‘I would feel far better if that’s what I thought she would be doing,’ said Tommy gloomily.
‘Penelope hasn’t the slightest interest in Lord Frederick,’ Charlotte said firmly. ‘Besides, he has a laugh like a braying donkey.’
‘A very wealthy braying donkey.’
‘You can gild the donkey all you like, but he’s still a donkey,’ said Charlotte.
‘Is that like worshipping a golden calf?’ asked Robert blandly.
Charlotte beamed giddily up at him. ‘Yes, and you know what happened to them.’
‘Frogs, toads and assorted pestilences?’
‘Hmmm.’ Tommy seemed unconvinced. Across the room, Penelope was flirting her fan at Staines in a way that suggested she found him anything but pestilential. ‘They still had a jolly good revel before the smiting began.’
‘And so shall you. Just wait till the dancing begins after supper and you can sweep Penelope away from Lord Frederick’s clutches.’
‘Tossed over his saddlebow?’ enquired Robert.
Charlotte dimpled. ‘Can’t you picture the look on Grandmama’s face at a horse in the ballroom?’
‘Impertinence!’ mimicked Tommy, thumping an imaginary cane.
‘She’d be expecting you to carry her off, no doubt,’ commented Robert.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Tommy, so earnestly that they all laughed. ‘She’d probably have my head chopped off.’
‘I don’t think they let you do that anymore,’ said Charlotte thoughtfully. ‘Chop off heads just like that.’
‘Yes, but once my head’s off, I won’t be there to complain to the authorities, will I?’
‘Don’t worry, old chap, we’ll complain on your behalf,’ said Robert offhandedly. ‘And we’ll build you a smashing funerary monument.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ grumbled Tommy, and took himself off, either to find his appointed dinner companion or to moon after Penelope from another angle. Charlotte suspected the latter. Charlotte wondered if Lieutenant Fluellen knew about the balcony. For his sake, she hoped not.
‘Poor man.’
‘Why poor Tommy?’
‘Because Penelope will never take seriously any man who admires her so obviously.’
‘And what about you?’
Charlotte’s heart danced a quadrille under her velvet bodice. ‘That would depend on who was doing the admiring.’
Robert lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Any man with eyes enough to see.’
Despite being the sort of compliment Charlotte had always daydreamed about, the praise had something a little unsatisfying about it, like a piece of hollow, gilded wood, all shimmer on the outside, but no substance within. Charlotte shrugged the feeling aside. She was ungrateful and silly and it was a perfectly lovely compliment.
Robert tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm. ‘Shall we go in to supper?’ he said prosaically. ‘If we don’t start the procession soon, your grandmother may take it upon herself to prod us into place.’
‘May?’ said Charlotte, making Robert laugh. ‘You really ought to be taking Grandmama in.’
‘May I say that I’m delighted to bend etiquette in this instance?’
‘I would be more flattered if I thought you desired my company more than you feared Grandmama’s stick,’ Charlotte said ruefully.
Robert arched an eyebrow. ‘Fishing for more compliments?’
‘Will I get any?’ Charlotte asked hopefully.
Robert patted her gloved hand. ‘As many as you like.’
Charlotte wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That won’t do at all. An overabundance would cheapen their value.’
Robert looked down at her. A curious smile creased the corners of his lips, fond and rueful and wry all at once.
‘Nothing could cheapen your value,’ he said matter-offactly.
There was nothing in his voice to have made Charlotte turn pink and look away, but she did. ‘Shall we go in to supper?’ she said hastily.
‘If you’ll show me where it is,’ joked Robert. ‘If you leave the guests to me, I might lead them to the stables by accident.’
‘I should hope the smell would be rather different,’ said Charlotte, steering him deftly down a long corridor hung with Lansdownes. It was so cold in the passageway that her breath formed little puffs in the air as she spoke. Girdings had been built for show rather than comfort, with fur cloaks rather than short sleeves in mind.
