If I had ever learned how, I probably would have been whistling with my hands stuck into my nonexistent pockets.

Oh, this was just silly! There was nothing wrong with going on a quick email check.

Pulling my thick old flannel nightgown over my head, I tiptoed out of the bedroom, pulling the door softly shut behind me.

Chapter Thirteen

“Charlotte!” In the mad crush of the Queen’s Drawing Room, Lady Uppington maneuvered her hoops expertly around a broad skirt and a protruding sword to embrace Charlotte. “Your grandmother told me you were at Court.”

Charlotte smiled shyly at her best friend’s mother. “I’m in waiting on the Queen,” she said unnecessarily.

The egret feathers in Lady Uppington’s hair wagged in sympathy. “I was, too, you know, oh, ages and ages ago. Being a maid of honor was quite different in those days, not like it is now. We all lived in the palace, with that dreadful old dragon of a Mrs. Schwellenberg hounding us, just sniffing for the slightest whiff of impropriety. That’s why it was such a scandal when — well, never mind that.” Lady Uppington waved away whatever she had been about to say with a dramatic sweep of her lace-edged fan. “The Queen has been kind to you?”

“Tremendously,” Charlotte was able to say with complete sincerity. “And the King has been all that is kind. He — this will sound very silly, but it was the kindest thing.”

“Yes?” said Lady Uppington encouragingly, as she had when Charlotte and Henrietta were very little and the girls would run to her to show off their drawings.

“I had my battered old copy of Volume I of Evelina with me. His Majesty caught sight of it and asked me if I knew that Miss Burney had been an old friend of theirs. We agreed for a bit on what a wonderful writer she was, and I thought that was all. But then the next day, when I arrived at the palace, there was a package waiting for me, and in it was a splendidly bound set of the books, all done up in morocco leather with my name tooled in gold on the front. It’s so fine that I’m half afraid to read it.”

Lady Uppington tilted her head reminiscently. “That is very like the King. He was always good at the small gestures of munificence.”

Charlotte clasped her hands together over her fan. “He’s given me leave to use his library at the Queen’s House whenever I like. It’s splendid. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of books.”

Lady Uppington’s lips twitched. “Books always have been the surest way to Their Majesties’ hearts. So you’re happy, then?”

“Ye-es,” said Charlotte, hesitating only a bit. And she was happy, really she was. The Queen asked only that she stand behind her at Assemblies and read to her from time to time; the King had made her up a book in his own private bindery and promised she should have all three volumes of Cecelia, too; and the Princess Mary had promised to teach her how to paint on velvet. It would all be quite perfect — if only Robert were there.

She had imagined his return a hundred times since that night at Girdings. He would come galloping down the alley to Girdings. Swinging off his horse, he would dash up the steps to the entrance. “Where is Lady Charlotte?” he would demand of the first footman to open the door. “Gone to London, Your Grace,” the footman would reply, looking neither right nor left. “To London!” Robert would cry, with visions of rakes, rogues, and seducers wreaking havoc in his breast. Flinging himself right back onto his horse, he would ride ventre à terre to the capital, where he would charge into the Queen’s House, flinging lackeys right and left, and sweep Charlotte up into his manly arms.

Of course, that was only one version. Sometimes, Charlotte permitted him to change his linen before riding to London. Nor did he always storm the Palace. Sometimes, he would be waiting for her in the sitting room of Loring House, where she was staying with Henrietta. “Someone to see you,” Henrietta would say, with that impish Henrietta glint in her eye. She would shove Charlotte into the sitting room, slam the door behind her, and there he would be — ready to sweep her into his manly arms. Many of the details of the daydream might change, but the manly arms bit was always the same.

It worried her, from time to time, that there had been no word from him. While the grand imaginings of his racing to her side were all very well, she would have been just as happy with a prosaic note, even if all it said was, “Held up on business, miss you, back soon. R.” But there had been no note.

Of course, if he had sent her anything, it had probably gone to Girdings, where, for all she knew, it might be gathering dust on her dressing table because Grandmama hadn’t seen fit to send it on. One never could tell with Grandmama. For all that Robert came with both Girdings and one of the most coveted titles in the kingdom, it would be very like her to take it into her head that it would be a mesalliance (“mesalliance” being one of Grandmama’s very favorite terms, applied frequently to Charlotte’s parents). No one had ever gone into details over who Robert’s late mother had been, but it had been made quite clear that she was of a sort who Would Not Be Received.

