Alex, on the other hand, looked at Charlotte walking next to him and thought he had never seen any woman look so beautiful. Her lips were deep red and her short curls were tossed by his hand. The very arch of her eyebrows made him want to growl like a tiger and throw her over his shoulder. The sight of her steeled his resolution. No matter what she said, she belonged with him, in his bed, and that was where she was going to be. She had everything he wanted: true sweetness, even down to the delicacy of her downcast lashes, along with a blazing passion he had never experienced in a well-bred woman.
His jaw tightened with resolve. He had simply moved too fast, that’s all. Charlotte was a young, beautiful woman, courted by half of London. How could he expect to simply inform her that they would get married in a week? She had probably never experienced anything like the swell of passion they shared today. He’d frightened her. He had to go slowly, woo her, not ravish her on a riverbank.
Alex politely escorted his petulant guest, Daphne, to his carriage, and just as politely hailed Will good-bye as the baron escorted Charlotte to his carriage. He ignored the wintery smile with which Charlotte bid him farewell. His girl had got herself into a tweak, that was clear, but he could take care of that tomorrow. In the carriage he bent himself to coaxing Miss Daphne out of her disdainful mood. He succeeded so well—showering her in an artful downpour of compliments—that her tinkling laughter filled the carriage again and again.
Daphne would have sworn that Alexander Foakes’s attention was solely focused on her. But in fact Alex was brooding over the delicious moment when Charlotte pressed against his body. His wife. It had a devilishly good ring to it.
Chapter 7
In the following week London society was treated to the delectable sight of the handsome but disastrously ineligible Earl of Sheffield and Downes laying determined siege to the reigning beauty Lady Charlotte Daicheston. No one could quite determine how she felt about it. She laughed and flirted with all her suitors; she exhibited no particular inclination to favor the earl. Sharp eyes watched as she gave two dances to the earl, and then two dances to another earl, Braddon Chatwin. And then she danced twice with Lord Holland and, scandalously, three times with a man old enough to be her father, Sylvester Bredbeck. But everyone discounted that as pure mischief; he was a friend of her mother’s.
The crowning question was, of course, had anyone told her? Charlotte’s mother fended off dozens of gently worded questions designed to get at the heart of the issue. Was her daughter cool toward Alexander Foakes because she knew of his incapability, or was she innocently following her own instincts? Or was she, as some less kind people said, a wily young woman who, knowing that the fervor caused by the earl’s courtship could only work in her favor, kept everyone guessing on purpose?
But the truth was that no one had told her. All London knew of Alex’s impotence, but Charlotte had no idea. She had grown suspicious about his past marriage, given the sly remarks people had made about him in her hearing, but the remarks were vaguely malicious rather than informative. And impotence was certainly not something that would spring to her mind in terms of Alex. After all, she of all people could have attested to the opposite.
Her mother was torn. Had Adelaide not had the strong suspicion that Alex was the man with shot-silver hair who took her daughter’s virginity three years before, she would unhesitatingly have told Charlotte the truth and warned—nay, commanded—her to have nothing further to do with him. But … what to do? Her daughter had not confided in her, and Charlotte’s demeanor did not encourage Adelaide to broach the subject.
Marcel, on the other hand, had never been informed about his daughter’s misadventures in the garden three years ago. And so he was violently opposed to the prospect of Charlotte accepting Alexander Foakes’s hand in marriage.
“And so I shall tell him,” he blustered at his wife. “And so I shall tell him, if he has the impudence to ask me for her hand! I will not have one of my daughters marrying a limp carrot, a—” He broke off, remembering that there are phrases which a gentleman does not repeat in front of a gentlewoman even if the lady in question is his wife.
“I understand, Marcel,” said Adelaide soothingly. “And I agree with you, darling, of course. But I think we should allow Charlotte to dance with whomever she wants.”
“Don’t be a peahen, Adelaide! She has no idea, has she?” Marcel swung around, his eyebrows furrowed.
“No,” Adelaide admitted.