Two by two, their fellow guests fell in behind them as they wound their way from the Red Room to the state dining room. It was, thought Charlotte, a bit like Noah’s Ark, only with a great deal more jewellery and fewer elephants. In their pairs, they took their seats at the long, mahogany table beneath a series of lurid murals representing the first duke’s triumphs in King William’s wars. There was to be an intimate supper for the thirty-odd houseguests, after which would follow a proper ball with town musicians and town guests, gorgeously arrayed, jewelled and feathered, arriving in richly caparisoned coaches that would give the villagers something to talk about until next Twelfth Night.
Charlotte took her seat beside Robert, wondering at the odd arrangement of the table that left the two of them stranded in state at the head, like a medieval lord and lady in an illuminated Book of Hours. Trying to fathom her grandmother’s purposes was generally a fruitless task; she might have meant it as a statement about the superiority of the Lansdowne blood, a punishment to Robert by giving him no one but Charlotte to talk to, or a spot of ducal matchmaking.
Charlotte snuck a sideways glance at Robert. She knew which theory she preferred.
The service was à la française, with dishes left upon the table for all to serve themselves. Wielding a carving knife, Robert neatly helped her to a serving of roast swan, smoothly transferred oyster patties from a platter to her plate, and manoeuvred the transition of a spoonful of peas without any daring to roll away, making sure her plate was full before taking anything for himself.
Taking up her fork, Charlotte toyed idly with it, watching her dinner companion as he repeated the procedure for his own plate. In profile, with the candles casting shadows across his face, picking out the long lines of his cheekbones, he seemed suddenly very remote, as far away as the flat painted faces of the long-dead Lansdownes on the walls.
She hoped, very much, that he didn’t mind being secluded with her at the head of the table. Had she daydreamed their interlude in the chapel anteroom last night? Read too much into simple cousinly kindness?
Charlotte’s mouth moved without bothering to consult her brain. ‘I missed you in the library today. Not that I expected you, of course.’ She stabbed furiously at a pea, which promptly rolled over the edge of her plate and dribbled its way along the tablecloth.
‘I wandered down to the estate office.’
He had kept his voice carefully neutral, but Charlotte’s heart did a mad little hop, skip, and a jump. ‘Really?’
Robert shook his head in wonder, looking younger than she had ever seen him. ‘I had never realised quite how … involved the estate is. I meant to spend only half an hour. Four hours later, I was still squinting at ledgers, and we hadn’t even got past the home farm.’
‘It does take a lot of managing,’ said Charlotte carefully. ‘Even with a good estate agent. And Grandmama is getting on.’
Robert smiled a little ruefully. ‘Are you implying I should take on the task?’
Keeping her eyes on her plate, Charlotte picked at a congealing slice of roast swan. Grandmama’s culinary extravagances always sounded better in theory than in practice. ‘You are the duke.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t be the first absentee landlord in the history of the realm.’ Robert’s eyes slid sideways, away from her. ‘Girdings will probably fare far better free from my inept ministrations.’
‘How do you know they would be inept?’
Robert pushed his chair back restlessly from the table, making the wine rock back and forth in his glass like a ship on an u
nquiet sea. ‘I don’t see how they could be anything but. I haven’t been trained to this, Charlotte. I haven’t been trained to any of this.’
‘I imagine the first baron wasn’t either,’ Charlotte said thoughtfully. ‘The one who fought at Agincourt. He was a soldier, you know. A professional soldier,’ she added, just in case he had missed the point. ‘A sort of hired mercenary. When King Henry V gave him this land to hold, he probably didn’t have any more idea what to do about it than you do.’
‘How did he manage?’
‘Oh, he had a very clever wife,’ said Charlotte without thinking. ‘I didn’t mean—’ she began in confusion, and broke off, covering her hot cheeks with her hands. That you should marry me? There was no way that sentence could end well.
‘An excellent solution,’ agreed Robert, mischief dancing like candlelight in his eyes. ‘Are you suggesting I try the same?’
Charlotte bit down hard on a mouthful of swan. ‘Not as such,’ she said rather indistinctly. ‘After all, you do have Grandmama.’
