The Duke of Snow and Apples (5 page)

The presumption should have bothered her, but Charlotte was unaccustomed to the quivering feeling of
awareness
that accompanied being looked at so intensely. What possible reason could Freddy have for looking at her like that?

From deep within the ocean’s depths, something shimmered, a flash of light like the winking scales of a sea-dragon, luring prey. It turned her inward quivering into a shake, a struggle, that she had to tamp down lest she displace her mask of cultured politeness and do something wild and stupid.

Lady Tamsin tapped her arm with her fan, and Charlotte turned away, relieved to find something else to pay attention to that was less unsettling.

Nothing could be more settling than young Lady Tamsin. Shy and retiring, she’d spent most of her time close to the fire, sitting quietly and having soft conversations with the older Dowagers, like the strange Dorothea and her tame crow. Charlotte felt mildly surprised to be considered worthy of abandoning such a cozy wallflower spot.

“I wanted to ask, what was so funny about Viscount Elban’s comment about the charmed harness he’d bought for his team of four?” Lady Tamsin asked. “I could tell it was a joke because everyone laughed about it, but I’m afraid I must have missed the point.”

So had Charlotte, she was forced to admit. “I’m the wrong person to ask, Lady Tamsin.”

“Oh, please, no titles. I’m Augusta.” She smiled, her rather lovely green eyes crinkling up at the corners. Her dark hair had a distinct reddish tint that gleamed copper in the candlelight, and a face that dimpled with ridiculous ease. However, the severe knot of her hairstyle, the unadorned, almost workmanlike simplicity of her gown, and her retiring manner failed to highlight her most attractive features.

“All right, Augusta. I’m afraid I…well…” Something about Augusta, about the unworried honesty of her question, set Charlotte strangely at ease. “I missed the point as well.”

“Then why did you laugh at it?”

“It seemed…appropriate.”

It was Augusta’s turn to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Maybe that’s the reason everyone else laughed.” She snickered. “Perhaps Society’s diamonds and darlings are more talented at persuading people they are witty and charming than they are at being witty and charming.”

“You’d do well to bottle that truth and hide it,” Charlotte said without thinking. “Else all the Pure Blooded will have to admit they’re as boring and unimaginative as everyone else.”

“Heavens, yes,” said Augusta. “I’d bring the whole Blooming crashing to a halt. All the ballrooms in the Flowering City would be evacuated. Torn fragments of ignored invitations would litter the streets, while modistes and tailors marched weeping, arm-in-arm, all the way to the poorhouse.”

Charlotte muffled an unladylike guffaw with the back of her glove. As easy as it had been for Charlotte to dismiss Augusta initially as a wallflower, her keen observations and obvious intelligence caught her by surprise. “How dreadful. You must have seen your share of interminable assemblies.”

Augusta’s smile slipped a degree. “Oh, I haven’t attended as many as that. My mother’s shared enough horror stories with me to curl my hair without needing a spell. I haven’t been introduced to society with my own Blooming. Truthfully, though, I should like at least one chance to see exactly what I’m not missing.”

That brought Charlotte up short. “What…well, surely…”

Augusta shook her head and leaned in. “Mama thinks I’m here to be tutored in politics by my grandmother, Lady Alderley.”

“Where, exactly, did your mother receive that impression?”

Augusta’s smile sharpened into a rather devious grin. “From Grandmama, of course.”

Before Charlotte could properly react to that, the bell rang for dinner. To Charlotte’s embarrassment, she found herself seated at Aunt Hildy’s right hand at supper, the seat of honor. She glanced down the long dining-room table, glittering with reflected candlelight, and squirmed at the thought of being placed before the young Marchioness of Tamsin, the earl, the viscount, and their Right Honorable children and siblings, not to mention the other Dowagers of higher rank. All eyes were on her, now.

Charlotte closed her eyes and imagined her practiced politeness as an impenetrable armor that deflected every possible sneering glance, every upturned nose, every doubtful frown. She drew herself taller, brought her calm, cool smile forward, and imagined the metal sound of a helm’s visor slamming shut.

Let them try to find fault with me now
. Charlotte was a warrior princess. Her modest, girlish, flirtatious, graceful, cultured, proper demeanor was her trusted mace, and she was fully prepared to club the nearest bachelor over the head with it and drag him to the altar as soon as possible.

The chatter died as the first course was served. Charlotte sensed a presence at her left side, and the peculiar shiver underneath her flawless armor told her it was Freddy.
Nonsense
. She kept her gaze resolutely on the white gloves gripping the polished silver tureen of hare soup.

“Yes, please,” she said, not even caring that she wasn’t fond of game. She just wanted him to move on to the next guest and leave her alone. She knew if she turned her head only a few more degrees to the left, tilted it a hair upward, she would see his eyes, and she’d confirm what she already, inexplicably knew: they were focused on
her
.

