Crazy 4U Read online

  They continued trading quiet suggestions as they moved through the room, then went out one door and back through another to a different room, where dancing and music filled the space. They paired the pale with the florid, the intellectual with the sentimental, the timid with the bold.

  "And what manner of wife would you choose for yourself?" she asked, as they watched dancers gaily turning to music provided by a trio of musicians.

  "To answer that, I would have to admit to my flaws that need balancing."

  "Would you want someone who balanced you? Our pairing game has been entertaining, but no one truly chooses their mate with such things in mind."

  "Horses wouldn't bother with such considerations, either," he said. "A stallion takes whomever is ready, and the mare doesn't care who sires her foal. That's why there are breeders who choose for them."

  She laughed. "One might say that mamas and papas are our breeders, then, only their concerns are lands and rank, money and family ties, rather than leg length and shoulder shape."

  "I'll make my own decisions when it comes time for marriage. I will not be mated by Mama to some creature of her choosing."

  "Will you be allowed such a choice?" she asked, sounding concerned. "What of your horses? She will still hold them over your head."

  "Marriage is for life." He thought of the affection between Evelina's parents, compared to the cold politeness of his own. He had always thought his parents well suited in their ambitious natures, but he saw now that those strivings for wealth and position had left them devoid of warmth, even with each other. They were more like partners in a business venture than companions of the heart. "I would like the chance to love my wife, and that seems likely only if I choose her on my own."

  "They say that two people can grow to love one another, if there is respect and kindness. My mama and papa had an arranged marriage."

  "Truly?" He would never have guessed it.

  "Truly. Perhaps we are not so wise as to know who we will love, given time."

  He gazed down at her, meeting her brown eyes with their cheerful, laughing warmth, and realized with a shock that he was falling in love with her. Despite the paints, despite her criticisms of his clothes, despite what he knew would be the outrage of his mother, he could imagine no one else he would want by his side, day by day. His life was brighter with Evelina in it.

  He opened his mouth to speak, the power of this burgeoning emotion requiring something of him, some sign to show her what she was coming to mean to him, and his wonder at it. It was a glowing, spreading warmth he felt, apart from and yet linked to his yearning for her body.

  "Charles? What is it?"

  And then the moment was interrupted as a pair of young women came bouncing up, chattering at Evelina, who chattered happily in response and then introduced them to him as friends of hers.

  The warm emotion drew back into his heart, hiding there in safety from these strangers. He felt his ability to converse go dead, scared into silence by the unfamiliar audience. Evelina gave him a puzzled look as his lips shut and stayed that way, and then his rescue arrived.

  "Highcroft! You could have knocked me over with a feather when I first saw you come in," Edmund Beauchamp said, coming up to him. Edmund had been in his circle of friends at Oxford. They hadn't been close, but Charles had amusing—if somewhat hair-raising—memories of the escapades Beauchamp had instigated, from turning a friend's room into a one-night brothel to stealing all of a don's wigs in the dead of night.

  Charles started to make the appropriate introductions, but Beauchamp said he already knew Miss Johnson, and then Charles couldn't remember the names of her friends, and Evelina had to introduce them herself.

  "Splendid, splendid!" Beauchamp said. "Now if you will be so kind as to excuse us, I need Highcroft here to settle a bet."

  "Certainly," Evelina said, but she looked disappointed to see him go. "I'll stay here so that you can find me upon your return."

  With an apologetic look back, Charles let himself be dragged away. Maybe by the time he returned those two friends of hers would be dancing, or chattering at someone else.

  Beauchamp took him to a smallish room crowded with young men who were drinking whisky and brandy and smoking long-stemmed pipes. A game of chess was going on at a table before the fire, observed by a few, but most were lounging around to no purpose, engaged in desultory conversations.

  Charles wondered how many of them were there out of a terror of female company similar to his own. While there were some men who were naturally at ease with women, he rather suspected that most were simply better at putting a brave face on their discomfort than he was.

  "I found him!" Beauchamp announced, and presented him like a fresh foxtail still bloody from the kill.

  Charles recognized several of the faces, both from his time in Bath and from Oxford. "What is this bet you sorry lot need me to settle?"

  "He's itching to get back!" someone said. "I'd say that points to yes!"

  "It could as easily point to no," someone argued.

  "Yes or no what?" he asked, smiling, wondering what this bet was that seemed to be amusing them so.

  Beauchamp slapped him on the back. "Why, whether or not Miss Johnson has kissed you yet. Most think she's had enough time, and must surely have managed it with you by now. She kissed old Kingston there on the night they were first introduced. Took me two meetings to get my kiss. I was being coy." He grinned.

  Charles was stunned, taken completely off guard. He looked around at the eager, laughing faces, and felt he did not know a single one of them. He had the dizzying sense that he was separate from his body, was but a stranger looking through borrowed eyes, listening with borrowed ears as Beauchamp went on with his unreal words.

  "I know you better than they do though. I remember what you were like at Oxford, and I laid my money on her not having managed it. If even a whore couldn't persuade you to touch her, I'll have to wish Miss Johnson luck."

