He had no doubt that was true. But something in the offer felt...dishonest. “I’m sorry, my lady, but I’ll have to refuse. Charlotte will like me for my own merits or not at all.”
She gave him a long look, her gaze penetrating until she finally spoke. “Major Mayfield, you might be one of the finest men I have ever met.”
And with that, she turned away and collected her mother. He watched them depart the picnic, their heads huddled together. He saw the footman hand them in, the carriage door close, and he continued to stare until the vehicle was gone. Her parting words stuck with him long after that.
He hadn’t a clue where Charlotte had gone, but he didn’t search the crowd for her as he made his way to his hack.
* * *
The next day he stood on the drive at Max and Marigold’s estate as they greeted guest after guest. They’d been at it nearly an hour when they finally had a break in the carriage line.
“That’s the trouble with living so close to London,” Max grumbled. “Everyone accepts.”
Marigold gave her a husband a sympathetic smile. “Of the two of us, I’m supposed to be the shy one.”
Max placed an arm about his wife’s waist. “You’re doing marvelously as a marchioness, but truly, I won’t mind if we don’t host elaborate parties.”
She gave her husband a sideways glance. “Noted. Truly, I wanted this to be a small event but every person you invite, you worry that you might be snubbing someone else. And then, next thing I knew, the guest list had grown by leaps and bounds.”
Even Alex had to smile at that. It was so like Marigold to end up with a party that made herself wildly uncomfortable while everyone else was glowingly happy.
In response, Max leaned down and grazed her temple with a kiss. “At least our closest friends are here to keep us company while we entertain half of London.”
“Everyone but Daisy,” she answered with a grin. “She’s too far along to travel anywhere.”
“The duchess is enceinte?” Alex asked, just a touch of jealousy tightening his stomach. It reminded him of why he was here. To find a bride and start a family. The only problem? The woman who had dominated his thoughts was not the one he’d made known he wished to court.
He’d hardly given Miss Charlotte a spare thought since the picnic yesterday. Troubling, but true. It was Abigail whom his mind returned to time and again.
The way she’d helped him, her compliment, her strength when Charlotte had unwittingly—or perhaps purposefully—tossed little jabs at her. How beautiful she looked with the sun shining down on her.
He gave his head a shake. He had to stop thinking about Abigail. While he was growing less certain about Charlotte, he did know what he wanted from this life, and a girl with a nose for trouble was not it.
“She is,” Marigold pressed her hands together, her voice rising in breathless excitement. A feeling he understood well. “And she claims to be perfectly miserable. I do believe she is due any day, but I can’t think of it as anything but a blessing.”
“I agree,” he murmured. “And what of your other friend…Lily?” Alex looked at the ground. He was a cad. He knew very well that Lily and her husband had been at the garden party the day before and that there was a history with them and Abigail. And despite his assertion that he didn’t heed gossip, here he was, needling for information in some roundabout fashion that was truly beneath him.
What had gotten into him?
“Lily? Oh yes, she’ll be here. Along with her husband, of course. She and Merrick are wonderfully happy.” Marigold leaned in. “Which is such a blessing. They’d been best friends and then fell out. I’m so glad they came back together.”
“Fell out?” he asked.
Max gave him a meaningful stare over Marigold’s head. Did his friend know what he was up to?
“Well, he started courting Lily’s best friend of the time, Lady Abigail. You danced with her the other night, I believe.” Marigold delicately cleared her throat. “Lily felt betrayed, though to be fair, she and Merrick were only friends at the time. But it all resolved itself when Abigail tossed Merrick over for his older brother.”
That made his chin snap back. Because obviously her choice had not resulted in a match. “But—”
Max grimaced. “It was a bit of a scandal. People questioned her morals for the move. If she’d ended up a marchioness…”
Alex understood. Abigail’s comment the day before about strategy and tactics came back to him, along with an odd tug of sadness on her behalf. Women made such tactical choices all the time. It was their duty to find the best provider. If she’d succeeded, she’d have been a raving success—but she’d failed. “And it has tarnished her future prospects.”
“Perhaps,” Marigold shrugged. “She’s remarkably tenacious and she’s still the daughter of a duke with a large dowry.”
But it left her open to barbs from all sorts of people. And she took them with a notched chin and a straight spine.
“But since then, she and Lily have steered clear of one another,” Max continued.
“Yes,” his wife agreed. “Lady Abigail is invited to every event, of course. Her station demands it. But she at least has enough sense of tact to give Lily a wide berth now that she and Merrick are happily wed.”
Alex nodded in understanding but his mind was lost in thought. So that was what all that had been about between her Charlotte the day before.
Max’s hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present and he looked over to see Max giving him a sly grin. “What she’s saying, old friend, is that you don’t have to worry about Lady Abigail stealing any more dances and getting in your way.” He arched his