Concentration on the social task at hand grew more difficult. Freddy’s presence dragged all her thoughts inward, like flotsam into a whirlpool.
Why
was he looking at her like that? Suitable bachelors, those whose attention she
wanted
to catch, never spared her a glance. Why was this footman, whose attention was neither solicited, desired, nor permitted, distracting her this way for no discernible reason?

She turned her head as Mr. Oswald made a comment (not one word of which she heard) and she smiled as if greatly amused. Mentally, she gave herself a sharp kick with a pointed, frozen boot. Freddy was
her
footman, wasn’t he? She could always just
order
him to stop. Of course, it was unspeakably rude to speak to or about servants at the dinner table, so she would have to endure his invasive glance for a little bit longer, but she would overcome. She was Miss Charlotte Erlwood. She would not be undone by a
servant
. She had more Fey blood and magical endurance in her pinkie finger than Freddy’s entire body.

The gentle music of clinking tableware, fluttering laughter, and humming conversation stilled as the harsher sounds of shouting and angry words filtered in from the hallway. The combatants were too far off to catch their exact words, but the lilting, solicitous tone of a servant was as instantly recognizable as the razor-edged, entitled pitch of a Pure Blooded.

The butler, standing at his place behind and to the left of Aunt Hildy, cocked his head toward the noise like a hound hearing the rustling of a grouse. Bending slightly, he conversed with the Viscountess in hushed tones.

“I apologize, Gelvers,” said Aunt Hildy. “I didn’t think he was coming, mainly because he was not invited. I suppose he shall need a place…”

“May I suggest setting a table in the smoking-room?”

“Excellent suggestion, Gelvers.”

With a hissed command, Gelvers sent two footmen out of the room to prepare for the late and unwelcome guest. To Charlotte’s relief, Freddy was one of them.

Go on with you, then. And take your ridiculous eyes with you.

Resolutely, Charlotte turned toward Viscount Elban, Lord Enshaw’s handsome, titled, and wealthy son, and asked him whether he thought the year’s snowfall would come soon or late.

Chapter Five

Charlotte woke the next morning at an unfashionably early hour, just past seven o’clock. Most ladies stayed abed until ten or eleven, for the sake of their beauty sleep. Having slept more or less consistently every night since the day she was born without her appearance improving one wink, Charlotte was less inclined to hold to that theory and had better things to do with her time.

Today, there would be more battles to wage against the bachelors. More weapons to hone and polish in the form of knowing glances and clever remarks. Which combination of colors, magic, and lighting would best distract from the fact that she was only pleasant-looking, relatively graceful, moderately poised, and, when all was said and done, resolutely average in all the areas in which a proper wife was supposed to excel. All the areas in which Sylvia set the bar.

In Charlotte’s mind, a quick, decisive ambush was the best way to land a victory at the altar. For that, she would need inside information. She wasn’t above a little espionage. That was why, after eating breakfast in her room, she summoned Lamonte with a yank of the gold-tassled bell-pull next to her bed.

Unfortunately, Lamonte’s skills at lacing Charlotte’s stays just a
little
too tight for comfort and looping her hair into a flattering crown of braids did not translate into a skill for gossip. She remained irritatingly closemouthed, returning Charlotte’s questions and inquiries regarding the other guests with such pointedly cheerful evasions that Charlotte, had she not known better, might have suspected the lady’s maid of mocking her.

Who else could she turn to? She had to ask a servant she could trust. She couldn’t afford to have a housemaid-turned-informant run off and gossip about Miss Charlotte Erlwood to the competition. That wouldn’t do at all.

After sending the lady’s maid away, she grasped the bell-pull, and hesitated. She banished her nervousness with a shake of her head.

“Freddy,” she said, then gave the rope a pull. A few moments passed in silence, enough to allow Charlotte to bring her tangled thoughts about the footman in order. She shouldn’t have encouraged him with the stone. While she’d taken it as a lovely gesture the first time, obviously she’d given him the wrong impression, and he’d gotten it into his head that she was more lenient than his usual employers.

His behavior the evening before had nearly upset all her plans. She would just have to tell him when he arrived.

A loud clanging rang from just outside her door. A moment later, Freddy entered the room, the bell on his shoulder-knot still shaking. He kept his eyes firmly pinned to the patch of carpet in front of his feet. “How may I assist you, miss?”

She couldn’t win the war if she didn’t take a few risks. Fighting past a spurt of embarrassment, she said, “What I’m about to ask you cannot leave this room. You’re my footman for as long as I stay here, and that means I can rely on you for your discretion.”

“Of course, miss.”

“I need information.”

His head jerked up. “I beg your pardon?”

“On the other guests. The male, unmarried ones in particular.”

