What in all the blazes was he thinking?

Dropping her hand, Robert stumbled back a step, bumping into his old friend, the carved angel. The angel’s wing jabbed him painfully in the ribs, like an outraged duenna.

Robert clapped a hand to his bruised side. He could swear the bloody stone angel was smirking at him. It served him right. What had he — no, he didn’t want to go into what he had been thinking. It was best to think about something safe and neutral, something that didn’t have anything to do with lips or kissing or other decidedly uncousinly concepts. Like refreshments.

“Would you like some ratafia?” he asked hastily. “I’ll fetch you some ratafia, shall I?”

“I don’t think there is any ratafia,” said Charlotte, blinking at him as though he had just gone mad, which, to be fair, he had.

“Lemonade, then,” he said, backing away towards the doorway. “Everyone likes lemonade.”

“Lemonade would be lovely,” said Charlotte, bemused but game.

Robert offered her his arm, a very stiff arm, held a full six inches away from his body, just in case her guardian angel decided to get feisty again.

“Shall we?” he said. “Let me take you back to the gallery. It’s getting a little chilly in here.”

“Really?” she murmured as she accepted his arm. “I found it quite warm.”

She didn’t know the half of it.

“Lemonade,” gabbled Robert as he all but pushed her back through the arras, into the warmth and light and, most importantly, people. Lots and lots of people. “Let’s get you that lemonade.”

“That would be lovely,” Charlotte said, and smiled up at him with her big, innocent, pale green eyes.

It was deuced uncomfortable being a canker with a conscience.

Chapter Seven

As they ducked under the tapestry, the glare of the candlelight hit his eyes like an attack of conscience. After the dim confines of the chapel anteroom, the light of the gallery was blinding, with all the candles in their mirror-backed sconces blazing away, beaming off of the gilding on ceiling and walls and the jewels worn by ladies and gentlemen alike. The sudden glow left spots in front of Robert’s eyes, like fireworks on the King’s birthday. Wincing, Robert imagined this must be what it would be like on the Judgment Day, with truth winkling out all the dark places in one’s soul.

“Hullo!” Lord Frederick Staines hailed him across the room. “There you are, Dovedale. We’ve been looking for you.”

“Oh?” Robert deliberately looked anywhere but at Charlotte.

It was an entirely unnecessary measure. Staines looked right over Charlotte’s head as if he hadn’t even noticed her presence at Robert’s side. Admittedly, being a good foot shorter than the two men, she was well below Staines’s eye level. And Staines wasn’t the sort of man to notice anything that didn’t immediately touch his own concerns.

Staines’s cheeks were flushed with what might have been wine or windburn or both. Judging from the matching color in Miss Deveraux’s cheeks, apparently he had been enjoying the amenities of the balcony, despite the inclemency of the weather.

“Are you coming?” Staines demanded, jerking his head in the direction of the door.

“Where?” Robert asked warily, prepared to politely extricate himself from high-stakes card games and absurd wagers, like betting on how many times Turnip Fitzhugh could hop the length of the gallery on one foot while balancing a glass of port on his head.

“To the tree.”

“I beg your pardon?” Robert might be going mad, but he wasn’t quite that mad. King George might occasionally think that he was Noah and lived in an ark, but Robert was fairly sure one didn’t go calling on trees at midnight. Or ever.

Staines looked at him as though he suspected Robert might be just a little bit thick. “To the Epiphany tree.”

Charlotte came to his rescue, stepping in before he could embarrass himself any further. “It’s an old country tradition,” she explained. “On Epiphany Eve, the gentlemen gather round the biggest tree on the estate — or at least the most convenient big tree — to scare away the evil spirits.”

“How does one go about doing that?”

Lord Henry Innes clapped Rob on the shoulder in passing. “You shoot them, man. What else?”

Robert eyed the pistol Lord Henry was idly swinging from one finger. He hoped to hell it wasn’t primed. “Does the Duchess know you have that in her ballroom?”

“It’s your ballroom now, old sport,” said Lord Henry, and went on swinging.

“Brilliant,” muttered Robert. “Why don’t you go along outside and I’ll grab up a weapon and be right with you.”

“No need.” Lord Henry produced the twin to the pistol in his hand. He twirled it professionally before handing it over to Robert. It was not, Robert was relieved to see, loaded. At least, not yet.

