Chapter Five
“What have you done to my cousin?” Lewis Fairfax asked Charlotte quietly, leaning over her shoulder from behind and speaking directly against her ear.
She had arrived at Rycroft House for Margaret’s social less than an hour earlier, and in the time since, she had made a deliberate and conscientious effort to ignore both James and Kenley. While James had kept trying to approach her in the crowd, forcing her to purposely insert herself into the most dreadful of circumstances—nearby gaggles of gossiping women—to avoid him, Kenley had at least observed a courteous, if not somewhat inquisitive distance. He kept looking at her, however; and on those frequent occasions when she would steal glances in his direction, she would meet his gaze, finding his expression curious, his mouth unfurled in a smile, and she would turn abruptly away.
She had still not decided with whom she was more aggravated at the moment, Kenley or James, but given the fluttering increase in her heart rate every time she caught Kenley watching her, and the infuriating tendency of her mouth to try and hook and return his smile, she was swayed more so toward James.
At Lewis’s soft voice, delivered with intimate good humor, she turned, startled from her thoughts, and the pretense of being absorbed in the rattling gossip around her. She found the young Baron Woodside smiling at her in a rather mischievous fashion, his large eyes aglow, one of his brows lifted slightly.
“I…I beg your pardon?” Charlotte said, managing to laugh lest he deduce she had been only just now thinking of Kenley. “I have done nothing to your cousin, Lewis. Whatever do you mean?”
Lewis nodded his chin to indicate across the room, and she glanced over her shoulder discreetly. She saw Kenley again, standing near a window. He was surrounded by at least a dozen young women; eligible daughters, with their mothers hovering close at hand in proper chaperone. The girls jostled together, knocking panniers and elbows merely to be near Kenley, all of them vying eagerly for his attention and he seemed to be listening with courteous patience to their overlapping chatter. One girl in particular stood directly before him, so close that the swell of her skirts brushed his legs.
Charlotte recognized her as the young woman Kenley had spoken with at the threshold of the card parlor yesterday, Miss Tunstall, who had shot Charlotte a glance as she had undoubtedly told Kenley about Charlotte’s mythical betrothal to James.
“Surely you have put a spell on him,” Lewis said quietly, just as Kenley seemed to sense instinctively Charlotte’s attention. He turned his head to meet her gaze, and he smiled again—damn him—rendering her nearly breathless. Miss Tunstall noticed his distraction and followed his gaze, her pretty, painted, powdered face drawing in a distinctive frown of petulant disapproval.
“A spell?” Charlotte asked. She forced her eyes away from Kenley—reminding herself firmly that he was a convicted criminal and had deliberately omitted this information from her—and turned to Lewis. She laughed again. “I assure you, Lord Woodside, I have done nothing of the sort.”
“Well, you have done something, that is for certain,” Lewis said. “I have never seen him in such a state as he has been since yesterday. I spent the night at Theydon Hall, eager for the chance to enjoy supper, brandies, and laughter to the wee hours of this morrow, as is my habitual indulgence when in my cousin’s company. He would not sit still long enough to eat, much less down a snifter. He wandered about restlessly, his gaze all distracted…” Lewis flapped his fingers toward his face demonstratively. “… his face sort of softened and sappy.”
Charlotte blinked in surprise, smiling despite her best attempts to the contrary. “Really?” she asked. She struggled to draw her mouth into line, and arched her brow. “I am sure you exaggerate, Lord Woodside.”
“Hand to God, and by my breath,” Lewis said, draping one hand against the breast of his justicoat and raising the other skyward. “I have never seen him act like that.”
Charlotte looked behind her again. Kenley was still watching, despite Miss Tunstall’s best and insistent attempts to draw his attention.
“I…I have not the faintest idea why he would,” Charlotte said to Lewis. “Perhaps he is ill.”
Lewis made a thoughtful, rumbling sound in his throat. “Perhaps,” he said. “I say, while you are on hand, where is your brother? I have looked all about, and cannot find him anywhere.”
“Reilly did not come today,” Charlotte said. “He looked rather dreadful this morning and begged off.”
“Oh,” Lewis said, still looking pensive. He glanced toward Kenley and at Charlotte again. “Perhaps this illness is making the rounds, then.”