‘I am not marrying your grandmother,’ said Robert decidedly. ‘However clever she may be.’
‘To help you manage, I meant,’ Charlotte said reprovingly, chasing away the swan with a long draught of wine. The liquid tingled on her palate, making her feel bolder. ‘As you know very well.’
Robert shook his head, the light from the chandelier overhead burnishing his dark blond hair. ‘I know few things very well.’ He peered at her over the rim of his wineglass. ‘Will that be a disadvantage in the acquisition of a clever wife?’
‘One doesn’t acquire wives, one woos them,’ said Charlotte decidedly, feeling on rather firmer ground. Wooing was a topic of which she had made extensive study, even if it was entirely in the abstract. ‘Preferably with deeds of great daring.’
‘Deeds of great daring are increasingly hard to come by in this modern world. They’ve gone extinct. Like dragons.’
‘Next you’ll be telling me there are no unicorns.’
‘Never that.’ They exchanged a gaze warm with shared memories. ‘But it is hard to imagine anyone going on a quest anymore. What would there be for them to find?’
Charlotte waved her knife in protest. ‘I should think you of all people should know better. What about the more far-off parts of the world? “… antres vast and deserts idle, / Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven … ”’
Robert looked curiously down at her.
‘Faraway lands and glorious places,’ translated Charlotte dreamily, abandoning Othello.
‘And dust and flies and dung.’
‘That’s not terribly romantic.’
‘Neither is the wider world,’ Robert said, with an attempt at lightness that didn’t succeed at all. Propping his chin on one hand, he regarded her seriously over the plucked bones of the swan. ‘I just don’t want you to be disappointed. There is far more dust and dung than there are knights in shining armour left in the world.’
‘For one good knight in shining armour, might not the kingdom be saved?’
‘That depends on how much tarnish there is between the greaves,’ said Robert grimly. ‘He might be too rusty to do any good at all.’
‘Rust is removable,’ said Charlotte blithely. ‘Just ask the downstairs maids.’
‘Unless it eats away to the basic fabric until there’s nothing worth saving.’
There was no longer any use pretending that they were speaking in abstracts. A chance phrase from the night before teased at Charlotte’s recollection.
‘Like a rotten apple?’ Charlotte asked, watching him closely.
Robert nodded, his lips twisting with a dark sort of amusement, sickly sweet as fruit rot. ‘Exactly like a rotten apple.’
Planting both hands on the table, Charlotte leant forwards. On an impulse she couldn’t quite explain even to herself, she asked, ‘Why did you leave when you did?’
Robert shot her a quick, startled glance. ‘What?’
Charlotte caught his gaze and held it. ‘All those years ago. You just disappeared. What happened?’
‘I did leave a note. I understood that was the usual procedure.’
Despite herself, Charlotte couldn’t help smiling. ‘You forgot to leave bedsheets dangling from your window.’
‘I certainly wasn’t going to risk my life rappelling off linen twenty yards from the ground when there was a perfectly good staircase to be had. I was running away, not committing suicide.’
Charlotte might be amused, but she wasn’t diverted. ‘Why run away, though? I know Grandmama was being awful to you, but …’
Robert stared at the glass in front of him for a very long time. He stared at it for so long that Charlotte was tempted to take a look herself, just in case she was missing something interesting in there.
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s hard to remember just what I was thinking. Ah, look, there come the cakes.’
‘You do know that you’re not very adept at changing the subject,’ said Charlotte, to Robert’s wineglass. ‘And you’re not a rotten apple. Or a rusty greave.’
‘Cake?’ said Robert blandly.
Charlotte took the cake. There was no need to punish the pastry just because Robert was being provoking.
In the proper Twelfth Day tradition, Cook had sprinkled coloured sugar over the top so that it glimmered like a dragon’s hoard. Charlotte poked experimentally at the centre of her cake. In one of the little cakes was hidden a small gold crown for the Twelfth Night king or queen, in another an equally diminutive jester’s staff for the Lord of Misrule. In most households, it would be a bean and a pea, but the dowager duchess had no truck with legumes.