“Thought you might not have come prepared, having been away and all that.” Some of Robert’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Lord Henry added, “You’re one of us now. We take care of our own.”

“Not quite one of you yet,” said Robert guardedly, all too aware of Charlotte at his side.

Lord Henry brushed that aside with a sweep of his pistol. “Soon enough. Now we just need the rest of the kit for tonight.”

“The rest of the kit?”

Freddy Staines, who had been unabashedly sizing up the ladies as the men talked, popped back into the conversation. An expectant grin spread across his face, all but dislodging his ridiculously high shirt points. “The cider.”

Charlotte held up her hands. “I can’t tell you anything about the cider, other than that it is also a local tradition.”

“No old stories about it?” Robert teased. “No local lore?”

“Well . . . ,” began Charlotte, but Lord Freddy’s loud voice overrode hers as though she weren’t even there.

“To tell stories, you need to remember them,” said Lord Freddy sagely. “And you won’t after this cider.” Raising his gloved fist in the air, he called out, “To the tree!”

“To the tree!” echoed raggedly throughout the room.

The cry was seconded as loudly by the local men as it was by the London bucks. From around the room, red-faced squires rousted out muskets that looked like they had last been used during the War of the Spanish Succession and charged towards the ballroom door as though personally on their way to stave off a French advance. Or a horde of maddened trees.

Robert had assumed the locals had been invited as a courtesy to the county set; now he wondered whether they were part of this ceremony of the tree. Yet another thing he didn’t know about his own estate. Not for the first time, he heartily wished himself back in India. Among other things, in India, he wouldn’t be freezing in the January cold, shooting at a tree.

“Coming, Dovedale?” tossed off Innes over his shoulder. “It is your tree.”

Medmenham was heading to the exit with the rest, holding an elegant pistol with silver chasing and mother-of-pearl inlay as though he knew exactly what to do with it. Robert looked down at Charlotte’s golden head. She didn’t seem the least bit alarmed at being surrounded by an inebriated mob of heavily armed men, although whether that was the result of a country upbringing or because her imagination transmuted them all to dashing cavaliers, he wasn’t quite sure.

At least if Medmenham was outside shooting at a tree, he wouldn’t be inside with Charlotte.

“Sweet dreams, cousin.” Robert squeezed her hand in what he hoped was a cousinly way, adding with all the emphasis he could muster, “Stay inside.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte, blinking up at him in complete and happy obliviousness. “I wouldn’t dream of trespassing. It might ruin the ritual.”

“I was thinking more of stray bullets,” Robert lied.

“I believe the general practice is to fire up,” said Charlotte thoughtfully. “But I’ve never actually seen it.”

“I wish I could say the same. It’s bloo — er, ridiculously cold out there.”

“You’ve spent too much time in India,” teased Charlotte. “This is nothing more than a stiff breeze.”

“Dovedale!” hollered Lord Henry.

Robert sighed. “Duty calls.”

Charlotte flapped a hand at him in farewell. “Enjoy your tree.”

Robert cast a comic look of disgruntlement over his shoulder as he followed after the other tree-hunters.

“Well!” said Henrietta, grabbing Charlotte by the crook of the arm and dragging her towards the nearest alcove. “That was interesting.”

“Define that,” said Charlotte breathlessly, trotting along in her friend’s wake.

Henrietta dropped her arm and gestured broadly. “Him. You. That.”

She peeked around the corner of the ice blue brocade screening the alcove and, finding it unoccupied, waved at Charlotte to precede her in. Dragging the drape shut behind them, she dropped onto the cushioned bench.

“That look. And you were out of the ballroom together for the longest time. You were together, weren’t you?”

“Yes, we were,” admitted Charlotte. A dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Tête-à-tête, even.”

Henrietta’s hazel eyes gleamed. “Tête-à-tête? Or TÊTE-À-TÊTE tête-à-tête?”

On a sudden impulse, Charlotte reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Oh, Hen, I am glad you’re here. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you these past few days.”

Henrietta beamed. “I’ve missed you, too. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

Charlotte considered the question. “Somewhere in between, I think. I don’t believe it was initially intended as a tête-à-tête, but it became . . . somewhat tête-à-tête-y along the way.”