  Then all at once he was back to himself, the red fog of anger bringing him home. "How dare you speak of Miss Johnson in the same breath as a whore," he said darkly. "How dare you lay bets on her. How dare you even say her name amongst yourselves." He was speaking as only a man angry enough to kill spoke.

  Beauchamp’s eyes went wide. "Highcroft, hold on there! Settle down, now; we didn't mean any harm by it!"

  "You hide back here, spreading lies about—"

  "Wait, I say! No one here lied about anything. At least half of us here in this room have been kissed by Evelina Johnson."

  A chorus of "ayes" went through the room. The volume of it shook Charles, opening a small crack of doubt in his anger. "Half of you?"

  One by one they said how long they had known Evelina before she had kissed them, and unanimously stated that once she'd had her kiss, she'd flitted off to find new prey.

  "Surely you knew of her reputation?" Beauchamp asked.

  "I knew, but..." He trailed off, his world spinning around him.

  "But you didn't believe it? I can't blame you there. Who wants to believe that a pretty girl does not find you as charming as she pretends? Or that another will do in your place just as well?"

  He realized that he hadn't believed much that he'd heard about her, or at least had not taken it seriously. Yes, she'd made comments about the handsome footman, and yes, she'd admitted to having kissed someone, but he had had no idea it went as far as this. Half the men in the room. Half.

  Even Beauchamp had enjoyed a kiss from her. How could Charles look at Evelina now and not see as well the faces of all these men?

  They were all laughing at him for being duped by Miss Johnson.

  Most galling of everything was that Beauchamp had laid his finger exactly upon Charles's feelings: he'd believed Evelina liked him and found him attractive. Him specifically. Not him and half the men in the room.

  His felt his face go hard and tried to hide the fact that his heart was breaking.

  Evelina’s friends had invited her
to go with them down to the supper room, but she had declined, wanting Charles to have no difficulty finding her upon his return.

  She fidgeted alone, watching the dancers and examining details of other women's dresses. Then a young man came and asked her to be his partner in the next dance, and there seemed no reason to refuse. It might do Charles a bit of good to see that other men found her desirable, assuming he should come back before the dance ended.

  He did. She caught a glimpse of him, and when the dance ended she turned her attention to the man whose arm she held, giggling at some inane comment he made. If she could make Charles jealous, perhaps he would finally gather the nerve to kiss her.

  There had been many times she knew that she could have kissed him, and would not have been rebuffed. Sally's presence would not have stopped her, just as it never had in the past. With Charles, though, unlike with all the others, she needed to be the one who was kissed. She needed to be the one receiving, not the active partner.

  She didn't know why there was a difference with him, but she felt it deep inside: he must come to her.

  Only, he was taking a bloody long time about it. God's bodkin, but she was getting tired of waiting! All her thoughts were consumed with Charles, and when the two of them were not together she was having imaginary conversations with him in her head, or daydreaming of holding him naked in her arms, as they twined their bodies together beneath the bedcovers.

  She tapped her partner on the arm with her folded fan in a teasing gesture, thanked him, and departed. She returned to Charles, and saw that he was indeed distraught over her display. Perhaps more distraught than she had intended.

  "Charles, whatever is the matter?" she asked as she rejoined him, pretending innocence.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room without explanation, then hurried her up the stairs to the next floor, the family quarters, where all was quiet. They stopped at the landing, and he swung her around to face him. She felt a nervous thrumming in her blood. He was passionate, but she did not think it was a kiss she was going to get.

  "Tell me why you do it."

  "Do what? Charles, what has happened? Why are you so upset?"

  "The flirting. The kisses with half the men here tonight. Tell me why you do it."

  She felt a sick sinking in her stomach as she began to suspect what he had heard while with Edmund Beauchamp. "What did Beauchamp tell you?"

  "That you've kissed eight men—that he knows of!"

  "Oh. Yes, well... I have." She tried to play it off as inconsequential, hoping that lightness would defuse the argument. "They were none of them very good at it, either. Or maybe they were, and kisses are simply not the thrill that I expected."

  From the look on his face, she was not making things better.

  "Why?" he asked again.

  She shrugged, and felt herself squirming under his gaze. "I like men. I won't be able to kiss whomever I please after I am married."

  "That is the whole of your reasoning? I like women, too, but I do not kiss them whenever the urge takes me."

  "If they are willing, I do not know why not."

  "Because it is not so simple as that, and you know it. Nor can I believe that you do this just because you like men. You denied once that you are trying to damage your parents' ability to choose a husband for you."

  "And I deny it still."

  "Then why?"

  "I don't know why there needs to be more of a reason!" She felt like a student who could not give the right answer, and struggled to find one that would satisfy him. "Although if there was another reason, it might be because it makes me feel pretty."

  "Pretty?" His voice was as incredulous as his expression.

  "When a man wants me to kiss him, I know he thinks I'm pretty. And I certainly think he's attractive at the time, so where is the harm in it? I know not to expect more than a kiss."

  "You squander your reputation for the sake of vanity?"

  "That was only an additional reason." She bit her lip, considering, as a question came to her. "But you knew about all that nonsense before. It was why you were assigned as my watchdog. Why are you so upset about it now?"

