He felt the puff of air on his throat from the laugh she didn’t even try to contain.

And then he looked down and felt the impact of those giant eyes smiling up at him, right down to his damned toes.

And he realized he’d been wrong.

The wallflower wasn’t just trouble for the twins.

She was a whole heap of trouble for him, too.