Which meant he should do it.
Which meant he was giving up.
Which meant…
“Fine,” he heard himself say. “Consider me an eligible, looking bachelor.”
Hugh grunted once. “Marvelous. I’ll see what I can do about improving your social schedule.”
Michael grimaced at that. “I’m really not very social.”
There was no inkling of concern or sympathy on Hugh’s face. “Unfortunately, you have to be social to get a wife, even if you are only pretending to find one.” He paused, his mouth curving into a rueful smirk. “Unless you get stranded at her estate at Christmas, but that’s too far off for your purposes, and the logistics would be a nightmare.”
“What?”
Hugh only shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind. You just need to be social enough to find someone who interests you. Then your attention can be on her, and the rest of the world can socially go to hell.”
That didn’t sound too awful. “That’s it?” Michael asked warily.
“That’s it. If the courtship thrives, so much the better. You can propose. If it does not, so long as no understandings or promises are made, all may part amicably, and the whole charade starts over again.” He let that sink in, then tilted his head in invitation. “So, shall we?”
Fearing the insanity of his plan might actually form into being, let alone work, Michael barely managed the nod. “We shall.”
Hugh frowned. “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming me. Truly. Do contain yourself.”
Michael sneered as though he and Hugh had been friends a great deal longer than fifteen minutes. “Give me time.”
His new friend nodded, a hint of a smile quickly flitting before he turned serious once more. “One stipulation.”
Already? “All right…” Michael answered in a slow, measured tone.
“My sister.” Hugh shook his head with finality. “She cannot be your target, but you may use her as an ally.”
Michael’s jaw dropped. “What? Why would I…?”
“Alice is beautiful, lively, and brilliant. You’d fall for her if you’d let yourself.”
He wasn’t about to deny the possibility, but the advanced warning was a little ridiculous. “So why warn me off?” He grinned across the table. “Don’t want me in the family?”
The smile was not returned. “Charlotte would bloody kill me, and I’ve just gotten her to stop spitting venom when I enter a room.”
Michael’s smile vanished at once, and his gaze lowered to his still mostly full glass. “She won’t notice.”
“If you think that, you’re an idiot.”
No, he wasn’t an idiot, but he did think it. Charlotte would be so engrossed in finding her heart’s desire that Michael’s quiet courtship in the background wouldn’t even cross her mind. Oh, there would be whispers, but nothing she would seriously concern herself with. After all, Michael was not a candidate for Charlotte’s hand. Why would she look in his direction at all?
Hugh sighed heavily. “We’re not going to agree on that topic, are we?”
“No, we are not.” Michael smiled weakly. “Well, what do gentlemen do in their free time?”
A wince flashed across Hugh’s features. “I don’t know that I’m a particularly good source for what a proper gentleman does with his free time, but I’m a very good one for what he does not.”
Michael laughed once. “That’s good enough for me. I think there might need to be more than two of us to consider me a man of friends, though, and isn’t that a good sign in a potential husband?”
“Naturally.” Hugh’s lips twisted, then eased into a smile. “Well, I’ve got a brother who might give you the time of day, but surrounding yourself with married men might add to your feelings of insecurity. I’ll round up a bachelor or two of some breeding and fortune, which should give you some connections worth your time.”
“Much appreciated.” Michael raised his glass towards Hugh’s, the knot in his stomach not easing any less than when he walked in here, but it looked as though his situation was about to improve. “To the recreation of Michael Sandford.”
Hugh snorted once and touched their glasses together. “May he have a rather marvelous debut.”
Chapter Five
Any well-laid plan must be, in fact, well laid before it can commence.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 27 November 1818
“Charlotte, my lamb, what are you about?”
Charlotte glanced up from the list she had been composing, and the last Best Bachelor column she’d written alongside it. “Good morning, Mama. How was your breakfast this morning?”
Her mother did not react to the pleasantry, knowing Charlotte far too well. She pursed her lips and entered the parlor more fully, looking almost regal in her morning gown, her dark but greying hair pulled tightly back, cap in place. There was something majestic about the woman, and always had been.
Yet there was a conniving streak of mischief in her as well, and very few people knew that about Mrs. Arabella Wright, or that Charlotte took after her more than made her father comfortable.
“Tolerable for a tray, but that is not why I’m here, so forgive me if I do not inquire as to yours.” She gave her daughter a wry look. “I mean what are you doing there? I’ve seen you scribbling away, and you haven’t been to three events this week. Either you are ill, or you are planning something, and you are never ill.”
Charlotte frowned at that, scowling down at the sheets before her. “At the present, I am attempting to identify suitable candidates for marriage. Elinor will bring her reports shortly with the Spinsters, but I would like to think I might have some insight myself before she arrives.”
Silence was not the anticipated response, and Charlotte glanced up at her mother in near horror, images of her mother having an apoplexy springing to mind.
But her mother was well and whole, staring at Charlotte with a fully gaping mouth, and blinking unsteadily. “You… You