Even so, the lack of a message did make Charlotte just a little bit squirmy. Penelope’s voice (it was always Penelope’s voice) came at her at odd moments, saying things like, “If he really loved you, would he have gone off like that?” and, “He knows how to use a quill, Charlotte. He would if he wanted to.” That last one was bona fide Penelope, voiced over tea just the other morning.

Technically, like Robert’s late mother, Penelope ought to be on the list of those who were No Longer Received, but the Dowager Duchess considered Penelope her own personal project (or, as the Dowager put it, “Reminds me of me at that age! Good stuff in that gel!”). A twist of the arm — or, more accurately, a well-placed thump of the cane — had elicited a marriage proposal from Lord Freddy Staines; the promise of a title, even if only a courtesy one, had placated Penelope’s mother; and the Dowager’s influence had ensured that the newlyweds would have a comfortable posting in India, where they would make their home until the worst of the gossip rumbled down.

Robert’s friend, Lieutenant Fluellen, had also offered for Penelope, more than once. Penelope remained firm in her refusal. It would be, she said, a nasty trick to drag an innocent bystander down with her just because he was fool enough to fancy himself in love. Penelope had always had her own sort of honor.

Meanwhile, Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder, if Lieutenant Fluellen were back in London, proposing to Penelope every alternate morning and twice on Tuesdays, where was Robert?

Lieutenant Fluellen wasn’t the only one to appear in London. Not only was Lord Freddy Staines back in town, preparing for his imminent nuptials to Penelope, but Martin Frobisher had been seen making improper proposals at an Assembly on Tuesday, and Lord Henry Innes was right in the next room, crammed into knee breeches, in attendance on the King. London, it seemed, was a very popular place at the moment. Except for the Duke of Dovedale.

He wouldn’t have gone back to India, would he? Not without telling her, at least. A transcontinental voyage would, she would think, require a bit more than a two-word “forgive me.”

With an effort, Charlotte dragged her attention back to Lady Uppington. Fortunately, Lady Uppington was just as happy speaking to herself as to anyone else, and was politely taking Charlotte’s glazed stare as a sign of interest rather than abstraction as she reminisced about her own short spell at Court.

“Of course, the Queen was much younger then,” she was saying. “But then, weren’t we all? Ah, but these hoops bring me right back,” she said, patting the protrusions at her sides.

“I rather like them,” Charlotte admitted, swaying a little to make her skirt swish. The sweep of her train against the carpet made a most fascinating sound. Skimpy, faux-Grecian dresses might be all the rage in the streets of London, but to gain entrée into St. James, the old-fashioned hooped skirts of the previous century were de riguer. The full-skirted style suited Charlotte far better than the fashions currently in vogue. Long columns of cloth weren’t terribly flattering unless one were a long column oneself, which Charlotte decidedly wasn’t.

She just wished Robert were there to witness the effect.

“And the men look awfully dashing with their swords, don’t they?” said Lady Uppington wickedly. “There’s nothing like a long blade to lend countenance to a man.”

Henrietta would have been rolling her eyes by now, as she always did when her mother made outrageous statements. Blushing, Charlotte said, “They do look quite dashing.”

“Speaking of dashing,” said Lady Uppington, her green eyes twinkling like a girl’s. “I just had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your mysterious cousin.”

“My . . . cousin?” Charlotte’s heart began hammering against her stays.

Lady Uppington looked downright mischievous for a woman of fifty-odd. “Tall man, blond hair, ducal bearing? I believe you might be acquainted with him,” she said so blandly that Charlotte knew, just knew, that Henrietta had been telling tales.

But all that was immaterial next to the crucial point. “You mean Robert? Er, the Duke of Dovedale? He’s here?”

Lady Uppington was enjoying herself hugely. “Very much here, all present and accounted for, sword and all. I am pleased to say that he wears his sword with panache. But not too much panache,” she added thoughtfully. “That would be common.”