Page 2 of A Lady’s Dangerous Secret (Scandalous Secrets #1)

CHAPTER TWO

F inally.

Charlotte saw the two gentlemen near Lady Carrington and Lady Bridget had stopped talking. Aunt Frances did not skip a beat and waved at the earl. “Lord Carrington!”

He raised his eyebrows and gave a slight bow as his mother proceeded to introduce Charlotte to her handsome son, who closely resembled his sister.

Charlotte realized he was a friend of one of her brothers whom she had only met once.

She gave him an obligatory, polite smile with as much gusto as she could manage, which was not much.

Lord Carrington asked her for the honor of the first dance with the insouciance of a practiced aristocrat.

Touché.

The attractive blond earl did not hold Charlotte’s interest, and her eyes darted to the black-haired gentleman next to him, but her aunt grabbed the dance card from her wrist before she could take a better look. “Lady Charlotte would love to dance with you, my lord.”

Lord Carrington, in his blue, superfine long-tailed coat, white waistcoat, and white expertly tied cravat, took her dance card and wrote his name for the first dance.

Charlotte pretended to smile as the earl handed back the dance card. “Thank you, my lord,” she said, hoping her voice sounded appropriately submissive. She did not know how long she could play the role of biddable debutante.

She took a moment to peer around her aunt for a better view of the other gentleman. A pair of stormy-gray eyes suddenly emerged from behind her aunt’s head and caught her gaze.

Charlotte was taken aback.

The combination of black hair and tumultuous eyes made her feel as if she were trapped in a squall and was being pulled out to sea.

Despite the danger, she could not break their eye contact, and was swept away in the chaos.

The mystery man bowed. Charlotte realized he had been introduced, but she had not caught his name.

She did not worry since she assumed he would ask her to dance, as had Lord Carrington, and his identity would soon be revealed.

He was midnight personified, with a black long-tailed coat, waistcoat, and knee-breeches.

They were only brightened by the white of his cravat and stockings, like the moon and its reflection piercing the darkness of the night.

From the way he carried himself, Charlotte reasoned he must be an aristocrat.

Lord Carrington and this gentleman made a formidable pair of light and dark.

Both tall and broad-shouldered, they held their chins elevated in an imperial manner, which had been bred into the ton for generations.

This mystery man, though, wore a brooding look on his face and was more muscular than his friend the earl.

His shoulders were a bit more expansive, his sleeves a bit tighter, and his pants a bit more… fitted.

Charlotte’s eyes jumped to the unknown man’s face, hoping her perusal had gone unnoticed. The corner of his mouth twitched, and she felt her cheeks redden.

The slight movement of his mouth disappeared in a moment. She wondered if it had happened at all. What was left was a somber visage. He began to address her, “Lady Charlotte?—”

“We must be off to fill your dance card!” Aunt Frances quickly clutched Charlotte’s upper arm and pretended not to hear the man, before she dragged her away from the group and into the crowd.

Charlotte looked behind her and reentered the stormy eyes of the stranger. She raised her wrist with its attached dance card and held up five fingers, before she was forced to turn around by her aunt’s determined walk.

From that point on, Aunt Frances whisked her around the ballroom and ensured she was visible to all marriageable gentlemen.

Her dance card was soon filled with eligible, titled suitors.

Each time a gentleman was about to write down his name, Charlotte asked him under her breath to leave the fifth dance open.

She did not dare to complete her act of subterfuge until her aunt was distracted.

That moment came when Aunt Frances ran into her friend who wore a turban with enough feathers for Charlotte to fear there was a live bird attached to her head.

This feathered gentlewoman had dire news to tell her aunt involving some elopement to Gretna Green.

Her aunt became so absorbed in the titillating story that she left Charlotte unguarded.

Charlotte slipped the dance card off her wrist and wrote a name next to the fifth dance.

Lord Silverstone .

A fitting name for a man with eyes the color of silver metal. She let out the breath she did not realize she was holding. Her respite was brief, however, because her aunt finished hearing the entire sordid elopement tale, and was ready for Charlotte’s next gentleman cause.

Aunt Frances tapped Charlotte’s dance card. “I have reserved this waltz for a very special suitor.”

“Oh?” Charlotte said. She had learned to save her breath when her aunt was on a mission.

“Yes, the Duke of Westcliffe will be attending. I have confirmed it with him personally. We have known each other for ages, and he has promised a dance with you. He’s in need of a wife and would like to have the matter settled quickly.”

They approached the next cluster of smartly dressed ladies and gentlemen.

Charlotte worried her bottom lip while she reasoned through her aunt’s words.

First, if her aunt had known the Duke for years, that meant he was not young.

Second, if he required a wife urgently, that meant he needed an heir.

Third—Charlotte paused as the predicament became clear—she would be the perfect wife.

Fear welled inside Charlotte. She needed a titled husband, but she had hoped she could have some say in the matter. Why had her aunt not mentioned this earlier, instead of parading her about the ballroom?

Charlotte could not lie to herself. She knew why.

Her aunt had not become a marchioness by chance alone.

It was a carefully orchestrated social move after her elderly first husband, a mere baron, died.

Aunt Frances was applying the same tactics to procuring a match for Charlotte.