  He looked away and did not answer. In his silence she found the only conclusion possible, one that she had barely even dared to hope for: he had started to care about her. She felt a flush run through her, a combination of her own growing feelings for him and the anxiety that she might be on the verge of losing him, just before something wonderful truly had the chance to begin.

  "Charles," she said softly, and laid her hand on his arm.

  He shook it off.

  She felt tears come to her eyes. She reached out and again laid her hand on his arm.

  He moved away and turned cold eyes back to her. "I am not going to be yet another man in your collection. If I had less respect for you I'd take what you seem so eager to offer. And if I had less respect for myself, I'd let you use me as a sop to your vanity. Wipe off your powders and take a true look at yourself, Evelina."

  Hurt fired anger in her own heart. "Look at your own self, Charles. Dressing like a common laborer so that no one will pay attention to you, because you're too afraid of what they might see if they did! I did pay attention, and I liked what I saw, but I don't like it much right now. I cannot believe I ever thought I had feelings for you."

  "Then as we apparently find so little pleasure in each other's company, perhaps it is best if we part ways."

  "What a marvelous suggestion," she said. "The best you've ever had." She turned and went down the stairs before he could see the tears that were spilling down her cheeks.

  Chapter Six

  Evelina lay on her bed in her dressing robe, her hair loose and unpowdered, her face bare. She stared up at the canopy as she had stared up at it for the past week, alternating between bouts of self-loathing, anger, and self-pitying tears.

  Mama's repeated warnings about flirting and wild behavior had meant nothing to her. The occasional hesitations she herself had felt had served only to add the spice of fear to her exploits. When a friend had told her, in an excited, semi-apologetic whisper, that she was gaining a reputation for recklessness, she had been secretly flattered that people were taking note of her.

  Since the time she was small she'd had an instinctive understanding that breaking rules did not matter overmuch in the long run. Most of the time the rules were there for someone else's convenience, and being a good girl meant doing what she was told instead of what she wished. Never had she realized that breaking the rules might hurt another in a way more deeply felt than the scolding disappointment of a parent.

  She had hurt Charles, and lost him. And now here she lay all alone, with no one to blame but her own vain and thoughtless self.

  The thought of dressing in her colorful silks revolted her. Her pots and bottles of makeup and perfume made her want to cry. The Ladies' Guide had been burned in the grate, and her green-tinted hair lay tangled and unwashed over her pillows.

  The only thing she would look at, besides the canopy of her bed, was the drawing Charles had done of her while they were sitting on the hill. She had been painting a wa- tercolor of him at the same time, so that they each had a picture of the one doing a portrait of the other, like two mirrors reflecting back.

  He had liked her then. She knew he had. He had liked her for more than the hopes of a kiss, and she had laughed and talked with him as if he were a friend of the heart.

  And then she'd gone and spoiled it all by flirting with that boy at the assembly, trying to make Charles jealous when he had just been listening to that awful Beauchamp—why had she ever kissed him? he had a tongue like a toad’s—relate every detail of her past. Charles had no reason to believe that he meant more to her than any other man ever had.

  There was a soft knock on her door. She ignored it, assuming it to be Sally. A moment later the door opened, and footsteps came across the room. She glanced to the side and saw her mama staring down at her with a worried frown.

>   "Are you certain you do not need me to send for the doctor?"

  "I am fine, Mama."

  "Won't you tell me what is wrong?"

  "There is nothing wrong." She felt the pull to pour out her heart, but she remembered how Mama had warned her against an involvement with Charles. She would not find sympathy here, and was afraid Mama would tell her that she had gotten what she deserved for her flirting.

  Mama sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking down toward her. She picked up Evelina's hand. "Then why have you not been out? Why have we not seen Charles? Why do you do nothing but lie here day after day?"

  "I cannot go out with green hair. I am waiting for it to fade."

  "It will not fade without washing." Mama kept looking at her, as if waiting for a deeper confession, but when none came she sighed. "I do wish you would consider going out, green hair or no. I have been speaking with Mrs. Highcroft, and apparently Charles has slipped back into his old ways in your absence, only worse. He will not leave the stables at Highcastle, and Mrs. Highcroft says she has never seen him so morose. She says that if she did not know better, she would think the boy had fallen in love. You wouldn't happen to know whom he might have lost his heart to, would you? Surely it is one of your friends, one to whom you introduced him?"

  "Charles is melancholy?" She perked up a bit at the news. If he no longer cared for her, surely he would be content without her and not moping around the stables like a lonely stallion with digestive problems.

  "Dreadfully so. Mrs. Highcroft is worried for his health."

  "She thinks he is in love?"

  "With a passionate desperation. You know how some men can get. They set their heart upon a girl, and then cannot eat nor sleep until they have her. They are not capable of moderation. One would think they could die of a broken heart. Perhaps if you were to see him, he would tell you what is troubling him. He will not say a word to Mrs. Highcroft."

  "He may refuse to see me," Evelina said, her doubts catching up with her. "I mean, if he is so very unhappy, the promise of my company may not be enough to bring him out."