He released her hand and sat back, nodding. “I’m beginning to see that. But it makes me glad to hear that you found love in your own way.”
“My sister thinks you’ll propose within the week.” Emma turned her body to face him more. “Will you?”
Now he laughed, finding the prying edge that he was accustomed to with the Asheley sisters. “Not this week.”
Emma snickered beside him. “What, do you have a previous engagement?”
“As it happens, yes,” he replied with a jaunty smile. “I’ve an errand to see to in Derbyshire this week. Very important, very secret.”
“To whom and for whom?” Emma pressed with a grin. “Yourself, I hope.”
Michael pretended to consider his answer. “In a way, I suppose it is. It has more impact on another person’s happiness, however, but their happiness should promote my own.”
“Very gallant.” Emma nodded her approval, then leaned forward just a little. “You won’t give me a further hint, will you?”
“I cannot,” he said firmly, still amused by her interest. “Far too much work has been done with my solicitors and other important men to risk word getting out before all is settled.”
Emma shook her head in apparent disappointment. “Very well. Shall we see if one of the card games is free? My husband, bless him, is still in conversation with Mr. Chadwick, and I am in need of a partner.”
Michael rose and offered a hand to help her up. “Yes. Let’s.”
“Mama, have you seen my blue spencer?”
“Lottie, my lamb, you have at least three. Which one are you seeking?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “The one I’ve worn this year, Mama! Honestly, I am not hoarding endless amounts of clothing in the same shade.”
“Sure about that, are you?” her brother quipped as he passed, flicking at her ear.
Charlotte lashed out a quick smack of her hand against his upper arm, the tips of her fingers whipping sharply there.
“Ouch!” he bellowed, the cry echoing through the house. “Mama!”
“I do not want to hear it!” she bellowed back. “One of you started it, and the other retaliated, and that is the end of it!”
Charles looked nearly affronted at the statement and turned to Charlotte in shock. “I think we broke her.”
“Children!” their father hollered. “Don’t make your mother yell!”
Charlotte scowled, shaking her head. “We broke her years ago. That she no longer cares is the greater issue, I think.”
“Agreed. Can’t see what did her in, though. We’re such angels.”
“Probably my courtship. Too much of a change, she simply cannot adapt.”
Charles moved to the wall and leaned against it, fiddling with the end of an unlit cheroot. “How is that courtship, Lottie? Accepted his proposal yet?”
Charlotte looked at her brother rudely. “He has not asked, I’ll have you know.”
“Can’t say I blame him.”
Plucking up a vase nearby, Charlotte held it in the air. “So help me, Brutus, I will chuck this at your head and pummel you thereafter.”
He winked at her, grinning cheekily. “I know. Put it down. Truce.”
Charlotte gave him a warning look as she slowly lowered her weapon to the console table beside her. “We have not discussed the subject of marriage, Jonathan and I. And I don’t mind it. I am enjoying being courted, learning more about him and he about me. He is… he is a good man, Charles.”
“I know,” her brother said, surprising her. “I’ve tried finding all of the negativity in his reputation I can, and damned if I can find a single thing.”
“He’s not perfect,” Charlotte assured him with a laugh. “He simply keeps his sins and errors small.”
Charles shook his head, smiling. “He’s a better man than I am.”
“We knew that.” Charlotte returned his smile and shrugged. “At any rate, I’m content.”
“Good. And Michael?”
Charlotte’s smile vanished. “Michael has sins.”
Charles rolled his eyes, his head rolling dramatically in accompaniment. “Yes, I know, Lottie. I was present for many of them. What I mean is what will he think of it?”
“Who cares what he thinks of it?” Charlotte asked, her eyes narrowing at her brother. “My courtship is not for his pleasure, nor for his approval. If I want to marry Jonathan, I will. If he has an issue with it, he should perhaps have thought about not abandoning me from the very first day.”
Her brother pursed his lips, then nodded once. “Right,” he said slowly. “I’m going to leave now before you throttle me in his place.”
She returned his nod and waved him off, turning on her heel to go sit in the drawing room. Jonathan was due in an hour or so to take her for a drive in his phaeton again, and she had nothing to fill the time. And now, thanks to her brother, she was in a sour mood again.
She’d had some reprieve from that in the last day or two, once she’d given up on trying to decipher what had happened in her dance with Michael that had really been a dance with Tyrone that Michael had commandeered for his own purposes. She didn’t feel in any way settled by it, but the more she tried to settle it, the more unsettled she felt, which seemed to defeat the purpose.
Whatever it had been, she refused to let it happen again.
Perhaps it would be a lovely time to visit Jonathan’s family and home. Her mother and father would love a trip to the north. And it would leave London behind, which was far more enticing.
She’d suggest it to Jonathan this afternoon.
“Mrs. Partlowe, Miss Wright.”
Charlotte blinked at the announcement and sat up. “What?”
Emma entered the drawing room with a flash of a smile. “Good morning, Charlotte. I hope you don’t mind, I was passing your house and realized how long it had been since we’d visited.”
It had been long. It had been an age, and until seeing her now, Charlotte could not have said how much she missed it. “Yes, it has. Please, come sit.” She rose and took