She was moving her across the ton ’ s chessboard and filling her dance card with pawns, who would serve as husband reserves in case she could not capture the king, or in this case, the aging duke.

Charlotte did not hear whom her aunt had just introduced, nor did she care, but dipped into yet another obligatory curtsy.

Charlotte’s gaze remained lowered so that this current group of the ton could not see her lips tighten in frustration.

She felt helpless, but because of the Incident, there was nothing she could do.

James watched as Lady Charlotte Tipton held up five fingers while being pulled away by her aunt and then swallowed up by the swarming ton, who flitted from group to group like honeybees collecting nectar.

He turned toward Gabe. “Would you call that a cut direct or a cut indirect?”

“I would say a cut is a cut. But Lady Charlotte seems clearly interested in you despite her aunt. Signaling the fifth dance like that? A scandalous move on her part.”

James nodded and tried to find the chestnut head of Lady Charlotte among the guests, but she had disappeared.

“She has mettle, I’ll give her that,” he said.

He still did not believe Lady Charlotte Tipton, an earl’s privileged daughter, could have any true dilemma that warranted the unhappy expression he had witnessed, but her brief look of fear made him wonder what lay beneath her surface.

Then she had surprised him with a touch of boldness when her aunt dragged her away, and she held up her fingers for what clearly was the fifth dance.

He was intrigued, and he did not like that one bit.

“I know her brother well,” Gabe said.

James grunted in response, not wanting to show interest, but also not wanting Gabe to stop speaking.

“One of her brothers, actually,” Gabe clarified.

“The Earl of Pulverbatch has four sons, and the youngest child is Lady Charlotte. Her brother Will and I were the same year at Eton. Good chap but always getting into trouble. He’s in the British Army now, being a younger son and all.

Ashwood, the heir, is a wastrel of the first order. "

James did not smile often, but he allowed a moment of levity in response to the start of his friend’s diatribe.

His cynicism was one of the reasons he liked Gabe.

Despite being an earl, he did not take the nobility too seriously, and measured people by their actual worth, not by their title or wealth.

“The second son, Nate, is what you would expect of a spare who has a substantial purse. He is a bon vivant and an unrelenting rake.” Gabe waved his hand in dismissal.

“After Will, there’s Arthur. He’s bookish and interested in politics.

” Gabe paused before he tipped his head in an analytic way.

“Then there’s Lady Charlotte. I don’t know much about her anymore, but I do remember going to High Crest Hall during one of the leaves from school.

My mother had taken Bridget to stay with family.

I couldn’t think of anything worse than being alone with my father, so I made the trip to Shropshire. ”

Gabe’s face became guarded when he mentioned his sire, but he quickly schooled his features.

“I remember Lady Charlotte being young, maybe seven or eight years old, and an absolute hellion. I only visited once, so I hadn’t seen her in years.

During the trip, her older brothers paid her no mind, but she and Arthur tagged along with us.

Will was always the most adventurous, and I, of course, could not be outdone by a Tipton.

We would compete over anything and had quite the imaginations.

One time, we sneaked into the pigpen and had a round of fisticuffs while the massive hog butted us.

I stayed standing the longest and won. Another time, we stole some pickled walnuts and saw who could eat the most before getting sick.

That one wasn’t one of our finer moments, because we could barely eat for the next two days.

We always came back for dinner in some kind of mess. ”

A smile spread across Gabe’s face, and he shook his head at the fond memories before continuing. “One day, we were in the woodlands, and there was a grand old beech tree. Will and I obviously had to dare each other to see who would climb the highest.”

His smile faded. “I almost became dizzy we climbed so high, but Will climbed even higher. Arthur and Charlotte watched from below, and when we came down, Charlotte swore she could best us. Before we could stop her, she scampered up the tree, wearing pilfered breeches from one of her brothers. She quickly beat Will’s height and kept going until it was clear she was the better climber.

I couldn’t believe how high she went. She was only a speck among the leaves, and we were all worried about her.

Finally, we heard her yell that she had won. ”

James watched the scene play out across Gabe’s face.

“I honestly held my breath until she reached the ground. Then the brat smiled smugly. I thought Will would murder her after she scared us so much. He forbade her from tagging along anymore, but she ignored him and continued to try to get his attention throughout the whole leave.”

James could not disregard the unfamiliar tightness in his chest that had developed.

He never experienced unnecessary emotions, yet he felt for the ignored little girl she had been.

But feelings had to be squashed. Lady Charlotte may not have gotten as much attention as she wanted during her childhood, but she was a member of the ton and was privileged.

She was not on the streets begging for food or selling her body.

James knew what it was like to have a less than idyllic childhood, and he had survived with much less than a pampered earl’s daughter.

“I’m sure she recovered,” James said to Gabe, unable to resist a sarcastic tone.

“You’ll have plenty of time to ask her during your dance,” Gabe retorted. “The fifth, I believe.”

“You think Lady Charlotte holding up five fingers committed me to a dance with her?” James quipped.

Gabe looked knowingly at James. “I think she’s a young woman who knows what she wants, and that’s to dance with you.”

James attempted to appear nonplussed and shrugged. In reality, his perfidious heartbeat quickened at the thought of spinning Lady Charlotte around the dance floor.

“We’ll see,” James replied, wondering what he was getting himself into.