Page 12 of Lady Charlotte and the Lending Library
“Oh my!” Edith fanned herself. “Have you ever seen such a handsome man? He is with that Lord Ashford fellow you danced with, Charlotte.”
Louisa craned her neck to see of whom Edith spoke. Her eyes widened a moment as she fairly gawked at the man.
“Louisa? Louisa are you all right?” she asked her friend.
The other girl adopted a bored expression when she turned to look at Charlotte. “Oh yes. For a moment, I thought I knew the man. I was mistaken.”
Charlotte didn’t quite believe her. Louisa never gave any gentleman a second look but was now surreptitiously stealing glances at Lord Ashford’s companion as he strode to the gaming room and entered it. She wondered if Lord Ashford’s friend was as judgmental as the dark-haired, elegant marquess.
She knew it would do no good to tease Louisa about the mysterious gentleman as her friend was an intensely private person. Charlotte believed it came from having so many older brothers.
“Lord Ashford heard some chatter about Thorne’s Lending Library. He will find out what he can and discuss it with me at the library on Friday,” she said to her friends.
“You made an assignation with a man you just met?” Edith asked, her eyes wide.
Charlotte briefly explained her encounter with Lord Ashford outside of White’s.
When she’d finished her story, Edith asked, “He is the same gentleman who escorted you to your father’s carriage? How odd that we’ve not encountered him at any of the season’s entertainments, and now he appears at Lady Cairs ball.”
Louisa’s attention was now entirely on Charlotte. “Why would Lord Ashford help us?”
She shrugged and replied casually, “He is intrigued by our mission. How exciting can a gentleman’s life be? Perhaps he is looking for a diversion.” Louisa did not need to know about the bargain she’d struck with Lord Ashford.
“His life is more exciting than ours,” Edith countered, rolling her eyes. “He can sit in parliament and go where he wishes without a chaperone. The world is his oyster.”
“As long as he doesn’t want a diversion with you, Charlotte. You know nothing about him.” Louisa added thoughtfully, “I could ask my brothers what they know of his character.”
“You will do no such thing,” she replied, horrified. “Your brothers might scare the marquess off. We could use his help.”
Edith shook her head. “Your Lord Ashford doesn’t look like a man to scare easily.”
“He isn’t ‘my’ Lord Ashford.”
“Charlotte, you may be the only lady he danced with tonight,” Louisa replied archly.
“I think he was merely concerned about my being on St. James’s Street.” She kept her voice even although she was irritated anew thinking about how the man had spoken to her as if she were a naughty child. Without thinking, she added, “Lord Ashford warned me not to be so reckless in future.”
“Concerned, was he?” Edith asked with a grin.
Edith was their resident romantic. She loved politics and debate, but she also loved a good romance.
Now that Charlotte thought back upon the marquess’s warning, she didn’t believe he’d sounded romantically concerned at all. He had come across as a scolding older brother. She shrugged off a sudden malaise and accepted an unexpected invitation to dance from a young viscount.
As the season wore on, her partners had become older. She liked to believe it was because the young bucks found her intimidating. Perhaps they merely found her boring. After the set, her hand was again claimed by another young man. Resigned to her place as a bluestocking wallflower, she wondered if Lady Cairs had somehow coerced so many young men into dancing with her.
Charlotte routinely asked her dance partners about their taste in books. “What do you enjoy reading?”
Too often, the response was a frown accompanied by the words: “The news sheets.”
If she asked Lord Ashford about reading and found he also appreciated books, she would probably fall in love with him on the spot.
Soon after midnight, she asked her brother to escort her and their mother home. She was tired from her early start that morning. As Edith and Louisa had engagements the next day, the friends would meet up two days from now. On Friday. At Thorne’s.
Charlotte told herself she wasn’t at all excited about seeing the attractive and maddening Lord Ashford again. She merely wanted to hear what gossip was going around about Thorne’s Lending Library.
* * * * *
The next day’s session in parliament was mind-numbing. The Whig lawyer and MP Henry Brougham had been successful in defeating the return of the property tax and several members of the House of Lords chose to continue to grumble about it in chambers.