He opened his mouth, but no words emerged, just silent exhalations of air. “Which—
bachelors
—did you have in mind?” he asked, at length.

“All of them.”

Freddy’s head ducked down again, not quickly enough to hide the slight tightening of his jaw, as if in exasperation.

“I like to plan beforehand, so I need to know as much as possible,” Charlotte blurted.
Why am I explaining myself?
“Well, can you do it or not?”

A slight pause. “There’s Viscount Elban, miss. I think he’s a musician. Pianoforte, I believe.”

“Oh, I like him,” she said. Lord Elban was very handsome, almost disconcertingly so. It had been hard to look at him directly while at dinner, a bit like staring into the sun. “I suppose I should practice a few piano pieces to impress him. I’m not a prodigious player, but if I’m charming enough, I could convince him I have some aptitude.”

“You enjoy planning the pianoforte?”

“Heavens, no.” She laughed. “I can play well enough, but it’s terribly boring. Who else?”

“His brother, Mr. Colton.”

“He’s a nice fellow, but he has the rather difficult flaw of having a
very pregnant wife
. Maiden’s eyes, Freddy, you were right there in the room with them! Were you staring at
me
the whole time?”

“No!” It emerged in a short, sharp burst, and markedly higher in pitch than his regular tone of voice.

Charlotte’s annoyance evaporated, and she laughed. Somehow, the idea of Freddy trying to get away with ogling her cheered her. “Try again.”

“Mr. Horace Oswald, miss. I overheard he is a horticulturalist.”

“Yes. Roses. He told me of them, at excruciating length.” She sighed. “Still, since he doesn’t have an especially large fortune or title, he is the bachelor I have the highest chance with. I shall have to pretend the whole idea of dirt and mold and pruning fascinates me to no end.”

“Pretend, miss?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said. She rose from the bed and sidled into the dressing-room, necessitating Freddy to follow her. She sat down at the writing-desk, fiddling with a quill even though she hadn’t anything to write. “I shan’t attract the notice of a gentleman if he thinks I’m indifferent to his interests.” She drew the quill and jabbed it in Freddy’s direction. “And
you
shall be of no use to me if you’re too busy staring at me to notice anyone else.”

“I wasn’t staring at you.”

“Liar.” She couldn’t help it. Laughter bubbled over, boiled out of her mouth. Standing two feet away, Freddy kept his face impassive, but the deepening tinge of his cheeks betrayed him.

He relented. “I’m sorry.” The words emerged harshly, almost involuntarily, an apology as a cough.

Charlotte, to ease the footman’s embarrassment, returned the conversation to its former track. “What about the gentleman who arrived late last night and was shut away in the smoking room?”

Freddy’s eyebrows tilted down for a dark moment. “You wouldn’t like him.”

His vehemence startled her. “Why not? Who is he?”

His mouth settled into a grim line. “Lord Robert Dor, Viscount Noxley, miss.”

“Lady Noxley’s son?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re so certain he’s not to my taste?”

“Not unless your taste runs to spoiled, self-indulgent, lazy fops who spend their days swimming blithely through ever-deepening oceans of debt.”

Charlotte’s gaze drifted to Freddy’s hands, and she noticed they’d curled into fists at some point. Something bothered him enough to loosen his professionalism. After the disastrous effect he’d had on her at dinner, the idea of turning the tables gave her infinite satisfaction.

“Being a viscount pardons many sins.” She stretched each word out slowly, languorously, as if nothing in this world bothered her enough to do anything active.

“Does it?” he ground out.

Encouraged, Charlotte continued. “Out in society, I would hardly even need to see the man. After I produce a few heirs, of course.”

Freddy squeezed his eyes shut for a second longer than required. A small muscle pulsed in his jaw.

She decided to raise the stakes. Show him just how it felt to be discomfited and unable to do anything. She laid an arm casually across the back of her chair and lowered her eyelids to stare at him through the veil of her lashes. “And I’ll have my
footmen
, of course.”

“Like the hells you will!” he snapped. His eyes flashed, like the reflection of sunlight off sapphires. He stopped. Paled.

Charlotte crowed her victory.

His eyes narrowed. “Is this a game?”

Nearly breathless with mirth, Charlotte replied, “Well, if it is, I’ve won, don’t you think?”

Before her eyes, the footman retreated behind his professionalism. “I apologize for my unseemly behavior…”

“Don’t be like that!” she ordered. She rose from her chair, jabbing her finger forward like a weapon. “You don’t get to do that, not if you’re
my
footman.”

“Do what, miss?”

“Pretend to be all starch and ice in front of me, only to devour me with your eyes when you think I’m not looking. Acting one way while really thinking something else. I won’t have it!” Her amusement had vanished, and an old, cold anger took its place.