“Well, you have to tell her, that’s all. I suppose it will be embarrassing, but she has to know the facts at some point. Blast it! You must have told Violetta and Winifred something before you set them off on their weddings, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Adelaide unhappily, “but—”
“You’ll just have to do it, Addie. We can’t have all of London chortling at our unknowing daughter. Half of ’em seem to think she’s a fortune hunter who doesn’t care that the man is a … a limp rag, and the other half are laughing at her. I won’t have it, do you hear?” He was alarmingly red in the face. “Do you know how many people have had the infernal impertinence to ask me how I feel, having my daughter courted by a floppy poppy?”
“A floppy poppy,” Adelaide repeated, fascinated despite herself. “That’s quite good—a floppy poppy.”
“Lord! Don’t repeat that, Addie. It’s not at all proper,” her husband groaned. “Do you see what I mean, though? People are simply vying to create new nicknames for the man. Don’t think I’m not sympathetic. I quite like him personally. He made a remarkably decent speech in Lords the other day, about the possibility of corn riots in Suffolk. No one whispered about his incapabilities then! But the fact is, he’s not a man that a father would want courting his daughter. No children, Adelaide. Have you thought of that?” He glared at his wife accusingly.
“Marcel,” she protested, “I’m not suggesting that Charlotte marry the man; I simply don’t want to broach the subject with her. After all, she shows no signs of favoring him over any of her other suitors. Why not let it be for the moment?”
“Because at any second he might win her over! You should have seen him in the House, Addie. The man has a silver tongue. And he’s damned good-looking, I’ll give him that. No one would think to look at him that there was anything wrong. Barring his problem, I’d say he was perfect for Charlotte.”
“I see,” said Adelaide. “You’re afraid she’ll fall in love with him.”
“If she does, we’re in trouble. You know how stubborn she is, Addie. Why, we couldn’t even stop Winifred from marrying that American, and she was the most biddable of all our children. If Charlotte gets it in her head to marry him, she’ll do it. And she won’t pay any attention to whether he’s capable or not.”
He sat down heavily. “Except she won’t be happy, Addie. She can paint all day long in that studio of hers, but it won’t make her happy.” Marcel reached up and pulled his wife down to sit on the bed beside him. “It wouldn’t be right.”
Adelaide snuggled against her husband’s side, torn whether to tell him about Charlotte’s experience in Kent three years ago. Better not, she decided. He would be absolutely furious and probably charge into Alexander Foakes’s town house like a bull. At any rate, she was worried about that twin brother. What if it had been the other one—what was his name? Some sort of Irish name, she thought. Well, what if it had been the other twin in the garden? Could Charlotte tell the difference between them? She quailed at the idea of asking her daughter.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Marcel. Sarah Prestlefield told me—you know how malicious she can be—that Alexander Foakes has a daughter. In fact, she said that his daughter is with him practically every moment, and never with a nanny. She’s apparently about a year old, and very ill-trained, and he carries her around town. And Sarah said she looks exactly like him! So how can this be if he’s … well … incapable?”
“I don’t know,” Marcel said. “I hadn’t heard about a daughter. But you know, Adel
aide, this daughter might be anyone’s. I gather that his first wife is dead now. So who’s to say whether she was the child’s mother or not?”
“Well, how would that change things, Marcel? I don’t understand. Either he can, or he can’t. And if he can, then we shouldn’t worry about Charlotte.”
Marcel sighed. He didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of potency with wives as opposed to potency with courtesans. “Well, dear,” he said uncomfortably, “there’s a possibility that Alexander Foakes’s incapability is not, ah, applicable in all situations.”
There was a short silence. “Oh, dear,” Adelaide said quietly. “This is all so unpleasant. And I like him, Marcel, I really do. Are you absolutely sure? Maybe this is all gossip.”
Marcel shook his head. “Several of my so-called friends have taken great pleasure in assuring me of the accuracy of the report. His first wife, a woman named Maria Colonna, petitioned the Pope—she was Catholic, of course—to annul their marriage after one year, claiming that her husband was impotent. And Alexander Foakes did not contest the annulment. Apparently she was from a quite good family too, in Rome, and they all considered it a great disgrace. She died a few months ago, and he returned here. I suppose he came with this child, although no one has mentioned a daughter to me.”
