"Pardon me, Richard," she said. She was feeling a growing ball of tension building inside her. Only a few evenings before he had danced with her at Vaux-hall. Surely he would recognize at any moment that he was holding the same woman.
"You will be making me jealous, my dear," he said very quietly, "if you smile so sweetly at all your dancing partners."
Margaret's eyes shot up to his. His eyes were gleaming, but she was not sure if it was with amusement or not. Before she could respond, he spoke again.
"I see that Dev is performing our duty," he said, and Margaret looked to the alcove where she had last seen Charlotte and Charles tete-a-tete. Now they were standing, and Devin was talking to them in his languid manner.
"We must watch the proprieties more carefully where Charlotte is concerned," Brampton said, looking back to his wife, the gleam now gone from his eyes. She had the feeling that she was being scolded, that he had really meant "You must watch…"
Brampton was not sure himself whether his words to his wife had been meant teasingly or not. He had felt unaccountably irritated a few minutes before to see her looking so happy in Northcott's arms. His hand splayed on her back had looked too intimate; her hand on his shoulder had seemed too close to his neck. Yet he had caught himself up in the thoughts with a grimace of self-mockery. Was he jealous of his little mouse of a wife?
He could not at all understand his feelings. A few nights before, when he had made such passionate love to the other woman, he had been convinced that only she meant anything in his life. He was almost prepared to cast everything he owned and everything he was over the moon in order to be with her for the rest of his life. And he still longed with all his being for the rest of the week to pass in order to see her again.
He had not visited his wife's room since that other night because, he had told himself, it would be tedious and distasteful to be with her after the other passionate encounter. But as he watched her dance and talk with Northcott, he admitted that his reason was perhaps that he felt unworthy of her. She was always so sweet, so composed, so unassuming. He realized, with something like shock, that he was missing her. He drew peace and sanity from contact with her quiet little body.
His feet carried him, without conscious will, across the ballroom to perform the not quite socially acceptable action of cutting in on another man's dance.
Brampton felt an almost disturbing surge of relief as he held his wife in a gentle hold and felt her respond to his lead in the dance. His reactions annoyed himself. He covered them by criticizing her for allowing her sister to spend a little too much of the evening with his brother. He watched a faint blush of color mount her cheeks, the only sign of emotion, as she replied calmly to his words.
"I shall make sure that Charlotte has another partner for the next set, Richard," she said.
Charlotte was up unusually early the next morning. In fact, she was dressed, had breakfasted, and was ready to leave when Captain Charles Adair called for her before noon. He had discovered the night before that she could ride, and they had arranged to ride together in the park the next morning. Jem had had a quiet mare from the stables saddled for her; the horse was waiting outside, beside Charles' black stallion.
"You look very dashing this morning, Charlotte," Charles said with a grin, holding out his hands to form a step for her foot and tossing her up into the sidesaddle.
"Thank you, kind sir," she replied jauntily, and grinned back down at him. She knew she looked well. The jonquil riding dress and daring little hat that tilted over one eye, with a curled brown feather that circled an ear, had been carefully chosen to accentuate her youthful high spirits and auburn hair. She had had the outfit made with someone else's admiration in mind, but that did not matter now. She was not going to spoil such a morning.
"You suit the morning," Charles continued gallantly, "bright and gay. And especially bright to me. I had a letter from Juana this morning."
"Did you indeed!" Charlotte flashed him a bright smile before turning back to watch her horse's step on the street. "And does she still love you, Charles?"
"But of course," he answered, eyebrows raised. "How could she resist?"
"How, indeed," she responded. "I have observed nothing but swooning females in your wake wherever you go."
He laughed aloud. "Wretch! And how is it that you have been able to resist my fatal charm?"
"Perhaps because I have an instinct for self-preservation, sir," she replied. "When a gentleman confides in me his undying love for 'the most lovely lady in the world,' during our first conversation together, I have the common sense to know it would be unwise to develope a tendre for that gentleman."
He laughed again. "Charlotte, my love," he said, "I wish you were my younger sister."
"Goodness!" she responded. "Is that meant to be a compliment?"
They turned into the park and were able to relax their vigilance over the horses, which broke simultaneously into a trot.
"And what does your Juana have to say?" Charlotte asked after a few minutes of easy silence.
"She has hopes of her brother soon agreeing to her coming here to England," he said.
"Charles, that's wonderful! And you will marry her?"
"Of course!"
"Yet you have still said nothing about her to your mother or any other member of your family?"
"Juana is nobly born," Charles explained, "but her family has lost most of their possessions in the wars.When I met her, she was living in near-poverty with her brother and his family in a five-room apartment in Madrid. Mama and Dick are very high in the instep, not to mention Rosalind and the other girls. I fear they would throw all kinds of objections in the way if I were to announce my secret betrothal. No, I still feel it better to wait until she arrives in England. I know they will not be able to resist her when they see her. Oh, Charlotte, you should see her dark hair and flashing black eyes. She flies up into the boughs at the slightest provocation." He chuckled at some private memories.
"Yes, it will be most exciting to meet her," agreed Charlotte.
"In the meantime," he continued, "Mama is pushing in my direction all the insipid and simpering misses the Season has to offer."
"Of which number I am one," Charlotte said tartly.
"You? Insipid and simpering? Never!" he said. "You have perhaps too much spirit for your own good. But I am grateful to you for agreeing to spend so much time with me. It gives me breathing space. I hope I am not keeping you away from any particular admirer. Am I, Charlotte?"
"Oh, indeed not," she assured him brightly. "I have no intention of fixing my choice yet."
He looked searchingly into her face and grinned. "It sounds as if I have touched you on the raw."
Charlotte kicked the side of the horse. "I'll race you to that large oak!" she shouted, pointing ahead about half a mile. The mare, unused to such treatment and startled out of a steady trot, broke into a sudden and panicked gallop. Charlotte leaned forward and clung to the reins. She gave herself up to a feeling of exhilaration. It seemed an age since she had last enjoyed a clandestine gallop with Meg at home.