LITMIR.BIZ

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morning’s post. She’s increasing. She and the duke are already returned to his estate, and she won’t be traveling again until the child is born. It would do no good to upset her.”

      “Emmy’s going to have a baby?” Nicole jumped up and grabbed Charlotte in a fierce hug. “How above everything wonderful!” Then she pushed away from Charlotte and frowned. “No, wait. That isn’t wonderful. Who will present Lydia and me next spring, when we go to London for the Season?”

      “You’re not going to London for the Season, you wretched girl. You’re only sixteen.”

      “Seventeen next month,” Nicole reminded her. “Louisa Madison went to London at seventeen for her first Season.”

      “Yes, and she came home again three weeks later, humiliated and ostracized because she was so foolish as to allow a half-pay officer to kiss her in Lady Castlereagh’s gardens. Do you want to be quickly married off to the vicar’s third-oldest son?”

      “Louisa was always a fool,” Nicole said, shrugging. “I’d never kiss a half-pay officer. Indeed, I shall not even deign to dance with any rank lower than earl.”

      Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I’m sure your brother will be much relieved to hear that. But you’re not going. You’re too young, and there is no one to chaperone you.”

      “There’s you,” Nicole said, grinning at Charlotte.

      “There most certainly is not me. I’m much too young to be a chaperone, for one thing, and I’d rather be locked up in Bedlam before I’d entertain any thought of attempting to get you to behave for more than five minutes. I mean it, Nicole. No. Stop smiling. Stop looking at me that way. Wait—where are you going? What are you going to do?”

      Nicole was already halfway to the door, her unbound hair trailing halfway down her back. “Why,” she said, whirling about to face Charlotte, “I think it should be obvious. I’ve been sitting up here, my every nerve shredded, appalled at what I’ve done. Hoodwinking my own dearest aunt, my own dearest brother. There’s nothing else for it. I must go to him at once, and make a clean breast of my sins.”

      “You miserable little—Don’t you dare!”

      “But, Charlotte, you must see that it isn’t fair to keep poor Rafe in the dark like this, can’t you? I mean, not that you weren’t most thoroughly in the dark for all these long months. Completely fooled by two young girls scarcely out of the nursery.” She frowned rather comically. “Oh, dear, what will Rafe think of you once he knows?”

      “Perhaps I don’t care what he thinks,” Charlotte said, hoping she didn’t sound defensive.

      “And as Mrs. Beasley would say, pshaw. Of course you care. Everyone knows you’ve always been half in love with him. Why, you still wear that ratty old scarf of his sometimes. I’ve seen you. Just like something out of a penny press novel, that’s what Mrs. Beasley says.”

      Charlotte opened her mouth to protest, but she knew she’d already lost. “Oh, very well. Yes, I might have thought myself in love with him. But that was a long time ago. Now I just don’t want him to think me a complete idiot. What do you want me to do? Because I can’t be your chaperone. Old maid I may be, but you will need someone with much more social consequence than I, and at least twice my knowledge of how you and Lydia should go on. You’re sisters to the duke, remember. I was only one of hundreds of lesser lights, never given a voucher to Almack’s, partaking in only the tamest of gatherings…oh, I can’t believe I’m agreeing to any of this.”

      Nicole returned to her dressing table and opened the top middle drawer, extracting a folded paper. “Here. Here’s a listing of all our female relatives. I wrote it out some weeks ago, as it is always wise to be prepared for a last-minute change of plans. Lydia taught me that. At any rate, that’s all that’s left, you know—females. Rafe is the only gentleman among them on our papa’s side of the family. And heaven knows we can’t apply to Mama’s family. They’re all either pockets-to-let or locked up for card sharping.”

      “They are not,” Charlotte said, unfolding the paper. “Who told you that?”

      “Mama,” Nicole said brightly. “She should know, don’t you think?”

      “I suppose,” Charlotte said, reading down the short list of names. “Where did you get this list?”

      “I copied it down from the family Bible, in Uncle Charlton’s—that is, Rafe’s study.”

      “That may explain it. Margaret, your grandfather’s only sister, lives in Scotland and is sickly by choice. She never travels. I remember Emmaline telling me that when she was preparing the list for the memorial to your uncle and cousins.”

      “She isn’t the only name,” Nicole said hopefully.

      “As for this second name, Irene Murdoch? Do you by chance recall the embarrassingly rude creature who spent three days here, seated in the main saloon with a constantly refilled dish of sugar comfits in her ample lap, telling all who would listen that she had always favored your late aunt’s garnet brooch and felt certain Emmaline would gift her with it as a remembrance?”

      “That sow? That’s Cousin Irene? Oh, no. She won’t do at all.” Nicole leaned closer to look at the list. “Who else is left?”

      “Considering the fact that I’m almost certain I was told that your aunt Marion died more than thirty years ago, I would say that leaves—” Charlotte smiled evilly “—only your mama to bring you and Lydia out.”

      “Mama!” Nicole’s astonishingly violet eyes all but popped out of her head. “I thought you said we needed someone respectable. As she’s between husbands at the moment, again, she’d probably chase after anyone who looked at either Lydia or me. It would be a disaster.”

      “I rather think you’re right,” Charlotte said with some humor. “But there is another answer. As the duke, Rafe now has the responsibility of setting up his own nursery, as the Duke of Warrington and Emmaline are doing. Give the man a year, and he’ll have found himself a fine duchess more than willing to bring you both out, seeing as how any woman with a modicum of brains would be more than anxious to see you and Lydia—mostly you, I expect—gone from Ashurst Hall.”

      And then she tried to ignore a slight pang in her chest.

      Nicole took the sheet of paper, tearing it nearly in half, and began to pace. “A duchess. Rafe needs a duchess. Yes, of course. And Lydia isn’t quite as ready for her Come-Out as I would like,” she continued, clearly speaking for her own benefit. “I’d marry and she’d be left on the shelf, like poor Charlotte. A good sister wouldn’t allow that, and Lydia would be lost without me…”

      Charlotte folded her arms beneath her bosom and tapped the tip of one half boot against the floor, glaring at Nicole. “As I seem to be saying a lot today—I hear you, Nicole.”

      “What?” Nicole grinned at her. “Sorry, Charlotte. Wait a moment. What about you? Would you consider marrying Rafe? He isn’t ugly, and he’s very rich. And he seems to like you. And, since you already know Lydia and me, and you’ve admitted you at least used to love him, we wouldn’t have…well, we wouldn’t have to break you in the way we would a stranger.”

      Charlotte lowered her gaze to her shoe tops. “You can’t plan someone else’s life like that, Nicole. Rafe will marry where he wants to marry.”

      “Why? You weren’t going to. People marry for many reasons. Aunt Emmaline told us that your papa was the one who chose—”

      “I’ve changed my mind, Nicole,” Charlotte interrupted quickly, determinedly blinking back threatening tears. “Go tell him. Tell Rafe what you did, make a clean breast of things, even if I have to then tell him that I lied to him, that Emmaline has been gone these six months or more, that I haven’t really taken up residence here as your chaperone, that you hoodwinked me most thoroughly. Tell him all of it.”

      Nicole

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