Page 3 of In Need of a Duke
“Do you truly wish to know?” her friend asked with a sly grin.
Charlotte chuckled, unable to stop herself. “Well, now I must know.”
“Oh good. I thought you’d never ask.” Kate looped her hand around Charlotte’s arm and leaned down to whisper despite the din of the ball. “I was helping the Carlsson twins fortify the lemonade.”
Forti—
“Katherine Bancroft, what did you do with the lemonade?”
“Shh, shh,” Kate said, unable to curb her giggles.
Oh dear.
“We thought the evening could be a little livelier. We were just doing our part.”
“How thoughtful.”
“I’m nothing if not giving, my dear.”
Charlotte bumped her hip against her friend, smirking. “You are a menace to polite society.”
Kate simply shrugged. “A little gin never hurt anyone. Now come on, we must find you someone to dance with.”
Charlotte pulled back and pressed up against the wall. It wasn’t as though she didn’t wish to do her part and find a husband. She just preferred to do it outside of a crowded ballroom, without all the noise and people. Couldn’t she just host a tea and interview a husband one at a time?
“Maybe the lemonade will help,” Lily said, sliding up with a cup for Charlotte, barely containing her glee.
“I thought you were hiding.”
Lily pushed the cup into her friend’s hand. “I was reading.”
“Same difference,” Kate said.
“Well, I certainly wasn’t sneaking gin into the lemonade. The Duchess of Wycliff will need to be escorted out of here before she falls over.”
“How is tonight any different from when she nearly fell asleep into the white soup at the Fortescues’ dinner last week?”
Charlotte glanced between her two friends, her heart full, and grinned.
“I was going to claim a headache and beg my stepmother to leave,” Lily said.
Charlotte clapped her hands, desperate to flee. “Fantastic idea.”
“You can’t plan the same, Lottie. You had a headache two nights ago at the Gibbons’ ball.”
Whereas Kate was tall with black, curly hair and vivid green eyes,Lily was petite and brunette and equally vivacious because of her sharp wit and sharper tongue. They were the perfect companions to Charlotte, who felt rather dull in comparison. She wished only to be married and have a family of her own. Lily was obsessed with the stars and had grand plans to submit academic papers toPhilosophical Transactions, and Kate… Well, Kate didn’t object to the idea of marrying, but she was not in a rush to do so. And Charlotte was so painfully shy. Not to mention levelheaded. Or, as her mother preferred to call her, matronly.
In other words—boring..
“The both of you,” Kate chided. Then she straightened and pushed back the curls framing her face. “Smile. The marquess is heading this way. Please don’t”—Lily and Charlotte both swung their gazes to the approaching Marquess of Brookhouse—“look,” she groaned.
Kate had admired the marquess for nearly a year now. He was incredibly handsome as well as London’s most notorious rake. Kate didn’t care, though Charlotte cautioned her to avoid the man.
It didn’t matter because he walked right past them and up to a group of debutantes already surrounded by admirers before plucking one lucky girl from the crowd.
“I swear he will notice me one day,” mumbled Kate before Lily groaned.
“He is hardly a man worth aiming for.”