A great shout arose from the other end of the table as Freddy Staines pumped one hand into the air, spraying crumbs across the table and down more than one lady’s décolletage. A tiny golden staff glinted in his fist.
‘All hail your Lord of Misrule!’ he cried, thrusting his arms over his head with an enthusiasm that did serious damage to the high-piled coiffure of the lady on his right.
‘Do we bring you your pipe, your bowl, and your fiddlers three?’ drawled Medmenham.
‘Devil take the fiddlers, bring me wine!’ shouted Freddy, getting right into his role. Two footmen hastened to obey, smartly cracking decanters. The misrule was getting nicely under way.
‘At least it’s not Penelope this year,’ began Charlotte, turning back to her dinner companion. ‘Last year—’
She broke off as she noticed a blob of dough on her plate that decidedly hadn’t been there before. Poking out of one corner was the unmistakable glint of gold. Next to her, Robert’s cake bore a suspicious crater in its middle that just happened to be exactly the shape of the piece on her plate.
Charlotte looked hard at Robert.
Robert smiled benignly back.
Charlotte wasn’t the least bit fooled. ‘Did you just give me your crown?’ she demanded.
Robert adopted an air of beatific innocence that wouldn’t have deceived a five-year-old. ‘It must have been tree spirits.’
Charlotte narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Next you’ll be telling me it was a unicorn.’
‘It went out by the other door.’
Flaking off the remaining cake crumbs with a gallantry worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh, Robert placed the gold crown on her palm and folded her fingers firmly around it.
‘No arguments,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘It always belonged to you.’
Releasing her hand, he stood, pushing back his chair so abruptly that it tottered back and forth behind him and had to be quickly rescued by the waiting footman.
‘We have a monarch!’ he thundered, in the sort of voice that Charlotte imagined must have brought whole regiments to heel. ‘Queen Charlotte!’
‘I say, does he mean the real one?’ demanded Turnip Fitzhugh, craning to see over his shoulder. ‘Didn’t know she was coming.’
‘Oh, do be quiet,’ said Penelope, whacking him on th
e shoulder with her fork. The fact that the fork still had some cake on it was entirely beside the point. ‘It’s our Charlotte – that Charlotte. Over there.’
Robert ignored them both. ‘If my Lord of Misrule would provide the crown?’
‘With pleasure, Your Majesty.’ Essaying a sweeping bow – a little more sweeping than intended due to the amount he had already imbibed – Lord Freddy swept up the gilded circlet on the point of his jester’s staff and swaggered down the length of the table. Brandishing the garland in the air for the benefit of the audience, Lord Freddy wafted it about like a gypsy with a tambourine while the others at the table hooted, applauded, and called for a coronation.
While Freddy postured, Robert neatly snagged the crown.
Charlotte had to bite her lip to keep from giggling at Lord Freddy’s expression of indignation. Laughing at a subject in distress would be decidedly unqueenly.
‘I say!’ protested Freddy. ‘Highway robbery, by Gad!’
Robert smiled blandly. ‘Nothing of the sort. I merely claim my ducal prerogative.’
The wine had already been flowing a little too freely. Someone called out, ‘Is that like the droit du seigneur?’
The duchess’s cane came down with a loud thump, followed by a yelp of pain.
Charlotte could see Robert’s lips twitch, fighting to maintain an expression of due solemnity as he lifted the crown high above her head.
Charlotte bowed her head in a pretence of humility, knowing that if she were to meet his eyes, the laughter welling in her own throat would break out and shatter any pretence of composure. Something snagged on her hair and prickled against her scalp. Cautiously, Charlotte raised her head and felt it slip and catch, pulling painfully at her upswept hair. Like so many of her grandmother’s ideas, a crown of gilded mistletoe worked better in theory than actuality.
Moving very carefully, so as not to dislodge her crown, Charlotte rose to her feet to acknowledge the cheers of her subjects.