Adelaide tried to think it out. She had a separate problem. She didn’t want to let Charlotte know that Alexander and his brother had attended her coming out ball, and that she had seen them and not mentioned it to Charlotte. What if she were enraged? What if she thought her mother had betrayed her?
Marcel broke the silence. “They’re betting on her in Brooks’s,” he said heavily. “There are two whole pages devoted to bets on whether she’ll take him or not.”
He didn’t mention the fact that there was another page devoted to whether a) the marriage would be annulled, b) Charlotte would take a lover within one year, or c) she would become discreetly pregnant, thereby giving Alex an heir, but not one that necessarily resembled him.
“It’s an ugly situation, Addie. I cannot like it. Why don’t you encourage her to take Slaslow? He’s an earl as well, and while he may not be the brightest, I knew his father quite well. He was sound.” To be sound was Marcel’s highest praise.
“This Alexander is a loose screw, and it only makes it worse that he’s flaunting a child. He was in scrapes all the time as a young ’un. Not that they were bad ones, I have to say. Just the usual jackanapes flummery that youngsters get up to. Champagne breakfasts with high-flyers, that sort of thing. He wasn’t a libertine, but …” Marcel’s voice trailed off as he contemplated the odd fact that the Earl of Sheffield and Downes was best known in his youth for amorous escapades.
“Perhaps he was in a riding accident,” Marcel muttered, half under his breath. “But if this marriage goes through,” he said with renewed vigor, “we’ll end up with a miserable child, one whose name gets dragged through the mud. There’s no Pope in England, you know, to smooth over something like this. The scandal would ruin her. And it wouldn’t be pretty for Horace either, when he came into the title.”
“Oh, Marcel,” Adelaide said with some irritation. “I do think you’re blowing this out of proportion! There’s no need to cut up our peace about it. For goodness sake, all Charlotte has done is dance a few times with the man!”
“Not true,” said her spouse with asperity. “She’s been on a picnic with him, and the talk is that she spent some time alone with him at that picnic. Of course, it’s just servants’ talk, most likely, but that’s the news on the street. She will be ruined, if this goes on, and without even marrying him at all!”
Adelaide absorbed the news of the picnic, about which she knew nothing, in silence.
“I don’t see why,” she said stubbornly. “If he is incapable, why should anyone fault her for spending some time with him? I can’t see anything wrong with diverting herself for a time with a … a floppy poppy!”
Marcel glared at her between jutting brows. “Don’t repeat that phrase, madam! It makes you sound like a loose fish. Whenever have you found gossips to be logical?”
“Perhaps not logical, Marcel, but this is ridiculous. How can Charlotte be ruined by a man who hasn’t the capability to ruin her?”
“That’s as may be,” Marcel said obstinately. “The fact is, everyone is watching her now because she’s with him. They are simply waiting for her to misstep and they’ll be on her like a hawk with a pullet. Charlotte must give him his marching orders, now.”
“All right,” Adelaide said finally. “I’ll speak to her. But there’s something odd about all this, dearest. Alexander is pursuing Charlotte as if … well, he’s been so marked in his behavior that I would think it the most romantic match I’d ever seen, if there wasn’t this problem.”
“I know, I know,” said her husband testily.
“So why does he want to marry her?”
Marcel frowned over this for a moment. His mind boggled at the idea that Alexander Foakes was lonely, or that he wanted Charlotte’s dowry. Why, he had three times the blunt that Marcel himself had.
“It must be the competition,” he said slowly. “Why, remember when I was courting you, Addie? All those coxcombs and macaroni that were buzzing around you. I didn’t pay them any mind, of course, but when you accepted my suit it did add a certain sense of victory.” He thought back, remembering all the sapskulls he had beaten to the punch when Adelaide accepted his hand.
“There was a squire—quite a good fellow, remember him, Addie?”
“Squire Noland,” she said with a little smile.