She didn’t want to always wonder what people were really thinking about her. She hated thinking about whether every person’s friendly smile hid their disgust, annoyance, or boredom with her attempts to be proper. Why couldn’t they just be
honest
and tell her that she was doing something wrong, or that she was repeating the same anecdote for the third time. Or that they secretly wanted her suitor for themselves?

She raised her chin. “I won’t have that nonsense from you, Freddy. I don’t want a—a
tree stump
for a footman.”

“What in Heaven’s name
do
you want?”

That brought Charlotte up short. “A partner,” she said at last. “An
ally
.” Yes. That fit her warrior metaphor quite nicely.

“
Why?
”

“Because I
said so
, that’s why! When your mistress gives an order your answer is
yes, miss
.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Thank you, Freddy.”

“Frederick.”

Charlotte blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

The footman stood his ground. “If I’m to be an ally, my name is
Frederick
. Everyone calls me Freddy because it’s shorter but—but my name is Frederick.”

“Oh.” An easy enough concession. “Well then,
Frederick
, we must start today if we are to move forward with my plan. Lady Mettle’s ball’s tonight, so I will need you to gather information. Relevant information. Favorite colors, interests, annoyances, secrets.” She tapped her lips with her quill. “I shall write you a list.”

Feeling considerably more cheerful, she ordered Frederick to fetch more paper.

…

An hour later, Frederick’s pumps clattered up the stairs toward his room, every stomp punctuated with a different set of descriptive words for her ladyship’s grandniece.
Arrogant. Spoiled. Childish. Melodramatic.

Sweet Maiden help him, Charlotte had drawn out all of his worst qualities, on
purpose
, leaving him with all of his irritations and rages and frustrations hanging out in the wind like dirty laundry. Not to mention he’d almost betrayed the secret of his power to her. It had flared in his head on instinct, sweet and heady and instantaneous. It frightened him not a little that his curse could overcome his barriers with such ease.

She had outlined her plans like a general preparing for full-scale war. She needed daily copies of the
Trinidon Eyeglass
to maintain her supply lines of gossip and fashion. She required detailed intelligence on the ranks and relationships of every guest present, for a good general knew her enemy. She demanded advanced notice of impending battles, er,
events
the Dowagers had planned, in order to prepare her arsenal of day gowns and polite utterances accordingly.

In one baffled moment, Frederick had changed from footman to spymaster.

What troubled him more was that
this
Charlotte behaved like an entirely different person than last night’s Charlotte, who acted like her favorite activity was discussing the weather. She accused
him
of acting one way while thinking another? What about her? She acted like two young women, both different, both equally confounding. It didn’t matter whether she was a wind-up toy or an impulsive flirt—both sides of her gnawed at him, set him on edge, dragged him out of his cold place with their sharp minx’s claws.

She was a danger to him.

Worse, by being a danger to him she was a danger to
herself
, and she didn’t even know it. His power gave him the ability to see into the colors of a person’s soul—provided he didn’t slip. Provided he maintained control. Provided he kept every impulse under icy lock and key.

She tempted him, and by tempting him, she tempted the Gray as well, the darker element of his power for which he had no cure. Magic worked both ways—offering a gift while demanding a price, and Frederick had learned long ago that the price of his magic was one he couldn’t afford to pay. Not when another person’s colors could wither and dissolve in his clumsy grip, leaving deadened eyes and slack expressions.

As far as he knew, there was only one defense against causing the Gray, and that was the cold place inside his mind—the cold place that was currently besieged by emotions he normally suppressed.

Sharp, high laughter wafted out of an open door further down the hall. “
Allo, Frederique
!”

Frederick, groaning inwardly, drew his face into an empty smile. As first footman, he had a whole cramped bedchamber all to himself, but he’d have to cross Miss Lamonte’s set of chambers to reach his own.

He stopped outside her door, deciding bland politeness was his best defense. “Good morning, Miss Lamonte.”

Miss Lamonte, enjoying superior status as a lady’s maid, possessed the privilege of a suite of rooms, including a snug dressing room and a parlor roughly the size of a breadbasket. She perched on a cushioned armchair amid finely made, if mismatched and slightly used, furniture. A swath of insipid pink fabric lay draped over her knees. She looked up at Frederick’s greeting, favoring him with her sharp cat’s smile.

“The darling Miss Charlotte is giving you trouble, no?” She threaded her needle and set to mending the gown in her lap. “Did I not warn you?”

Frederick stiffened. “Miss Charlotte is—”

“
Well enough
? Oh, poor
Frederique
. Do come in.”

Frederick could have refused, but that would have been an annoyed man’s decision. Frederick did not feel annoyed. Like a perfect footman, he didn’t feel much of anything. At least, he wasn’t supposed to. He crossed the threshold.

A slash of red caught his eye. Turning, he noticed a dark crimson dress draped over an armchair by the fire.