“Well, he caused me a bit of worry,” Marcel said cheerfully. “My God, now I think of it, they were betting on me. I remember Glimflabber, we used to call him—what was his name? Something dreadfully pedestrian like Glassblower, but that wasn’t it. Well, he strutted up to me right in the middle of Paul’s and told me that you had graced him with a second dance, and I should just withdraw my suit at that very moment. Ha!”
Adelaide listened patiently. “It was Glendower, darling, not Glassblower.”
Marcel turned to her. “You accepted me that very night, Addie. And it was rare to see Glendower so out of countenance over the announcement. He scuttled away the next time I laid eyes on him, and finally put it about that you’d taken me only because of my title. Sour grapes.”
Adelaide rose, dropping a kiss on her husband’s head. “I’ll speak to Charlotte now.”
Marcel caught her hands in his. “You tell her, Addie. This is not a request. I will not accept Alexander Foakes’s marriage proposal if he makes one. And the only reason I’m not talking to her myself is … is … the delicacy of the whole situation. But I will not countenance the man as my son-in-law.”
It was about ten o’clock on a Sunday night and Adelaide knew where her daughter ought to be—in her bed, drowsily thinking about her engagements the next day. But instead of heading toward Charlotte’s bedchamber, Adelaide unerringly walked up the stairs to the third floor. Sure enough, candles were burning all around the walls of Charlotte’s studio.
Charlotte was standing absolutely still, looking at a portrait on its easel in the middle of the room.
“Darling,” said her mother. “May I come in?” She walked around to stand behind her daughter. “Why,” she said, startled, “it’s lovely, sweetheart. Truly lovely. My goodness.”
Charlotte had finished her portrait of Sophie York. Sophie was posed on the branch of a broken-down tree, in the clearing of a forest. The ground was covered with bluebells, stretching into the distances of the forest glade. The folds of Sophie’s dress were perfectly reproduced, her petite curves elegantly rendered by Charlotte’s brush—but her look! Rather than looking dreamily into the middle distance, as peers invariably did in portraits, Sophie was looking straight at the beholder, a small smile hovering around the corners of her mouth. She appeared to be laughing at the very absurdity of sitting on a branch. And there was a twinkling invitation in her eye … in fact,
Charlotte had made Sophie look rather less than a perfect lady, Adelaide decided. Something about the fullness of her lower lip, perhaps? But, of course, Sophie wasn’t a perfect lady. That was what gave her mama so much anxiety.
“Oh, Lord,” Adelaide sighed. “You aren’t going to let Eloise see this, are you, dearest?”
“Oh, no, Mama,” Charlotte said, smiling. “I think I’ll keep it and give it to whomever Sophie marries, when she marries. Because she looks so enticing, doesn’t she?”
Adelaide smiled back. “It’s a very good portrait, Charlotte. It really looks like Sophie.” She was rapidly rethinking what she had come to say. Why were she and Marcel so worried about broaching difficult subjects with Charlotte? These new young women … they knew so much more than she had as a young girl.
She retreated to the sofa and invitingly patted the cushion next to her. “Darling, we need to have a talk.”
Charlotte sat down rather reluctantly. She had a fair idea of the subject her mother wanted to discuss. Lately she felt as if wherever she turned someone threw her a significant look and asked how she found the Earl of Sheffield and Downes. A small frown creased her forehead. There was something very odd about all this intense interest. People seemed to be so fascinated by Alex’s pursuit of her. Comparatively speaking, they paid almost no attention to Braddon Chatwin’s courtship even though he too was an earl.
She herself thought about Alexander all the time, day and night. She swayed alarmingly between exhilaration at his obvious attraction, and sharp feelings of mortification at the idea of accepting his hand. She felt as if her imagination had been taken over by a genie who alternately produced intoxicating images of an unclothed Alex and desolate images of her future self, relegated to the house while her husband was out seducing other women. Probably in her own garden, she thought glumly.
Adelaide didn’t know where to start. “Your father and I have noticed,” she said finally, “that the Earl of Sheffield and Downes is paying you rather pointed attention.”